There's a post in my drafts about tending to death or the possibility of it. My world has been consumed by that for a month or so, and it's been weighing me down. I haven't been tending to my needs well, and I've been getting by on an exhausted version of myself. *However, Chris has stepped up and done his best to hold down Zora and himself, so that I wouldn't come home to added bullet points on what feels like a never ending to do list.
In recognizing that I haven't been processing my emotions (I've just kept busy and worked around them), I had an epiphany: I haven't been intentional about healing. I recognized this while pruning Chris' plants this morning. (An additional thought I had about relationships: if one partner can nurture the vitality of the relationship as the other tends to the parts of it that aren't living, growth can almost be assured.) Anyway, there's so much lush and green around me that I forget to pluck up the pieces that aren't growing. That no longer need additional attention, but release. Because the energy is being misdirected to places it's not needed.
Healing is as hard as undoing the damage we've self imposed. It feels yucky. It doesn't compliment the greenery. It pours alcohol on the open wounds we were trying to forget existed. Never mind that we all know the alcohol is needed. That alcohol is how you clean the wound. It's how the healing begins. It's what keeps the infection away. It has to get worse before it gets better, even if only for a short moment.
I've been on go mode: doing what has to get done, prioritizing according to the levels of energy required to complete task, and holding off on whatever could be done tomorrow. Healing is something I assigned to the list of things that could be done tomorrow. Because lesson plans have to be created, Zora needs my attention, Chris deserves my affection, and it doesn't matter that I look nucking futs in the midst of all of this.
But when I sit for a second... when I allow myself to actually feel all that I am feeling, it hurts. So, I reroute the pain, and I cry watching Grey's Anatomy. And I cry on my grandmother's lap til' I unknowingly fall asleep. I cry listening to music that reminds me I'm still feeling. I unfollow friends as means of maintaining mental sanity. I lean into my husband, who caused some of that hurt, and I fall apart. And it's still okay, because it's all temporary if only I make the time to tend to it.
My best friend who has been exploring Buddhism reminded me that lotuses need mud to bloom. We need the bad experiences to grow our gardens. No one prays for patience without receiving a test that helps you gain that virtue. It doesn't just come to you. You earn it. So, while I'm praying for internal peace throughout the turmoil and a relationship not so easily triggered by past decisions, I must work through moments that feel absent of peace and acknowledge the sore spots of this healing process. That triggers exist. That I'm still hurt but I'm quite capable of coming out fully blossomed. I'm not over "it" and all that it entails.
But if I face it head on, I can be. Pain doesn't get willed away. It doesn't bury itself and respectfully stay hidden. It festers. It boils and waits for you to check the temperature. This week's episode of Grey Anatomy involved Meredith saying, "It's up to us to fix it. It's up to us to take everything that can go wrong and make it go right. It's up to us to try, anyway." Cheers to trying.