To Be Or Not To Be
On being honest with oneself and with one another.
This was not the post I had planned on writing for this week’s newsletter. Today’s post was to have been a realization, an invitation, and a celebration of sorts as I ventured into the territory of being a writer who is paid for the words she pens and publishes. Soon, I will offer a paid subscription option (this free subscription will remain as well) as I bring the writing of my book online to Substack. There are several things I need to put in place before that invitation occurs and despite my best intentions and half-assed efforts, that offering is for another day. Not today.
Not today, because today I am feeling a myriad of emotions I’ve been trying my damndest to just be present with and really feel them rather than push them away or numb them out. I’m usually not one to push feelings away. I tend to welcome them in wholeheartedly and feel them fully. I’ve been much more adept at numbing out whatever emotion threatens to send me falling from that familiar cliff I’ll just name ‘the edge.’ I’m so tired of numbing.
Not today, because the last few days have been rough. It’s been almost three weeks of high highs and low lows. My mom triumphed over her anxiety of flying and visited me here on Kauai. The last time just she and I spent a week together was over a decade ago. The last time she was on this island, she was almost 50 years old and I was almost 30. We are not as young now as we were then. We had a sweet, tender time and when she left four days ago, I felt like a little girl who’s somehow gotten lost in a large department store and can’t find her mommy no matter where she looks to find her. I’ve missed having her company and her presence in my house and in my day-to-day life since Wednesday. Actually, I’ve missed her since I left home for the first time to go to college and that’s been a lot longer than four days. (If you’re reading this MammaSun…I love you. 💙)
I am still integrating the trip I took to the Oregon Coast a couple weeks ago for a writer’s retreat which stirred up all manner of things. I’m also continuing to integrate the ‘trip’ I took in my own living room in mid-April with the support of a professional medicine journey companion (that’s a story I’ll share on another Sunday). While both of those trips opened my heart and soul in beautiful and healing ways I hadn’t expected, they also illuminated what is still very present in my being which is…I am seriously sad. Admitting that truth feels liberating.
I am sad my marriage ended and my former spouse no longer wants or can be in communication with me. I am sad there was another mass shooting today. I am sad there’s so much grief, so much trauma, so much violence, and so much dishonesty in the world. I am sad that a friend of mine isn’t being honest with me. I am sad I’m no longer the ever-optimistic, joy-filled, woman I used to be.
Having said all that, I’ll say this…
I am not sad about being honest about the sadness I feel.
It would make me a helluva lot sadder if I lied, if I pretended, if I chose Not To Be honest about how I feel. It would be a shame-filled, soul-sucking existence. I won’t live that way. As much as I want to experience more joy, more fun, more light-hearted moments, a lingering melancholy exists that I haven’t been able to write or dance or philosophize or trip my way out of. I am slowly learning to befriend and trust this deep sadness as a gift rather than a grievance.
Perhaps I’ve already named what this deep sadness is…a different kind of happy. I will live and write and dance with this sadness, with all of this uncertainty, and not give up. I’ll continue to live on the edge and not fall.
New to Substack, I did a search for “dance” so it naturally brought me here. This is the first post I’ve read from you and that’s all it took. Dancing in my kitchen for all of us while you just can’t, looking forward to hearing about where these things move you from here.
On my 30th birthday, I was flying my beautiful vibrant 21 month old sons ashes to India. When the plane door opened I could see a Bombay stopped, no rickshaws, buses, taxis were moving as I was joined in my grief with a country in mourning for their beloved president had been killed a few days prior. The next decade was profound grief, how I survived without jumping off a building was simply grace and the blessings of a new son, a new marriage and a new chance. Five years later, the rebound relationship was over and I was back in the black hole of grief once again. This time I lost my house, my store, my cars and a new war had erupted as my x-wife kidnapped my now 2 sons to Canada. Geesh as I'm writing this I'm inspired to write my book!!! and what I wanted to say to u my friend is hang in there as it will get better. Keep letting grief have her way with u and u will return to joy!!! and that grief will become an old friend that is always welcomed in for tea.