Within, Without

Our last breakfast together, Claire the Amazing sits between her multinational grannies, happy as always to just hang out and be with whoever is with her.   Language was transcended by the bond we shared with our little granddaughter and happy I am to be the SoFlo/American rep of my now Elder generation....

During my time off I spent a lot of it in deep process, allowing my conflicting emotions to swirl together while I pulled images from the recent past into my potential future.  The shamanic descent, which truthfully I try to dodge if possible, caught me out in my downtime and soon had me in the grip of the shadowy side of my heart, where pain and loss still occupies a domineering space.   It is incredibly tough to allow Process to have its time.  I realized I was lucky to have it at all, when most of the time I am so focused on work, and therefore others, that I can hardly keep up with my own self.
I was tumbling deep within my own internal vortex;  I was trembling from streams of tears.   I avoided unnecessary contact, afraid I would be less than capable of reasonable response.   In short, I hid from the world.

Today's run was my commitment to taking myself into the world once more, since this is my first day back to work.  As in many times past, it was a roller coaster ride of emotional outlet.   Dragging my tired ass, weary from anxiety in the night, I rounded out the first stretch with my fear in my throat, silently lost in the emotion, letting my feet find their gait, gaining strength and confidence as I headed up the link to Griffin and glad, after a while to have the sun, winds and an early morning to buoy me on.

Once settled in,  I tried to watch the attempt to climb back out of the darkness, how my little girl self, the one I had nurtured this week, the one I talked to and held in my big girl beliefs finally got a glimpse of the light.  Not the heart-rending transformative insights I prayed for, not the direction signs to say this, do that.   A shift, a slight release, and I knew there I was at the lip of nothingness, sliding my way out of the hole.

It is very hard to go without things.  On the altar of sacrifice, I have laid many things down.   And there are other things which are taken,  whether I freely offer them, like my youth.   The adjustment of aging, and finding myself the Greyhaired one, who remains so hopelessly lost in some ways is a thought with Fear.   I can do nothing with it except lay this down too and ask that where ever this road is taking me, there is something beyond what I have, what I lost, what the world or myself can generate which is the Essence of Me.   Without that,  there is no road at all.