I've been inspired to write today by the video at the end of this entry. I have experienced my share of really tough times over the past five years. In the beginning, being cut off from the promise of a relatively comfortable life felt more like being cut loose and set free to experience life on my own terms. I was recently divorced, separated from my job, no kids, even. It was just me, my computer, and the Divine Universe to figure out where to go next. I was deliriously happy. That lasted about three years.
Lately, the euphoria has started to wear off. It's like the lidocaine dissipating after a dental procedure. Pain has started to seep through. I am confronting and confronted by how I really feel about my ex-husband and my former supervisor. I am facing the rest of my life wondering, is this it? No companion, no kids, no home of my own, cobbling together a living from various entrepreneurial ventures?
When I first found myself thrust out of the life I thought I would have (wife, mother, lawyer) and into the great unknown, I found a friend and teacher who saved my life. He would refuse to take credit if he knew that I thought of him this way. He didn't actually teach me so much as he pointed me in a direction and watched encouragingly as I explored its potentials. He inspired me to examine the idea that everything is good.
I remember running into a vendor at a Brooklyn street fair who spoke passionately of the evils of Satan. It was summertime, about a year after my divorce. "There is no evil", I said to him. He looked at me as though I were nuts, which I understand. What I said is certainly not the consensus viewpoint. We went back and forth for a bit. I wonder whether he decided that I must have been one of the devil's minions and feared being sucked into my blasphemous vortex because he cut off our conversation quite abruptly.
I found tremendous strength in the idea of embracing everything, even hurt, grief, anguish, disappointment and fury. I explored fearing nothing, understanding all to be beneficial. For a long while, my joy about being free overcame everything else. And then . . . and then . . . I felt lonely one day. And tired. And stuck. I began to forget the joyful part of being cut off/cut loose, to feel bitter. Bitterness is like a blanket one wraps around oneself as a shield against the hurt, grief, anguish, disappointment, and fury. One holds on to bitterness.
Hurt is like a roaring wind, in my experience, as are grief, anguish and the rest. There come days when I feel them whip through me. It can feel thrilling to stand outside in a roaring windstorm, to let those gusts blast through, to ride the currents, delighting in coming to understand that through it all, it is ok . . . when one is anchored. Thankfully, I have been anchored. I am grateful for the lifetime of challenges that created my anchor, made it ready so that when I needed it, it was just there. Being the eldest daughter in an immigrant family taught me much about miracles and the divine. In time, however, I began to forget about the anchor and to reach for the blanket of bitterness.
Something happened last week, a reminder of the absolute scat storm that had described my life for a few years. Back then I was too caught up in it to be bitter. I was too awed at being alive. Now, years later, I could feel the wind, I became the wind, actually. I became a furious storm. I have never been so angry in all of my life. And I started to pull that blanket around me. Until I saw this video, this amazing vivid reminder to celebrate everything.
As I write this, I am coming to understand that my delayed processing of the hurt, the grief, anguish, disappointment, and fury does not contradict embracing everything. In fact, it is quite in line with it. These, too, are beneficial, and I can. Celebrate. Everything.
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