Gilead

I've been in the business of saying controversial things lately. Blame it on the grief, or lack of self control, or the fact that i never had much of a filter to begin with and the isolation of losing a child has made me realize we need to talk about the important things while we can so that one day another person doesn't feel the same way we felt. In the privacy of my own journal, while standing barefoot in the kitchen, whispering to the trees while I take our dog for a walk, I've said things about God, marriage, children and the world that i wouldn't have normally said otherwise. I won't tell you what those things are, because i know there are those people out there that would fear for my sanity and pray i have a come-to-jesus moment if i confessed some of the things i've said, but sometimes it feels honest and good to say a good "fuck you" to the universe. Even as i write this i'm not entirely sure i will post it. mostly i'm writing it to ...

Most things break instead of transform because they resist. the quiet miracle of love is that without our interference, it, like water, accepts whatever is tossed or dropped or placed into it, embracing it completely. Grief these days has felt like anxiety and depression. Thick, dark, paralyzing moments of  'I can't breathe.' Moments when it all collapses in on me and all I can think is that I made a huge mistake. About choosing to leave the house at 7 instead of 8. About choosing to bring home our puppy. About renting out our basement. About getting married. About Paris. About Paris. About Paris. All these other things that paralyze me with intense fear, they aren't really the issue. The issue is that I let them take my son from me and now he is dead. The issue is that my body failed him, and me.  the element of love does not stop being elemental. it does not stop covering everything before it. and over a lifetime, the pain of withholding this great and qui...

Maybe its the sun finally peaking out from behind the grey clouds, melting the snow from what has felt like the longest Alberta winter ever. Maybe it was the phone call with the bereavement counselor. Maybe its that I'm feeding myself healthy meals and sleeping in my own bed and for the first time in months my body has stabilized itself and my blood sugar levels no longer read state of emergency. Either way I feel hopeful today. Like I can see out from behind the dark veil of grief that has been obscuring my vision for the last few months, and I will take whatever moments of reprieve I can get. I want to tell a story. It's one I've wanted to tell for a few days now but every time I sit down to begin writing I can't find the words. It's the me too's that sometimes life weight from our souls I want to talk about representation. And support. I want to talk about the loud me too's that penetrate even the darkest clouds of grief and make one feel less alone...

"It's not by chance that the dark center of the human eye, the pupil, is actually an empty hole through which the world becomes known to us." I read this quote by Mark Nepo this morning and it connected with this idea that I'd had the day before. that out of this brokenness is going to grow new life. I've been thinking a lot about my life. For the past month I've been in and out of the hospital, not working or socializing very much beyond what is done behind a computer screen. My life has become this solitary thing where my entire world has narrowed to my bedroom and a hospital room. There is no remnants left behind of the girl I used to be. What is has become this cycle of grief and pain and an inability to process everything that has happened to me. Sometimes I think the surgery that scraped my uterus clean scraped me clean as well. there is nothing left. Just the dark center of the I. "Like the center of the eye, both Buddhist and Zen traditions...