A Prayer and a Mantra
How cute is this picture my 8-year-old next door neighbor made me? She's adorable, and sooooo girly. It's so fun spending time with her...
Hi Everyone!
Wanted to share with you today two things that keep going through my head, especially during sleepless nights (I have a pretty big problem with insomnia...often assuaged by a hot bath and/or Tylenol PM, neither of which I'm allowed at the moment...sigh...)
I'm not really very religious, but the first is a prayer I keep repeating over and over and over:
"God, please take care of me."
I talked with my dad about this the other day...he knows about this kind of thing...and he said that's a good prayer, vs asking for specific outcomes. It's helped me to feel better and continues to do so, with the stress that's still acommpanying this/these baby/ies...I'm actually pretty relaxed and positive at the moment, but I know all too well how things can go wrong...
The other thing I keep repeating to myself, kind of like a mantra, is something I read on the Happiness Project blog recently, and that is:
"Choose the Bigger Life,"
which to me means when deciding what to do/focus energy on, try to choose the things that will expand your existence.
Trying to have children (vs giving up on the hugely painful process that has been trying to get to a place with an actual live baby), for example, is choosing the bigger life.
So is making time to write (vs setting it aside which is so tempting when my days are busy, which is pretty much always).
So is dreaming big about what my husband and I really want to do next spring when he graduates from college (vs settling for what's safe and easy).
Anyway, those are some of the positive thoughts going through my brain these days (and let's focus on that for now, rather than the negative/scared things I'm thinking, shall we)?
Hope everyone has a fabulous Wednesday!
XO
"The Aquarium:" Some Thoughts on Grief and Loss, Coping and What it All Means
A fish in the aquarium in Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC.
Do any of you all read the New Yorker? There was an article in there a month or so ago (June 13 & 20, 2011) that I've been turning over in my head ever since I read it. It's called "The Aquarium," written by Aleksandar Hemon. In it, he talks about the illness and death of his baby daughter, but I think a lot of what he talks about is more universal than just that particular (horrific) situation.
For example, the isolation he feels during his daughter's illness (and I've felt, through my brother's death primarily, but also through our recent miscarriage and years and years of trying to have a child) is so beautifully described:
"...I had a strong physical sensation of being in an aquarium: I could see out, the people outside could see me (if they chose to pay attention), but we were living and breathing in entirely different environments."
Another thing that resonated with me is how often it's so hard for people to communicate with those dealing with intense pain of some sort (and vice versa)...this is something I've definitely experienced:
"One of the most common platitudes we heard was that 'words failed.' ... If there were a communication problem, it was that there were too many words, and they were far to heavy and too specific on others. ... We instinctively protected our friends from the knowledge we possessed; we let them think that words had failed, because we knew they didn't want to learn the vocabulary we used daily. We were sure they didn't want to know what we knew; we didn't want to know it, either."
One of the things I find hardest about the tough things that have happened to me is people telling me to find the meaning/the good in what's happened. I don't believe there is meaning or good, and neither does Mr. Hemon:
"One of the most despicable religious fallacies is that suffering is ennobling--that it is a step on the path to some kind of enlightenment or salvation. Isabel's [his daughter's] suffering and death did noting for her, or us, or the world. We learned no lessons worth learning; we acquired no experience that could benefit anyone."
It's a heartbreaking article, but one that is so worth reading in its entirity.
Anyway, I hope something in these excerpts helps someone better understand/process what they are thinking/going through, the way they helped me.
XO
Excitement and Trepidation and Trying to Let Go of the Pain
I'm going to Santa Barbara tomorrow, with my husband, for a wedding. And I'm SO happy to be going, so excited for my friends getting married, it's going to be great to see them and others, and it's going to be fun to be in Santa Barbara with my husband, because we spent a lot of time there when we were first dating, him coming down from Alaska and later Seattle to visit me the last months that I lived there. I know we're going to have a great time...everything about this trip is going to be happy and positive.
But.
Santa Barbara's where I lived with my brother. It's where he was killed. It's a place I didn't want to leave, but felt like I had to. This is kind of hard to describe, but in a lot of ways, when my brother died, I felt like I died too, like we had both been exiled from this place and this life that we loved.
I've fought hard to build back a new life for myself, and it's a good life, but it's drastically different from the one that I had, and it's hard to be reminded of that old life, you know? I usually do a pretty good job keeping the hurt I still feel over my brother's death and the loss of Santa Barbara and my beach-y California girl surfer lifestyle under wraps. But going there...it can't help but come to the surface.
I keep thinking about this quote from the TV show Six Feet Under--I love love love that show, by the way...I'm going to do a post about it one of these days--that I read on the fabulous blog Mocking Bird over the weekend:
(David is talking to his dead father, Nathaniel.)
Nathaniel Sr.: You aren't ever grateful, are you?
David: Grateful? For the worst fucking experience of my life?
Nathaniel Sr.: You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it's worth something. Well, let me tell ya, it's not worth shit. Let it go. Infinite possibilites, and all he can do is whine.
David: Well, what am I supposed to do?
Nathaniel Sr.: What do you think? You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you're alive! What's a little pain compared to that?
David: It can't be that simple.
Nathaniel Sr. (putting his arm around David and pulling him closer): What if it is?
I'm trying to let the pain go. I swear.
P.S. The last of our plans for the weekend just fell into place. I truly am sooooo incredibly excited to see so many people I love.
Back Monday.
XOXO
