Gut feeling
08 February 2012 11:58 AM Categories: The struggle redefined
Or, today, the sound of the boy coughing, deep and thick, the click of my keyboard over the Sinbad movie he is watching for the tenth time (Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger), my laptop warm against my thighs, and outside the day looks like a mix of blue and grey, the warmth coming later, but it won't matter for today is a sick day and the boy and I spend our time together in the cave, the inner sanctum.
In my head, a kind of springy emptiness, like a field of rich earth, freshly turned, damp with a light rain, awaiting the seeds, the new growth coming, everything regenerating. It’s like I’m in the proper part of a cycle now. A fire ripped across this field. I kept it in check though it didn’t stop threatening me with smoke and cinders until a week ago. Then the turning, the rain (a gift), and plunk plunk plunk, I will push the seeds into the ground.
When I woke at 2:30 a.m., surrounded by my noisy thoughts and too many blankets and the heavy buzz saw of my husband’s snoring, I lay there staring at the ceiling. I finally went downstairs, read a page or two of the first volume of Doris Lessing’s autobiography (so worth a reread), and tried to sink into sleep. It happened eventually, my thoughts settled and shuffled into place. When the heat woke me up at 5:30, I knew what had happened overnight, further change and problem solving.
Yeah, those people who did me wrong, left me, put up a distorted mirror to show me a crazed vision of my ugliness? What of it? They weren’t trying to do wrong, they were helpless themselves, perhaps a bit pitiful, too, so trapped in their own lives that they didn’t know what to do or didn’t think anything needed doing. It’s over. The anger pulls me down, makes me crazy. It’s a barrier of nothingness, a thick covering over my heart and will. The time has come to let it go. Even better – though scary – the time has come to make it right with the ones who really wronged me, the ones with a history, to approach them without malice and try to repair the connection or at the very least to finally tell the truth and stop hiding myself. It will free me from the power of rusty ragged anger, from the power of the unspoken. It will percolate into other areas in my life. And with it comes the necessary acceptance that those who are incapable of reaching into themselves to examine their behavior are irrelevant to me.
Last year’s cycle of melodrama suddenly made sense. It made it worth it. A necessary revisiting of pain. A show of strength. A vow to follow my gut, tell my truth, and assert my will when necessary.
Image of the sun about to emerge from behind fluffy clouds.
From last week's prompt "All around me," edited and added to a bit. Don't worry, at some point I will stop writing so much about anger, forgiveness, and compassion, just like I stopped writing about my past so much. But it may take a while.
And, yes, the boy is sick again, though not so bad this time. In fact, I think he'll go to school tomorrow. I added up the days he's been sick since September: today is sick day number 22. Over three weeks of illness, three weeks of cave-dwelling wonderment.
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