Reality Chex: choke down a bowl, won’t you?

Reality Chex: the worlds coldest cereal. Now with enough fiber to stop up a blue whale!

 

Yep, I hate ’em. Well, I hate them and I need them. Those moments when you come off of the people mover of floaty, high wonderful (e)motion and sail, face first, into the brick wall of “reality.” I wish I were of a mind to ignore these things to be frank. But my ostrich days are over and God’s pulled me off of the sand dunes where I might easily hide my head. I’m only intermittently at peace with those hard checks. Mostly because? In addition to “thinking too much,” a charge levied against me for the whole of my life, it would seem that I also “feel too much.”

 

Is it possible that the seemingly unbearable sensation of emotion I feel is a gift presented in muddled clotted wrappings for me to unwrap with hesitant shaking hands for the sole reason that I can bear it?

 

It is true that change can be fearsome. But for me it is not nearly as fearsome as the thought of not knowing what might have happened had I stepped off into void.

Even the most searing emotional pain fades to wound and mends to scar. I can recall to the present and replay, without flaw, moments of pain and despair and hopelessness that I was sure would stop my heart and yet I am here to recall them. So, some part of me is present and some part of me is invested in remaining present. If I am powerful enough to have manifested the bounty the love the daily miracle of my life, am I then to look at the troubling, difficult curves in my path and say “No, this is not what I’ve chosen.” and disregard all evidence to the contrary? Can I look into the eyes of my God and deny He has been there for me even when I failed myself? Should I pick apart my Self and revile the parts I deem shameful or problematic because they ache and burn and fight and cry out? The bottomless thirst that may seem shamelessly needy is not there to be shunned. It is there to remind me that I DO need sustenance. The craving for subjugation is not there to be judged it it is there to show me how much strength I have, how much power, so that my submission becomes an act of limitless triumph. The pain of loneliness that pushes me to wordless wide blind eyed panic is not to be cursed. It is there to remind me how sweet are the honeyed drops of love, connection and spirit that I am blessed to receive, and how precious they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The deeper that sorrow carves into into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep int your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful, look again into your heart and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

 

There is a fine fine line between wallowing in one’s pain in a way that is not conducive to moving through it, and experiencing one’s pain in a way that honors it. People often will deride the idea of “feeling sorry for yourself,” as though anyone else were more qualified to feel your own sorrow. Empathizing with one’s own plight is NECESSARY, I feel, in order to grow into and develop compassion for yourself. How often have I flayed myself for feelings emotions, actions and reactions that in others I observe embrace and forgive? Feeling anything for myself is a progress in my journey. I spent far too many years brutally assassinating reflexive emotions out of fear of recognizing them for what they were: my humanity shamelessly exerting itself.

 

To be a masochist is to embrace the suffering of the body. How difficult is it to not judge the masochism of the spirit? Is it so wrong to feel pain in the heart and soul and celebrate that?

 

Avoiding the shit that hurts like a flint knife sawing slowly at your heart is to miss out on how beautiful is the moment that pain abates. Ordinary days that pass by, blind and bland, are not the ones about which we write songs and sonnets and hella emo blog posts. It is the sleepless night, the blind panic, the ecstasy that threatens to pull us from our corporeal bodies, the love so fierce it is impossible to draw a breath without it tightening our lungs, the sense of loneliness so profound we are certain we will never be free of its painful, frigid grip.

 

I am guarded today. I am guarded because I remembered Fear. I remembered fear of “settling” for less than I need. I remembered fear of losing the small gains I have made into the ocean of need that seems to simmer just below my skin. I remembered how much it hurts to need…to really, deeply need…and not have.

 

Submitting to another human being is fucking easy easy simple and plain when compared to submitting to your self. Your choices, your fate / karma / destiny / luck … whatever your path is called and however you call it to being, ultimately you will submit to the inexorable movement of that energy. You can fight it…you can spend all of your time fighting it, in fact. But you will not overcome it, and then all you have are your battered weapons and the dregs of your pride and stubbornness. I still fight a little. Being handed gifts for which you feel you’ve not got the hands or the strength is overwhelming. I’m lucky, though. I know, deep in my guts? I have coming to me that which looks nothing like what I want but will eventually lead me to precisely where I am supposed to be, even if those lands are foreign and I have to learn a whole new language. I’ll stumble around for a while, yes, And then I will experience that moment of peace, silence, connection, grounding, and I will know and remember the violent sweetness of the pain that guided, pulled, forced and coaxed me to that new place.

 

So today, I sit breathing through pain. Cutting my hands on the jagged edges of it,  grateful to be able to feel it.