PARALYZED BY PAIN

I’ve been afraid.

Afraid of every little thing.

The knock at the door – the opening of my front door.

Afraid to open my windows at night – and then to reach my hand into the metal mailbox with loose knob and pull out the bills and junk mail.

I’ve been afraid of blocked numbers on my cell phone – and my emails.

So afraid of the telephone ring that years ago I permanently turned off the ringer the buzzer the vibrator . . .

Out went any landline. Terrifying.

I’ve been afraid to SAY WHO I AM

Afraid to STAND MY GROUND

And then freaked out at the prospect of sitting down.

I’ve been paralyzed at the thought of having to give up my music – and yet  I’ve been unable to take the guitars – my beautiful guitars – from their stands and play them . . .

I’ve been afraid to put down my pen and too traumatized to type the damn words into my computer – spooked at the notion of releasing my scribbles to the world – – –

Not because of failure or fame – but because there is so much too much . . . and how to write my truth without causing pain.

 

Ahhhh . . .

THERE IT IS: I have been terrified of pain.

CAUSING IT OR ENDURING IT

I HAVE BEEN PARALYZED BY PAIN.

I’ve written about loss and tossed it with the rest. I’ve undressed my desires and placed them in overstuffed drawers.

I’ve made lists of pain: named the perpetrators and particulars:

: the suicide, sexual abuse, betrayals, financial disaster, life upturned, hopes burned, best friends plotting my demise, loss of home loss of love heart shattered into irretrievable shards on the ground – broken necks, broken bodies, feet run over, lies, guile, deceits ___ and even a restraining order:

And still too stunned to mark dash and release words into the world.

Dizzying plot lines, 180 twists, 360 reversals . . . my head’s been spinning for a good four years as I have gone further and further into the denial of who I am . . .

AFRAID

I can name the starting point: it was most definitely the suicide and then subsequent threat by my ex’s therapist that she the ex, still alive, might now be triggered and commit suicide.

I can name that PLOT POINT 1 >>> but the seeds had to have been there, already planted.

I don’t remember a time where I didn’t know I was the one to be in the corner – named the observer – not the doer – by my parent – and decidedly – not the favorite.

I took this in stride in my seemingly non-emotional big picture view of my world – and then wondered on why I had to be a girl this lifetime around because it certainly wasn’t ushering in favor.

In fact, it became danger all too soon – to be born the fairer sex . . .

and I learned to shut down and walk small because I didn’t like being bullied by the son of a good family friend and pinned to the floor – spit dripping from his mouth onto my face as he begged for:

“one little fuck”

hurting my wrists, digging his knees into my ribs until I stopped squirming:  And got really still – and told him:

He was being asinine – I was only 10 . . . and I turned that word over and over again in my mouth: Asinine:

“YOU ARE ASININE

I AM ONLY 10!”

I watched as that big word between us became my weapon – stalled him – bewildered him enough to loosen his grip for a second – and I slid out from under his overweight sweating body  –  announced that I had to go downstairs to help my mother clean up the Thanksgiving dishes . . .

And so a word became my mace – saved me from something I don’t ever want to know . . .

But this word never left the room – was never spoken to my mother.

“Mommy: Benji pinned me to the ground and said he was going to fuck me . . .

but I told him he was being asinine.

He was being asinine, Mommy. I’m only 10 years old.”

Instead, I wrote my words in notebooks and turned them over and over again in my mind, caressed them loved them as they healed the things I could not feel, could not express in real time.

But they never came out into the world unless yanked out of me for some scholarship or ticket to an “A” to pay for school.

And then I began to sing!!! Use my words in song!!! What a joy!

An easement in releasing my feeling into the world – but I partnered up with a singer who stole all the consonants while I blended in ethereals – beautiful maybe – but undecipherable. Now hiding my truth behind the sea of melody.

AFRAID TO BE SEEN

 

AND WHY?

 

That pain thing again. Afraid of being pain causing pain being in >>> pain:

Afraid of naming my truth – for then I would be abandoned completely.

Write your stories would say my mother, sing the song said partner, but somehow I never believed that my pen my mouth my hands – all instruments in the expression of my heart – could save me from their removal of love.

If I spoke: I wouldn’t be loved.

If I sang:   I wouldn’t be loved.

If I marched on stage: I wouldn’t be loved.

The pain of not being loved, being abandoned for truth, for expressing my heart >>> left on the roadside for living my joy:

Too Painful

I cannot live that lie anymore.

I cannot be that afraid person.

The universe has tried over and over again to provide me with a set of clues I’ve been denying.

In the past few years, I’ve had every foundation ripped from my life.

When I’ve crawled around trying to piece things back together, then the holy universe has taken it upon herself to detonate everything in sight.

I MUST EXPRESS AND PUT OUT INTO THE WORLD.

There is no other way.

This IS my love.

HERE WE GO >>>

 

 

 

WITHDRAWN

Weeks pass – hours minutes moments turn into months.

And here I am. Later. Late.

Another year. Another state.

I’ve been writing blogs: in my mind.

Turning over sentences to try to understand my reality. My mind posts come with BIG BOLD TITLES like:

       FULL OUT ON FAITH

      LOSING TRACK OF MY “IS”

      AS LONG AS WE AGREE ON THE ARCHETYPES

Complete with philosophical queries, insights, and confusions made manifest in language.

I write these mind blogs every day. Wrestle with words at night. Toss and turn with the themes of “my now” and >>>

 KABOOM!!!

I woke up today and realized that I haven’t typed in a damn thing. No new posts since October . . . silence from me . . . externally . . .

While internally I’ve been in such turmoil – I shut down.

Apparently.

And now . . . I’m awake. A-WAKED UP!

October killed. Burned.

I didn’t realize it at the time – or I did – and shoved it down.

Practiced “opening up.” Practiced: “A New Now.”

November continued to burn with fire – and newness. Racing around, shoving down – and I was not alone in this. My phone began to blow up with:

      WTF’S! What the hell is going on in the heavens?

And by Thanksgiving – many things had begun to change – for everyone.

“What the hell is going on?” opened up December – and by then, I, along with my friends, were so used to a fall of mind numbing, soul shocking experiences that we just put one foot in front of foot and marched into what was one of the hardest Christmas’s of my life.

(And yes – even Jewish girls can be hurt by a Yuletide gone wrong.)

And  . . . I don’t think anyone knew this . . . and I imagine others in my world also felt the pain of a hard holiday. But we were brave – and faced head on into January – which I suddenly don’t remember, which says a lot and might point to something for another blog, another day . . .

Into a muddy moody February  . . . and why oh why am I recounting the months like some children’s song by Carole King . . .???

Because this simple calendar counting of time shows me just how long  . . . I’ve been gone.

I was gone. I was.

 Maybe some of you, my friends, were gone too. Maybe too many WTF’s hit hard – and you left the room – clothed in confusion in need of compassion and too cocooned to come out and receive the love.

Well, it’s March now. Spring sprung forward.

We can put foot in front of foot and march forward into ALIVE – side-by-side – AWAKE!

And perhaps we can remind one another when we’ve burrowed for too long – isolated – gone.

I was  . . . withdrawn.

And I didn’t know it.

I’ m back. Awake. Encouraging all of you to come out and greet the love and compassion waiting for you.

(And will someone please throw a bucket of cold water over my head the next time I’ve gone on too – long – withdrawn?)

HARPER’S LAST EMAIL

I want to forgive myself.

It seems an easy enough thing to do.

Lord knows I have spent the better part of two decades pursuing spiritual knowledge and practice  . . . you would think I would know how to let go and let god, even if I wasn’t raised to believe in “god.”

I certainly should know how to . . . let go >>>

But, I think I’m having a forgiveness issue with myself. I have some guilt and pain trapped deep inside. Notice how I said “think” . . . and not “know” or “believe.”

This guilt/pain is a thought – a sentence I think rather than feel, and I assume this is why it is trapped.

I still haven’t processed the suicide of my ex-girlfriend.

I think many thoughts about it: I think often that life was going one beautiful way and then boom! June of 2010 happened . . . everything changed . . . collapsed … house of cards . . . and then imploded. I don’t believe I’ve been completely in my body or center since then.  I think about how I don’t feel the same . . . without ever touching the feeling of not feeling the same.

What a messy mess of words . . . just like my buried feelings.

I have learned to think and speak this sentence:

“The first time I ever learned how to say no and put up a proper neutral boundary was with my ex-girlfriend Harper . . . three weeks later she killed herself.”

I “know” that it’s not my fault, and my emails stating clearly that I had moved on since our break-up the previous year did not result in her checking into that motel room in New England and lining up an array of carefully marked pills with amounts taken and pharmaceutical names she would leave for the police . . . but still . . ……..

something got trapped with Harper’s death.  As she left a DNR on the bed beside her . . . it seems I have also stopped breathing . . . never fully resuscitated back to life. I have been living in a state of buried trauma.

Today, while searching for a poem I wrote that was going to be this post  – my computer finder thought it better to give me Harper’s last email, which I haven’t read since she wrote it >>> and was alive and breathing.

The date:  June 1, 2010.

She killed herself less than three weeks later.

Harper was a beautiful writer . . . and reading her email today brought her back to full life force. I feel her in the room with me . . . I often feel her with me . . . and this feeling is not a thought, but as real as when she was sitting next to me, green eyes dancing, in love.

I want to insert her email here. I want her voice to be heard.  I want to put out into the world the place my life stopped . . . memorialize when I got buried.

I don’t know if it’s appropriate to release her last email to the ether, but I will put the opening sentences.

“Dearest A:

I thank you beyond words for your honesty and for letting me know you have   moved on. I very much needed clear answers and I thank you for caring enough about me to provide them.”

Her email goes on to say that she is confused about life and love . . . and that she meant it when she said that I was the love of her life . . .

Heart stop.

How does one process this?

I loved her deeply: had been in love with her . . . but we both decided we were not to be . . . the previous year . . . and she had wanted distance – no communication – and she quit smoking, her last vice as she would say, started exercising like crazy,  continued working at Harvard . . .

 What happened? What happened to life? To love?

 Where did I go when she died . . . and why did every living person around me begin to fall apart . . . as if triggered by Harper’s orchestrated exit . . .

I never got time to grieve . . . or process . . .

On the heels of the police questions and Harper’s body being found . . . my best friend/business partner/former lover suddenly “became” bipolar manic . . . and her therapist warned me she might become suicidal . . .  and my longest friend and confidante went nutso . . . and the list goes on and on since that hot spring day in June when I stayed up all night because Harper’s sister had called to tell me that Harper was “missing.”

And I believe I have been “missing” ever since.

I haven’t forgiven myself for making a boundary with my open heart.

I know it’s not my fault, but that’s a thought.

How I feel remains buried . . . beneath newer traumas . . . fertilized by a lack of forgiveness for myself.

Perhaps . . . finding and reading Harper’s last email is the beginning of being found — and forgiving myself for — moving on >>>