Well, 12 days later, I am still slogging through the mud,
and my past, but I have also discovered something else amazing.
I have always loved books. I have always thought it would be
a great to live in a library. I love library’s, I love the wonderful smell that
greats me when I walk into a book store. I always thought that if you could
bottle the smell , it would sell well. Books were my friends when
I had none, and when I didn’t know if I could deal with my world, books took me
away.
In my last post I told you about the book “SHE:
Understanding Feminine Psychology by Robert A Johnson. It is about the Goddess
Psyche going down into the underworld.
A few days after reading the book, I met my son for
coffee. I was telling him about the
Goddess, and the Myth. Ten minutes later, I realized that I actually remembered
98% of the story. I have never been able to do this. In the past, I would have
had to read the book 5 times, write notes and bring the notes with me so that I
could explain the myth to my son. I have
never been able to remember this much before.
School would have been so much easier!
Needless to say this has come as a pleasant surprise to me.
I did not know it could be like this.
Since then I have read Sylvia Taylor “The Fisher Queen A
deckhand’s tale of the BC coast.” It’s a great read and it is amazing that I
can remember most of the book, and sometimes my mind wanders back to that book
and its great stories. This is new to me.
In the past, I would read a book, then later know I may have
read that book, remember a couple of the main characters, maybe a bit of the
story line, but that would be it.
Now it is so different. As I told my Dr. this morning “I
never knew reading could be this wonderful, this rich, this easy. It amazes
me.”
Yes, school would have been so much easier. I look back now
and think of the energy it took to make it through school, and then later in
life, college, at the age of 30, as a single parent. School and college is
tough enough, but put in being D.I.D. and it is amazing I made it.
Actually, it’s amazing I survived at all. But that’s another
blog for another day.
In the last couple of days I have noticed a calm about me.
There is no anxiety/fear, of any level waiting in the wings, waiting to jump
out at me when I least expect. There is no anxiety beneath everything I do. The
panic and anxiety used to be there even when I was “staying in the moment.”
Last weekend I went to my stained glass class. I am making a
stained glass piece for friends of mine. This is the first design I have ever
made, and its free hand design. It is
also only the 4th piece I have ever made. This last weekend while I
was working on it, I realized adjustments are going to have to be made to the
design, and that’s ok. I also realized as I was cutting and grinding some of
the glass that I was much more relaxed about the whole process. There was no
underlying panic/anxiety underlying my work. My creativity was flowing freely, it was a wonderful
feeling. And yes, this is also new.
Some of my friends have mentioned that I seem calmer, am more relaxed and my eyes are brighter.
Do I still have moments where it’s hard to put one foot in
front of the other- you bet, that’s most of my day. But I am noticing these
glittering moments within that darkness. These last few months have been amazingly
painful. The work I had to do has been
god awful and I don’t wish it on my worst enemy. But, I also know it was a much
needed process and step in my work.
I knew it had to be done and I pulled in my supports to help
me. My life as I know it has been “put on hold.” Like the Goddess Psyche I
needed to go down into the underworld and retrieve what I needed, and in my
case I retrieved lost parts of me. But, not only did I retrieve the lost parts
of me, I retrieved all their richness and gifts that make up who they are. As
one friend put it “Maybe they were never lost, maybe they were just waiting for
when you were ready to find them.” I guess I was ready.
In a previous post I wrote an excerpt from my journal “It’s
interesting how- it’s not usually some huge monumental thing that that is an
indication I am getting better-it’s the small everyday things that people take
for granted- but when your down in the deep dark bowels of your soul, doing
your work- doing the everyday things are just too much….”
I did not realize that doing the everyday things also
included being able to remember a piece of music, what I read, and not having
anxiety/fear underline everything I do.
Yes, this recovery is a very slow process, and I need to be
very careful and make sure I don’t surface from the underworld to soon. What
this means is that I need to be gentle with myself and slowly get back into the
swing of life. For the time being I need to focus on my recovery, and that
means, for now, part of my life is on hold. But I also know that when I am
ready, life will be waiting for me.
Until then, I am going to sit back, relax and enjoy my
books, like never before.
Those are my thoughts for today
Cheers and be well
Suzy
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