Something has happened to me

Something has happened to me. I’m not sure when and I am not sure how. I trust. I have faith. I have asked for it, hoped for it, faked it. But in the past, when things got hard, they were harder than they needed to be.

I think my general coping mechanism is flight. Although some may not agree. If I have not always fled physically, which I often have, I flee mentally. I shut out the world, close up. I think of all the ways I don’t need whoever or whatever has caused me angst. How I can live without them. I started this early in life and still, sometimes, it is my first line of defense when I am hurt or scared.

I have had a trying few weeks, built upon a trying few months and even years. It will take a book to actually describe what has led to this grueling time, because it was nothing hard and fast like a divorce or unexpected death or a hurricane. The loss of self rarely has a defining moment; rather it is given up gradually.

But, just as I sit here looking at the snow out of the window on this second day of May, I know the summer is coming. Every single day last month, I kept thinking tomorrow will be better. Now I am not convinced it will be tomorrow, but I know for a fact that summer will be back.

Just as I know summer is coming, I know that I will get through this tough time. I don’t have to manage it or manipulate it. I don’t have to run away from it, or even build my mental wall around it. I may or may not have to work my way out of it. I am sitting with it and feeling it the best that I can.

“If we can stay awake
 when our lives are changing,
secrets will be revealed to us
—secrets about ourselves,
about the nature of life,
and about the eternal source
of happiness and peace
that is always available,
always renewable,
already within us.”
~ELIZABETH LESSER

This is not comfortable or fun. Or in a moment to moment basis, particularly enlightening. In saving the energy that I usually use to run or protect, something is happening. I am finding some peace, and , perhaps a little direction.