Words, Words, Words

Everywhere, someone always saying something.

Lately I have felt exceptionally lost, measured by the feeling of my skin unraveling, word by word, threatening to let loose my insides. Do you know the feeling of being held together by only a single proverbial thread? That is my mind and heart these days. If you hold my hand, I’ll hold yours.

Walk with me.

I went to a feminist show and the ticket was a tampon. I sat in the theatre alone and cried, the fushia-colored tube, weightless in my palm, a womb-sized stone heavy in my pocket, a boulder pinning my heart to the dead ground. When cued the audience chucked their tampons at the piano, but I kept mine. A knife-like souvenir to twist when I can’t sleep at 3AM.

Loss is a homeless cat mewling in the dark.

When I graduated from college, my first job was as a graphic designer at a low-cost print shop in downtown Fort Worth. I was infatuated with the copy boy, his tan skin and curly hair. We ate late night sandwiches on the floor in a room vibrating with machinery, inhaling paper, tasting toner. I did my best at this job but I was poorly trained and more poorly managed. My boss said, Everything you touch turns to shit. I slammed my resignation letter down on his desk, winked at the copy boy, and went for salty-rimmed margaritas across the street. But I’ve never forgotten his words.

Just before surgery, a tarot card reader said, Children and nostalgia will be in your life. Shortly after surgery I started an artist residency teaching mandalas to 12-year-olds. Class is like walking into a room full of pastel-colored landmines, every soft face and small hand a reminder of what will never be, a passel of ghosts reflecting my baby brother, a nostalgic shadow of a time I am often cast into during dreams. I can still see his small form, a tight coil of a little boy crying against the garage. What cruel thing has our father said this time? 

I will never forgive myself for not running away with him under the cover of dark. His memory is the homeless cat.

At a work event, the new Senator talks about substance abuse, about recovery programs and helping to save people’s lives. I turn to the window so no one will see the tears. A few days later, my brother’s Instagram, an account I have not seen in many, many years, shows up…I am both devastated and exhilarated. I almost DM him. If I did, would he answer?

When I tell a friend, I watch her remember that my brother is gone. This is a fact of loss. No one will remember yours, only their own. This need not separate us! We are all icebergs with glittering sun crowns, our giant blue bodies submerged four, five, a hundred times in magnitude below a still surface.

I am a tidal wave held at bay by glass.

What holds your overflow?

After teaching, I am handed a small object. A comment. A pink slip of feedback. In an instant I model a Great Fear, fantastic in scale. I whip up a grand portrait of I Am Unworthy. I concoct a bottomless vat of I Am Not Enough.

A podcast tells me these are core wounds and we all have them. Our minds are busy spiders weaving stories that reinforce narrative, truth an inconsequential spec of trivia.

What untruths do you frame and set at your bedside table? What do you think about as you drift to sleep, and remember when you wake up? 

I drive home and have a panic attack on the kitchen floor. A friend sits with me by phone, her voice humming softly in time with my tears. Her words are a warm embrace and I do feel less alone, less alien, less like I am dissolving into cold, glass marbles that will race the slanted floors of my old house and disappear into the cracks, leaving less of me for the rest of life.

For the next three days I build with paper. I play with glitter and curled ribbon. I make flowers and swallows and goldfish with paper scales. I build a paper nest filled with paper eggs. I did not choose this medium, it chose me. I can’t tell you why, only that it felt right. A delicate substance made from a powerful one.

I am asked to explain my creativity and I can’t. I try but the words are all knotted up. It’s something like a conversation with inspiration, a playdate with hard work and experimentation. My garbage cans are full of failed attempts. I make by instinct. There is probably a way to draw a blueprint, but I don’t know how, I’m sorry. Does this mean, I Am a Failure?

You’ve lost your womanhood, says someone I know. No, I say. Just a piece of it. I know I am still whole, just different. I walk away with my hand over my scarred belly. Still, I think of her words often.

Someone says, You are a normal, average woman. A friend says, Only one of those three things is true. This same week, I take an enneagram test and discover I am a 4. The Individualist who creates identity out of inner experience. A Heart Type. A Tragic Romantic prone to Nostalgia, feeling like something is always Missing. A Seeker. 

This explains so much.

I want to scream, I am a F*cking Extraordinary Weirdo, thank you very much.

Everywhere I go people say, Aren’t you so happy to be well now!? You’re up and at ‘em! Fantastic! Glad that’s done. Back to life!

And I want very much for this to be so, but I have fought a battle not won a war. Even the doctor said, Don’t come back. This is the end of the road. Unless you want to be pumped full of chemicals.

I do not feel as though I am at the end of anything. 

I want to be strong. I want to be resilient. What do you want for yourself that sometimes feels unattainable? That thing you thought came prepackaged with adulthood, but sadly was an out of stock add-on? Or worse, a false advertisement? Do you ever just want to say, Someone send it back, please, it’s faulty. It cries too much and craves an abundance of chocolate, won’t stop watching clips of baby goats on trampolines.

Words, words, words. Everywhere, someone always saying something. Pick and choose, says a friend. Let go of what does not serve you, says a yoga instructor. Whatever is the obstacle is the way, says a podcast.

What if I turn the volume all the way down? What if I tell my Mind, with compassion, to kindly shut the f up? What if, instead of ruminating over all the words, words, words, picking through the clutter for the truth, I tune inward? What if I handed the mic to my Heart?

What divine inner truth would your Heart tell you? 

Instead of everything you touch turns to shit…This is not the right place for you. Move on. Your dharma is elsewhere and your only true job to seek and honor it.

Instead of you are average…You are unlike anyone else. A snowflake has the power to transform. A drop of a rain into nourishment within a body into a river that runs into a raging sea into a cloud, soft and full of thunderbolts, into a new snowflake patterned after a design that has never before existed.

Instead of loss defines you…Loss connects us. Loss steels us through softening, like a stiff leather boot now perfect for your unique foot, a lifetime purchase to be resoled as often as necessary. Loss cracks open the Heart to make room for more, for loss is just another form of devotion.

The Heart’s vocabulary is one of love. 

I am a work in progress. Both bits of colored paper in the trash and that which has been transformed into a bird. I am the failed attempt and the flower. May I say that you are as well? Pick your metaphor, whatever imagery speaks to you.

From one Heart to another, I say, You are not your Great Fear. You are Enough. You are Worthy. You are Loved.

Howdy, Friends! Thanks for reading. I hope this reaches whoever may benefit, as this is what other writers and their words do for me - give me just what I need when I need it. This project is a labor of love, writing and act of honoring my true self. I am so thankful you allow me to share it with you. Whatever form your expression takes, I hope it brings you inner peace. Never dim your light. Someone somewhere is in the dark. Until next time, friends, be well.