lent vent

if it were not for rss readers this post would go unnoticed... i guess i am thankful for that, although i am seeking some anonymity again. i realized in the shower the other day that i really needed to write. my immediate thought was WHERE? and a brain fart said "wish i had a place where no one knew my name"... and then i went... DUH. here.

those of you who really do know my name are safe and counted among some of my very absolute favorite people on the face of this earth. strange how very few of you i have met, and yet i hold you most dear... some of you closer than my very own extended family.

i realized that i have been blocked. that i am sitting in a bleak place, heading into lent and longing for some connection that will break through my winter discontent and bring me to a place of resurrection and new life.

i was at an enneagram workshop a few weeks ago and the teacher, who knows me quite well, and feels very safe to me because he is also in recovery and is the same enneagram type (4 wing 5) that i am, spoke of how often people in recovery for long periods of time get to a place where it feels as if the ground opens up and they are faced with suffering and fear sometimes even greater than that which drew them to recovery in the first place. he said this why and when many who seem so strong and so capable relapse and throw their lives away.

it was the first thing that anyone had said to me in months that made any sense. it is exactly where i found myself in january. so lost. so sad. so afraid. nothing in my life seemed to have caused such a depth of emotion but there i was. nothing made sense. everything had lost it's ability to touch me. i am someone who can live off of the emotion of finding a beautiful feather in an unexpected place for a week - and yet real, deep, moving, wonderful things pinged off me like i was made of teflon.

there were times i was able to enjoy something in the moment, but it had no legs to carry me like it normally would. i guess it felt like there was some type of black hole opening up in me that no light could penetrate. even though i was not hopeless, and i am not still. i was not opposed to intervention and am continuing to see my therapist and my spiritual director, but it just seemed different some how. like i was insulated or once removed from the experience.

so when he spoke of this large suffering opening up it felt like i had heard a dog whistle calling me to attention.

he said that the opening showed the suffering that was undigested - undigested - a food word, means i need to pay attention. i know the way through all of this. i have been here before. i know it works when i work it - and i have far better tools and support at hand now than ever before. i am capable and able to digest whatever this suffering is. i just need to sit with it.

that is the best part of this horrible season. my spiritual disciplines and my program are carrying me through somehow. the routine of my life, even though i feel i am moving through it like a sleepwalker some days, is keeping me on the path. i am still going to meetings, i am still writing every day and reading every night. 3 meals, no snacks, no trigger foods. it is working - even though i am unable to feel it.

mild depression? SAD? not sure, but i am not hopeless, suicidal or violent - which is usually the quick evidence that i am headed nowhere fast. so i am sitting with undigested suffering. i have no idea what that means, but the metaphor of the "undigested" is so poignant to me.

the shower helped me realize that my most able way to digest anything is to write about it. and yet i am not writing. i have been blocked, but i think it had more to do with not having a safe place to do that. i have abandoned this place that worked so well for me once. to keep with the digestion them (sorry) i have been constipated - school kicked my ass, both in reading and in writing. what i did finish i did well, but i hate reading things i do not love, and even worse, i loathe writing about them. i am not finished, but i long to be. it has been a start and stop, move forward, drop it all time that has creamed my confidence and given me great shame. i am up to the work, i am smart enough and able, but i have so little will to write what others want and seek a grade that will satisfy a requirement, it is no motivator for me at all, it is in fact, a de-motivator if i am completely honest...

so here i am. and here i will be, this is my lenten commitment. i will be writing here every day (except sundays) and digesting whatever the hell i can find to help me find joy in the buds of the promise of spring.