today was wildly warm for my corner of the world, like freaky warm - like no spring, here's summer warm... i told my friend hope that i wanted to ease into spring, so that i could thaw with it - not rush into summer already. i know we'll probably get a snow storm of 2 more, but i am not a fan of hot or cold - i like middle, mild, sweater weather, sit in the sun, blue skies, breeze blowing days. which, today was, minus the sweater - but for march 21 it's just TOO much TOO fast... for me anyway (whine, whine, whine...)
you know how i have been saying that my meeting is so awesome and it's holding me together and we're growing and stuff... well today one of the guys (3 of us are core from the beginning) blew it off for exercise class and the other woman blew it off for assisting her daughter meet with her ex... and i freaked out... it felt like everything was collapsing. it was a total over-reaction, but it threw me for a panic. i was sure i had done something wrong (why is that always my impulse?) but this time i actually wrote them and asked - i just didn't sit and stew. and they explained and love me and reassured me and i felt so much better - but the over reaction threw me - made me understand just how much the implosion of the other 2 groups really did hurt me - i have become so insecure. so weary of weakness, so impatient with myself.
being present to the grief, being gentle with myself for feeling it and trying to just be okay with today was really difficult. i ended up walking to my meeting. it was such a good decision. i got there early to set up (afraid i would be all alone again) and was determined that i would still read it all out loud to myself even if i was. i needed a meeting.
turns out another woman was there early too, and another showed early, and we had time to connect and laugh and just be together - it was a sacred meeting for the 3 of us. important and just what i needed.
my therapist gave me a chapter "to the mental depressive" by agnes sanford - it's dated, but just what i needed to read today as i sat in the sunshine on my porch. she talks about her own struggle with depression "the pilot light of the soul seems to have gone out" - thought that was a brilliant way to describe how i have been feeling this winter. she talked about a deep depression she came out of, and then a time of wonderful healing "the power to think, and even more important, to feel had returned" - i think that is why this has been so hard - because i have known both - and like the thinking/feeling me so much better.
then it caught up with her again, and the words she uses could have been written by my hands "this time, however, the light did not go out, for i had learned how to feed and to tend it in ways that i shall shortly describe. indeed i did not realize that it was once more burning low. i knew that the sorrows of life had increased upon me, but assumed that this was the inevitable result of age and of the tensions of my life."
that is exactly how this feels - like i know better, like it's just getting old, like it's just my lot in life to be here in this place.
she talked about waiting a whole year to get help "it is quite a sensible hesitation, really. we have the burden of life adjusted so that at least we can carry it, albeit heavily and with much labor and sorrow. what if for a moment we dare to put it down and it is not, after all, taken away, and we have not the strength to lift it again?"
that is exactly how it feels... like i'm not strong enough to hope that if i set it down it will really be healed - that i will have to collapse under the weight of it again. why can hope feel like the most foolish thing in the world sometimes?
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