Friday, August 17, 2012

Opening doors


Isn't there a saying, that when a door closes, a window opens, or something along that line? I think that's where I'm at- standing right in front of the window, shades thrown open, window wide with the cool breeze of inspiration, of the potential of the future, blowing gently against my skin.

While I still feel like I am in the churn of things (I dreamed this morning that I was in a helicopter over an oil processing plant in Alaska, and part of that was this deep cavern in the earth where giant augers constantly churned the raw oil that had been collected from the earth. Another helicopter was there too and fell into the oil and I watched as it went under), I definitely feel like I'm no longer in the helicopter that was getting sucked down into the muck and turned under. I guess I have a little distance, at least today. It's good. My heart feels light and I am embracing that sense of wonder and curiosity- what will happen next?

I've started getting back to the co-op work. I'm so grateful to have been able to step away and leave the work in caring, committed hands. Sliding back into the flow of things is easy and difficult- some things have changed and I want to see where it goes, rather than yanking it back into my way of doing things. Don't get me wrong, yanking it back was definitely on the table until I realized that there is good wisdom in letting everyone own a piece of it, rather than hoarding all that power for myself. It's not an easy lesson. I like control- in case you hadn't notice.

I think it's the practice of Letting Go that is important. Letting go that I am having little snatches of anxiety that I never had before. Letting go when my friends tell me, "You are different. You have changed."

I've reached an impasse in my ability to process some of the emotional baggage I'm carrying, and I just need a guide for a while. I didn't decide on a therapist, I just followed my 'nose' so to speak and I landed on someone who when I saw her website and photo, thought to myself, she's the one. It's so funny how these things happen. I can't keep going the way I am in the relationships with my (extended) family and I am at a loss as to what to do now, next, what to change, how to think about it, how to ease the hurt.

I dreamed that I was in my car and that Eidie was on the long, straight, country road, buffeted on either side by trees. I was talking to her and she was a little anxious, and I drove away from her, down the road. I was going to turn around and come back for her, but something about driving away from a small child on a long road felt so taboo and I felt like I was getting away with something. As I was driving away (I couldn't even see her in my mirror anymore), two cars came toward me and I realized that she was in the street, and also that they'd come across this small child out in the middle of no where and that I would probably have the police called, that there was no reasonable way to explain what I'd done. I raced back for her, terrified that she'd been hit, or worse (in my dream), found by someone else and would be taken away from me by CPS and the police, and how would I explain this to Randy?

The overarching feelings were that I was getting away with something taboo, and then the horrific guilt and shame of it when I was 'caught'. I have broken rules with my family, rules no one told me but that I broke nonetheless. I have crossed the line into the taboo, and I'm not sure that there is recovery from that. I know too much now, what the other side is like, and I don't know how to come back from a long journey pretending like I haven't changed. I don't know if this door is closed. I'm not ready to make that call.

So my "Window" is my therapist. We haven't met yet. I don't need to love her, I just need to be able to talk.

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