We sat on the floor in the living room and cried together.
I don't know if we've ever done that before.
I have felt off all week. I am still in serious depression recovery, but have experienced a solid dip from the new normal I've been enjoying the last few months: inner calm, less anxiety, energy, a bit of happiness.
I'm realizing how much trauma and pain is still in my body. My mind wants things to be done and dusted; they aren't.
Jay has started counseling and I am reminded of all the ancient stories that talk about being careful to demand something because of what happens when you receive it.
I have waited and wondered and hoped for changes in our marriage. Now I can see that they're coming and it is going to be initially disruptive. It is reminding me of how bad things have been. It has generated anxiety that now that Jay is healing, things that I counted on as stable, though not ideal, will change. New ways of being together will need work. We will both have to change and in it all, I wonder anxiously if any of my trauma will finally be addressed? Or is this now about Jay and his own pain and recovery. I feel small saying that; it's true.
This is what we found ourselves crying about. He has so much pain from his adoption, abandonment, being different, smart. He has shuttered his emotions his whole life; they are coming back online for the first time. It will be a long process.
We were the very best together when we were parenting. Somehow our skills and personalities came together to create a little tribe of beauty, joy and health. It sparkled. It still exists. But it changed and we have a lot of time together, just ourselves, two deeply traumatized people.
So this week as things unfolded, I didn't question the sadness. I didn't beat myself up, demean myself for not being more active, more engaged in our vacation. I let my body and soul respond and feel how it needs to. What was clear is what I needed was rest and time to process with Jay.
*****
One thing that came from our discussion was I said I've just never been true to myself and he said yes, that is accurate. I never fully have. This week, I was true to my whole self and our conversation felt healing and moving us in the right direction. We agree we have much healing to do that will take significant time.
I didn't feel happy after our talk but I felt relieved. I felt relieved that this isn't another thing where I have to feel like I'm the crazy one and no one understands what I'm saying.
*****
I tried clamming again this evening. Once again, I'm determined to get outside more each day than I am. Nature calms my nervous system, placing me in a much larger context than my mind fashions. Minus tide at sunset creates beautiful reflections of clouds and sun on the wet sand that seem to stretch for miles in every possible direction, almost distorting spacial relationships we take for granted.
I'm horrible so far at clamming but once again, gave me purpose to be outside and one of these days I may get a clam or two.
This evening, I took a few photos then put my phone camera away to just be present in the moment, with myself, with nature, with the evening. I was walking on sand that just hours previous had been covered with water.
I'm part of a very powerful, very beautiful and active world. Pausing to just observe and take it in, to not think or judge, to not decide, parse or analyze, to just be a part, to feel and identify with my place and relation to it all that is good around me.
I will always need to be reminded of my goodness and my inherent relationship to my first family, the world of nature. It really, truly is what connects us all as humans, to ourselves and to our planet.
*****
"The conclusion seems to be that to share in the divine life I must accept the vocation of consciously living in this self-creating universe. . . . [This] means that I need to know something about the whole thing, how it works, how it’s moving, how to take my place in it, make my meaningful contribution to this general improvisation." - Beatrice Bruteau, God’s Ecstasy: The Creation of a Self-Creating World Beatrice Bruteau