Things have felt……peculiar lately.
I’ve been feeling that half here, half not here feeling. But not the pulverized half here half not here feeling of a year ago, this one is different. I’ve been feeling unsettled. A bit disconnected. Pain, my long time reliable compass, no longer rules my existence. Read more
I had gotten through Father’s Day without much flinching. These milestones, or non-milestones, depending upon how you look at it seem to, in me lately, provoke the question: Does it get easier, or am I getting stronger? Read more
“Happy Mother’s Day!” my spin class instructor called out.
I lurched to attention, having been yanked from my “spinning zone”. This weeks’ class had given me time to think and engorge my lungs with prana after a week of little physical activity. Visions for my future, for this life I didn’t chose, had finally started to creep in and I used the class to focus on them. And I was feeling GOOD.
“Happy Mother’s Day to you all!” she called out again. It was only Wednesday. Read more
I found myself pondering one morning as I took a step back for a broader view of the organic holy war that bubbles through my insides. The “answers” were easily forthcoming. Read more
The flickering candle light bounced off the twilit room as sounds of festive chatter surfed through the air. Just as I sat down again at “my” table, my behavior voice beckoned. “Come on S, you’ve got to get to ALL of your guests.” I rose up and dragged myself through the warm, celebratory party space.
As is common with someone who has been traumatized, the gut instinctively pulls you to where you are safe and away from where you may not be. And as is common for someone with such prolonged visceral experiences, remembering to think at all is your version of an afterthought. Read more
It was a Sunday. January 3rd, 2016, to be precise. Sarah Chamberin, 43, sat in her Long Island living room, gratefully absorbing the post – holiday shift. “Ahh, there, THAT’S better,” Chamberlin, an infertility survivor who had just gotten through her second holiday season without her children, said as she inhaled the open space now free from the holiday bombardment of forced splendor. With all Christmas paraphernalia removed, Chamberlin looks ahead. “You know what I like? Mondays. That’s what.” Read more
I’m not a big movie person. I confess I typically stick to my usual action and comedy genres – James Bond and the American Pie series are some of my favorites, to give you an idea. So when my husband, who rode horses throughout his childhood, and I sat down to watch The Horse Whisperer a few nights ago, I was expecting a good movie with beautiful cinematography and that’s about it.
Well.
About halfway through I started releasing full body sobs. The same again ¾ of the way through. Not the kind where, after a poignant scene tears seep gently from one’s eyelids. No, not that kind at all. It was the kind where you experience something so connective it’s as if you are witnessing the very core of your being in movie form. The kind where, at the end of the movie, you are gasping for air because the impact of its significance stole your breath.
“They – got – everything – I – don’t – know – how- they – did – that” were some of the first words I choked out, hoping to offer some explanation to my sweetly abiding husband. Read more
A flashback to this past June, I guess this should have been part 1. But that’s not how I roll.
This past late spring, a peculiar thing started to happen. My physical symptoms of the losses and trauma I had endured started to wane while the “typical” on goings of life became less of an abrasion to my nervous system.
Whispers of normalcy shone through as if they were new inventions. One day while food shopping, my first reaction to a baby crying on and on in Whole Foods was an internal affectionate “aw, someone’s having a fussy day”. It was only 20 minutes later I started to become mildly triggered, which was hardly noticeable in the face of the absence of the gut wrenching feelings of death and despair a baby’s cry used to incite. Read more
In the ether between excitement and despair there is a deep ravine. A ravine where you can lie dazed as a weighty inertia engages its claws with a Venus fly trap like cunningness.
In theoretical terms, healing is positive and exciting, the bearer of long-awaited ease, a blanket of comfort offering a Mother Theresa like energy.
Those of us who have had to actually do it know better. Read more
Dear Self,
Please don’t forget. You are not living the life you chose. Read more
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