Truly there are times when my being feels like it will collapse with the weight of my worries and stressors. However, I have gotten exceptionally skilled at breathing and thinking of something else, and my goal is to make a kind of art out of it. The lowest times in my life are when my sensitivity forces me to feel another person’s self loathing and I pray and I pray and I pray. I feel that I almost never cry. When my grandmother passed away, I was told through a text message from across the country, and I cried then. Not a small cry, but actual heaving sobs and I could hardly stop myself. I loved my grandmother, but I think I will be so bold to say that she did not know how to best love me, and I wonder if the sadness she felt toward her lack of connection was part of why she eventually died. No one would actually say that; doctors said it was cancer. But cancer is what the body does when it begins to reject and attack a part of itself. If the grandmother is the body, then the grandchildren become an extension of its life, and if the body doesn’t favor a part of itself, or if it’s being gradually convinced it doesn’t, then the body will die. Its spirit leaves and only the framework remains, though hidden.
It’s the weight of the things of the world that obscure the framework of the family, though people will excuse it with belief or anger or loyalty to other things. Years ago Tina told me that my life at that point was “full.” I didn’t hear it at the time, because she pronounced “full” like the word “fool” and I laughed internally! Would that my life had been full of its miseries and sorrows and worldview at age twenty. I never wanted to become conservative or moderate or liberal or anything. Just wanted to be myself, and like many, not get old too quickly or forsake too much. Looking back on your life is an incredible ager, and the subject of past life and love is so tender I dare not breach it fully. Common sense dictates that.
I am alive by the grace of God, or by the love that has loved me whose memory keeps my heart alive and beating and able to give. Formerly I would argue that those two were the same thing but my understanding has grown and expanded to include all parts of myself.
I think the best we can do is alleviate as much suffering as possible, and only when possible. “Serviam.” “Non Ministrari sed Ministrare.” I am trying. In helping others I have experienced the presence of God and the rekindling of faith. I will not let deception in again. I know right from wrong. And I am ready to face any part of the world I wished not to face.
Maybe then the parts of me that feel sort of raw and dangling can come together and heal. I miss my friend. And for several years I have only allowed myself one. I hope and pray that the world will open back up for me in the spirit of promise and future.
Erika
