Sadness and Cold Rain

Monday, April 28, 2014

I was hoping today would be an easy day.  It wasn’t.  It was probably, yet again, a confluence of factors that caused me to feel so sad.

First of all there is the weather.  If springs here in Minnesota continue to be as lame as the only two I have experienced thus far I think I would want to move away for this reason alone.  It’s almost May and we have experienced a very cold rain coming down in occasional torrents since yesterday.  Yes, the days are much longer now but this feels like small comfort considering how brisk the persistent east wind is.  I am ready for true spring weather.

The second factor was my seemingly innocuous work tasks for the day.  I spent part of the day wrapping packages for the upcoming hospice gala fundraiser.  There was one basket full of cute plush monkeys with smiles on their faces.  Another basket featured a baby blanket with children’s books.  I actually had to step away because I felt as if I was going to cry at one point.  Seeing all these cute, smiling monkeys just caused me to think of how I went to the dentist this morning to wisely invest my attention in taking care of my teeth.  These are the teeth I don’t show very much because I do not smile as much as I would like to.  I would like to smile more. I would like to have more fun.  But before I smile more I suppose I will have to work through my dense grief.

I felt so sad throughout the day.   At one point I felt the texture of the baby blanket and imagined the blessing it would have been to have always had a mother available to me throughout my earliest years who was healthy, balanced and nurturing.  I was fortunate to have other women in my life who did provide me care and kindness.  But as far as my most immediate home environment I did not enjoy the blessing of a consistently present mother.  I wish I had.  I may be a forty year old man but the sadness from the trauma in my childhood hasn’t completely healed.  I wonder how long it will take me to traverse the terrain of my inner world and purge the grief I have carried for so long.

I am happy to be working again.  More days than not I enjoy the work I do.  That is a big blessing in itself.  I am looking forward to seeing the results of all our work come Friday, May 9^th.

I wish I could feel as if it were possible to have a healthy relationship with my father.  But I have given up on that dream.  It isn’t a realistic dream.  My father seems to be too afraid of his deepest feelings and wounds to ever give himself permission to explore them.  That is his immense loss.  And it is an immense loss to all who are connected to him. 

It’s strange how it has not even been a year since my whole old life disintegrated and I discovered I had still not fully healed from the trauma of my earliest years.  And thus I went through the anger, terror, anxiety and pain yet again.  I will not make this journey again.  I want to deal with that which still haunts (and has haunted) me now.  The time to heal is now.  My personal journey of healing will remain my first priority until I am done with the journey.  I still do not know how long it will ultimately take for me to heal.  I feel well underway now.  And yet it seems there is still such a long way to go.  There are days when I wonder why I get up in the morning and keep trying to improve my life.  In some respects it seems my life has changed very little since last June.  Indeed, I am still dealing with the consequences of some of my decisions I made last June.  I want to be free of the painful undertow of my earliest years of life.  When will I attain my complete freedom?

I occasionally have the feeling of being an isolated person whose voice is like one crying out in the wilderness.  Some days I have overly morbid thoughts about how I will be remembered once I have passed away.  These are dark thoughts for a forty year old man in basically good physical health to be having.  But there they are.  I cannot deny I have them.

I hope one day this long therapeutic journey will prove its worth.

If you are reading my blog and have found it of benefit I would really appreciate a supportive comment now.  I’d like to believe that what I am doing is making a difference in the world.



Five Things I Am Grateful For

Flirting with a cute neurologist
Healthy teeth
Ben and Jerry's ice cream
Green grass
My enjoyment of writing