Looking Back One Year Ago: May 20, 2013

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

My writing one year ago today...

Day 8

Das Wetter ist jetzt wieder kalt...es wird wahrscheinlich spaeter regen. Es gibt so viel die ich erzaehlen konnte. Das wird bald genug kommen. Interessant wie leicht es ist, wieder auf Deutsch zu sprechen.


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I did not have much to say last year on this date so I will share something I wrote on the bus on the way to work this morning:

Last night I felt myself in the thick of my grief again.  Some days it is obvious to me what the trigger was that causes me to suddenly feel adrift among the ‘high seas’ of my grief.  On other days the clarity of insight feels a bit elusive.  But regardless of how clearly I can understand what causes me to find myself suddenly feeling caught in cascading waves of grief I do almost always have one question omnipresent in my mind when I feel the grief is upon me: ‘How in the world did I come to find myself in this place?’  In other words I sometimes feel that it simply cannot be possible that I am experiencing what I am going through.

Last night I dug up a photo of myself from 1977.  I turned 4 in September of that year.  I know the photograph was taken in Germany.  I do not know what the circumstances were that led my father to take a trip to Germany at that time.  My understanding is that that time must have been close to the dissolution of my parents’ marriage.  It still feels very strange to me when I ponder how so much grief got trapped inside my little child body…only to emerge over three decades later.  Little children should never be asked to carry such a leaden load of pain and suffering.

Nearly a year after the events of last summer led me to embark on a new direction I still find there are some days in which I feel ambivalent about continuing to remain dedicated to my therapeutic journey.  I want to continue to heal and create a rewarding life for myself.  But I find the process arduous at times because the process does demand a lot of me.  Being willing to rethink the future of my life, finally seeing the patterns that have played out too many times in my past relationships and being willing to prune my life of all that no longer serves me are not small tasks.  These tasks demand a courage and detachment from ego that many people will not muster…even if their very lives depend on doing so (as sometimes they do).

I can feel grateful that I have at least reached the developmental point where I can speak of my feelings and yet not feel owned by them.  True emotional health requires that we not be ruled by our feelings.  At least that is what I have come to believe.  A healthy question you can pose to yourself is this: ‘Am I having my feelings or are my feelings having me?’