Hold The Line

Summer. The kids are out of school. Routines and schedules get hazy. There is more time for play and connection. Hard lines soften, and I feel it happening inside of me as well.

I went camping with some friends the other weekend. Sitting around the campfire, under the late night sky, with the murmur of rushing waters of the creek nearby, one friend asked, “So, I have a question for you guys. What do you think happens after we die?” 

My answer came right away. “I don’t really know. I feel okay with whatever. Sometimes I feel like we might remain forever, in some capacity. That maybe our consciousness remains in whatever form we take next, wherever that will be…maybe we’ll know each other. Other times, I think we may just disappear, but I’m not scared of that. It kind of  sounds relieving, to just be done. Either way, I don’t feel worried at all about that part - the slipping into the beyond part. I am scared of the pain at the end, like, the physical pain of my body dying. That’s what scares me.”

The thought stayed with me throughout the week, because it’s been a theme of late in some of my inward journeys. My attachment to this earthly body. My fear in losing control of it. My fear of temporal pain, and an indifference to forever. 

A few days later, in the shower, where a lot of my revelations seek me out, I had a download. Here it is… When I was seven years old, I watched my mom die of bone cancer. When I was just in second grade, I watched her body wither away to almost nothing, down to skin and bone. I was helpless to alleviate her pain, and her pain was extreme. I remember being alone with her towards the end of her illness. She asked me to uncross her legs because the position was hurting her so badly. As soon as I touched her skin, anguish coursed out of her. I ran, terrified, across the hall to the neighbors to get help, and paralyzed, I watched as they situated her body. 

This memory, among many others, surrounding her cancer and schizophrenia, imprinted in me, when I was just a child. That imprint has morphed and stretched as I’ve aged, and I’ve found salves to lighten the scars, but nonetheless, it’s mark was etched into the terrain of my perceptions.

This past week, I had the opportunity to share this realization with my friends from the campfire, and it broke me open. I told them, “I have no worries or stress about my mom now, not at all. I just know she’s fine, wherever she is, if she is. I think that’s why I’m not worried about after this life. But it was really hard to watch her die. That was really scary.” I held my face in my hands, as they held my body. I wept fiercely as their loving words washed over me.

My husband later told me that from his outside perspective, it was like I was experiencing those emotions for the first time. I think he was right. Adult me had to let down my walls to allow this little girl the attention and care she really needed, that she’s been needing, for so long. To give my little girl inside the space to speak out and take up space. To allow her to feel everything she was feeling. To allow her to be seen and loved, as she is. To allow her to receive care.

That release was intense. What was exposed was far too true, far too deep, to say out loud and keep myself together, at the same time. 

I’m realizing that this theme echoes into other areas of my life. Especially when it comes to love. I am seeing I have so much love inside me. So much love to give, and such deep desires to be loved. To draw in, and be drawn in. Love and desire, so true and deep, I keep tampered down, because if I were to express it outside of myself, I would not be able to “keep myself together”. Meaning that, in order to keep myself together, I have to keep myself in, and everyone else out. The expression of that love is more than we’ve been conditioned to handle. The full expression of that love, and the need for love in return, requires an open handedness, a vulnerability, a humility, a laying open of our heart. There is so much risk of pain in this. So, instead, I’ve strategized, maneuvered and rationalized my way out and away.

The protector in me does not want to love if it means also feeling the pain of the departure of that love. On the other side, I do not want to be loved or needed so much that the leaving of my love would be painful to someone else. I feel this acutely when it comes to my daughters. There is a part of me that rationalizes my withholding of love as protection for them, but I’m starting to see that this disconnection from love is THE pain.

There are two sides of this discovery for me. One is that, in truth, I am no longer that 7 year old girl. My mind, emotional body, and environment are not of that little girl’s. So much has changed since then.

But the other thing is that there is a part of me that remembers the pain, viscerally, in my cellular memory, from an age when I did not have tools to rationalize and soothe. So… 

I am reminding myself I have survived love given and love withdrawn, and the cycle of death/burial/resurrection, over and over again. I am reminding myself that the loss of love is not nearly as painful as the unnecessary suffering that happens when I disconnect and isolate myself for fear of the loss of love. I am reminding myself that I have a choice in who I am for myself and others, and I want to be a haven. A safe place to rest and lay down the baggage, the personas, the mechanisms we use to “keep it together”, a space of respite from the work of protecting. I can only be that for others, if I am that for myself. I am reminding myself that as much as I hurt and protect, so do others, and we can only meet as far as we allow ourselves. I am reminding myself that it just takes one person laying down their guard, offering peace and safety for this allowing, and I can be that person. I am reminding myself that this world is full and abundant, and there is enough room for all of me.

It is so difficult to hold the line. To keep everything in, and everyone out. That tension is almost unbearable at times. There is so much pain in the stories of our mind. That pain, from old, past wounds, can feel so real, so alive, so much like it’s happening now. We have so many pain points that keep us guarded from connection with each other. 

I am so grateful that I started this blog. I am so grateful that I decided at some point, to whatever level I was able, that I was done with the pantomime. I was done slapping the makeup on, forcing the smile on, and pretending I’ve climbed out of a box when I really felt trapped inside it. I’m so grateful that I experimented with opening my heart, feeling, expressing, loving, receiving. I am so grateful that it is still unfolding. I am grateful for the small progressions and revelations that keep me soft in the midst of the unknowing. 

“This is where love and truth come together - the more truthful you are, the more connected you feel. And the more connected you feel, the more truthful you want to be.” - Adyashanti

This path is windy and full of surprises. Infinitely inward, and infinities outward.

I am wishing you abundance in love and connection on your path, my friends. Truly. May you love. May you be loved. As fully as you’re able in this moment.

l o v e ,

lisa