transcending the obstacle

Ive been avoiding my blog for some time, like the plague. So much has happened. I blog because for me its a release. Its everything that I cant say or wont say. Its a tunnel for every thought I have been churning my way through however big or small.

I'm scared. This is really happening and I'm scared. I want to erase it all. I want to take his pain away, I want to take my brothers pain away, I want to take my pain away. I want to be able to create a spreadsheet in excel, work my way through the problem and fix it. I have a problem and I need the solution. This is the way my mind works. Two plus two equals four.

I'm learning that it is only with matters of the mind that two and two can ever equal four. When it comes to matters of the heart there is no reason, no rhyme, no rhythm. There is no formula, no code, no way to make sense of it really. It has been very difficult for my pragmatic mind to let go of this. To stop searching for answers. There are none. There is no question 'why?' Letting go of this has made my life so much easier. Less complicated. Stop trying to rationalize what is happening to you. Whatever will be, will be. My mother used to always say that.

Life can certainly be unfair. But there is no reason why some people and some families have awful things happen to them and why some are blessed and do not. I used to look down on these people at one time. They have no idea how hard life is, poor bastards. Naive little shitheads have no clue what is in store for them. Now I'm just happy for them that they don't. How beautiful to be able to hang onto your innocence.

When I stopped asking myself how come? Why me? Why now? Why us? This is when I really began to live. It is an almost certainty that you will drive yourself crazy if you wrap your sanity and your entire being around the answers to these. Your heart very quickly will harden and become bitter.

I look back on my life and I have no clue who the girl I used to be is. I don't know that girl anymore. I'm glad I have lost sight of her. I am now the person I always wanted to be, always saw myself as being capable of in my own head. I lived my life in a turtle shell. Only popping my head out occasionally to see what was around. I was cold, completely shut off. I was mean and used words to intentionally cut people. I was certain everyone was out to get me and I was hellbent on winning, so I would hurt them first. I ran away from any relationship that had any depth. The feeling of closeness to any one person petrified me. I couldn't cry. I just didn't. Even if I wanted to. I couldn't connect with that part of my inner being. In the rare event that I was discussing anything about myself with another I couldn't look them in the eyes, and they couldn't touch me. Those were the rules. I would stiffen up, every muscle becoming tense if someone touched me. It made me uncomfortable. I couldn't say 'I love you' to anyone. My heart was solid and my soul petrified.

I'm not sure of the exact day when I took my heart off the ice block I had it sitting on. It was certainly a gradual process, its still a work in process. Undoubtedly my biggest eye opener was loosing my mother. That catastrophic event in my life forced me to look in the mirror. Once she was gone, I had a million emotions that had been stirred up. Suddenly I had a tornado of different thoughts and feelings that I had to try to make sense of. When I couldn't make sense of them is when I turned to the tequila. Which is when I lost myself. I didn't know how to feel, or hope or love. When I lost the most important woman in my life I was forced to feel and that I didn't know how to do. That I did not want to know how to do.

Then my dad got sick and I thought I would surely crumble. I was certain I would. I was sad at first, for a while. I drank a lot. And then I literally made the decision not to allow myself to be sad anymore. It was at the end of February, I had been living at home for a few weeks. It was after my fathers second chemo treatment didn't work and we looked at the CT scan and saw that his tumors were simply everywhere. On the hour drive home I was heartbroken, we just rode in silence. When we went home I got my dad settled and then took a shower. I got in, grabbed the wall and immediately collapsed down to my knees. As the water ran over me I allowed my heart to cry. It was the kind of cry that runs so deep that no sound comes out. With both hands on my head, rocking back and forth I finally allowed myself to connect with my fears. I sat there for quite some time. I sat there long after I stopped crying. I was reeling from the fact I was capable of that sort of release. I had never cried for more than a few seconds at a time, sober. I felt alive for the first time in a long time, maybe ever. After some time I got myself up, got dressed and made dinner. When I went to bed that night I made the decision to make a change in my life. I made the decision to be in the drivers seat of my own life. To experience it in all its beauty and despair. I had shed my old being with the person I would become. I made the decision to transcend my obstacles and just live.