something for my pocket.

i have promised myself to stay with myself through this gritty, grimy time full of longing and edginess and angst and opening and shedding and sorting and all the other things that are swirling in my center.

an anniversary holds me this week, this month..hell, the last couple of months.

it surprises me how strongly things are affected by things that go unresolved.

o, sisters. where are you? i've lost my threads to family. and. i. don't. know.where.to. go. from. here.

it makes me want to move. literally. move. leave this address, tear up these roots and kiss goodbye all that's behind me and start fresh. new. somewhere else. someone else.

i've done that before. it doesn't make it the wrong choice for the situation at hand, but it does require a second look. at least i will say that i have earned some wisdom along the way.

so. i. stay. for now. until the clouds part and things come a little clearer.

it's not just this. or them. though, the losses are immeasurable and influence every small thing, i am certain.

it is impossible to find my center right now.

returning to the tribe, to witness, to sense, to courageously linger at the trembling....this is all i remember to do.

firecrackers are going off. i feel like a bird who has mistakenly nested in the iron embrace of a cannon's interior, assuming the wars are over. sleep, little bird....rest and watch the dazzle of the sky and feel how soft your heart beats..then, boom! feathers and bones and bits of me and fragments of song splashed like sickness all over the trees. it's a mess. more and more. it's a mess.

but, here's the thing.

sitting with it and looking in the details of the smashings and shatterings....things change. Nothing is static that is paid attention to. Everything changes and shifts, if even in the smallest of ways.

this is where Pema Chodron bears her guileless smile and reminds me to "lean in". yes, feel the sharp edge tug through your skin and yes, feel the blood trickle out and down your body and yes, feel the pain and yes, feel the fear and anguish and yes, feel the space around it grow larger and yes, feel that it, too, is moving into something else. it is the holding back that hurts us most. it is the denying what we feel that deals us the worst blow.

i lean in.

I feel confusion spin in my body. I don't know where to be. I don't know who I belong to. I don't know why I am here. I don't know why I matter. I don't know how I got here. I don't know why I am so angry. or sad. or frustrated or lost. or confused.

I am judging myself for this experience. I allow it.

I am bored with hearing myself whine. I allow it.

I am sick and tired of "working" at feeling like a healthy, happy and "normal" person. I allow it.

I am in physical pain. I allow it. I accept it.

I allow and I accept.

I feel grouchy and prickly and I am afraid of interacting with people today because I feel like this. I accept this.

I don't want to be my own friend today, I wonder why anyone else would want to be. I accept this.

I'm tired. I'm in pain. I'm stuck. I feel unloveable. ok. ok. ok.

bigger than these cries of woe, is a larger something that has the capacity to smile and wink and lift me up into arms that already know that everything is just fine. I allow this. I accept this.

It's ok for me to spin a little out of control.

it's ok for me to wobble and feel dark , sticky things.

i still am loveable.

i still can love myself.

i'll sit just outside the door for the parts when things are being hurled across the room.

but, from that place, I'll keep listening and sliding love notes under the door.

" dearest,

it is ok that you are mad as a hornet and sad and afraid and changeable and unpredictable. I know you got some stuff that's working through you and it's healing you. you're in the ring with some pretty big monsters and all i see is you holding your own. i'm right here. i've got your back. i don't love you any less because you show your teeth and feel into the holiness of that rage that's finally sprouting from the soil. you've been working for this. what feels like a reckoning is a reclamation. other people might not get that at all, my friend, but i do. i do. this is big and this is good. keep growling. keep tearing at the floorboards. keep howling and swimming in tears. you are immersed in the journey of thriving. i believe in you. i love you."