Growing Pains

There is a death, a trauma. There was a moment in time that the fade to black was indeed black. The bottom was rock. The darkness was complete. In the middle of the darkness was complete absence. The echo was silent, only the silence echoed. The cry was piercing. The pain excrutiating. The lashes severe, the humiliation, the torture was complete.

There was the beginning of life. The darkness had begun to lift. The oppression continued like humidity in August. The snide comments, the shunning persisted. Inside, the growth had begun. The toddler huddled around the flower. The clumsy walk. The blinking as the sun rose. Dim light, silence replaced by stillness. Renewed self. The boy understanding nothing is real. Self is imagination. Protect the flower. The sunrise glows, the cold is bitter. God touches the flower. The soul awakens. The cry was revealing. The pain was full of awe and wonder.

The boy learns to run. The truth becomes real. The truth becomes the rule. The truth hurts. The truth is turned back as a weapon. Again, the lashes and wounds are complete. Again, the growth continues. Protect the flower, live in the soul. Follow the sunlight. The darkness fades. The boy grows. Turn down the dim of death, raise the noise of love. The cry is relief. The pain is growth.

The adolescent learns to love. Love rejects. Love hurts. The love is a weapon. Unfamiliar. Confusing. The flower shirks. The soul shrinks back. The wounds are remembered. The rejection is loud. The cry clamors. The pain is cacophony. Fear returns

The young man looks old. He long for love. He moves through life cautious and concerned. He feels unseen. The image is regarded as a ghost, as a spector. The energy is drained but never restored. He fights the darkness. He pushes the silence. The fight drains more energy. The wind whistles through the soul. The cry is hollow, the pain is moot.

The man moves through with simple direction. He is predictable and yet mysterious. There is a depth that is untouched. There is a pain that is evident and unexplained. The cry is wanting.

The flower grows, the soul glows. Life is there. The cry is relief, joy, pain, exquisite. The pain is present. A gift of lessons, of growth. The boy smiles

 

reverberation

What cuts your soul?

It seems like the death of a soul is apparent. Suddenly, there is no life. The will is moot. The shoulder slump as if the weight of living is overbearing. There is no chance of continuing on the same path. Movement has stopped. Direction is absent. The soul is dead. Its very apparent when you see it when someone has crashed down. The rock bottom reverberates with excitement as it claims another soul Bewildered and lost, the soulless corpse tries to gather up the misused and recently departed soul as if they were guts spilled in the savages of war. The soul will pretend to return and the corpse will walk again, aimless and lost. The darkness engulfs the being. They become a black hole of existence. A vacuum of life force consumes them and many who get around them. The silence is deafening. They search for giving souls, the extreme light. They devour the light until it cant be repleated, clamoring for more. The rock bottom reverberates some more.

It isn’t the desolate who hold a monopoly on lost souls and rock bottoms. The more adept at living without a soul are the individuals who have more to lose. The successful, rich, famous, beautiful people are much more likely to scoop up the lost and departed soul and try and run.  They scramble and grab whatever is near to fill the whole left. They stuff money and popularity into the vacuous inner self like packing peanuts. The density of the soul is tainted by the empty offering. The Soulless mill around life accumulating more packing peanuts to fill an ever empty soul. They orchestrate large health care deals and billion dollar business deals to fill the dead space. It leeches the light from others around them, gathering souls for the reverberating bottom. Sooner or later, to exist in a world of vacuums, one either absorbed or escapes.

But what cuts the soul?  Death or absence can be easier to see, but what of the injured? What of the ones who ae losing parts of their soul in a long battle to survive and fight the absorption? We try all kinds of things to fight it, we get angry, we get drunk, we get depressed, we isolate. IT becomes paranoia, loneliness, addiction. We have lost the will to fight. We have lost the ability. The soul takes a beating. The soul is cut and bleeding. It cries out. It cries when love ones are hurt and draining. It screams at injustice and pain. It bellows as it hears, feels, sees the receding of the light. The soul fills its own space, but the life warrior is tired. “He walks around like Charlie Brown, full of Hope, eyes to the ground.” . If the bleeding isn’t addressed, the wounds dressed, the soul will weaken. Through the wounds, the soul is vulnerable and drawn out by the vacuums around it. The soul needs nurtured. The soul needs rest. The soul needs fed. The soul needs remembered. The soul needs LOVE.

 

sing it, Love

I do not sing. I have tried to play the piano, guitar, and sax. I have watched countless singing shows and I discovered Train before they were popular. However, my musical acumen consists only of turning on and off the stereo. It is simply not my gift. I have tried to steal it from others, or slip in the circus tent pretending I belong with the musical people. It just isn’t a match. 

These are the reasons I am uncertain why I have become encumbered with a certain preoccupation. I have often thought life would be much easier if we all had theme songs. Perhaps even songs that played in the background to remind us it is a scary or pivotal time in our lives. IT would be great to hear, “You are my Sunshine,” softly playing in the background when you are with someone that touches your heart and soul. Or the “Jaws” theme when you are in danger of an ass chewing at work.

I have been preoccupied with hearing peoples theme song. I think people’s soul sings a tune. I have met people that seem to exude different songs. The turmoil that comes from a soul belting out grunge music is undeniable.

I’ve always wanted to have the soul of a Jack Johnson song. It would be like someone is just comfortable and grooving. They would be answering questions about life and feeling mellow about the answers. I used to try and have the soul of a hair band. I wanted to be cool and dangerous. My soul chaffed with the leather pants and rejected the mullet hair transplants. Sadly, I was never going to be that cool. It is ok, I couldn’t tear the sleeves off my shirts or cut my jeans anyway. My mom said no.

I fit into the 80’s alternative bands for awhile. I brooded and was mysterious. My soul sang of superficial things in a deep way. It was as if my soul was stoned, thinking it had unbundled deep secrets about the universe only to discover that everyone knew that cookie dough was uncooked cookies. The techno beat clattered on.

I tried to fit into the rap scene, but I have just spent too many years trying to keep my underwear hidden. To this day when my underwear shows, I can hear my childhood friends taunting, “I see London, I see France, I see Theran’s underpants…” The baseball hat with the flat brim would also be difficult. I have spent several hours wetting, shaping, even rubber banding the brim of my hat to be perfectly suited for cool and sun protection for my peripheral vision, lest a marauding gang tries to usurp my turf, dance fighting like a Michael Jackson “Beat it” video. 

I decided I wanted to be really cool and decided to treat my soul to blues songs. My soul would wear a fedora, even smoke cigars. Again, my soul seemed to reject this. It got a rash and a nasty smokers cough.

There was a period of time it was the whiny boy music. I lamented all the time. I saw no hope, no future, no love. I have heard the inner music of break-up songs. I have felt alone and isolated. I have felt the insurmountable challenges. I have heard the depressing beats and the dark tunes. I have heard the motivating songs of Survivor, “Eye of the Tiger.” I have surged with power and giggled about irony. I have danced and leapt to the songs that delighted my soul. I have felt the love. I have been touched by the caring and vulnerability. I have communicated and sang the same song as the person next to me. Our souls dancing, our hearts lifted.

Sing a song for me. 

 

sure, but it will cost your soul

“Anger is like spending a piece of your soul,” he said.

I am fascinated with this idea. I have dabbled in the dark art of anger. I have seethed. I have had righteous anger. I have held grudges. I have had resentments. I have flipped people off, cussed people out, held it in, let it out. I dealt in anger like a peddler deals in trinkets. I had some for every occasion. I had so much I wasn’t even aware of some of it.

“So when I feel myself getting angry, I ask myself is it worth spending some of my soul?”

Brilliant. Seeing anger as harmful to ourselves, as costing part of our soul. I used it as a commodity for a long time. However, I felt like it was earning me respect, power, stature. I relished the opportunity to wield it like Conan or the Highlander. The anger hid my fear, my hurt, my pain. The anger protected me from being known. I saved it in my reservoir and would relive it , reuse it when I needed to protect myself. I had gotten to the point that all I had was anger in varying degrees.  Even my humor was sarcasm, or passive aggressive anger. I even had anger directed inward, or depression. It had eaten my soul. My soul looked like Swiss cheese. Hard winds of life would whistle as they blew around me. A haunting hollow sound followed me everywhere.

“When you are angry at yourself, does it cost extra soul?” I pondered

“Resentments are like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.” I mused

“”How do you earn the spent soul back?” I asked out loud.

“Forgiveness”

 

is this my life?

“You will need to fully buy into this for it to work.”

I was being asked to say good bye to my daughter. I was assured it was, “for now,” and hopefully not forever. Right after she said it, the mediator said, “But I would prepare yourself in case she never reconciles with you.”

My heart wept, my soul screamed. It was silent and deafening at the same time.

The parental alienation, whether deliberate or unconscious, was so dramatic and successful. It had worked. Sure, my daughters were angry with me. They deserved to be. I had made mistakes that would forever change their lives. I had hurt them. I have had dreams about the moment that the flash created the forest fire through my façade. I can see it. In my dream, I ignore the sick feeling all over again. It feels like watching a horror movie when you know the axe wielding maniac is in the next room and the buxom blonde it headed to the swinging door. I want to stop myself. I repeat the same mistake over and over. It feels like missing the free throw, the pop fly, the train headed to Clarksville.

I wrote that almost two years ago. My daughter has not spoken to me since, other than to call me names. The news I got recently, is she is no longer made, she just doesn’t care at all. My other daughter has followed her lead and I have spoken to her in 4 months. At one point my older daughter told me, “I will ruin you.” I had no job, was living in the basement of my brothers house, all my friends had left, and she was cussing me out just about daily. I didn’t think it could get worse. It did. She did.

Since then I have changed careers three times, houses 7 times, and 3 different states. I have loved again, and I think it was a deeper love than I have ever felt. I have persevered. I have been steadfast.

I was listening to the Talking Heads the other day. The song that talks about “this is not my beautiful life…” came on. I have had this unshakeable feeling that I am living the wrong life. Don’t get me wrong, the life I was leading was not the right life either. I had to fake it to be there and when I tried to be real, I was rejected. I have made bad choices and pursued things that, in hindsight, are not near as important to me as I thought. I have moved away. I am in a strange land. The rules are very different in this town than anywhere I have ever been. The weather feels different. The house I live in still feels like someone elses. I keep waiting for something to feel normal and solid. I am trying to hold on to clouds. The state of Idaho has so many restrictions on me, my time isn’t my own. My meetings feel different and strange. The priorities are different. My best friend in NM no longer communicates with me. I don’t know anyone. I don’t feel accepted or comfortable with anyone but myself.

I yelled at God today. I asked that my kids and my friend are protected and safe. I want them to have the best for them, with or without me. And then I ask for me to be able to believe the prayer. I yelled that I don’t need to know why, but could I please know when? When will the pain stop, when will the ruin be rebuilt, when can I see my friend, when will this feel like my life?

my soul weeps, my heart screams. Silence.

then an inaudible whisper. Not really a sound, but more of a glow.

 

icon spins

And the icon spins in my brain.

Ever feel like your brain and heart and soul are asked to spin like the waiting icon? Like there is just something loading up in the database of that part of your psyche? I have become conditioned to that icon and feel like time moves double quick. Every second stretches out into 2, it feels like hours when seconds have passed. I see the icon and I immediately become frustrated and impatient. My brain goes into thinking it is a race car at a starting line with a sluggish green light. I struggle to not worry about the future and dwell on the mistakes of the past. My brain creates stories and lies. My brain fantasizes about a better and worse past. It creates a slew of outcomes, both glorious and tragic. It creates stories that contradict. In the seconds that it spins, I am confused, lost, almost desperate for reality. My brain stumbles to regain balance.

And the icon spins in my heart.

My heart leaps at the feeling of intimacy and love. It craves to be recognized. It longs to be met with another heart. My heart wants to be held, and danced with, and loved. Not even the romantic love, but the love that endures. The love that disagrees and compromises. The love that can grow and learn, change and adapt. When I feel empty or lost, my heart longs even more. I seem unable to feel that from myself and God. It struggles to recognize self worth. It takes the small, insignificant events and exaggerates them. My heart takes the spinning icon to feel bad about its inability to fly free.

And the icon spins in my soul.

MY soul longs to be a child of God. I remind myself of platitudes through the day. I pray and meditate. I speak of the power and love of God. There have been times, I felt as though my soul strolled with God in the garden of my mind and heart. I could feel the nurturing and love. I have felt blessed, cared for, and in contact. There are also times that I cannot see or feel God at work. I search for Him, and end up doubting He exists. My soul aches to feel it again. It pauses. In the time it takes for the icon to spin, the clouds move in and it darkens.

And the icon stops.

I begin the process of restructuring my brain, heart, and soul. I have followed the steps illuminated from the darkness. I have talked to counselors, moved states, began a new career, made tough choices to love despite the pain. I have faced my insecurities and condemning self talk. I have stood back up and declared that I am in the minute, a child of Love, and a child of God. I have taken the next step in faith, stepping from the darkness into the darkness, knowing it would be light soon.

The icon will return, but I get better and better at understanding it is not evil, but inevitable. The icon is the time that life takes, and I can live in those moments as well. Waiting is not waste, but life. In those moments, I can stop the voices. I have begun to know that I am present, loved, and that I fly.