beyond emptiness

I keep thinking about how we are coming up on four months.  That is hardly any time.  It seems like a thousand years.  I constantly recognize the need to redefine myself...a "solo" mom now...I need to focus on the balance between remembering John and keeping him with us and allowing myself to move on.  Neil just came to me a couple minutes ago with his lovey blanket that he calls Bee and told me that Bee is special...because Daddy got it for him.  I told him his daddy loves him, and he told me "No, daddy died".  I told him that he still loves him, even if he is dead.  It is balance again....

I thought about starting smoking again, but I don't want to mess with my ability to sing...I got earrings for all my cartilage piercings, and am wearing my belly button ring again.  I am contemplating another tattoo, one on my arm, that can't be hidden...something like a lotus flower, to remind myself of the ability of beauty to grow out of muck, a red one to symbolize love and compassion. Or a buddah knot...

 I know that most of us are on the same sort of quest, I just feel like my whole life has been a journey of searching for strength and for love. 

And I mean from the outside and inside...I think that is one of many reasons my weight is making me crazy right now- I love feeling strong and I just feel fat right now...my difficulty sleeping and whatever else is making me even gain weight when ever since John went into hospice, I haven't been able to eat like I used to.  I want to feel strong and beautiful, and I know that I need those things in order to move forward in a healthy way, in order to find love again...it is so damned ethereal with me...it is there and gone and I never know what will make either happen, not really...and now,some old friends have brought to my attention in a way I can't ignore that perhaps I am actually good looking...perhaps I was (am??) even beautiful...but I cannot find a way to separate that from the 60 extra pounds...that is a lot!  And nothing I do makes it go away...and I don't know why I am obsessing about it so much...I guess I was scared that John wouldn't even want me with the extra weight, and he knew what I looked like at my strongest, so how can I believe someone who doesn't know me that well, didn't see me through that stage, will think I am beautiful and sexy now??? 

And I remember, mostly everything is about attitude.  believe it, and being it will follow, one way or another...so I am working on it...

Then there are the practical things.  Things like, I need to get a brake light for the van, and haven't.  I just found out a tire has a slow leak and I should have gone to take care of that today.  Didn't.  The front of one of the drawers broke off Cilly's dresser- nails are poking out, and it is not a matter of glue or shove it back on.  The wood snapped, and there is no puzzle fit to try and force.  It broke.  I don't know how to fix it or what to do- do I get rid of the whole thing and get another?  It is big!  How do I get it out?  When?  If I do, what do I get in replacement?

And I smiled a lot at people in school this morning...I had to go in and do sub plans because Neil couldn't go to daycare today.  Her son is very ill...and I couldn't find any back up to help out today, so I had to take a sick day.  Which was okay.  But it was another "boot to the head" slamming me in the face with "John is gone". 

The Buddah Knot: Eternal Love and Friendship

the endless cycle of suffering or birth, death and rebirth within Tibetan Buddhism.

The inter-twining of wisdom and compassion.

Interplay and interaction of the opposing forces in the dualistic world of manifestation, leading to their union, and ultimately to harmony in the universe.

The union of wisdom and method.

The inseparability of emptiness (shunyata) and dependent origination, the underlying reality of existence.

Symbolic of knot symbolism in linking ancestors and omnipresence

Since the knot has no beginning or end it also symbolizes the wisdom of the Buddha

A friend said that I seemed happier to him than I have been.  I don't know that it is happy.  I looked up bulimia, to see what that was about, I want surgery to help make me smaller...I want out of this body, I want muscle and youth and hope and laughter...and I want love.  All I ever wanted was a safe place to love, where love was given and love ruled...not fear and judgement and hatred (either self or other), and in so many ways I had that with John.  I didn't really believe it existed.  And now I just feel so confused.  Because I know what a shit storm it can be out there, trying to find someone to connect to.  I have lost the place in the world where I am the most important person in someone's existence.  And I feel like someone put blinders on me...because I don't even know which way to move.  And I tell myself that not enough time has passed...it's okay to be alone and lost for a while.  But because of my personal baggage, my history, I need to keep facing forward.  Because my heart has always known what I want is connection.  Life, verbal abuse, poor choices, alcohol, self doubt, all these and more tried to beat that desire out of me.  But I would not give up hope.  That is why I say I am a warrior.  You can push me, to the brink, even, of extinction.  I will be afraid, angry, I will harbor self hatred...and I will never stop trying.  Life is a bowl of shit.  And it is also an amazingly wonderful gift...there is so much beauty, even inside pain...because in pain, there is a bridge to connection to someone else...and that is all there is...connection.  And it doesn't exist without acknowledging it.  It doesn't exist without fighting for it.

We only live once.  If we are lucky, we hurt and love and change and grow over and over and over again.  I wish with all my heart I could have done more of those things with John, but I am SO glad I had him while I did....so glad. 

If he is out there, listening, I hope beyond everything I believe that he helps to guide me somewhere that my love and desire won't lead me to emptiness, but beyond it....