For John and Jacqueline I can

Four years
and my veil is lifted
gently

It seems like I haven't
been able to really
breathe

till now

and now that I can,
the colors are coming back
the pain pricks sharper,
shorter

and oh!
but I shake my head
at the foolish things
I have done

I notice the crowd
surrounding me
and see
how few of them
can even pretend
to understand

and I can hear
hear her
hear her reaching from my heart
down my throat into my soul

some mystical version
of vine like self
I hear her
whispering my need
to be
kind, brave

and the wind taps my shoulder
so I turn my head

oh, yes.  Yes, that honors them too

I must also be kind and brave
for Me

brave enough

This grief thing is an emotion with the energy source belonging to a super villain in some show like Flash.  It really feels like it never ends.

It feels like I have a cord
and that cord is
unplugged

or perhaps, if not unplugged,
someone attempted to make a type 1 plug fit

into a type 2 socket

So close.  But it hurts
and bends
and people
they start to judge you
for not fitting in
they point out every single time
you don't work right

And there's nothing to ground you
no where to recharge

Except it is my heart
my soul
the tips of tired, sacred parts of me
that are disconnected

so much so
I don't know
that I even remember
how to see me.

People search for purpose
make goals
strive for success
and ladder climbing
trophies
and wins

The only thing that makes sense
to me
is a purpose contained
in connections

the light
and the dark
loving each other
loving me

wrapping us all in swirling majestic
dichromatic rainbows
twisting themselves out of half hidden prisms

There is no win or lose
no ladder that does not
eventually
break down
to mulch

I'm trying to open my windows
to let the light AND
the dark in
learn to swim in the seas of  saturated
luminosity
without twisting
so fast in the winds of change
that I choke.


*Note:  I'm striving for a "happy ending"...although our ends are all the same.  I keep asking myself if I can just give up on love...if I can accept a life of just my kids, both blood and classroom.  Because of everything, THEY are my purpose, my blessing, my gratitude.  However, I know that living only for the children sets a bad example.  You can drown and come to hate yourself, which is not a thing to model for growing humans.  They learn SO very much from what and how we do, that what we say is close to irrelevant.  So...how do I DO this right?  I do not know.  I thought I was finding my way.  I went from barely being able to breathe, to thinking I had found a path, to being sucker punched and all of a sudden hurting more than ever.  I realized then, I was breathing fine...so I hadn't slid far backwards.  It's just that now that I can breathe, I can also see all the things that surround me.  I see loving and distant friends...and I see clearly how much I want a partner and a lover...and how I accept that as okay and healthy.  And I see, too clearly, how difficult that path will be to find...I'm keeping the directions for everything now...my kids, my pets, myself, my household, my job...and in the juggling I am dropping.  In the dropping, I am tripping.  And it is hard, so hard, to get up for the 6,124th time.  But, after laying in the dirt for a while, there is nowhere to go, but up.

So...

I ask for help.  There is no lesson more valuable to model for my children than basic humility.