Go ahead and cry

I was ready to write a post last night.  I had the blog open and was rereading your last post.  Then my youngest came downstairs and wanted to talk and hang out.  She took priority.  By the time she was tired, I was exhausted.  Then today, I have had a few cancellations in my schedule - so here I am!

To start - I read an essay this morning, and have been thinking about it ever since.  It was written by a woman who was talked into having weight loss surgery.  It was medically successful. She really thinks about what happened to her and what it means.

The essay:

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/losing-180-pounds-really-does-body-8212-160-163900419.html

She wrote:

The problem was that I lost all those pounds, but I didn't have to change a thing about my self. I didn't have to address any of the emotional or psychological issues. I didn't have to figure out why I had been depressed - why I was still so, so depressed, despite the fact that the one thing I thought had been ruining my life was suddenly gone.
  -Jen Larsen

Emotions are a gift...


You said you sat and cried.  Crying is so cleansing.  Being able to feel and release the sadness, the loneliness, the pain is such a gift.  I always feel so much better after a crying session.  But it's emotion, feeling it, reliving maybe - it's the gift of walking back through the pain and surviving, realizing it wasn't fair.  Understanding that the things that were done to us, or that we witnessed were wrong and bad and it was not our fault.

I loved the paragraph above in the essay.  This woman did not walk through the pain.  Instead she allowed the current powers-that-be to create a beautiful facade.  It's like when we were growing up looking nice for the public.  We were the All-American family.  This woman is now acceptable to society...

I was skinny, finally, and I was fascinated by the physicality of it. It was like my skeleton had floated up to the surface from the bottom of a murky pond. I had muscles and tendons and bones and in the shower I'd soap the ridges of my ribs, the knobs of my hipbones, and be amazed to make their acquaintance. 
  -Jen Larsen

And this paragraph really excited me because she is describing the swamp.  I am seeing the image over and over again, in other people's psyches.  Maybe Brene identified a sort of archetype...can a landscape be an archetype?  Or do we need a new word?  What I recognize is that we need to walk away from the swamp - gracefully and with great strength.  It's not enough to emerge and float around.  It's just a first step!


I took a walk in the cold air yesterday, and considered the power of the written word.  I considered how some best-sellers have changed the way people think.  I think we have that in us.  I think maybe that's what we do next.  (Note my hedge - maybe...possibly...I'm not using my strength or grace at the moment!)  I do know we have something to say.  And if we can redefine the way society has taught us to think, then you can walk back into those separate offices and people will see the big picture.  People will understand how it is all one problem, and they are working with a single facet.

But we need to talk about it, so put it on the agenda for May, and think about it in the meantime.  Play and talk and play and talk...and go in the waterfall.

I was thinking about our one year anniversary also.  I remembered that one of my first posts was Easter Monday when my little buddy and I found the wounded mourning dove in the garden.  And it's almost Easter again.  Did we resurrect last year?  Will it happen again this year, or will it simply continue?

I love you!

Clare