Paper Cranes
It’s been exactly a year since I started sharing my writing with you here, dear reader. In my first post I boldly proclaimed that I was finally ready to celebrate my life after years of keeping myself wrapped in a warm, familiar blanket of grief.
I’ve spent so much time thinking about death, illness, longing, lost love, and turning my fear of abandonment into a virtue that I became comfortable in the dark. On my last birthday, I was ready to feel something new, and sharing that goal with you has held me accountable.
It wasn’t the letting go of my morbidity that felt challenging, it was the uncertainty of what would replace it. Who am I when my pain isn’t pulsing just below the surface of my thinning skin?
Spoiler alert, I don’t have an answer yet.
So far this effort hasn’t been refined or pretty. I feel messy and constantly unsure. I am a newly-walking toddler cautiously taking unsteady steps towards a fresh way of experiencing my life.
This process involves trying to celebrate the fullness of my feelings, even when I think they’re ugly and unpleasant. I’m flirting with allowing my emotional needs to matter even though I’ve always taken pride in my ability to put everyone else’s feelings first. Perhaps that’s the natural outcome of being young when I was taking care of my dying mother and then quickly becoming a mother myself. For a long time, my needs didn’t take priority.
Over the last 18 months, I’ve focused on closing a chapter of my grieving that involved fully exploring every painful bit of it. I’ve read books, I’ve breathed out sorrow from deep within my subconscious, I’ve tried polyphyletic mushrooms, I was hypnotized, I started regularly meditating, I write almost every day, I’ve folded hundreds of paper cranes (did you know that they’re a symbol of peace, love, hope, and healing during challenging times?). I have shared about things that I fear, that haunt my dreams, that make me feel ashamed and insecure- all the things that used to feel impossible to say out loud. But I said them. I let them go. And it felt good.
Letting go is giving me the space to confront my new emotional needs. I want to be a good mother, friend, boss, and (someday) partner. That’s not going to happen without help. Right now I’m trying not to hide my emotional needs or assume that they’re simply too much. I’m asking for help. Even when I’m afraid that the person I’m asking can’t or won’t give me what I need.
It’s scary.
Every.Single.Time.
But ya know what? It’s going pretty well. The wonderful people in my life seem to want to lovingly care for me. Hopefully the discomfort I’m feeling now will eventually help create more fulfilling interactions and connections. Just maybe I’ll be able to give and receive in a more genuine way.
My choice to live happier happens every day. There are days that wanting to move into a new phase feels clear and easy. There are also many days where I want to float along in the lazy river of my sadness. But I don’t beat myself up for it anymore because I know that as soon as I’m ready, I can ask a friend to reach out and pull me back to shore.
Thank you, my friends. Here’s to 39.
