The change I want to be in the world

I had a very restless night last night.  I am not sure why.  I had some golden moments yesterday afternoon, just being at home with my dog Jasper, seeing the golden light of spring filtering through the trees.  It felt as thought my heart was bursting with love but also sadness and I am aware that both of these feelings are around me at the moment but so is joy, but like the light it is fleeting, it comes and goes.

I awoke feeling like I needed to get out and walk.  Often my blog becomes the focus of my early mornings (never so early as I didn’t get up until 9) and these few days I have been giving myself a hard time about it.  I feel I am not exercising enough and the fear is that if I don’t my breast cancer will return.  And lately I am feeling less of a need to blog from the place of deep pain.  I truly am feeling the lifting that comes after a long period of grieving and facing so many dark and painful things from my past.  Talking to my therapist about it the other day I spoke of the fact that on the way down and most of the way back out of darkness and grief things look so black, the past looks black, the present looks black and you can see no future at all.

After the healing the light returns and I have become conscious of golden moments, but still I am aware there was a lot of darkness around me and my family during by late teens and early twenties, it’s just that I don’t want to live in the darkness of the past any more.  I have had more than enough of pain and suffering and I am willing to face the tough stuff, I just don’t want to create any more of it than is necessary out of the unresolved pain of my past.

I awoke with a lot of self criticism today.  I had missed a text message from a friend last night.  I was caught up in watching TV last night and then when I sent the text reply I noticed I had put about 6 typos in it.  I was going to send a text to apologise but I just though No, Deb.  Let it be.  No one is perfect, least of all you.  I am just aware that a text with typos might show I am not in the best headspace. And that is okay.  But still I give myself a hard time for it.  Really do I need to though?   Why not just go easy on myself?  Why not just admit that I am human and flawed and that I struggle?  Why not just accept the way it is?  But this doesn’t mean also not taking steps for self care.  Getting out for fresh air and walk with Jasper, opening my heart to life and to others.

I am feeling a lot of sadness lately over the fact of the many years that I spent in isolation and retreat from the world with self justifications for why, which I now see were not real. Never the less some part of me obviously needed to stop and go inwards for a time.  And so I have to accept that too. I have to accept that there was a lot of trauma I had to cope with.  I have not achieved in life a lot of what others have achieved due to my wounds, limitations and failure to try due to insecurity.  It saddens me greatly and sometimes I feel ashamed, but I would rather admit that this what I struggle with, than just put a brave face on things and deny more painful truths.

I don’t want this remorse and self judgement to blight my present life any more.  Very real wounds have, in the past, held me back.  That is the truth of it, but there is still some life to live.  I just don’t want to hide out from it any more.  I am trying to find a way back into the world after trauma and it will take time, I guess.

I also guess I just have to take little steps and on every day look for something I can bring, contribute or do that will bring light to my life and the lives of others. I do want to be the change I want to see in the world.  And its up to me to live that for no one else can live my life but me.