I have been absent here for quite some time, and I am ready to share why.
It’s a story that is difficult for me to share for many reasons, mostly because I am a very private person who prefers to keep the information I share closely controlled.
This isn’t something I would like to share.
But I think it’s important that I do, for reasons you'll understand as you read along.
I can’t quite pinpoint when, but I think around the time my dogs died (August & October 2021), I started to feel disconnected from myself.
In fact, last Christmas I jokingly took an IQ test because I had been feeling so “stupid”, and I was bemused to discover that it was 20 points lower than it typically is.
I felt like I was watching myself disappear into a void, but I didn’t know why (and I honestly didn’t really care).
It wasn’t until June of this year, when my body started to show signs of distress, that I thought maybe something was wrong.
But I am SO HEALTHY, so I dismissed it and kept going.
Until August, when everything just shut down.
I wish I could tell you it was just a physical shut down.
But the truth is, the physical crisis - which would have been enough - was eclipsed by an emotional crisis I had no control over.
When I finally discovered I have Chronic Lyme, it began to make sense.
But understanding it didn’t change the fact that I was in the midst of an excruciating and protracted dark night of the soul.
And that dark night didn’t come from nowhere: it was an exaggerated and distorted version of truth, and it loudly pointed me in the direction of my own broken heart.
A broken heart I had been running from for years. One that slowly, subtly had made me impenetrable. Unfeelable. And so painfully lonely.
As I scrambled to pick up the pieces before anyone noticed, I realized I no longer had anywhere to put them.
Without the capacity to avoid or outrun myself anymore, I had no choice but to finally feel my emptiness.
My fragmenting reality was met with the gentle whisper that I could use my deconstruction as a return to self.
That soft whisper offered me a framework to re-contextualize my experience, so instead of encoding it with shame and resistance, I met it with curiosity and a willingness to surrender to the Grand Erasure.
I realized that everything outside of my full, embodied, resplendent truth holds me hostage. It dangles the carrot of love and intimacy just out of reach, but close enough to keep me steadily marching towards it until my heavy footsteps begin to dig my own grave.
And in that erasure was a turning point.
In my nothingness, I found myself.
And I also discovered that I was at a crossroads: either choose myself or die.
It became that simple.
The scared parts of me died on this journey, giving rise to the sacred parts of me.
Festering wounds turned to scars, turned to faded memories of distant battles. In the space they used to occupy is now a softened and opening body, finally available for love again.
The tired parts of me that circled old pain body stories found a calm and warm place inside the nest of my now unbroken heart, sighing as they finally released their lifetime of vigilance.
I chose myself, and in that choice I found life.
As my body heals and my mind turns back on (one day I will tell you the story of falling in love with the returned facets of self that were formerly taken for granted), I have - most days - returned to my groundedness.
I can feel my feet again. I can - most days - think clearly.
And I am learning my limits and how to take care of myself in a way that is so exquisite.
I have no alternative, nor would I ever wish for one.
My doctor told me that I accomplished in 2 months what it takes most people 20 years to do.
I understand my FULL assignment now and am ready to show up for it (as it suits my desire AND my boundaries).
So I wrote a book about my experience.
My book is my first step forward, but it is also something that has been in the works for the last 10 years...I didn’t know about until just a few months ago.
Life is good, and I am grateful.
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