Thursday, February 12, 2015

From Nothing to Something




There were many times as a child and young adult I just felt nothing.  This is a skill; a skill I cultivated long ago.  I learned to remove myself from the here and now and go to a grey, dull place.  A place where there literally is nothing.  Many people learn to do this as a way to cope, as I did.  I don’t want to go into the reasons why I learned to do this, suffice it to say I was not the first and I won’t be the last.

Unfortunately after a while it becomes an automatic response.

So when I was preparing to place my son for adoption I knew that it would haunt me all the rest of my days if I did not stare it in the eyes and work through the pain.  So, I made a conscious effort, and an actual plan, to process and grieve his loss and not to go to that place of nothing.  I think this is how I’ve made it to today with less “fucked-up-ness” than I would have had otherwise.

Here, today, in the now, I am continuing to make a conscious effort to find ways to replace that auto response with something better, something healthy.  I am clear that I want to feel and experience everything I can.  I want to see the people around me and share their world, and I want to share mine.  I want to experience the good and the bad and feel it now.  I don’t want or need to block out the negative because I now have to tools I need to get through to the other side.  

Of course that doesn’t mean I always use them, but nobody's perfect, right?