A Season Comes to Over

The Dying Year grew out of two emerging inquiries I had about the pacts I made with myself, and whether they were the right ones to live the way I envisioned. 

The first was the acknowledgement that I had drifted away from my authentic center, and a period of reflection was required before there would be a chance of returning to it..  The idea for The Dying Year rose from a challenge I put to myself to make those reflections transparent.  

The second was rooted in a desperate need that had developed to transfer the  expanse of generalized pain within, into another form.  A form with the power to rearrange what was hurting, into something that could assist with healing.   A form that held expanse after expanse of emptiness, and tools that could move effortlessly between the discipline of logic, and the  free spirit of the imagination. 

The wounds accumulated in childhood were reawakening, and the pain I caused as an adult had yet to scab over, so it could be examined, and  handled.  

I wasn't sure exactly how to do the thing I knew I needed to, and I had no model for how it should look.   All I was given was the tiny pulse of a dictate, that when I felt it, I knew I was supposed to follow.  And although it didn't fill in the blanks the way I wanted it to, it delivered the next best thing.  It brought certainty.  I didn't have all the answers I wanted, but I had certainty about what to do next.  

I needed to tell the story my family entrusted me to tell.  The one they entrusted me to carry.  The one they asked me to protect.  

I'm certain of something now, that I hadn't even considered when I started.  This is not my story after all.  

It's theirs, 
or in the very least, 
it's ours.

Seems Like, Isn't

I want to say one thing I've said before, and one I didn't expect that I would. 

What I didn't anticipate sharing was this:  I struggled with every word in my last post, "Value Nothing."  It was torture trying to find the right tone.  I re-wrote it six times in a futile effort to balance the overall character, and integrity, of my ex, with the part that only visited me.  I was paralyzed between not wanting to cause the harm that I would, and the necessity of doing so for healing. I even took the post down for a three hour spell, because of the lack of clear direction.

Until it came.  

And that brings me to the thing I've said often, but had forgotten during the writing of that one.  Something uses what we say to each other (it's God, for me) as the messenger for what is difficult for us to hear, or for us to say, but we must. 

I removed that post because I didn't know, for certain, if I was allowed to say it.  Then, when I opened my email the first time that morning, this was all I had in it:

 I hear you.

Writing what I did lightened the load I was shouldering, and took the anger with it.  I've had my say.

That season has finally come to over.

Dar Williams-"I am the One Who Will Remember Everything"