here today

 

things I tell myself

There are things I tell myself in order to keep going, keep showing up. Keep showing up for my clients, my day job, my dog, for Ben, my friends, my house, my life. These things I tell myself are just close enough to the truth that insistent warrior. Close enough to the truth to keep the truth from taking over.

Sometimes the things I tell myself do not work I can’t move quickly enough to get the walls up and then there I am frantically stacking bricks muttering will this do I wonder? And the trouble is they often land on me these half-truth, half-lie constructions when they tumble it is always inwards.

I am sitting now with bricks all around me one of the biggest piles I’ve seen that one was a doozy I put in a mighty effort and when it fell there was no mistaking it. I did not even know I was pregnant so the story of what exactly happened is an ever-shifting one with shadows and tricks of the light. Smoke and mirrors as the Georgia Boys used to say. Smoke and Mirrors.

It was not the right time I told myself. Not a good time at all I said putting mortar in between but maybe it was something else. Something less solid. That little soul looked down at me and made the right choice I said. They looked at ben & I and our busy home both of us in school at work at play all of our worries and thought oh maybe later I’ll come back when things slow down. It was not the right time that’s all I whispered not the right time and I’m glad for it.

When the first brick fell out of my hand I did not notice I had too much to do there was not a place for all that bleeding let alone for feelings about it so I nudged it back into place and carried on. The next ones cascaded in a group there was no ignoring the sound they made I did not even know I was pregnant but I knew this. Still I called it everything else though there aren’t many choices I just kept bleeding. The morning of my presentation that Frida Kahlo painting with the baby floating up above her torn wrecked body haunted me nearly kept me from getting dressed organizing my notes carrying on. Halfway through my day I stopped or my day stopped me I couldn’t see anything but Frida in her bed a baby didn’t want me I can’t keep marching forward for this I must at least sit down for a moment. At least sit down.

As a therapist a new therapist I wonder did I need the lesson to be so hard. Did I need it to hurt everywhere not just the usual places but new undiscovered ones. Did I need this time to be so bad that I would finally stop hefting bricks. Building walls. And if so what now. Is there even a way for this person I am to do it differently. Is there even a way.

There are things I tell myself and one of them is that I do not care too much about a child adding a child to our lives. I do not care I say but Friday night at the Jung lecture that painting up on the screen the baby up above Frida ripped apart in every way and the words I do not care make up a wall of lies inside of me. A wall of lies so thick nothing else can fit in there.

There are things I tell myself.

Posted by: 120pages at 06:09 | link | comments (7) |