Today’s prompt: What would it take?
For today’s writing, let’s back up a step from what my dear friend Mirabai suggests. In order to go looking for that pain, in order to feel it directly and with love, what would it take? What would need to happen in order for you to feel safe or strong enough to soften into your pain? Time? Privacy? Wine? An anchor on the other side? A guarantee of outcome?
You might start today’s writing with one of the following:
- If I were going to go looking for pain, I’d need to have…
- You might address your pain as a separate being: In order to feel safe enough to face you, I would…
- If you want me to breathe in this wreckage…
My attempt at writing to this prompt:
What would need to happen in order for you to feel safe or strong enough to soften into your pain?
Well, hell. I don’t know. Sometimes I fall face first into my pain. That’s ugly for me and everyone around, so I try to avoid face planting whenever possible. To soften into my pain though? I try. I’ve been working hard to accept the process and not fight it, but I doubt that’s the same thing as softening into my pain, since “feeling it directly and with love” is mentioned.
We spend so much time avoiding pain. On a day-to-day basis, we make a point of avoiding pain. Softening into it is a different approach. Logically, I know I will survive this, at least on a physical level. I know many people who’ve survived it ahead of me. They are functional and strong. But to soften into pain that is already so damn painful and only seems to get worse? That seems platonically masochistic. I sure don’t know how I could feel it with love. I love Cooper, therefore I’ll love the pain that exists in his absence?
When I think about this concept and what I would need before I could really, truly soften into my pain, I think about the scene from an early season of Grey’s Anatomy when Christina suffered an ectopic pregnancy. When she woke up from anesthesia, she couldn’t stop sobbing. None of her doctor friends and certainly not her fussy mother knew how to help. Finally, she cried out, “Somebody sedate me!”
That’s what I’d like. Sedative on demand.
What frightens me is that I’m already so sad; I already feel so much pain. I’ve tried hard to let grief happen–not fight it–yet part of me knows I haven’t really let go. I haven’t had many episodes of uncontrollable sobbing. Maybe I worry that if I start I won’t be able to stop. Maybe I worry that I won’t actually be able to bear the pain. Maybe I worry that I’ll embarrass myself. Actually, that last one is a moot point. The embarrassment ship has sailed.
In order for me to soften into my pain,
- I’d need to know I would survive the softening.
- I’d need to know I could stop softening if it was too much.
- I’d need to know my people could handle it. I’m bordering on being too much as it is.
- I’d need privacy, but . . .
- I’d need my people.
- I’d need time, time, and more time.
- I’d need more than one try.
- I’d need my own patience and strength, both of which are in short supply.
- I’d need my friends’ and family’s patience and strength.
- I’d need to truly believe love and support are unconditional and limitless.
- I’d need to be ready.
Maybe the last one is the key. Maybe I’m not ready. The last almost-five months have been the hardest of my life. They’ve been beyond imagining. I learned a long time ago, though, never to ask what else could go wrong or how much worse it could get. Ask those questions, and you’ll likely find out. Therein lies my fear. What if the worst is yet to come? What if the horrible pain and sadness I’ve felt since August 24th are just the beginning? That’s what I’m afraid of. I already know this pain changes with time. What I know so far is that it goes deeper and grows heavier as the weeks pass. If I’m already so broken, what will softening into my pain do?
I fear it could shred me.
Woods Writes 