Answers live in rooms we forgot

Answers live in rooms we forgot

. . . . ..

My pain is a secret, held in a tightly bound package, tucked away in a corner of a room, locked in with a key called (forgetfulness).

The walls of the room are coming undone, and the key is proving useless.

Coming face to face with what you’ve been hiding is a trippy experience. I hate to write about it from a detached point of view, I am anything but detached. Glued to the rot. Face to face with the smell I have trained my nose to get accustomed to.

I haven’t been able to post here for over a month. Every time I go near the keyboard, my arms freeze, and I sink into the rot.

I worry that letting this secret pain out will send me down the aisle with it. But we’re already bound—unless the secret is shared.

I am afraid.

That I don’t have what it takes to make it on my own. That I don’t have enough trust in myself and the world to survive it—a world I am convinced is trying very hard to reset itself and us with it.

I imagine that every time it gets close to pushing that button, one of us chooses the past. Fear over trust. Control over surrender.

Guilty.

Time and time again, I find myself at the edge of a new way of being, and instead of jumping, my feet tremble and turn around. At this point, I am banking on an unanticipated moment where I surprise myself and JUST JUMP.

Here are a few things that have been getting me through this time:

1. My sister. Confession: witnessing her pain reverts me back into fear sometimes, and propels me forward many others.

2. Visualizing different aspects of my psyche emerging to guide and support me. This comes in the form of meditation, where I visualize my body being charged by some power or force.

3. Yrsa Daley-Ward’s writing.

4. Crying. Which I am grateful to say, I do almost daily now. (I used to go months of drought)

5. Asking for help. Always. Sending an internal howl to anyone and anything that can hear it.

6. My best friend.

7. Sad music.

8. Hope, occasionally.

. . . . ..

It’s an interesting ride, watching yourself die, the dissolution of everything that once was. Bones turning into liquid, turning into vapor. Which seems like an exaggeration to eyes inexperienced in the process of death and rebirth.

But this is what it feels like. It’s painful, and it isn’t very clear where the thing is going. The silver lining isn’t always visible on the horizon, burning bright, waiting to be known. It’s a concept, one that cannot be drawn on paper.

. . . . ..

Here’s to the small steps we can take. Here’s to movement. Here’s to life.

. . . . ..

MUSIC FOR THE FEELINGS

Much love,
Zulfa