Apocalypse Awakening

It is cold AF outside and my hands are frozen while I write this morning. I can see my breath, which is what one would expect on a PA morning in November. The cold air calms me, as if it is proof that the climate is not rapidly destabilizing before my very eyes.

My neighbor is leaving her house with her 5th grader. I too have a 5th grader, but mine didn’t lose her dad to cancer a few years ago like hers did. Such a strong and grace-filled family. I admire them, and now I’m feeling like I don’t do enough for them. Good neighbors are a blessing I forget about often.

Speaking of caner, I’m going to visit L___ this afternoon. L___, who by the grace of Source and Intuition discovered her own pancreatic cancer before it became a cancer. Whew.

My sweet daughter just said goodbye after a nice porch conversation about her love of reading. This after taking the boys to Dunkin’ just because the oldest was having a hard time getting moving. The most simple and intense of joys. Things I never experienced because?…

Because anger blocked me in every direction from receiving the good. Anger literally put a wall between me and any sort of abundance – joy or pleasure or friendship or money or laughter or creativity or possibility. Anger was a wall between me and connection, between myself and the world. It protected me from all the fucking GRIEF I’ve been feeling, so I’ll give anger her proper credit. But godDAMN, I’ll take feeling over fear any day. Every day I feel the blessing of having awoken, along with the pain. All or nothing, I suppose.

Memories of my college drop off day have been arising. [And I realize now how much PSU is coming up for me, which is odd. I drank and blocked out a LOT of that time.] But move-in day is clear, if only through the retelling by my roommate. She and her family had been APPALLED that day, although I hadn’t seen any issue with my Mom shoving a job application in my hand and introducing me to the manager of the Big O. [How on earth she had found time for this on the day she dropped her first born at college?…] I felt the wrongness of it all somewhere in my gut, but had no clue how to articulate or even acknowledge it.

I think of that now in contrast to the gentle wake-ups our kids get each morning, the bagel bites and matcha lattes to help east the transition from bed to 9th grade! My my what a transformation. These kids are so SOFT, they’ll never know what they’ve missed out on.

I’m not even done this journal entry, and all I can think of is how much I want to share it with J__. You know, the guy I wanted to divorce last year. I guess the relationship to the kids is not the only transformation that has occurred. Just had to start by loving myself, which had to start with anger and grief to get to peace and prosperity. GROSS. No wonder most people say “FUCK IT” to this convoluted pathway.

But here we are, and I have no idea what lies ahead of this. I know there’s no preparing but to open my heart and mind even more, to soften rather than to steel, to listen more than I speak.