Out of the Darkness: Resolved

This post was originally written September 20th, 2020

God, today I'm pondering it all. Little waves of apprehension or anxiety flare up like small fires igniting on the floor of the freshly burned out forest, disappearing just as fast. Have I finally gotten to the place where my mind knows its resistance is futile? That all of my worst case imaginings could never have prepared me for any of this anyway?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing could not have come at a worse time. Politically it would seem, if trump is able to push through another candidate and seat the next Supreme Court Justice, this country is screwed. America's short run with democracy, a failed experiment. Your children are too easily divided and manipulated. Your word used as a weapon to subjugate and oppress people groups once again successful. 

I felt it when I heard the news. Every bit of it as shock ran throughout my body and uncontrollable sobs escaped my lips. I cried fat salty tears right there in Shake Shack's parking lot. All mixed in with the pumpkin taste of the seasonal flavor found in my shake. In hindsight, I should have sat right there in my car and ate my burger while it was still hot. The pleasure of it was ruined by grief and the cold by the time I arrived home. 

All of my messages are pointing me towards resolve these past few days. A different feeling than the anxious overdrive, worrying, handwringing, fear for my future that I'm used to when life piles it on. And not the usual numbed detachment used for coping. At least I don't think so at this point. 

Strange to be feeling this way after a night of Masto disaster flare. Barely making it to the bathroom before my body expels its fury is a humbling experience. Rinse. Rest. Repeat. Skidding across the floor, losing my balance landing on my wrist on the bathroom floor just as my butt hits the seat- well that's just downright misery. And yet, here I sit today, recovering from the trauma of it all with burning crawly skin and irritated tummy from the histamine storm, still in this state of being okay. I am okay. 

I will be okay. WE will be okay. 

Where did that come from?

Not the same feeling as avoidance or denial. It is eyes wide open to the storm that is brewing on the horizon knowing it may very well blow the house down resolved. It is understanding of the very solid real actions that will need to be taken resolved. The strength I seem to lack, but know I must draw upon to survive this thing, comes from outside of me and is growing within at the very same time. It is innate. 

It is rising up my spine with a tingling sensation, this resolve I feel. Like an injection of cortisol, suddenly I can stand up straight and look that old constant companion fear right in the eye and thank it for its service in all of its failed attempts to keep me safe over the years. 

Misguided as it was, it wrapped me in the safety of its cocoon. Always watching out for the shoe that would drop. The repercussion for my imperfection to come. Always mindful of the curve in the road just ahead, lest I miss it in my carelessness and go careening over the side of the canyon. It locked me in and threw away the key knowing, like the silkworm, that I did not have what it takes to break myself free. 

But what it did not know about the silkworm and me, is that the darkness was not a place of hiding, it was a place of transformation. It was a place where very real and necessary changes were occurring away from the scrutiny of the ever present "They". As in "What would They think?" A place that silkworm, and my own being, were forming wings at the very same time that our insides were learning the truth that created the opening through which we would emerge. 

It's funny what can be accomplished in the dark. Where fear and awful lies sought to bury me, the truth was doing its work to set me free. I didn't need to run myself ragged trying to find it. It was always there. 

Always had been a part of me. 

"Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time." ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg