You Sounded So Sad...

Sin, Nancy, and Miranda all mentioned their visceral response to my tone of deep sadness when I wrote "Jumbled Up."  It is terribly difficult to read of someone's pain, and not wish that there be something (ANYTHING) to offer to the sufferer.  It is an impulse that is, at its core, good and kind and gentle and caring.  I am grateful that there are people, strangers except for the words that pass between us here, who are willing to invest so much in my story and my well-being.

I was sad when I wrote that post; terribly sad.  I felt lost, hopeless, and stuck in an endless round of blame and recrimination -- and there is a part of me that deeply resents the share of blame that is apportioned to me in this part of our story.  Whether that resentment is justified in any sense is beside the point -- it is enough to know that I do harbor that reaction in my heart and mind.

I don't know how it works for others that write this kind of personal, intimate narrative.   Most often for me, the words, when there are words, pour out in a great rush and tumble.  I don't sit down at my keyboard with an agenda, or even a theory about what I intend to say.  Sometimes I have a point to try and make, but most often, when I'm writing about my insides, I am simply following the twists and turns of my twisty, turn-y mind.  I seldom consider the people on the other end of the exchange; those who will read and worry...  I really do write for me most of the time.

So, when I write that sort of very sad sounding post, I am sorting and sifting the fussing that is shrieking around in my brain.  In the depths of that internal darkness, the pain is raw, pounding, deafening.  All I can see from that place is the misery that threatens to drown me; and I come to believe, over a relatively short period of time, that it will ALWAYS be exactly as horrible and awful as I perceive it to be in that moment.  I do a really, really good version of "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go eat worms..."  I'm a little embarrassed by it, after the fact, but in the moment, it is the way I feel -- and consequently, the way I sound if I decide to write.

Khalil Gibran wrote that sadness is but a wall between two gardens.  When that wall rises up inside your brain, it is hard to remember to look around and notice the blossoms; hard to appreciate the patterns of the branches against the sky; hard to feel the caresses of the breezes; hard to hear the music of the birds and insects...  Me?  I tend to walk right straight into the wall; plaster myself up against the bricks with my face in the cracks, and then push and shove and grunt and swear -- unable to move forward even a jot.  It never occurs to me, in those spells, that I could simply turn around or back away, and find my way along the wall to a better or more open or more yielding place.  I'm not very wise when I am up to my emotional ass in mud and muck.

This, I guess, is offered as a sort of apology... for the melodrama that I can sometimes fall into.  It is not an attractive behavior.  I am not conscious of trying to manipulate or solicit sympathy or support, but perhaps that set of motives lie under the surface where I cannot see them.  I believe I am just writing to hear myself, but then, I know that I do know that you who read are out there.  I'll work to be more level and more careful about tugging at your hearts.  I really don't need rescuing.  I might, however, need someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me to turn around and move away from the wall.

Thank you all,
swan