04/12/2024
Number nine. Nine years ago my dead baby was birthed from a new mother who didn't believe in God through relentless ferocious labor of destructive grief. Though I have learned to carry it differently, still strikes me after all this time. I have learned to respect and know the Divine Protection and Grace - the Light-bearing - of God.
Leading up to today, my deepest desire was to curl up in a ball in my pajamas on my little bed, binge watch Bridgerton, and day drink. I *felt* my age today in my bones. My womb was a-n-g-e-r-y: outwardly expressing my buried pain and heaviness with the recent new moon in the way only women do. I wanted the sun to not shine for just today (like it has not been for the literal last two weeks). On days like today where my soul feels naked and unprotected, I don't want to talk...or look others in the eye. Sometimes...not all the time...I just want to curl up and not exist.
And then God laughed at me. He never lets us deny and hide from our hurts for too long. The sun shined in its full majesty and beauty today. The fu***ng audacity. I was forced to dress and leave my home. I was forced to speak with others. I was forced to look a man in the eyes as he helped me at the store. I was humbled. And then I retreated home just to yet again be confronted by my dreaded barren landscaping of my humble prairie home.
It has been over run with pokey weeds. The scoria is obnoxious. The uneven path to my steps makes me feel like I am trudging all frumpety-like through mud - every day. And I just *knew* the dirt (clay) under it all would be hard and barren. The plastic landscaping dividers literally serve no purpose but to trip and annoy me. And the granite boulders that left no room to actually plant things...but why.
I grabbed my shovels and I began dismantling it all. I shoveled. I hauled. I swore. I threw that fu***ng shovel across the yard. I retrieved said shovel and continued my work. I was brought to my knees with unexpected emotions and tears - out of literally nowhere. And then I sat in the dirt perplexed at myself at how ridiculous I probably looked to my kind neighbor. I pulled weeds and scraped myself up. I pulled sleds of granite across my yards to various places. I dismantled the absolutely useless and fruitless barriers and walls. I pushed my very needy and sweet dog away when he tried to comfort me. I was full of rage. And grief. I really appreciate feeling put together, calm, cool, collected, and kind. But today... I was just... Really. Fu***ng. Messy.
But at the other end of it... I uncovered space after removing the walls and barriers. Underneath all the sharp, heavy, burdensome rocks and pokey weeds, I found soft, beautiful, fertile soil to grow peonies. And Gus - my soul's companion - broke me and I submitted to his (very moist and obnoxiously close) unconditional love and affections.
If this wasn't exactly what God tasked me with understanding within and outside of myself today - what I needed to bear witness to for myself today - I don't know what else it could have been. There was pain and suffering in the work. I bled. But beauty and release is there if you submit into allowing it to be uncovered and revealed to you.
As above, so below. Amen.
