fOR m & D

"What cannot be said, will get wept."

(Sappho)
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sTreNgTH

"If you're strong enough to take that blade and draw it across your skin.

If you're strong enough to take those pills and swallow them when no one's home.

If you're strong enough to tie that rope and hang it from the ceiling fan.

If you're strong enough to jump off that bridge, my friend.

You are strong enough, to live."

(Iain S. Thomas)
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diSpeNSabLe

My director likes to tell everyone in the lab to write “how-to” guides.  His concern is that if anyone was to get hit by a car, someone else can easily step in, take over, and maintain continuity of the research projects.  While somewhat macabre, I see his point.

Thing is, no one is truly indispensable.  Anyone could get hit by a car any time and the world would continue to go on.  We may think we are, or someone close to us is, indispensable.  But that is because our minds are incapable of conceptualizing a time and space without us, without that significant other.  Yet when we die, life goes on for everyone else.  Time goes on.  Work goes on.  Perhaps with some adjustments, minor or otherwise, that accounts for the fact of your absence.  As things fall apart, so things go on.

My heart aches for the camel who broke his back on the last straw.

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fRieNd!

I have missed you.  So much.  So very much.  I think of you often.  And wonder what you are doing.  How you are doing.

There is so much of you I remember.  So much of us.  Memories.  They are not kind.  Yet I hold on to them.  So desperately.  So frantically.  Because you held me up.  Because you held me together.  Because you kept me safe.

Friend, I miss you so much it hurts.

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iT

came back.

Not with a whimper but with a bang.
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gO ELeGantLy

"It is tasteless to prolong life artificially.  I have done my share, it is time to go.  I will do it elegantly."

(Albert Einstein)
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fOLLoW

the moment of bliss...

From whence to where I do not know.

Except that words are easier said than actions done.
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rOugHnESs

has taken on whole new layers of meanings.
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juSt

breathe...

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fLoODgatEs

I've been feeling a bit pensive.  Not always a good sign.  Don't get me wrong, I love my random moments of excruciating insight.  But they tend to leave me a little winded, like someone punched me in the stomach, hard.  And I am left with these nuggets of raw emotions – too precious to hold in my hands, too painful to share with someone else.

Too hard to keep the floodgates of memories from opening.

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hOLiDaYs

Holidays... can be strangely disquieting times.
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wAsTEd

"This is not something that you just 'get over'.  For the vast majority of people, it is something that will haunt you for the rest of your life.  You may change your behaviors, change your beliefs about yourself and your body, give up that particular way of coping in the world.  You may learn, as I have, that you would rather be a human than a human’s thinning shell.  You may get well.  But you never forget."

(Marya Hornbacher, Wasted)

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...

They all went away, and I went down.

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iNExpLiCAbLe

I can’t say how, but that my life has changed.

I have my regrets, my fears.  A past that continues to haunt me, but that I am trying not to let become a burden.

I have my dreams, my hopes.  A future that I really look forward to, and that I am trying not to cower from.

It’s so easy to try and blame someone, or someones, who impacted my life in such dramatic turns.  But I’m learning, it is not so much about pointing fingers as it is about how I react or respond to the situation.

One of my biggest learning is that at the end of the day, this is life.  And life happens.  For whatever tomorrow brings, I can only deal with it to the best of my ability.

And that, is good enough for me.

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for M

For you, M, I offer my love, my prayers, my hopes, my dreams.  That your love triumphs, that your worries prove unfounded, that you find the happiness you yearn for.  But most importantly, I wish you peace.  The kind of peace that runs deep inside you, that fills you, that gives you true strength to persevere.  The kind of peace that cradles your intuition and brings you rest.

Your forever friend.
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wORds...

Recently I have found myself in too many situations where words fail me.  Instead I feel a rush of too many complex emotions that I have no names for.  And this unsettles me.  For words have been my way of making sense of the world.  Words have helped me come to terms with life.  And recently, I feel as if I have lost my compass.

I have learned that people here use the phrase “I am sorry” or some such variation during difficult situations.  It took me a long time to figure out that that is actually an expression of sorrow, a way of expressing solidarity and compassion.  Strangely, I find it a difficult phrase to use.  It doesn’t come quite naturally and spontaneously to me.

One would think that with time and life, one would have gone through sufficient experiences to be somewhat prepared for all manner of unexpected situations.  Yet perhaps not.  The pain of someone else’s loss is both profound and awkward.  I hear each story, I look at each person, and I am in awe of their strength and resilience.

Looking up at the stars, under the immensity of the universe, words fail me.

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cRosSInG tHE LiNe

“I’m ashamed of my past,” she whispered, “That’s why I keep it secret.”  I tried to keep my breathing even.  I struggled to keep eye contact.  I fought to keep myself from reaching out to hug her.  In my mind I ran through a million things I could say, but I remained mute.  My silence disquieted me.  Suddenly I felt as helpless as she did, maybe more.  For she had found the courage to name her monster.  And I found our mutual friends, Mr. D and Ms. M.

There is that moment in a relationship when an acquaintance crosses the line to become a friend.  There is that moment when you decide the person in front of you is trustworthy enough to reveal your secrets to.  There is that moment when you realize laughter isn’t the only emotion you can share.

She surprised me with the depth of her trust.

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pERsOnaL DiSTanCe

When I was younger, I reacted to hunger and poverty from the safety of distance.  What little I could discern about these concepts came from news snippets over the radio, photographs and videos on the TV, random articles in newspapers or magazines, a book or two, and possibly even classroom lessons.  Yet the emotions I had were as abstract as the concepts themselves.  Sure, I felt outrage.  I felt anger.  I felt sadness.  I felt helpless.  But overwhelmingly, I felt distant.

Today, the hunger and the poverty stared me in my face, and they left me winded.  When a 5-year-old boy comes into class crying out of hunger because his parents have yet again spent all the money on alcohol but not on food for him and his siblings, it messes me up.  When a preschooler hits his classmate because he is so hungry and he wants to get that last spoon of rice on the plate, it messes me up.  When we send a child home for the weekend not knowing if he or she will even have food to eat over the next two days, it messes me up.  But overwhelmingly, it now feels personal.

I work with these little ones.  I see their scrawny bodies and their hollow cheeks.  I see them cry and I wipe their tears.  I see the teachers stuff food into the children’s pockets so their stomachs will not hurt at night from the emptiness.  While my heart aches for them, I also feel like I am finally able to do something for them.  Because the issues are no longer far away.  Because the reality is now mine.

It is no longer about me feeling.  It is about me doing.

...