Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Monday 1:16pm 19March07
I couldn't bring myself to go to work today. I haven't stopped crying for very long. I want to avoid discussing these feelings because they are the hard ones, the pained ones. A writer is supposed to delve into the hard things too but let's face it, it's easier to delve when you're far removed from the pain.
I'm bombarded by my thoughts. I wonder what my life would be like if my mom was still around which of course is moot. I wonder if/when I'll meet someone that I'll want to commit to. I feel ready to find someone for the first real time in my life. I've done the alone time and value it but I feel ready to share my life, myself, my affection.
I think about Fredo's hugs and I start to cry. I think about a woman I used to work with who I started to hug regularly because she said she missed the human contact, being a single woman herself. She said, "I feel so needy for the affection." And I guess that's it too. A needyness. A need to love and touch and share and feel and work through the hardships with someone else.
I feel like I've done nothing spectacular to make my mother proud to have given birth to me. That never helps the emotions of course.
It's weird, this past weekend. I went to the Sufi Mysticism meeting and participated in a zhikr which is a form of praying. I found that I had a headache at the front of my head by the end of it. I found it powerful and emotional, it made me laugh and yet I never felt self-conscious. I gave myself to this form of prayer. The only thing I was hesitant with at first was saying Allah. Not because I don't believe in God but I had to get around all the negative connotations that North Americans are fed through the media about Muslims. Saying there is no God but one God and calling the source Allah takes some getting used to. But it was different people...black, white, asian, indian, jews etc. That made me visualize that when calling Allah we were calling God, whatever that means to us as individuals.
My crying last night brought me an identical headache at the front of my head. I'm crying for my mom and for my life and I have that headache. I'm at a prayer meeting and I have that headache. There is some kind of connection.
I think about Fredo's hugs and I start to cry because I realize that I can never really remember the contact. I remember bits and pieces but where were his hands or what did he say? Then I realize that it's because I always hold back. I don't want to scare anyone away with my intensity and because of it I'm not being myself. I ask myself what holds me back. What is the worst thing that can happen by being my true self. How can I open myself up in a way that is true to me?
My only answers to any of this is to once again call God's name. Give myself up to God and ask for help. I don't want to be doing all this crying but maybe it's the only way to release the strategies I built to use in order to survive. There are those techniques we take on when we come from an environment of pain and violence. They help us to survive those times but we keep using them when we're no longer in those environments. Holding back and not being my true self served me well back in those days. Building a hard shell cocoon for my emotions was smart then. It's just not working for me anymore.
And so maybe now I'm melting the hard cocoon with my tears. Who really knows anything about life and why we're here and why we feel what we feel. I need to give it meaning and I need to save it for my writing.
EY
