Mediations on Change

My darling JP's recent post on change got me to thinking that I really need to change myself. That is, I need to revive this blog and start posting again. I'm sorry I let things lapse for so long.

It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about. Indeed, life goes on, whether we record it or not.

If you followed my blog over the months, you may have noticed that I began well. I posted (realtively) regularly. However, about a year ago, new posts appeared less frequently.

When I (re)started this blog, I wanted to create a space where I wrote about the things I was thinking about. I wanted to think about my experiences and try to draw meaning about what's happened in my life.

As you might expect, that required a bit of retrospection and a bit of personal honesty. As I thought about what I was feeling, I uncovered a certain amount of pain, pain that was as fresh in the moment of discovery as it was the moment it was originally inflicted.

Things like the pain I feel every time I return Kara to her mother. (Sometimes, it's so fresh, I can barely breathe and my heart feels like it's about to burst.) Like the pain I felt when my mother told me I'd need to find a new place to live (I was 18). Like the pain I felt when I said goodbye to my father before he and I could have that grown-up conversation that we kept promising each other that we would have. Like a number of other deeply painful experiences.

Abandonment. Betrayal. Failure. Loss.

Deeply personal and extremely hard to document. Things that, quite honestly, can bring tears to my eyes just by entertaining the memory for more than a few seconds.

So, if you noticed a change in the nature of my posts around the time of JP's surgery, that's why. My mind ran rampant during those hours I sat in the waiting room with no information. (I began to fear I was going to lose her again.)

It was hard to look at that stuff and it's hard to experience these deeply personal and deeply emotional things. Worse, it's hard to find ways to live with that pain, to learn to accept the consequences of those actions, some of which were my own damned fault.

I also felt shame. I'm supposed to be a grown-up. You'd think I'd have it all figured out by now, right? Be a man! Suck it up. Cope!

It scared me. I didn't know how to integrate what had happened, let alone explain what (and why) I felt these things. Explain why I feel these things, for some of these emotions are still raw.

I backed away from my writing and I allowed this pain prevent me from finding ways to synthesize, integrate, and share my experiences.

And you know what? That needs to change.

This is a process, a journey (hence the picture, which is from what JP calls my "commuter series") and I apologize for not being willing to be more honest in sharing it with you.

Photo credit: me.