A beautiful mess of diagonals, another quilt made by my aunt.
Diagonals of grief. This morning, I was fixing the blanket in Dexter’s empty crate because Sam had got in last night, dug it up and slept there for a bit while I was on my computer. As I leaned in to put the blanket back in place, I was overcome with a wave of grief. I got in (my dogs’ crates are big enough that I can fit), curled up and cried there for a bit, looking up at all the lines in the ceiling of that space where Dexter spent so much time. I told a friend the other day, “As far as I can tell, grief doesn’t end, it just transforms over time, but will always live with you. That tender, raw spot is permanent.”
Diagonals holding memories. These boards hold so much to remember — the program from my grandma’s funeral, my name tag from the last Open Heart retreat, pictures of my nieces when they were younger, ticket stubs from concerts and roller derby matches, polaroids of the day we adopted Obi and then Dexter, family pictures of the three and four of us together, a dried rose bloom from the plant at my parents’ house in Sublimity, pictures of a friend’s family back when they were only three, cards and postcards, the business card of the woman who did both my tattoos, my schedule from Career Day when I was in high school (April 4, 1986 — I signed up for sessions on Modeling, Floral Design, Entertainment, and Business Management).
I define non-clinical anxiety as, “experiencing failure in advance.” If you’re busy enacting a future that hasn’t happened yet, and amplifying the worst possible outcomes, it’s no wonder it’s difficult to ship that work.
It’s painful when you see how in spite of everything you continue in your neurosis; sometimes it has to wear itself out like an old shoe. However, refraining is very helpful as long as you don’t impose too authoritarian a voice on yourself. Refraining is not a New Year’s resolution, not a setup where you plan your next failure by saying, “I see what I do and I will never do it again,” and then you feel pretty bad when you do it again within the half hour.
Refraining comes about spontaneously when you see how your neurotic action works. You may say to yourself, “It would still feel good; it still looks like it would be fun,” but you refrain because you already know the chain reaction of misery that it sets off.
The only reason to build a website is to change someone. If you can’t tell me the change and you can’t tell me the someone, then you’re wasting your time.
What are you willing to let go of today? Life is so much about knowing what to hold on to, and what to let go of…and having faith that it will all work out in the end.
Your heart and your gut know exactly what you need to let go of, even if your brain is giving you all sorts of reasons to clamp your fingers around it. There are seasons and times to have different things, relationships and situations in your life…and then the seasons change and it’s time to let go of many of those things. Change is hard….but change is absolutely necessary.
We’ve all got to let go of old habits, old situations, old behaviors and sometimes even old relationships to make room for what is meant for the next part of our lives. If we just get quiet, get brave, and listen very closely….our hearts will tell us what to let go of. This doesn’t mean it will be easy…it just means that it is what is meant for now.
You can do this. Listen to your heart. Be brave. You are loved. xoxo
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 