What is the Condition of My Heart?

 Note:  This is based on an exercise from Megan Devine's "How to Carry What Can't be Fixed." This is my experience in the world right now, 2 days shy of 22 months since  Hannah took her life, 25 months after my long term relationship ended, 24 months after my finding out I had stage 1 ductal carcinoma, 25 months after the pandemic created multiple crises in the USA, 4 months since my treatment plan was taken away and uncertainty has taken it over, and 3 months since I found out that Darren had died alone in his apartment, not found for weeks. I have had a growing sense of anxiety and dread about pretty much everything in my life, and I am taking some time off of work to learn some coping techniques and begin to heal.

My heart. It's hidden away in the shadows now, unidentifiable in shape, around a corner protecting herself.  I can only make out shadow and light mostly, bright yellow and white intermingled with sharp black edges and greys, the occasional flash of an image:  a wrinkled mass like clothing, a large crumpled bow. Things that had value and possibly beauty and may still, but have been dropped on the floor, neglected, ignored, discarded. I no longer know if the trampled-on mess is my own creation or something that has happened to me, at me, but it's clear my heart has not been treated well by me. It's been treated as though it has no value, should be given away like a trinket with no care for it.

I have been looking for someone to help me do my "dirty laundry," to help me clean up the mess, but I am beginning to see that I just need to pick up one piece at a time. Walking on and over and through the mess without acknowledgement or care has only served to further damage those parts of me that need care and devalues who I am and who I can still be.

I know that I want to be in "the world" in a way that is in keeping with my values. I know that where I am working right now does not feel like that right now, but I don't know if it's the lens that I am seeing through or if my perception of the current trajectory of inequity in the company is real. 

My Grief speaks

Note:  This is based on an exercise from Megan Devine's "How to Carry What Can't be Fixed." The instruction was to characterize and describe my grief. 

I am grief and I am lonely. You have shut me out and I will be felt. I will be heard. You  know me. I am the feeling of damp anxiety,  like water pouring into an already obstructed drain. I am the moist darkness that rots your pipes, destroys your foundation if you continue to ignore me. You may feel safe right now, but I will make sure that you know that the floor may collapse beneath you. It may only be a squeak beneath your foot, but does it foretell collapse?

I am the feeling of despair, the moisture beneath your knee when you gave CPR, the hopelessness soaking into your clothing and seeping into the crevices  and dark corners all around and taking hold. You think I've gone, and then one day the noise below your step reminds you that you are vulnerable.

Ignore my voice and  pests and poisons flourish in your world. Untended, I am as rotten fruit, the pool of barely identified liquid sticking, stinking to the bottom of the drawer. Deny me, forsake me and  the softened wood of your foundations and fortifications are chewed up and decay. 

The perfect peach must be examined and re-examined again to make sure it isn't spoiled or wriggling. The zucchini and cauliflower are uneaten, finally you give up on "real" fruit and buy frozen, antiseptic, unseen, giving you a sense of autonomy and safety.

I want for you to see me. I want you to acknowledge me, so we may learn to live together one day.

I am meeting with a counselor on Monday to work on a plan and tools to help to reduce the intense anxiety that I have been experiencing these last several weeks.