I don’t feel sorry for myself, and I’m not asking for pity. I feel alone right now. I can’t stop dreaming about Mom, and last night she was alive again, but she told me only for a little while, then she had to leave again. She was eating a cracker with peanut butter on it, which she used to love. “When I leave,” she said, “there’s going to be a lot of peanut butter left.” I ruffled her hair, which was thick and dark, and begged her not to leave again. I woke up to hear Bill calling for me. I walked into his room, but I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t want to wake him, so I put my face into my pillow so he wouldn’t hear me. I couldn’t stop. My whole chest was vibrating, and felt raw and open. And I felt so, so sad. I wanted to go downstairs to the sunroom and close the door and wail, so nobody could hear me. But I didn’t. I think I just didn’t want Steve coming downstairs to see what I was doing. I didn’t want anyone to hear me. But I really wanted to be alone right then.
Steve asked me if he had heard me crying last night, and I told him I’d had a sad dream. He said that was too bad, and kissed me good-bye. I went to see Linda for our weekly Monday sessions. While we were talking about communicating, I told her I’d had a flashback of a particularly painful experience from my first marriage. I’ve been doing that lately with Linda - telling her things even though I was scared to, probably BECAUSE I was scared to. Whenever I have a thought that I should tell her something, my throat tightens and I get scared. That’s how I know I should tell her. I had to look down and tell her the story very quickly, as if by rote. I didn’t look up until the end, and then only to grab some kleenex. She said that was awful, and that I need to clear that memory from my body or I probably wouldn’t be able to move on. We always need to clear the blockages in order to move onward. I know that’s true. But then another, more sinister memory floated tentatively to the surface, and I asked her if I could tell her one more thing. As I told her the next story, I felt my stomach tighten, then felt something explode outward from my body. My hands went numb, then my neck instantly locked up. From a detached perspective it was very intriguing to me, this somatic response. I told her what my body had done, that I had a more violent reaction to the second story, and she invited me to wait until next week to try to clear it. I think I may wait. Or not. I don’t know.
After Steve came home from work tonight I asked him if he would just hold me. He did. I told him I had a rough day today, first with the dream, and then in Linda’s office. “Well, at least you’ve got someone to talk to,” he said. I just looked at him and brushed away a couple of tears, then went back into the front room. It’s really okay, this clearing those body memories and working through Mom’s physical death. Really, I’m okay with it, but it’s just so damn much lately, and I feel like I’m all alone, walking through this dark forest that has sharp branches that are poking me and scratching me so hard that my arms have deep welts on them. I don’t know where I am, but I know I need to keep walking. And I’m not saying that I feel a darkness, but that this work feels like darkness to me because it is foreign. I’m not used to being IN my body, FEELING things. And now I kind of know why - it’s not for sissies. But I can do this clearing work, because I’m not a sissy. I can do this. One step at a time. And alone. Because in the end that’s how we all need to clear our crap - alone. And that’s all right. It really is. I can do this.