Don't Fall On Me

Walk down the cool side of the hot street early this morning, make my way to work. Listen to REM's unthinkably beautiful old song, "Fall On Me." Hum along quietly, aware I am trying to contain the impulse to "lift your arms up to the sky, ask the sky...don't fall on me." If I let myself, I might drop to my knees on the hard pavement, look up and beg the sky....

I have been a fan of REM since their emergence in the early 1980's. My then-boyfriend, later husband, and father of my children introduced me to them before they busted into pop music. My older daughter too is a great fan of their early music. My younger daughter, ever on her own tangent to eternal sunshine, can't stand the band. She is wiser than me—if a song makes her sad, she turns it off.

Me, I'm drawn these days back to a sadness more bitter than ordinary sadness. An ordinary depression, perhaps. Yes, this is the haunting I experienced—starting its way in, ever so insidiously—nine years ago. A haunting that pulled me away from my work and into intensive treatment for a year. A haunting I thought I had conquered, until lately again....

I watch and wait. I turn inward and outward for support. Harder to access inwardly, the wires aren't connecting so well now, especially to self-compassion, the crucial antidote. I turn to blogging again because I want to call out to all those who suffer this curse: Let us gather our collective courage, and endure toward the blessing of the other side of sunset.

If only the sky won't fall on me.

Happy Passing Year

Last year at this time, I thought I was headed for a new year. I thought 2015 would be the year I got closer to perfect. I had thought that for 2014 too. And for 2013 before that. I don't seem to learn. I struggle to follow my own counsel, when it comes right down to it.

Sitting in my office, looking out at a grey sky as the eve of 2016 falls, I re-evaluate my intentions for the coming year. I realize this:

I am forever in between.

I am enough as I am.

I can strive healthily
(but that has nothing to do with perfection. Brene Brown taught me that).

I don't need to hold tight to goals as I move into the new year. I just need to keep deepening into my values, especially that of Creativity. And Faith (in myself most of all). 

I need to surrender to being more of who I am, and to let go of trying to be anything else.

I need to trust that that is enough.

I. Am. Enough.

I will sit at a small round table tonight, surrounded by a bay window, with a candle burning. I will eat my dinner slowly. I will reflect on what has passed. I will be present. I will be alive to all that can be. 

I will be alive to myself, those I love, those I care for.

There is nothing else to do. No one else to be.

I repeat this blessing to myself:

I am enough.