what I was crying about

Hello, how are you doing?  I’ve been thinking about what I was crying about the other day, when grief flooded my body.  Sorrow knocked me over for a while.  There’s so much to feel.

How big are your emotions, lately?  Are you getting your needs met?  Is the world nurturing you how you need?

Can you ask for help?  Do you have a safe home?  Are you learning what you need to, this human birth?

Are you moving in the directions you want to?  Do you feel good about the future?  Are your relationships balanced and joyful?

resources

Ming and I have so many blessings and resources.  But some of our needs are not super met right now.  I need a steady home to rest in.  My emotions can be very big.  I need my mom.  How you do replace the irreplaceable?

I search for non-Mom ways to get emotional needs met.  When I’m more real and honest about my needs, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have a better chance of being met.  It can hurt, to see how culture fails.  So much work to do, and I’m a drop in the ocean.

I can see why some people give up.  Or they don’t look too deeply at who they are and what they need.  Why bother?  The lack is so painful.

what I was crying about

Crying about my mom is always valid.  Life is full of beauty and pleasure, but the pain is real too.  There’s a deep well of sorrow-grief always with me.  I don’t always feel it.

But I will be going through my day and some little thing will press that mom button.  Suddenly the vividness of my loss is too real to me.  It seems hyper-real, and it’s too much to bear.  Usually there’s some layers of gauze or glass or shadow between me and the truth of my mom’s death and what it means to me.  But sometimes all that separation vanishes, and it’s hard to breathe.  I suffer.

The grief is nothing to avoid.  My grief is real and totally valid to feel.  I don’t need to numb that or flee from it.  But it can make it hard to do whatever I was trying to do.  Fortunately I’m disabled and have set up my life with no kids or pets.  Ming and I interdepend, but I have no paid work that my housing hinges on or other necessities of life.  So I often have the time to feel my feelings, which many people can’t usually do.

Feeling my feelings is central to my health.  Denial is death.  Storing up painful emotions in my body until they get stuck is a bad idea.  Gotta keep it moving.

feelings

Feelings matter.  They are real–they’re what I was crying about.  Feelings come from chemicals, hormones, nerve cells, memories, molecules, atoms like anything.

Outer world life matters.  But the feelings matter too.  Inner life matters just as much.  Thank you for recognizing me.