Stone by Stone - I am Crossing Over

I love the circular paths that life takes us on. I dearly love them, especially when they become spirals, because spirals can go up and down, simultaneously, it merely depends on your perspective and position as to your direction. 

I have experienced many things this year. I chose to be single, I chose to release key, but toxic people in my life, and after the emotional cleansing, I began to work towards building myself. I experienced people who came into my life and simply needed a safe place to exist, and I was able to practice holding space for their energies to recharge and renew. I experienced others who were not content with my relationship choice for my life and soon passed out of it. 

I experienced hopelessness, bitterness, and cynicism, and then, as I moved through the months, I experienced a gradual shedding of those emotions. In many ways, I felt like Eustace, from Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when Aslan finds him after he's become a dragon, and tells him to come out of his skin. However, Eustace isn't strong enough, even though he's willing, so Aslan plunges his claws into the thick, scaled hide and helps Eustace shed the horrible skin as well as his horrible character and emotions. I feel like I've been plunged into the pool that Eustace washed in, my scars still visible, but the cleansing happening as I move through the process. 

It sounds ideal and triumphant.

It wasn't. 

It was ugly, it was raw, it was painful, it was dark and sharp and filled with scarlet, grey and black shadows, things in the dark that whispered it would be better to quit this life than keep trying, my own mind failing at trying to find hope that being alone will not be my ultimate end, and then the bitterness and cynicism kicking in and wanting to claw back at the ones who sought to feel better by using me and my desire to feel worthwhile. 

But I have reached the end of this 12 month marathon, and I've realized a few things...

I have a beautiful, small home of my own, that I care for and maintain. 

I have a career that provides for my needs, and I've begun a second job to help me achieve my goals.

I have two, little beautiful  cat souls who depend on me for love and security and who give love unconditionally.

I am surrounded by a tribe of powerful, strong, driven, godly women who are mentors, guides, best friends and sisters of my heart who stand beside me and believe for me when I can't.

I have the health and desire and passion to change my outer appearance to match up with the "much-ness" I feel inside my own ribcage.

I have discovered how I want to be treated, and thus, can better treat others. I realized that when I want to be reached out to, I should reach out. Where I feel I'm lacking, I should not wait for someone else to have enough energy to fill me, but I should see what God has to say about filling myself. I discovered that I loved in order to get love, and it was draining me. I found, when I loved and left them to their course, I felt more whole, more complete, instead of standing there bare handed afterwards, waiting for the reciprocation. That is still something I'm working on, because, hey, I'm still human.

Growth sometimes looks like being drug face first behind a speeding vehicle that's lost its driver, not gonna lie. 

But, in every experience this year, I came to a series of points that I didn't think I could cross. Each time, I had to pull up and decide, within myself, whether I was going to remain where I was, on the spiral that led downward, because it was all I'd known for so many years, or was I going to take those steps across the path, and turn uphill? I crossed over so many bridges, paths, walls and ditches in my own heart and mind, I feel like I've been in a mental obstacle course. But it has been growing steadily easier. Do I still ache from unexpected wounds? Yes. Do I still want to feel and believe that I'm worthwhile to be with? Yes. Do I believe it? Not always, but i'm trying. 

Sometimes, my thoughts can feel like I'm jumping from rock to rock, balancing on one thought till it's cemented, and then trying to throw my weight onto another one to see if it will hold. Other times, this happens with quotes. "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert has been the stepping stones that I didn't realize I needed at this point in my life, but has happened. I have learned that I am alone, and it's...okay. 

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” 

In one of the scenes in the movie that was based on her book, the main character is getting Italian lessons over lunch (the "eat" part of the journey). They guy who's tutoring her mentions an Italian word, "Attraversiamo" and she catches that one, asks him to go slower with it, and he says something like "It's so common a word"...and I caught something there. I realized that each time I've been broken and the path has a chance to dip down, I cross over. 

Basic etymology: Attraverse (to cross/go through) + (-iamo): we 

"We cross over."

The idea of moving from one place to another, not just in the physical journey, but in the emotional and spiritual journey as well...and, the thought of "I am not alone" in this. 

There have been so many times this year that friends have shown up just in moments where I've been sinking, or hurting, or trying to drag myself back into the shadows because I can't take any more. I have had my dearest ones sit in my space as I thrashed and growled and wept and fought the chains that had been forged over years and years of depression, self loathing, discouragement, disappointment, paralyzing fear, hatred and bitterness...

I saw them aching for me, praying for me, fighting for me when I couldn't fight anymore. I can't tell you the times I've been laying on my friends' floor, struggling through a panic attach and crying, and unable to lift myself, because I didn't believe I could. Feeling the moment when she went to battle for me in the darkest places that I had grown so used to seeing; she opened the floodlights of truth into the murky depths that I was sure was just part of me, not something that had entered through the years of wounding. So many have wrapped their arms around my brokenness and poured their love and faith into my pieces, that I feel like those broken Japanese vases that are repaired with gold. It's called Kintsugi, and the belief behind it is: repairing the shattered piece with gold or a like-precious metal gives it value, and becomes the history of the object, rather than something to throw away or cover up.

And I healed. I learned what breathing without muscle spasms looked like. I learned what sitting and basking felt like, I learned to recognize and sit with Contentment and Peace, when they happened. I learned how to keep the grasping claws of my need for affirmation pushing me to beg and scrape for any attention that lower energies could give me...I learned that I could be still, not beg, not plead, just sit in the struggle and eventually the lessons would show themselves. 

And I learned.

“I am stronger than depression and I am braver than loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

The movie "Eat, Pray, Love" came out in 2010. I heard that word then, and I kept it in my special word bank for life...and Attraversiamo is the word that has captured the entirety of 2017. it just took me seven years to actually work on my free handed calligraphy. But guess what? Everything is a circle, if you live with eyes to see the revolutions. 

As we prepare for 2018, I pray that good moments will be felt and known, good hearts can be found and loved, and most of all, the best you can be accepted and grown...I know I will be giving it my best. "See you on the flip side."