The wanting and needing of a thing is the gateway to pain. This is not a belief that I keep in the forefront but when those feelings begin to materialize I am sure to squash it with a firm “no, enough.”
It’s a chemical process, a domino effect, set in motion by neurotransmitters. It’s only biology, and it will pass.
Love and loss are defining moments in the development of ones character. I am the unfortunate type that clings to words, moments that are few and far between, and the hope of the thing. My imagination being the only thing to keep it alive. Not for weeks, not for months, but years. He wasn’t the only one to blame, I was just as guilty because when the attention was given my brain lit up and I was hungry for more. If I waited long enough, I could have it again.
We could have everything. The camping, the hiking, the trips to Maine, the meals from the garden, the handmade Halloween costumes, game nights, the banter, the knowing looks, the understanding that I get you and you get me. We could have it forever.
But one day, after there is nothing left to bargain, you hope for the final time. Then you let it go. It is not the first time, but you want it to be the last.
Then you face yourself. The lonely ghost in the mirror. Oscillating between thoughts of biology and the want for the love to have been real. Who are you in there? Are you your own whole and separate being capable of standing on their own? Or are you just tiny pieces of all the hearts you harvested hope with? Are you needing someone else to give you purpose?
Then you choose yourself. You make it a practice. You over-correct. You got it. You’re all good. You want nothing and you need no one else.
The wanting and needing of a thing is the gateway to pain. But, your dirty secret is that you’re a romantic, like big, like very big, extremely huge love kind of romantic, and the want and the need is an itch to be scratched. You decide that you will make space for love again.
But first, you learn to love yourself.
Diapause
I shared with my therapist several weeks back my fear that the winter would bring with it a backslide. As many of us know, it’s a difficult time when the only daylight hours are synced with your working hours. The daily sunlit afternoon walks, the practice of nature saturated mindfulness and observation, the art of noticing, ends abruptly. The darkness feels long, then unending, and inevitably unbearable.
So we developed an over-wintering plan and acknowledged the likeness to hibernation. I kept my thoughts to myself because I knew that it was more specific than that. Hibernation implies a period of rest filled with slumber, but I will not be sleeping through the winter. This was a survival strategy more specific than hibernation. Perhaps more like diapause, an arrest in my outward development. A purposeful and acceptable pause to the planning of excursions and quests in an effort to conserve energy, to remain in a suspended state of introspection.
And here they are, the tiny pieces. They show up like this. It’s the copy given to me, not a new one, but theirs, of a book they thought I would like. Pages turned, cover creased, binding loose. Winter World – the ingenuity of animal survival by Bernd Heinrich It’s how I learned the difference between diapause, brumation, and torpor in relation to hibernation. It was years ago but I still carry this piece with me.
I would stay stuck on this, the hopeless romance of it all, but I don’t anymore.
The largest process of my overwinter plan is to utilize a tool call the Choice Point to help me move towards a life I want for myself. I’ve been given many “tools” but none of them have stuck around in my brain long enough to be useful, except this. It’s simple. When I catch myself ruminating I visualize my Choice Point as a reminder to choose my own unique and valued life.
So this winter I will have the cozy life of my dreams. I will read, I will write, I will drink peppermint tea before bed, and coffee in the morning from my favorite mug. I will learn about agrivoltaics and how to bird by ear. I will attend conservation meetings, rediscover cooking and nourish my body. I will enjoy my home and allow myself to relax and do nothing, and feel proud. I’ll reach out to friends and be better about connecting, because I want that too. I will snuggle with my cats and watch movies and play games with my son.
and I will take those long weekend walks to notice the winter world around me.
All the ways to think of a thing
Alice Meets the Cheshire Cat
`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
`I don’t much care where–‘ said Alice.
`Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
`–so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.
`Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.’
I got my first tattoo in 2010, I think. It’s a bit much. It’s the illustration of when Alice meets the Cheshire Cat in the tree. I chose it because the line “so long as I get somewhere” always stuck with me as a kid. As someone who felt lost and chronically misunderstood it was a line I repeated to myself as motivation to just keep going. It didn’t matter where I ended up. What was important at the time was that as long as I kept going I would eventually get somewhere and that was surely better than nowhere.
After I got the tattoo I read an article of someone’s else’s interpretation and was immediately angered by it. In summary, it basically said that having the attitude of not caring where you want to get to, would get you to somewhere you don’t want to be. That you actually need goals and a plan to get somewhere.
How rude. How dare they. But it challenged me, and I get it now. I have lived it. So the Choice Point gives the thing a whole new meaning. I choose myself and my own unique, valued life. When I choose this, I will get to somewhere I want to be.
Writing is part of my valued life. It get’s the thoughts out of my head, the tears out from behind my eyes, and allows me to let the feelings go. Thank you for reading. xo.
All the love my friends.
-c-
The Fox & The Peregrine 