Make Room

I planned to do some kind of year in review blog, but I'm not sure how to approach that one this time.  I was a word alchemist this year more than ever.  At least publicly.  I translated my guts to the page time and time again.  Many of those times I felt as though something else was speaking through me.  How do I fit eternity into one post by a certain date? What I can best say about my journey of 2012 has already been said.  By Rumi, of course.

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
~Rumi 

That says it all, but here's my attempt at a bit more:

This was the year.
This was the year I saw death.
It racked my bones and broke them to dust.

I said goodbye.  Loss ran rampant over me more times than you'd believe,
even if I told you about each and every one of them, The Losses.
At times so big, so shatteringly big, I am in awe of my survival.

My heart broke.
Again.  And again.  And again.  Ba boom! 
I got a new tattoo.
I am.  I am.  I am.  Ba boom! 
It was the worst summer of my life.
It was the summer of animals.
It was the summer of running.  Anything to keep moving.

This was the year my limits were lifted.
I saw my confinements clearly.  The invisible labels and restraints only I had placed.
I saw them lift.  Like a shutter, up they snapped and dissipated.
The one great gift death and death alone can bring.
There he laid, there I sat.  There they went. 
This was the year I saw with my own eyes we are not our physical bodies.
I am not my weight, my height, my hair, my age.
I am all, and all is me, and always has been, and always will be.  
I am enough, and you are, too.  You are another me, I am another you.

This was the year of the soul.
The only thing I'm now sure of.
My eyes deceive me, my body betrays me, but my soul...
My soul has never led me astray.
I was let out, I transcended.  I saw heaven.

Psychosomatic as it may be,
I experienced my Uncle's sickness for months when he left.
My heart hurt and my hands went numb for my Grandpa when he was gone.
My imagined fear let out, I went on a six week artistic sabbatical.
I gathered up all I could to add to my Big Life.
To expand myself and bring it back to keep.

This was the year of The Winter's Tale.  A sad tale was best for winter.
Hermione found me and gave me the ultimate healing,
and Shakespeares words patched me back together.

Death came a second time.  Nobody told me how greedy Death is. 
The rug pulled out from under me and all my comfort shattered once again.
I spiraled in when it should have been out (but deep down this time I knew better),
and so I saved myself one sunday night.
Promising myself that even though people always leave me on the weekend,
Monday I can chose to come back to life and throw myself even deeper into the opposite of fear.

I will chose.
I will chose to give my moments Meaningful Shape.
I choose the better story.

I will respond to you, soul.  To the call from the stars.
To the Athena's before me, and Comsic Alchemists who follow,
I will pave your way with a golden story in which you'll remember you're not alone.
You've been here before, and will be again.

There is only hope.
There is only forward.
And I am free.


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