This can't be healing—it hurts too fucking much.

We are supposed to feel better when we heal, right? Isn't that how it works?

This morning—sitting in my bed, coffee in hand, cat by my side—I feel chilled, tense, and a bit queasy.

Yesterday I cried, like full-force shaking and howling in my car, in the the hot springs parking lot—cried.

I'm so fucking tired of feeling this way. (But at least I am feeling.)

I know it is not my fault. I know I did not choose to get pregnant to torture myself and wreak havoc in my budding relationship, but that is what the voice of guilt would have me believe.

It's always my fault.

Yesterday I added in the absurd notion that it is also my libido's fault. That if I wasn't so goddamn lusty, none of this would have happened, in the first place. Then after it did, I would have been able to slow down enough to actually allow myself to feel—to heal—rather than rushing forward into sending titty pictures and spinning cotton candy fantasies about our future.

Anything to avoid feeing how bad it actually hurt to not be able to have our baby.

Tears and trembling.

This is, actually, in fact, exactly what healing fucking feels like:

It hurts.

Healing forces us into reality–often the one we do not want to deal with.

Sure, sometimes there is an angelic intervention, an effervescent light that envelops all the pain and makes it just go-the-fuck-away. Oh! Wait. No. There isn't. That phenomenon is what is referred to as: euphoric recall and it is, in fact, not actually healing. It is a form of psychological and biochemical bypassing to actually doing the goddamn work.

The work is, in a word—unpleasant. It means feeling the hurt, rage, sadness, and disappointment. It means sitting in the discomfort until it dissipates.

However, doing the work is rewarding—deeply rewarding. It means we get to feel (and be), everything that not facing ourselves by tending our pain, mending our bonds, and diving into reality, as it is, holds us back from experiencing.Deep breath.

I am pissed.

It feels good to actually feel it. Feeling pissed is part of grieving—part of healing.

He, that man who matters to me, keeps expecting me to unleash some childish temper tantrum on him. And as tempting as that would have been for some parts of me, (especially in my early 20's), it is not my way. You see, under the anger, is a well of pain and disappointment. It's not his fault. It's not mine. Unleashing a torrent of shame-driven blame in his direction would be utterly useless. But, for some reason, it's okay to do it to myself.

Nah.

Fuck that shit.

I throw this fact in guilt's smirking face: "It's not my fucking fault!"

Still, I am chilled. My body is processing what can only be called a vulnerability hangover. I shared these thoughts with my counselor via a quick, tear-stained email before going into the hot springs. We have a session tomorrow so she might as well know what she's in for.

Once inside, I ran into a good guy-friend who reached for my feet as we were sitting in the sauna. I laid back, letting his strong fingers probe my soles and my soul started to melt, at least a little.

Tears and trembling.

I shook and cried, softly—but without stifling my breath.

Gotta breathe to feel.

Gotta feel to heal.

Fuck.

Tears and trembling.

Why now? It's been months.

Why now? Because it's time.

Maybe it's becuase I made this commitment, to me, to you, my readers to stop sitting on hands and my feelings and to fucking write, again.

Yea, let's go with that and... maybe because it now feels safe enough to let this out, to see it, to name it, to let it breathe and in that breath... maybe to be born again.

Lotsa love,

~Justice

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