Crippling Frailities ~

I thought as I first entertained the idea of pouring myself out to the world that I was going to do this or I would do that. I was determined to become more disciplined, more succinct in keeping my blog alive. I was going to post twice a week; . I have a number of blog posts in the making; thoughts desperate to escape, yet suffocate and are silenced once hitting the surface . . .. 

But I forgot about the many little ways that life creeps up and grabs me by the throat, dashing whatever lofty plans I may have conjured up. I have imagined myself as so many things, believed myself to be so much more than I am. I have accepted illusion over reality, climbed into the sounds of myself breaking and shattering, as if these were acts of bravery. I convinced myself it was strength, believed that I was strong, but my reflection shows a woman who is frail and swallowed up by shadows. Time and again I am too often more a disappointment to others, than I am in even greater degree to myself . . .

I have deemed the machinations of my mind defective, deceitful, and irreparably flawed. I have tethered myself to affliction, called my reality depression, but perhaps the threads that comprise the fabric of who I am have always been weak and frayed. Perhaps being spiritually crippled is not only my  affliction, but my emotional and intellectual affliction as well . . .

I have called myself a kind person, because kindness is the only thing I believed gave me value, but I am not always kind. I have called myself a good friend, but I am not a good friend always. I am the friend who disappears, who retreats from the world into selfish and silent spaces. I have called myself a good mother, but how can I be a good mama when the weight of my existence is such a burden? I have called myself an equal, but how can I stand next to someone when my steps are always too small, too timid? I have called myself smart, but how can I be smart when I understand so little . . 

 

I don’t write these things, ask these questions, to be reassured of an opposite reality, but to capture images and expression from the disappearing spaces I step into with abandon. By surrendering to these deep reflections, I allow my breath to become a kind of silence that numbs the ache to escape the shackles of who I am. I release the weight of my skin and fall into who I have always been, rather than who I think I am meant to be .  . .

We all travel on paths that veer and rise, even plummet. We all grab onto hope and search for love, for meaning. We all wear masks. It is in the removing of those masks, in those moments of darkness, when the truth of my frailty lays bare like another wound, it is then that I see through my afflictions, only then recognize my spiritual blindness and fear, and am then hit with the crippling reality that without it, I am nothing . . .