If I measured
In centimeters
The multitude
of tears
I have cried
Since I have been well
The universe would be
Invaded with such waters
That all levies would be destroyed
In a tsunami
Engulfing everything
Leaving nothing but
the howling
of my
silence
all I have right now
That I can
believe
in.
Once I felt healed from my trauma, I faced a wilderness of far greater complexity. An open space, of desolate unpredictable terrain, where seeds had been planted, yet little had born fruit.
While in the throes of post-traumatic stress, I had succeeded in creating an alternate reality for myself, albeit tiny in comparison to the one lived before. PTSD required the creation of an internal scaffolding that could safely hold together components for my survival.
During those long, painful days when I felt little inspiration to guide me through empty hours, I created small rituals that would allow the passage of minutes in a universe where time, for the most part, had evaporated.
I was fortunate enough to have resources that kept me from being insolvent and counted on those blessings during a time when I was unable to work. My “employ” consisted of a combination of therapy, journaling, going to the gym, working with my life coach, reiki massage, getting my hair coloured, reading, and the occasional online course. I went out with friends on weekends for a few drinks, would meet guys, forget my life, and then Monday…
On Monday mornings, I would feel a familiar crush in my stomach, knowing that I had to endure another 60 workday hours. I began a ritual of prayer in the morning of old prayers that I learned as a child. Staring outside my window, I would quietly recite the Our Father and Hail Mary. Not considering myself particularly religious, it gave me a sense of security to pray because I needed a father, and I desperately wanted my mother. In their absence, these invocations became the anchor for my safety.
The real challenge began for me in September 2019 when I felt healed from the trauma of 2017; the dissolution of a marriage, loss of employment, rupture of losing a friend, and resolution of a lawsuit. There was also the physical processing of a potent combination of grief, shame, and anxiety.
But as finances dwindled, the time had come to use all my experience to move from surviving to thriving. The Warrior Goddess in me had slain the demons, confronted my ugly, let go of the past, forgiven, and retrained for a new career. I had dated casually and was now felt ready to dive into a loving relationship. I even entertained the notion of being married again. Sharing a life, caring for someone, having someone care for me…
Why did the reality of where most people live every day with jobs and marriages feel like an unrequited dream to me?
But what I found in re-entering life, was not more joy, enthusiasm, and solutions, only more grey space, a different emptiness, but an emptiness nonetheless.
The challenge of reclaiming your life after trauma is that you are now foreign to everything you once knew about yourself. While there is a pressure to be grateful for having made it over to the other side, there is also a big gaping hole where the trauma once comfortably sat. Trauma, like a security blanket, was who you were, what you talked about, it was your story. Now that space sits empty…waiting to be filled…but with what?
There were days when I felt on the verge of tears hourly; it seemed as though a permanent sadness was lodged somewhere between my chest and the deep recesses of my soul. I missed the eco-system that I had created during my healing. The scaffolding, so carefully constructed, was down, the building painstakingly rebuilt, sat empty, missing life.
I entertained the notion that once I moved through trauma and healed, there would be this tremendous rebirth, and all the pieces of me would miraculously interweave back together. After living for a few years in quiet solitude, with the occasional bursts of fun, I felt that my world would once again open up. I would be sailing away to some incredible adventures full of life, gratitude, and love for the journey that got me here. I would gaze over to the tender loving man next to me working the boat and know that all was right, and I was home.
Instead, I found myself at the exact same precipice as before. Different person, same ledge, everything intact, yet nothing whole.
On the other side of trauma lay more uncertainty about who I am. This was compounded by who I was during the ordeal, and who I was before that. At this juncture, the loss of me built upon the previous loss of me. This new me can be found searching for meaning not found in the material world but located in the space of all that has been stripped away.
Under these circumstances, I feel it more radical to live with hope when it’s so much easier to live in fear, where the notion of surrender is as healthy to me as having coffee and getting out of the door each day.
As a wise person once said, “Life is built with paper walls, and in the end, aren’t we all a problem away from destruction?”
Living in the in-between is about managing that destruction with ingenuity and grace. In the course of that journey, we search for meaning even when we believe it had eluded us.
I guess that is where the real heroes lie, living somewhere in that grey space, fighting day in and day out to find meaning and that light.
In the end, we are all traveling back and forth between challenge and healing and perhaps the solution lies in not seeing ourselves in the extremes of sick or well, whole or broken, trauma to healing, maybe the true expression of life is in that grey area. The place where we stumble around in the debris looking up and seeing fragments of hope and light and making that be our call to life.
And I am beginning to see those fragments … in my creativity, my heart, and my capacity for compassion. I see the light in my soft, gentle eyes, my radiant smile, the curve of my hips, and the roundness of my breast. Perhaps this is that new me, where I also see the light in my solitude, stillness, tears, and sorrow.
As I take a moment to take stock of my new assets, I realize I am crafting a new portfolio. One that will keep me safe and secure in my future because its’ stocks contain a mixture of my intelligence, intellect, the capacity to love, my kindness, and the presence of unconditional grace. This is the new wealth that resides in that empty house, the”real” estate that is my investment for a future…and the inhabitant of this new house will keep those windows so wide open that the light will always have a place to shine.