i thought about...

 

i thought about running away today
just for a second
less than a second really
i thought about running away
from the fear
and the "what is ahead on the path"
but then i remembered her words
you are so strong. even if you are feeling not so strong and brave, you really are.
i remembered her words
and i knew: this is where i was meant to be
in this moment,
even while the fear whispers around me,
i am certain of this truth

(thank you for being a light on my path)

on this realness

i am drowning a bit at times. and i don't really swim well. i have a big fear of deep water, and if my head goes under, i try to take a deep breath. figures doesn't it? the person who invites others to breathe deeply would try to breathe under water (remember my earth mermaid wishes?)...

today, i am seeking the life raft that i have been finding in this space for almost five years. today, i am seeking the knowledge that i am being heard by someone who just wants to listen and not offer advice or "things will get better" or "just be positive" platitudes. someone who will just hold the space. (and i know this is so hard for us to do for one another. we want to fix. oh how we want to fix. we want to help. i know this. i am thankful for this. but sometimes someone holding the space is all a person really needs.)

today, i am honoring what is real in this journey we are on. i am trying to honor the truths and the beauty and the love and the fears and the shit. 

the thing is, when i look at this face and it cracks into a smile, i either forget just for a second that she is battling so much or another piece of my heart breaks off to float away. perhaps these pieces are gathering near the drain inside the space around my heart i create with each breath. i think somehow because she is such an easygoing happy baby most of the time, it feels like complaining to tell you the real stuff of how our days have been since she arrived. and just like i didn't share many details of my very difficult "high risk" pregnancy because i didn't want to seem like i was complaining, i have avoided sharing many of the details about these last few weeks. 

but, after yet another doctor's appointment, i just have to come to this space and be myself. the what is real me.

so here it is: ellie was born with a congenital heart defect. it sure does sound so very scary when you type it out like that. on one hand, just like with my "high-risk pregnancy," it could be worse. on another, it isn't a walk in the park. the "defect" is a murmur that could require surgery (of the open heart variety). at two weeks, we began our cardiology appointments. we knew what symptoms to watch for and at around five weeks, we began to see them. when we took her in, we learned that she actually was experiencing symptoms from a second issue. a "this could happen at any time to anyone at any age" heart rhythm issue that just happened to happen to our little one. this was what sent us to the PICU at five weeks. now that medication is helping, that secondary problem is (at least in this moment) pretty much under control and something that she will "out grow." at about eight weeks though (almost two weeks ago), we began to see symptoms of the murmur. 

so we are in a limbo place today. hoping she gains weight so she can nicely but firmly tell her heart to just do what it is supposed to do. giving her so many doses of medication each day we are trying to avoid our heads just spinning with it all. knowing she really might need surgery this fall. surgery. of the open heart variety. how does a mama even breathe thinking about her so new to this world little one having surgery. how does a couple even breathe when thinking about the piling medical bills and the fears and medicines and all of it and and and...

and yes indeed, i know, you just move through it. you just keep going.

having a child is like handing another human being a piece of your heart. because that is what love is. love for a child, a grandparent, a pet, a home. we sprinkle pieces of our hearts as we live. yes. this is what living is. this is what loving is.

we say in our own ways, with pieces of our hearts gathered in our extended hands:

i stand before you.
here.
(this is love.)

*****

tonight, after i wrote the previous paragraphs, i held a sleeping babe and felt this love and reminded myself yet again of the answer when i think about the question, "how will we do this?"

the answer is: we will live it.

we will live it.

*****

because i am so tender right now. because i have been holding it together for months. because everyone around me is quietly waiting for the "one thing" to be the "one thing" that pushes me over the edge and they will watch the roots keeping me grounded into this earth suddenly sprout wings as i float out of my body. because i need to just be heard...i quietly ask that you hold the space here more than share the stories of a friend of a friend who had this and was okay or not okay. i hope you understand what i mean by that. it isn't that i don't want your virtual hugs because those hugs (through your words) and prayers are the very reason i am sharing these words. i am being as positive as possible in almost every moment. i am holding onto hope. i am i am...but this is also very real and our journey has an outcome we do not yet know. 

and this is the phrase that comes to me (perhaps it comes to you too sometimes when you write in your space), i just need to come here and be seen. maybe it is the very writing of pieces of it all that will remind me that i see me. that i can hold the space for myself. yes. perhaps this is the truth i needed to find in this moment. perhaps i can give myself the gift of holding the space of all the feelings and letting them just be real and valid and part of it...part of me. maybe i can just let the feelings sit in the room and just be. 

it is okay.

we will live it.

(thank you for listening.)

truth.

A few weeks ago, I shared a bit about our "welcome to this world ellie jane" ceremony. Jon read her the book Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman, and I read her the poem "My Daughter Asleep" from the book River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984-2007 by David Whyte.

When I read her this poem seven and a half weeks ago, it was like a wish I wanted to whisper to her and all that surrounds her now and in each moment to come.

But now, on this day, when I read this poem aloud, it became this parent's holding-on-by-her-fingertips truth, in the disguise of a poem by David Whyte.

May the universe hear me speak the words of this poem and hear them as my truth. And hold us in her gentle arms...

(To hear me read this poem, click on "a poem for a friday" below. Visit David Whyte's site to learn more about him and read more of his words.)

a poem for this friday

in this moment {what is real}

in this moment, i am sitting inside hope, inviting my emotional self to rest, keeping my eyes open (barely), climbing a learning curve, focusing on a little bean, and remembering (trying to remember) to breathe.

*****

about five years ago, i was in manzanita oregon (a place that has a piece of my heart) at a yoga retreat. during that retreat, i wrote the following: my work is to create peace around me and to write about true things, feelings, and moments so that others will know they are not alone....this is my practice. (you can read more about this here.)

a few weeks later, i started this blog, and that phrase has been a guide as i share things in this space. and, of course, i learned that by sharing the truth, i know that i am not alone.

today is a day where i need to be reminded of this.

for the last two days, we have been with miss ellie in the pediatric ICU. her heart has been "having a time of it." she is okay, and we expect that to continue. but we are scared and trying to stay really really present as we give so much love to this little one.

so if you feel moved, could you close your eyes and breathe deeply and send a little love and a few prayers to a little room in tacoma where a little heart (and a little family) is trying to find its way.

thank you...

blessings,

liz

know your truth.

all the colors . port townsend, march 2010 

last week, as i was pounding letters, mantras, beliefs into metal, i had the thought to pound in the phrase "speak your truth."

this phrase has meant a lot to me over the last few years or so. back in november of 2006, i found myself in the midst of an illness that involved a growth on my thyroid. as i tried to make sense of the senselessness that is biopsies and other things, i kept coming back to how the words i so often wanted to say were sometimes stuck, literally, in my throat. how this had been a piece of my truth for my entire life. this growth seemed to represent this truth. (i wrote about my thoughts at the time here.)

this need to speak my truth came up again in 2007 when my dad shared that he wanted to get treatment for alcoholism. spending time with him and "talking about it" meant that i would need to speak my truth. i didn't know what form it would take or how i would be "brave" enough to share my experiences with someone in my family. i thought about the pain and all that i wanted to say to him (and as i thought about that pain, i thought about all the pain that had brought me to that moment). but when i started writing pieces of my story to share, i glimpsed something really important while in a hotel room outside chicago writing from my gut. i glimpsed a lesson in the idea that sometimes it is knowing our truth that is the powerful piece. this glimpse helped shape how i shared my story with my dad.

i didn't put this "glimpse" into the words of "knowing my truth" at the time. instead, i focused on how sharing our truth from a place of truth and love, as i did with my father, can push us to be honest while also owning our own pieces of the experience.

i think often of this idea of speaking my truth. in situations that have been confusing or when i find myself trying to set boundaries, i think about how i can speak my truth but from a place of truth and love. i know i do not always do it. i know i mess up a lot. i know my feelings/emotions in a moment can sometimes over rule this way i want to be. but i try to think about how to share pieces of my experience from a place of love of myself and love for the other person (whether i truly love the person or just feel compassion toward a fellow human i might not know very well).

let me try to explain another way: when something happens that shifts us, that moves us away from feeling grounded or "like ourselves," i think we have to look at why this feeling has come up. the truth piece comes in because we have to be truthful with ourselves. are we hurt? why? what is this really about? is this triggering something else/someone else? then, in being honest with ourselves, we can maybe see how we can separate how we are feeling from the other person/people involved.

as i started to pound "speak your truth" into metal last week, i stopped after "speak" and stood there staring at the word for five minutes or so. i thought about all of this. about how sometimes what seems like speaking my truth is actually a mishmash of feelings, emotions, fears, pain, triggers and not really the truth that rests in the core of who i am...who i hope to be.

in that moment, i thought about how it is powerful to know my truth and why i am reacting the way i am. in knowing my truth, i first speak my truth to myself (and then maybe to a very trusted friend because sometimes you need to hold someone's hand as you find this truth within you). i figure it out. i trust my self.

this is the most important piece: when we know our truth, the truth frees us.

then, from a place of truth and love, i can decide how and if i need to speak my truth to another person. i can figure out what pieces to tell that person that will help him or her see me instead of feeling attacked or invited to be defensive.

i think about that moment in that hotel room when i found my way to words that invited my dad to hear me instead of hearing judgement. i hoped that my words would convey: "this is what it was/is like to be me. this is how your actions shaped me. but i am glad to be who i am. i wish there had been less confusion and pain, but i stand tall in my life proud of who i became even though there was this pain on my path."

in this moment, almost three years later, i believe that our relationship is the good one that it is partly because i chose to know my truth and share only pieces of it so that my dad would be able to hear me. if i had attacked or come from a place of judgement, our relationship might be different now.

so what did i do with those words pounded into metal? i changed my mind and pounded the phrase "speak of hope" in one locket and "know your truth" in another.

speak of hope . know your truth

i know i do not do this all the time, this know my truth stuff...i do not always sit in the quiet to try to know what my feelings are about and why. ask my husband. he is often the recipient of my knee-jerk, pouting ways.

yet, i am trying to find my way to this as i walk in my life. trying to find my way to sharing pieces of my truth in the way that helps me and those i love. this means my heart is pretty open most of the time. this means i am sometimes misunderstood because not everyone feels comfortable with truth and love. this means i sometimes stumble as i try to find my way through my triggers and the pain.

as i look to this vulnerable time where i am bringing a new human into this world, where i am walking a new path that invites more judgement than i have perhaps ever felt in my life, i know that coming from this place of truth and love will serve me and my little family.

the other day, i wrote a status on facebook about how tender my heart feels and how we never know what another person is experiencing. this is so true. i believe this to my core. yet, i sometimes think we say that we believe this because we want to be able to say, "don't you know how hard it is to be me? don't you ever think about me?" i should rephrase: sometimes i think i say this when i feel hurt because i want to feel better that no one knows my day-to-day experience; no one knows what it is like to be me in this life. and this truth pushes me to think about how we have to remember, i have to remember, it goes both ways.

before we "speak our truth," we must remember that someone else will be the one to hear us. we must choose our words. in this place on this day as i walk on this path, my path, i invite myself to know my truth and to choose love.