I have always kept my circle small. I have always loved the intimate and personal and knew early on that I could not scatter my energies among the many. Being popular was not something that called to me, only being loved and known and seen.
And as I mused over coffee and gorgeous moody music in the dark this morning, deciding what to write about, the only thing that really wanted to get onto the page was something about my friends. The friends who have held me so tightly, so fiercely, with such love these last years.
I don’t know how lovable I was, to be honest. I was in the Ashes.
I know how deeply scared I was. How bewildered, how devastated, and at moments how hopeless. Those are hard feelings to be with for even the most devoted friends. And yet.
And I’m a funny mix. In the midst of hopeless or bereft, I am still a creator. I create in the kitchen, on the page, in work with clients. I create home before anything else. I create new connections. Without this creation part, I surely would have gone down and stayed there.
My friends, oh my friends. I think you know how deeply I love you, how much I thank God for you, how much I say your names each night before sleep comes and ask for you to be blessed and well. As I’ve heard Caroline say (Myss) none of us are entitled to love. I know some disagree. But I believe she is correct. It’s not a given. So much of it is a blessing, a gift, comes from grace.
When I left my marriage 2+ years ago, on the heels of losing my beloved Sam, the house and land I loved in a way that was not rational, two more dogs who I”d had to release, my entire financial savings that were in the house, my children to their new adult lives…. my future as I’d imagined it was gone. Wiped out in just a few years of excruciating and nonstop losses. I could not imagine how I would be, who I would be.
My younger baby/child selves were going insane. Making a ruckus. “Who is going to take care of us? Where will we live? How will se be safe? Where is home?”. There was a lot of noise from what my teacher Sharon called our ‘split-aparts’ the younger selves that hold pieces of trauma and loss that split off from our adult selves.
I am so grateful for spiritual sight and perspective at these and other times. It’s easy to feel we are being punished, victimized, cast aside ,forgotten. And although of course I struggled with these beliefs at times, mostly I knew this was a bigger something that was happening.
Historically I know I am honed in the Fire. That whatever isn’t serving my becoming what I am here to be will be swept away. Blown up. I have had a few epic Big Cleanups. When it all goes down in flames. When it happens that way you are meant to pay attention. You are meant to change. The whole point is that you are meant to change.
And I have. With a whole lotta help from my friends.
I have had a difficult and complicated relationship with my mother. My father has been gone for 37 years and he too was complicated. My brother died 5 years ago. I moved to a town where I knew no one.
But I had skype, a landline, a cellphone and a group of friends who should receive some kind of medal for loving me through this. I’m not kidding… I needed a lot. A lot of connection, a lot of reassurance, a lot of vision, a lot of reminding, a lot of holding space, a lot of prayers, a lot of Oracle cards, a lot of sitting with me while I sobbed.
And so much of what they did was to see the rest of me. The parts that were intact. That were still creating. The part of me that had always always survived and created. They saw my spirit and my heart even when all I could see was my bloody mess.
My friend S. always reminds me that ‘We are all just walking each other home”. And who told me stories that comforted me, like the one about how someday I would meet my next love and I would look at him and think “Of course it had to be you”. And how comforting and powerful that was, how i held that like a soft toy in the night.
My mentor, my K. reminded me often “look to your history” .. as in what has always been.. home, partnership, good work and clients, health.
My friend M. pulled card after card, helping me speak more thematically and symbolically and using humor to remind me of all the things I thought I couldn’t do, and then did. A fierce love given with huge heart and generosity.
My darling M., so much younger than me and yet beyond wise, beyond generous, from a totally religious and political and geographic orientation… that held a powerful love and belief in me and in my work. Who every day asked me how I was doing and made time for me, saw me.. buoyed me up over and over. A holy woman of deep faith.
My friend D. always just loved me, and radiated so much kindness as I wept and poured out the feelings. So patient with me, such grace and heart.
My friend M. who used every trick in the book to help me shift the painful beliefs that bore down on me and kept me in trauma. And with my friend D, i met on a bus on a trip to a horrible business seminar in Vegas many moons ago. And who by a a pool in Dallas last March, rid me of one of the deepest, oldest trauma driven beliefs.. poof.. gone.. it was a miracle.. truly.
My friend J., there forever and ever, holding my history and my successes and also the girly youthful parts that we got to touch into when we were together… the history of being girls who made things happen, who laughed at the world, who flirted and spun and the memories of the men who’d loved us.
My newer friend J. who came to stay and brought Prosecco and candy and listened with her old school solemnity and wisdom of another culture… who knew how to be still.
Another new J. friend.. much much younger, a creator, somebody I mentored as she also supported me.. a true Seer, an artist, someone who loved Beauty as much as I do.
My new soul brother F. , who I partly believe was why my spirit came to Newport to befriend, my sense that he was a partial replacement for the brother I lost. Wise, psychic, funny, creative, entrepreneurial, and who brought me to his house for Christmas since I moved here. And to family dinners and birthday parties, and who I created ceremonies with.
Even Andy, my Andy.. still my dear friend, still my family. Visited every two months, allowed me to feel all of the feelings, and many were not pretty. We have survived this divorce and remain what we have been for 12 years.. dear friends.
And there were other friends, other angels… I will never forget you and your kindness when it truly mattered. And of course there were the friends that weren’t. I let them go quickly and without ceremony. I had no use for that nonsense, those projections and judgments, for people who could not feel, for people who posed as spiritual warriors who were anything but. Old friends, forever friends, not meant to be on the train forever. Goodbye. Sacred contracts fulfilled and done.
And now Life. Creation. Beauty. New love. A life that has found it’s course again. Everything flourishing. I am amazed at what can change in a couple of years, and sometimes overnight.
I hope this wasn’t maudlin. If it is… it’s where I am as the dawn breaks today.. Grateful beyond measure, filled with love, overjoyed to be on the other side, in awe of the hearts around me. I cannot speak the words that can convey just how loved I have felt, how desperately I needed these generous souls, how profound the experience was and the healing it created.
I love you I thank you, I am devoted to you.
With so much love, heart to heart…
And if you are in the midst of your own Firewalk, of transformation and loss, come be part of a beautiful loving community… come to Beauty School. My online private Facebook group.. completely free, wholly nourishing. We’ll hold you up, you’ll find your voice and embody your fullness… we got you. Just click here to gain entry… xo https://www.facebook.com/groups/IntuitiveBodyBeautySchool/
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