Everything Falls Apart...

And it gets put back together again, eventually.  It is just the hang time in between that is so difficult.  I know all of this change that is occurring right now is fine, even as it is painful. I know that while I am hyper-focused on all that is leaving, ending, breaking and falling away, there are things that are budding, growing, changing for the better.  It is sometimes hard to feel the hope of growth and change while you are in the throws of everything getting blown to smithereens.

I couldn’t stop crying yesterday. I could not hold it together.  I had stuff to do yesterday but nothing earth shatteringly important.  And I was so spent at like 6:30 am.  I just took the day.  I spent it on the couch, intermittently crying, sleeping and rotting.  I ate way too much crap and now today, I have a headache and feel shitty.  Why exactly do I do this to myself? Why is the line between self care and abuse so fucking easy to cross?

It is so interesting to see my addictions morph into other things.  They just have all these avenues of escape, so many that I wonder if I shall ever truly heal...or shall I just exist exchanging one thing for another, forever?

I keep trying.  I do.  I really fucking do.  I see it, I call myself out for them.  I begin again, and again.  I refuse to give up.  I do not let myself off the hook.  I never say, “ok, well this is as good as I am ever going to get so I am going to fuck off now and not do anymore emotional or spiritual heavy lifting over here...”  Even when I absolutely want to do that.  I keep going and growing and attempting to right that which I fuck up, injure, fail.

I really do see that I am the common denominator.  I do see that the issues I have in my life are a direct result of the choices I make.  And that my favorite choices result in relational hardship, repeatedly. If there is one thing I could do right now that would drastically alter my life, is to put someone else in charge of picking who goes and who stays.  Seriously, sometimes, I think a monkey would do a better job than I do.  I mean would a monkey select as many narcissists? I do not think so. 

So it is all imploding and exploding and there is shit raining down all over the place.  And for the most part, I am taking it all in stride.  Yesterday I just didn’t have it in me to cope better than I did.  I just foundered all day. Felt like shit about myself and allowed the tears to flow.  It was my best effort.  My little kitten Delilah spent the entire day laying on me and purring.  It was like she knew I should not be left unsupervised.  And she would wake up, open one eye, squeeze up her little face and start purring all over again.  It was fucking magic.  And just as I typed this, she came from out of the darkness and laid on my chest.  I swear she knows when I am upset and thinks it is her job to comfort and soothe me.  Thank fucking God!  I need both right now. And I am not doing that stellar of a job on my own.

So I see it all falling apart: my old ways of dealing with life, old relationships, grief, loss, pain, suffering, addiction.  All the things that were not working have ended, without the neat tidy bow that we all so wish for...I always want universal will or God to explain things before they leave...something like:

“Hey Erin, sweetie, your dad is not going to see out 2025...it is his time and he is going to go.  It is going to happen pretty quickly, so take the time you need, make him the only priority.  It won’t be long now...”

But that isn’t what happened.  He just was up and living one day and then it was a 12 day march to death.  I mean we kinda knew, but I thought there would be more time. I gave some of that time away to a job I no longer have and I regret that. I let her take that time from me and I am upset about that now...why did I let her do that?

“Hey, Erin, guess what?  This job you have, it isn’t right for you and it is going to have to end.  And yes, you are going to try to end it but then are you going to get roped back in and then this person you called friend, is going to fuck you over, hard.  But it will be ok...I promise!”

Nope, job just gone.  Friend, nope, not anymore.  In fact, the fuck over is so great that I cannot even stomach calling her a friend ever.  I am not sure what she was but friend shall not be sullied by being attributed to her.  The name deserves more than to be associated with the likes of her.

We all want life to provide advanced notice.  Hey, there is this shit thing that is going to happen...brace.  And sometimes life does give us a head’s up.  But often, it does not.  Life just unfurls itself and in all that shaking out, knocks you about and down.  I do believe that life is always rooting for us.  It wants us to get up and rally.  It just sometimes doesn’t feel like it in the moment.

The aftermath of loss is that you have to founder a bit.  You have to not have all your shit together.  You have to be a little, or a lot, messy.  And I was messy as fuck yesterday.  And perhaps I will be today also.  And that is also as it should be. I will survive all of this and this decimation will provide fertile ground for my future growth.  Right now it just feels and smells like a lot of bullshit.  But I will rise again.  I will grieve my dad, for the rest of my days.  I will get over the hurt and betrayal.  I am already grateful to not work for her anymore.  So grateful for the surgical precision that has removed her and all her drama from my life.  I just don’t know how it all gets sorted...

But I know that everything falls apart and that while it is all falling apart and I am focused on all the shit that is raining down on me, I know it is also already being put back together, better.  I know it is all being sorted out and I will be cared for and carried.  I know this because it has been my experience. I have lived through some pretty traumatic and awful things and I am still here.  And all of those things, killed off parts of me that were not serving me any longer, and grew up parts of me that I needed for further growth.  I can see the growth in the despair and grief and loss. I can feel it too...it is just a lot right now.  And that is ok too.

Everything falls apart...it has to.  Life is a progressive decay.  Of our bodies, our minds, our relationships, but not our spirit.  I believe if we are living rightly, then our spirit always uses the decay as seeds for new growth.  Everything else might be falling apart but spiritual growth will use that decimation for fertile soil to grow you up and into a better version of yourself every single fucking time.  It just isn’t a great deal of fun when it is happening.  And it is also smelly and not all that pretty.

We want growth to be linear and with advance notice.  It isn’t.  Shit just blows apart and we are left to grapple with what remains. Trusting that we have all we need for the task at hand. And that even as the shit rains down, the universe has a plan for even the shitstorms that befall us from time to time. Sometimes, we just have to hunker down and wait out the storm.

Again, still...