0008 - Sadness

I came up with a solution that will likely keep my staff out of the unemployment line.  It doesn’t change the reality of my situation much, but should radically help them.  It’s amazing how much better I feel knowing that they have options now.  If I were cynical, I’d be asking why it still matters, but it does.  They are good people and the work they do makes a difference.  Now they will have an opportunity to become responsible for their own growth, learning, and success.  Whether they succeed or fail will now be a direct reflection of their choices instead of mine.  I wish I had thought of this sooner, but I know there is a reason for everything.  My ego and need to lead probably would have interfered had I thought of this in the beginning.  It would sure be nice if it didn't seem like I was walking backwards through life, looking at what could have been if I'd only seen things clearly sooner. 

My child and a handful of others now know most of the truth of my situation.  It is so hard to see the pain in their eyes.  My child says it’s not disappointment, but sadness.  That is a good way to describe it – bone deep, weary, gut-wrenching sadness.  I fell asleep the other night thinking of tears, but unwilling to shed them.  I didn’t want to alarm my boyfriend who was spending the night.  I found myself crying in the middle of the night and was able to truthfully tell him that I had a nightmare.  I dreamed that I was flying low to the ground and couldn't remember how to float higher up to where it was safe. I was captured and abused by a gang of children who caught me because I was so low and bound me with ties that I could have escaped, but didn’t.  I was intrigued by the nightmare; it didn’t really make me cry.  Rather, I cried purposefully because I feel so strongly the need to heal.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes says that tears lead to exhaustion, to the disassembling of defenses, to the facing of oneself, and the to desire for both knowledge and relief.  She says that tears change people, remind them of what is important, and save their very souls.  I want a simple, sane, stress-free life.  Can’t I have that and get where I am going, too?  Must I sacrifice one for the other?  I know that the answer to this is that I can have both… but I wonder if I have traveled so far down the difficult path that it doesn’t make sense to turn back now.  Surely, I am almost there?  If I still have a long way to go, please, God, let there be a fork ahead that leads to an easier path, one not so full of sadness.