Sensing Auras

So now as I write, my adult self reads over my shoulder, weighing, judging, deciding whether this will be worth the time and energy taken away from tending my family and my work. Who can say? Might a magazine send me a small check for a well-turned article? Might these words fit into a best-selling novel? I feel her hot breath on my cheek, and the flow falters. But she won't stop me. She understands what it means to tell the truth. She was the one who drove me six long hours south to tell my Mom the truth. She drove me six hours back the same day, not wanting to spend another moment in that house with a mother whose greatest relief was that I did not accuse her. Then she called me, her words decoded decades later. She was there, she knew, and she didn't stop him.

Where does this leave me? I have a full life, I have a solid strong loving husband and wonderful children. We have raised good people together, and they are not afraid of the truth. Yes I still have my little grey hand-made horse, and yes, they know his story, they know my story, but they all live with the knowledge and then move on, carrying me in their loving wake. I have won in the end. I do still test the waters, helplessly checking pH several times a day, every waking hour, but I don't always rush in to modify the results. I simply take note sometimes, waiting to see how they help themselves, and at times they do. I learn from them how to take care of myself. I learn that life is not without hurts and twists and crazy turns, but if you have a loving family, then the road is not so hard and the twists are not so frightening.

Perhaps coming to terms with the rough patches of everyday life holds the key to living with people today. This sensitive soul of mine cannot fix all the hurts, but it can honor them and then move on, knowing that this too shall pass. Perhaps my role now is to honor the hurts that show clearly on everyone I meet, without needing to stop and heal what only needs to be accepted. To lift up what needs to be spoken aloud so that the joy-infusing stream can start to wear it away, absorbing the pain into the greater fabric of all of our lives. We don't live in little human-shaped bags, separate from each other. We all swim together in the world, auras mixing and melding, clashing and synchronizing. Hearing the baby cry, we are all moved to care and reminisce and welcome the new one into our midst.

I hear that adult call me. Stop writing, you aren't being useful! Is that why I yell when called useful, seemingly insulted down to my deepest layers? Is the hurtful word already spoken in my most secret inner spaces the one I least want to hear? Does that mean it is true, or does that mean that the lack of care for myself is mirrored by the outside world, which is just too hard to bear? Perhaps I can throw the whole useful thing out, let it dissolve into my rushing creative stream. Who, after all, will care if I spend an hour writing total nonsense? Just a propped-up pretend part of me who calls herself grown-up. Of course, as I say this, I am frightened. That the one person who stuck by me all those years might be insulted and leave me stranded. But I resist fracturing my self into more pieces. That will never work. I will hold on so tightly that my fingers will break before I release another piece to fly away. I need all my pieces. I want them all to be civil and kind to each other, supporting where support is indicated, advising when a word to the wise would help, and celebrating a job well done, an emotion well felt, a turn of phrase well put. I think of the old saying, “Why can't we all just get along?!” Funny how the most heavy emotive moments sometimes end up just like that.