carry on

Grieving for my family looks very different than what I've seen in the movies. And really, that's been the only tangible experience we've had as a family with death and dying. Grandparents have passed on after lengthy lives, but I was too young for their deaths to have played a major part of my life. And though my mother has passed, it had been decades since I'd seen her or she'd been relevant in my life. For me her death happened when she abandoned me, plain and simple, so when her actual physical death happened, it was sad, but there wasn't this.

My new normal means I carry a cracked and battered heart inside of me. I've always relied on the fact that my sister, just 19 months younger than me, and I would be old together. I've always known that I'd be the one that would look after our parents, I just never in a million years imagined it would be because my sister wouldn't be here.

Life is hard and bad things happen to good people and all of this, seems very unfair. And that's life. It's beautiful and it's fucked up and it's the true balance of Yin and Yang. (Chinese medicine really has it all figured out with the truth that all of life is yin and yang and it's trying to achieve that balance, that we strive for.)

When the shit falls down around you, you'll see friends that you thought were with you for life move along and you'll find strength in others that you've never met in person; a friend who gets you without having to explain.

I am fragile and I am made of the most resilient elastic. The sterility of it all, the words, the sucker punches that come with harsh truths, have to bounce off of me so I can carry on.

today

I don't think I made it clear that I traveled back to Vancouver this weekend for the next two weeks, or maybe I did. I look at emails I've sent this past week and think, 'Really? I wrote that?'

I find myself wanting to clap my hands over my mouth, as though I have no control of what's coming out. My words are stripped bare and sometimes, the tone and ways of my delivery are barbed and pointed. Not intentionally of course. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone in my family any more than we're already hurting.

Grief is so different for everyone. And what you think from one week, even one day, to the next changes on a dime.

These days, I'm grateful for my super power that numbs, the internal fog machine that packages the pain and softens it so that I can carry on. My true self, the Kristen whose heart is cracking slowly, hourly, is tucked away until later, when I can grieve on my own terms and time.

Right now, I'm here to help my sister. Help her by just spending time with her*, spending time with her kids and of course, helping with the things that need to be taken care of. I am the task master, keeping myself on a track of effective efficency; trying to be useful with the two weeks time I have here.

But also knowing that I need to self preserve. I'm making myself take a walk every morning. My sister lives along a river and the walkway, (quay), is stunning and verdant. Spring flowers are bursting forth and I spied 3 lush peonie bushes, the petals a deep, bloody red, my favorite.

I have my journal and I've been writing morning, everyday pages, almost daily. Some days, the words that need to come are too raw and I'm unable to say them, even on a page.

I'm not fretting in my usual way. I'm trying so hard to not read into anything everything, I'm really just trying to be open and available.

In February after heavy shit went down,  my acupuncturist said that I'd learn what my message and lesson was and I'd know it when it came.  And what I'm learning about myself and my message, is pretty fucking incredible I have to say.

*that's really for me isn't it? the need to spend as much time together as we can, because after a person's gone, do they really know? i don't know. sigh.

every picture tells a story don't it?

It has been one hell of a week. My sister's surgery was finally scheduled to happen Monday, except it didn't. The worst possible scenario playing out before my family; the reality of learning to live with a cracked and broken heart our new normal.

In the spirit of Susannah's post, the reality of life is that shitty things happen to good people. My sister's story is one that I couldn't make up if I tried and I'm not even talking about the very aggressive cancer.  And while I'm a believer in the power of our thoughts becoming things, that I can and will manifest my destiny, that I'm on my path...I also know that all I get is right now. 

I can paint a beautiful picture here of myself. I can show you my pretty photos and the new things I've added to my shop. I can speak of the beauty in the little things that happen in a day that make my life special; that slowing down and appreciating all that I have is an experience worth having. 

All of this is true and yet it's just a glimpse, a half truth of what my life really is. 

The down and dirty is that I'm scared shitless and I'm trying to pull on my big girl pants and be brave. I've learned that my super power has always been my ability to numb; that I can protect the most fragile parts of my heart and face the truth, (and fear), head on when I don't look too closely at that which is cracking me wide. (There's time for all of that later.)

And yet, I'm probably the most creatively prolific I've been in years, maybe even ever. Confronting the quagmire of my grief behind the glass encased inside my camera bag; documenting, creating, releasing. 

on helping myself

When I decided to go to acupuncture school, I made the decision to stop working as a creative. Literally weeks before I began the four year program, I received a call asking me to come for a final interview for a sweet, design position with the city of New York. I'd interviewed for the job months earlier; I hadn't heard and assumed, (wrongly), that I wasn't a candidate. It was down to me and one other person and I politely and respectfully declined. I felt that I needed to close the door completely before I could walk into something new.

And I did. I stopped being creative and focused on Chinese Medicine and I was blissed out. I'd never been an academic and my school was heavy on the academics and western science, giving me the opportunity to see myself in a different way.

It was working through The Artist Way five years ago that lead me back to my creative self. It was the weekly artist dates that lead me to picking up a camera, photo walking the streets of New York City, learning how to frame a shot. My prior experience in an undergrad photography elective was the classic tale of being crushed by harsh criticism in art school* and I literally could not take a good photo for twenty years. Really. M was always the photographer for us, our honeymoon photos are mostly me mugging for the camera, with the occasional good, (and very random), photo I'd take of him when I didn't cut off his head, his legs, or frame the shot so you wouldn't know what I was shooting.

I love being an acupuncturist. I'm passionate about my work, I love helping people, hearing their stories, figuring out how to help. But my passion is photography. I'd always felt a need to make a distinction between the two, until late winter when I read Brene Brown's book and truly understood that I don't have to choose. I don't have to be one thing or another. I knew that, but I also felt the need to make a distinction that I'm not really a photographer because I make my living poking people. 

I didn't realize when I chose the word grow this year, that it would also be about working hard to remove my cloak of invisibility; to really stop using the words that deflect, words that have helped me keep the definition of myself small.

This year, I've redefined myself as a slash.

Hi, I'm Kristen. I'm an acupucturist and a photographer and it's lovely to  meet you. 

*As an interior design major, we weren't thought of as part of the 'real' art school, (read the fine artists), so the electives, (we had to take electives outside of our major), could be traumatic. Teachers were just as judgmental as fellow students about the artist vs. designer.

and so it goes

 

Until yesterday, I was all over the place, literally kinetic with exhausted energy that wouldn't ground. As always, I was grateful for my monthly acupuncture appointment, my reset button, and today, I feel more focused.

Last week was loaded. Loaded with emotion and memories; a week of serious reflection and facing a part of my past that I hadn't thought about in decades. A memorial service will do that to you; your shared history buried with the person who has passed. Truly, a rite of passage. And as most memorial services go, it's a time for celebration, and in this case, reunion, which was all a bit overwhelming for me. 

In true fashion, I bolted after the services. Choosing to not face my past by making myself invisible is something I'm really good at apparently. My girlfriend said not one person saw me at the memorial and another pointed out that she'd never seen anyone disappear right before her eyes like I did. My safety net is my cloak of invisibility; powerful thoughts that obviously manifest in such a way that my message becomes, "nothing to see here, moving right along".

This friend that passed...it had been decades since we'd seen one other, save a brief encounter on the street a month earlier. I'd forgotten a lot of our history, perhaps because our connection began and ended misaligned.

I think in my haste to leave a situation where I felt uncomfortable, I missed an opportunity to heal. There will be other gatherings and events this year that I normally would have avoided. Instead, I plan to push through my discomfort and put myself out there, accepting rather than insulating. Knowing that moments that are awkward and uncomfortable, (as social situations can be for me in general), will happen. I can do it. It's valuable for me to see what awaits and to let myself grow.