The dead of winter, the light in spring

I drove home in a gray afternoon. It’d been a long day at work, the kind that keeps you so busy that you haven’t a minute to think about a single thing. Frantic, with deadlines, and people pulling you a million directions. Needless to say I was drained, and utterly exhausted.

I pulled up to the driveway, and shut the car off. As much as I wanted warmth, I didn’t hurriedly dash for the front door. Instead, I looked out of my passenger window and saw my dad gardening in the front yard. It was his favorite thing to do. And he was so good at it. His green thumb made everything flourish in effortless beauty. I loved that about him.

I hadn’t noticed how depressing our yard looked. This winter had been so bitterly cold it had taken hostage most of the plants. But brown and wilting as they were, my dad kneeled beside them adding fertilizer and water. He was also attaching pieces of tarp to his beloved rose bushes, shielding them from the winter frost. I thought it was monotonous, but he kept on, paying no mind to the bone-chilling wind and the 32 degree weather that afternoon. After all it was his garden, and if he didn’t do it no one else would.

I went inside swiftly only yelling out a “hi dad” before shutting the front door close. I went directly to my room, threw my things on a chair, sat on the corner of my bed, and laid back head first. I closed my eyes. Thoughts were swirling in my head. But all I could keep thinking about was how reminiscent of those rose bushes I felt. Long gone the green of the stem and the blooming buds. Instead, they lied crippled, brown, and wilted.

A break up and the end of an era had casted a winter filled with shadows and uncertainty. I couldn’t stop the process much less a rose could stop winter from rolling through. But though accepted and having had closure, my inner self couldn’t but help remain lifeless and wilted. I’d lost my bloom, and at that moment hadn’t the slightest idea of how to recover.

Some things seem menial, as if the task surpasses the ending result in strength and time, and therefore seems wasteful. But they are nonetheless necessary. Some things seem so uncertain, that all hope attached to it seems foolish and imprudent. For the person outside looking in, a brown, wilted rose bush is just that. Wilted. They’d never experienced its spring… when the bloom of the flower made a garden luscious, beaming and radiant.

And yet when March crept up from behind the long buried shadows, and the garden stretched out its arms after its deep slumber, the onlooker would welcome it with joy. Forgotten was the arduous task of keeping alive its roots so that it would bloom again in spring. To the gardener the end result of a tedious winter was worth it. Where someone saw a dead garden, he saw soil, and seed, and life.

I think we too often forget that. In the, at times, excruciating task of mending our hearts we burry our heads so deep into our despair and sorrow that we forget that. Our hearts and our strength seem so shattered they haze our view. And everything seems yellowing, browning, withered.  But in truth, with a little work, and a lot of hope, even the bleakest garden can bloom again. After all isn’t the definition of faith “the evident demonstration of realities that are not seen”?

I lied in bed looking up at my ceiling, 30 minutes had gone by. I stood up and went to my window, and there was my dad still working in the garden. I went into the kitchen and poured him a hot cup of coffee and myself a hot tea. I put on my coat and walked outside to give it to him. I asked him what he was doing, he looked up at me and smiled and he began explaining to me the technicalities. And even though I couldn’t begin to grasp the concept, I nodded.  

Because truth is… in the dead of winter we all need a little nurturing, a little warmth, or even just a hot cup of coffee to keep us going. 

Let it hurt

7:01 in the evening. It’d been one of those days. Those terrible days where it seems like the whole worlds against you and you’re only holding on by a thread. My body ached from head to toe. My mind numb from all the inflicting thoughts that lay in it. My head throbbed as my pounding heart beat unnaturally.

I came home to find the house completely still and empty. I looked into the kitchen, a plate labeled “Dinner” Had been left out on the countertop. And a “PS” added “wash the dish afterwards.” As if I needed reminding. But I wasn’t hungry. So I grabbed the dish and put it in the fridge. Pulled out a bottle of red wine. The one we’d got from the vineyard months ago. After pouring myself a glass, I went into the bathroom. I took out every candle we owned and light them up. I went into the hall and put on an old record. Mile Davis. The melody soothing and calming.

I turned on the hot water. And poured a whole bottle of bath bubbles. I got undressed. And I stepped into the bath. I needed this. I said to myself. I slid slowly down into the water till I was completely underwater. That’s what I wanted to do most of all. That’s what I really needed, to disappear. Deep down into the water till every last bubble of oxygen was gone. Maybe then I’d forget.

All I’d ever wanted was to forget. But even when I thought I had, pieces kept emerging. Like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.

And a shipwreck I was. There on a Monday night while the world kept on turning, I submerged my aching body into the deep end of the water. Hoping to stop the pieces that kept emerging from making a whole.

I came up from the water covered in tears. And it hurt. I didn’t mean to fall apart; I didn’t mean to start sobbing, or for my rickety body to tremble from head to toe. But the truth is that, sometimes, the things that we don’t want to happen are exactly the things that we NEED most to take place. And more than a fake smile, a numb spirit, I needed to unravel. Putting off the pain only works for so long. Eventually you’ll walk right into a mirror that will stop you dead on your tracks and make realize you are aching. And the only way around it is to let healing do its work and let it hurt.

We falsely correlate tears with weakness. Admittance of being inflicted is casted as being over emotional. We’d rather mask the surface; put another board over the cracked bottom of our boats, than declare a shipwreck. And we fool ourselves into believing that it works. Until the water seeps in from tiny little cracks you never even noticed where there. Till you’re sinking once more.

Allowing yourself to heal properly is as vital as having a floating device, or a life boat on board. It’s the only thing that will bring you back to shore. That’s not to say that it’s easy or in any way graceful, but it’s necessary. It’s an imperative part of the process.

Its 7:59 in the evening now, the sun has set, and the candles are burning low. Miles Davis is playing on the old record player in the hall. And for the first time in days I am serene. I am at peace. I am at shore.

Loving, losing, healing

The following short story is dedicated to a dear friend who among all things always believes in happy endings, even when the girl doesn’t get the guy. So here it is, for the eternal optimistic, who always believes in love.

She fell in love the most way women do. Among flattery, promises of moon and the stars, and dreams of a fairy tale ending. And she believed in love the way most of us do. Blindly.

He was charming and kind, she was swooned and easily fell head over heels for him. Their love blossomed over constant hours of conversation about everything and anything. And even though many opposed the idea of a long distance relationship working - she thought of it romantic and endearing.

Sadly after a couple of years and an engagement later it all came crashing down. It was a late winter day when he told her through an email that HE fell out of love. She read it over and over hoping that among those lines there was something she missed. So there she sat staring at the end of what seemed to be her life and all she could do was cry. She got up went to her calendar and when she crossed out “Please wait for me”, the words he’d written just before leaving the states, she collapsed on the floor and sobbed uncontrollably for the loss of him.

The next morning she looked outside and the sun was gone. It was raining, but no amount of rain could wash away her sadness. She was at that moment… heartbroken. That’s when her heart stopped, her dreams were shattered and her fairy tale ending was brought to a screeching halt.

The break up arising out of thin air and with no real reason left her confused, hurt, shocked, and very much in pain. The more she thought about it the more she didn’t understand. How could someone, who had promised her forever, take it all away with just a few words? She never got closure, just an apologetic excuse with awkward reasoning. And that hurt her more. She found her self with the moon and the stars that he promised her, crashing down right on top of her. He hurt her so bad; she didn’t know where to begin to pick up the pieces of her life.

During the day it was very easy to be brave. But when night fell and the truth crept up in between dreams there was no escaping it. Some nights the silence scared her so much she’d wake up covered in tears and memories. See it was within the loss of them and the loss of her ideals that she lost herself. So she cried more tears than she thought she could cry and felt more pain that she thought she could feel. She was alive after all but alive with out him in her live.

But the days became weeks, the weeks - months and the pain became easier to deal with. With time she accepted defeat. So she boxed away the photographs and old letters. Boxed away the pictures and old CD’s he burned for her. And in that box she put away memories of yesterday.

Still the fact remained, her belief system was shaken. “I’m afraid that he took my ability to love” she would confide in her friends. Because after the pain became easier to handle her heart grew cold. And the biggest fear in being untouchable isn’t the fear of love itself but of never being able to be moved again.

Nevertheless, you can’t rush healing. It’s a process from the sleepless nights, to the “I can’t believe I loved you” days. So she took her time, remembering, feeling, and growing as the days passed. See it’s true we lose our battles but it’s also true that we win wisdom for the days ahead.

With time and healing she finally went a day with out thinking of him till finally her heart didn’t sink every time she heard his name. And since happiness cannot be found looking back she found ways around the memories.

Many years later I find myself immersed in conversation with her. “It’s been hard to be me again” She sighs. “But how long you dwell in defeat is entirely up to how fast you get tired of feeling like a failure. You just have to stop thinking about what you think you lost and look forward to what there is to gain.”

And it gets me thinking. The process of healing and moving on is a complicated one. Many get lost in the “I miss you”, “I can’t live with out you” days. But it’s a required process to move on correctly. Otherwise if you jump from tears to “just fine” you kid yourself that you are ok. You’ve just allowed the memory to grow tender so when the subject is touched your heart will beat differently. Never letting you rest completely.

She looks up at this point and stares up into the distance seeing something I don’t see and says “I’ve reconciled with the idea that he was never meant for me. But I’ve also learned there’s no such thing as you lost it all… after all for every ending there’s a new beginning…”