Day 578 – Cry, Baby (I Love You)

You know you’ve reached the end of the road when you stop complaining. I was just thinking of some shady stuff someone who claimed to be a friend did… and I was gonna be all mad. And then, I don’t know what happened. I just wasn’t mad anymore…

It has come to this. I’m not mad anymore. I know you have no idea what I’m talking about.

It’s been a while. My emotions are all over the place, but I’ve been wanting to write for a while. I’ve been sick. For a long time. And as a result, a lot of my life structures have been falling apart. For a brief moment in time – it was so brief – I had everything I dreamed of. I had a Lover I was totally into, I had talks about a blossoming career that I had wanted all my life, I had vibrant health, I had money in the bank and life looked hopeful… And then everything fell apart so quickly.

First my health. Health and food always does it for me. If I don’t have either, I tend to lose everything else. So my health fell apart real bad and I was really scared for my life. There were many moments where I felt like I was dying. My mentor, My People, says I wasn’t dying, but that I had left my body and entered some sort of astral plane, but it sure felt like dying to me. Not that I would know. I’ve never died before that I can remember.

I was in a lot of pain, though, and my mind thought my life was going to end soon. It happened many times. About once a month for the past six months or so. Many doctors. Many tests. Much blood drawn and scans and fear. My mom wanted to come out to help me with stuff, but I thought the emotional cost for me would be greater than the benefit. So I’ve been mostly navigating these health things on my own. Other people offered to help. Same thing. Emotional cost high. Not that these people don’t love me or not that they aren’t helpful in so many ways. Just that we have so many unresolved issues and eventually a conversation will lead to them and then I’ll be a basket case for days.

I had a dream last night. My farm. Some people were overseas sharing rare imported fruits. They were speaking about how they wish those fruits grew in our country overseas. I secretly knew that they did. They grew on our farm… We were going to have a mighty harvest. We got security guards – kids. The little pre-teen boys who always protect me when I go to the farm. We equipped them with bows and arrows old fashioned style. Built treehouses for them. They shot intruders in the butts when they came. They loved the game. They loved to be wild protectors.

I woke up feeling good and clear minded for the first time in a long time. I believe I went to sleep shortly after speaking to my Best Friend last night. I think he told me he loved me… I know he told me that he wished that I got everything I wanted in life, even if I didn’t get it from the people who I wanted to get it from. In my over half a life time of knowing him, he has never wished me such a lovely wish. And he meant it. I felt it. And he also said he thinks I’m going to get through what I was going through. I told him that he’s never said that to me before, and he said that he’s never felt that before…. Still the lovely jerk that he’s always been. I’ve missed him. We separated for years and now we’ve started talking again… Things have changed. We are not so enmeshed. I can see where his thoughts end and mine begin… But I am glad to have my best friend again, asking me how I’m doing, being willing to get up and do the thing that’s really going to help me do the things that matter to me, covering me with protection. Being interested in my thriving and showing up for me… I feel seen.

So… everything went to shit. In the meantime, I’ve been figuratively planting seeds. I woke up on the heels of my fruit dream with the thought of a dead almost friend on mind and I woke up wanting to write this blog and title it “Cry. It’s Over”.

I’ve been crying for a long time and I titled this blog “How Not To Cry Every Day” and I get it. Crying every day sucks. I was crying every single day when I broke up with He Who Came Before, and me crying every day was what instigated this blog. I knew that one day I wouldn’t be crying every day and one day I would forget all the hard things that I went through and I wouldn’t be able to speak to the people who were going through things in the way that reaches them because I wouldn’t be going through things anymore and I wouldn’t be feeling those feelings anymore. So I wanted to document the things in real time and share how I was making it through in real time.

And guess what? I made it through. It’s over. That was the end goal, wasn’t it? The other day, I woke up with the idea “You are not you anymore. You just think you are”. I got the idea from a teaching from a group therapy program I was in last year, where we had to evaluate who were are now, versus who we think we are. I had grown, but I didn’t realize I had. I am a grown up and I’m not ruled by the unhealed traumas of my seventeen year-old self anymore. I’ve done a lot of work. I’ve done a whooooole lot of praying and healing and book reading and evaluating and therapy. And, yes, it’s so that I could write this blog, but the natural result of all of this was supposed to be so that I could get somewhere. To the other side of happy. And then what?

What would happen there? I’d have everything I dreamed of. And I’d be everything I dreamed of. Love. That’s what I really wanted. That’s what I’ve always wanted. To Love and be Loved as I am. To not be demonized and seen as evil by the people I love. To be helped when I needed it. To be championed when I did something good. And to be allowed to cry. To be allowed to be weak and/or make mistakes without being judged, hated and treated like my suffering is a betrayal to someone else. To be given a helping hand in ways that matter. To be held… At the time, I didn’t even dare to dream of the things that came beyond love, but now I think of them. I won’t share them here, but I’ll ask the question.

What would happen if I was Loved? You want to hear something interesting? All this love I had been wanting? I never gave it to myself. I never gave it to anyone else at the level that I wanted it. Hypocrite, I know. I forgive myself. I didn’t know. I think I loved most people more than they were either willing or able to love me, but that’s just because I’m a deeply loving person. And everyone’s not. But I didn’t love most people at the level that I wanted because they did shit like hurt me and I withheld love in return…

But I don’t want to anymore. This is not where I thought this blog was going, but alas, truth. My heart has been broken for so, so long, and yes, it has been broken because of things that happened, but it has also been broken because of what has happened to me because of things that happened. I stopped loving.

I’ve been taking this course lately about mysticism. And in the course, the teacher calls different emotions that we experience energies or angels. And he spoke about the angel of grief and what it does to us. Sadness keeps us stuck. We had to think of all the good things that different emotions do for us and then give these emotions what he called “holy assignment”. And I’ve been looking at my grief lately. There has been so, so much of it. A lifetime of sadness. The good thing sadness can do, is that while it is keeping us stuck, it is giving us needed rest. Sadness can also inform us about the things that are important to us, our core values or needs, and I have been asking my sadness to show me the way to meet my needs. And it led me back to Love. Aligned love. My love starved heartbroken ass needed love. Needs love. Needs to give and receive it in very deep ways. But I had always been choosing to align with others who just couldn’t receive what I had to give or who just couldn’t or wouldn’t give me the kind of love I needed. My sadness, directed, told me to let go of wanting from others what they can’t or won’t give to you…. You’ve been doing to them what they’ve been doing to you. Resenting you because you can’t or won’t give them a thing they want from you. Just because you have a thing doesn’t mean you want to give it to everyone who wants to get it from you. So let it go. Let people choose to love you if they want and let them choose to withhold or be mad or feel whatever they feel and do whatever they want if they want…. Give others the freedom to be themselves and make their own choices just as you want the freedom to be yourself and make your own choices and don’t resent them for it…

I must tell you that as I’m writing this, my whole body is tensing up. There is a tingling feeling starting in my lower spine and fear wants to take me over. Fear because this is different than what I used to say. This is change. Are we safe? No, fear, we aren’t. My autonomic nervous system descends down the ladder to flight and freeze, a mix of dorsal and sympathetic. And I comfort it instead of beating it up. I will coax it up to ventral. Talk to it like a frightened child. Because I’m a grown up now and I’m no longer seventeen. What are you afraid of, dear? You are scared that if you think these thoughts, then they will lead you back to the world outside of this apartment and the world will hurt you. Like it did before. You are remembering all of the shakes and the heartbreak and the betrayal and the massive disappointment and the shame and the bumping of head over and over again. You are remembering being alone so many times and feeling so unloved and uncared for by people you trusted and hoped would care for you. You are remembering the lack of compassion and eyes of hatred looking at you. Yes, my baby. And the assholes will tell you you’re not a victim in the midst of your despair, but yes, my baby, you have been. Your hurt is valid. It’s not too much. You’re not too much. Or too little for that matter. I understand. Your hurt is valid. Your pain is not a nuisance or too much… Let me hold you for a moment and breathe with you while you cry. It’s OK. You can cry. You’ve been hurt. Don’t hold back your tears to appease others’ inability to take accountably. Cry yo ass out if it hurts. And I will hold you. It’s not OK for people to hurt you and hurt you and don’t care, my baby. If they do it to you, I won’t. I care.

So we will stop right now and acknowledge your tears. I can see that you feel hurt. You don’t have to be ashamed. You don’t have to blame anyone. You can even blame yourself. Maybe it’s your fault. But it’s OK. I still love you. Maybe it’s not your fault. It’s OK. You’re still lovable. People make mistakes and sometimes people do it on purpose. It’s OK. You’re still lovable. You make mistakes and sometimes you do things on purpose. It’s OK. I forgive you. I still love you, seventeen.

Let me breathe with you and then I will show you the way to come back to the world. We do it just like this. Me and you, seventeen. And eleven. And twenty-two. And yesterday. And all the pictures of unprocessed pain that have had us in so much discontent for so long. We come back to the world together. Integrated. Whole. Acknowledging and embracing all parts of ourselves and giving holy assignment to it all. Stopping to kiss and comfort ourselves when we feel afraid. Fear can be a psychic soothsayer, and so, fear, I thank you for alerting me that danger may be present in this world by banging my nerves with such pain as I think about re-entering and making my breathe stop in place. And now, I’d like to give you an assignment. Show me the way to be safe in the world.

My fear says that I should go and work out all this pain I have stored in my body. Do my mental exercises and my mystic practices. Apply all this stuff I’ve learned over the years like I’m doing now. It’s like I’ve been living with fuzzy view. Living in my traumas. And so I couldn’t see what’s really going on. Be willing. to see what’s really going on. You won’t like some of it. You’ll see that some people don’t necessarily like you or wish the best for you. It will hurt when you realize this, but it will put you in reality. And in reality, you can be safe. Because then you will know who to trust and for what, and then you will also know how to love and what can be expected to be received. And you will be able to seek places and spaces where you are loved in the ways you need and you will be able to give love without certain expectations that may disappoint you and you will also be able to find places and spaces where your love is received and appreciated and value for you is expressed. I know you’ve wanted this for so, so long.

So cry. Cry, baby. Crybaby? I’m with you. Cry, Love. Cry Love until you’ve cried out and sorted out all the things that have been keeping you from the love that is yours for the having. I woke up with this Truth and I want to share with you. Love is yours for the having. Give it to yourself, OK? In a real way. Give you what you need. If you’ve never done it before, it will feel strange at first. And most likely someone close to you will do or say something hurtful if you start giving you what you need. You gotta understand. If you had all the love you wanted already and if you had the kinds of relationships you wanted already, you wouldn’t be so sad. So, you’ve probably got some bullshit going on in your life already. And the bullshit might be you. And when you start going things to nourish yourself, others may call you names, like selfish or stupid or blah and blah. It will hurt. Let it hurt. And keep nourishing yourself.

Because you need it. One day you will wake up like I did today and realize that there is nothing wrong with drinking water when you are dehydrated. There is nothing wrong with demanding a bed to sleep on or a pot to piss in. There’s nothing wrong with taking time to put your feet on grass to stabilize your nervous system after your unstable nervous system has literally rendered you sick for years. And you don’t even have to make the people who didn’t understand or demonized you wrong. Let them have their perspective. It’s theirs.

You keep living. You keep fighting for your happiness and fulfillment. I know it seems like a never ending journey and sometimes you can’t figure nothing out. Keep going. Keep taking action on the things you are inspired to take action on. It’s worth it. Even if things don’t work out like you want, you will be proud of yourself and live with less guilt when you know you did what you thought you should do.

I gotta go now, Crybaby. Cry, baby. I Love you still. I Love you because you are crying and still showing up. Look at you, you sexy, feisty, crybaby lover tender warrior, looking for ways to soothe yourself and heal and make life better! I’m proud of you! I Love you, I Love you. I LOVE YOU.

Be Blessed.

xx

Laydie

Day 578

Cry, Baby (I Love You)