Finally, it happened...

It seemed inevitable, that I was well one my way to becoming the emotionally barren ice queen I've always feared. She's not able to embrace the warmth of life, of living each day. She cannot appreciate the beauty of others or avoid the cynical eye peering down upon the new ones crossing her path. She lost her own light somewhere and put the blame on anything else to deflect it from being her own responsibility to find it again. She hisses secretly with her fellow female cohorts, and took great pleasure in the idea's that she might become the martyr for all of those who've pained and lost and sacrificed and been taken advantage of. And surely, she would never ever love anyone again as an even great measure of self-preservation. Certainly, she wouldn't allow anyone that control over her.

She is someone I fear, someone I've managed to avoid thus far in spite of a number of rather low blows. She terrifies me, living in a space of complete nothingness. Without love or warmth or pleasure or goodness or anything, just nothing. That seems like a bad place.

Then, last night, it finally happened. I cried. Not just cried, I mean I wept and sobbed. For over an hour. I haven't cried more than a few tears in a few months (believe it or not) and something about that felt to me like the life draining right out of me. At first, I thought I'd just cried it all out. Maybe the tears had finally just dried up. Then it seemed maybe it was just a normal phase of grieving and then I started to really worry when it'd been weeks and weeks since anything more than a tiny tear appeared at the corner of my eye. Crying is a release for me, it's a release I've practiced my entire life time and unlike many, I am comfortable doing it openly and up until recently, often. I cry to cleanse, I cry to feel the emotions that build up within my body that I am unable to release any other way and I cry because pain is something I am familiar with, but work with it to give it room to breathe and once it starts to breathe, like all wounds, it begins to heal. I cry because it feels good, I cry when I am overcome with joy and I cry when I hold an infant or hear a moving song live at Red Rocks.

And last night, I cried and cried and let it all wash over me. I cried for the shock I've been in. I cried for the lies, the pain, the disappointment. I cried for the fears, I cried for the memories, I cried for the enormous amount of expended energies. I cried for the tremendous highs and happiness and places of safety. I cried for loosing my path and mistrusting my instincts, I cried for wanting to be loved and being vulnerable. I cried for the mother I am and the mother I wish to be. I cried for the pain of death and birth and rebirth. I cried for the humiliation, the betrayals, the place within me that just aches.

The little girl within shed tears and shook violently and felt small and scared and alone. And that was ok. The big girl within held on tight and simply let her cry until she couldn't any longer. And then, when the tears began to dry...she was exhausted, emotionally spent, ready to sleep (the best nights sleep she's had in weeks) and prepare for another day of being a big girl again. Knowing now that she could do it because finally she'd cried out all of that awfulness, it was all real again, not hidden behind the big walls that started building themselves without her permission. The cancer that was forming wasn't going to just go away by itself, but cleansing it out was a good start.