Approaching the Threshold

My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there. I go up to Heaven and down to Hell in an hour, and keep alive only by imposing upon myself inexorable routines.

I can hardly believe that relief from the anguish of these past months is here to stay, but so far it does feel like a true change of mood — or rather, a change of being where I can stand alone.

May Sarton from Journal of a Solitude

“You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.”

 ― JANE HIRSHFIELD

I have been working through a lot of ambivalent thoughts and feelings this week, anticipation and dread along with the feeling that I am stepping over a threshold away from a place where my whole life was either wrapped up in caring for others or lately a life of caring for myself into a blank space that I hope will be a middle ground where I can find some people to connect with without being responsible for supporting their life. I have felt very private in this apartment, like it has been an apart ment, a place to confirm my loss and regenerate, to find a way back to relationships that allow me to be more in a community besides the lovely people I work with. They are all so busy with seemingly complete lives of their own.

I don’t regret any of my experiences over the last 7 years now that I have had a chance to recover from the more traumatic portions. When I was in the middle of the drama, I was so focused on dealing with the next emergency that I had no time to frame the experience into a form that I could use to connect to anything beyond what needed to be attended to, quite often situations involving huge consequences for others. Now, in the last year, there has been only a methodical sorting out of reality from drama and the useful from things to let go of, leading up to moving and forming a new way of approaching the world. After all this solitude and sorting through, I realize that I have almost no regrets, just a feeling of starting from the beginning.

I have come to believe that the way to begin my new journey is to open my heart and put my mind inside my love by remaining attentive and open to each moment as much as possible. If I am guided by love and remain open to the possibilities of each moment then I will allow almost no space for regret to plant its seed.

“For most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine.”

Iris Murdoch from Under the Net