dodging mirrors

Jan. 4, 2012 at 5:13pm with 228 notes

The White Elephant in the Room: The Sound + The Ineffable

I knew we’d meet one day, I confess. But I had this definitive idea of where I hoped to be when we did.

Laurie nods.

And though I’m closer to that place than I’ve ever been, I haven’t quite arrived yet—

But you’ve lived, she interrupts. You’ve traveled the world—and written a book!…

I love reading White Elephant posts. I’ve said it before, I know, but I do. The hurt, the triumph, the pain, the success - we’re lucky to be a part of reading the details of the ups and the downs she so defiantly, yet still so bravely fronts, puts up for us to soak up as a part of her life. The meeting of the daughter has been an just-starting installment that we’re all eager to read about. The love between two souls connected still in the greatest way, and we’re never quite prepared for such an indescribable bond. And yet, she has the words. The best words, the right words. Words that link together so perfectly that things I’ve never experience feel like digits on my right hand. Like I said, I feel so lucky to be a part of reading these experiences and I feel so blessed to read of a highly anticipated meeting gone so triumphantly well in ways we’ll never know of but get to read pieces of. That’s a blessing. I feel like a fan girl most of the time when I go gaga over reading a post she’s written or liking a photograph she’s taken and paired with a reading, but it makes me feel stronger, braver, safer, and happier to see someone who has gone through the utmost struggle brave each experience and let us in on pieces of that daily journey. I feel blessed to be one of the many cheering her along, feeling that she can accomplish and bless many with the words she writes from the life she lives and lives that touch her and lives she has touched. So so gracefully and wonderfully done, she tells of what is and what was in a way we hang onto for hope and know there’s triumph and love and connection and truth through it all. Bear with me, I’ll warn you ahead of time, because things aren’t going so well for me right now. They just aren’t. I haven’t suffered major loss but I feel like I’m losing bits of myself right from underneath me. I want to pull out all the melodramatic fibers from my hands that type out sad stuff because it really isn’t all that terrible. But some days are hard when I feel lost, some minutes or even seconds become difficult to bite down and carry on because there’s a weighty lump resting its weighty self down on my feet as I walk forward and try not to look back on memories of kisses through tears or hand holding or body swaying or hugs when The Yuck comes and am just left with The Yuck and its terrible terribleness and feel alone. And on days like this where I nap for hours in the middle of the afternoon because my soul is tired from supporting my head and body and mind and heart, it helps to get up, read a post like this, take a deep deep breath in and feel okay to continue on for awhile more, to push past the awful second and hang onto the less terrible next minute. Onward and upward. Onward and upward.