My dear friend wrote a poem the other day:
"July is a hole the world falls into."
emily goodenow barrett
Emily is in another state, not the city where we both live BUT/and I can attest to the truth. July is a fucking hole. Also, July will end with a trip I am very much looking forward to. I will go get my son, who has been away for almost five weeks. It's passed like molasses with many tears along the way.
How can we feel whole and also feel a hole?
I am thrilled to get my only child, and I feel grief that is pretty deep (unrelated to my son). When someone asks me how I am, I don't want to say fine, because I am grieving, and there are days I feel *well* most of the day. The deep grief has passed, but you will see here the nature of this grief is confusing. Maybe you can relate?
Therapy clients are “not supposed to know” we are in pain, yet this is a stupid Freudian trope. Of course, we are in pain. It is the year of the goddess 2023. Are we not all in some distress? We don't want to talk about it all the time, of course, we don't, and yet, it’s a myriad of hellscapes all around.
Many of us feel this huge, massive, enormous BOTH/AND moment. It’s the hottest July on record; floods, fires, and devastation abound. Yet, the sweetest feeling are game nights, friend gatherings, and reunions with your kids. The ocean is 6.9 miles by car from me; how can life ever be “bad”?!
And, if you are in pain, I see you. If you fell into the July hole, I see you. Random thought, but If you want cognitive behavioral therapy to get over the pain, I get that too.
Today I literally looked up the “core wounds” often mentioned in CBT to help a client who wanted some relief. They are thoughts such as… “…we may think that we are bad, evil, losers, not good enough, incompetent, ugly, stupid, rotten at our core, unworthy, undeserving, abnormal, boring, existentially flawed, or unlovable.”
Phew. This is a challenging list to read, yet we can hold these shadows with love and kindness. This is the only way through grief, self-sabotage, questions, pain, etc. turn toward yourself with compassion. Compassion and the hand on the heart, the art, the movement in the body, the cupcake (or pick your pleasure here), is the way through friends.
"There is no discovery without risk, and what you risk reveals what you value." Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body
The other lovely part of my friendship with my dear friend is the voice memos we send back and forth. I do this with a few people. So grateful for ALL the friends who have been with me during this time. Emily said, “You have to do things if you want to feel things.” Well, friends, I tried something. Or I literally fell into a thing this year. I am not trying to be obscure; it was a love affair, and then it ended.
"You'll get over it…" It's the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. You don't get over it because 'it" is the person you love. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you, and no one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?"
― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body
I will state this person is very much alive, but/and…the separation can feel akin to death. Not the same at all, and yet…I would imagine somewhat the same.
I wrote another post that will not be published now, responding to all of these quotes and many more from “Written on the Body.” The short memoir of my coming out journey keeps getting more and more complex as I learn more about "how it is to love and find your queerness in midlife." Maybe if I get some paid subscribers, I will post them there. They are juicy and raw, that is for sure.
So there is no time like the present for me to “teach you” how I walk along with the pain. Do I know the loss from the death of a lover? No. However, I could support you with any loss. This is the time to lean into our pain, not shy away. Celebrate, grieve, and keep coming home to yourselves. Check this new and updated sales page for my NOW online workshop, nourish, allow, expand. It is about some of the paths through.
Follow the link....& share, and keep coming back here.
I am on TikTok. I was always there, but it was private, then it was public, etc.
So that is living here: https://www.tiktok.com/@bhopeb
Take very good care; July is almost over, and I will catch you in August!
Love,
Bridget
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