HelenzArt-life-musings

Tag: musing

  • Well, here I am!

    The beginning of 2025, a new year, not a new me.  A different me? Perhaps yes. Physically, there has been a renewing and replacing of the biological cells, so yes, in a way. There’s certainly changes in perspectives.

    Integrations of that which has gone before. Mulling over ones personal history. Even considerations of ones parents’ histories, ancestral history too, if known or surmised. 

    Partaking in therapy with Chris was to be an adventuring into history.  Now history can be taken as that which has been recorded.  That often assumes that to be a written record.  Yet there is arguably an authors perspective in that. It is said that battles will only be written about by the Victor’s rather than the losers.  Not entirely true perhaps, but discernable differences in accounts may be seen.

    There is an accounting in the body, too, though.  To read ‘The body keeps the score’ by Bessel van de Kolk can be helpful when the time is right to find an understanding of this.  And what I was to bring to my therapy sessions was my inner coded history. Written indelibly with invisible ink, where the light needed to be shone on it in a particular way.  There were also multiple layers where the light needed to come from one way and then another. 

    That first discovery session was an easing into a new way, learning how to read myself. To not take others’ narrations and perspectives to adopt as my own. 

    Admittedly, after that first session  and the overwhelm of emotion, to then actual partake in a finding of a potential source for those in the second session was to teeter on the edge of considered madness.  Yet that strangeness of feeling that all ‘felt’ right and sound was to feel how sane it was. 

    Now, having arrived home, with a relief of spent emotions, to be with my hubby, I could be an observer for a while. Bring a distancing to that which I had experienced, or rather re-experienced with Chris.  To be honest, and in retrospect, I have always had an ability to compartmentalise, segregate, and isolate.  Part of my genetic makeup both known and unknown, its my innate survivor mode, as well as, perhaps, a cultivated coping mechanism. To feel deeply and compassionately, but without ‘falling apart’.  I can be moved to tears, emotionally engaged,  yet with an engaged resilience too. 

    OK, it still felt like a bomb had blasted my world apart. Not dissimilar to my grief at the loss of our son. There was also a disbelief that these things could have occurred and not been recalled at the surface of memory. Yet, in that observational space where I could monitor that response, it felt an absolute truth of my experiencing.  Non deniability.  It actually made sense of other events.

    Yes, the questioning in and of myself was…  ‘Am I fantasising, or deluded, or insane?’ And I kept coming back to the absolute certainty of ‘this happened to me’. 

    As the following day dawned, I had things, well, images and suggestions of happenings,  arise in my mind.  Not thoughts as much as feelings. Echoes of events and occurrences that did add to actual thinking of ‘I’m going insane’ yet these too were simply those encoded writings held deep within. Held within my subconscious, in the phenomena of being a bodied person. 

    These etched moments were to be followed as I continued into finding me and another session with Chris.

  • A seasonal musing.

    I haven’t continued with my ramblings around taking therapy for a bit.  There’s not one reason that can be given but a combination of excuses perhaps. 

    Not feeling that the timing was right mostly.  yes, I go with my intuition on that.

    Yet, I am prompted to write today, it’s Christmas day here in the UK. For many, a day to gather with family whether we enjoy their company or not.  My own family is much smaller now.  Parents have passed on. The passing of our son, Gavin. That’s been 6 years now and still sometimes feels like yesterday.  My husbands siblings have their own things and families to be with, and that could make me feel excluded.

    So I’ve pondered on that this morning whilst sat in my back garden. Surrounded by dormant plants and flowering plants. Listening to bird song and flutterings. Feeling a breeze on my face.

    All around,  in their houses, people are going about their festivities and celebrations perhaps or maybe feeling a bit lost and sad as they too have fewer loved ones than last year. Trying to shape new traditions as loved faces no longer gather at the table, or laugh at the old jokes.

    It’s OK to miss them, but perhaps remembering them brings them closer, to share in the day anyway.

    I’m grateful to this quiet day.  The birds that visit, my dogs dozing on the grass.  The vast sky above in greys and blues.  A small sliver of moon setting.  I’m at peace with who I am and where I am.  I’m at peace with where others are in their lives, too.  That is the best gift at any time of year!

    As the sun comes out, I’m grateful that my family has other places to go and their own traditions that don’t require my inclusion.  When I’m gone, they will be fine with what they have. They can raise a glass to the memory of me.  Until then I shall enjoy their company when I see them. Hold them and tell them of my love for them. Laugh and cry as needed with them through all my remaining breaths.

    Smile, as every day is a good day.