Moments

I sat in the grumpy place on Sunday....the place that I don't like, that I fight to not be part of...that I fight to deny it is as much a part of me as anything else I feel and know. Fight is the correct descriptive. Sometimes I lose the fight. I lost on Sunday.

Usually, I walk, I vacuum, I cook/clean/scrub, I play squash.....or put on loud music. This time, I succumbed. I sat in the grumpy place that sometimes grabs at me like twigs in the night forest, stumbling, avoiding - caught. So I sat, and let myself be there.

At first, I wanted to "do" - to run from it - but I can't run from myself. There was no one to distract me, children off and about doing teenage girl things. Flatmate away for a long weekend with friends. Just me. And the grumpy space.

At first I felt like I should cry. But grumpy and crying doesn't go together - grief and tears, yes...but the grumpy thing...? It has no seeming outlet past movement. Then I wanted to sleep, to escape it - still trying to run from it, from myself. Then I heaved the greatest of sighs, and sat right in the middle of it.

I steamed and raged inside the eternal perpetuity of my mind. I stalked and berated at wraiths in my head. I howled loudly at the sun in the sky....then I grinned wryly at the thought of the neighbours wondering if the wolfwoman had arrived with the cold snap in the air.

It was quite suddenly that I realised that the grumpy place had moved on. I had given it its due, allowed it its time with me. And it had passed through the day like the hours I had spent with it. And I felt okay. I felt released and aware and clear. I examined from a different space why it had come that day.

The links appeared, connected, made sense. The grumpy place consists of people, experiences, places, and feelings that I have not processed well, or do not want to process. These are phantasms that must be given their 15 minutes of fame...to deny them is to allow them to sneak up on me when they are least welcome.

I can live in the present and be happy with it and with who I am, but I must not deny my existence of this place, this time - this life. To do so is foolhardy, much as a child denies Santa Claus's non-existence when the truth becomes apparent. There are things we do not want to know - but that we must. Things we do not want to feel, but things we MUST feel.

How can we live, love, grow, be....? If we cannot feel the times that challenge us, how can we know and love the times that renew and rejuvenate us? How can we know these times without the comparative opposite? Ying and Yang. Black and White. Night and Day. All things must be present to bring about balance of all things. We must learn to welcome, and farewell such times/feelings/places...so that they can become a part of the Us/Me/I. All moments pass, all things repeat, all things divide and rebuild.

Later I sat in a different place, and listened to my daughter singing and playing the guitar with such abandon that she was unaware of her voice carrying to me and to the still night air beyond her windows. I was struck by the impermanence of all things - and of how right that is. How complete and whole impermanence is. How cyclic, and how beautiful.

Moments pass - and should be honoured for whatever they bring.