It’s been two weeks since my sweet momma passed on from her body, into some great mystery that I’ll never know til I join her one day. Two blurry weeks, in the sense that time has totally warped and I no longer have the internal grip on it as I once did. I used to kinda know what time it was by sense, and that’s just gone. There’s a pride I have in being punctual and put-together, and I’ve had to release my self-judgement about all that. It’s okay to be a hot mess right now. Sorry in advance if I’m late.
Also, blurry in that my eyes have been perpetually wet with emotion, from all kinds of things. Not all of it from the the loss of my mother.
I’m amazed by how tenderhearted and bittersweet I feel. Everything feels emotionally potent. Each interaction I have with people pulls at my heart. There is loss I feel at not knowing her voice on the other end of the phone, but also immense LOVE for so many people I am blessed to know, who have supported me through this unwaveringly. For complete strangers. I had an especially sweet check-out lady at the co-op yesterday and I had to sit in my car and cry about her kindness for a bit before I was able to go. I am almost terrified at letting this love in so deep, because I know it will eventually end in loss, but I have absolutely no control over that filter right now. I’m getting absolutely blasted. But…
I refuse to grow thick skin.
What’s up with that anyways? What is the fucking point in having love compartmentalized? I saw this tweet and thought it was genius, including it’s lack of grammar and proper punctuation:
I’ve been feeling more deeply in love with everyone and everything since my mom died, and it’s that bittersweet paradox that makes me believe in God or The Great Mystery or whatever you want to call it. I’ve been telling everyone I love, that I love them incessantly, and it feels like I will positively break, if I don’t.
I NEED them to know. It’s the only thing I think I care about.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was talking to a friend about community caring, and as she reflected to me that I was ‘generous’ I said something like, “I love to do this, and someday when I’m down I’ll need support in return. That’s how a village works.”
It happened. It truly did. I went down, and hundreds of hands caught me. Not everyone could, but enough did and I am okay. Shit, in some ways I’m better than I was before, and I cannot make sense of that. Not one bit.
But this isn’t a time for sense making. This is a time for conscious love rants and run on sentences and no punctuation and calling the ones we love and TELLING THEM and being brave about it ffs.
I listened to an incredible podcast recently, Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us with Susan Cain, who wrote a book called Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. I couldn’t identify with that title more right now. It’s on it’s way to me. It helped me embrace this feeling of bittersweetness, and to lean into the grief I’m feeling, a counterbalance for society’s toxic push for constant positivity.
“We are creatures who are born to transform pain into beauty.” Susan Cain
That quote really got me. We as women straddle the line of birth and death, and that's an everyday radical, risky business. It's bittersweet and fucking magical to be a woman who feels into her living pelvis. We don't get honored for that in our culture, but we are creating a new culture.
I’m embracing this as a good sign, that I’m still open, that my heart can withstand earth-shattering loss and pain. I am a wild creature in tune with a living pelvis and all the magic within it, where I can channel my ancestors and my sweet mama’s wisdom through, and where I can live from and inspire from others too.
Alchemizing this into tiny words of healing has brought me much solace. Thank you for being here and witnessing me in this wilderness.
love love, (this was always my momma’s sign off)
Sarah WolfMother
Thank you for sharing your raw truth through these tender words. It was so difficult for me to share in words what I was journeying through when my father died and yet the truth felt closer than ever in the intimacy that was deepened, which I read and feel in your words. You give me the courage to risk sharing more through words. May you continue to feel you can receive in the wild messiness of grief and find more love amidst it all.