The Fault Line
At Sunday’s dialogue circle, my friend Katherine told a story about running into a friend at the library who was carrying a stack of books about birds. “I’m so into birds. I can’t believe I’m going to be birdwatcher this late in life!” the elder woman announced passionately. Bird watching, an antidote for the grief that sometimes comes with aging, Katherine said, like the way chasing butterflies to photograph them is an antidote for me.
But it’s raining today and I feel awkwardly uncomfortable in my body. An emotional fault line has recently been opened, and the slightest bit of pressure sets me off on shaky ground. I can’t blame anyone for disturbing me if they walk too close to it. It’s my own crack in the layered facade of outer personality. What exists below, dark and festered, is also uniquely my own. So is the healing.
Powerful phantoms let lose. Bad feelings leak out, not about others but about myself. They’re old, can be traced back to childhood. I hardly recognize them now, but still, they affect me. Like a caregiver in a quarantined sanitarium, I witness them and wait. I’ve caught it too. But I know it will pass, so I sweat it out.
And I know. The fault line is not my fault. It served a purpose once. Now it is worn and thinning out. Time to go down. Shine a loving light. Do some emotional housecleaning.
Everything is like therapy when we allow ourselves to be aware. What vulnerably resilient and complex creatures we are.
August 3rd, 2010 12:05 am
Sometimes the therapy that we provide for ourselves through awareness and care is better than any therapy we could get from a paid professional.
I have more than one of those fault lines lurking deep in the depths of myself.
Take care. Be kind to yourself.
August 3rd, 2010 12:10 am
Thank you, Tracie. I have discovered that is true about therapy but I can only do it now (sometimes) for myself becasue of the good therapy I have received from others.
August 3rd, 2010 7:13 am
You are brave to go near the fault but even smarter to realize it is a fault line from long ago and no longer can hurt you. The photo is perfect with this prose.
August 3rd, 2010 7:13 am
sometimes our old ways of being simply outlive their usefulness, and it is indeed time to clean house. one positive aspect to aging that life has shown me along the way is that i will move through whatever ails me; that there is harmony once again on the other side. when i was younger i didn’t always seem to know this. living has lightened my load of the anxiety that once accompanied my discontent. yes, resiliency and complexity season our lives with richness and mobility.
August 3rd, 2010 7:37 am
Hope the fault line soons begin to mend for you. It can be tough but generally there are good things on the other side.
August 3rd, 2010 9:40 am
A good frame to view it from Colleen.
The mind and body do what they feel they must.
Badgering nor denying won’t speed it. Just wait, wait. Sweat it out.
Thoughts with you.
August 3rd, 2010 9:41 am
Feelings can be like hormones running through us. I agree, Sky that as I get older I know more that the feelings pass, that the beliefs that were tied to them once aren’t even real, and that I will feel more myself soon. I try to look at it all as an interesting adventure.
August 3rd, 2010 7:54 pm
I hope you feel better soon, Colleen. You always seem so centered and wise.
August 3rd, 2010 9:07 pm
I’m feeling better already. I do think that feelings that are traditionally considered “weak” can be a sign of progress in our growth as human beings. It may feel bad at the time but I don’t identify with it as me, just as feelings that come and go and hopefully more on the go side! I put them there somewhere along the line. The psyche can be like a pandora’s box.