I stopped singing

Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself 

~Walter Anderson~

There have been a number of things or themes that have crossed my mind over the last few months to blog about and I am not sure that I can separate them all but I will try to. So here it goes…

It is alarming to think that you can be totally unaware that you are unhappy until someone says something to you that lets you know that your behaviour has changed. I walked through the hallway one day and a lady who I didn’t even think noticed when I passed her door sometimes said to me; Are you okay Tara? I have not heard you singing in the hallways as much recently and you don’t seem yourself. Now that is not in quotation marks because with my memory the words may not be exact but just what the essence of it was. She shocked me! She made me stop to think and more than anything else she made me determined to start singing again.

During that period where I was feeling a little lost and unhappy a number of things happened; I started spending more time at home, immobile, more time watching rubbish that didn’t in any way move me and I stopped singing. I stopped singing. Well, come on, I went to rehearsals, I kept working and kept doing all the things that I thought were important. But so many things changed, I wasn’t reaching out to people anymore, I called home, I had conversations, I think I snapped at people more, my patience just wasn’t there. I wonder if people were giving me a wide berth and just thinking well we are certainly seeing her true side now. I stopped singing. I didn’t have the energy to cook, I didn’t have the appetite for food in the first place, it was so hard to get up and go. I stopped singing. It took a random person who I only say hi and howdy to occasionally to point out to me that I stopped singing.

How do you not see it? How do you not want to feel the difference in yourself? How do you sometimes fool yourself that no one notices any changes in your behaviour? I remember clearly one Saturday afternoon thinking, I should really leave home, I haven’t moved from here since Thursday. I had been very productive, I had sections of the chapter that I was working on finished but I had not left my flat in days. And those were gorgeous days and we don’t have many of those so I really should have enjoyed them. How did all that happen?

This certainly wasn't what I thought this blog was going to be about , but it is where it ended up. I want to say thanks to so many people for just being there during this time, those who didn't push, those who gave me a wide berth, those who just listened to me bitch whenever I needed to and certainly those people who took the most abuse and suffered through the tears as I pulled myself out of my funk, you all know who you are. But I also want to say a special thanks to that sweet lady who took the time to say that I had stopped singing. I stopped singing! 

Heaven knows, in fact everyone who has been in a funk, dealing with death or any number of emotions, thoughts, feelings or the inability to get going for whatever reason knows that recovering is not instantaneous. But the other day I caught myself humming as I walked down the hallway so I think I am getting there, slowly. 

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. 

~Vincent Van Gogh~

Don't cry for me

Don't cry for me

Don't shed a tear

The time I shared with you will always be

And when I'm gone, please carry on

Don't cry for me 

~Lyrics - Don't cry for me ~ performed by Cece Winans~

One day it will be my turn

One day there will be no more me

But until that day comes I have to watch as people have their turn. I watch and wonder when people just are no longer there. No longer there laughing, smiling, crying or eating maple almond ice cream by the truck loads. It’s hard to watch; it’s hard to lose people; and it is really hard to say goodbye when you really don’t understand. I wonder about life, death, what it all means and selfishly I wonder when it will be my turn and what will be said about me. I think about what I loved most about that person, what impact they had on my life and what lessons I can learn from them. I try to assimilate the good and focus on them being out of pain or going to a better place, but how do I know that? Then the calls and visits start and all of the usual things will be said: “it was her time”; “when the Lord calls you”; “she is in a better place”; and … I can’t even remember the others right now. You are grateful for the support, hateful of the intrusion and sorry for feeling like a wretch because it isn’t you that is gone.

I have read blogs on loss. I have experienced loss and as I get older I will continue to experience it but no matter what, when or how, I will never know exactly what is expected of me or how I should feel, what I should say or do. I read other thoughts or listen to other people who have experienced loss and feel torn, hurt and small but I still don’t know what I feel. I am one of those people who did not experience loss early in life; I had all of my grandparents and a great grandparent until I was 21. So I was used to having everyone around and did not understand friends or acquaintances in school that had no parents, or lost someone they were close to. I couldn’t understand the grief or the pain. You think as you get older you will begin to understand or that having more time with them will make it easier but honestly, for me, I don’t get it yet and I do not think loss at any time is easy to swallow.

One day they are there, the next day they aren’t. Is it worse when you know it is coming or when it is totally unexpected? Is it better when you were not that close or when they meant everything to you? Do I just keep going to work? Do I give in and be an emotional wreck for a while and then move on? How do I express how I feel to others? How do I give support to family when they need it when I am not even certain how I feel? How in goodness name does anyone bury a child? How do you bury a parent? How do you move on? What do I feel?

This link  Don't cry for me - Cece Winans will lead you to the song that I turn to at times like this and are the lyrics referred to in the "quote". 

Helplessness

It is hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helplessness prevail. 

~Lech Walesa~

It is a rather immobilising feeling: helplessness. Immobilising because there is just nothing you can do and nothing seems right to say. It is uncomfortable, disheartening and yeah I know I have said it already but immobilising. You don’t know if to turn left or right or just curl up in the foetal position and cry.

I have previously lauded the great things about being away from home: enjoying new experiences, widening your own knowledge, challenging yourself to be successful away from the comforts of home. I am sure I have at some point in time mentioned some of the drawbacks: not being able to find the foods you want (black cake and pudding and souse for example) especially if you do not have the skills to cook them yourself and not being able to pop in by your granny for a bite to eat – why do they all seem so food focused? But I have never experienced this helplessness before or maybe just not as much as I have recently.

It has been a strange time for my family recently, that sort of time where everyone either pulls together or apart. You can only imagine that my cell phone bill is way up as I try to do the only thing I can in the situation because I am so bloody far and that is, just listening as everyone has their say or expresses their own feelings. But I can’t do anything else! I can’t get up and run over to help anyone, I can’t hold anyone’s hand or give them any other form of physical support like a hug. All I can do is listen, and I do not recall in my recent past ever feeling so damn helpless.

It hurts! And that hurt spreads; it spreads from just listening to dwelling on what you can’t do, what you can’t provide and it makes you feel inadequate; helpless. It spreads to every other facet of your life and immobilises you as you try to do the things you are supposed to but you can’t seem to stop thinking about everything else that is going on. All of your own problems: the inability to write, the lack of direction and the loneliness just seem so petty in the face of everything else that is happening to your family that you just stop.

But who do I tell how I feel? I hate burdening people with my own worries especially when each person you know has their own battles to fight. I hate feeling like every single time I open my mouth it is to complain about a situation or sound like I am the only person in trouble because I know that it is so not true. I miss sharing. I miss those days that I knew I could sit with friends and share. Share the good and the bad, the ridiculous and the onerous, the achievements and the setbacks, the past, present and dreams for the future. It is hard feeling helpless, and maybe just a little harder is feeling helpless and alone.

Is being guarded so wrong?

Even though you may want to move forward in life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life.  

~Mary Manin Morrisey~

There are some days that I am quite sure that I give too much, open up my heart too easily and let people mean a lot to me entirely too quickly. Then there are others when I say to myself if you don’t give a little and have a little faith you will never experience the joys of friendship, love, companionship or affection. More and more often now though I wonder if the pain of being let down by the people you give a little to isn’t a lot more impactful that the joys.

I love people. I love watching them, observing their interactions; I love laughing with them, chatting with them, teaching them and just being quiet with them. I think that it is clear that I enjoy these activities more and more with people that mean something to me.  But does that love make me too vulnerable? What comes to mind as I have this debate with myself is that cartoon where the girl keeps her heart in a box to protect herself. How many times has that cartoon passed your newsfeed and you thought, I know how she feels, I know why she did it and I admire the courage she has to open the box and try again.

But is it really courage? Or is it just wishful thinking? Is being guarded with your heart and your emotions so wrong? It gets so frustrating to make the decision to be more open, give someone that little bit more of your time and your heart and then they let you down. It is not only frustrating, it hurts! It makes you lose faith in yourself and what you have to offer in a relationship or to anyone that you want to value you. I can hear all the women who love me yelling at me and saying “Tara, honey, how many times do we have to say it is not your fault; you did your best and you cannot always blame yourself”. I agree with them in my mind, I do, I really do … but my heart and my spirit wonders; is it so obvious that there is something wrong with me? Don’t I have enough? Am I not enough? Is there something else I could have done? Should I just not bother because it will never work out how I want it to anyway?

Sigh … I don’t know if there is a lot more that I can say here … maybe what I am looking for is more of a conversation … what do you think? Is being guarded so wrong?

Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for 

Bob Marley

you can find the complete comic I have referred to here: http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/this-comic-about-love-will-touch-your-heart/

Difficult Questions...

Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.

~Meg Rosoff~

Thanks to Ian for asking these questions on Facebook some time ago … I have no idea where they came from but they did seem to spark a lot of thought for me. So I am going to share those thoughts with you.

The questions:

If your younger self had to see you today, what would they see? Exactly who you wanted to be, someone different who had to adapt...maybe the exact person you despised? Would you be happy with whom you became?

The Answer? My thoughts? Sigh …

OMG!!! Younger me had so much to learn … and life seemed so much simpler the younger I was. I have often said that I would love to go back to those days - maybe the age of 8 - where I never had to worry about how I would pay the bills, wasn’t yet too concerned about my common entrance examination (which dictates what secondary school you attend in the Caribbean school system and is completed at 11), hadn’t started puberty and thought that life was easy. I vaguely remember a stage where my greatest aspiration was to have at least 11 kids and be a good mommy. HAHAHA!!! Boy has that changed! I remember another age where I wanted to be an accountant, largely because it was all I was good at in school and it came so easily to me and my mommy was an accountant. I remember the age where I was terrified to stand up in Sunday School and sing or say anything. I remember when I first got the balls to say what I wanted to do with my hair (you know how big a deal that is ladies); I remember the age where I was learning to drive and going out with friends who had not first met my parents. What would that girl at any of those ages think of me now?

God Tara … you are OLD!!! LOL… being anywhere near thirty was ancient to any of those girls and having achieved what I have and had the experiences I did, I am glad; no, glad is not the right word, because there are some experiences you never want people to have but without those experiences I wouldn’t be the woman that I am now. I wouldn’t be looking forward to new experiences, love to travel and experience new cultures and meet new people; I certainly would not have the balls to up and leave home and pursue a PhD; I wouldn’t be the woman I am. But am I what I wanted to be?

Damn it! I am happy with who I am now. It has taken a long time to get here. I am still not and doubt I will ever be perfect and goodness knows I have a lot more to learn, but I am looking forward to doing it. I am some of the things I didn’t like when I was younger, but I have grown to realise that some things are necessary, like being there for people who mean a lot to you and that there is no easy way to do some things like end a relationship or discipline someone you love. Nothing in life is as easy or as simple as you thought when you were younger but then some things are.

Life is and my feelings about it and who I am are a kaleidoscope of conflicting, clashing and beautiful colours, emotions, memories, images, music, people, sounds…

Tara now, is happy with whom she is becoming … and Tara then, through her very simple and small lens, may not be totally happy but I forgive her for that.