Chapter Four - Part One - Mud

Now, I feel pretty good about that higher perspective of this field I have found myself working in. I can see it for what it is so much better when I am standing up, instead of sitting amongst the clods of resistance and weeds of distraction. I still see them. They haven't vanished like a cartoon garden, but they aren't EVERYTHING. I've got my clod-busting hoe, and my rake with teeth to get them cleared out. I feel like taking a survey of the field, a walk to get a real feel for its potential.

Then guess what happens? It starts to rain. The smell of the wet soil is intoxicating, overwhelming in every way. I imagine myself wearing Wellies to deal with the mud because I'm fast sinking into -- what is this -- emotional distress. My heart hurts like a huge car-washing sponge being squeezed out over a bucket. Why, just when I start feeling like there is hope, would I be overcome by a storm of emotions?

For the past year, even as my life has steadily improved on so many levels -- my kids are thriving, I am very much in love with my husband (approaching our first anniversary), have been stable financially at least, have cleared out so many distractions -- I have been mourning very deeply the loss of so many fantasies and dreams that I had been fully vested in. All of the choices that I made that I thought were so smart, that led me to here, this empty field of mud and weeds. I feel wrong. I feel embarrassed. I don't feel like faking it anymore, and so I've moped around a lot in a drizzly way. And, while I can't tell you how thankful I am for my kids and my lover man, and so many other gifts, I have felt like I SHOULD BE MORE than I am and that has created a field of mud.

You really can't plant in mud. It's a big sticky mess. You walk along in it, and get up to your knees in no time. Believe me, I've tried. I've started several screenplays this year, a book about screenwriting, and well, you can see the blogs. Not a thing can grow in this morass. I must have some sober drying out. I must have some sunny days at some point.

I've concluded that you can't really force the sun to shine. Sure you could do a bunch of artificial stuff to move emotions to some new expression. You can affirm your contentment until the cows come home, but if you don't believe it then it doesn't stick. The drizzle returns and pretty soon there's more mud. Right now, it is raining outside, and I'm thinking about what I would do to stop it...nothing...there's a time for rain. There is a time to mourn, when it is safe to feel one's grief even if we'd prefer not to, and to feel it is as nourishing as a good rain is to a field. I'm really sad about a lot of things that have passed that I never grieved for at the time because it wasn't safe to be so raw. I'm safe now, and that's a good thing even if it means mud.