My brother's eyes ...

I'm on a journey ... it is a journey I've spent an inordinate amount of time making while I was insisting that I was "fine" when I wasn't fine at all ... in truth I have been disconnected from myself more and more as I traveled farther along the path ... 

This past week has become a radical turning point for me ... the time has come to find my balance and reconnect with myself ...

Today I was reading Eckhart Tolle and found the following quotation:
 "... people with strong pain-bodies often reach a point where they feel their life is becoming unbearable, where they can't take any more pain, any more drama. One person expressed this by saying plainly and simply that she was "fed up with being unhappy." ... they know that neither their unhappy story nor the emotion they feel is who they are ..."

These words caused me to say "Oh shit ... that's me ..."

I'm unhappy 
I'm tired 
I feel totally disconnected with myself. 
I look around and wonder how things have become so cluttered and out of control and I don't feel like I'm being authentic in the life I'm leading ... I've grown angry and resentful, and a lot of ugly emotion is bubbling just beneath the surface ... 

To be blunt and honest, I DON'T LIKE THE PERSON I'VE BECOME. 

I know inside there lurks a happy, enthusiastic, passionate, inquisitive and fun loving person who has been lost and hidden away for too long ... I know that since the deaths of Mom, Mr Baumbach, Scott, Indigo, Anfinn and Uni, I've lost my connectedness to THAT me ... In the wake of Mom and Scott's deaths I tried to be strong and to be there for my kids. I tried to pick up the pieces and carry on. I tried to heal and resume my life ... 

I FAILED 
I failed on an epic scale!!! 

I broke and I instead of healing I buried the hurt.
The hurt turned to resentment
The resentment grew into alienation 
And the alienation fed a deep anger that coloured everything and left me feeling worthless and unworthy ... 

I pushed EVERYONE including my children away ... 

... and with each push the anger grew ...  

This past week I've come to realize many things. Foremost is the need for me to heal myself and to let go of the unhappiness that has weighted me down ... I need to reclaim me and my life and shake off the STUFF physical and otherwise that is dragging me down ... but my greatest realization comes from the moment when the hearse pulled away from the funeral home carrying mom's body that cold January day in 2011 ... 

As it drove away, I remember turning and looking at my big brother ... he was always the BIG, STRONG, TOUGH one ... he was the one who despite our long history of scraps and fights, could be depended upon to be there to help me through whatever life might throw my way ... he was in EVERY WAY my BIG brother ... but in the wake of mom's death I watched him struggle ... 

That day standing in the parking lot in Tavistock, I turned and I saw in his eyes a depth of pain and sadness that tore my heart out ... he looked so sad, so vulnerable and so lonely ... For the first time in decades I hugged him ... and he hugged me and I felt his body shudder with tears for the first time in almost a week ... 

With ALL of our busy-ness and activity after Mom died, I watched Scott move through many emotions - emotions I shared - but I hadn't witnessed him cry ... 

Until that moment ... wrapped in my arms I felt him weep ... not for long ... for a moment ... but he wept ... 

The look of sadness and pain that I saw in his eyes stuck with me since ... in the short days we had before I found myself burying him too, I prayed that he could find freedom from that pain and sadness ... 

On a brutally cold night in February, I know he did ... as his earthly journey ended, he claimed freedom and peace from the suffering of his mind, body and spirit that had dogged his path for years ... 

But on Monday night, I looked into the mirror and I saw Scott staring back at me ... not a ghostly apparition but rather I saw in my own eyes the SAME pain and sadness that I had witnessed in my brother's eyes ... I saw Scott looking back at me, because like the little six year old boy who struggled to make sense of a world turned upside down by the death of his beloved Daddy, I was struggling to make sense of a world that had been turned upside down over and over and over ... 

On Monday night ... I looked into the mirror and didn't see even the slightest spark of joy and I knew in that moment something was wrong ... something was wrong and it was time to stop pretending "I'm fine ..." 

I'm NOT fine ... like my brother, I carry deep hurts and deeper sorrows ... like Scott I yearn for peace ... but on Monday I made a choice to stop the direction of my journey, and to find my way back to a place of balance, a place of wholeness, a place of true joy ... the joy I have long said motivates me, but that I have lost my connectedness with ... 

I looked into my brother's eyes, and committed to healing myself and living whole ... Scotty ALWAYS smiled ... looking back it was his coping mechanism .. looking forward it will be my goal to smile more, and to allow the joy that lies within to overwhelm and dominant my being ... 

In my healing I will choose to let go of the unhappiness and instead choose joy ... the true joy I've celebrated frequently, but struggled to experience myself ... this week, I looked into my brother's eyes and out of love for him. for my children, for my friends and most of all for ME, I have chosen to reclaim the spark of joy and fan it back into a raging inferno ... 

The journey has begun - one breath at a time ... one conscious, mindful breath ... 

TO LIFE !!! 
TO JOY!!!!