i will try

sometimes you have to sit with sorrow and you don't even know why.  why you're sitting with it, or, what's worse, when you don't even know what you have to be sorrowful about. that second one is way harder.

we are all pretty good at finding reasons to be happy- or making them- that's how we get up in the morning- because generally life is good, or good enough. but... then there are those days when sadness is there.  i'll be honest, i'm realllyyy bad at this.  i'm awful at sitting with sadness. i just want to feel better- anyway- anyhow- anywhere. i want to go there, and do that - whatever there and that are. basically i just don't want to be still and hold something that doesn't feel good inside. 

i also don't want to be still and hold something that doesn't feel good for someone else inside- i want to rescue them- i want to help them to go there and do that.  today for example, rose was in a time out for taking mikes phone battery and stuffing it in her pocket (she is somehow involved in the disappearance of important things around the house). so after i had discussed with her why she was in a time out and that she needed to think about not touching other peoples stuff for the next three minutes,  i could hear her crying in her room.  my first thought was- 'go save her!! rescue her from feeling bad! don't leave that poor girl in her room feeling guilty for doing what she knew she shouldn't do!'  but the entire point of her being in her room in a time out was to feel that.  to feel it- to really feel it so that it would imprint- because our learning is highly correlated with our emotions.  i wanted her to sit with this little piece of sorrow for 3 minutes and then to know that she is forgiven and loved.  she needed to learn this- not just to stop taking peoples things, but that sitting with our sadness is okay. that feeling badly for a bit is not the end of the world- that feeling discomfort and dis-ease and that sticky feeling of bad and sad all mixed together- the feeling of unresolve- is alright sometimes.

because life is full of these moments, and we need to learn that if nothing else, they will pass.  we need to learn that there might be some things hiding in those moments.  because maybe if we learn to sit with them- we will grow.  maybe if we stop running away and covering up, or dissecting until we have full control, maybe if we just give in and sit for maybe for a moment-  we will actually become more understanding, or more patient, or more gentle, more forgiving.

i don't know..... maybe i can or maybe i can't. but i can try.  try to squelch the craving to avoid all negative feelings.  i can try to be with what is given me in that moment. to suffer the growing pains to reach a higher place.  to hold on to my faith that i'm not alone in those moments- but watched over- guided- even sometimes held.

 i leave myself with the wise mary oliver again....

I will try.
I will step from the house to see what i see
and hear and I will praise it.
I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I came, like red bird, to sing.
But I'm not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles, 
but a woman whose love has vanished, 
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and--
but wait. Be still. Listen!
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing?