Trouble.....

My mind has been troubled of late.  I know my posts on this blog and on my other blog A Walk into Oblivion have been sad and preoccupied without explanation.  Some things we can't explain except to those that we need offer the explanation.

This morning I received a loving letter from my sister by marriage K. and the emotions of reading it fell like a cleansing rain over me.  

Her words of forgiveness  ~  "Forgiveness is more for the one who is hurt than the one who needs to be forgiven.  Until I forgive and let go I am still held captive by the one who hurt me.  To forgive is for me.  It takes the power out of the pain.  Yes it still hurts but doesn't consume me."

How I do this, or anyone, must take some time and practice.  Maybe I need to repeat it to myself over and over, mantra like.  Sometimes I talk the talk but I don't do that walk.  I want to.  I want to move forward and out of the cage I have allowed myself to be in.

Do I need to talk to a professional?  I don't know.  I just know deep inside all the way to the outer skin cells of my body I must let this go.  It does me no good and it certainly doesn't help the ones I love.

Obstacles that arise over a lifetime can be quite a challenge.  No one said that living would be a walk in the park day after day.  It starts from the time we are whooshed into the light of day of birth with our first breath.  The struggle to learn to roll over, sit up, crawl and walk.  But we do it without any other reason than it is there to do.  To go forward.  Teen years and the challenge to just fit in with the mob of other struggling teens.  We think we're the only ones going through it but we aren't.  Leaving home to make our way without our parents care, finding work and a place to live.  Relationships that may be casual or lead to a loving life together.  Maybe it works and maybe it fades.  That we keep climbing out of the comfort of our beds each day and as when we were small, we keep trying.  Most times we don't even think about what we are doing.  Then when that obstacle in life hits we fall hard and sit and ponder.  Okay...what do we do?  Get up or sit there and wait.  We don't know what will come along to "fix it" but we do that sometimes.  

Some of us have constant troubles that seem immense.  Some of us face crisis after crisis with our health or the health of a loved one.  How we face it, how we help ourselves or our loved ones is a mystery.  We just do it.  

But what happens when we can't?  What happens when we feel stuck?  What happens when we are going in circles without moving forward?  That is where I have been.  Stuck.  Two steps forward and one step back.  I'll get there.

After reading K.'s letter I did see some light inside me turn on.  I just need to feel it and not just say it.  I need to see that whatever my mom was, was just that.  That is in the past and I have a future ahead that doesn't include her any longer.   I feel sorry for her.  That she will never have learned to love fully her children.  That she never will enjoy all that she had with us and her grandchildren and now their children.  That we are wonderful, and loving, and that we know how to love without strings.  

The sun is shining today, my husband has work for the next couple of days, I have a sweet puppy at my feet,  I have a day ahead to do housework, to take a walk, to breath in the crisp fall air, pick up some acorns to use at Thanksgiving when my family by marriage come over.  I have time to reflect.

I have a time to say I am sorry.  I am sorry that sometimes I can be judgemental, I say reactive responses to what I don't understand.  

What I want to say is that I love my family deeply.  That I am trying to be a better woman and a human.  

 I want to heal and let go the baggage of what was.  

When was the last time you heard Cat Steven's song Trouble?  That song came to me and reading the lyrics we all have been there....but read them for yourself....I may be slow letting go that Trouble but I am going to darn well try today....one step at a time.

  Trouble

Trouble
Oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it's too much too much for me

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing much left of me

I've drunk your wine
You have made your world mine
So won't you be fair
So won't you be fair

I don't want no more of you
So won't you be kind to me
Just let me go where
I'll have to go there

Trouble
Oh trouble move away
I have seen your face
and it's too much for me today

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You have made me a wreck
Now won't you leave me in my misery

I've seen your eyes
and I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me
Hangin' on me

I'm beat, I'm torn
Shattered and tossed and worn
Too shocking to see
Too shocking to see

Trouble
Oh trouble move from me
I have paid my debt
Now won't you leave me in my misery

Trouble
Oh trouble please be kind
I don't want no fight
And I haven't got a lot of time

~ Cat Stevens~