a weekend to remember

i experienced what i think may be one of the most significant moments of my
life this weekend. how i wish i can convey even a fraction of what i felt.

i have been involved in a deep inner struggle for some time now.
you will hear it leak out of me with statements like 'i don't know how to
live on this planet.' or 'i don't know how to live open hearted with two
feet in and accept the heartbreak of the world.' or 'i cannot find a safe
place to just be.'

i have never once said these things, or things like these, lightly.
even if i laugh, or just shake my head, my heart has been heavy.

it has been a struggle that has touched every part of my life.
it has felt like a big piece of me has left my body.
i've noticed, i've been concerned, and i've been at a loss of what to do.

so i watch, i think, i wonder, i ask, and i flounder.

and then....without having any idea what was happening,
i wandered into something that i believe has truly brought me back to living.

something i could have told you from my head, but my bones had long since forgotten.
and if my bones don't know it, my heart can't hold it, no matter what my head is saying.

for the last two weeks or more, my partner and i have been involved in the hardest
time we've ever experienced as a couple. i started out describing it as 'bizarre' or
'just crazy' and then it went to words like 'hard' and 'rough' to finally 'walking thru hell and back.'
we both agree it has had a touch of the twilight zone, it's hurt terribly, and we both
never want to experience this again.

i honestly believe the only reason we are still together is because of all the hard work
we've done over the years as a couple. it took every bit of strength we each had to make
it thru this one along with everything we've learned. more than once i wasn't sure we'd do it.

we're not done with the pain yet. but i believe we're thru most of it.
and i believe it was in this awful place that i crawled into an answer i had been searching for.
i just crawled in and felt it. i stopped while it surrounded me and i was stunned with
what i had found.

there was pain.
deep deep hurt, pain that isolated, pain that filled you.
stuff you wondered if it'd ever go away. stuff that wouldn't seem to stop.
try as we might, stuff that compounded and got more complicated.

pain.
deep pain.

that was there.

it was completely there.

and then.........something that seemed quite impossible.....

there was love.

love beyond anything i could ever imagine.

love that you couldn't mistake.
love that surrounded every piece of you, love that was so strong it pulsated in the air.

it was there.

they were both there.

they were both as present as present could be.

one didn't make the other go away.
they were both there.

'how can this love be here?'  i asked.
how can this incredibly deep love possibly be here in the middle of all this pain?

i have no idea.
all i know is - it was there.

they were both there.

you could stop at any point and feel either one you chose to feel.

you could compare the feelings.
the depth of the pain and how it tightened you, made you less, confined you.
stifled you, ripped at your insides and hurt, made little things matter,
brought the tears of wanting it to stop to your eyes.

then there was the love. the depth of the love that somehow opened you so
that you weren't even there anymore, there was something else there or it was all
there - how it made you more, opened you, expanded everything inside of you
and made nothing matter other than the pulsing you could feel everywhere.

they were both there.

the yin and the yang.

always there.
always present.

nothing new, terri.
nothing new at all.

except for the experience -
the actual experience of my bones being able to get it -
where i could touch either one right then and know what i was doing.
i could play with the energies and see that they were always there.

always.

i could understand that that was living.

it wasn't til hours later i put together what this did for me.
i was too exhausted to understand that this is what i've been looking for.

of how to live here.

this knowing.
that each moment is always everything.
that everything is contained in each moment.

i'm not even sure i can fully wrap my head around this.

the thing is....i touched it.
long enough for me to remember it.

of course i'll forget.
but i did touch it.
and part of me knows this is what i've been looking for.

and part of me has come back to life.