I don’t want to go there—to the dark. I’ve crossed a threshold—remember the whole-body woosh of energy as it left. But I know it. Notebooks full of rushed wild writing. Words I couldn’t say to anyone because, mostly, they weren’t my stories to tell.
I remember the dead, the hollow, the ‘what’s the point’? I remember the missing friends, no longer there to lean on, problems of their own. I remember the body changing, dulling, fattening. The voice closing off. The hair thinning.
I remember the distance between my husband and I. The distance between who I was and who I’d been. The mystery of who I’d become, if the darkness ever left me. I remember going through the motions. Saying the things. Mothering. Barely lover-ing. I wanted the dark to disappear. Instead, I languished for years.
The Change changed me.
In the end, it was both initiation and invitation.
It was a release of what was no longer needed.
A resurfacing.
A chance to become what had been lost to me.
A chance to mourn the ‘me’s I’d been and discarded.
I remember the dark, but I live there less now.
Six of Swords Card from The Sasuraibito Tarot (background artwork by Genevieve Brown)
‘Sweet Darkness’ by David Whyte
Beautiful
– and so lovely to see your face, Angela. I came across your site after clicking on your Chicken Soup post on FB – not stalking you – honest!
These words are settling within me. I know the dark.
Also know how much you made me laugh at school! Ah me. Good times x
Lovely to be seen, Shel. And stalk away, maid 😀