The Spirit Remembers

I never used the month of November for anything special.  While I possess some degree of sentimentality, I usually forego things like listing things I'm thankful for every day in November.  I also never saw the appeal in things like "No Shave November."  Going to bed with stubbly legs, even when I'm sleeping alone, just doesn't feel right to me.  I got kind of drawn in, several years in a row, by the daily Facebook posts of my friends and family though, giving thanks for even the smallest of life's blessings; so this year when literally none of them participated in the daily thanksgiving posts, I missed them.

Monday I walked around like someone with a fifty pound sack of potatoes tied to her back.  My feet felt heavy, a knot of anxiety lodged itself deep in my gut, I wanted so badly to just go back to bed all day.  It might make sense for a girl to walk around feeling so weighed down and anxious if things weren't going so well for her.  Truthfully though, my life feels pretty great right now.  If I compare this year with last year, my life looks freaking awesome!  My car is running (well no this minute, but you know what I mean) all of my household appliances are humming along just fine.  No one ever showed up at my door this year with papers telling me the hospital system wants to sue me for money I don't owe them.  I feel well most days.  I love my job.  My children and grandchildren are healthy and happy.  I tried to dwell on all the positive things in my life all day but the gnawing feeling of doom still hovered over me all day long.

I woke up with it again on Tuesday, my day off.   I battled with my will from the moment I woke up.  I made myself get up and take Charlie to school and when I got back home, I yearned to lie on my couch with the remote in my hand and let the TV serve as my company for the day.  Fortunately the night before I sent out a call to my friends asking for a lunch date and got a taker.  Grateful for a reason to get dressed and head out, I met a dear friend and spent two hours just talking to him.  For that little space in time I felt normal.  I got to just let go of all pretense and just be me.  It made me realize how seldom I get the liberty to do that.  It felt amazing!  By the time I made it to school to pick up Charlie that nagging feeling started bubbling in my gut again.  Almost like a whisper, it kept warning me that things might change for the worse again.

I do not tend to dwell on the past.  My theory, that perseveration only serves to torture, keeps me from staying too long in that thought-place of "if only" or "could have" or "should have."  Even so, it seems as the seasons come and go, the spirit hangs onto things from the past.  An old friend whose father took his own life years ago once told me that the date of his death would sometimes come and go without her consciously even remembering it, but all the same she would fall into a state of melancholy for a few days.  She said that more than once, after days of feeling down, she suddenly realized the time of year and made the connection to the traumatic memory from her teenage years when she lost her father so tragically.  I think maybe my spirit remembers things that I choose not to recall sometimes too. 

 I can't complain.  This year graced me with so many good things, especially if you count the absence of bad things.   In stark comparison to years past, I find myself in a better position than ever.  Although I forbid myself from dwelling on the sadness of the past, my spirit seems to remember.  It continues to nag me with a wordless, unforgiving ache.

I refuse to let it win.  Too much good surrounds me right now, for me to allow unconscious fears to spoil my spirit.  I know by now that in every life good and bad must exist.  Sometimes they dance together through your whole world.  I think of times when their dance made me dizzy, unsure of where to look or how to feel.  For now though, good is reigning supreme in my world and I plan to revel in it for as long as I can.  Sure, the struggles still exist.  Who can truly live without struggle?  But I will take these struggles gladly, and let them feed my spirit with strength and joy--things I hope my soul hangs onto as tightly as it seems to cling to the disappointment and sadness of the past. 

I can feel nothing but gratefulness today, not just for all the goodness that fills my life, but for the absence of so many struggles with which I remained so familiar for so long.  I'll take this joy, even mingled with the sadness of missing my parents and traditions of years gone-by and hold it close, thankful for the memories, the strength and the reward of making it out of the darkness into the light of this beautiful Thanksgiving Day. 

For whatever troubles plague you today, I wish you strength; and for all the joys life holds for you tomorrow, I wish you the perseverance to make it there. 

Happy Thanksgiving!