Sane Heartache

Dad passed away.  Passed on.  Left his body.  He died.  He is deceased.  He is gone- and now he is dust.  It sounds harsh- when I read such words out loud.  Words *I* typed.  Words that escaped my lips- crossed my mind.

It is difficult to properly mourn in our society.  There's no room for it- not with bills to pay, and businesses to send death certificates to.  Bank accounts to close.  Neighbors, family, friends and a handful of unknowns to call, thank for flowers, send notes to.  Where is the keening?  The wailing?  The black garb that swaddles and protects you from Society?  We no longer have those things.  Instead we have cell phones and email and instant message that incessantly bombards you with do-gooders checking in.  I fantasized that when Dad died, I would enter into silence.  I wouldn't utter a word, save for the Buddhist Shitro practice (done when someone dies, to wash them of their karmas and help them reincarnate in the highest, most enlightened form possible, for them) for a full 40 days.  That would be dynamic.  Instead I wake to my phone ringing, far earlier than I'd care to wake up at.  If I silence it I then have to sift through and call people back all morning long... I've yet to decide which feels more inconvenient.  I'll get back to you on that one.  Basically, it adds up to a whole lot of talking that cuts completely into my silence.

I cry.  I do.  Don't get me wrong- I cry when I open the refrigerator door.  I cry when a character says something on TV that reminds me of something that has nothing to do with Dad, and that makes me think, maybe I hadn't been thinking about him enough.  I cry.  I do.  But I don't wallow.  And if I do venture towards the Land of Lost Hope, Despair and Hiccup-sobs, I usually get waylaid and find myself back in the Land of Mediocre Sorrow and Furrowed Brows.  The melodrama just doesn't entice like it used to- not to say that a hearty bawling isn't cathartic, and doesn't have its place... just that its siren song no longer captivates me in the same way.  Maybe I have ADD.  Or the meditation finally kicked in.  (That was meditation, folks- not medication... I know, I know.  Fine line, right?)

I think the Reiki helps.  I think now, perhaps it is synonymous with sanity.  "Oh, where are you going tonight?"  "I'm just going to get a little sanity... be back in a few!"  I am finding that I am open- I am processing.  I am riding my emotional waves and they're pretty chill.  No tsunami for me!  (Yet.)  I will say physically, I feel like I've been beaten with a baseball bat.  Between my shoulder blades- where, all you acute yogis, new-agers and energy workers will know, is the backside of my heart chakra.  I feel.  I feel everything.  Intensely.  I barely even squirm from it.  I impress myself.  I keep going back for "sanity" and "sanity attunements", just to check in- just to ask "Am I really open?  Are you sure this isn't a form of shutting down?  I'm so not hysterical.  Shouldn't I be hysterical?  I'm pretty hysterical by nature.  I'm sure of it.  Or at least, I was.  Now I'm not so sure of anything.  Maybe Chloe learned how to swing a bat?  Maybe I pulled something?  Maybe I stayed in supported fish too long?  No?  Really?  I'd have sworn it was a fish-pose problem.  Damn.  So this is what sane-heartache feels like."