tamarjacobson

Quote of the day:

I've been sifting through the layers of dusty books and faded and papers that tell a story I used to know, it was one that happened so long ago. Kate Wolf, Across the Great Divide.

This morning I spent a few hours going through my old memory box, which is full of cards, letters and gifts that I have been hoarding for years, from family, friends and loved ones. Items and expressions that have buoyed me up and given me strength and courage to keep the hope alive. It seems I needed to review them as some events have caused me painful, emotional abandonment feelings. In fact, there were many things I threw out, and some I sat quietly and read through, feeling a sense of where I have been and how I arrived at this point in time. I remembered how recently an acquaintance had admonished me for self-piteous whining about how anonymous I always feel, and how no one knows who I am because I keep moving from country to country, state to state, town to town. Indeed, she instructed me that it does not matter if people know about my past or not. It is important to realize for myself how I came to be who I am today, and that all those things and stuffs that happened in the past went to making up who I am now. Great words of wisdom, which although painful to hear at that moment, are gratefully accompanying me since.

And so, I threw out quite a few cards and letters, gifts and items that are not necessary for me to hold onto any longer. 

It feels lighter somehow. 

I must be entering a new phase. 

Indeed, when I look at myself in the mirror, I see a different me. While, I still feel like the old me deep inside, on the surface I look like someone else completely:

[before]

[after]

[even further before]

  
[even more recently]

All those pieces of me are firmly within my sense of self and my old emotional memory box. I no longer need to hold onto external stuff to tell me who I am. It is becoming clearer and clearer inside my gut, how I feel, but more importantly, how I interpret my feelings. 

My new therapist is an expert, an artist. Even as it feels almost as if I am writhing in agony, as I weep openly, copiously, he holds still watching me, relentlessly, coaxing me back to my deepest feelings, and invites me to confront them head on. I am starting to understand that he trusts my courage to do this. Indeed, he should, because I am hungry to learn. Turning sixty has made me realize, more than ever before, that there is no time to mess about with this stuff! I want to work this through and come to some peaceful state of mind before I die. 

No time like here and now … here and now … here and now …