It is there. All of it. What I think and feel. What I need to say. What I need to free.

Sometimes I imagine that I clutch at it with my hands, but it is as if they are covered by many layers of thick rubber which are covered by many layers of heavy woolen fabric. I am able to feel nothing except the broadest strokes of this thing. I can gauge its general breadth and weight, but I cannot sense all its tactile nuances. I know it to be large and heavy, but I cannot tell you of its texture or its temperature. It may be cool and smooth. Perhaps hot and slick. Maybe covered with tiny ridges, bumps or hollows. Whatever it’s texture, I can feel nothing but its dense, immovable presence. What lies between it and my hands is just too thick. So I grab at it and attempt to wrap my arms around it, all the while knowing that the only way to get at it is to remove that which is between.

Other times I hear it as my own voice, but again it is muffled –  deadened by that which is between. I know the voice to be my own but I hear it the same way I heard myself speak when I had a double ear infection – as if my voice came to me from the bottom of a deep, still lake. As if it had been removed from my body and dropped into the water where it sank slowly to the bottom, eventually lodging itself into the sandy floor. I hear myself speak and I know it to be my own voice – just not in my body. My voice shifting slowly across the bottom of the lake. Coaxingly  nudged by the gentle movement of the water. Sometimes it comes to me clearly and I hear every tinny word. Other times it is muffled and I hear nothing but its murmurs and undulations. Perhaps it has settled under an umbrella of rock against which its words bounce and return to it without ever being understood. And other times still, it is completely silent. Perhaps because it has been swallowed by a large fish. Temporarily existing  in the shadowy innards of some dweller of the lake, until it is expelled, having yielded no sustenance for its host.

This then is the work. The work of peeling off the layers. Of removing what is between.

This then is the goal. The goal of retrieving my voice. Plucking it from the wet and placing it back where it ought to be, so that I may speak that which needs to be spoken and free that which needs to be freed.

It is the work of letting what is to be felt be felt and what is to be said be said.

This way freedom lies.

December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author: Sam Davidson)

There are many things to leave behind.

The things I’ve been carrying around for years.  Some of the things are of my own making and choosing. Others were thrust upon me, and I foolishly believed that because someone had given them to me, I couldn’t put them down.

I have been a collector of these things. Cleaning up around me as I went and never putting anything down.

I have walked onward, adorned in these things and becoming so accustomed to their weight that I believed it to be my own. I wrapped myself in these things, finding that to be the only way to carry them all. I wore them on my head like a turban. Wrapped them around my neck and let them trail behind me like a train. I wound them around my waist and knotted them securely so they wouldn’t fall off and be left behind. I carried what I could in my head and in my heart. Shoved things into my chest cavity, and held them in my throat. I swallowed what I could, and carried it leaden in my belly. I scooped up handfuls of these things. Carried them in my arms. When I ran out of ways to carry the things,  I just tied them to myself wherever I could. To my arms. To my legs. To my fingers.  To the hair on my head.

I dragged them forward until the weight was too much.

I could not move for the things. I was buried under their weight. I sank to my knees. Fell to the floor. Rolled helpless onto my back and lifted my eyes heavenwards believing this to be the end.  It was all I could do.

Exhaustion was a gift.  As I lay there unable to move something told me to examine exactly what I had been carrying with me. What were these things? Who did they belong to?

Whose anger was this knotted around my neck?  What about the resentment I held in my arms like a baby? The fear tied to my ankle?  The sadness held in my clenched fist? The unworthiness draped about my shoulders like a cape?

I was amazed by how much I didn’t recognize. Even more amazed that I neither wanted nor needed any of it.

So I began to remove these things from my being. My fingers clumsy at first, I began to untie the knots and unravel all of these heavy things. I began slowly, and cautiously. Waiting to see what would happen. Would they reattach themselves? Would someone appear and make me pick it all back up again?

It didn’t happen, so frantically, I began to remove more things. I freed my arms and flung the things far from me. I released my legs and kicked myself loose, until finally I could stand tall and straight and free with the heavy pile of things littered at my feet. I wept at the relief. At the exquisite lightness which remains.

Freedom.

It’s here that I find myself. Standing surrounded by the weight I have shed. Shaking my head in wonder that I carried it all for so long without realizing that it was not necessary. Not knowing that I could say no. Not knowing that I could just put down what I didn’t need and step around it.

I know better now. I will step over the threshold into this new year knowing better. I will leap and run and skip my way into its brand new, miracle-filled days. I will carry with me always only the most precious things, leaving by the wayside that which no longer serves me. If along the way I should meet anyone who wants to give me their stuff to carry, I will politely say “No, thank you”, and dance myself ever forward.

There are some things we hold on to even though we know full well that we shouldn’t.  We recognize that the time for letting go has long arrived, yet still we hold on.

I know for example that it’s immature to want to prove to all the men who -  in my mind – have rejected me just how wrong they were. Yet I continue to cling to the  “I’ll show him what a big mistake he made rejecting me / he’ll be sorry he let me go”  bone.

It’s a little childish, but it’s comforting. Empowering somehow to gnaw on this bone in anticipation of  it finally breaking open to release the sweet juices of  vindication I am convinced will be my reward.

I imagine how thrilling it will be when realization of regret hits those foolish rejecters. When their blindfolds are removed to reveal to them my true brilliance, beauty and uniqueness. They will be amazed by how skinny and successful and brand-spanking-shiny new I’ve become. I imagine how shamefully they’ll be forced to slink away upon seeing me with the handsomer, taller, better and obviously more intelligent man who snatched me up.

How dumb will they feel when recognition of what they COULD have had hits home? Opportunity missed. Gift horse looked dead in its gaping, slobbery mouth!

So I keep at my bone. Biting down a little harder as I imagine myself looking sadly upon the rejecters as they weep at the lack of foresight which led them to not choose me.  I imagine impassioned pleadings for second chances and magnanimous forgiveness.  The jerk of sobbing shoulders. The clutching of fistfuls of tear-soaked tissues. The mournful hanging of heads weighed down by regret and anchored by defeat.  The dragging, shuffling walk of men walking away from the treasure they know they have lost.  Me!

I sigh  blissfully as I picture myself shaking my head in pity while I turn back into the arms of  my new, anatomically correct, emotionally mature, spiritually enlightened , good-smelling, well-dressed, generally perfect new man.

See what I mean?  It’s really easy to shore up my battered self-esteem and tattered pride with these rampant and overly dramatic imaginings.

I know I shouldn’t do it. I know it’s spiritually immature and I’m better than that.  I really do know better.  I also know that I’m running out of excuses for me living from that place of ego. I’ve read the books, attended the classes. I received and read the memo.

Yes. I definitely know.

It’s time to loosen my grip, unhinge my jaw and let the bone drop.

I know all this.

However, in the interests of being kind to myself, I’m letting myself gnaw just a little bit longer.  Like a dog backed into a corner, I  see that there is no escape. The universe has been gently tugging this bone away from me for a while and its inevitable that I will soon have no choice but to drop it.

It will soon be time for the letting go.

I won’t get to bury it, or hide it away. There is no treasure in it after all.  I’ll just drop it onto the ground where it can be bleached by the sun and pounded on by the rain until it dissolves down into the dirt.

Yes. I’ll have to drop it soon, but until then…