This past year...I have been quiet...much of my time...In my blog...posts have been minimal...professionally...my voice has been muted...by others and myself...by conditions...beyond my control...I have felt stifled...gagged...suppressed...and oddly...oppressed...and so...the result...is the inability to speak...and so...I feel silent...I empowered others to speak...my students...my friends...but my voice...I allowed to be strangled...and so I lost...everything...
My childhood into adulthood was my training ground for silencing my own voice...by the request...and for the needs of others...You would think that I would have learned...to stop loving...to stop believing...but I didn't...I saw each situation as a new one...somehow different than all the others...and that now my silence would be most appropriate...and each time...I lost...everything...
Losing everything is a skill that I have developed over a lifetime...refined and perfected...to that point that I can be in the midst of losing everything...and all those around me...are completely unaware of the mass exodus of my acquisitions...physical and emotional...and as I have watched the doors fly open...once again...and a great tornado pulls seemingly everything I own away...to a great spinning core...where all becomes the splintered remnants of my...yet...greatest attempt...just as I shake hands...once again...to loss...in this most vulnerable moment...I realize the truth...loss means nothing to me...except...for the loss of the ability to love...to believe...
I believe that the day I stop believing...stop loving...I will die...I will be come one of the walking dead...an empty shell...truly alone...Others can take...and take...I can be stripped naked...strangled...muzzled...battered...but no one can take...my ability to love...to believe...I have to give that up myself...and if I did...what would be left...
Many would say...that I have experienced enough...that my willingness to risk everything...to leap...eyes wide open...into abyss...after abyss...believing that there is something for me when I land...that this is inappropriate...that I am inappropriate...and enough is enough...and my response is...who are we to say what is enough...the only way to know if something is meant to be yours...is to risk losing it...or risk having it...
Many would say...this is not for everyone...and I say...why not...is it not our gift to ourselves to try many...many things...knowing that only a precious few...will remain in our lives...the rest we will let go...or have them ripped from our fingers...and that this fierce loss is what saves us from losing ourselves...the universe protecting us...clearing the deck...for that next great thing...those faces...those lives...those moments...that life free of regret...that wisdom gained...the new beginning...again...
So...let the winds rise....let the oceans crash...let the fires burn away all that I own...let others deny me...let my back feel that I can take no more...I spread my arms wide...so that my heart is open...exposed...so that all can see my frailties...and my strengths...so that any enemy of living...can shoot arrows at my spirit...for I will not die...I will not die...until I decide...and although my dignity may be dirtied and bruised...I will love again...I will believe...and how do I know this...because...I have done this so many times...I have lived...and will continue...and I could never have done this...
If I never had lost...
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