Someone commented that she was thankful for my "transparency" here. . . and I've thought of that comment several times, rolling it around in my head. What I was reminded of most was an experience I had about fifteen years ago when my ex-husband moved out with my 13-year-old daughter while I was away on a work-related trip. When I returned home, the house was half-empty and I had no idea where my daughter was. I discovered their whereabouts a few hours later, and that's a long, mournful tale, but it's not what I want to tell here.
A few months after this event, I was so depressed that suicide seemed very tempting, so I checked myself in to the mental health ward of a hospital for 9 days, as it turned out.
My point? While there, I had the best, most meaningful conversations with people than I'd had----even with close friends----in some time. Why? Because folks there had lost all pretense. We were hurting, soul-wounded, searching for meaning, and we, too, had become transparent in our hope of finding help or being able to give it to others. No comparing, no one-upmanship, no criticizing----we felt a love for each other, especially since we were so vulnerable.
I felt that sense of love when at the Anima sanctuary, and I want to BE that sort of presence to others myself, but it it's not easy. Too easily, I become swept up in others' problems, I'm too sensitive to perceived criticism, and I become discouraged when I feel alone in my quest.
Yet we are alone/and not. No one can live for us. No one can die for us. Yet we all live and die together. What a conundrum, this life.
