Another UU cancer blogger, Lizard Eater, posts this poem at her own site.
***
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I'm tired of feeling scared.
I'm tired of being so effing fragile that the least little thing makes me cry.
I'm tired of losing my temper over small things.
I'm tired of feeling helpless.
I'm tired of weeping.
Tired of crying.
Tired of sobbing.
Tired of holding it in.
Tired of my heart hurting hurting hurting.
We're at the end of it and I'm so full of fear that we're not at the end of it, that this is just another pause before it all starts all over again. Again.
I want ... just once! ... to look at her sleeping and just think, "Awwwww," rather than
"Please God Please God Please God Please God."
I'm tired of being a drain on my friends, my family. Doesn't the universe understand that I'm supposed to be the comforter, not the comforted???
I'm tired of feeling self-centered and self-focused and self-ish.
I'm tired of feeling guilty for not being more appreciative, more thankful.
I just feel so fragile. And it's unfamiliar. And I hate it.
And I'm tired of having to stay up late at night because the only way I can go to sleep is if I push myself to complete exhaustion.
So tired ... but I can't sleep, the clowns will eat me.
***
I know these feeling too, L. E. Not the exact same feelings that you're feeling right now, of course. But close enough: close enough that I recognize in my own gut that same visceral sense that words alone will never be enough, and empathetically suffer an angry, bitter, tired, guilty, helpless, self-conscious fragility of my own...like I've walked over some of this same territory myself in my own bare feet, and am left now with scars that I will never fully be able either to share or to escape. And I'm still not out of the swamp yet either too. Not by a long ways.
But a good night's sleep will help, when it comes. And it will come. Have no doubt about it. So sleep as soundly as you can. We've got your back with the clowns....
Justin Case, from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey "Boom a Ring!" circus troupe.
THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
2 comments:
Thank you for your words here and on my blog. They gave me balm.
Thank you both for being brave enough to share these thoughts that so many have had, but have often felt too vulnerable to give voice to.
And we need to do that. We need to hear about the dark night of the soul so that we can know that we're not alone in those moments, and get through another night or dawn on that knowledge.
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