emotion

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distance

there was always a distance

between us
a space I tried to cross
to reach you

I was alone
I sought your approval
thinking it was love

but now

I walk alone
crossing a bridge of my own making
to a place of my choosing

I don’t need you
to be on the other side

I am complete

© Claire Griffin 2016

This is the shortest edit I can make of a piece written in September. I find I am still processing the events and subsequent realisations from the end of last year. A massive emotional blow that led to the reassessment of a key person in my life and everything I thought I knew about my childhood.

I’ve been writing about these experiences over the last few months, and I hoped I had “dealt” with it all, but these thoughts keep surfacing.

So I hesitated to post this, yet another expression of my personal turmoil. When I shared this hesitation with a friend – she encouraged me to post saying “but you can put into words the things that others can’t – it helps others that you share your feelings” and then I remembered that I’ve always believed the deeply personal can be the most universal – so I trust that there will be something here to connect with.

And I’ll stop feeling I need to make excuses for them. These words are who I am, and who I am becoming. 

Still, while I’m tired of the darkness these pieces contain, writing my way through these feelings has released me, and I feel as though I am an adult at last, although I wish it hadn’t taken so long.

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winter dreaming

IMG_2491

it’s the tail-end of winter
and I’ve been feeling low
I have days when
I can’t imagine
how I will rise again

but I stand here today
overlooking the sea
on the verandah of a house in another town
in the distance I hear birds call, voices,
the low hum of the waves
little flurries of wind
blue sky to infinity
the sun pouring its heart out over the land
and I can feel, if I stayed here
my spirits would lift

I can see myself living here
in a two-storied house
overlooking the sea
with a room for books and writing
and quietly watching the world

I’d take the dogs I don’t have yet
for walks on the beach
bake bread and knit and talk

until the ‘real’ world changes
and catches up with my imaginings
part of me will go on living in this dream

© Claire Griffin 2016

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the earth shifts

The earth shifts –
moving
she stirs to wake me.

This air I breathe –
is your breath.

This land I walk –
is your body.

All that time away,
the image of this land burned
on the back of my eyes.
I saw nothing –
but through the after-image
of mountain, lake, forest, river, sea.

Here now, whole again,
to read the map of my land
to walk my own path.

                 I would be one with you.

© Claire Griffin 2016

We had an earthquake last night –
and I remembered this poem,
written after the first earthquake I felt
after my return to NZ from the UK.

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regret

Regret is such a difficult thing.

Its been nearly two years since I was rocked by the death of a dear friend, a significant person in my life. It would be their birthday tomorrow.

We hadn’t been in touch for a number of years, but I’d always felt the sense of connection, and even more, the growing need to thank them for the time they’d spent with me. The discovery they were gone was made at exactly the same time I committed to contacting them again. I’d been writing to them at the time. I had missed them by just a month or two.

The shock was intense. I spiraled into a strange emotional place, struggling to process the memories and emotions that suddenly surfaced. I could not believe how raw my emotions felt, and how conflicted.

Grief is bad enough, but my feelings were magnified by regret. Regret that over the years I’d had opportunities to make contact and not taken them, had reason and not acted upon it, had been held back by misplaced pride, or fear of rejection.

Talking this through with two trusted friends helped me to gain some perspective, and I wrote, and wrote, discovering imagery and metaphor that helped me to gain insight into my feelings and into the events of the past.

Coping with all this was difficult. I had no option but to sit with this regret, I couldn’t deny its presence, I couldn’t make it go away. I had to simply sit with it, side by side, and then gradually take it inside me, to accept it as mine.

But regret was in no hurry, it sat heavily for at least a year. The difficulty lay in adjusting to the reality that there was no way to reconnect, no way to tell someone how I felt. They were gone and nothing would change that. It took a long time to accept that reality, to stop beating myself up for not acting sooner. But gradually the pain eased, writing helped.

I think there are some things that just take our brains a long time to adjust to. Memories that no longer fit with the present. Desires that have no way to be fulfilled. Neural pathways need to be reviewed, and rewired. It’s a process that happens slowly and I have been changed by it.

I learnt that regret can teach us about acceptance – accepting that I made the best decisions I could at the time – and though I may regret those decisions now, I can’t change them. My only choice was to accept – staying with the pain of regret would be unbearable, There would be no future in staying in that place. So I guess acceptance is also about surrender. Surrendering to the truth that there are some things that can’t be changed, and looking for the most positive path forward.

This process did help me to engage more fully with the things that mean the most to me. I finally had a concrete example of why we shouldn’t put things off – there may not be a future time in which to do them. Hence, my renewed commitment to writing which has led to my being present in this alternate universe.

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pt 1 – becoming speechless

A few months ago I took part in a two day workshop designed to give experience and insight into a resilience and confidence programme used with teenage students. I was really enjoying the first day, as we worked through the same activities used with the students. I realised at the end of the first day that what I liked so much was the opportunity to focus on myself, my strengths, challenges, high points and low, some shared, some kept private. I felt excited, bouncy, chatty, very “up”.

My response to the second day was so different. We revisited a “life-map” begun the first day. Looking at it again I realised that I had recorded, amongst other things, all the times I had moved house and town as a child, as a teenager. Seeing this on paper in front of me somehow made it more overwhelming than any time previously. It explained so many things, especially my difficulty making friends as a child. Its hard to get close and then be moved again in a few months or a year or so. I understood how it had became easier as a child to be “stand-off-ish”, to keep to myself, to tell myself I was shy, or that I liked being a loner … and I couldn’t help but begin questioning the actions of those responsible.

So, seeing this lifemap on the second day resulted in my emotional state plummeting. It was as if I could feel a part of me fall, as if I had physically fallen to the floor. It was the weirdest thing. I got through the rest of the day. Resilience has always been a strength – just as well. But I was quiet, I felt low and sad.

When I got home I felt as if I had a slight sore throat. When I woke the next day, I couldn’t speak. I lost my voice for three days. There’s a message there somewhere…

(My reaction to this course was unusual. Certainly not the expected outcome – and I do not bear any ill-will towards the programme or its organisers. In fact, the analytical part of me found the whole process fascinating – and recognises the insights I’ve gained as a result of this and events that followed during the next few months.)