I've been coming down pretty hard on myself for not showing up here like I want to.

It hurts so much to have something I'm devoted to, but not doing.

Another week has been spent being run around by the invisible nothing of pain.

So unappreciative of it.
But it's also an old friend.
Pain knows me so well.

I'm starting to think maybe the cure to this relationship is to show dear Pain some love.

My pain is not a person.
We aren't married or indebted to each other.
But we've been through life together.
Almost from the very start.

It's too much to go on ignoring where pain is.

IGNORING MY BODY.
IGNORING THE CORE OF MY SOUL.

"It hurts!" is not an excuse anymore.

Fucking damit....crying.
I don't want to cry.

I don't want to feel this.

It's embarrassing! I definitely don't want my family to know about it.
Not the people who have nurtured this all along the way.
Feeding pain through a hole in the closet door.
Just enough goodness to keep making me stick my arm out.
Over and over and over...repetitive use injuries.
I need to protect them.
How could I have survived without them?

I don't want to slow down.
Running for my life...then jumping in an ice bath.
It's what I do.

Don't touch me.
Don't warm me up.
Don't care.

I'm busy getting through this, don't you see!!???

I can't stop.
Dying.

****

It's time.
She's crowning.

Suffocation. I can't breathe.
Stop being there!

We're going to have to cut you open.

***

I walked into the operating room,
and did it.
Held my arms out,
and let that scalpel shape a hug around me.

***

Never the same.
Getting to know a stranger.
Pain grieves the loss of me.
My arms around her.

I'm still me, you're still you...even with pink hair and a smile.
Look into my eyes.
There, there.

We go on.
Loving.
Healing.
Being.

Transformation.

***

It's going to be ok.
Even if I don't make it.
Still ok.

We made it.

We made it. We made it. We made it.....

On my ceramic memorial stone..."We made it."

Friends, we're always making it.

Together.

Though you might not know, until the end.

(For an insider view of art in process, find me on Facebook at Dirt Trail Studio!)