I walk into my therapist's office and have no problem talking for 2 hours straight. We barely get past a formal greeting some sessions before I'm ready to dive headlong into the preceding week. And stories. I have lots of stories. They go everywhere and with so many characters in them. The "regulars" and the people I never saw coming. Old and new encounters. Some from my dreams, some from nightmares.

There's just so much to say! So much I've experienced and learned and am puzzled by. Life is overflowing with thoughts and emotions and complexities and simple things I can't grasp and I must speak at least a mid-length novel in a single sitting.

BUT.

There are those sessions that go like this:

"................................................................................................................................................................................................

..............................................hey..........................................hi...............................................................................how's it going?....................................................what's up?.........................what are you feeling?..................................................(nod)............................................(seat squirm).........................................................................( adjustment of a pillow)...............................................................(heavy sigh)......................................................................................(shoulder shrug)...................................."

You get the picture right?

Sometimes it's just so hard to talk. And not because I don't want to. More often than not it's because I do want to talk. Really talk.

There's so much going on. At those times my head might be bursting at warp speed with 500 responses, or worse, internal static like in the old days with black and white fuzz on the TV screen when a channel wouldn't come in. That's the worst!

In a way, opening up here is a little bit like being in a therapy session, for me. This last season of change I've experienced (and am still profoundly experiencing) has left it hard for me to not reveal myself completely. And yet, that feels like too much.

Maybe I'm just part way out of the chrysalis, but eager to start something new and daring.

I'm on the trail. I show up in my studio and work. I've been through some major feats in the past, almost three months, since we last "spoke," and I've been bursting to share about the process of coming out of my skin.

But it's overwhelming.

It's scary.

It's vulnerable to open up when you're mid-process.

It seems like it's taking too long. It's nearly spring!

I feel pressure to make the first thing I say from this place ground breaking!

That's just not how it's working out.

I'm changed in mind, body and soul but I still get around on foot. It turns out not all beings who have spent time wrapped up in chrysalises sprout wings.

We don't necessarily get to pick the what, where and when of transformation.

Showing up, being present and vulnerable feels necessary and risky.

I want to reveal the newness within even if someone turns around and spouts off to me that I'm absurd!

But this is where I stall out and the awkward silence begins.

Where do I go from here?

I could crawl under a rock and hide. I have an urge to make like a piece of grass in a meadow and quietly blend in. Walk on me, sit on me, just don't look at me! And maybe in the end all this wasting of precious opportunity to connect won't be failure if it's just like I never existed???

What!!!?? There's got to be more!

WE ARE GOING SOMEWHERE!

What do you say?

It doesn't matter if we're off the map now.

The earth carries on and on. Sometimes you just have to keep walking...and talking it out.

No matter how long it takes.