I was listening to "On Living" by Kerry Egan in my jeep today.
It is about a chaplain who works in Hospice.
She speaks that we all are broken or cracked. That most of us have secrets we want to share with someone before we die.
Which I agree with.
What I don't understand is why people wait until they are ready to die, before they break their silences.
Imagine, if we all shared what we keep secret, we would no longer strive to be perfect; but embrace our imperfections!
A world full of cracked and broken people being real.
She also spoke about not flinching. I took, it as not looking away. To stare at the truth of our lives, of what happens and what is. It is work to not flinch, she says. Especially not flinching at your own life, its truths and the choices you have made and why.
To me it seems people become more real the closer they get to leaving the planet.
What a shame it is to me...for it is to live a pretend life while alive. And then in the very last moments of their lives experience their real self - but for only a short time.
I love living as my real self always. I am so grateful I have experienced this now for over 12 years.
Yet, as I listened today, I felt grief for what I have lost in this life.
Relationships broken, that will never return to their innocence.
I am wounded, soft and vulnerable; wary.
I will not be able to open up as deep and wide with belief and trust. I will not share all of me; again.
Even if, we mended fences, my brother and I lost a very special relationship that will never again be what it was.
I believe this loss has changed me.
Deeply.
Broken hearts are stronger - and- wiser.
I have lost the family connection that lasts a lifetime. I don't have that with anyone from my childhood days.
My family ties are now all broken.
My brother was the last link into my completed past.
Others have joined my life in later years.
In looking back at my life so far, it is about relationships, with myself.
The times I did flinch and look away, and now all the times I stare and do the work that truth requires.
In listening to another author speak "On Being" NPR - Mary Karr spoke about breaking down or breaking through.
I don't believe that my life is about breaking down; but rather breaking through.
My lost relationships with my family of origin have given me break throughs in my life. Breaking free of dysfunctional and codependent or toxic lazy relationships. Breaking through into a new pattern of how I am in relationships.
Mostly breaking through to being a separate being.
Strong within myself.
While I have experienced estrangement, perhaps it is more about breaking through the codependency.
Another piece Kerry spoke about was how our physical worlds change OR our perceptions. One or the other will create a different life.
I would have to say, that my perceptions have totally flipped.
I see the world through new perceptions.
I see me with new eyes.
It was to die before my death.
This, I wish upon everyone.
To have a break through into living as the real you.
Each relationship that I had to leave or was silenced out of, has left me with wiser eyes, and a deeper knowing of who I am.
And, who they are.
I will ponder an open letter to my brother.
To see if I can articulate why our relationship ended.
Perhaps, why they all did.
To be left with a self I am learning to love in deeper and widening ways.
Maybe that is why I was segregated.
In order to see me without the perceptions of them telling me who I am.
Who am I?
Is that the biggest question that sits with you in the last hours of life.
Could this be why secrets are shared. For in the end, we all what others to know who we are.
I will not fear death for of all that I know...
I know me best.
