Severance

A client described her experience this past week as "an end to severance."

Merriam Webster defines severance as to be cut off, to be put or kept apart: Divide. 

She referred to the Apple TV show Severance, which I haven't seen, but tells the story of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and their personal lives and what happens when the imposed severance begins to fail.

Many of us have lived at least some of our lives severed in ways from ourselves, compartmentalizing our desire from our duty, our choices from our values, our hurt from our defenses.

I think of how I started a non-profit when my husband entered the worst of his addiction. 

It wasn't until he died - when all the parts that I couldn't see or feel inside of myself before - collided together and formed a messy knot I could begin to unravel.

That's a confusing and painful time; that time when severance ends.

Who am I now?

 It takes as much time to grapple with the pain, rage and confusion of this sudden awakening, as it does to take responsibility for the possibilities that become available to you to create something new.    

"You know what I did this past week?  Jack Sh*t, a whole lot of nothing. Three hours doing breathing exercises. I cried a lot"  said one client.

"I have to believe that something is worth my focus, because if I don't then maybe I will have nothing to contribute" shared another.

Perhaps all we can do right now is grapple with this collision of formerly severed parts.

On Election Day, walking the dog on the same street as usual, I passed a small wiry bush growing in the strip of green between the sidewalk and the curb. I love it because it produces a kind of wildflower that I only see in farmers' markets during the late summer months.

The season is passed for it to bloom. 

And yet, that morning, a fresh magenta bloom sprung mightily from an array of dead stems. 

I thought, this is happening too.  This is happening.