Something is intoxicating and addictive about fooling myself. I don’t know why, or maybe I do, and this is just part of the same act I put on to avoid seeing things as they are. Am I avoiding pain? Am I avoiding pleasure? I’m not sure. I’ll have to take that to therapy (maybe I should give my therapist the link to my Substack)
But that’s not the point, I came to yap about something else. Today, someone shared a quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estés, and it kept sounding in the back of my mind for most of the day. I have to admit that I’ve never read the book (Women Who Run with Wolves) and I might be taking it out of context out of ignorance.
I promise I’ll read the book at some point, and I’ll try not to butcher the message in the meantime. But here is the quote:
Tell the truth about your wound, and then you will get a truthful picture of the remedy to apply to it. Don't pack whatever is easiest or most available into the emptiness. Hold out for the right medicine. You will recognize it because it makes your life stronger rather than weaker.
It hit me like a truck. I tend to look away from my wounds until they hurt too much for me to ignore them. I can go a long time before giving them a name, maybe more time to give them a truthful one.
I keep remembering my psychoanalysis lessons in college, and how the teacher talked about having to label “the void” to quiet the anguish that comes with realizing it’s there. At that point, we’ll take any label available and close to us to fill it, just so we can move on.
I’ve been trying the conscious practice of living in the gray. I’ve been trying to learn to be calm in the uneasy state of transition. Filled with uncertainty, I’ve tried to embrace it and stay there in what’s undefined without trying to run away or hide.
But maybe I’ve been taking it to an extreme (I’m quite a contrast girl, working on that too.) Maybe, I’ve been using the state of transit as an excuse to blind myself and look at the wound without having to say its real name.
Of course, that means that I have no clue what the real remedy is, and I’ve been packing the emptiness with what’s available to me… It is crazy to think that I’m doing something similar to what I did as a kid. My schedule looks crazy, but you should take a look at my schedule a decade ago. I fill the emptiness by filling my time.
No time to think, no time for me, be busy and be free of the pain that comes with the wounds’ real name. Somehow, I’ve grown and changed so much, but at the same time, I’m still that lonely teenage girl who filled her days with more than any kid could handle at the same time. But hey, that’s being a warrior, isn’t it? Doing it all and being surprisingly good at keeping it together. I shouldn’t have been keeping it together then. Maybe now, I should, I’m an adult… I keep reminding myself that these days, maybe I should be honest, lose the label, and tell myself whatever I mean by that.
I can’t fill my loneliness with an illusion, I can’t avoid myself forever. Maybe it’s time to lose the blindfold, lose the label, and give the wound room to breathe so I can know its name and cure it once and for all.
Thank you for reading. I hope that soon enough, you’ll find the remedy for yours too…