It is a lot harder than it sounds.
I know that in order to get better, I am going to need to learn to open my heart and let the sun shine in after I let a lot of the bad stuff out.
And that’s where things get tricky. It’s easier – though still not easy – for me to let the bad stuff out in this space because it does not involve making myself vulnerable.
Not the way I see it, anyhow. It’s an act of elimination. Just push it on out there.
Letting the good in, however, is a whole different bodily function. Ingestion, I suppose.
And inherent in that is the possibility of letting the wrong things in as well, and getting hurt, and that is a very scary prospect.
In fact, the very thought of opening up that way sets of lots of very big alarms in my head. We are talking about the walls that went up when I was being raped and I had to dissociate from reality and hide inside my head to escape what was happening to me.
And that scared little fox inside me has been trapped there ever since, hiding in the dark ness and pretending he does not exist.
And he doesn’t ever want to let anyone or anything into his sanctum.
Problem is, he’s starving in there.
And its so very cold, and dark, and a wind so cold it would freeze the marrow out of your bones blows right though you all the time there.
Basically, all my Midnight Tundra, that realm of infinite frozen ground in all directions in which I wander endlessly, is in there.
And, perhaps unsurprisingly,. I am starving and freezing in there. It is a dead and frozen land without sunshine or warmth, and whatever lives in there (me) has to generate all its own sustenance just to keep going.
And that is possible. Barely. But it sure as shit ain’t healthy.
So I am going to try to write my way out of it.
And so it came to be that after centuries of ice cold darkness, the Sun finally rose on the realm of the Midnight Tundra. And immediately all the ice and snow melted and the land dried out and what had been a featureless hellscape before burst into riotous bloom and soon the ice was replaced witj verdant hillsides, lush green meadows, majestic forests, and beaches upon which a brand new endless sea broke.
And the fox, who had by this point forgotten what warmth felt like, trotted through this brave new land dazed by wonder and abuzz with delight, until he found himself on the beach, a breeze blowing in from the sea, and on that beach he found a little clump of sandy grass that made a perfectly little bed for a weary fox, and so he sprawled there. his back on the grass and his tummy and four little paws in the air, and snoozed.
More after the break.
Later that same day
When the fox awoke, the sun was high in the sky, the air was filled with birdsong, and life was sweet, simpl,e and easy.
He rolled over onto his feet, stood up, shook out his fur to maximize the amount of fur exposed to the wonderful, life-giving sunshine. then flopped back down, tail wagging merrily, to take in more of this beautiful new world.
“I’m safe. ” he thought to himself, the words sounding foreign and hollow in his head. In fact the thought itself resisting being thought, as if the pathways of the mind needed to think it has rusted shut over the years.
And yet, he knew it to be true. The very nature of this new world told him so in every little detail, and beneath it all, supporting it, was a mighty current of love and affection and approval and reassurance that all were free to partake of without cost or obligation and in whatever quantity was needed.
“Is this what faith is like?” thought the highly intellectual fox lazily. “Is that current…. God? No wonder people of faith have always looked at me like I am crazy for nor believing as they do. This is amazing. Am I…. in Heaven?”
But such heavy thoughts could not stay in his mind for very long when the whole world felt like it was singing a happy song just for him.
Under those conditions, it was no wonder that the fox, who had wandered for decades through that Midnight Tundra, fell asleep once more.
But as he dozed off, he decided to himself that, for once, he didn’t care what came next. Maybe this was all a dream and he’d wake up back on the Tundra this time. Maybe this “perfect” world had unimaginably horrendous predators who would be after him any minute now and he’d be back on the run yet again. Maybe he was wrong to trust this world like he did. Maybe he was going to get hurt.
But all we ever truly have is the moment we are in. And this moment right now, with the sun and the sea and the shore and his little nest in the grass, was absolutely perfect.
All the future moments could take care of themselves.
For once in his life, he would fully enjoy the now.
With these happy thoughts drifting through his mind like clouds in the sky, the fox once more fell asleep.
Well that felt productive. Expressed a very hopeful and happy vision of my future while also writing a little fiction to do it.
It is, admittedly,. dramatically a tad threadbare and fairly low on plot,. but it did what I wanted it to do nevertheless. At this point in my life, nearly all my writing is done with therapeutic intent, and on those terms, it went quite well.
Who knows, I might write more about the adventures of our little foxy friend.
By now, you all know what his name is, right?
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.