Charles Bukowski - The Laughing Heart

 

 

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-- by Charles Bukowski

Robbery!

When I was a young girl I fell in love with the movie Space Camp, and after watching it I decided 2 things: I wanted to be an astronaut and I really really wanted to go to Space Camp. I told this to people and they laughed at me and told me I could never and would never do either. So, as a result, a little part of me died and I formed the necessary scab and then scar to heal the wound.

Remember this? Pure awesomeness, no?

"The stars belong to a new generation." Too bad I wasn't part of it.

When I was young girl I wanted to be a model. I was always told what a pretty girl I was by all my parents friends, so why not? I was told I was pretty, I thought models were pretty, so I thought this would be something cool that I could do.... And then the bomb dropped - "Well", my friends pointed out, "you aren't pretty enough and you have too many beauty marks on your face. That isn't the way models look." Strike 2 for me! So, another little part of me died and I started making a list of all the things I couldn't do because of my deficiencies - and to my horror - there seemed to be a bunch of them. Please bear in mind I WAS A YOUNG GIRL!

Maybe if this had been a theme in my childhood things

would have been different.

 

Fast forward to my mid-teens when I was awarded a scholarship for a summer dance program called CanDance. One of the classes we took was Kinesiology and it was love at first sight for me. I decided then and there that I was going to become a Kinesiologist. Cool right? When I shared my exciting news with my friends and parents I was told that I probably wouldn't be able to accomplish this because I didn't have the strongest "science skills" and "wouldn't I be better off focusing on something that was 'English' related? I was good at English." And then my response, "of course, how stupid of me." *giant head smack*

When I was young, I unknowingly gave up on my dreams and the possibilities of my dreams. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I decided I would start answering "a nurse," because that is what my mom was. It was safe and people didn't seem to have a problem with it.

After people stopped asking me this particularly traumatizing question, and after I let go of the ridiculous notion of being a nurse, I started waiting for people to tell me what I should be doing because they obviously knew better than me. For example - my girlfriend was a student of the Ryerson Dance Program and thought I should audition, so I said, "okay, why not? I'm not doing anything else at the moment and I know how to dance." Off I flew to Toronto, where I was granted another scholarship, and picked up some mad dancing skills.

It is no wonder to me why I am, the way I am. I can see now that this is why it is hard for me to listen to my authentic voice. I can see now, why it is hard for me to make decisions around what I want to do and what I think I would like to do. I was taught that I wasn't good enough, I wasn't pretty enough, I wasn't smart enough and most importantly -  I didn't know the answers. So I limited myself and lost myself all at the same time.

I was robbed I tell you! Robbed!

Now as an adult, I find myself on the treasure hunt of my life, or more truthfully, for my life. I'm searching dark cobwebbed corners and attics for the things that were once rightfully mine, but were taken from me. Sometimes I stumble across my treasures (and I mean this literally) even though their presence is invisible to me, and the only reason I notice them is because I have tripped on them, fallen, and hurt myself. When this happens their invisibility starts to lift and I begin to see them. I see them and wonder - "is this really a treasure of mine?" and after close scrutiny "well, maybe this is mine, for a second I thought it belonged to Megan," and then "oh".

For the most part, this reclaiming of 'self ' is very difficult for me; however, there is the odd time when I stumble upon a fragment of my lost treasure and know, at once, that it is mine. When this happens, I can lovingly pick it up, cradle it in my arms, and quietly rejoice in our reunion, and (in the words of my friend Ani) send out blessings like butterfly kisses....

Letting go...

Last night, while laying on my couch trying desperately to be distracted by my television set, it hit me. It was like watching a horrific catastrophe that I was somehow the sideline observer of, and the victim in.

Up until this particular moment, I had been so disconnected from the pain of it, that it took me a few minutes to clue into the fact that 1. Something was happening, and 2. It was happening to me. It was almost as if it was coming from my television. It started as a low moaning/ whimpering sound and as I sat wondering where the hell the noise was coming from, and what on earth it was, it grew steadily louder. That's when I looked down and saw my whole body shaking, or more like spasming.

It went like this:

"Oh, are those my arms, hands, legs? Why are they shaking like that? Why can't I feel them?"

And then,

"Oh, this is me. This noise is coming from inside me, how strange."

And then the 3 separate parts: the noise, the shaking, and me, collided and merged into a giant, messy heap. It went on and on and on and on and on, and for the first time in 3 weeks, I felt like I was present in my body. It hurt, it was exhausting, and it was welcomed. I knew it was in there somewhere, I just didn't know where, and frankly, up until this point, didn't want to know.

This is a shining example of what occurs when one denies themselves the existence of their unwanted emotions (usually done in order to protect oneself from feelings such as fear, abandonment, grief, anger, loneliness and a slew of other emotions). This is a pattern most of us fall victim too.We carry these unwanted situations and feelings around inside our bodies - in our muscles, organs, and mind and they disrupt our lives, directly and indirectly. It's something I have constantly experienced in my practice, and now know to be a form of self-preservation or survival.

Denial. Denial. Denial!

So there I was in my pre-hokey pokey state, naively believing I was okay, when in fact I was in a place where I had pushed my emotions in and down until I couldn't feel them. I didn't want to feel them, and as a result I developed the 'phantom body zombie syndrome'. My body was numb. My mind was numb. Most of my emotions were swirling layers of numbness... I was numb. We are like little squirrels really - running around collecting and storing things for a later time. This was my later time.

This is the kind of squirrel I desire to be.

The blessing: I knew this was a very good thing; I wasn't scared, I allowed it to happen.

The curse: it hurt that this was something I was experiencing alone.

The lesson: emotions do not stay buried. They have ways of coming up - some healthy, other not. For example, my shaking and crying was a very healthy way for me to discharge my experience, and therefore, let my healing process begin. Examples of my unhealthy reactions to my buried emotions were: insomnia, headaches, anxiety attacks, lack of motivation, and a change in my eating. 

To the two:

I let you go because you are a narcissistic asshole who is unworthy of me. I will not look back.

I let the you go because it was the right thing for me to do, but I will carry you with me always.

I let you go - both of you, in different ways.

I let go.