and then...

i lost touch with REALITY and went into deep self-created suffering. again. lost center. fear mode. lots of OLD wound, pain-body issues hijacked my emotional responses and undermined my ability to see clearly. coming back, though...sadness at the disconnections and demands i put out on the world. the more i groped and grasped outside the more gaping the the wound seemed though it's only made real by that looking elsewhere and then when i come home to it, in it, the hole is whole, it leads me back to me. i have much to be grateful for but it seems lately my default state has been worry and disappointment...the hair loss, the self-conscious struggle with my new presentation, the comparing my life as it is to what i once thought it might be. there's a good poem about that, robert bly.


The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog

I never intended to have this life, believe me -
It just happened. You know how dogs turn up
At a farm, and they wag but can't explain.

It's good if you can accept your life - you'll notice
Your face has become deranged trying to adjust
To it. Your face thought your life would look

Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten.
That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.
Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed.

Sparrows in winter, if you've ever held one, all feathers,
Burst out of your hand with a fiery glee.
You see them later in hedges. Teachers praise you,

But you can't quite get back to the winter sparrow.
Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles.
Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and comes in.