Be Okay

January 2017

The only way I can be okay is to forget for awhile. Not that I ever forget–but part of me does. I can feel okay when the part of me that remembers is quiet. Pushed down even–maybe–sometimes.

The part of me that can be okay–who is that? It would be nice to say that it’s the part of me living in the present moment, but that’s not necessarily true. Sometimes I’m actively distracting myself so I don’t have to be here. And even that feels good compared to remembering.

Reading back on this I can see what needs doing is to redefine the meaning of being okay. I suppose I need to recognize that I’m okay even when I’m sad and in pain. Accept that sadness and pain are what’s real sometimes.

Wanting to be happy and ‘not remembering’ is clinging. Not wanting to be sad is pushing away.

I hear a little voice sometimes–no, not really a voice or even a whisper. More of a subtle shift, a little click-clack like the turning of a combination, that seems to beckon, or even insidiously order me to STOP being okay. Stop being in that place of not remembering.

But not remembering what?? Like I said, I never forget. Maybe it’s this: Don’t stop remembering WHO YOU ARE–a mother who lost her child. Don’t forget your identity as a grieving mother. Don’t take off those mourning robes.

Hell if I know–sometimes I need to wrap those robes around me and feel the knives cut and slice me, to try to figure out why. Other times I need to be that other person–the one who’s still here, the one who still believes it might be possible in this dimension to touch the true meaning of life.