What I’ve learned from talking to so many victims of traumatic events, abuse, or neglect is that after absorbing these painful experiences, the child begins to ache.
Oprah Winfrey
Being tired might not come from what you do in a day’s work, it might be what you work not to do; in a day, a week, a lifetime. It may be holding an ancient ache, a deep, long soulful yearning for what you did not have, what you did not ask for, and what you haven’t yet given up on.
Yours is different from everyone else, this mournful empty satchel where your love or trust would have lived. This open nest woven with every wanted word, the cotton threads of belonging hanging to the sides of what you settled for.
We may not know during our day what we have given up but there is a point in every day when we do. Falling into sleep, one lone lightbulb flares just long enough to show what isn’t there. So we stay awake, alert, watchful and so very tired. Or we fall asleep so soundly, quickly; unwilling to wake back up to the echo in the room of being ever unspoken.
This ache can be your undoing, or it can be your updraft. To speak from the place that was not listened to. To stay awake long enough to turn your head and say I’m here. To rest enough to ask what is it that you need to say? And then, in all it’s timid truthfulness, to say it.
This ache has a name. Singular, unique and wildly ever and always your own. Speak it.
blue solstice 