Thanksgiving Reflections: How a Trip Back Home Opened My Eyes
Home for the Holidays
There is a sense of nostalgia that comes with a return home. You’re driving the same roads, seeing the same sights, and enjoying time with the same people that a past version of you also partook in; however, you’re not the past you, you’re the new you! These trips down Memory Lane can bring back happy memories of a ‘simpler time’ because the grass is always greener…right?
Grey vs Green
What about those memories that are grey instead of green? Those memories you share with your ‘old self’ are connected to feelings of both happiness and sadness. Watching out the window as the snow falls and feeling a sting of pain and a surge of joy. Those conflicting emotions that are at war deep inside of you all of a sudden have image triggers to release the beast. Those green memories turn grey out of conflict; the familiar roads and the snow and the memories all blur into a grey cloud of joy and pain.
The innocent joy of snow representing a cleansing is replaced by the remembrance of snow triggering a period that was one of the darkest of your life. That dark cloud that you thought you had removed yourself so far from, is now right there in the room with you as you watch out the window at the falling snow. The little girl who bundled up to sled down the steep hill in the backyard until she was too physically exhausted to walk up the hill yet another time turned into the woman who was simply too exhausted to get off the couch, so instead, she watched out the window as the snow fell.
A Deep Abyss
I wipe away a few tears that fall out of remembrance of those darker days that I’ve buried so far in the past. It feels like a lifetime ago and yet still so close. I now understand with more clarity why I have not been able to shake my physical symptoms that have resulted from those greyer times. Why, again, I am physically plagued with sickness during a voyage back home. I had once thought that sickness was due to travel with a certain companion but I now realize that it was myself to blame. Those memories are at war deep within; emotions buried so deep they have been left forgotten. They stir in their deep abyss and do not allow my body to forget or to heal from those battle wounds but instead they dance during the night and leave me too exhausted to face the day.
Without the clarity that comes from looking these beasts straight in the eyes, there would be no healing. The ritual dance they perform would continue for ages with no peace. But when you get moments to see these beasts in their full form, one can learn to bow to their beauty. They’ve shaped themselves from the grey and inside their eyes are lessons learned. One cannot be angry with them because there is no healing in anger or bitterness. They only wish to be heard, to be praised for their existence so they can finally rest in peace.
Sometimes it takes visits into the known to fully understand what is present.
The snow falls outside in a quiet peacefulness that covers the earth in a fresh, unadulterated blanket of cleansing. The type of quiet that leads to healing if you listen hard enough and accept what comes. Washed with emotions that wish to be heard, maybe now they can learn to rest knowing that I’m thankful for their existence. Thankful for the protection from repeated mistakes. Thankful for their guidance in my belly even though, regrettably, it has been anonymous up to this dark night. Thankful for their beauty in their own right.
