Not knowing

There are times, despite my incessant introspection, where I wonder if I learned anything at all. I feel at times like I am this floating entity lost in a huge universe swirling around me with all this knowledge and wisdom and answers and I can't catch any of it. Despite dancing as fast as I can on the cosmic consciousness of my sisters that went before me. The generations of wise crones who knew the answers I seek. Did I learn anything yet?  I am 55.7 years old now. Is my personality so ingrained now I can't change? Am I changing and I just can't see the forest for the trees? I like to think so, but when I honestly peek inside my heart I wonder. Did you learn anything yet? There are many lessons I know are in my life path - Sussey's own interpersonal lessons. These are what I am referring to here, these that I know but have not learned yet. Can you know a lesson but not learn it?

My life has been filled with both great and sorrowful experiences. I have had more come my way than many many people ever will in their entire lifetimes. I have been truly blessed with some very incredibly special people and experiences and gifts. I have been to the heights of great spiritual awakenings down to the depths of absolute despair and darkness. Nothing boring and in between for this women. I repel boredom in fact. I have loved very deeply. I have lost very profoundly.

There is a lesson for me in there. It's not fully formed and cemented in my head or heart yet, but it lingers on the periphery waiting for this student to come to it. I had the pleasure of spending some time with my youngest son the other morning. He my old soul child with his quiet wisdom and new found knowledge of all things scientific and worldly. We talked about books he's reading and what he is learning from them. He knew about the "uncanny valley" and we chatted about that, he listened while I told him some secrets about raising children and my own personal challenges in life. He offered his unbiased thoughts and opinions on same. I told him how wonderful it was to learn from someone so young. To be open to the fact that I have nowhere near all the answers or all the knowledge I need in this lifetime and in fact someone 30 years my junior may have some of it to teach me. It made me feel young again to listen to him and wise at the same time.

I thought about it again on my walk to work where the thoughts flow freely. One thing is for certain, in this life I am being taught about death. About losing and letting go. About fully immersing in what I have before it's gone. About embracing the love and the disappointment. Living in the moment is too light a sentence to attach to this but it gets at some of it.  This learn and yearn- this, as yet unproven theory, I can't quite mesh together- is the overarching paradigm of my life. I know it to be so. To live in the moment and not look for anything else, to be grateful and enjoy what you have while it's there, to love and need and desire and yearn and care and cry and hope and despair- and nothing else. To be - to just feel. Life and death, pain and grief, love and abandon. And nothing else. Just to feel.

I don't know how this fits, I just write and see if I can come up with answers and see if I can change my story through these words, but I had a terrible dream last night. I believe Freud was correct when he said dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. I had a number of children in my house (they were my kids but looked different) and they were all in some form or state of angst. They were addicted to drugs and alcohol, they smoked, one had numerous credit cards that were maxed and the desperation was evident. They were using me and taking advantage of my kindness and I was letting this happen. I was sidelined to silence. I was so lonely in my despair of these ones I loved that I could not help. Chaos reigned, I wanted out and could not let go. I awoke crying in the middle of the night and could not fall back to sleep. I know that everyone in your dream is you. I could not help her. The details of the angst not important or correct but the angst yes, the loneliness yes, the chaos yes, the inability to help yes.

I have so much and still look for more. Stop looking and just be it. I felt anger toward Terry for the first time. This happened about 2 weeks ago and life has been pretty tough ever since. I felt that anger because he left me, he didn't tell me how bad he was, he ruined our wonderful life together and now my life is shit, I was mad at him for this. I let myself cry over it but I want to resolve this and I do not know how (this not knowing, have you learned anything yet? Can you let it go?). This not knowing has me stumped, it has me blocked, it has me dreaming what I did last night. I wonder if it is a key issue in the grief process that if I knew how to turn it and unlock it's secret door it would stop the chaos? It is as if I am in the uncanny valley. I know something is not quite right and I am thrown by it but I can't yet see it for what it is. The lesson just on the periphery.