When Life Goes Down

When life goes down

It. Goes. Down.

It doesn’t wait for the social engagements you’ve got going to pass.

It may not allow you to breathe in the communal air you’ve come to rely upon.

It definitely won’t allow you to keep up with all the things you’ve so reliably kept up with for years.

It. Goes. Down.

 

In the initial aftermath,

you are a celebrity of sorts,

the latest fashionable tragedy

around whom so many flock.

The paparazzi stalks you,

if only to say they were there

and, yes, to truly love and support you.

In the beginning, that is.

 

The outpouring is sincere,

true, and heartfelt.

People want to help and knowing nothing can

fill the gaping void left by death,

they show up in pairs and trios to

make coffee, bring casseroles,

attend the funeral, and

keep you in their thoughts and prayers.

 

When life goes down,

it is human nature to

try to get back to normal

not realizing, or forgetting,

that with each addition or subtraction of a person

in your life, there is no going back.

That normal is gone.

Finding the new normal is the trick

and it takes some time to figure this out.

Hell, it takes some time to even remember to breathe,

let alone breathe naturally.

In and out and in again.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

You try to keep up.

You try to stay in touch.

You try by scraping together a costume

and showing up at a Village party

a mere week and a day after

you’ve lost your lifelong friend

and you are so numb you’re probably

not safe enough to drive to the party

let alone get home after a glass of wine.

But you try.

 

When you’ve lost your lifelong friend

and your children have lost one of their parents,

you just can’t.

Keep up.

Stay in touch.

at least not like you used to.

So instead of a costume of a pirate in a corset,

your costume is the smile

you duct tape on your face each morning

to keep the children from being too afraid.

The priorities have shifted dramatically

and some days, just getting out of bed

and putting on that brave face is a victory.

 

As time passes,

when the obituary has been forgotten,

and life has, in theory,

gone back to normal,

the Village, the whirling and swirling of the until-death-do-us-part Village

that you knew, just knew, you could count on forever

can get mighty quiet.

You see, their priorities have shifted dramatically, too,

and the parties have gone on.

In spite of your super human efforts

to show up when you can,

you lose touch

and another form of grieving begins.

 

Like an absence from church is noted as a betrayal of sorts

she fell away,

she lost the faith,

she wasn’t as committed as we thought

 so, too, is an absence from a party.

 

Jesus turned water into wine

and I imagine he could have turned my tears

into an ocean of wine,

had I made an appearance,

but I could barely get dressed,

barely keep the laundry done,

barely keep get the groceries from the car to the kitchen,

barely keep my job going and growing

…because it is all on me now.

It was beyond my ability to ask

for help even from the warmest of friends

let alone the cold shoulders I started noticing

particularly since my life had become

anything but a good time wine-down

for a while.

 

Here’s the thing, though,

As hurt as I may be, I can’t judge

for I am certain I have done the same in

the course of my fifty years on this earth.

I am convinced I have passed over someone who needed me to reach out

just one more time.

I know I have forgotten someone I once held near and dear

because my life was busy, I was distracted,

and I forgot to call, text, respond.

I believe deep down, I felt at least a little betrayed

because they weren’t there for me in the way they once were

simply because life went down for them.

I felt hurt or abandoned or devalued

because they couldn’t even remember to breathe

in and out and in again

let alone do their part to sustain our connection

because life went down for them.

In this, I am ashamed.

Because it is during precisely those times

they needed me most.

 

Next time, though, I’ll know

and will do better.

In this, I am thankful

Thank you, Village, for the roots and blessons I was given.

You are loved.

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

A letter to my 16-year old self

My Dearest Mk,

 

You don’t know me yet, but eventually, we will come to be very close friends.  I am your future and you are my past.  We are connected and although we have often thought of one another, we have not yet met.  Time will bring us together.

 

I am here to tell you of your future.  Being sixteen, you will probably take this with a grain of salt and discount my predictions and advice, but bear with me and, if it is within you, listen well and take my words to heart.

 

Your life will be hard.  You will experience pain, hardship and challenges that seem unsurpassable.

 

Your life will be good.  You will make close friends, you will meet many kind people along the way and you will learn and grow through the years.

 

Your life will be colored with words.  You will hear harsh words no young woman should ever have to bear and will take years to prove them false.  You will hear soft words which sound foreign at first, but will become familiar in time.  You will come to own your own words, your talent, your passion, and your truth.  You will learn to speak kindly but without apology for your authenticity.  You will find your core and, in this, stop censoring yourself for the benefit of others.  Like the Velveteen Rabbit, you will become real.

 

Your life will be agonizing.  You will experience depths of despair that leave you unwilling to continue living,  heartache that leaves you gasping for breath and certain that you should die of grief, and face choices that  no woman should ever have to make. 

 

Your life will be glorious.  You will experience the ecstasy of beauty, the glory of love and the elation of carrying children in your womb, in your arms and in your heart.

 

Your life will be full of learning.  You will learn that you are strong enough to brave the cold of love’s winter.  You will come to want and need deeply enough that you will courageously spread your arms wide and hold another close enough that she could hurt you.  You will come to understand the difference between sacrificing for love and sacrificing yourself, choosing wisely between the two.  You will learn that you can withstand the effects left in the wake of your betrayal by another and stand strong.  You will learn you can stand alone – quietly and with grace, continuing to live and learn.  You will have lessons to learn, burdens to shed, and promises to keep and break.

 

You will survive, you will make choices, and you will come into your own body, your truth, your soul.  You will prevail.  You will writhe in agony, laugh out loud, cry for others, and dance with abandon.  You will live.

 

I must tell you that you will meet a woman who will break your heart open just when you believe it had closed for good.  She will shatter the world as you know it, and open your eyes to another world, previously unknown. She, too, will have traveled her road of glory and pain.  For you see, as much as you have learned before you met, so, too, did she.  One ordinary day, you will happen by – lightly, without announcement or pretense and shatter her world and open her eyes to another world, previously unknown.

 

Without even knowing that you each were incomplete, you will complete one another.  Without even knowing you have just begun to live, you will begin.

 

Learn, grow, live and remain open to love.

 

With all the love in my heart,

 

Mk