Outplayed

Fear. Dizzy-ness. My heart beating fast. Too hot, or too cool. The cold dawning of a realization--one of my least favourite feelings.
This is what I've been up against the last couple of weeks. A feeling of real, physical discomfort, butterflies in my stomach, as my body mirrors my emotional state.
I don't like it at all. But right now, I have no choice but to get through the feelings.
I am trying hard to stay calm. I'm staying still alot. I'm staying in alot.
Being around people is hard.
It's that feeling of having no control over my life that has been the hardest. That somehow, some way, I have failed again, at this most primal of games, these matters of the heart. That I believed too much, that I risked too much. That when someone looked at me and held me and murmured, almost too low for me to hear, that they loved me, I believed them.
Here is a poem that my sister shared with me years ago, that I have found again, thanks to the miracle of the internet:

After a While
After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean security
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a grown up, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down, mid-flight
After a while you learn, that even sunshine burns
If you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers
And you learn that you really can endure
That you really are strong
And you learn and learn

With every good-bye, you learn.


--Veronica Shoffstall, copyright 1971