Despite the fact that I just returned from an absolutely incredible time in Greece and that tonight is Halloween and I should be out partying, I find myself in bed on the brink of tears. Amidst all the donkey riding, baked feta, sunsets and smiles this past week a garden of unpleasantness had begun to take root. Pushed back into dark neglected places and watered with a few stolen tears and fearful whispers before sleep, ugly twisted things began to grow. Sadness sprouted first as it usually does, followed quickly by pain, loss and homesickness. Guilt lagged behind but as always soon grew to be the largest, spreading it's roots and slowly starting to strangle everything else. Intertwined so closely with the others it cannot be uprooted without taking all grief up with it and so I let it be. I tried to ignore the vines snaking their way up my spine and around my heart and have now found as grief tightens with each beat that it's too late.
A tragedy in the family has caused the flowering of all kinds of emotional seeds many obliviously sown years ago, dormant until now when age and slightly increased maturity has brought about an entire new set of weeds in addition to the loathed familiar ones.
I have never been very good at gardening and the people who are usually so adept at pulling the weeds in my soul (often without an awareness they are doing so) are miles and oceans away, just as I am from my family. So instead of haphazardly and whole-heartedly, if mostly ineffectually, trying to comfort and help my family and watching guilt begin to shrivel and die from the warmth of kinds words from beloved and trusted kindered spirits I am just sitting here in Italy growing weeds and raining on my pillow.
*Photo from Stumble
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