in between...

These past 2 weeks have been interesting to say the least. I find myself in this "in between time"...the time between what was and what will be. My last day at SCI has come and gone. I had a sense that what was to come would be difficult. I managed to avoid it that  first week; managed to stay busy. I surrounded myself with people rather than sitting with myself and I didn't write. I talked about it but avoided it.  I feel the nudging though. It was gentle at first and but has become progressively harder. It is the nudging from the Goddess within that tells me it is time to be quiet; time to go within. I am thinking that maybe this is what this meantime is all about...being quite and listening; exploring the parts of myself I have yet to see.
I had no idea until now how much of my identity was wrapped up in being a counselor; helping other people hold their stories. I believed I had "been there and done that". I am realizing now that I may have been there and done that but in this quiet I'm being asked to "go there and do this"; I'm being invited to go deeper. And for the first time there is a part of me that what's nothing to do with "this". There has been more time to think this week; to sit with myself and I seem to go back to my childhood, a part of my life I was convinced I had come to terms with.
When I sat in the quiet yesterday, paper and pen in hand, to write that was what came up for me. I ended up recalling and writing about the first 4years of my life as best as I could remember. I thought about how surreal it felt; as if I was writing about someone else. I became frustrated as I tried to inject feeling into the words and couldn't. There were none. I try to imaging my 7yo having the same experiences and I can't, he would no longer be who he is. He would have to shut that down in order to survive and I realized that is what has happened to the magical 4 yo I once was.
I don't know know if there are words to describe the sadness of realizing that I shut a part of myself down. There were no words yesterday; just swirling energy in my heart and a pain in my throat. All I could do was wrap my arms around myself and cry. I'm guessing it was some of what she would have felt at that time; the little Jenn but there was no one to guide her through it back then. I have to give her a voice now and allow her to tell her story; to integrate her experiences and make sense of it all. The funny thing is that I began the process of writing my memoir before leaving SCI. I had decided that it was some thing I finally needed to do and shortly after I started I found myself stuck. I didn't start at the beginning; I didn't want to. I wanted to start at where I am now. I'm guessing in order to really understand how I got here I have to fully internalize where I came from ...move it out of my head and into my heart.
I have been carrying this sadness around since yesterday and to be honest delving deeper scares me. Knowing now that I will have to go through each piece and finally deal with the energy surrounding it seems like an insurmountable task. The feelings can seem overwhelming, as if what I have carefully woven together for the last 32 years is now beginning to unravel. I know the story will write itself if I do this though and that the choice to write is is now beyond my control. I just have to cooperate with Spirit and trust the process.
  There is hope that when all is said and done I will unravel for a divine purpose and what will be revealed underneath will be beautiful and whole. I have come to know in my short 32 years that hope is not something that comes form outside; it can not be injected into me through wise quotes and well wishes. Hope is born in darkness; in going into it and finding the light that shines within; that can never be extinguished. It is the light that has allowed the 4 yo in me to experience some of the worse that life has to offer and survive spirit intact with grace and the ability to love and believe that the heart of life is good.