Excuse me for a minute while I wipe the grease off my fingers, and the keyboard…
OK I’m back!
I started typing and realized I still had grease on my fingers from polishing off a half of bag of chips with some Helluva Good Dip, ever had it?
It’s good, real good, nothing tastes as good, or feels as good as the big crunch of a kettle chip and that smooth creamy texture with a sweet onion finish. Especially when you’re using it to smother what’s happening inside, literally and figuratively.
Nothing is as good as that moment and it feels like nothing ever will be, and I eat another and another until it doesn’t taste so great, my belly starts to grumble and I say my famous words. “I shouldn’t have eaten that”, and run for the toilet.
And you would think it weird that after such an incredible weekend, with the most amazing people, celebrating my Birthday and my Husband and I’s Anniversary, both on the same day, August 20th, that I wouldn’t be so emotional and yet again turn to my drug of choice – food.
It was a weekend of sunshine and rainbows and I think somewhere I saw a unicorn, perhaps it was in Kensington Market.
But as I sat at my dining room table; dark clouds set in and I heard the roar of thunder in the distance.
A storm has set in both outside and within.
This weekend, although I was surround by so many people that adore me, and that I adore more than I have words to express, a sadness kept creeping in, and my mind kept shifting to who hadn’t shown up.
Amongst all the joy and laughter there was a pain tugging at my heart, one that I tried to brush off and just enjoy the moment but it wouldn’t leave and as people said their good byes, and the last made their way to the door, the tug got stronger and stronger.
And as the door closed and the last person left I couldn’t help but sink into my seat, and a tear rolled down my cheek as I swallowed a lump in my throat.
“What was this all about”, I asked myself. “Why do I feel this sense of loss, of not enough, of abandonment when my weekend was so full of love, laughter and connection?”
And as per usual I wait.
I wait for the answer to come in whatever form, whether it be a thought, a sign or some momentary wisdom as I scroll through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
I stood up, walked across the room towards my bedroom and it hit me.
And not in a way that made me more emotional, but in a way that felt like freedom.
A voice in my head said, and very clearly “It’s your father, It’s all those nights you laid on the floor with your bags packed waiting to be picked up for the weekend and he never showed up” and so in came another thought “And you are emotional because you are focused on who didn’t show up vs. who did.”
A thorn was triggered by my thoughts of who hadn’t shown up to our Birthday/Anniversary weekend.
While in my pain it didn’t matter that my dear friend Brenda had taken the whole weekend off to spend with us and lent us her van so we could accommodate everyone on our road trips to our favorite places, or that my friend Eloise literally just returned from an emotional trip to Germany due to the loss of her Uncle and dearest mentor, or that my friend Crystal-Lee and her family although struggling with one of the toughest times in their lives borrowed a vehicle to show up for us, or my friends who suffer from acute anxiety that took a deep breathe and showed up, or that people came from far and wide to celebrate, or that my new found Earth Angels Nancy and Pam kept telling me I reminded them of Jesus, or the countless others who express their gratitude for myself and my husbands presence in their lives…
NO, NO!
What had taken over was the thoughts of who hadn’t showed up, and how that was a reflection of my value somehow.
Because that little boy, on the floor in the hallway waiting for his father thought he was worthless, not even worth picking up and spending the weekend with by his own father.
But the reality was, that it wasn’t true then, and it’s most certainly not true now.
I am valuable, I am super valuable.
We all are in our own way.
We all add something to this experience we call life.
Because the reality for me as a boy in that hallway was, what I couldn’t see then, that I see now.
Is that my father was somewhere passed out with a needle in his arm, because, long story short, at some point he didn’t feel valued either and he allowed the darkness to consume him and eventually destroy him from the inside out.
And if I’d looked behind me I’d have seen my mother standing there watching me, as a tear rolled down her cheek, and she took a deep breathe and said “I’m sorry.”
She also knew what that felt like and perhaps you do too.
Generation after generation the wounds are passed along.
Some of us pass them on ourselves, some of us carry them without saying a word and they leak through our temperament and some of us (me included) do our best to allow light to enter our wounds and heal.
We question our thoughts, our actions and our emotions and do our best to fill them with the light of awareness so that we can stop this generational pain in it’s tracks and create anew.
There is no life without suffering, at least none that I have witnessed, and so I believe it my duty to bring wisdom to wounds and through my own story help to light the way for others.
And so maybe, just maybe…
The next time I go to pick up a bag of chips and dip to smother my pain. I’ll remember to question, and If I don’t, one of you, my friends or family who are reading this will encourage me to put them down, crab a hold of my hand, pull me in, don’t let me go, even if I pull away, and remind me…
That I am loved.
And if it’s Nancy or Pam, please remind me that I remind you of Jesus 😉
Written by Shayne Traviss
Sometime’s growth involves digging up the dirt and planting anew… After over 20 years of marketing, promoting and producing others Shayne Traviss decided to open a new chapter in his life. If you long to go higher, live a life ‘all in’ join him as he dives in deep sharing his life experiences, travels and inspirations for living a VividLife.
