I walked out this morning to go to bereavement counsellor and had to step over the Christmas wreath lying on the doorstep. The wire tie I had installed years ago to keep my mother’s wreaths up on the hook had just given way, broken.
I didn’t look good this morning, just couldn’t do it. I got dressed to go the LGBT business mixer on Tuesday, but couldn’t make that, either.
Bereavement counsellor said it’s time to cut down the sessions, to transition to other support. Not a surprise, even if much of the grief is just kicking in now.
That’s the message of the fallen Christmas wreath, the one I put up to make my mother happy, even without the white memorial bow she wanted my sister to tie on it.
It’s February. It’s time to start taking them down, time to start getting myself up. Time for a new voice, as I said Tuesday.
Therapy is all well and good, understanding the motivations, but Life Coaching is the new mode, identifying and achieving goals, staying focused and accountable. Life Coaches help you get past the fear and make the best decision you can.
It’s time for me to be my own Life Coach.
TBB got my note and called, offering some life coaching for me. She had many practical suggestions, like clearing one room at a time so I feel some accomplishment, and checking out what workshops are available at the department of labour.
“I walked into lots of rooms where there was a chill in the air when I came in,” she told me, “but with a bit of time, people warmed up. And that made me feel safe and better about myself. I’m a transwoman who walks in this world, and I know that every day I have to win people over, but I also know I can do that.
“That’s what I want for you. I want you to know that you are so charming, so sweet, so smart and so engaged that you too can win people over. You can warm up a room.
“And when you are out of that basement, out making community, you will feel better, and you will be giving again.”
I have always trusted the relationship between me and my creator, my mother in the sky. But my earth mother had the fear wicked bad, so the relationship between me and the other people in the world always felt tenuous and shaky.
The most important thing I need to believe, I told TBB, is that the gifts my creator gave me can be seen and valued by others in the world, especially after all these decades of digging for them, of polishing them up. I need to believe in power and possibility.
I know how wounded and broken I am. I also know how gifted and strong I am. I know how connected I am to the universe, I know how lonely I am in this world.
It’s amazing how much momentum there was in the last year and a half of my parents lives, when we mostly lived on hospital schedules. Now, I have to find and sustain my own motion, my own momentum. Challenge.
It’s February. The wreath fell. It’s time to start cleaning up, time to get a new voice, time to become my own life coach, make choices that rise above.
God, that seems like so much impossible work.
But if TBB can do it, well, the possibility is open for me.
Thanks, world.
Callan 