The Possible Project

One of the hardest things I've had to come to terms with in dealing with the healing, with the full immersion of self into pain, is the state the pain creates and the mind's, or ego's approach to protect the self at any cost. You cannot trust what you think when you are under duress of this kind. It serves you nil. It serves those around you nil. The cumulative impact of listening and projecting is pain, loneliness and regret.  This feels easy to type now. Being 11 years into this process (and less acutely before then) gives you a good and reliable map of behaviour and outcomes, and even then, when you can see it so clearly, the ego will step in and tell you lies to keep you away from acknowledgement of your own pain. Imagine a mother trying to stop a baby burning itself. The ego is the mother, the baby is the self. At some point the baby must experience a pain to stop it carrying out the same thing twice.  As I sit here today, it's taken me a failed marriage, loss of f...

For 11 years I have seen my sister as a victim of circumstance. Things that happened to her. Things that were out of her control. For 11 years the feeling of anger, betrayal and hatred were buried deep inside me, where they would allow me to paint my world with tinges of red, black and putrid yellow. Of course I didn't know it. Not then. Not 11 years ago, 5 years ago. 2 years ago. 6mths ago.  Then it passed over me. I was lying in bed, my wife was exhausted. Her breathing laboured as she too has reached the end of the emotional pool that is it possible to reach. There is nothing left. I saw her stressed and recalled the support and efforts she has made for me, my family, since my sisters death by suicide in May 2015.  As it passed over me, I thought the people who gave up, who stopped coming, who didn't want to be around a house of grief and sorrow. Deep, inexplicable grief is not easy to sit with for anyone. It's a lonely place. I thought about the price my dad paid, my mu...