Sharing Truth

It’s not so easy, this sharing of truth. Every aspect of speaking this weekend, other than accepting the invitation, was as much a labor of love as I have ever known. As close to birthing and raising children minus the counting of fingers and toes. I had absolutely no idea what would be required in contemplation, mindfulness, remembering, reading, and writing for my talk, an hour talk. Truly, I hadn’t thrown so much of my whole self into anything of this magnitude for, well, I’m not sure if I ever have, unless you count the whole lot of my mothering thus far.

I spoke of my history, my past, my perfect plans and my real path, the one that came along regardless of my longings and wishes. My brother’s death swallowed me, joy was elusive, and then, my Amos led the way out of the darkness that I had unknowingly allowed to consume that girl from so long ago. I shared the funny and the terribly sad. I shared the words of my dad, the criticism of my foes, the writing of my lovely brother and I read aloud my own scribblings, the heart of a fourteen year old girl. Today, I felt as close as to her as I have ever remembered.

My truth is just that. It’s mine. It’s not the worst, it’s not the best, but it’s all my own. We all have our own bit and some choose to swallow, some run away, some wish for something else, some pretend it’s not real and some, maybe a few smart ones just do the best they can to survive. I’m a bit of all of those, I think. My talk? I think it went really well. It could have been better, though it could have been worse. It was a compilation of my heart and I did my very best. These days, I can not often say that, so that is enough for me.

I’m quite tired now. I wouldn’t have known that truth telling could deplete one’s self quite like this. It feels as if I had a very long cry, a cry that hasn’t passed over me since high school in that year after the death of my Adam. Though tears of that magnitude did not flow today, my soul was purged. Perhaps that truth telling quite lightened my load. I hope so, though right now I feel as if I’ve run quite a long time. Yes, I have been running for twenty six years and that’s long enough.