Emotional Composting

[Misty_Morning]

Letting go of emotionl baggage is just sooo fucking hard sometimes.

There was a time in my life that I probably would have and actually did endure hell cuz I was too afraid of change. I stuck with rotting life that I had fallen into. I was too afraid of losing the security that I had grown to know....but what i had was killing me, mentally, spiritually and physically. But I was too afraid of the unknown.

It seemed small and insignficant at first then it became all consuming. It nearly devoured me. Sometimes, if I am not careful, the remnants still haunt me.



Thing is....speaking of composting...and I know this is NOT what you meant by this thread...but....

I gave up alot of my beliefs and let go of so much in order to continue to live.

One of the things I let go was this need for a Christain burial. I signed up for a program that will utilize my bodily remains for science. More so than just a cadaver. It's called the Genesis Project and is based in Memphis TN. After thay are done with my human remains, my cremateed body will be released to a very dear friend of mine who agreed to my wishes.


Hold on to your horses... this may freak some of you out......

But She has explicite insrtructions to take my ashes and incorporate them in her compost heap and use them in flower beds. I want what I percieve as an ugly life to be used to generate beauty.

When I first ran this notion past her, her only question was....can I use you in a vegetable garden too?


Her thought was.....let a loss of life bring forth not only beauty but nurishment for others as well.....


I figured...what the hell...I'll be dead...



go ahaed



SO.....when I die....ya'll may want to abstain from vegetables for a few months....I don't want to be responsible for a bad taste in your mouth even after I am gone.


No, I am not kidding about this.

 

[Recidiva]

Letting go of emotionl baggage is just sooo fucking hard sometimes.

There was a time in my life that I probably would have and actually did endure hell cuz I was too afraid of change. I stuck with rotting life that I had fallen into. I was too afraid of losing the security that I had grown to know....but what i had was killing me, mentally, spiritually and physically. But I was too afraid of the unknown.

It seemed small and insignficant at first then it became all consuming. It nearly devoured me. Sometimes, if I am not careful, the remnants still haunt me.



Thing is....speaking of composting...and I know this is NOT what you meant by this thread...but....

I gave up alot of my beliefs and let go of so much in order to continue to live.

One of the things I let go was this need for a Christain burial. I signed up for a program that will utilize my bodily remains for science. More so than just a cadaver. It's called the Genesis Project and is based in Memphis TN. After thay are done with my human remains, my cremateed body will be released to a very dear friend of mine who agreed to my wishes.


Hold on to your horses... this may freak some of you out......

But She has explicite insrtructions to take my ashes and incorporate them in her compost heap and use them in flower beds. I want what I percieve as an ugly life to be used to generate beauty.

When I first ran this notion past her, her only question was....can I use you in a vegetable garden too?


Her thought was.....let a loss of life bring forth not only beauty but nurishment for others as well.....


I figured...what the hell...I'll be dead...



go ahaed



SO.....when I die....ya'll may want to abstain from vegetables for a few months....I don't want to be responsible for a bad taste in your mouth even after I am gone.


No, I am not kidding about this.

That's very cool. I've had to give up many beliefs, religious and spiritual and otherwise. I tend to build a framework of thought and then become trapped in it once I outgrow it.

It was lovingly built with care at the time. It's hard to let go. Especially things that served me so well in the past.

 

[feeeriek]

Letting go of emotionl baggage is just sooo fucking hard sometimes.

There was a time in my life that I probably would have and actually did endure hell cuz I was too afraid of change. I stuck with rotting life that I had fallen into. I was too afraid of losing the security that I had grown to know....but what i had was killing me, mentally, spiritually and physically. But I was too afraid of the unknown.

It seemed small and insignficant at first then it became all consuming. It nearly devoured me. Sometimes, if I am not careful, the remnants still haunt me.



Thing is....speaking of composting...and I know this is NOT what you meant by this thread...but....

I gave up alot of my beliefs and let go of so much in order to continue to live.

One of the things I let go was this need for a Christain burial. I signed up for a program that will utilize my bodily remains for science. More so than just a cadaver. It's called the Genesis Project and is based in Memphis TN. After thay are done with my human remains, my cremateed body will be released to a very dear friend of mine who agreed to my wishes.


Hold on to your horses... this may freak some of you out......

But She has explicite insrtructions to take my ashes and incorporate them in her compost heap and use them in flower beds. I want what I percieve as an ugly life to be used to generate beauty.

When I first ran this notion past her, her only question was....can I use you in a vegetable garden too?


Her thought was.....let a loss of life bring forth not only beauty but nurishment for others as well.....


I figured...what the hell...I'll be dead...



go ahaed



SO.....when I die....ya'll may want to abstain from vegetables for a few months....I don't want to be responsible for a bad taste in your mouth even after I am gone.


No, I am not kidding about this.

i thing that is a wonderful and beautiful thing to do

 

[Misty_Morning]

Just in case anyone is interested......


Genesis



Please check it out.

 

[shereads]

VAttempting to heal a wound almost feels like shutting something down that's living. Rot means living, right? If I disperse it, that means it's over. No more feeling sorry for myself. No more wondering about questions that can't be answered. It's no longer a memorial. No longer a portal.

You've expressed something so elusive, I didn't know I'd felt it until I read the words.

I remember that stage of grief. It's all right to let it go; there are other portals that open onto different facets of memory.

This one won't be closed to you, either. Moving on doesn't mean you can't find a way back to that door. Sometimes, you'll go there in dreams, like a sleepwalker. You'll live in the memory again, and then you'll wake up - which is as it should be.

 

[Recidiva]

You've expressed something so elusive, I didn't know I'd felt it until I read the words.

I remember that stage of grief. It's all right to let it go; there are other portals that open onto different facets of memory.

This one won't be closed to you, either. Moving on doesn't mean you can't find a way back to that door. Sometimes, you'll go there in dreams, like a sleepwalker. You'll live in the memory again, and then you'll wake up - which is as it should be.

When my brother died it was like sinkholes opened up throughout my thoughts. I didn't know where to go. I'd fall into painful fresh grief, in my everyday thoughts. Thoughts of thinking I'd see him soon or seeing food he liked, daily or hourly thoughts I didn't even know he inhabited until he was gone.

I'd fall straight through them and into them constantly. I didn't have a map yet. It took years to make friends with these thoughts, remember the sites, mark them with memorials, build fences as if around the Grand Canyon. Now I can visit and the view is a beautiful thing.

But that grief was severe and final. There were no choices to be made, only facts to survive.

For me this type of grief that is less severe and more selfish, has to do with living people. Friends I'd had that I suddenly don't have. And I don't know why.

The first time this happened was in high school, I was inseparable from one woman from maybe seventh grade until 11th grade. The first time I saw her I knew she was important to me, and that's how I lived my life. Always there with her, every day. Someone I just KNEW would always be there.

Then one day, she wasn't. She was still physically there, but just not a friend any longer. I never did find out why. I did ask, but I never found out, she wouldn't tell me. Just one of those things? She'd gotten a boyfriend, was headed that way in life.

And thus began a haunting. I desperately wanted to know why. What did I do, what happened? Did I sleepwalk and insult her ancestry? What?

Losing her friendship was a suffocating, crushing and awful event. Took me years to recover. And I mean even for years I'd try to track her down, find her phone number, leave a message, find her family...no answer. And if I ever spoke to anyone back from that time frame, the first question they'd ask is "How's Laura?" When I honestly answer "I have no idea." the look of shock and disbelief is enough to make me not want to talk to people in high school any more. I avoid the whole place and time.

If I knew what I'd done, or what happened, I could get closure, right?

I have trouble accepting that things simply change without a trauma you can point to or that you attended. Sometimes it's simply someone else's quiet choice to end a relationship. But maybe I did something awful in my sleep and I could clear this whole mess up if I had a chance to explain?

But I don't get that. I still have dreams about her. And in every dream I always ask a version of "what happened?"

I don't dream about my brother that way. Because I know what happened.

But there are perhaps four or five relationships where I was deeply connected to people - those who are still living - and I lost them, and I don't know why, and I miss them. And then I resent them and miss the answers more.

I'm no longer the tastefully psycho track-you-down lady. The dreams are less frequent. But they do not change over time.

Any memory that leads down a path to certain friendships, certain moments in time, ends here. And some of them are becoming tied together in theme. Failure, abandonment, loss, betrayal.

 

[neonlyte]

recidiva

Exorcising the ghosts of past loves... that's a compost heap. Visiting familiar places and building new memories, I did that for a few years though some things never re-grow, friends shared with a past love, a perfume, a taste. I wouldn't change a thing... but 35years is along time waiting.

 

[Recidiva]

recidiva

Exorcising the ghosts of past loves... that's a compost heap. Visiting familiar places and building new memories, I did that for a few years though some things never re-grow, friends shared with a past love, a perfume, a taste. I wouldn't change a thing... but 35years is along time waiting.

I wouldn't change it, except for one helpful severance package. "Two weeks emotional pay and, by the way, it's the way you do your hair, I couldn't stand it."

I did get one answer once. My second husband. When our relationship deteriorated after our son was born, it was like a switch going off. But my husband wouldn't acknowledge it at all. I couldn't figure it out. He'd begged me to have a child, and now here's this child and...he couldn't stand me any more. It was cold and dead.

It took him maybe six years to finally tell me what happened. He said that seeing his son be born was a monstrous trauma, and that he never wanted to touch me again after that.

Well, I didn't see that one coming.

 

[SlickTony]

He said that seeing his son be born was a monstrous trauma, and that he never wanted to touch me again after that.

Oh, my dear, I am so sorry. Sometimes it just happens that way. You don't ever know which way it will go.

Although my own family was far removed from the tradition of making moonshine (although my husband's was not) I see my experience, and my artistic vision and creativity as a sort of sour mash from which art and wisdom are distilled. All kinds of stuff goes into it. Some things are harder to integrate than others...

 

[Recidiva]

Oh, my dear, I am so sorry. Sometimes it just happens that way. You don't ever know how it will go.

Although my own family was far removed from the tradition of making moonshine (although my husband's was not) I see my experience, and my artistic vision and creativity as a sort of sour mash from which art and wisdom are distilled. All kinds of stuff goes into it. Some things are harder to integrate than others...

Yes. That was my lesson from that. Knowing the truth was just a confirmation of my intuition.

I can't imagine how trapped he must have felt. I can only imagine it was much worse for him to have tried to bring about something he thought he'd love, and then to find the opposite to be true.

I adore being a mother. Everything about it. Having that killed for you by one moment like that, how awful. What a huge loss. I was able to identify it and despite my confusion or hurt, move forward.

I'm afraid he's trapped in that moment to a large extent.

 

[MagicaPractica]

The first time this happened was in high school, I was inseparable from one woman from maybe seventh grade until 11th grade. The first time I saw her I knew she was important to me, and that's how I lived my life. Always there with her, every day. Someone I just KNEW would always be there.

Then one day, she wasn't. She was still physically there, but just not a friend any longer. I never did find out why. I did ask, but I never found out, she wouldn't tell me. Just one of those things? She'd gotten a boyfriend, was headed that way in life.

And thus began a haunting. I desperately wanted to know why. What did I do, what happened? Did I sleepwalk and insult her ancestry? What?

Losing her friendship was a suffocating, crushing and awful event. Took me years to recover. And I mean even for years I'd try to track her down, find her phone number, leave a message, find her family...no answer. And if I ever spoke to anyone back from that time frame, the first question they'd ask is "How's Laura?" When I honestly answer "I have no idea." the look of shock and disbelief is enough to make me not want to talk to people in high school any more. I avoid the whole place and time.

If I knew what I'd done, or what happened, I could get closure, right?

I had a similar experience but for some reason I was able to not dwell on it, though I did resent her a bit. Then, a few years ago, out of the blue, she contacted me and found another friend that was dear to us. I was still in contact with the fourth from our group and we've had a few marvelous times since. Anyway, the first girl who contacted me, told me at one point that she really regretted her choice in high school to become part of the "in crowd" and lose us. She found that after her high school her "in crowd" group made no effort to stay in touch. She said she realized that though we parted ways in tenth grade, we were truer friends to her than the other group. Honestly, I hadn't even been looking for the answer and was a little surprised by it. But it wasn't the answer that changed anything for me, it's just being back in contact with the other two girls. That has brought a new dimension to our lives. We knew each other from kindergarten. It's almost like having more family but without the sibling rivalry.

 

[SlickTony]

Well, it's his loss and not yours. Some guys are just better at propagating than at being a dad. Or a husband. Sometimes the guys themselves don't know until it comes to the test.

 

[Recidiva]

I had a similar experience but for some reason I was able to not dwell on it, though I did resent her a bit. Then, a few years ago, out of the blue, she contacted me and found another friend that was dear to us. I was still in contact with the fourth from our group and we've had a few marvelous times since. Anyway, the first girl who contacted me, told me at one point that she really regretted her choice in high school to become part of the "in crowd" and lose us. She found that after her high school her "in crowd" group made no effort to stay in touch. She said she realized that though we parted ways in tenth grade, we were truer friends to her than the other group. Honestly, I hadn't even been looking for the answer and was a little surprised by it. But it wasn't the answer that changed anything for me, it's just being back in contact with the other two girls. That has brought a new dimension to our lives. We knew each other from kindergarten. It's almost like having more family but without the sibling rivalry.

That's lovely

 

[Recidiva]

Well, it's his loss and not yours. Some guys are just better at propagating than at being a dad. Or a husband. Sometimes the guys themselves don't know until it comes to the test.

I like to pass tests. I guess that's why obsess over previous mistakes. I still remember the word that I failed in the state spelling bee too.

H-i-b-i-s-c-u-s.

Apparently there is no Y in hibiscus.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[Recidiva]

Here's some garbage for the compost heap:
(Yes, unfinished pondering/wondering, so to the compost heap it goes. )


When you die
what will survive?
Spirit, some say,
or soul as others say,
or soul and spirit few profess.

We know our atoms disperse -
what else are we made of? -
to be used elsewhere,
by someone, by something,
or float about free with the breeze.

Then some say
we are not we
no matter psychowhatevers say -
it was all a creation to get us by, but why? -
shocking to ponder . . .

A gene, a gene, and not
Jean or Eugene, or Eugenia -
those nasty, lying things -
are said to be culprits,
greedy things . . . oh, so greedy!

Tis true?
Who can say for genes don't speak -
or don't they? -
some say yea, loudly so,
find our history buried there,

Oh, genes history,
for we are but their vehicles -
cars, or such, they say -
invented for their care,
to carry them to eternity.

Eternity? Immortality?
So they say, and give us sex
to delude our senses -
which they also gave to us -
plebeians all sated thus.

Is there no glory,
is there no fame,
or are we to cry
in our own shame,
ignominious slaves

To that which does not think,
or have a care,
other than that it be,
and fuck our shame -
we are their creation?

So they say . . .
and let us play
at their own game,
to create, and cry as if
we were of fame.

But does the universe permit such things?
And where does consciousness,
emotion, thought come into play?
Oh, our saviors, will free us always,
but what of the genes . . .?

Were they made to do this way,
to sway us so,
and have us propose our own being,
as who, or what, intended,
before time was rendered?

I love it.

I always think of individual lives as waves in the ocean. Seemingly having its own form, but always falling back into the whole. Composed of little bits of where the ocean's been and what has happened.

As if waves had a memory and could remember the parts of it that spent time in the arctic, then moved through the sea floor, or crashed onto a shoreline that seemed entirely alien. Disparate experiences, but common content.

 

[Recidiva]

There's the thing that gives pause for rebirth.

Crying a lot, being hungry and not knowing what to do about it, completely spastic and lost.

Yay Rebirth! (?)

I'm going to to switch to the symbol of shedding my skin so I can stop being such a whiny little brat.

Snakes are so much cooler than newborns.

 

[inlovewithyourghost]

It's truly time to let go, but I'm just sorta wallowing and getting dirty. Anyone else know that state of mind?

I was trying to find a place for my thoughts... And I suppose they belong here...

~~~

I imagine your eyes growing dark like blue steel, the way they always did when you were lost in deep thought. Most people would think it a fleeting frown. But I know that the tip of your tongue is tracing the sensitive flesh from the inside of your lower lip, which you hold captive between your teeth. The movement in your left eyebrow is almost imperceptible. But I know it well. You'll now blink once. Set your jaw and hold my gaze.

You're careful to not let me see them. Your hands.

I watch your eyes, but movement registers as your hands curl into loose fists. You draw your knees to your chin and tuck them under your legs. I can just barely hear a fingernail scratching at the ridges in the fabric of your jeans. Though I can't see it, I know it is your right index finger. You won't speak until your thumb finds it to silence it.

I don't dare breathe. I don't have anything more to say than what has been said. It is time to listen. And I do. The silence says everything.

The muscles in your right forearm flex - you know I heard you. Your fists clench tightly around fabric. You don't trust me. This moment. Yourself. But you always knew the truth. It was always there.

You remind yourself to breathe. Your arms relax. You allow your palms to slide down the sides of your legs. Your eyes are gentle. "I'll always love you, you know."

Instantly the cold steel trap in my mind springs shut. Silence. There are no thoughts. Only feelings. But they will never reach the surface. Only my eyes will betray me. "Goodbye."

Your breath catches in your throat. "Why?"

I smile gently, and start to move away from you. You grab my hand.

"I didn't ask you to leave. I don't want you to go. Don't."

"Goodbye."

"Why? Stay here... Talk to me. Please?"

I talk with my hands.

I hold your hand gently in my own, and lightly trace your fingers one by one. Your eyes follow my fingertip, and you start to cry. "Tell me why." It is no longer a question of why. "Please?" You want me to say it.

Purposefully I continue tracing your fingers. Your hand trembles as my journey ends. My fingertip comes to rest on the wedding ring I'd hand chosen for you, and I whisper, "Because I'll always love you, too."

As if on cue your child calls to you from the other room. Quickly, you wipe the tears from your eyes. "I'm sorry... I need to... Don't go. Please? I'll just be a minute. I'll be right back."

"It's ok."

"I'm sorry."

"No... It's ok."

As the handle of the door clicks behind me, I imagine your eyes growing dark like blue steel, the way they always did when you were trying not to cry.

 

[Recidiva]

Your thoughts are always welcome, anywhere I'm near.

Truly beautiful.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[Recidiva]

I think of all that has gone past, every error under the sun, how I was raised, how I became, how I loathed it all, yet . . .

I was me! How could I ever loathe myself? Sadly, I began to learn (this is emotional composting, right? Kind of like a rant, but not, right?).

Learning was enlightening, but life interferred, life kept me from where I wanted to go. College wanted me to go where they thought we should all go, this for her, that for him, this other for, well . . .

So where was life?

Ah, life. Wonderful life. But . . . what is life? Huh??? Who knows, who can say. The detritus of learning too much, with too poignantly a thought, or more thoughts of not knowing, maybe not ever knowing.

(Compost) Where, oh where are answers to be found. How is it that I can know to ask what cannot be answered?

Or can it? Hmm!

But is it acceptable? I am atoms, and somehow I transcend those atoms, atoms that change without me knowing when, or how, attracting others knowing not when or how, and assimilating them to my "being" that I'm sure stares back at me in the mirror.

This is me! See? I am. Right?

Maybe not. What if it's true. Is it? Not dust to dust? I am atoms to atoms, and often, but only so many times, then I am not? Oh, my!

So maybe I am in the right place - compost (detritus) to be (re?)composted . . . emotions and all.

Okay, turn on the composting machine, or do I just let myself go and await time to compost me?

Lots of answers to which I don't have any questions, and questions for which I don't have any answers.

Sometimes I have to frame a question in a way that I have to think...if I could even know the answer to this question...could I be sure?

I'm afraid so many things can be faked or misinterpreted...sure is usually a bad thing.

Terry Pratchett has a great quote from "Good Omens" about God:

"God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time."

That quote helps me put into perspective that not only is it HARD to know the answers, it's IMPOSSIBLE.

So I do my best with doing what I think is best, even though I know I don't know what's best...

 

[inlovewithyourghost]

Your thoughts are always welcome, anywhere I'm near.

Truly beautiful.

 

[Recidiva]

I imagine you'd kick ass at poker.

I wouldn't want to play against you.

 

[inlovewithyourghost]

I imagine you'd kick ass at poker.

I wouldn't want to play against you.

You'd have to teach me how to play first... Then you can take credit for me. *nods*

 

[Recidiva]

You'd have to teach me how to play first... Then you can take credit for me. *nods*

I suck at it. Can't count cards. I'll have Ulaven teach you. Then you'd be unbeatable. Especially if some of his talent, skill and luck rub off on you.

Luckiest person I've ever met. If there's a Goddess of Luck, she surely shines upon him.