It is possible to drown in ones tears.
I know.
I died a little this last dark and new moon.
The funny thing is, I have been drowning for quite a while. Every tear has been adding to the pool around me, threatening to engulf me, as I have turned my head this way and that, kicked my feet, and tried desperately to keep my head above water. Most of the time I succeeded, although there were many occasions I thought I was going under. It isn’t surprising, but it is terrifying. I feared drowning in my sorrow, feared what it would mean, feared the possibility that I would never surface again. I feared dying inside. So I fought endlessly, pushed myself, sought comfort and support. I just kept swimming.
This last week I broke. Alone, lonely, hidden in the dark, I curled into the fetal position and I let myself cry. Not the pretty little tears I allowed myself to relieve the pressure, but full on gut wrenching, heart breaking sobs that wracked my chest, burned my eyes, and curbed my ability to breathe. The waters of my heart engulfed me, and I felt so much all at once that I could no longer hold it together. I let go. I let go of everything. I simply let myself feel every emotion that washed over me. The Goddess of Not-Never-Broken spoke to me in the darkness. In a moment of incredible loneliness I realised I was never alone. She told me to let myself drown, to let myself break apart, to leave myself wide open. She told me it would be ok. And then she told me I had been here before.
Suddenly every memory I had of pain flooded through me. Every love lost, every time someone hurt me, every time I hurt someone else. Every time I was unkind to my own reflection, every time I compared myself to another. Every jealousy, every rejection. Every time I did the right thing when every bone in my body screamed at me to do otherwise. Every time I stepped aside for another. Every time I kissed someone goodbye. Every time I hated myself. The pool of tears I was drowning in became an ocean that consumed me. I sank into it and saw every issue below the surface. My current pain was true and real, but it was not alone. Every hurt I was ignoring accompanied it. I lay there, shoulders shaking, chest heaving, and let myself see all of it. I surrendered to it. It wasn’t pretty. It was painful. But it was also truth, and truth is beauty. A terrible beauty.
The strange thing about drowning is that when you stop fighting it, the process becomes very peaceful. My bruised insides filled with salt water tears and I stopped resisting. I found a peace and acceptance in the current loss that triggered my dark night of the soul. It really was going to be ok. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but slowly and surely. Eventually my shoulders stopped shaking, my tears stopped falling, and I could breathe again. Exhausted, I finally slept.
I am never-not-broken.
The Poet Priestess 