INDONESIA - DAY TWENTY TWO

JUNE 6, 2024

This morning I sat with the anger and frustration I expressed a bit in the blog from yesterday and realized I can hold onto that or not, but that it’s mine to own. I cannot control what others do or don’t do or how they handle things differently from how I would. I have no control. I have known this and have become much better at acceptance, but when life has been chaotic and out of control for the last 7 years, anything you can focus on to “control” takes up space and noise. It has been so loud, so very loud since August 30th. I want to say that somehow noise gravitates my way, but perhaps because (and I didn’t necessarily reach this conclusion on my own, many therapists have suggested this) my life in one way or the other has always been chaotic that I indeed, gravitate towards it, like my life depends on it, as mosquitos do my body. UGH, on both points.

What I can control is how I take that in, process it and what I do with that.

The theme of today was ‘Grief as a Teacher’

As I took that theme in during meditation, I came back to 2018, October, having finished a 9-month grief journey with Wendy and 5 other incredible individuals. I reflected to how much I had changed, how much my thinking had changed; my view of myself and the world. And then 2019 rolled in with a new energy and outlook and as the year continued it brought chaos that has continued to this day.

And then on August 30, 2023 the world stopped and it will never be the same. And I don’t know how to live. And I often don’t see the point. You become a mother and that has been the only identity that I know and have tried to be good at and the only one that is life-long and ever present. I’ll admit I have never felt very confident in this role and many will know my recurring self-talk around being a mother, but it’s been the only role that seems both natural and unnatural for which I fit into. When you have a child that dies suddenly and shockingly by taking his own life everything you know about death, loss, existence, everything is questioned and the ground underneath you is ripped away.

I am about halfway though this Indonesian journey. And why you may ask am I sharing this now? Most of you, probably all of you who may choose to read this blog are likely here for the stunning photos of this beautiful and magical place, and you have been invited by me, so you know what has happened to upend me and my life. I started this journey with my amazing, capable, smart, accomplished, talented, funny and beautiful daughter. She left to return back to the states on June 1st, the day I showed up for this grief retreat. My heart was pulled out of my body in that moment that car pulled away from our hotel in Ubud to take her to the airport. It was more than I was going to miss her and miss my travel buddy, my foodie buddy, my giggle buddy, the best friend that she is becoming (as I was with my own mother), it was that I (selfishly) didn’t know what I was going to do without her. I am the elder and parent. She is NOT supposed to take care of me. I am supposed to take care of her. Like I was supposed to take care of my son. I am supposed to protect them and I couldn’t. How could I protect her now that she was flying so far away from me and how can I protect her when she moves to another state to start her first job post college? So much happened in my body when that car pulled away and I was flooded with fear, the potential of all that could go wrong and be scary for her or even for me.

Quite frankly, I was also thankful in that moment because I knew I was headed to begin some healing on this retreat. And having experienced the love and beauty of Wendy and somatic healing, I knew I was in good hands and exactly where I needed to be.

So, again I go back to why share now when most of you know what happened? I share because I am on this journey in Indonesia that did, indeed, start with my daughter and now I continue on my own. I continue scared, excited, my heart cracked open, my soul yearning for connection to my son, to powers and forces beyond myself. I share the event that has triggered my heart to crack open.