weight

to say that communication is essential in all relationships is almost to be cliche. 

how we say things, how we hear them, how what is heard informs what happens nexts, this is all central to being in relationship with those around us and being "in relationship" is hard shit. i'm a relationship therapist. it would be easy for me to assume i'd get this right. every time. i should be an amazing communicator. a bit startling to realize even how, how often i get it wrong. 

sometimes i will sit with clients, examining their situation, identifying (with them) opportunities for doing something different, i'll hear things come out of my mouth and wonder who is speaking. it surely isn't the woman whose marriage is ending. it can't be the woman whose second suddenly became primary. the one who is deeply grieving. I want to know so much now about what could have been different. what i missed. what i didn't hear. where i could have made a u-turn and somehow manifested everything i wanted? something other than this split?

a mentor told me recently that beneath every conflict, every painful disaggrement, every misheard or misunderstood intention, is the trampling of a hope, dream or value deeply held. it must be then that i crushed his hopes for us...and my own. it must be...that our dreams fell out of step with each other...that our values collided. until i could no longer find him, nor he me. 

beginning anew from here, in this quiet space where nothing is certain and nearly everything hurts -there is sun still. i feel it on my face every morning when I wake up. I allow it to make promises. I allow this, because want so much to believe them. 

communicating is still hard. however painful this is, whatever lessons i should have learned i fail now too. and the burden is greater now. who could have guessed with all that has been lost, there would still be weight. 

i know now that is possible to lose from here 

is my own self.