The Deep End

I am born, I am alone, it’s cold, I am not sure what to do, and there is no one to help me.  Do I breathe? Do I cry? NO ONE is here for me.  This is the nothing place, the place where I am suspended in time, with heart in limbo, not sure if I should live or die, I am scared and alone. 

This is the nothing place.

The place between born and what is next.

The place where no one is with me.

The place where I decide life or death.

This place exists, this nothing place.  I never knew what to call it and I never knew that other people knew what it was. 

Did I just exist until it comes crashing down and there is nowhere else to turn and facing it, finally, is the only alternative, the last straw.

The nothing place was where I relied on something being better than death, something more on the other side.  Keep breathing.

This place still exists sometimes as an adult for me. This place where no one can be with me.  It is a sad, isolated place and I lack the ability to explain it well enough to be understood.

It just is, the nothing place, it’s in me.

The nothing place is probably why I like to be alone, probably why I like the quiet, probably why withdrawal of others scares the shit out of me, probably why I don’t understand or accept love.

There are a lot of probably’s in there, because nothing is for sure, nothing is absolute. 

Why am I the way I am?  

I go to the nothing place now, I fill it with stuff- it’s not the right stuff- its filler, its artificial stuffing when it should be filled with what really matters, love, patience, holding

I don’t let people close to me – I don’t let myself get close.  I always hold a space between me and everyone else, the escape route- the exit plan.  It is too scary to let people touch me - hear me - listen to me -feel me.

I didn’t get the training sessions I should have gotten with my mother, the cuddling, the kissing, the cooing, the nursing, the eye-to-eye contact, the mirroring.  I had none of it ever; as a baby, I needed to figure it out. 

It’s no wonder I cried a lot, nothing smelled right, felt right or sounded right.

The nothing place is familiar

To my Flourish friends and to all who know this nothing place, you are not alone, even in the darkness, I get you and we can sit in the nothing place together. Thank you to Pam and Anne for naming the nothing place for me and all of us.

Thanks as always for reading.