Dead Things Rising

*

I was born with a longing inside of me. I wanted that kiss - that sense of merging 

body and soul with another being, whether mate or friend or God. I wanted it, 

but I was too ashamed to want it with my whole life. I followed it 

haphazardly and halfheartedly,and I felt foolish doing so. 

(Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open)

*

Somehow, mysteriously, just when I begin to believe she has come to a sort of peace, she awakes, still longing, still reaching. She believes in true love, in heart stopping passion, that the kind of romance (lies?) she read about and dreamed about is still possible... and she believes she would rather die than go the rest of her life never knowing that kind of ecstasy (again).

Eckhart Tolle calls her the pain body. Iyanla Vanzant says these feelings are "just energy" that surface from time to time to teach me something. Elizabeth Lesser calls her my shadow self, the one I denied, ignored, buried, wished dead... but who stubbornly who refuses to lay down and die. Whatever she is, whatever her name, I'm certain of one thing: she is my broken me.

As I typed this entry, I had the thought: "Please just let me be"... and then I wondered - is that coming from her or me?