A Mess and my Listening Therapist

"But I've made such a mess of my life,"

I say to my listening therapist. ... old hidden shames in my words.....

 exposed like playground taunts

written on my skin....

as if I deserve my losses....

for something bad I must have done.

I am attending two funerals next week. I have written condolences.

But really I don't know what to say to the beloveds left behind.

"What do you want to say?"

she asks me, my listening therapist.

I want to say,

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

And I am. 

For them 

and their pain.

"And are you sorry for you? she asks me.

No, I'm not allowed that. It would be a self indulgence.

I only feel shame. I couldn't have loved him enough that I let him die.

As it that gift was in my hands alone

 and not in God's.

Such craziness, such magical thinking to give myself this power,

this burden, this ache.

"Well I'm sorry for you, " she says, my listening therapist. " For the loss of your dear one."

And then, because of her words, I can mourn him ....and me... long and slow...  for the weight of everything I have lost.

Later she says, my listening therapist,

"And it's palpably clear you haven't made a mess of your life".

 I listen to her and I know it's not true....not all of it was a mess.

And still I wonder at the power of those old beliefs

 to grip me

 and trample on all the good work 

the endless work

I have already done to

crawl out from under the thumb of unworthiness. ...

And 

"let the soft animal of my body 

love what it loves...

...and announce my place in the family of things"

 (Adapted from Mary Oliver's Wild Geese.)

While I have been writing  I let the coconut rice pudding boil over on the stove...

 made a mess...

but such a simple one to clear up.

And plenty left to savour.