Permission to Heal

I'm stepping away to tend to myself

Title: My Inner Baba Yaga. Original paper collage by Stella Lyn. Photo property of the author.

Hello Dear Readers,

I’m going to be taking a sabbatical. I’ve been trying to figure out how to justify the need I’ve felt stirring inside me to take a break from making consistent postings here. I finally realized that the justification is simply that I know I need one, and that the only person who can grant that permission is me.

All of my creative energy has been going toward survival lately. It’s been a hell of a year. Even though you may see me in public wearing a smile—because I really am glad to see you, and occasionally do try to step away from my hermitage and attempt to be part of the world—I’m truly not okay after my divorce.

In therapy, I have been learning some new language to put to what had been happening to me in that relationship, and it’s been very hard to look at. I’ve had a particularly rough couple of weeks, feeling quite traumatized and unsure of how to move backward or forward.

It’s brought to mind one of Wendell Berry’s very short poems, called Now.

Now

I used to wish for a breakthrough
Now I worry about what into.

I want to write about my experiences, but I’m reminded of some literary advice I once read, about the importance of writing from the scar, not the wound. I wish I could remember who said it.

I think journals are great places to bleed, and I’ve been soaking page after page. The difficult thing is knowing how on Earth to present such a mess to the world.

Because, the long and short of it is: I am still actively hemorrhaging from this wound.

Meanwhile, I’ve continued to go through the medical mill. Still. Again. More.

While recovering from another surgery I had a week ago, I learned that I’ll need yet another one soon.

I counted back and realized it’s been two years, this month, since my immune system threw up its hands. It was August of 2023 when my body, which had up until then been so good at holding more than it could bear, began harboring chronic, dangerous infections which led to major, life altering surgeries and two solid years of illness.

Since then, there has been no time that I’ve NOT had either active infections, open wounds, or both. I’ve undergone multiple surgeries and there are more to come, apparently.

I’ve struggled every step of the way to accept this as the new reality of my life. I don’t want it to be so. I want to believe things will resolve and I’ll find a new equilibrium. I want to embody grace during this process. But the truth is, I mostly flop around clumsily, like a fish on dry land, trying to reconcile the changing shape of things with my previously perceived identity.

What I am wading into new depths to learn is just how much my psyche has been holding and how earnestly my very wise body was telling the truth about my relationship and situation. I didn’t listen for a long time because I wanted to believe in the fantasy I had fallen in love with, rather than the stark reality staring me in the face.

Now I sift through the layers in therapy and in my journaling, trying to figure out what the hell was really happening while I survived by disassociating. I got so turned around. Sometimes I hear myself recounting events and I think, Did that really happen? Was I that blind?

I peel back the layers and try to cut through the confusion that exists—between what my body lived through and the stress behind that (and the stress behind that), and what my heart so wanted, and what my nervous system had to say about what it was really perceiving.

There’s an impeccable guidance system, inborn in each of us. What if we could remember to default to it, rather than looking outside of ourselves for validation?

There has been a big chasm between the outward facing presentation I made to the world about my relationship and what it really felt like to live inside it. I did that in part to convince myself, and also in order to normalize some untenable things I was going through. That disconnect is made visible now, in that I walk around alone, and my husband walks around arm in arm with his girlfriend.

I look in the mirror and see the million ways I have broken in the new lines on my face. There is a light missing in my eyes that I long to reignite and when I take an honest look at that, I want to turn away.

But the more I fight the sinking feeling inside of me, the more it becomes like one of those Chinese finger trap toys; the grip only gets tighter when I pull back.

I need, simultaneously, to lay down and die a little, to surrender to the pain and just. Feel. It.

And…

to rise, brush off the ashes, and face the reality that bills are due and I’d better do something about that.

I’ve been dabbling in both.

Behind the scenes, between episodes of crying into dog fur, I’ve been gaining new credentials and working on forming a new business. It’s taking an enormous amount of energy at a time when that’s difficult to muster, but even as my heart and body have broken, another part of me is ready to reunite with my purpose. I’m hungry to return to a way of life defined by more meaning, and to use my hard-won skills to benefit others.

Somehow, I know that once I am back to doing what I was born to do, I will return to a stronger, remade sense of self. Not using the gifts I carried here to share, while instead channeling my life force into serving the selfish desires of one man, has been lonely and unbearable.

I will nurse my soul back to life, one spoonful of rich broth at a time. It’s a broth made of broken down parts, simmered in a pot under a heavy lid, where all the flavors of being human merge and fuse. Life experiences— pain, despair and grief, yes. But also inner knowing, the desire to contribute, and a will to use the time I’m here—my heart and hands—for good.

Heated under all the pressure, cell walls break open, nutrients run out and are freed. Every ingredient that has made itself into this briny liquid is important and necessary. Even the bitter ones.

And so, Friends, I’ll be taking a break from regularly posting here. I may pop in with an anecdote or a piece of artwork to share, here or there, but I will be spending some time gathering my energy back into my center. My hope, my prayer, is that when I remerge, I will be stronger.

For now, I seek repletion. Healing. Whole-ing. My heart knows this can be mastered only by first feeling absolutely everything and falling apart.

Worrying about public facing appearances and how to present my thoughts in an organized, palatable fashion has lately been taking me out of my process more than acting as a helpful catharsis.

And I must never abandon myself again—not for anything. This is all I know for sure right now.

I thank you so much for the unwavering support you’ve shown this 3+ year project. It’s meant the world to me that you spend your time with me here.

I’m not going away, just going underground for a while.

Until next time, be well.

With all my love,
Stella