be here.

Some while ago I read something, I can't remember where. A post on a blog or maybe an essay. It was about fear and this reassurance: Anything could happen, but it usually doesn't. I've been letting my brain chew on this thought for a few weeks now.

I carry a lot of fear around with me. I don't usually acknowledge it to myself, or even anyone else. I am afraid of losing things and people that I love, afraid of people dying or abandoning me, afraid of them abandoning themselves, afraid of change and the unknown and feeling out of control. Usually my fear is something I push back when it surfaces. But lately it has been fighting it's way through, sharp pricks and wet eyes. I am forced to confront it every day and I am confronting it now head on. I am tired of living with the constant expectation that something evil is just around the corner.

Over the weekend, I read a piece in the latest issue of Poets & Writers that was about writing as healing and discovery in the face of a spouse's death. I read the first sentence, "On the night my husband died..." and immediately the black hole opened up in the pit of my stomach. Death, there it is, looming over me and everyone else I love.

No one ever talks about the emotional toll of losing your faith. It's always an awakening, breathing in the free and open air at last. Well, it is those things....but it's also a new urgency and every-moment-counts awareness. It's the realization that this is it.

On 60 Minutes this past weekend there was an interview with a monk at Mt. Athos. He told of how his father, on his death bed, begged him to come home so that they could be together one last time. He refused. Did he feel loss or regret? He answered no - because he knew they would be reunited in eternity.

The dissolution of that comfort, that safety net.....well, it takes some getting used to.

I struggle to see the beauty and joy in a moment without looking for and marking the point when it will end. I am constantly battling myself to be in this moment only. I am saying it to myself these days, over and over. Anything could happen, but it usually doesn't. Life can be happy or sad, up and down, either way it's just life. I am challenging myself to just live it. I am asking myself, Well what are you going to do about it? Yes, everything will die and all will be lost...someday. But why should I live in that moment instead of this one? How will it change me now?

If you've never read the Dear Sugar column for The Rumpus, consider this a sign you should start. It is mind-blowing and beautiful and rips you wide awake and open every time. Her latest post is no exception. She ends on these words:

We’re all going to die, but only some of us are going to die tomorrow or next year or in the next half century. And, by and large, we don’t know which of us it will be when and of what. That mystery is not the curse of our existence; it’s the wonder. It’s what people are talking about when they talk about the circle of life that we’re all part of whether we sign up to be or not—the living, the dead, those being born right this moment, and the others who are fading out. Attempting to position yourself outside the circle isn’t going to save you from anything. It isn’t going to keep you from your grief or protect those you love from theirs when you’re gone. It isn’t going to extend your life or shorten it. Whatever the crazy lady whispered in your ear was wrong. You’re here. So be here, dear one. You’re okay with us for now.

I forget to bare my soul sometimes (most of the time) because I forget that I need people to know me. And I forget that we're all in it together, all battling our own demons, and we all need a little reassurance to just be here. It's alright to own up to your fears, to be loved, to loosen your grip just a little.

My apologies for a bit of an absence - traveling and life and a lack of computers imposed a hiatus. But I'm back and still committed.

Keep writing. Keep living. Be here now.