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Staying in Stillness

It has been a couple of weeks since life dissolved into primordial goo. Kind of like the caterpillar in the chrysalis phase, about to become a butterfly. The butterfly stage of my life may as well be light years away. I feel like I will be stuck in the primordial goo forever. It's not clear what the future holds. For a very long time I have told myself that I wasn't scared of being alone. Doing life alone. Concentrating on my children. here I am on the precipice of such circumstances, and I'm terrified. Terrified of being alone. Yet I have the opportunity to not be alone. After causing each other considerable hurt and pain, working on our relationship is something that is on the cards for myself and my partner? Ex-partner? Inbetween partner? I don't even know what to call him anymore. Father to my children seems a bit odd. Person who I have spent 24 years of my life with and we have 6 children. He loves me with a big open heart and catches me when I fall. But much of the past 10 years he has not been meaningfully engaged in our relationship, family life or his own life for that matter. Much of his denial and apathy to life contributed to his very serious health issues. Since being diagnosed with ADHD and being medicated, it is like his brain switched back on and he has walked out of a fog. It has been overwhelming. In a matter of a week he went from dead man walking to someone motivated and articulate and making plans for life. But much of the damage had already been done in regards to our relationship. We both played our part. I had checked out too. Emotionally I had to, I couldn't watch him die anymore. I called it suicide via wilful ignorance. So now we are in a weird co-habitating, co-parenting thing. Still love each other. Not being affectionate has been difficult, we fail daily. Maybe we aren't really separated then? We just had a bad decade that culminated into an awfully, dreadful week? He wants to work on everything and start afresh. I do too. Well part of me wants to, but the other part doesn't or isn't sure. Perhaps it will all just go back to what it was, which was misery.
I also see an opportunity for freedom. Free from the contraints and expectations of being partnered. Free to explore who I am and what I want for the next chapter of life. Even so, we are all each other has known for 24 years. There is no lack of love. But there is just as much pain, suffering and hurt that has occurred. Maybe we would be better people on our own? How will it impact the children? Statistically it's always negative. But anymore negative than living with an absent father who was literally right there? Watching their mother burn out and barely able to get out of bed from mental illness? What damage has already been done? Currently my mental health has taken a dive. Which has also made things complex. He looks after me when I'm sick. He always has. It's just the inbetween phases is when he would switch off. I shouldn't want to be with someone just because they take care of me when I'm sick. Should I? But getting sick again is possible and the thought of it scares the shit out of me, even more so with the prospect of not having the support I'm used to. Yet maybe I wouldn't have become sick if he wasn't an absent partner much of the time. I don't know. At any rate, I don't feel strong enough at the moment to tackle much of anything. I feel like I'm swimming in that caterpillar goo, clouded by a nebulous fog with no differentiation between up and down. Waiting to become a butterfly. I try to listen to my intuition. And it tells me to just be still. Stay still in the chaos, in the stuckness and uncertainty.
The internet tells me that Alan Watts once said "Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone"
Stillness brings clarity. Perhaps beauty. In time I'll learn the lesson... 


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