After the last couple of weeks, I have struggled to write more about my faeries. I have been so busy and so happy and I have so much more to share! First, I am engaged to one of my best friends from high school. I am so happy. He is amazing. I love him so much and love how he loves me. He is peaceful, content, happy with who he is and capable of doing anything. He made my engagement ring and with his dad’s help made the ring box out of Brazilian Walnut. Instead of marrying me just out of passion or impulse, he allowed us time to grow together as a couple and heal from past wounds, and instead of marrying just me, he, with his beautiful father-heart, patiently loved and helped each one of our children be ready for this next important step until they were all supportive of us being together. I am so grateful for the life we are building together as true partners. I thought I knew him and loved him when we were younger, now I am thrilled with the man he has become and look forward to an eternity together.
Also, I have just spent the last two weeks on Maui with Mike and our children and some of our extended family. Can I say how heavenly that was? I was there two years ago, and fell in love with the angelic faeries of the tropics and going back was like a huge family reunion. I was able to swim with the water dryads, dance with the forest nymphs and explore with the most unique faeries that live at the top of Mount Haleakala and care for the plant called the Haleakala Silverswords that is only found there and nowhere else on this planet, and I sang with the common birds and tree faeries of Hawaii as well as the less common, we explored beautiful Banyan trees and their faeries, and coastlines and jungles with all their glorious creatures! I can’t wait to share more about my trip, but again, I am getting ahead of myself.
Down in the Cedar passed the gorgeous entrance and winding staircase, beyond the entrance and down the long hall towards the huge metal door with two torches, one on either side of the door, Grandma Mae had unlocked the door and was about to open it when she turned to face me squarely. It made me nervous. “Darling, I know you are ready but I don’t promise that all of what will happen next will be pleasant or easy. You are welcome to leave, if you don’t feel like you can take this next step.”
“What is the next step?”
“Would you like to go back?”
At that moment, I considered. I had followed that path before, the path of walking away from my faerie angels and shutting down my emotions. I tried to move on with my life all by myself and it took me years to fully recover. I remembered intently the day a few weeks after my sister died when I realized that I no longer laughed fully and I never cried anymore. I felt numb, grey, like I was covered in insulation that blocked out life. It was funny because you would think that this stopped the hurt. It didn’t. All the hurt and pain was there, just none of the happiness or joy or wonder or peace. I had succeeded in shutting down my emotions but instead of protecting me from pain, all I was left with was pain.
I didn’t want to connect with friends or family because it hurt too much. It was right after I graduated from high school, a couple weeks after my sister died and I helped dress her body and sang at her funeral. I felt like all my close and dear friends, including the man I just got engaged to a couple weeks ago, were going to be gone from my life forever once I went to college and I didn’t even want to stay connected because the thought of losing them after losing my sister hurt too much. Anyway, that day after my sister died, I sat in my car and finally recognized that I had completely shut down. It scared me, bad.
By that time, it was too late to fix it easily. You see, I had been working on this shut down for a lot of years and the only solution at that point was to carefully work backwards through my pain to release it. Frederick, one of the main characters from my fantasy novel, Beyond Trivar, explains it this way,
"Whatever emotional or physical pain is hurting you, instead of ignoring it, fighting it or burying it, let it come to the forefront of your heart, mind and body.
"It takes courage because it hurts. But if you truly desire to be free of your pain, it is worth it. You must be present with the depths of your pain. Feel all of it. It is only then that you can release it. Releasing pain is the hardest part because, for some crazy reason, we Trivarians hold onto our pain fiercely.
"I don't know how to teach you to release pain...it is more of a feeling than an action, but I know a symbolic image that might help. Holding onto pain would look like someone tightening all their muscles around the center of an injury. Once you are present with the pain and allowed it to surface, releasing your pain would visually look like you were relaxing all your muscles around that pain.
"This relaxing allows the pain to simple dissipate. Once you have learned to release pain, it becomes easier the next time."
- Frederick, Chapter 41 of Beyond Trivar
I did eventually learn to heal like this but it took a lot of time and a lot of work. And standing there in front of that unlocked metal door, with Grandma Mae, I knew I could never go back to that emotionally shut down place, no matter the pain. I had to move forward. I took a breath and tried to keep from panicking as I said, as bravely as I could, “I am ready for whatever is in this room. Thank you for being with me.”
Mae smiled a little sadly but reached out to me and squeezed my arm gently, “I am with you.”
With another swipe of her hand, the door opened. It was much brighter in the room than the hallway. I felt disoriented by the light. It hurt my eyes a little but that wasn’t the biggest problem, I guess I expected faerie-like beauty or something more like the entrance of the Cedar but that wasn’t the biggest problem, it was a huge, empty room with white walls but that wasn’t the biggest problem, I felt like I had been struck in the gut by a large club. I felt like puking. I began sobbing and collapsed into Grandma Mae’s arms. She held me as I shook and sobbed and could barely breathe. Like the first look from Grandma Mae that brought all my fears and pain to the surface, this empty room like a vortex created space for all that was hurting me. She had been right, it wasn’t pleasant or easy. It hurt. Bad.
