What is the Sphinx … and who am I?: PART TWO & THREE
Part 2: The sands that shifted
So much had changed on the heels of traveling to Egypt and there was so much sifting through the sand. I didn’t know I was going to have to sift through, be buried by, and dig my way out of it all again. But over thousands of years, the Sphinx had done just that. He was uncovered by a will within himself to be free and with help from the outside from those who loved and admired him.
So much sand to dig through and sift. Life was different. Some things, places and faces were familiar, I was still mostly me but nothing was quite the same and I was a mess inside. It was a new world but like some sort of parallel one.
I had sold my beloved farm a few months earlier (and actually left for Egypt the next day - February), came home from Egypt ( - April) with an injury that was in such a painful and vulnerable location I couldn’t drive and couldn’t work. Life kept going and I bought a new home and moved in with my husband from whom I’d been separated for ten years. I couldn’t plan anything outside of doctor appointments, couldn’t visit my horse often enough and when I did I could only brush her due to pain and possibility of infection. I was so traumatized inside from Egypt that I couldn’t think about it, read about it, or talk about it. Anytime I did I was overcome with anxiety, all-over body sweating and shaking and this was definitely not the me I was used to. It was like a rug had been pulled out of the foundation of who I was.
I was no longer independent. I was no longer financially self-sufficient. I was no longer at the barn 5 nights a week enjoying my horse and the quiet of the country that I missed so much. I was no longer without a home, but now I had a new one. I was no longer separated but had been thrown into and/or had thrown my Self into a relationship that I wasn’t sure what to do with after all these years. I was no longer the adventurous world traveller and didn’t want to return to Egypt or lead tours any more. If I was no longer any of these things, who was I? How was I going to define my Self or fit in or know how others would accept this new version of me? Would any of these versions of me return from under the sand?
Inside I was screaming for time and space. I knew my Self enough that I knew I needed to retreat into a silence to find words, feel again, and be strong enough and lucid enough to deal with this new world and this new, yet same, me. I knew I needed to retreat into safe spaces. I’m co-dependent as hell and tend to watch out for the feelings of others before my own but this time was different. I tried to find words but could only find the words “time” and “space” and so I just used those. Repeatedly. For some, these words were not enough. They didn’t understand that my silence wasn’t about them. I tried to create time and space but for some the words didn’t make sense. They didn’t see me. They didn’t hear me. They didn’t care. Their words were harsh and they pressured me to come out but I wasn’t ready. All I could do was ask for time and space; for them to wait until I had the words to talk. They were going through their own sand and when I could only ask for time and space because I didn’t have any other words, they attacked me and abandoned me. I didn’t expect that giant shift in the sand, but there it was with all that sand falling into a hole. They had already abandoned me before but this time it was unnecessarily harsh and devastating. Maybe it’s better this way, but that has been a hard one to swallow. I’m sure their perspective is different but I suppose they are entitled to their own reality. I’m still reeling and healing from this one. It cut deep.
It’s been a lot to deal with. I appreciate the people who understood that, who saw me and heard me and held space for me to recover.
Part 3: Words I wrote and found again
The day I found words and wrote them all here, I also found words that I had written and that were tucked away in journals in my closet. Funny enough, some of them were about words; one I wrote in 2014 and one I wrote in 2019.
Words: (2014)
If I had words I could write them.
I could list them and go on for dayS
If I had words I could share them
I could whisper them into your ears like secrets.
If I had words I could mold them
I could bend them and twist them and stretch them out into other nonsense with no sense of direction all the while paying no attention to the way they sounded or fit together.
If I had words I could color them.
I could paint with them like sunsets on pages of sky.
If I had words I could weave them.
I could spin them into tall tales and love stories.
If I had words…
I could
Words: (2019)
Tonight there are no words
No vowels
No consonants
No clever rhymes
No pregnant pauses
No picturesque descriptions
Tonight there is only the spaces in between
The breath you take between thoughts
The thought you have between breaths
And sometimes
When there are no words
When there is nothing but a desert of breathing
That is where you find the most profound Thing
Waiting for you
Patiently in the silence and the sand
But the magnitude of its profoundness
Leaves you in awe
Breathless
….with nothing to say
You can read the Conclusion HERE