Love and Laundry
My heart grew heavy today when my sister got out of my car. She was the last airport drop off of the weekend, and I was fighting to keep the tears in check. Suddenly the weight of living was back on my shoulders. I felt heavy…. and foolish.
I felt foolish for wanting to cry, and I felt foolish for fighting it. I am a thirty-three year old woman. At this point in my life, I should be able to feel my emotions.
With my cousins and my sister, my emotions are more free, and I wanted to shut them down as soon as the girls had left. I spent some time considering why I felt this way. My cousin said something about how nice it is to be with those who knew her father, her sister, and her niece before their lives were cut short. I realized I slightly more vulnerable when we are together because we share a depth of emotion that is difficult to express. With them, I know that I don’t have to explain the pain resting beneath my daily routines because they have shared so much of it with me.
For some time, I carried the pain of life in solitude. I felt it was too tiring to try to explain the experiences I have had to those who have not been there. It felt easier, in many ways, to carry the hurt inside because the wounds of living can border on overwhelming if I open up to them. However, I ran out of space to keep it all in, and I burst at the seems. This experience taught me about community.
It has taken a lot of work, but I have been learning to share all of my life. I have opened up more with my family and a couple of friends. Life is heavy, and it is important to able to let go of some of the weight we carry.
It can be a struggle to put the routines of life on pause in order to share a little more of yourself, but I promise you it is worth it. Share your experiences.
There is something healing in the sharing. We need to let people into our lives because shared experience is a mathematical phenomenon: the weight of grief is divided and the celebration of joy is multiplied. Life was meant to be lived together.
My Sister
She folded my laundry, and I felt her love deeply.
She carried some of the load so that I would not have to.
The filth of living was shared between us
And she created neat piles of order and sanity.