i don't know who i am without you.

when i look back over this blog, this chronicle of my recent past, i see that i have placed great value upon the ability to find the gems glittering in amidst the shit; on finding blessings, and reasons for gratitude in my everyday life.

it is a sad truth that at this moment, i feel that i am so deeply embedded in this shit, right up to and past my eyeballs, so that i have lost the very capacity for sight. and all that i am left with is the feeling.

if i stop and feel into my body right now, what i feel is this:

my back aches incessantly, and sometimes flares into acute spasms of intense pain;
my ears are bothering me - there is a tinny quality to my hearing, and right inside my ear canals itches insanely;
my belly feels uncomfortable and restricted by my clothing;
my skin feels dry and dirty, itching and pimpling indiscriminately;
i am experiencing moments of palpitation of my heart.

when i feel into my being, i experience an overwhelming sense of despair; a distinct absence of hope or faith or belief in anything. tears are ever present - tears borne of exhaustion, and a loss of the capacity for coping.  i find myself completely at a loss, faced with piles of litter and precious things strewn about the house as quickly as i can clear them away; with the endless supply of dirty clothes requiring laundering amidst a context of mid winter in the rain; with relentless bills bleeding me of money and head space; with children requiring parenting; with wet kindling and muddy boots.....

increasingly i am finding myself facing a wall and i cannot see a way forward into the next moment. sometimes i cannot even see the possibility of a next moment.

i am feeling bereft of a future. i know this probably sounds very melodramatic, and people get through difficult experiences all the time and move on from them, people LIVE THROUGH stuff.....somehow....but i just cannot visualise anything other than this, anything after this.

let's be blunt....i don't know how it will look for me to LIVE without my daughter. what will my life be without her in it?? i mean, really, how will it look? how will i be????

this girl has been with me since i was a mere girl myself. i fell pregnant with her when i was twenty years old, and that was twenty years ago. every single day of the last twenty years of my life has included her in it. my entire adult life has been bound up in her.

i don't know who i am without her.

i don't want to know who i am without her.

i don't want to be without her.