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Monday 1 July 2013

Set in stone

I look down and my feet are stone. Not stuck in stone. They are stone. And I am trapped. The walls change, but always the suffering is the same or worse. And from inside these walls like a voyeur I watch life peeking through the darkness.

Those connections I had when the stone slowly encased the soles of my feet are mostly lost. I see you all on distant media. I watch you grow and leave me. The distance is so great it is like your feet are weightless. You fly.

As we mature we move away from people, and closer to others. It is the natural order of life. But I am stuck. So you might think I am not trying, not reaching for you. And yet I cannot. My suffering has made my world so small, my steps so heavy that I can barely find purchase on the walls to steady myself.

So I watch instead through social media inside this dark space. And it is a blessing and a curse. For I am glad to participate in your life in the tiniest way just by being privy to witnessing the milestones and markers of life as you travel away from me. But it is also gut wrenchingly painful because I am immobilised. I cannot participate. And I wonder if I ever will again.

See, you can reach me. But you have forgotten I cannot reach you. It is as though you believe we have grown apart naturally. And perhaps we might have. But we didn't. I just couldn't grow at all. You did all the growing. 

While you were filling each moment with life. With love, loss, suffering, travel, family, homes, moving, exploring, evolving and living..... I was enveloped in the darkening grey. In stone. In suffering and loss. And when I dare venture to visit the colour it is when I was last connected. Which is a millennia ago for you. But it is yesterday for me.

For if you think of the very last time you saw me truly healthy, unshackled by pain, suffering, intense exhaustion, confusion, anxiety, memory loss and weakness – the last time there was no wall between us nothing stopping me from being completely engaged in the moment and keeping me separate – you would realise with some shock that it was over a decade ago and I was in my late teens, maybe very early twenties.

Remember back then? Maybe you don't feel like you can fly any more, but back then our feet floated in the air and anything was possible. I got trapped there, grounded. Like a demented window shopper.  A statue who can only watch life in the dark through the shuttered gaps of the windows.

Even now the stone creeps further up. I wish you would look down and realise that you can fly. And that my feet are of stone, soon the whole of my legs will be overtaken. So there is only so far I can stretch. I am sorry I cannot reach you. I can barely reach me. I am scared even the distance to the the window will be too far soon.  That I will not even be able to have those tiny voyeuristic peeks through the darkness at your life.  

Until then I try to maintain even the smallest of contact with the statues that populate the darkened spaces on the distant media, made closer only by their plight.  They too have been carved in stone by the cruel artistry of chronic illness and are stretching wildly towards each other. I brush my fingers tips against theirs at full stretch.  And wait for you to come closer.  For me to be free.

When there is space again, when my feet are freed, when the light streams in and I can move without struggle, without the assistance of walls, I shall reach.  You may no longer be there.  But I will try.

And if you are gone, I will recolour my life with an abundant freedom of choice.  Who knows where or how it will be built.  The future is not set in stone.



17 comments:

  1. A blessing and curse indeed - absolutely. But my world now is mostly the 'distant media' world too, that's where I met you and I cannot imagine it without you (I think when we lose even the ability to make that connection...that's almost too hard to think of). In the future when we've freed you of those feet of stone I'm going to twirl around in utter ecstasy enjoying connecting with you in the real world. I hang onto that dream because sometimes the dreams of a different future seem all we have. Certainly they're often all that keeps us going. That, and the presence of friends like you...in whatever world we can be in. XXOOXXOO

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  2. :( ugh! Everything you say is so close to the bone for me, it's hard to read because it's a mirror that i have tried hard to avoid looking into. But once in a while you just have to so that some of the sadness has a moment to escape a little. Thanks for saying what I am not brave enough to say. You speak for many many of us. xoxox

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  3. Your words touched me..as they are my words too..I may not have been able to voice them so well, but you put them out there and they could have been mine. Thank you. I too got ill in my late teens, I am now in my late 30's.. X

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    1. Thank you. I wish you recovery and return to the world outside the window xo

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  4. You're a brilliant writer...
    Stacey
    xo

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  5. Beautifully said. Shared. -Jocelyn

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    1. Thanks for reading and for sharing Jocelyn xo

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  6. this arouses such deep emotion. it is so very disquieting. lovely in that evocative way. the grief is there - just there below the surface. like lee lee it is something i find hard to look at but know it needs to seep out. i cried many tears for you and some for me. thank you darling for sharing your 'poetry'. truly such vivid expression.

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  7. You write so beautifully, painting verbal pictures that are deeply poetic and compelling. I like to write too so I know it takes courage to reflect and focus enough to be able to put pain into words - but you do it so well,and with such grace. It's a privilege to read your soulful insights, thank you xx Zoe (fellow Lymie also frequently found glued to my 'laptop window'. Praise the internet, I say!)

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    1. Thanks Zoe. It's a bit lost to me right now, I can't get in that zone, that place that makes writing just flow because I'm so muddled. I miss it so much.

      Thank you very much for your kind words and for reading.

      Take care of you okay?

      Hugs
      Marzi xo

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  8. This post speaks very clearly the same road I've walked down. Often times I find it unbearable to log on to social media because I'm flooded with the happiness and motion of other people's lives that are moving forward and full of enjoyment, which should have been a natural part of mine as well. It's easier to live on pause when you can look at it as fighting and resting, rather than losing speed compared to everyone else.

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    1. Thanks for reading Nicole. It is exactly that contradiction and conflict. We're stuck and they're moving so fast away.

      I think so yes, but I wonder how long that works for - you know it's been a long time for me - my whole adulthood spent in suffering. It's hard to hold onto that and mostly we can, but when big events like life markers - weddings, babies, buying houses, buying cars, building houses, going overseas, getting a new job, studying.... when those things happen you can't ignore that you can't have them or do them and it's so challenging to keep hope that you ever will when you are on such uncertain ground.

      Take care of you honey.

      Hugs
      Marzi xo

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  9. Hi Marzi. My name is Cameron and I had a question about your blog and was hoping you'd be able to email me. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. :-)

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  10. Hi Cameron

    So sorry for the delayed response a rough patch has had me occupied. For some reason it didn't allow me to reply in email on here. I will try to remember to attempt from my computer tomorrow.

    Cheers
    Marzi

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Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think...