a journey in words

A wise person told me not long ago “sometimes the soul has to take a dump.”  

When you’re full of shit, empty is not a bad thing to become.

In 2021, shit. got. real.

In 2021, so many words written and unwritten were given their voice. Just as oxygen breathes life into our bodies, so it is done to words. Something happens when they are heard out loud, whether a whisper or a scream. Thoughts and feelings long confined to our heads first step onto pages. Pages can be crumbled. Files deleted. But once words take flight when launched from our lips, they can never be retrieved. They take on a deeper realness.

Different from the coping mechanism of involuntarily repressing memories that my mind used to protect me from the trauma I experienced as a child, these thoughts and feelings were deliberately suppressed to the point of constipating my head.

I told myself a variety of things to justify hanging on to the shit. I didn’t want to make a bad situation worse. I didn’t want to ruin good times. I needed to establish boundaries. While establishing boundaries are healthy in certain situations, and in these they were, there is a world of difference between that and building a wall around your heart in order to keep your feelings prisoner. Which is exactly what I did. I walked in discomfort as I carried the bloat until…

Until 2021 presented me with circumstances, the timing of which made it impossible to contain the shit I shouldn’t have been holding in any longer.

I let it all go.

Some instances more articulately than others. In all instances accompanied by tears, not only for the weight of the words I was saying but for the relief they gave me which I had denied myself of for so long.

The world didn’t end after I said them. It changed. I changed. As painful as it can be, change is often good. The more overdue it is, the stronger the likelihood that the change is ultimately for the good.

It’s a strange empty as the weight of the bloat vacated my mind through my mouth.

I let it go and it is gone.

Yes. Sometimes the soul has to take a dump. That way the soul can be nourished with healthier things.

I arrive here in 2022 awaiting that feast with some trepidation but an even greater curiosity of how the empty will be filled.