Numbness

My right arm has been numb for over a week.  I thought it was a neck thing from an old Air Force-related problem, but it was really a chest thing, a muscle thing, from carrying my new baby.  All right, he isn't new anymore.  Almost a toddler.  But the muscles in the front of my body are tightening to the point of tearing.

Like my arm, my heart and life have been numb.  I thought this was from trauma, the pain in my childhood, the tragedies from long ago.

Again I was wrong.

This numbness is acute not chronic.  Denial.  A refusal to look at the damaging things that have happen directly in front of me.  I have been witness to my own tragedies as though an audience attendant instead of a participant.

The numbness is both a safeguard and an illusion.  And the damage from allowing this disability to remain once I was aware it existed is far more harmful than the original destruction incurred.

If my hand is without feeling, it can easily be burned by fire, frostbitten and destroyed without any awareness on my part.

If my heart is numb, it too can be burned, scarred and mutilated--beyond its original shape and design.

I must show up to guard my heart.

I must un-numb myself.

Staying numb served its purpose, but it disconnected me from me.  It disconnected me from G-d and has inevitably destroyed me.

I now simply strive each day to feel everything and in turn, share those raw emotions with other readers, realizing we are closely linked; not far removed one from another.  Realizing that when we feel instead of living in numbness, we heal.