Starting the New Year after a Christmas tainted by tragedy has presented challenges I’ve never faced before. I’ve met grief in many guises, but never during a time meant for togetherness and good will to all. If there has been an ultimate test of faith in people and the powers that be, I am in the midst of it right now. I delved deep into my reserves, yet found little to sustain me. Eventually the help closest at hand from my beloved, and the now invisible soul who so nearly made it to our family, they are the ones providing the healing.
While I am now only rarely visited by the horror we went through, it still stabs me unexpectedly, but quick to follow is an indescribable love I have never felt before – it comes when he visits, no, envelopes me, pushing tears from my eyes in the stillest moments of my meditations when the veil between our worlds is now so thin. I savour the touch of those tears, just as I did when I learnt to cry again in rehab after years of denying them their freedom. Out of all sadness, happiness rises, and I’m finding it again, finding my humour, the motivation to write again, and belief in myself and the journey.
Thanks to a dear friend who gave me some precious advice yesterday, I can see clearly now, all the way to Mont Saint Michel, which waits for me, Grail-like, as do other quest destinations yet to show themselves.
Remaining focused on the task of submitting Stag Rider to agents has been difficult to say the least, and I’ve ever so fleetingly doubted the nature of my personal quest and that of Aaron’s. They are truly scary moments. I’m able to deflect the rejections, most of the time, but my writing has never felt so cathartic and from my first day of sobriety, recovery has and always will be a quest to me. By writing this I am outing the self-sabotaging bastard who has dared to come and see me. The quest must go on! Stag Rider, will find its place when the Universe deems the time to be right and the flood-gates finally open.
