Sorrow Prepares You For Joy… Rumi

Me & My Shadow

The first 5 words of this quote from Rumi have given me insights that I have to say weren’t at all what I’d expected coming into this module. Such is Life, eh?!

Oftentimes, when I come to writing, I feel a large mountain of thoughtsandfeelings. I have to move them, or squeeze myself into the space they have NOT completely swallowed whole. It is big and it is difficult, and if I am honest I will say that mostly I work in the spaces BEtween them. And often with no more than a wish or a prayer.

As this week unfolded, and as I was absorbing and watching the volume of words and stories and discoveries in Module 30: Transformation of A Year With Myself www.ayearwithmyself.com, I have, as seems my way on this Journey, come face-to-face with someone I never imagined Me to BE.

Here’s the thing: I’ve heard so much about My Story that I really didn’t know whether My Story was even something that I knew, that I could, if necessary, pin down and put into words. TELL IT. Share it. Claim it as mine.

Of course, that is all preface and preparation and my ridiculous effort to control what YOU will think of ME when you KNOW, even a little bit, MY STORY. [it is truly humbling how many times I decide you won’t like it so I don’t risk telling it without all the appetizers to distract you from its essence]

While there is so much that is good and juicy in Module 30, I kept coming back to those 5 words: Sorrow prepares you for joy… BEcause I am still trying to make some sense of what has happened in my Life & World since the end of 2005. BEcause Sorrow has surrounded these years. BEcause that same Sorrow has made room for immense JOY.

Sometimes, especially in the past week, I get to stand at a bit of a distance from myself. To watch. To listen. To notice. To simply see Me in the World.

And some of those sometimes I get to see how upside down and inside out things are from my perspective.

I spend WAY TOO MUCH time reflecting, leafing through the pages, and reconsidering what is Past. Over. Done. I keep trying to follow the thread back to the BEginning of all this, to see in a moment of great AH-HAH how indeed Sorrow prepared me for JOY. And sometimes, though I really hope you won’t think even less of me for saying so, I actually think that other people are staring down at me DOing this. Are standing with arms crossed, eyes glaring, and foot tapping, wondering just how $^(#*@ -up I REALLY am.

Truth: No one’s watching. Nor waiting. Nor really all that interested. It’s just the Currie Show. Broadcasting Live 24-7-365/66. Like a closed circuit television. Or the snow after the channel shut down for the night. [remember that?!]

Well, mayBE I will amend that to no one ELSE. Really, even this post, like about 98% of what I write, something I DO a lot of, each and every day, will MayBE BE read by 3 people. Even if I were to post [read:blab] it on Facebook. Makes me ask: if I am blogging and no one is reading does it even matter?!

Back to my friend Rumi’s 5 words of wonder: Sorrow prepares you for joy… What does this mean, today, Right Now, today???

It means that Life is messy. Imperfect. Unable to BE contained, weighed, or measured on a closet door, marking parts of the Journey, that is “the story” [or mayBE My Story]. Wouldn’t have imagined that when this module landed in my emailbox last Monday.

It’s funny how each week of this year has revealed a ME to Me I hadn’t seen BEfore. In fact, the title, A Year With Myself, is so telling. At times I want there to BE more camaraderie and sharing of process, but that really wouldn’t BE A Year With MYself, would it?!

Whatever it is that is My Story, it’s only memory, and selective memory at that. VERY. I have stayed focused on some parts, certain characters and places and circumstances, but that is all “in my head” quite literally. Those people I stare at and the times we shared are over and done except for the Life I give them up in BEtween my ears. And I suppose too, in my heart.

The “sorrow” I have had, YES, it has prepared me for new experiences of JOY, new sorts of JOY. But I often feel much more like the Wizard of Oz, BEhind that curtain, nothing more than an ordinary and quite imperfect woman [in my case].

When I have an AH-HAH these days, it’s almost laughable. I remember BEing about 7 or 8 and insisting vocally and incessantly that my parents WATCH ME dive into the pool when we were visiting my grandparents. Now, though, I am my only audience. I am the one who can [and DOES, if I’m BEing honest] SEE and who CARES, always. As it should BE, mayBE…

My sorrow has often been realising and remembering that I am IT. So, too my JOY is in realising and remembering I am IT.