Tenderness & Tenderbits

This is today's Truthbomb from the ever-inspiring Danielle LaPorte.

Sounds easy, right? 

Defend your tenderness. 

Of course the things that sound easy never really are…are they?

Tenderness.  Those soft, raw, unexposed pieces of your heart and soul that haven’t been beaten to a pulp yet.

The parts that loss hasn’t carved into with the ferocity of a blade slinger.  

Suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, overdose, loss on top of grief on top of mourning.  

Years and years of mourning.

The weight of it all cripples any tenderness that has the balls to stand its ground.

Tenderness along with innocence are my casualties of circumstance.

What was once tenderness is now covered in scar tissue.

What was once innocence is now cold, hard experience.

What's even more concerning is whatever battleworn tenderness might be bunkered deep within can’t even find solace in my sleep.

This grieving and mourning and wailing doesn’t fucking quit.

I wake up with it.

I live my days with it.

I tuck myself in with it at night.

That's when things really get muddy.

As my eyes close and sleep takes over, my subconscious mind continues to rip apart at my tenderness.

Visions not suitable for waking hours.

Abysmal sadness.

So, so deep.  

It’s a wasteland of despair, my dreams.

I’m failing my tenderness.  

Unable to defend it.

Weak to protect it.

Lacking faith that I have any pure tenderness left.

My own truthbomb is this:  My tenderness is broken. 

Which leaves me with one question...

If defending it has failed and it’s broken to bits...

Is there HOPE to HEAL it?

Because luckily I can say...

Somehow, some way my hope is still in tact.

Tara Mazzeo Jackson

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective, 

Curator for Bohemian Living, Owner/Artist of Bungalow Wilde 

and Blogger at Bits & Pieces.

Tara is a lover of yoga, bleeder of words and a bohemian city-kid who has a knack for rescuing stray animals.  

She has a mean case of wanderlust and you’d be hard pressed to find her without these things:

a journal in her bag, a camera in-hand and sun kissed shoulders.

Tara writes from experience, pain, truth, triumph and that place, 

deep down, where the words simmer in emotion.

Grieving 101: The Emotional Marathon

“I can't be running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight.” 

― J.D. Salinger 

But I do.

It's exhausting, really.  It's something along the lines of an emotional marathon.  One that I find myself running every few years, against my will and against my wishes. 

Now, I've never run a real marathon before, however, this emotional marathoning isn't for the weak of heart either, that's for sure!  Each miserable stride burns more than the next breath.  You wonder how the hell you're going to get through this.  All those miles ahead, one thumping foot in front of the other.  Then, something happens along the way and everything quiets down for a moment when you realize... everything has gone numb.  You can't feel a damn thing!  Your reaction:  Hallelujah!  This respite allows you to coast for a spell.  Who cares if you can't feel anything.  Feeling, especially at times like these, is over-fucking-rated. This is your Menthol Mile, baby, and you better enjoy it.  Because slowly and then all at once the burn breaks through again and you'll be leaving a trail of smoke behind you for all the wrong reasons. In time, you'll stop screaming "holy hellfire" and simply accept the flames.  They are, some say, what make you or break you.

I don't know.  Sometimes I think "What the fuck?".  Sometimes I simply can't believe it all and I stand there wonderstruck, in the least magical way possible.  Every so often a wave of peace washes over me and I realize it's all ok, all of it, even the parts that aren't ok, if that makes any sense.

My thoughts ride a wicked pendulum.  They whip from side to side, up and down, from here to there, now to then and back again a million times in the blink of an eye.  Sounds fun, right? Yeah, just about as fun as that clown in Stephen King's "It" (insert shivers here please).  

It turns out my circumstances have demanded that I get good and clear on what I believe in….and I mean what I TRULY believe in.  As in...what is all of this heartbreaking, beautiful, chaotic, exotic, full blown insanity worth in the midst - and in the end - of it all?

My belief system, I've learned, is made up of the following:  Love, the amazing, true kind of love that makes all this shit worth while.  Heaven.  Family.  Life, this one beautiful life.  Friendship.  Forgiveness, regardless of what a battle it is to achieve it.  Impact, the kind you make and the kind that's made on you.  Karma, what you give, you get.  Peace, the sacred hunt for it.   And honesty.

It's my 3rd Emotional Marathon in 8 years.  

Although you'd think I'd be a frontrunner with all this "experience" the truth is, right now, I'm just pacing myself to get to the finish line without shitting my pants.

Tara Mazzeo Jackson

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective, 

Curator for Bohemian Living, Owner/Artist of Bungalow Wilde 

and Blogger at Bits & Pieces.

Tara is a lover of yoga, bleeder of words and a bohemian city-kid who has a knack for rescuing stray animals.  

She has a mean case of wanderlust and you’d be hard pressed to find her without these things:

a journal in her bag, a camera in-hand and sun kissed shoulders.

Tara writes from experience, pain, truth, triumph and that place, 

deep down, where the words simmer in emotion.