Having Some Feelings

Ok, I am starting to feel like a leper. Each time I go down to the US border with the desire to “do the right thing” and get myself a TN-1 Visa, well, I get denied. Trice in a row. With all the exact same paper work as others who do get through (except for I hauled my two large, framed degrees, and since the others went onto a plane, I suspect they did not do that) with the very same lawyer crafted documents, and for the love of Jesus, I even drove all the way out to Cloverdale so I could go to crossing that has “nice” guards. ARRRRGGGGGHHHHH! It is cold comfort as people try to console me with “why would you want to go to the States anyway”.

It is a funny moment that one where you go up there and chat with the border guard. It is one of those “it’s all you” moments, even if you bring a friend, it is about you saying the right or wrong thing, looking the right or wrong way. You can’t have a little huddle with your friend and come up with the cunning answer, you can’t check your cheat sheet so you know what they are looking for. It is a make or brake situation, and it is a bit lonely. It is a task that no one can do for you. I suspect there is a range of such tasks. Where the primary feeling is fear, with liberal doses of uncertainty. That even if someone comes with you, supports you, loves you up while you are doing the hard thing, well, it still all comes down to you. I am betting childbirth is like this. And I know chemotherapy is like this. Even with two loving, caring, supportive dear friends and a nurse that rocks the house, it is my vein they put the needle into, my blood that gets diluted (and perhaps deluded). My fear, by body, my life. So somehow there always comes across me a piercing ache that I can only assume is loneliness – it is as if I fully realize that I have to face the world alone on this one.

And I think that is the real point, and learning, that it is not so much the about the task that needs to be done, as the feeling it brings up, and then the attitude we approach that with. I mean lets face it; it is not like we don’t do the thing just because we have the feeling, right? Lots of babies get born in spite of what must be a great deal of anxiety and pain. But here is the thing, I want there to be room to have the feeling even though the task will get done. Space for the process as well as the outcome. Would birth be as miraculous if we could do it as easily as sneezing? (I am sure I have a few mother friends right now who are saying, “You better believe it would be!! Give me a sneeze any day.” – which could result in even more over population, I might point out). So I guess I am saying yes, and yay, to the feelings. In fact it is my feelings and letting myself fully experience them that is the source of my centered power, and sense of connection, to myself, to other and to my source. So what does the weathervane read on my feelings today? Quite pissed off and still some jet lag leftovers on the loneliness.

Where are you at? And how much voice are you giving it?