Opening Up

“Every wall is a door.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson



I feel a little sad this week. I failed. I failed to complete one of the most challenging and fun writing event in my life. NaNo was on and I had the best of intentions to complete my writing this year of 50K words in 30 days as I have in years past. However, something was amiss. I didn’t feel the words this year.

The week before NaNo was to begin; I developed some pain in my left leg. I have always had the worst legs, legs that bulge with varicose veins and unsightly spider veins that have me under cover most of the year. I have also had some pain in my legs due to the condition. This pain was a new pain, one that would not go away and caused my leg to swell. Then an ugly red swelling appeared and I felt panic rise in me.

After a few sleepless nights and an ache so bad that merely pulling on clothing made me wince, I called the doctor. Two doctors, two ultra sounds, three days of prodding, poking and scaring me, I was diagnosed with Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). I was whirling in a world the unknown, gripped with fear at the memory of my step father having a blood clot in his leg and a year later died from an embolism in his heart.

The whole three day experience is mind throbbing. Although the medical staff I came into contact with was very comforting and kind, I was suddenly thrust into the sea of unknown without a life raft. Words meant nothing to me, came out garbled, hearing loss as medical people told me what to expect and what was planned.

When you are in a state of fear and shock, you hear little. Your mind is so busy racing ahead of the things you have heard, read, experienced first-hand and you feel you are in a surreal environment.

My mind was blocked of words, of writing words as the fear and worry enveloped me. Creativity flew right out the window and as hard as I tried to focus on writing, I could not feel the words. To a writer, or want to be writer such as myself, that is a horrible loss.

Every November, I look forward to National Writing Month; it forces me to do something I never make time for, writing. I tell my family to not expect me home as I pound the computer keys, scratch words on envelopes, fill notebooks and write in frenzy. I love the feeling of this deadline and the comfort of knowing all around the world millions like me who love to write are spending sleepless nights spinning yarns of stories.

I was stuck; the words caught in my heart and refused to dislodge themselves. I wrote about my fear, my blood clot who I am truly thinking of naming, and my long dead mother who I suddenly wished were here. I imagined a scene between her and me as we buried the hatchet of long ago and talked. I didn’t get far, I couldn’t get far. She died long ago and to imagine her back in my life forced me to think of death.

I reached 25,000 words and stopped. I felt like I was standing alone in a desert, facing the wind as it blew sand in my eyes blinding me. I turned to the right, and then to the left, but could see no distinct path, had no idea which way to go. So, I stood still. I took a deep breath, relaxed my over tense shoulders and began to do what I should have done before. I prayed. I poured my heart out to my Lord and Father and prayed. I let it go.

Letting go is never easy for me, I am like a dog chewing a bone and will endless battle for the last bit of it. I hate quitting; I am not good at failure. I have failed. I felt a loss, as deep as the calendar pages flipped by, drawing closer to the end of November and I still had not written past 25K. When the 30th came, I felt the sting of tears fall with the loss of not completing my adventure.

Yet through it all, I felt the comfort from God that it was okay, that I was okay and that letting go was needed. It is alright to not always move ahead to places in our life that just don’t fit in the now. I knew that my story was not right, that the words felt stuck and lacked the passion of years past, so I waved the white flag and just let go. As the tug of war between self and writing ended, I felt at peace. I was still sad on the 30th of November, I still cried and grieved the loss, felt a twinge of defeat, but was okay, I am okay.

God taught me a lesson, and like the lump of clay I am, I let him work in me. For the first time in two weeks I am writing this, I am pouring my heart out on a blog and allowing the process to begin. I am healing both in my leg and in my heart. I am learning, bit by tiny bit to let go of what is not needed in this moment.

I had hit a wall. I looked at it in just that way at first; I had hit a wall and could not move forward. Then God took my hand and lead me down the wall and to the door. All I had to do was walk through it.

I am not sure what all He has planned for me, not sure where my writing will begin or end. I am not even sure what my health will look like in a year. I do know that I am okay. I do know all I need is right here in front of me and God walks beside me.

So slowly I grab the handle of the door and ready myself to walk through.



Teresa Gale

December 2, 2010