Trust
Returning to my body after losing my son is a journey unto itself. It's not that I left my body-- in many ways, I inhabit it more deeply since his death, yet connecting to pleasure while tending heartbreak is wildly unfamiliar and uncomfortable. What used to be the most exquisite, natural, and easy connection with Amy... sexuality being a place of solace and celebration for us... has been clouded by the stress of owning a business together and navigating a year of tremendous loss. For me, being fully in my body means feeling it all, the pleasure, the pain, the ways I'm present, the ways I distract, or am afraid or tighten up. I would love nothing more than to lose myself in my lover's arms, sing praises to the heavens, and fall back in relief and release. But what happens instead is that grief surges up and out, exhausting me.
....
Feeling deeply means feeling it all, and sorrow is at the surface, sorrow is a veil between us and woven into our skin, sorrow binds us together. I don't even know if my body still works-- am I capable of feeling pleasure anymore? The well of grief seems to refill itself over and over and that, in and of itself, makes me feel helpless. Does crying it out make a difference? I've read of couples that make love several weeks after losing a child and I can't fathom it. It's been almost three months and I still feel abandoned by my sensuality. No, not abandoned exactly... I'm not sure what to call it. Distant from it. Out of touch. Afraid I will feel my loss even more than I already have. And yet I miss my wife, I miss the physical ways we have comforted each other and it's time to find a new expression of passion-- to walk through the flames to something different than we had before. I want it to be deeper, more intimate, raw and juicy. I have to be willing to enter this wilderness, like my entire life right now, with the eyes of a pilgrim and the heart of a soul seeking student. I'm uncertain. I'm weary. I have tendrils of hope draped around my shoulders giving me succor, the alchemy of pleasure and sorrow.
