Never in my life have I had such a year of steeping in the greys, the raw education of a feckless world given faces to in the children I kneel with and run to and hold and hear howl against the indignity of having no say in how they have come to be with me.
The first months were filled with shared tears and rage and desperate wanting. Wanting to absorb, to understand, to fix, to heal, to wreak vengeance for each one. The color ran high in my face, a constant sweep of crimson across my neck and chest when I wanted to spill every blackened thought and desire and flood the world with my fury.
But that place it isn’t a sustainable place to stay. There is no air to breathe there. There is no place to rest there. It is only meant to be a pathway.I had a conscious choice to make. I asked myself what gifts beyond passion could I draw on as a companion through this place?
I found that my greatest strength lay in a gentle heart. This heart that wants more than anything else to absorb and to heal knowing exactly what hell is, I’ve been there. I’ve been to some of its rooms and bled my way through them again and again. This heart chose a path to a gentling, to neutral moments where it could expand and contract and expand again.
I could have stayed inside of the fire and burned along with the ones I held, or I could walk into the fire, kneel, hold, feel my whole self blister in these moments and then walk with each child through this one fire, past the cooling of the ashes, show them where to find those places inside to look for water, for nourishment, for places to rest the mind. Places to breathe between the storms.
We picture colorful rainbows after storms. The truth is closer to grey. Grey is a neutral place where other colors mix and splash and subside. I love colors, vibrant and bold and enervating. My clothes are riots of bright pallets. My home is painted in passionate hues and intense pigments, but though I cloak myself in rainbows, inside I am greyness and stillness and peace.
closertocrazy 
❤ ❤ ❤
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