Carve Out Your Sorrows
on witnessing the depth of your own trauma and learning to release it, or not
My effort to create writings on this publication has been a saga.
Looked at in whole, it’s quite a story I’ve told.
For better and worse, it’s all been true to my feelings and experiences.
I’ve written every one of these pieces directly from my heart. From the burning things I’ve needed to say.
Despite the monotony of my grief, and how sad it may seem for me to still be writing about the same sorrows after all this time. My feelings have been nuanced; layered. So much hidden beneath hurt.
The stories of my life, which I’ve been called to reflect upon in these works, have shown me things about myself I hadn’t seen. Clarified much. A lot of which I wish weren’t so.
I’m not a simple girl.
There’s a long history of trauma I carry within me. A past of grief that had long gone unacknowledged.
Somehow, I’d made myself out to be be a victim of circumstance, lamenting my life’s station, while still leaving so much of my true suffering unseen.
What I’ve learned through all this, is that to truly see your trauma and grief — to witness it plain — means to meet it with ownership of your own complicity.
Through this honest accounting, I’ve been able to see what’s mine to own, and what’s been laid upon me by fate and others. Gifting me an ability to forgive myself for my many failures. Even those darkest ones.
I’m feeling a stage of my writing come to an end.
Looking back at the first essays I wrote, until now, it’s staggering how my use of language has sharpened. How clear my voice is in comparison. It’s also easy for me to see the personal growth and accountability these writings have brought into my life.
I’ve said many times — something true — these writings have, by-and-large, come through me rather than from me. At least, not from my conscious mind.
So often, I write poems that flow entirely from within or beyond or whatever. And I hate how much they hurt.
My most common personal statement when writing poetry is, “Oh, that sucks!”
Not disparaging the quality of my writing, but lamenting the heartache these words, which have streamed straight from my subconscious, elicit in my own feelings.
In all honesty, I’ve grown to lean into it, even through the tears.
There have been a lot of big-time heart-ouchies, on my end, writing and reading the words which have streamed through me here. Yet, they’ve been so incredibly healing to feel.
I’ve felt as if I’m scraping out the grief which had worked it’s way into the cracks of my soul.
This publication existed for a long time without intention, other than a general sense I’d like to begin writing again, and thinking it could be an expansion of the meditation works I’d created.
Moving through last Fall, things changed. This new writing began to come through, and it was… different.
It’s all been to someone.
It’s probably concerned some of you. It certainly has me, at times. I’m sure if they ever read any of this, it’s concerned them too.
Obsessive is a word that comes to mind.
Lately, surprised to still have more to write about this dork-cheese. I’ve been flummoxed.
Like, does this ever stop?
Despite concern for myself perpetuating hurt beyond need by going in cycles. And a genuine desire to disengage with this person energetically, to honor their own wishes, I’ve found forgiveness and understanding for myself continuing to write about them in the healing it’s wrought.
Long have I explained the feeling I have with them now, as a shared wound I cannot heal alone, which I’d want nothing more to do, but need assistance from the other party involved.
I’ve prayed hard to find a way to release it all on my own, to heal in their absence. Without the hug I’ve felt I needed the whole time. The chance to speak and see them, at least once more.
I now believe this work has been the answer to that prayer.
I’ve Had a Lot to Say
It’s hard to explain, truly.
But even when I was friends with this person I write to so often, I had the strongest urge to tell them fucking everything.
There was absolutely not space for that in our relationship. So often, they were unconcerned with what I had to say.
Despite my own adoration of this person. I felt like they didn’t fully see me. That they weren’t really interested in getting to know me, most of the time.
I’d thought it a symptom of their genuinely overwhelming life. The absurd amount of stress they navigate daily. Because there were times, brief windows, when it was different. Where they did show they cared. Where I could feel their love, or whatever they would call it.
All of this to say, I’d wanted to tell them so many things which I’d never had the chance to.
I literally kept a running list of subjects I’d wanted to find the time to talk with them about jotted down.
There was a sense with them, which was absurd, where I wanted so badly for them to understand me. To see me, to know me.
I just had that — I want to show you all my favorite TV shows and watch all yours, hear every stupid thing about your life, and post up on the couch next to you forever — kind of vibe towards them.
The amount of things I explained to them in my head was unreal. I talked to them when they weren’t around, internally, more than I’d ever done with a person before.
It was when I heard myself having the same internal conversations over-again, that I started writing down the notes. Like, damn, I really want to tell them that.
By the time the relationship fell apart, the amount of things I’d wanted to tell them was gigantic. I’d stopped writing it all down. The list just got too long.
Through all the bullshit and misunderstanding of our falling apart as friends. That need to be seen, to be heard by them, caused the hurt which felt most traumatic to me.
I didn’t feel understood. They’d been triggered by my coming clean about my love for them. And rightfully so, it had been a betrayal.
Yet, the way I’d gotten there had been such a fated thing. Had been such a consequence of both our actions. Not some simple and stupid story of a girl who let her heart get away from her.
It went back to when I was a kid. It was intertwined with my whole life. Of all the things I’d felt with them. It was deep as fuck. It was complicated. And I wanted to explain it so badly.
I just felt like I needed to heal with them.
Those conversations in my head got out of hand after they weren’t my friend. I’d just gone around and around explaining myself. Saying things I really, really wanted to tell them about how I’d been navigating such complicated feelings.
Each one of these internal conversations was something I’d not explained, often something their own words had made feel particularly unseen. Perceived misunderstandings about the way we’d fallen out — about my intentions.
I recognized this, seeing the wellspring of shit burning to be said within me, and started a journal. It was letters to them, but for me, the untold story of everything I’d felt the strange need to say.
My thought was that I could say it in a bubble — in Microsoft OneNote — here and there when I was feeling extra sad, and get it all out. Even if just for me. That maybe one day, if fate had it in the cards for us to know each other again, I might share it with them.
But it was so intense. It was not just about missing a friend.
That was a whole mountain of the hurt in itself, for sure. Some of those many layers I mentioned. Because their friendship had simultaneously and somehow meant more than the romantic feelings I had for them. Which were, in themselves, life-altering.
Atop all that, there had been a ridiculous amount of things from before I’d still wanted to explain too. Things I’d seen in dreams, visions. Esoteric remembrances of them, from out-of-time, when I was kid.
Those didn’t feel like things I would share with someone who came back into my life as a friend.
Out of nowhere, in late August, I get this strong intuition to delete it.
It was never something I had planned on sending. It had been just for me. But I got one of my crystal clear insights. It was telling me with emphasis.
Delete this.
I thought it was about releasing attachment. Cutting chords.
Now I see.
I’ve written it all here in different forms. And frankly, so much more. Including things I’d wanted to tell them way back when, but forgotten under the hurt, only to uncover in this process.
Finding a way to turn all I’d left unsaid to this person, and heard echoing through my mind, into a strange kind of art. Seeing it heal me. Un-corking my voice through the process. Honing a craft. Finding myself within the work.
Even still, in their absence, through all the grief I carry from the loss of them in my life — this person continues to be who they always were for me — one who shows me who I am.
There’s one other important difference about this writing, compared to the very incomplete, and sporadically updated journal I’d been writing to them. And I’m finding it now to be the most import one.
I needed there to be a chance they might see it one day.
Just saying it in that journal wasn’t working. Especially knowing I would never send it. My heart needed to find hope that these many things I’d always felt so called to say to this person, could potentially reach home.
Again, this wasn’t the plan when I started writing here. I’d had words burning to be written and just got out of the way. Only within the process, had it become apparent to me was happening.
Admittedly, pretty quickly.
The poetry and many of the essays have been pointed, to say the least.
After the first few poems, when it kept being about them, I was like.
Oh, apparently we’re doing this now.
To say the thought of whether they’ve found any of this is a question I’ve been pondering, is a fair understatement.
So many times I’ve felt emotional impressions and seen strange Substack statistics which make me think they’re already reading on occasion.
It’s fueled the writing, that possibility. And earlier in the process, my own anxiety. Triggering great bouts of sadness from the hope and continued disappointment.
If you have been reading. Please know — it’s okay — I’d certainly prefer that to be the case, and I understand why you wouldn’t reach out. This has been wild.
Recently, I’ve felt a sense of completion to this work.
It was my essay, ‘Touch’. Afterwards, the work felt done in some sense. At least, that it had reached a crescendo on topics of personal trauma so centered around my journey intertwining with this person.
I’ve now explained the bold majority of things I’d always wanted to. The things I felt would help them understand why it is I did what I did. Why I felt how I felt. All I’d seen.
That I wasn’t just some naive girl being stupid. And that even if they don’t feel it back, they really are something special to my life.
My deepest desire is to be forgiven for loving them so. To be given a hug.
Without any potential avenue to be heard, I’d felt like I was drowning.
It was intuitive guidance which led me to do all this. And I hadn’t fully realized why, until now. I’d just been trusting my way through it.
My heart’s been pointing me plainly along every step.
Will It Die?
I don’t know if this will end just because I feel things winding down.
One thing I know, is that I’ve found all writings I’ve attempted to do without them in mind lacking.
My voice is found in writing to them, specifically.
Even if the trauma is spoken for — my story told. The chance born to heal through this public plea to be heard. I’ll still be writing to them in my heart, no matter the subject.
I had a relationship recently that went south fast. I should have known it wasn’t for me, when a few weeks in I found my voice drying up, sounding less like myself.
It was writing to this lost person where I’d begun to hear my clearest voice. A discovery both intangible and distinctive.
Still, this person will not always be on my mind the way they have been as I’ve gone through this writing.
The time is coming where this grief will be spoken, even if it’s not going anywhere. Even if that shit lives within me.
I have an unhealed wound that aches. I'm gonna have sad poems coming out about that butt-nozzle forever.
They will be woven into my fiction, whenever I need to conjure thoughts of adoration, descriptions of beauty, explanations of love, hurt, longing, heart-ache, ecstasy, and moments of purest presence.
But I deserve freedom from elongating my pain beyond what’s necessary.
I deserve to move on somehow.
If they never reach out to me some fateful day, I need that to be okay.
Their ghost will always be with me in some way.
I honestly wouldn’t know what to do without them — this ghost. They’re my writing partner.
They’re the one who’s empowered me to know it’s okay I do this.
It’s the impressions I have of this ghost — who feels how I’d imagine their higher-self would — which has shown me how to forgive myself.
It’s the ghost I now write to and with and for.
Not her. Not the person. Not anymore.
