Sadness and regret

During the tree planting process this week. a lot of family information was shared with me, mostly in a sad and regretful way.

This building project and the tree planting experience cannot be more of a symbol for transformation and home (putting one's "roots" down, building one's home, etc). Over the past two years many family dynamics have come up that I've had to confront, deal with, synthesize, and help transform. This week was no different, if only a bit more intense because the information was told in confidence, without shouting or yelling but sharing in a different way. A lot more intimate.

Hearing stories about time after time either poor choices made, properties stolen from out from under one, family members also stealing ideas and land, loosing a bid by five minutes or five dollars, always being second runner up never the winner. Never the winner. Never the winner. Hearing story after story about life 35 years ago in the same environment but 35 years later like it was yesterday put me in a listening position but there was nothing I could "do".

I quietly reminded myself in my head that it was 2007 and not 1977. What was I supposed to do?

I felt full and sad and remorseful myself since I listened to those stories in the car. Yesterday I went to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly http://www.thedivingbellandthebutterfly-themovie.com at the Angelika and was confronted again with sadness and regret, this time in cinematic form. The movie was wonderful, beautiful and very sad...of course bringing me to tears during the whole thing. I broke down after the movie, and I think it's because this is the first year I've begun to feel anything deeper than anger and happiness. I feel more now than I ever have before in my whole life, and everything it seems leaves very deep impressions on me.

I'm tired of holding it together for everyone else.

I let it all out after the movie.

I talked my way through it (another first) which was also important because I've been able to communicate more this year than I ever have before in my life. Through my work, through the way I walk down the street, through everything. Many old friends don't even pretend to be interested. I find myself mostly alone. However many newer friends are etching themselves in my life for the long term and for that I am grateful.

I feel propelled by sadness. I know I wrote about that earlier. This unraveling is so informational, and I feel like I'm making up for decades of lost time with my father. Can one keep on making the same mistakes year after year, over a lifetime, before one learns from the mistake, thereby changing one's brain pattern? I will never give up thinking that YES a person can change one's entire life in an instant.