Tag: healing

Gratitude
Reflections

Gratitude

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

It is a truth universally acknowledged that crazy people are going to do crazy things—and the world will always have a surplus of them. They will pour insults like acid on your head; they will drag you in to their endless, self-inflicted drama. They will ask you for a thousand favors and give none. They will squeeze every last drop of pity out of your system and then tell their friends that you’re the vampire when you have nothing left to give to the permanent victim. And when that fails, they will simply switch to a new flavor of crazy. And when you move on from them, they will wait a few months and then chase you down again—or they’ll be gone just as a new one works its way out of new shadows.

The whole world thrums with constant crazy, and you can stew on that injustice as long as you’d like. I spent most of my afternoon simmering with it, and the anger didn’t fix a darn thing. But then I remembered what a man said this morning at church about gratitude, and the equation shifted.

Sure, there’s a time and place to let yourself sit in the anger and sadness and hurt of it all. I don’t mean to deny that. These are complicated puzzles built with complicated clues, and each one takes a good bit of handling to know how to solve. It’s just that at the same time, there’s also this: I have a life I absolutely love.

I crack at least fifty jokes a day and greet 200-some-odd students in the hall. I wear clothes I like, with bright colors and slim fits. My husband is the most interesting person I’ve ever met, and I get to spend hours hanging out with him every day. I go to a church with an epicenter of love and truth. My friends genuinely care about me. My little invisible belly baby is bigger today than the day before. I have food in the kitchen and a smart, smart man who thinks to the future and provides well for us. I have learned to resist workaholism by simply saying “no” instead of slaving away every day after hours, which means that now at the end of the day I come home and rest.

“He fills my life with good things.” Psalm 103:5

Some days, for a handful of minutes at a time, I have to think through a way to wisely respond to crazy people who try to chip away at the person I am and the joy that I carry. Those minutes will most likely always drive me halfway crazy, too—but the trick is that after they’re over, I don’t have to stay there. I have the rest of the day to drink up my beautiful life, the life that I’m building and not the chaos that consumes the crazies. I can give in and let them dictate my emotions for hours on end—or I can close the gate behind me and cultivate my garden, grow flowers and herbs and adventures and art.

My life will be full, and I will fix my gaze on its blessings and zest.

Poetry

Almost Like Closure

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

Just one step closer to closure at a time—
one more court date over,
one less long wait slower—
one more inch along the way
toward happily afters and all better now—

or maybe grief is more a door
that never closes like a lock.
No permanent click,
no absolute end,
no gavel drop of perfect justice
to put the heartache behind bars.

It comes, and it fades,
and you learn to live
with a shadowed nuance
that sits on your shoulders on certain days
more so than others,
finicky like fog.

Over time, you learn to use your headlights
and pull your way carefully down the road,
even inside the densest cloud.
You might drive twenty-five miles an hour
when you have to,
but you never stop, not now.
You have somewhere to go,
goals shining like cities on the maps of your mind,
and you know that the light
always clears up later.

You squint through the grey
and the unanswered questions,
the rage and regret,
memories that won’t settle,

and in spite of it all
your foot hugs the gas.
You keep driving forward,
your heart full of past.

Poetry

What I Do and Do Not Know

Sarah Gooch1 Comment 
I don’t know what gave you
the courage 
to feed your fear so completely,
to let that single moment
turn eternity-permanent. 

Maybe it was the demons
who had caught you with claws
and with shudder, forced your head under
a spell that you couldn’t resist.
Maybe the despair 
said a curse that you couldn’t unhear,
and you believed it,
those lies of never and better off
that your friends never would have 
believed about you, if only you knew.
Maybe you didn’t really mean to—
you were thinking about it,
but you didn’t think that you’d do it,
until your finger slipped too close
to an accident you couldn’t undo.

Or maybe it was just a stupid mistake,
like we all make,
only bigger—
like the fib we find ourselves defending,	
the one drink too many,
the best friend unfriended,
the baby in the belly at too young an age—
you did something stupid
in the heat of a moment,
but unlike us lucky ones,
you picked the one scar
that the years don’t let go of.

I don’t know why
you left me.
I can’t even fathom
what you must have been thinking,

but I can choose what I’m going
to go on thinking about you, 
and it’s not this.
I refuse to frame your face
with a casket;
I will not define you
by your dumbest regret.

I know who you were, friend,
despite what you did once,
and that’s what I hold onto
in the aching wide space that you left.
You’re laughter that crackled
bright songs past my static,
kindness incarnate,
gentlest friend,
and with you, I could stare down
an enemy army
cause you’d have my back
no matter what attack fractured in. 

That bullet? It happened to you, yes,
but it’s not who you were. 

I know your name,
and in my memory,
you’re still shining the same.
Poetry

If You Trace New Constellations, the Stories All Change

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Moonlight drizzles over the eaves
as I stand under stars,
mosquito free

Every secret of the Milky Way unwinds,
unfurled across the sky tonight;
every nebula proclaims its name
in inky haze and cursive light,

and the strangest surprise
is that nothing is biting at my neck
as I incline my soul toward splendor.

I can’t comprehend it;
I’ve lost the language
for beauty sans pain.

I’ve spent my whole life
soldiering through so much blood sacrificed
for every ounce of glory gained—
a hundred mosquito bites per leg—
that I almost want to pull away
from this hint of a gift
with no shadowed price,
the air too comfortable, too calm
for me to trust
this type of bedtime story.

Some say that God’s heart toward me
is all goodness and gladness
rather than suffering.

But I don’t know how to hold that.
I look past the galaxies
into the blackness,
and that’s how I see God:
I squint past the obvious grace,
the neon joy
and the bright splash of planets
to focus on those parts of my past
where I floated in darkness,
lost in the gaps.

Suppose that God
isn’t the one
who sends me mosquitoes.
Suppose He tucks the stars
under my chin like a blanket
and blesses me into bed,
holding His breath
to see if I’ll relax against His chest
and sleep. I was never prepared
for a religion like this.
I’m still tense, but I’m trying
to lean in a little,

to know Him more in
quiet twilights and caramel drinks,
less in duty and grief
and Holocaust war.

Poetry

Velveteen Lady

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

At least I’m honest about it

you say, like it’s a small thing,
a participation prize
that we all know hides
a pitiable case of insufficiency.
You wear honesty
like spit-up staining
the sleeve of your t-shirt,
a little embarrassed
but aware that it’s there.

Sometimes I forget you’re serious,
sincere in missing the obvious—
so let me say it like this:

the truth is all there is,
the universe, the only gold,
the missing link, my trembling soul,
sacred starting place of hope,

but most of the empty hearts I know
will kill and die
to deny its light
because they’re too insecure
to be seen inside.
Yes: the lies end up lethal,
every time,

and if you don’t believe me,
try on friendship with a mannequin
to see if it fits—
tell her your secrets,
cry once or twice,
wrap your arms around her waistline tight
and speak your dreams,
your fears like you think she feels
anything along with you.
Hold her like a lifeboat
as your heart goes under,
gasp your last breath,

and then tell me again
that telling the truth
is a minor accomplishment.

All that we have and all that we are
is the truth,
bloody and human
and lovely and raw,
and it’s all that I want from anyone.

I’m not impressed by the perfect mom,
not holding out for any diva dream,
just hoping to find
any set of eyes
that will actually
look back at me.
I want someone real.
I hold far more respect
for the grueling tests
of courage and humility
than any white-toothed perfection
or college degree,

because I want relationships
more than mere rankings,
which makes safe people
the resource most precious.

I know that you know this,
but you also don’t.
Not enough yet.
If you can’t see
that the greatest gift you could ever offer
is your own bold heart, open and free,

all I can suggest
is that it’s time you learn
to be even more honest,
to finally acknowledge
the treasure you are
|since that, too, is the truth,
in spite of all spit-up,
regardless of flaws.

I have seen nothing in you
worth being ashamed of,
just a woman who climbs mountains
in her sleep
and then wakes unaware
of her heaven-close height.

Poetry

Escape Artist in Training

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

You have to lock the strongest hearts
behind bars sometimes.
Though it isn’t fair—
though it may not be right—

The darkness needs to keep them there,
not because it’s mean,
but because it’s scared
of the buried power and the love-tipped prayers,
the glaring light that might leak wide
on the bleak-eyed shadows
if it let them loose.

But the goodness, too, and the champions
and the angel armies all agree
that it’s best not to break in
and set them free,
not because they’re uncaring,
but because they know
that strong hearts need iron
to help them grow.

They can take the metal,
though it bruises their souls—
they can make it out,
though not alone.
Their fingers, too thin,
will toughen to pry
the ceiling open into sky.

Strong hearts sometimes cry—
but they still come out stronger,
and when pain multiplies,
they just hold out longer.

Sometimes justice turns its head
as they lock an innocent heart away
because mercy remembers
the powerless prisoners,
the weak and the wobbly,
sick and unsteady
who’ve forgotten to fight
every guard that’s in sight,
who need a strong heart’s hand to hold,
need to hear a strong song
blast notes of hope
through the underground empty
and the frozen below.

Great men need prison
and all its compassion,
for strong hearts recall,
and they always come back
to rescue the next heart trapped
in that same old cage,
saying, “I know the way out.
And I will keep you safe.”

Heroes aren’t born;
they grow from the ground.
They’re buried in holes,
and they break their way out.