Real {10000 words or less}.

...."What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit."Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." .....
- The Velveteen Rabbit

I copied this post, this excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit, from another blog that I often read.  It is the blog of a woman, Sheye, that I have never met but one that I feel I have come to know.  She has a beautiful talent for photography (her trade), writing, and mothering.  Her story is a tender one (see Ava's Memorial).  Inspiring.  I appreciate that she is so open and raw with her sentiments, so Real.  Sometimes I feel like she puts into words what so many of us feel but can not say.  What I feel but can not say. What I felt so many years ago when my mom died but all that remains is the numbness.  She says that the biggest offset to paralyzing grief is appreciation, even just a little, for what remains.   The fear of this kind of grief is the reason that I miss my baby Sadi before I even close the door behind me when laying her down at night.  Why I appreciate the heart and the air to breathe so much more than ever before.  

I recently read somewhere,  that sometimes we think the worst in a stressful situation because deep inside we know that the outcome is never what we think it is going to be, therefore if we think the worst case scenario, of course it won't actually be that.  Psychologically this makes sense to me.  In fact, after reading this statement I've noticed that I do this all the time.  When my phone rings abnormally early or late, I assume someone has died.  If Clint is later than expected coming home I fear that he has been in some kind of an accident and nobody knows to contact me.  When Sadi sleeps in longer than normal, I wake in a panic and rush into her room praying that some fluke incident hasn't harmed her in any way.  I'm pretty sure that I am not the only one out there like this.  Paranoid.  But what about Sheye, who lived out her worst nightmare?  Did she make bad, scary assumptions when her little girl didn't come straight home?  I don't know.  

Such life changing, person changing events, make us who we are at present.  They make us Real.  And even if it isn't light reading, so do our thought processes.  However limited by built up walls that seem insurmountable.  Perhaps the reason her words in particular strike such a cord with me is because I know that I must have felt such grief.  Such loss.  I just can't remember.  The wound was never properly treated and although the flesh has been sealed, a scar remains.  I just can't remember.  I know that my mom's mom, having lost a child, feels what Sheye feels.  I've seen it in her eyes.  What I do feel is a heavy weight of "immeasurable missing".  

I've been debating for a long time whether or not I should publish this post.  These kind of profound  emotions don't flow from my heart very often. In fact I don't know what has gotten into me.  It almost seems too personal.  But, years of suppression have left me desperately longing to express myself more openly.  More honestly.  To be in touch with the Real me.  So here it is. The bad, the bleak, the indifferent.  "It is what it is."  Hopefully as I continue to blog about the good, the great, the beautiful, I will also find the capacity to be Real.