The Little Note That Could

I ran across a few of my journals, digging through boxes in the garage tonight. They were all there - over twenty or thirty books, I would imagine. But the ones that popped out tonight went back to the years between 2005-2007. I would have been 29 years old in 2005. I vaguely remember each book and the times recorded within until I leaf through the pages a bit. This book opens with a fortune from a fortune cookie on the very first page, which reads: "Someone who deserves special attention awaits your magic voice." Hmm... seems like a good enough start.

The very next page, my first official entry, is dated November 1, 2005. All Saints' Day. An auspicious time. I wrote a poem to set the mood...

"It's going to be a long,

cold winter...

and so I have re-lit the fire

of my own spirit ~

indeed, of my life ~

and must depend on her

alone

to keep me safe and warm.

I have not wanted to do this.

I have searched for another

searched many others

to provide for me this sanctity, and nurturing.

Alas,

none can do this but me.

And so I pick up the thread again ~

the thread which is the fabric of my life ~

alone, in darkness. My self.

I've spent too long in the Underworld already,

but the box of beauty must be close now,

closer than it's ever been.

I am on the right road ~

my path, at last.

Now, where is that Persephone hiding?..."

It struck me to read this and register this particular moment in my life. I know exactly from this one entry what lies in my own writing on the pages to come. This was a particularly bad year. This was after a most traumatic ending of a relationship I refused to part ways with. This was me after having a nervous breakdown and being hospitalized. This was me at 95 pounds.

As I turn the page, I see the next entry is a two-page letter to one of my favorite goddesses, Psyche. A petition for her benevolent guidance and aid, knowing that of all my favorite deities, She would surely empathize with my situation. For She, too, was the youngest of three daughters, abandoned by Her parents, left alone, waiting to be saved by another. I don't read the entry... I know the story, both stories - Hers and mine - all too well. I keep flipping pages.

Words pass by quickly: "Empty, so empty;" "high anxiety in my belly;" "eyes wide open, yet heart as dumb as a fool; "And yet, I settle. Again." Oof! It's funny how even five years later, just the little quips can make me shudder, remembering a pain unparalleled to anything I've ever experienced before or since. Even the pain of death of my beloved father was so different from this - this was sickness. Mental, emotional, spiritual rot. I shake my head in mixed shame and sympathy.

As I keep flipping, I suddenly come to a page with no writing, but two more fortunes, and a curious note. The first fortune reads: "Be what you wish others to become." The second: "A thrilling time is in your immediate future." The note, which is scrawled in a man's writing on a small, torn piece of paper, says: "Know in your heart that you are loved more than you can imagine."

Very curious, for I can't seem to place where it came from. I start to dig back a few pages, and see that I was visiting my best friend in New York at that time. Actually, I had been sent there by the man I loved - he wanted me at a safe distance, she wanted to fatten me up. For two weeks, I stayed in her home, only venturing to go outside a mere few times. I laid near her fireplace while she worked during the day, coloring mandalas, and grieving. At night, she kept putting food in front of my face, trying to make me eat, to smile, to sing, to write, to just be in her loving energy. Yes, I remember that trip. And, now, I think I remember the note too...

It was one of my last nights there, and she persuaded me to go to a nearby bar with some of her friends. I reluctantly agreed. It did feel good to get out of the house, and her friends (who all knew that I was in a bad way) were all so kind, and warm and comfortable. While we had some drinks, we took notice of some local college boys nearby - cute boys, for the most part - who, for some, as of yet, unknown reason, were wearing the most hideous, gaudy Christmas sweaters you could imagine. I mean full on. I can't remember if they were Jingle Bells or Rudolphs or what, but as soon as we noticed, we couldn't take our eyes off of them! For the first time in weeks or months, I was laughing my ass off.

I sent them a note, grade-school style, that read something like, "Dear young men, You are both very handsome and pleasant to look at, but I must INSIST you remove those hideous sweaters at once! Thank you." The boys in return got a huge kick out of the note, and we all had such a good laugh over the incident. It was turning out to be a pretty good night at the end of a pretty tough year.

Before we left, one of my new friends gave me this small piece of paper, and said that someone unknown wanted me to have it. It was the note. "Know in your heart that you are loved more than you can imagine." Just like that, out of nowhere. I'm struggling to remember if my friends maybe knew the guy who wrote it... I can't recall. But in receiving it, and at that moment when the black cloud of my thinking had surprisingly lifted in playful reverie, I really RECEIVED it.

I remember looking at that note, thinking about it before I went to sleep and when I would awaken for many days after. I taped it into my journal. It resounded a deeper truth, a deeper voice from within me that I had all but blocked out in my recent grief and despair. It was the voice of my spirit. It was the voice of my best friend. It was the voice of the Goddess... It was the voice of a stranger who in a span of a few hours was able to see something in me that I had spent months never hoping to again believe.

I love my journals, just as I love my life. The good and the bad. The painful and the blissful. I love that I tuck these keepsakes into them that are completely forgotten and need effort to remember again. I think about the last five years, and all the other losses and grief I've endured, to find myself here - really happy, and optimistic, and full of life and love for myself and those around me. I'm in a completely different place, thank God, than I was back then.

I think, too, about the people I see who are in that dark hole. People who are struggling. People who are addicted. People who are asking or not asking for help. I think about that one little anonymous note, and what it meant to me then, and in remembering it now.

I think I need to start writing my own little notes.