the gift i kindly return to the heavens

i woke up so early again. with the pounding realization that nothing will be the same. that the wait is over. and i am afraid of this new beginning. maybe because i don't quite trust myself yet. i named this picture "the gift i was born with" which was sadness. when i arrived here my mother was in mourning for her father who had died during her pregnancy. she had almost lost me when he died. so i came to earth screaming. screaming for two years uninterruptedly and after that i kept waking from nightmares that scared me to bits so i would seek refuge in my mother's arms.
it is a family legacy. my greatgrandfather drank himself to death, or did he shoot himself in the head? or both, for better measure. grandfather too was a moper. mother loved to sit in the dark listening to bachian chorals. father has been saying that it's "almost over" for decades. but who says i cannot leave them to their destinies?
i was afraid i would always have to be sad. that this weight would just forever rest upon my shoulders. i traveled far to escape this weight but i took it with me where ever i went. after i took this picture i thought about it. that i really don't want this heaviness anymore. my escape mechanism had already set in again. i want to move back to france, i cried to my sister. when she asked me why, it was the lightness, i answered. here, everything is so difficult, so heavy ( in german it is the same word "schwer"). but it isn't the place that makes it heavy. it is up to me to let it go. where do i want it to go, she asked. up to heaven, i said, but it has to go in a rocket cause otherwise it will come crashing down on me again. i will thank it for all the good it has done for me. but that i am ready to be light. even in the place where it all began...
yet i want to distinguish between this heaviness and sadness. because while it is so painful to feel loss, i know that i wouldn't experience this if i hadn't also lived through extreme joy and happiness. i would never want to miss these memories. i never want to miss this in the future. feelings come and go, but love remains a constant. as does this heaviness. so one can decide to release these constants. love? never. but remember the book "the unbearable lightness of being"? heaviness becomes such a friend that lightness appears unbearable. we get used to the burdens we carry since childhood. worst are the ones that we are not even aware of. for me it has been fear. i have forever assumed that i was fearless. but my wish to care for others has been me running scared, a distraction from facing me and my demons. i am still looking for that place of safety in my mother's bed. a bed gone cold long ago. i need to begin feeling safe in my own bed, finding strength within myself. and begin to insist on being me.