Self-Abandonment

(Originally written in September, 2023)

I just woke up after a dream.  David and I were taking a chicken bus (Nicaraguan phenomenon), it was night time, it was fully packed with people and lots going on (as always).  At one point, he went to do something in the front, then perhaps there was a rest stop, I lost track of him.  The bus started moving again and soon after, I realized he was no longer on the bus.

It was a feeling of intentional leaving, like he wanted to go.  I had my phone, he didn’t call.  I accepted it. 

Between dreaming and waking up, my rational mind began to creep in..I had the phone, but I realized I had a version of his sim card in my phone, to which he could not call me.  I started to think what if we left him behind.. that he just didn’t make it back in time? My mind did not want to leave him.

I’m fully awake now.  Back into my reality that has still been tough to process.  It has been a month since David left.  I burst into tears.  Of course, this dream makes sense.  He left me, I feel abandoned.  The bus was a symbolical way for my subconscious digestion of this painful event.

I’m uncontrollably crying, just like almost every other day, when will this stop.  I feel bad for myself.  It’s not long until a different realization creeps in..

I left myself long before he ever left me.  

I abandoned myself long before he chose to leave.  

Of course he left.  I would have left too.  I abandoned myself.  I abandoned myself over and over for a whole year.  I didn’t make art, I stopped my morning practice, I wasn’t looking much after my body, I chose not to work through my personal issues that were getting in our way.

He was all I needed, his love fulfilled me, I didn’t want to seek much else.  This got our relationship out of balance quickly.  Looking back, I’m surprised he gave me the chance for as long as he did.

I chose, I chose I chose.  I made many different choices that stood for comfort, for staying small, for blaming things outside of me, even him.  I created this reality.  No one left me, I left myself.

I once again fell into the trap of thinking someone else will complete me, save me.  Amnesia, again.  Relationships are absolutely the place where I do my deepest learning on earth.  Funnily enough, I felt like I really did so much work on myself being single for the 5 years before David and I met.  Relationships are really the place where all of the work is put into practice.

Thank you for this heart-breaking lesson, let this change me, forever.  I won’t leave myself ever again.  I release all illusions of anyone ever saving me or fulfilling me.  Let this painful separation be the antidote to my wound of abandonment.  Let it burn this ancient fear of mine, once and for all.

Mociute

This is my grandmother, Jorune. Today is her birthday. She passed about 9 months ago. Su Gimimo Diena, Mociute.

Her death hit me quite hard and I still don’t think I have fully processed it.

I got to spend 8 months living with her after grandpa passed. It was both a blessing and a challenging time in my life, that was the last time we were together.

I’m grateful to have had that time together and at the same time I wish I could have stayed softer, less reactive, kinder and more patient with her. It was a very testing time..both of us grieving, winter time, the pandemic hitting, being stranded for much longer than I had planned, triggers from my childhood.

My “good girl” archetype finally starting to naturally peel away. I start to rebel. Will I still be loved if I’m not the pleasant, helpful, agreeable girl I have been?

I start doing less, just the minimum to help out, I’m moody, I take my long walks in silence everyday, insomnia, barely any sunlight, so many dark thoughts, I keep walking. I start doing cold plunges in the lake, that helps a little. The winter retreats and the plants start waking up again. Days start getting longer again, light at the end of the tunnel.

This long time spent with my own shadows pushes me to book my first Ayahuasca retreat shortly after, I feel ready to face whatever I need to to liberate myself from my own miserable construct.

I am sorry to have struggled to move past my own issues in these last times we spent together.
Grandma has a seizure some time after I go back to the states, she’s paralyzed and gets hospitalized, where she will spend the last year of her life.  I don’t fly to visit. I barely call.

Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. My heart hurts.

I’m still working through this heaviness in my chest and learning to love the wholeness of who I am - the parts I am not proud of too. Though this heaviness lingers when I think of my grandma, there is so much light, love and joy that fills me when I think of her.

My grandmother stayed soft even after the horrendous curve balls that life threw her as a very small girl. This is one of my favorite photos of her, she is so happy on vacation when her family was still all together.

This is one of my favorite photos of her, she is so happy on vacation when her family was still all together.

Her older brother died around the age of 5 from a misdiagnosis, he had pneumonia that was not treated.  She dedicated her whole life to become a pediatrician and never had a child die throughout her whole career.

During the Soviet occupation in Lithuania when all the intelligentsia were being wiped out, she witnessed her father taken away at gunpoint from his office when she was 5. She later found a photo of his starved face in a record book of a labor camp..the last she saw of him

Her heart health was weak..of course it would be, carrying so much unreleased trauma through time. I wish I could have loved her more. Especially when she needed it most in the end of her life. And at the same time I know that as her granddaughter, I brought a lot of joy to her through my life.

Every time I see a small bird, a little chick, kitten or a flower, I think of her. She was incredibly soft and gentle, she loved feeding and observing the birds at our countryside home. She picked wild flowers and dried them to make so many beautiful flower paintings. Even her voice, a very soft and slightly high pitched sound, matched her vibration.

Her cooking was always my most sought-after comfort food, many times heading to her house straight from the airport to be spoiled with her home-made crepes she served with a creamy butter and sour cream sauce. Still my favorite meal to this day.

My memory of her is light, we have shared so many moments together that I hold very dear to me.  She was funny too. Zirniai byra.

Feeling a lot of love and healing today,  gratitude for the biggest teacher that is death.

See my vlog about my Grandmother here.

first blog post!

Hi,

I’m Diana and most of my life I have put myself under the guise of being shy. I don’t sing on my own (group singing is ok because my voice has a place to get lost), becuse I’m shy. I don’t try theatre in school, even though I am so drawn to it, because I’m shy. I don’t learn DJ’ing, because I am shy, but also because being seen is the most scary thing for me, or so I think. I speak the minimum amounts in classes required (and have horrible anxiety and a shaking voice while doing so), because I’m shy. Heck, I even struggle to share my art in my early adult life, becauce I feel a block.. it says “stay quiet, stay invisible, it is safer this way”.

Being seen and sharing my voice - my biggest scariest things in life. What if being shy is not who I actully am. What if being a shy girsl is the furthest things from what I actually am? What if the part of me that admires actors and singers and people who are completely free to express themselves is the part that is my actual arrow north? Leading me to my deepest desires in this body and in this life. What if being seeing and beeing expressive, the complete opposite of what I lived in the beginning of my life, could be the most healing and freeing and rewarding and exciting thing I could do..ah! A fire in my heart just at the thought of this. There is truth there for me. Truth that I will no longer be able to deny for much longer.

I am looking into online singing lessons already, how about some improv classes and look into public speaking?

What drew me to write this first post was the awkward beginner stage that I am so afraid of. Perfectionism is deeply imbedded and I feel I have no space to make mistakes. I am fearful of others making fun of me, judging me, mocking me.

Sweet Diana, it is ok to not be perfect. In fact, you already are imperfect. In the most perfect way. You are so Loved and Adored.

The beginning will be awkward, it will be scary, but just the beginning. When you expose yourself in these ways over and over, the grasp of the power this fear has had over you will diminish. Soon, you will love it. You will THRIVE in it. You will feel so much wholeness that felt missing for a long time. Because literally a part of you was laying dormant, expelled. “Don’t you dare make a peep, we act in a way that doesn’t draw attention”

Last night I had a dream, of my first childhood home, where I lived with my mo, her parent and her sister. I feel I built an imaginary roof of what I am allowed to be as I grew up there. My mom’s sister was not fond of me, she was roughly 5 years older. I learned quickly to stay small to be liked, hide my light, don’t bother her.

Diana, I am so proud of you for writing this post. Please write more, your writings will inspire others to face their fears too. I Love You.