My Thoughts About Grief

 If you know anything about psychology, you probably heard multiple times about the 7 stages of grief:

• Shock and denial.
• Pain and guilt. 
• Anger and bargaining. 
• Depression. 
• The upward turn. 
• Reconstruction and working through. 
• Acceptance and hope.

I'm someone who the experts say is in constant survival mode.  One will track my childhood and try to pinpoint it but can't.  Even as a little kid, psychology and what makes people tick has always been my favorite fascination.  I took Psych in high school twice, as a sophomore and as a senior.  I almost wasn't allowed, but I convinced the principle to let me because they were both taught by 2 very different teachers, and I wrote a paper on the differences in teaching styles and what was different about the same subject being taught by two different teachers.  Of course I lost all of my old papers when my basement flooded 6 years ago. I could have made a killing putting it in my book. 

What nothing prepared me for during my young and full of hope, still in high school brain, was that I would be dancing around the mulberry bush all fucking day long for twenty years.  Even back then, we filled out a test in class that was a scale of anxiety  and it had seemly simple every day things like "change jobs", "losing a family member", and it said on there that a score of 80 was high and it indicated that a person was having a hard time and experiencing anxiety.  My score:  320.  I was 17.  I remember because I laminated it.  I like to joke that my life is a dumpster fire that's been sucked into a tornado, but lately it's not such a joke.  It's happening.  And I continue to willingly drown myself in the ocean for those who wouldn't steer me clear of a parking lot puddle.  

I have been finding myself experiencing loads of grief since I was a small child.  My parents were teens and I grew up nurturing and caring for my family.  I am an empath and sometimes I hate it so very much.  I remember constantly being worried about making sure that everything was perfect; at my grandparent's parties - was everyone having a good time, did anyone need anything?  Did I look cute enough to get attention from everyone?  Did I smile enough?  I have become very conscientious about how much of a people pleasing pain in the ass I was and have made huge steps to stop, but every once in awhile (at least once a day) I get sucked right back in to caregiver mode.  

I remember when I was 5 and my grandfather died unexpectedly.  He had a fatal heart attack while sitting on a bar stool at the local watering hole.  At 12 when my great grandmother died, my dad wouldn't let me go to the funeral.  He said that graveyards aren't a place for children and I was so mad, I loved her too and I wanted to celebrate her life - knowing what I know now about the spiritual world, I agree to a certain extent.  When I was 18, my great grandfather passed.  Then the daughter of my mom's friend died in her sleep and she was only a couple of years older than me.  I have experience so much loss that I could go on forever.  Most recently, my great grandfather a month ago.  I didn't cry about his passing.  I cry because he was 11 years younger than my Nana.  They met when she already had grown kids and he loved her until the end.  She died when my son was about 2.  Growing up, the adults in my life treated children as though they were not to be sucked into the grief of adults.  To a degree, I do agree with, however there is a certain beauty in being honest about how you're feeling.  That it's okay to be sad and miss a person no longer with us.  To celebrate their life and continue to learn about who they were when they're gone.  I was a baby.  I saw all these adults that I love crying and grieving, but I didn't feel like it was okay for me to do that because it was something that only the grown ups could do. I wasn't given an opportunity to talk to anyone about it.  When my aunts left home, one to go to Florida, and the other off to college in Pennsylvania, I missed them, and I was full of grief about the huge change to my life, and I was never allowed to talk about it.  

I just needed someone to tell me that it was ok to stop and feel something.  One of the biggest fights that I have with people is how I'm too much of a robot.  But I'm not.  I just look at things realistically.  I guess I don't cry enough or carry on enough for some people, but what they don't know is that I do.  I just do it privately.  Alone.

I think the hardest losses I've had to process were when they were everything that everyone has:  A perfect relationship, successful kids, and friends and all the things that seem to come naturally.  But they don't come naturally to me.  I have to fight every step of the way to have the bare minimum of everything.

I wish someone would have told me a long time ago "Grief is your new rollercoaster.  It will spin and drop you all over the place many times when you aren't prepared for that moment.  But like a rollercoaster, you have to ride it, and it's easiest when you go in the direction it's already taking you".  Translated:  grief is a bitch that will never go away.  Sometimes the emotions will hit you out of nowhere, and it's vital for healing to let yourself feel emotion.  Coping isn't even an option, fighting for survival is all you will know.

Also translated:  You can't make a vase out of a grenade.

Point being: growing up in my family, trauma, grief and anything in between were things to smoosh down like an ant at a picnic.  Enter left curtain: Me.  And I can't shake the feeling that I have spent my life surrounded by a bunch of assholes standing in the middle of an Italian restaurant eating spaghetti and wishing it was Chinese.  At some point in my life I had confused being kind and compassionate with feeling obligated to give more than I could spare.  I confused being understanding of people's circumstances with excusing their lack of respect. The gifts I would bring became an expectation.  The privileges I granted were confused as their right.  But I'm not confused anymore.  

It's no secret that I've been my children's only parent. They are now the same age I was when I was going through the hardest times of my life, and being forced to figure it out entirely on my own for the first time. When I turned 18 in February of my senior year, my mom told me to come get my stuff and had me start living with my aunt full-time because she needed a babysitter. I had my daughter a month before I turned 20.  My daughter is 3 months away from being 21, and up until six months ago, I thought that she was never going to be able to leave. She has some disabilities and isn't on the same level of her peers.  There has always been all the bargaining in the world, hoping and praying that she would reach the same level of her peers, crashing into the pits of grief at the acceptance that it may not happen for another 10 years. Sometimes there's a glimmer of hope, only to have the air sucked right out of the bubble that I hoped I'd be able to wrap around her.  The world looks like an entirely different place from the perspective of a mom trying to help her child wrangle the special hell that is being seen as "other".  The sting that come with your child not being invited to birthday parties and having friends.  The constant advocating, meetings, emails, appointments, exhausting.  The feeling of all the air leaving the room when she cooked dinner but forgot the pot holder in the oven with it still on;  realizing that she is never going to be able to live on her own.  Even when I feel like I'm drowning standing up, I don't know how to do anything other than fight, for all of it.  I see my peers with great relationships with their family and a ton of friends and I feel so lonely.  Whether single parenthood has caused me to self-isolate or if I'm excluded on purpose, I have had to wake up and rally every single day by myself.  It's just easier to stay away.  I'm so tired of hurting.  Social media is just the sad reminder of how alone I am.  When my sister was up in July for the first time in four years, I couldn't process so much.  My nephew was 9 months old and I was just meeting him for the first time despite repeated attempts on my part to come visit - only to be told "not now", but there were pictures all over the place of everyone else getting to meet him.  My entire life, I've looked forward to being an aunt.  My brothers live in the same town as me, one two miles down the road and the other fifteen minutes away.  And that whole week, I was finally able to get to do that.  And every single night, I cried myself to sleep knowing that it's most likely never going to happen again.  Most recently, I got to see my entire family getting together at my grandparents house for a BBQ/bonfire to celebrate my grandfather's birthday and see my brother off on his expected deployment - and not a single one of them invited me or my son.  Rather than make a big thing of it, I unfriended every single one of them.  It was easier to admit defeat and accept that I'm not going to have the life that I have longed for;  to just quietly go away.  None of them have said anything to me.  They most likely don't even care that I'm gone.  

Rather than being able to be excited to help them through these milestones, because there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that I would ever allow my children to be put through what I've been through, if I really let myself sit in it for a minute, I am swallowed by a black hole of sad.  I freeze even trying to help them.  Most recently, my son wanted to apply for college and he was so mad at me that I didn't even know where to begin.  There are so many things that nobody taught me that I have been stuck figuring out on my own, and I am so sad because I want them to be able to have the mom that I didn't.  I am at a time in my life where I realize that my life has never been about me or what I want, and I'm at a crossroads where I have to figure out what that is.

I've said it before:  I was born with my big girl panties permanently welded on.  I cannot pull them up any higher. 

I do such a good job of just powering through. I like to joke that I'm healed person, that it's just times like these that it becomes evident that we never really heal. One of the most common questions I get asked:  "How did you stay so strong during all your struggles?"  I guess it depends on how you define strength.  Sometimes strength looks like barely rolling out of bed and accomplishing only one thing;  choosing to stick around.  Sometimes strength looks like crying in my bed while everyone is doing other things downstairs because I realistically can't do it all on my own.  But here I am, every day.  I have struggled every single day for 40 years.  Looking back, I get really sad.  I shouldn't have to have been put through all of this.  I don't know what it's like to be able to truly relax.  None of my relationships have worked out for one reason or another.  I don't know what it's like to not be alone.  I have never had another adult to delegate anything to.  Even when I try to enjoy myself for five minutes, I have a child at home that I'm struggling to keep alive and another one that, up until recently I believed to be completely self-contained and doing great.  I would never want anyone to try to unpack me that wasn't getting paid for it, this is why I'm in therapy.  I am like a Rubik's Cube with a Chinese finger trap inside.  I really don't think anybody understands what they're getting into when they try.  I have come to find that they like the idea of me; what is on the surface.  They peace out the second they see how I struggle to survive when I feel like I'm drowning just standing up on dry land.  None can handle the reality.  Especially on the days when silence is louder than thunder.  

And I get it.  NOW.  This inability to receive support from others is a trauma response.  My "I don't need anyone.  I'll just do it myself" conditioning is a survival tactic.  I needed it to shield myself from abuse, neglect, betrayal, and disappointment from those who couldn't and wouldn't be there for me when I needed them the most.  From all the situations when someone told me "I got you" then abandoned me, leaving me to pick up the pieces when shit got hard.  I learned that if I don't put myself in a situation where I rely on someone, I won't have to be disappointed when they don't show up for me because they always drop the ball.  Extreme independence is a preemptive strike against heartbreak that always, eventually comes anyways.  I don't even trust myself to choose people.  

But no matter how I dress it up and display it proudly to make it seem like I chose this level of independence as if it's what I always wanted it to be, in truth my heart is waving the white flag. 

Wounded, scarred, broken behind a bullet riddled brick wall.  I guess on some level I understand that in order to have good things I have to feel like I deserve them.  And to some degree I still don't.  The older I get, the more I realize how much time I spent believing the lie that who I was wasn't good enough.  I find myself fighting back.  All of the moments I wasted hiding who I was, all in the name of making other people happy.  So as I sit here now, with years of living and learning behind me, I want so badly to go back in time to that little girl, who happened to develop before the other girls, to tell her that not only is she good enough, but she is extraordinary.  I want to go back and tell her to be kind to herself because the world needs exactly who she was made to be.  

I have slowly learned that you can't truly appreciate your life wallowing in "Yes, buts."  It should be about the "Okay, and".  Greif is an asshole.  Feel free to tell it to fuck directly off and allow yourself to experience joy for once.  And of course you'll know you are by how much it kills you inside when it's happening.  True story, because sunsets and pausing kill me.  

The world fed us all a lie about what strength looks like.  It's time to start telling yourself a different story, a true story.  That if you are still here despite how hard it might be to still be here, if you are showing up for yourself and your life despite how exhausting it is, then you are the epitome of strength.  But it's okay to need to lean on someone sometimes.  

To My Guru

His tears had become memories, and his memories had become dry and fractured.  As he looked at her one last time, he could only muster one final, broken question:  "But when will I heal?"  I didn't have the heart to tell him that sometimes you don't.

To my Guru:  

It is months after I decided to walk away and I am done crying.  Life doesn't feel like it's underwater anymore.  I can laugh without your name feeling like a splinter in my lungs.  Sometimes I go days without wondering where you are.  I can hardly taste you.  I call this letting go.  Announcing that it is over, at last! I've shouted from the rooftops about how I closed and bolted the doors to him once and for all.  Ten years, down the drain.  My support, my confidant, my lover, the vault that held our secrets, dead to me.  Walking away from you even after I knew it was time felt like I had chopped off my left arm;  and all I got from you was crickets.  That in itself was enough.

Please go to Hell in a pretty pink handbasket with a polka dot ribbon.

Keep your prayers.  I make my own luck.  I'll remember you, the man who loved me the most at my worst.  The pillow I could lay my head on.  I, the woman who set you ablaze.  I won't talk about the windows left unlocked.  The tiny bit of hope that maybe, we were wrong.

Looking back, you were a whole lie but the truth is that I loved you anyway. I loved you bold enough to print your name on paper and you, my darling, could not even whisper my name into an empty room.  I truly believe you thrive on destroying me piece by piece.  The best part was waking up on Christmas morning to find that I had been deadass lied to for four months.  Engaged, to someone that I didn't even know that you were seeing.  

I'm opening the chest wound because it's time now, and I'm leaving. For better or worse I can't find the words to say anything else about what happened.  I would have painted you stories with these words - promises true, and absurd.  I would have pulled the God damn sun right from the sky for you.  

Ain't I just a bitter girl that stopped living after you played dead and I chose to leave?  Ain't I just a sad thing, over there?  Ain't all these poems about you?  Ain't everything about you?  Every time I got asked why do I write, I should just say your name, right? Any article written about me should just be titled "The Girl He Didn't Want Anymore".  My book when I write it - that is going to make me a millionaire - should have your name on every page.  You made me famous, didn't you?  Made me so broken that it gave me something to tell all the lonely girls, a piano to play them a song to sleep to.  You get all the credit, the glory.  You get to tell that story.  I loved you and you didn't love me back.  But I told you the night you asked me to stop writing about you, every poem that I write is about me.

Whomever this new woman is, I pray she sees you for who you are.  That she leaves sooner than I did. Don't worry, the truth about who you really are dies with me.  After all, what are best friends for?  I hope she never fills her art with your name.  I hope that she is beautiful and makes you forget all about me.  That you'll never read this because you have.  She is my blessing come to set me free of you.

Bless this pain, the knot in my throat thinking of your face the first time you saw me walking into that Irish Pub on the corner.  Bless this grief, the years that I gave you.  Hundreds of hours talking.  Bless this sweet nothing.  This, absence.  If I had not loved you I would not have known what it is to stop fearing love.  Bless this pain that I earned.  Sometimes, it's not what was wrong that bothers us.  Sometimes what bothers you the most is that it never was right, and for a time, you didn't know the difference.

In other words:

FUCK OFF.

Then keep fucking off.

Keep fucking off until you get to a gate with a sign saying "You can't fuck off past here."

Climb over the gate, dream the impossible dream, and keep fucking off forever.  

And for the record, I didn't say that I want you to die.  I said that I still care about you enough to want to make sure that your trip to Hell is a nice one.

Sincerely, Hurricane Jessica

Highlight Reels and Decision Fatigue

 What if we could reel through our memories to the exact moment before the salt went into the wound?  That moment of pure perception before the hardening began?

It's very sad and perplexing at the same time, when you're treated like a person worth getting to know.  It feels like a completely foreign concept.  It hits your brain in the most awkward ways.  Like it almost feels like they're wrong.  Like you're doing them a disservice by letting them get to know your insides.  There's something about rejections that does that to us.  We tell ourselves that we know better;  but knowing something and feeling something are always going to be parted by the great sea of rejection and all other things that have wronged or ruined us, every single time.

I used to think that coffee was a grown-up drink.  Then I thought alcohol was the grown-up drink.  Now I have fully achieved adulthood when I understand that it is water that is the grown-up drink.  I saw this on a meme and it makes me chuckle every time I take a drink of something. Alas, I keep forgetting it's the one thing designed to keep me alive.

Most people never heal because they stay in their heads, replaying corrupted scenarios.  

Let's talk about how hard it is to open up to someone about being sad for no reason.  About how hard it is to explain that you have this heavy feeling in your chest, for no reason.  How hard it is to understand you're having a panic attack while just taking a walk in the most familiar of places.  Let's talk about how hard it is to feel like the entire world is on your shoulders and everything falls on you and you don't know why.

Having a bad day where you can't be alone with your own thoughts doesn't mean that you don't love yourself.  It just means that shit is getting real and that right now it's easier to show up for others than it is yourself.  Why else would anyone else voluntarily spend 40 years fighting against their own nature of being a people pleasing pain in the ass like me?

If it's one thing I might have figured out, is that you don't always have to be the strong one or the broken one to win.  Sometimes just doing the bare minimum to get through your day and come out of the fog in one piece proves you're capable of being a champion.

Completely unfiltered, I have zero energy right now.  I put in for vacation time for this week and I'm on day 4 of 5.  3 weeks ago, decision fatigue had smacked me in the face and I don't have the energy to shower, make food, eat or get out of the house and I think my body relates these tendencies to the time right before I had my breakdown after the first half of 2016 wrecked havoc on my entire life. In turn, it's making me scared that I'm going to get back to that place again, even though I know in my heart I'm nowhere close to it.  The entire month of March can go die in a hole.  

So far, this "vacation" has included having a zoom meeting with an advisor of sorts that I sobbed the entire way through, a phone call with a resource director that I was too overwhelmed to talk to, a day with my kids that was just crap - insert a commercial, "Coming To A Blog Post Near You..." - getting rid of 2 car loads of stuff out of my house, new furniture that is not put together (thank you procrastination as a born coping skill), and today, which has actually been pretty great despite my brain's attempts to thwart my joy.  I got some much needed yard work in, another trip to Goodwill, took a car ride with my best friend, held a baby that liked me, let a 2 year old experience pretty nails for the first time (purple sparkles, of course), and saw a new movie with my son.

That being said, if you are in that place otherwise known as the tarpit of crap, I get you.  That you feel numb.  That you don't want to interact with humans.  That you've turned down the things you love because they require actual energy.  I also get that you don't want to feel this way, but it's easier than asking for help.  So that's why you stay where you are.  

Life is not about who you once were.  It's about who you are now and who you have the potential to be. 15 minutes ago I was talking myself out of being a total piece of shit (in my own head, of course) because I spent an hour looking at my desk still in the box and just the thought of getting up and putting it together was too much.  But then, I decided that if I didn't get up right now, that it wasn't going to get done.  I took a breath, and it's now done.  My house still looks like every drawer and closet threw up, but it's a start and the amount of victory that I feel after accomplishing the one task that my brain was too frozen to let me do in the 8 days since I bought it - one for the Olympics!

I'm truly done living in a constant state of overwhelmed.  I know that I need to move on from some things in my life, but first I need to accept the fact that not every chapter's closet has to be neat and tidy before closing the door on it forever.  Sometimes you need to slam the door and walk away.  Anxiety isn't what you see in the movies;  it doesn't always roar for all to see with hyperventilating and hand wringing sobbing messes.  Sometimes it snuggles into the places we leave open without realizing it; the soft places that we think we've safeguarded.  It creeps in around the edges.  It blurs the lines of reality and make believe.  Believe me when I say that what you can't see is far worse than what you can.  If I had a tattoo on my head, it would read "Icebergs are always larger than they appear" because what you don't see are the sleepless hours on end and the riot going on inside my head at 2am when the house is still as midnight on Christmas eve and I lay in bed sobbing tears over demons that I cannot name;  although the bags under my eyes might shout it loud and proud for me, the fucking traitors.  What you don't see is the inability to make decisions, my unwillingness to help myself, my distance from people that I love, my lack of interest in things that I love doing, my lack of interest in being creative and desire to do so.  I have to remind myself to breathe, but only realize I need to after finding myself gasping for air.  I'm drowning on dry land.  It's all too much yet not enough at the same time.  I'm so grateful for the people that love me and understand who I am.  I'm a mess, but somehow able to self support - the only one who I've ever been able to rely on.  

So remember this, some of us look great and we will lie to your face; but all of these faces that I show you are the faces of my anxiety and if you could hold it to like one of those big shells to your ear you'd hear a mixed tape of untrue statements set to the rhythm of my irregular heartbeat.  This too shall pass.  It doesn't, but here's to hoping for someday.

I think that we all forget that it's okay to struggle, including myself.  Today, I was going to post a selfie with my rosacea in full flair up with a smile, but then I saw the picture.  It was really painful, and I'm allowed to be upset about that.  I am also working on giving myself permission to feel sad about that.  To feel the feelings.  That's healing too.  It leads to allowing myself to treat my body with kindness.  "What's the kindest thing that I can do for myself today?" I ask.  "Take a step back and assess.  To decide that I am in charge of what I want today."

I keep coming to the same conclusion every single time I stop to think about it.  My life has never been about me or what I want.  I don't know what to fucking do.

Back to the highlight reel:

I call her after my fight with him and ask her if I was overreacting.  I mean, I 'm right to feel that way that I do, right?  I'm not crazy like everyone says I am - those who have no idea who I am on the day to day.  She's the first person that I called when Nana died, when the boyfriend before this one cheated, when the baby died inside of me.  She listens until I finish sobbing, then she tells me a bunch of things that I swear are magic spells, because I instantly stop apologizing for being in love with someone that dismissed me with one word.  I can feel my feet again at the sound of her voice.  I can wiggle my toes, I can walk away.  We change the subject.  "Feel like burning some shit?"  We talk until our throats are raw and look like two hearts wrapped up on chords.  "Call me tomorrow, ok?"  OK.  Thank you, I love you.

My definition of spiritual growth:  Do I care about stupid shit less than I did yesterday?

I've decided to not be sad on the weekends.  From this second forward, I will wait until Monday.   I will cry on the fucking clock.  I won't let capitalism win.

Dear dudes who ghost cool chicks:  Don't.  You will most likely run into her again and she will be more attractive, elegant, eloquent and more successful than you remembered and you'll still be an asshole.

Bare With Me

She believed she could and she almost did, but then a pandemic hit and someone deemed her essential and asked her to do double the amount of work with the same amount of hours in a day and deal with everyone else's shit-losing at the same time, and someone else asked her to be the best version of herself while running on fumes, and she lost track of realistic expectations until she heard all the people talking, realized she wasn't alone, discovered a new flavor of seltzer water and decided that her best was enough.

Guys!  So. Much. Shit. Happening.

I have spent the better part of the past 6 months in a constant state of overwhelmed.  I have a lot to say that I'm going to get working on - but guys, the decision fatigue is real.  It's a miracle if I can put my leg through my pants one leg at a time in the morning as I'm rushing out the door and remember that water exists and is a thing designed to keep me alive.

More to come.

**also, yes, I know the I meant to spell "Bare" the way I did.  Keep your bitchy judgements to yourself if you can't take it for what it is.

My Dating Life Is Fucked.

 As if we didn't need any more assistance in figuring out that there is absolutely zero hope for my love life, I now have an example for you from a little over a year ago:

I was chatting with someone who was, we'll say relatively attractive.  His profile made my nerd brain tingle with delight as it is anytime that it is presented with intelligence and depth.  We said the usual "hello", and then when he asked me how I take my coffee.  So I told him, and his response was "Lately I've been pouring my coffee at 140 degrees and it's really great that way, you don't even need any sugar or cream."  

To which my reply was, and I quote while face palming, "Wow, at that angle it's a miracle that you even got it in the cup.  Good job!"

And if you didn't catch on to that, he was talking about temperature - clearly, but my brain didn't pick up on that until after I sent the message;  because my geeky brain thought that he meant.....you guessed right, angles.  

And how I came to that conclusion at 11:30 pm when were chatting, I have no idea other than I'm a big fat science nerd and there is no hope for me, at all.

Stay tuned, there's more.

Update, Or Whatever You Want To Call It

 Hey guys, Jessie here. 

I am sorry I have taken a temporary hiatus from this blog.  Yes, I've published a couple of bullshit poems but no updates about my life - because it's definitely in the "If you only knew" category of the library.  Or maybe it would be titled something more like "So That's Why She Threw A Car At Me When I Asked Her How She's Doing".

I have been busy with becoming human again. I've been battling another pretty shitty relapse with my depression.  I felt it coming in February....but I just told myself that it was just the comedown from the holidays and I was dealing with more than I wanted to admit.  Christmas came and went, as did New Year's and Valentine's day, and as I'm typing this I'm feeling the same way that I did back then when I locked myself in my bedroom for a whole weekend trying to shut my brain off.  

And then there has been the catastrophe regarding ending relationships, empty nest syndrome, changing jobs, a global pandemic and as I am typing this, a brand new cutting of chords that hurts worse than childbirth.  All of which I will write about when I am in a better head space.  It would probably help if I had said something about it before now.

But anyways....instead of wading in my pool of sadness, I figured it might be time to phone a friend and write about it.  So, here we are.

2020 can suck it.

Swear Words And Other Things In Common

Something happens and before you know it

You find that gravity isn't the only thing holding you to the Earth.

It's swear words, Star Wars and love notes.

If I recall it took three years for you to say the "F-word" in front of me 

and it made me question everything I know.

I put on jeans this morning because I thought it would make me more motivated for the day

and even after going out with a man who got completely drunk 

and sang incoherent karaoke the entire date,

I can still say that it was the worst decision I've made.

Not that it's a big deal or anything

But it's just that you had me at sweet potato fries and burgers in that Irish pub on the corner.

I warned you that my brain is driven by the monkeys in Jumanji and yet here we are;

after we've taken turns getting our hearts broken like a piggy bank, scary accurate tarot readings and ten years later.

This thing we have is like that Sunday crossword puzzle.

It takes all day, or in our case decade, to figure out

But when you finally do it's a feeling of accomplishment that can't be compared.

And now that I expressed that thought, 

all I want to do is hold hands and do the crossword together.

My God, I hated seeing any picture of you with another woman.

I couldn't breathe knowing that she was kissing you 

Because I could tell that she didn't care if it was perfect.

It still didn't occur to me that I wanted to be the only one doing it.

I am not a religious woman but I remember the first time you kissed me 

And the air around us formed a cloud stairway

Because immediately I needed to find your God 

And repent for trying to love anyone before you.

It took forever to admit but I want to know you in a way that nobody else does.

I want to know your morning routine and bedtime rituals.

I want to know what side of the bed you sleep on,

and the rhythm of your breath as you dream of me.

I want to know how many times we can change our hair until we don't have any.

I want to be there to wish you sweet dreams 

and be beside you in case the bad ones try to visit

while always being there to kiss you good morning.

As long as you swear to never sing "The Final Countdown" as long as we both shall live.

What Healing Really Looks Like

I'm starting to feel like God is testing me and I didn't study.

Let me just start by saying that Sam and I are over.  I have written a lot in my phone about it, mostly because when it first happened the only way that I could function was to walk 5 miles a day, dictating into my phone.  I will work on publishing it eventually, but I've felt like I have healed enough so that my energy doesn't belong there anymore so it'll probably take some liquid honesty to get it all out.

And heal, oh boy did I ever.  Like throwing a box of band aids into the Grand Canyon.

Healing is not just bath bombs and warm tea.  It was 3 weekends away in a row at my best friend's home that I was fortunate enough to have access to; sort of a free Air B&B type situation.  I was so stoked to be alone, just a girl and her dog on a journey of awesome.  I was going to get so much writing done, I was going to heal and it was going to be awesome.  It was so not awesome.  I hated being alone.  It may or may not have involved getting white girl wine drunk in a bubble bath.  I anger hiked up a trail to Mount Battie, not knowing that you could drive up to the top....  A Tinder hook up, making connections through the dating app world that became overwhelming to the point that I deleted the profiles two weeks after signing up.  I did everything I could to not be home.  I hated pausing, pausing was me catatonic where I was sitting with a never-ending highlight reel of suckage.  But the powering through meant that I was too busy to feel and like a pack of wolves lurking in the shadows it was catching up to me.  I'm an avid avoider.  I just couldn't do it anymore.  There were a bunch of tiny moments, miniscule attempts at patching up holes I've been living with for far longer than I care to admit.

I reopened some wounds.  I mean, not literally; though I guess it wouldn't be too much of a stretch - I do have a tendency to pick at scabs, scratching them off until they bleed.  I've never been good at knowing where to stop.  Over the last few months, I dug up some repressed memories.  I took a shovel to all my dense layers of defense mechanisms and I didn't stop until I hit heart.  I stopped making jokes.  I looked at the hurt and I let myself sit in it this time.

It was so fucking uncomfortable.  I hated every second of it.  Especially because of the fact that I couldn't pound the keys on the computer - mine had crapped the bed and I couldn't bring myself  to use another one - for some reason I couldn't bring myself to use another device.    But I knew before, as we all do with our helping others and never ourselves, that healing, real healing, is ugly.  I would have to actually process some shit, and feel it.

None of it is something you're rushing to post on Instagram.  I'm filled with dirtiness and secrets.  Healing looks like my puffy face after nights I spent crying because I can't keep running from the skeletons in my closet.  It looks like trying to piece things together when I don't know where to start.  I don't think we ever get over trauma.  Not in the way that I was taught to "get over it" anyway.  We definitely adjust.  We always fiddle with the rear view mirror while we're trying to speed away from it.  Man, if I can applaud humankind for anything, it's our resiliency.

I look at all the external scars on my body and think about how they healed in such an understandable process.  Like, you can see it healing.  You see the bleeding stop, the scab forms and before you know it, you're all better.  Unfortunately emotional healing doesn't work that way.  The scars don't get lighter with each passing month.  You work your ass off, you come so far, and before you know it, you don't just fall off the wagon, without even giving it a second thought it's fucking napalmed.  It doesn't nullify the progress you've made, it's just a reminder that healing doesn't work in a linear way.

Most days, the hurt is so far away from me.  It's like it didn't happen at all.  It's like I'm remembering the story of someone else's life that I heard about in passing.  Some days, like the ones I have directly after having a time that can only be categorized as radical happiness wrapped up in pure joy, the hurt screams as it tears my gut apart.  And on those days, I try to tell myself that this is healing too.  That everything I am experiencing is as temporary as it is valid.  We are all healing in ways that don't look or feel like it at the time.

I for one, appreciate the reminders that it isn't going to be pretty.  It's not easy or straightforward and we can fall back into that traumatic pain more often than we are ready for.  So if all I can muster the energy for is eating cheesy popcorn in bed with my dog, I have to remember to acknowledge my efforts and be as kind to myself as possible - without judgement - and work on maintaining a positive perspective.    

Like they emphasize in the wonderful movie What About Bob?, staring the great Bill Murray:

BABY STEPS.

~Revised 11/9/20, 11/11/20

Insomnia

It's 3 a.m.
I'm sitting on my porch chair that I have painted bright yellow
In an attempt to bring sunshine into my life
I can't get you off my mind
Maybe if I sleep for more than three hours
I'll forget the way your mouth felt
Or the way your eyes examined me
I keep forcing my mind to wander to a different subject
But like a boomerang here we are
Trying to put as many miles between you and my mind as possible.
We're in the same Hell
Just dealing with different devils
And coping in very different ways

Cowardess seems to be working out well for you

Even though you've always known exactly where and how to get to me
I'm sure you'll never read this
I can't help but think that the Universe sent you to me to teach me a lesson of sorts.
You are not the only man who has ever said no to me

And then keeps coming back like a boomerang.

Normally the thought of tearing a man apart would thrill me
But it doesn't.
You were different.
I am determined to make tonight the beginning of what I fear has ended
Without the "It's over" goodbye I need to move on from you
Even though common sense is yelling in my face like an abusive acquaintance.
So tequila and a good nights rest is my next attempt at letting this be.

All these fucking attempts are getting annoying.
Running in circles, chasing your tail.
This shit better work.
Was it three or four shots that did the trick?
I can't recall.
My first attempt was deleting every trace of you from my phone.
There really was no point.
Pictures;  your touch is burned into every nerve ending.
Text messages; the way you have about you when you're sweet talking me won't leave my ears.
Call history;  I cannot wash away the bruises left on my pride every time you've blown me off.
Your contact information:
Why does my mind have to remember numbers better now than it did back in 1990?

All coming back to the same conclusion:  I was going to marry you. 

The view from my deck wrapped in my blanket
Looking out at the still river and the shadows looming
Thinking to myself
This is what horror films set in Maine are made of
How fitting for the nightmare that I'm in.
My barrier that I had up against you was the only part of me that was still whole.
How did I let you in?
Sometimes we just know things.
And no matter how much we know it's going to crush us we long for it anyway.
I never saw this night coming

Museum

 I used to believe in signs.                 Perhaps I still do, but I don't go looking anymore.  Words I thought were painted vividly are showing themselves to me but they're as muddled as braille.                  Honestly!                                          Constantly wishing and hoping...

If the Gods wish for me to read riddles, I wish that they would please take my permission and not hold back when they hit me with "Hello" square in the face.

There's a strange reassurance in your existence that helps remind me of mine - as if being here and loving you has begun to make me real.

I'll let you into my brain.               Walk amongst my favorite memories, 
safeguarded behind ropes and glass.         
I won't let you touch them.               
The broken little girl I have let you see isn't the one you're touching when you lay your hands on me.                           The heart you're watching beat behind the gilded sign is too damaged to ever be whole again.                               Remember, you're here on a free day pass.  A view like this isn't going to last long. I'll show you a glimpse of who I am and shutter the doors because I saw that you weren't paying attention.                    I will recount all of my favorite memories; not that you have any interest in getting to know who I am.                  You are a visitor, only welcome to listen.

It's not like I can't live without you.       I've done that already.          
It's just that suddenly being without you feels unnatural.                         
I've never been willing to pull the sun out of the sky for anyone.

Memories are meant for visitation not for residency.                                   I never wanted to be loved.                 It's just that being in the same room as your presence hits me in a place within that tells me I could have fallen in love with you with my eyes closed.                            The memory of the sparkle in your eye that you had watching me when you thought I didn't see you has made a home in my mind.         It was as if something inside of you had caught fire.                                   It was as beautiful as it was unsettling.

Carefully pay attention to the signs that read "Do not touch" and "For safety reasons, stay inside of this line".I wish you had brought a sledgehammer.

Child of Divorce

I am a child of divorce.  Not just one.  Both of my parents have been in long term relationships that are now over and as an adult, I find that it's harder to deal with than it was when I was a kid.

I am also the oldest grandchild in my family.  My parents were teens when they had me, born out of a childhood that they barely survived - and here I was.  It was tumultuous, to say the least.  I do have some flashbacks of it.  My mother going off and leaving because she couldn't deal with her life; making her hatred for my father well known to us kids; using us as a pawn. I'll get to those another time. 

Tonight, I'm going to talk about family.  The ones we have to let go of to do what's best for them.

I grew up different.  As the oldest, and quietest, I observed and absorbed a lot.  And most of it I kept inside of me until I didn't have a choice.  I still do.  Unfortunately, as of late, I've discovered that this trait hasn't done me any favors when it comes to matters of the heart and hence why I feel the need to touch on this very subject this evening. 

More family means more love.  It is not pie.  Loving someone that isn't your own child or family member with your entire heart and soul does not mean that you love anyone else less than.

Let that sink in for a second;  because most people that I know do not understand it.  Especially if you are an adult who has grown up with traditional values and are surrounded by parents and grandparents who were married for over 40 years.

I'll give you the example of my stepfather, Gary. 

He moved into my life as a permanent fixture when my brothers, whom I am almost 6 years older than, were just babies.  I had a great relationship with my dad and I didn't need a new one.  Do I remember hating him because he was there?  No.  Do I remember resenting the fact that I was treated differently than my brothers, who he raised basically as his own?  Absolutely.  But here is what I have learned now that I'm no longer in it:  He did what he could.  He didn't know how to relate to a 7 year old girl who got along with her father and just wanted everyone to get along.  I never understood why some people have to hate each other. 

Gary had a son from his previous marriage named Chris.  Chris's mother resented my mother very much, for what reason, as a kid who cares?  They moved around a lot, mostly because she would jump from relationship to relationship, and of course get the kids involved in it.  He was always uprooted and dragged everywhere, and that meant that Gary couldn't find him half the time and when he could he was living too far away to be able to get him on the weekends like he was supposed to.  Eventually, she was involved with a man who lived out of state and wanted to adopt Chris.  Gary signed over his parental rights and let this guy raise his son, who by that time was about 7 - I think, because that was the last  Christmas that he came over. The point is, he didn't do it because he loved my mom and my siblings more than Chris.  It was because he was doing what was best for him because he loved him.  I don't know if Gary ever tried to find him after that.  He talked about him a lot.  To us it wasn't like he never existed.  He was our brother.  And we loved him.  We do love him.  About 5 years ago my sister found him on Facebook and sent him a friend request.  He accepted and Gary sort of struggled with this because he didn't know how Chris would react to the idea of reconnecting.  They did.  And it was beautiful.  To me, sitting there watching them sitting on the porch next to each other was like Wimbledon, they are so much alike it was like watching twins.  My siblings and I talked openly with him about his feelings about what happened and he gets it.  He knew that his dad did what he did because he was tired of the fighting and Chris being dragged into the middle of it. 

My mother out of spite - there really is no other way to put it - would not let my father take my brothers anywhere for the first time until they were 6 years old.  It was for Easter.  He was never allowed to a single one of their birthdays, or holiday.  Yet my sister and I went with him every weekend.  Her excuse was that they were too little.  The reality was that they were a pawn.  My brothers now have a relationship with my dad.  They aren't ruined as men.  They're good dads themselves.  Shitty brothers and uncles to my kids, but it's a longer story than the point this blog is for.

Another example, my own children.

My children have not seen their father in person since they were 3 and 5 years old, November 2006.  I had told him that I wanted a divorce and he disappeared.  I didn't see him again until August 2008 when our divorce was finalized because he was in Maine and we were finally able to get the paperwork filed in April.  He made no attempt to see the kids.  He was court ordered by the judge to maintain contact with his children every Tuesday and Thursday at 7pm.  He was also supposed to let me know in writing if and when moved and his address.  The man is so far out of contempt of court it isn't even funny.  I have never seen a dime of child support, nor have I ever asked for any.  My daughter had a horrible time with fear that I wasn't coming back and my son has had a time with anger management.  Time has passed.  He has stayed gone.  I have kept them out of my dating life until very recently.  I got them the help that they needed and my kids are ok. 

Sam fucked up.  There's no way to put it.  He was unfaithful and did something that isn't my business to publish, but he has paid his debt to society for it and he still continues to do so - regardless of the way that most people would see it that know him.  His ex wife is now remarried.  I don't know what sort of visitation rights he has.  I do know that they had their name legally changed to their stepdad's.  Something that I learned on my own, I won't say how.  I knew that eventually we would have to talk about his girls but I never wanted to push the subject because it was his and as far as I am concerned, if it's something that is deeply personal to you alone, it's my business when you feel comfortable making it so.  He admitted something to me today that he never talked to me about before now and I don't think that it was the best avenue, but it needed to be said.

"I love them (my kids) as my own and I'm ashamed that I have loved them more than my own.  I feel like I replaced your kids with mine and I'm ashamed."

And that knocked me on my ass.  First of all, I didn't know that he loved them.  Second, he will never be a shitty person because he did what was best for them.  He feels guilty, he cares.  A lot.  I get it. 

There is not a single person that wins when the fight is about who loves the other more.  You are in now way shape or form a better person or parent because you are making the other parent look bad.  For what reason are you doing it?  All that child needs to know is that they are loved.  By who, it doesn't matter. It never should.

And to me, it didn't.  I loved my family.  All of them. 

A child does not ever need to know the dirty laundry of what happens within an adult relationship.  I don't care if the person is murderer.  The custody battles, the support battles - for what?  Who wins?  Just do the best you can with what you have and keep the fucking kids out of it.  Let the children be children for as long as possible, because before you know it, they're going to be grown up and allergic to human relationships because they're so terrified of what they know of love that they'll suck at everything, ever.  And I know that because I may or may not be one of them.

My point is:  Love is a circle, but it isn't pie. 

Shutting one person out to make another person feel better isn't the way to do things.

Guilt is a good thing, it means that you give a shit.  Kids are resilient, stop beating yourself up. 

What I do know, is that he makes me believe in all the things that I never thought I could have.  He makes everything better.  And I cannot imagine him not in my life and now I don't know if he will be;  and I'm no longer a resilient child.

Also, that it take exactly 3 shots of tequila to make the tears stop long enough for me to pour my heart out in writing form.  But then the hour that it's taken me to write this has sobered me up enough for them to flow again if I keep thinking about how I really feel.  Therefore, it is enough of both feelings, writing, tears and alcohol.  Back to my usual robotic state, until next time.

Be good to yourself.

Death Of A Wish

There has been something going on in my world that I haven't talked about at all.  It's not new, but definitely something that I have a lot of trouble voicing because it isn't entirely mine.  My daughter.

She makes me laugh so hard.  She makes me want to fix so much about our screwed up world.  She makes me worry about the "what ifs".  She makes me learn, constantly.  She makes me fight and advocate and keep pushing against every one of my own demons so I can keep fighting and advocating and pushing for hers.  She makes me see everything so differently.

It's not a huge secret to anyone who knows me that I've been a single parent for 19 years and an only parent for 14 years.  I don't talk about it, because if I didn't just get through the day like I'm accustomed to doing, I don't know what the alternative would be.  And I don't want to sound like I'm whining about it.  I need support.  In a big way.  And it's been lacking.  Not at the fault of anyone.  but I can't even begin to express how isolating it is to have a child who is different.  Everyone says that they'll be there, but when you need them to step up, they're nowhere to be found.  I'm tired of constantly explaining the same thing over and over to the same people who aren't there but feel that it's necessary to jump in like Rumpelstiltskin hiding behind a curtain to tell me that I'm not doing enough - when they don't even know what I'm doing - when things are at their worst. And right now, things are the worst they've ever been.

You know all those hopes and dreams we have for our kids when we're growing them inside us?  You know the ones I'm talking about.  She loved to wiggle around to Mozart so I hoped that she would love music as much as I do.  She loved to scribble the second she was able to grip a crayon, and to me that meant that she was going to become a brilliant artist.  I started teaching her how to cook at 6 and is so creative in the kitchen.  I hope that she becomes an amazing chef.  And she does, and she is.  But then there are the other things that we all want:  to grow up successfully, to be self driven and ready to face the world because they have everything they need to do so...naturally.  And in all of my experience as the oldest kid in my huge family, nothing prepared me to have a child that wasn't.

The death of a wish that we have for our child before our very own eyes is one of the loneliest and most painful experiences that one will ever know.  And I'm finally ready to admit out loud that I don't know what to do.  Not anymore.

I'm exhausted.  I'm sick of explaining to everyone what is going on.   She is here but in her own world; physically present but absent - not living in every way that a parent feels that it should count. And as I have learned the hard way, nobody throws a wake or sits Shiva for your ambiguous loss. There are no well-wishers, no little black dresses, no bringers of casseroles; you can’t eulogize a child who is so amazing and just doesn't see it.  I have lived every second, of every day, carrying the weight of the 500 pound label that we all have to carry for ourselves for her too.  And I don't want to do it anymore.  But of course I will.  She's my baby.  My 19 year old baby.  

Things have been the same since she was a baby.  The developmental delays that I thought were off but didn't think anything of because she wasn't around other children her own age until she was 2.  The poop smeared on the wall.  The fear of being alone in bed and going to the bathroom alone.  The particular way around navigating food was always entertaining.  I remember one time, when I had a behavioral therapist come to our apartment to do an evaluation, it was lunch time and she said that she wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich so I made it.  Well I put it down and she was upset because she decided somewhere in between the words leaving her mouth and the minute it took me to put it together that she didn't want jelly on it.  We told her that it was too bad, that she would need to stick to her decision - to see what she would do.  Little 3 year old Reighan, ate that sandwich, but she did so in such a way that she ate everything....but the jelly.  She said that she wasn't going to eat it and she was going to be damned if she would.  When she said that she was done, we went over to her little table, and on the napkin was a microscopically thin piece of bread left with every bit of jelly that I had put on the sandwich.  There was the taking of everything literally.  "No way Jose", was always met with rage and tears because that wasn't here name.  My mom had once cut my son's hair and told me that it still needed to be fixed.  Later that evening after dinner, I was doing dishes and my son came to me - with 2 big scissor marks in the top of his hair - all excited because he worshiped his sister and she had "helped" him.  Without skipping a beat, she continued to work on her craft project at the table and stated very plainly, "Nana said it still needed to be fixed."  At daycare, she was called "The Toddler Whisperer".  The younger kids all listened to her better than they did the teachers.  One time, I showed up early to surprise them and she was out on the playground.  She was sitting on a bouncy ball, reading a book like a teacher to a group of little kids all sitting around her in a semi circle, also sitting on bouncy balls.

There was also the inability to do anything unprompted.  Tell her to put her shirt on, leave the room and come back 5 minutes later to find her sitting there with no memory that I had told her to do something.  The day that she got herself dressed for preschool, but wanted everything, right down to her shoes on the wrong feet to be backwards;  yes, even her socks and underwear.  Then there was the preferring to be alone.  Then there was the one best friend, who stopped being her friend because her parents didn't understand what it's like to have a child who's abnormal in any capacity - even though they both work in education.  Then came the depression.  The not eating.  The not getting out of bed.  The not going to school.  The complete lack of self care.

I'd like to say that after countless doctors visits, evaluations, medications, counseling, meeting after meeting, phone call after phone call, email after email, that things were better.  The advocating.  The sobbing in the car or alone in bed with the tv blasting.  But they're not.  Not in any capacity.  There are days.  Days, not much else.

This year, she is a senior in high school.  She's so brilliant that she could work for NASA.  But she won't go.  She won't get out of bed.  When she does, it's because she's going to her friend's house or to work.  She did a fundraiser for driver's ed on Facebook herself.  She's doing that and is expressing excitement about having some freedom but she has so much anxiety about leaving the house that she has a full blown anxiety attack just trying to find pants to put on.  But then there's the complete lack of self care.  The wearing of clothes for a week with food all down the front of her shirt and not caring what she looks like.  Her hair matted to her head because she won't shower.  It's a constant battle in the fight to keep her functional.  To get her to the point where she's going to graduate.  To have a future that extends beyond our house.  Last year, her lack of self care got so bad that she passed out at her desk at school and the lack of oxygen to her brain caused her to have a seizure.

To paint you a picture of what is happening recently, I'll give you the example of this past week.  She hasn't showered in a week.  Her friend's house smells very strongly of cat box, cigarettes, and horrible air freshener.  Reighan stayed the night at her friend's house Friday evening.  Then she came home and got ready for work, at McDonald's.  She then went to her friend's house again and stayed a second night, and went to work again Sunday - wearing the same clothes for 2 days in a row.  She walked to her friend's house again after work and I picked her up after I dropped her brother off at Boy Scouts so that she and I could hang out a bit before I went to pick him up.  The second she closed my car door, I almost vomited because she smelled so bad.  And when we got home, she swore that after we ate dinner that she would change and shower.  She went upstairs for a bit, and after an hour went by of prompting upstairs to get in the shower, I went up to find her laying in her bed - in the same clothing.  I lost it.  I stood next to her bed and refused to move until she got up.  She still refused.  I didn't know what else to do, so I did what any person should be able to do, and I called my mother for help.  Reighan talked to her for a minute, and seemed to be magically receptive to whatever she said to her, and finally got up and showered.  Her bed reeked.  I had to strip it and spray it down with Lysol.  Going to school is starting to feel like hostage negotiations.  She messages me all day long begging me to let her go home early.  The problem is that she doesn't want to go, she isn't there half the time to understand her work enough to do it at home, therefore most of her classes have been changed to study halls so that she can get caught up.  She needs to be there because when she's at home she won't do any work.  She can't even do the bare minimum to maintain functioning as a human.

Yesterday, we had an appointment with her NP because her anxiety is so bad that she requested to see someone.  I'm stuck between trying to allow my teenager autonomy over herself and having to constantly wrangle her in because she hasn't showered, eaten, taken her meds, done her homework, cleaned her room, made it to her therapy appointments on her own, gotten out of bed, etc. to a point where she is in true danger because she is incapable of "normal function".  Our path forward from that is to have a meeting with her NP for med management later this month that is already scheduled.  One thing that she mentioned as a treatment option that - didn't necessarily surprise me because I've heard of it and I have patients who do it, but never in a million years thought it was going to be suggested with "my baby" in mind - was ECT.  I'm not saying that I'm considering it, I definitely don't know enough about it to even begin to know if it's an option.

So here we have it.  Already carrying both my 500 pound label, and hers.  And here's this ton of bricks too.  I dropped her off at school and the second I was headed to work I sobbed the entire 40 minute drive.  My heart is broken for her.  I truly do not feel like I have anything left to give.

Today we had a plan that she was going to go to school and afterwards I was going to meet her at the health center so she could get her labs done.  She wouldn't get ready.  I ended up taking her in an hour late.  She called me all day asking to come home.  at 1 she called me from the office because she said that she almost fainted in the hall.  She had eaten and drank water and I honestly think that it was such a shock to her system that she was trying to take care of herself for a change that her body didn't know what to do with itself.

Trying to tell people in my family, who I should be able to rely on, who have absolutely no experience with people who are "other" are no help at all.  The old fashioned philosophy doesn't apply here.  There is no "making her" do anything.  I would have an easier time pushing a cow sideways.  She is amazing.  Every good day, I am amazed.  She is my "rainbow light bulb", as she so eloquently dubbed herself when she was 3.

But every bad day, just opens up a wound that keeps getting opened up to the point where I feel like I'm just throwing a box of band-aids into the Grand Canyon and foolishly hoping that it'll work for now and stop the bleeding.  Every wish that I have for her dead at the bottom of it.

Burnout

I wake up in a room.  Dazed, tired, heavy.  By now I am so used to feeling this way I don't notice it.  They have become my normal.  Part of me, like another one of my freckles, a scar.  In my mind I'm stuck in a huge room.  All around, spaced evenly apart , are dozens of doors with signs above each one, "JOB", "FRIENDS", "CHILDREN", "RELATIONSHIP", "SEX", "MONEY", "CHORES".  They're evenly spaced apart, but the size of them is different and it always depend upon the day.  Sometimes there is a "Do not disturb" sign hanging from one or several. 

In my hand is a large key ring full of keys.  All silver and labled.  The door labeled "HEALTH" is always covered in dust. 

My heart starts pounding and my chest gets heavy looking around at all the doors.  Which do I go into first?  My hands start shaking as I shuffle through the keys, knowing all these have to be done, all these doors have to be opened and closed by the end of the day.  Knowing I'm the only one who can take care of them.  It's.  All. On. Me.

I start the internal social media coaching, "Get moving girl.  Pull up your big girl panties, you're fine.  You're enough.  YOU CAN DO THIS."  I muster all the strength I can and walk quickly toward the children door.  That one feels important.  I run in and out, slamming it behind me.  That didn't go well.

Before I know it, I'm sprinting from door to door;  opening and closing and running to the next one.  In and out, in and out, panicking as I shuffle through the keys as quickly as I can.  As soon as I get done behind the relationship door, I hear banging coming from the job door and dishes crashing behind the chores door.  I don't even have time to question why there's a separate room just for laundry when it falls under the chores category because I'm rushing and running and gasping for breath until eventually, I collapse.

I can't keep up, no matter how many times I go through each door there's always something chaotic happening when I come out of another one.  I throw down the set of keys down with a crash, screaming like I'm tied to the tracks watching a train barrel toward me.  I'm desperate to make it all stop. 

With a crushing blow to my pride and my womanhood I realize it.  I can't do it all.  This is the never-ending highlight reel, all night, every night. My big girl panties are permanently welded on.  I cannot pull them up any higher.  

I was at a conference recently, chatting with a bunch of people.  I was already feeling anxious because i had spent the entire night awake, staying the night in a bed that wasn't mine and the social interaction in a new environment was becoming overwhelming.  I've been living with anxiety attacks long enough to know that if I didn't shut down, go home and lay down in my bed, in total silence and relax, I'd probably end of having a full blown attack and not sleep all week.

But, life was waiting for me when I got back home and I had to put on a brave face and go to group because people rely on me.  It was of course wonderful and I'm not sorry I did it.  I knew I needed to take a day to slow down after I started forgetting to do even the most mundane, every day crap - the banana bread on the counter, the coffee left in my car, turning my computer off before leaving me desk at work.  But I haven't slowed down, and here I am.  Stopping.

My kids have also started pointing out just how bad my short-term memory had gotten.  I walk into a room and forget why - something that started happening to me after I became a parent - but I also feel massively overwhelmed at the thought of doing tiny projects, like depositing a check or running the vacuum cleaner.  A friend of mine told me I sounded like I was suffering from burnout and I dismissed her.  After all, how could I be burned out?  People do stuff all the time and they are still functional.  I just appear to be on the outside.  Only the outside.

My thoughts about keeping my schedule full and not taking a breather changed a few years ago when I found myself sitting on the basement floor staring at a pile of laundry my daughter told me that she would do that day while I was at work.  The mere site of it, was so overwhelming I began crying so hard I almost vomited on the concrete.  It was my breaking point.

I knew it wasn't rational - we are talking about clothes that someone else said they'd take care of - but I couldn't see that silver lining.  Perhaps my therapist was right.  I am experiencing burnout.  That three day weekend, I didn't leave my room for anything that I wasn't required to.  I shut out everything and did my best to reset.  And it helped, for a day.  Then normal life happened.

The thing I learned after taking it easy was that hitting a wall doesn't always look like falling on your basement floor sobbing over something as simple as laundry.  There are many warning signs like having a short fuse, being forgetful.  We just chose to ignore them because we think, "I'll just get through today and try to slow down next week", when really, we need to slow down now.  Even if it's just for a few minutes at a time, at the first sign so we don't end up in the emergency room having to get body parts stitched up because we're so distracted that we chip our own funny bone getting out of the car, or sprain your ankle with your arms full of stuff because you're so preoccupied with not panicking and trying to put on your brave face before going into work.  Both things, by the way, happened to me.

On the few times that I have had to call out of work, either coming in a few hours later or for the entire day, I get a ton of crap from people who have no business caring why I wasn't there.   Last time, I got a "what were you doing?" in front of everyone and this time, after a really bad day where I didn't want to get out of bed, I responded "Sometimes I need a break from my brain."  She of course didn't know how to respond to that.  I of course am still irritated.  Not everything is your business.

I try to figure out how to say that to a bunch of adults who have spent tens of thousands of dollars on their education just to act like they're in Junior High School without sounding like a jerk about it.  One time, after getting my hair inappropriately touched by a coworker that I had already made it clear to that you can't come up behind me and do that (with the history of abuse that I have), I got up from my desk and took a walk to avoid bursting out in tears in front of everyone.  Another coworker jokingly asked "Were you blowing us off?"  She said it jokingly, with a half smile but at the same time there was a little bite to it too.  There always is when I turn down social interactions.  I've been faced with this situation enough times to know that whenever I have to step away from a social event because of my anxiety, or I have to cancel at the last minute because I can feel anxiety bubbling in my brain or I tell someone I can't make it.  And when they ask why, I can't tell them I have anxiety.  They're too busy making it clear that they don't condone taking a minute, and pretending that their lives are perfect.

And I'll tell you what, if you think for a second that I'm imagining any of it, your life is pretty darn close to it.  I would give anything not to feel like this.

Most of the time I'm 100% fine.  I'm communicative, I'm friendly.  I'm the biggest martyr who ever walked the face of the earth.  I say yes to my kids and other obligations all the time.  But then there are the dark times.  There are the times when I can feel the shadows closing in on me and I know that if I don't take some time for myself, it will only get worse and there is no "taking a breather" to get through it.  I feel nauseous and resentful.  I'm jumpy.  I feel like something awful is about to happen at any given second.  I feel terror;  like I'm stuck in my own personal hell.  I'll have to take medication to get through it.  Instead of taking a breather, I used to keep pushing through it because I believed that I was going to be fine.  I wasn't.  Not one time that I did it.  I've learned to pull back and set limits.  There is still too much stigma around anxiety.  There are a lot of people who still don't believe it's real;  and even if they do believe it, they aren't living with it and it's a pretty difficult thing to understand if you don't.  There's always the fear that whenever I discuss my mental illness with someone, they will look at me differently so most of the time I just keep it to myself.

I don't know if that's me being self-destructive about a condition I really wish I didn't have, or if people are actually acting differently around me.  I am so tired of constantly holding myself together only to fall apart behind closed doors and not having enough of myself to give to those that matter the most to me.  Everyone just assumes that I'm avoiding them, or acting stuck up when the fact is I'm just trying to keep from having a panic attack and it has absolutely nothing to do with them at all.

But of course, all I do all night long is obsess about every interaction that I've had that day.  Worrying about making sure that I've made a brave enough face to not destroy the even brief relationship that I had with them.  That's anxiety for you.  It causes your brain to turn into a never ceasing rock tumbler;  second guessing everything and it all rolls around in there in the middle of the night until I am a nervous wreck - and then I'm an exhausted nervous wreck; even worse.

Today, I didn't drink, and I'm proud of myself for that.  There is no reason to push so damn hard that we suffer mental and physical consequences.  Our health and our family are the ones who suffer if we don't.  It's easier to be there for our family, jobs, our friends, if we are also somewhat in tune with our bodies (and minds) need from us to keep going.  So, the next time you feel like you need just keep pushing even though you literally can't see straight, or have lost interest in activities you used to view as fun because they've become daunting chores, consider this:  being or becoming burned out isn't a clinical or technical term, but it's a well-used and useful way to describe the way we feel when we've had enough of something.

While some feel there has been a shift and mothers aren't expected to do it all anymore, we can't deny that we are socialized to believe we need to do it all and with our kids and friends as much as possible as some kind of measure of the kind of person we are.  Those patterns are hard to break.  The mental overload of everything involved in life itself is as heavy as it ever was.  Stop trying to keep your engine running when it's begging for a tune up.  I don't give the flyingest of fucks about how others view me;  I'm my own worst critic.  When I see a mess around my house, or I've left the office with work only half finished or one of my kids need something from me, the voice in my head that says "Oh please, you can handle it - it's a small thing", pops up every time.

So remember, wanting a break and not waiting until you feel like you cannot take one more second of your life as it is isn't the way to do life, and it certainly doesn't mean that you're a bad person.  It means that you are aware of what you need in order to be a good person to the people in it.  Instead of taking a break and looking at it like you're slacking - and worrying that others on the outside of our life think the same - realize you are taking necessary steps to keep yourself from falling deeper into an anxiety-ridden life where no one wants to be around you and the littlest shift  or unplanned even sends you spiraling.

There are times I just am not aware of how badly I need to say "no" or how often we need to step away from our regularly scheduled programming instead of waiting until it's too late.  Recognizing the signs when they first pop up has helped me get to know what my limits are.  Yeah, I am not Superwoman.  Nor do I aspire to be any longer.  I look forward to the days when I get through it and celebrate that there wasn't a crippling sense of overwhelm. That's the payoff.  The nights when I wake up after a full night's sleep free from the rock tumbler.  The week that I go without an accidental self-injury.  I refuse to go back to the way I used to operate, and my mental health is thanking me for it.

 i have found that there is no "getting over it", but there is a point where i can wallow in worry, or take control and find a way to work through the sandpit of anxiety.  i am the only one who has control over my mind, and i can be miserable, or i can do my best to control what i can.

the worst thing that could happen did, and it was something that i wasn't even worried about.

you can't spend your life in fear.  that isn't living

I'm getting better at being kind to myself even on the days when I don't get along with me.  There's a world to save, y'all, and I'll be damned if I miss my chance.

A New Year's Reflection

Before we get started, I feel like I need to make it abundantly clear that this is a reflection, not a resolution.

There are 3 days left in this decade.  And what a decade it has been.

I have lived in my house for 11 years as of January.  Back then, I was so young.  I didn't think I was at the time.  Chin deep in a bad relationship that continued on badly for another 7 years.  At a job that I didn't love.  My kids loved each other and were stuck together like glue.  Now, I'm in an amazing relationship;  albeit brand spanking new, but still working towards forever.  I love my job. My kids barely interact with each other which is to be expected.  I have a lot of barely scabbed over wounds that I'm still tending to.  Still tending to the rubble that has been the past 38 years of my time on this big blue marble.

Looking over the past ten years, one thing has been certain.  I have not lived.  I have floated through.   As a mom, I have always been a fan of boundaries.  With everyone but myself.  There hasn't been a "Don't drink that.  Don't lay around doing nothing.  Don't do the random dumb thing.  It's not fine that you have spend 3 days in Zombie-mode and haven't slept in a week."  I have spent every day just doing the bare minimum to get through it relatively unscathed.  I have not always been successful at that.  Hell, while I'm being honest, I've spent the better part of ten years of my life a fucking train-wreck that hit a dumpster fire during a tornado.  And there is only one thing that I can do to fix it from here on out:

Live intentionally.  For real this time.

It's all well and good to make a list of all the crap that will be different from here on out.  Stop letting the mail and the laundry and the bills pile up.  Never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.  Make the bed every morning.  Blah, blah, frickin blah. 

I just need to make every day count.  Never go to bed feeling like that day meant nothing.  That is my plan.  The only plan.

There comes a time where even the strongest person breaks.  And it usually comes when they have had a little taste of what it's like to be taken care of for once.  I couldn't pull myself out of bed because my entire being was so heavy.  I have been strong long enough.  I got tired of feeling like every time I make a wall four feet high something comes along to knock it down over and over again and I am tired of picking up the pieces, alone.  The world feels like it's one big spinster aunt who never got married so she has to make everyone else's life miserable by congratulating you on your milestones and then simultaneously pointing out everything that you've done wrong in your life to neutralize it.  Even I needed a break.  Even the bravest and most resilient one got tired of taking care of everyone else.  Yes, even I get tired of the independent life I have lived.  Of all the bills I have to pay.  Of the work that I have to do to make everything come together because without every ounce of energy spent on my part it would all fall apart.  Other people have always expected me to always be okay and never took the time to think that I may have problems that I need help solving.  No, this isn't about me not recognizing the people who are there on a regular basis.  If you understand what I mean by that, then you aren't a part of the problem.

I've said it before:  MY BIG GIRL PANTIES ARE PERMANENTLY WELDED ON.  I CANNOT PULL THEM UP ANY HIGHER.

I've always thought that calling someone my partner would be a fairy tale to me.    Love lived in a magical land, far far away.  Even the strongest person on the planet needs love and affection;  and man does it feel good to have that for real.  Something that isn't a part of my life that's just being used to fill my emptiness.  Sometimes, I don't want to be the hero.  It's nice to be the one who's been rescued.  Resuscitated.  A three page love letter in a world full of relationship status updates.

You see, "finding yourself" is not really how it works.  You aren't a ten dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket.  You are also not lost.  Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are.  "Finding yourself" is actually returning to yourself.  And unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.  

I remembered something in church today.  You read that right.  I go to church now.  Sam plays piano every Sunday and I actually enjoy it - though I still don't feel differently about religion than I did before.  Today in bible study, they were talking about how everything is tied together with the plan that God has for you.  I don't exactly believe that, but the more that I have been excavating my childhood and what has made me, I realized that I was always as much of a gnarled up ball of string as I am now.  I was born programmed this way.  One time, while worrying about something that I couldn't control, my grandmother took me aside and said "You're going to have a better time trying to push a cow sideways."  It's one of my earliest memories if that's any indication.  

And there I was sitting there, listening to the conversation both in my head and in the group of people in front of me and it dawned on me:  Accept what is.  

With the exception of a few people, the only real experience that I've had with love is learning what it isn't.  I have always pushed everyone away because I knew any amount of joy that I felt was about to be matched with the same amount of agony when they left, and I always knew it was coming.  And it always came.  When Sam went took the trash to the town dump for the first time I was like a baptized cat.  He took the damn trash out and I panicked thinking that because I was sitting back and letting him do it that he was never going to come back when he told me that he was leaving.  

But he didn't leave.  And I'm done leaving myself.

I need to slow down and recharge my spiritual batteries.  I have learned to be vulnerable on the fly because I've never been able to stop.  Just.  Stop.  I'm still learning how to ask for what I deserve without it sounding like an apology.  If I allow my past to consume me, I am never going to have anything good because, even though it might be right in front of me, I'm too busy worrying that it's going to end that I'm never going to enjoy it.  

Here's to living with intention for another 38 years on this big blue marble.  For real this time.