page 133

 A letter to myself when I was younger.

You can tell me. Even though he said not to, it’s okay to tell adults. I know you didn’t tell anyone then, but it’s not too late to tell me now. You won’t get into trouble and it will help me understand better.

I know you wanted to go home before he got home, that it was always better if you got picked up before he came home from work.

I remember his hands, they weren’t like my dad’s hands. My dad worked in an office and on computers. My dad had clean hands. He had dirty hands, cigarette-stained hands, strong hands that smelled like nicotine and smoke and other scents I didn’t know.

I remember he shaved. But not every day. I remember bristles.

I remember gifts. He seemed to want there to be gifts.

And I remember getting in trouble with the wife if we misbehaved?

I get the spins when I try to think more about it. My chest gets tight. My heart races and my mind wants to draw blanks.

But I remember his stale cigarette-laden breath. Why would I remember his breath?

I can’t picture his face, just his hands.

I can’t remember his kids, or his wife.

I remember the shag carpet, the dresser-like huge old television set, I remember playing the-floor-is-lava and jumping from couch to couch. I remember watching He-Man and wanting to grow up to be him, because he always had to come save She-Ra and I didn’t want to have to be saved. I remember the mom/wife upstairs at the kitchen table making stained glass pieces …… I remember that they took me away one weekend to their little cottage on some island somewhere? I remember the dock, and the weedy-muddy water, and losing one of the jelly-shoes in the muck …. I remember going to Regal, and picking a glass trinket box from the shelf…..

That’s quite a lot for a 4 year old to remember.

But what about what I don’t remember. Did something happen to make me remember all of this? I can’t remember and I feel scared and I can’t piece it together and I want to panic. My joints ache, my heart races, and I can’t remember. But I think our body does.

3:58pm Thursday June 30th, 2022

5:49pm I lost my virginity to rape at 16, but I’ve written about that before. Somehow this seemed more present to write about.

Wish You Were Here

And then the postcards began to arrive. It wasn’t just A postcard. It was plural, so very plural that he couldn’t even believe it.

The very first postcard to fall through his mail slot was from New York City. It carried a picture of the Empire State building in all it’s glory. The message side of the card simply said “Wish you were here, Love Emma.” Rolland knew Emma had never been to New York City and it wasn’t written in her famous scrolling hand. Who on Earth could this card be from?

But the next day, when the mail slid through the slot at 3pm on the dot, there they were, three post cards. One with a picture of the Grand Canyon, one with the salt flats of Utah, and a third from Graceland herself. All with the same message, “Wish you were here, Love Emma.”

As the days grew, so too did the distance for the cards. Soon Rolland had amassed pictures of the the street cars of San Francisco, Big Ben, the Great Pyramids of Giza, and tuktuks from the streets of Thailand, among others.

Finding the need to display these postcards, Rolland cleared the living room wall. He began grouping the postcards by continent and pinning them to the wallpaper of tiny rosebuds and baby’s breath that he and Emma had chosen together when they’d renovated the room a decade previously.

Travel had been the bug that bit Emma early in life. She had managed a semester abroad during her short stay in further education, but otherwise had been confined to the edges of their small town upstate Ohio.  Emma had kept a peanut butter jar under the sink, tucking away funds any time she didn’t treat herself to something over the years. No new measuring cups in the kitchen, or hand towels in the bathroom, even though the paint lines on the former had begun to fade and the edges of the latter had begun to fray.  

She planned elaborate excursions for herself and Rolland, often accompanying the excitement with a new dish found in the frozen foods section of their local grocery store:  Peaking Duck, or Enchiladas, or Shepherd’s Pie. Over the meal Emma would explain how they’d fly economy to save as much money for the actual trip rather than waste it on fancy flying — she’d already been on an airplane, that wasn’t where the excitement stemmed from. Then Emma would lay out her dream itinerary for the local sights, sounds, and tastes. The internet was not a foreign object to this elder. Emma worked websites like an experienced travel agent, often book-marking streams of sites in slide-show fashion to share with Rolland.

But something always got in the way. The car needed a new tire, the kitchen sink backed up, the eavestroughing came down in a storm. That jar money was used up quicker than Emma could believe. Always it was her dreams that paid for their unexpected expenses.

When Emma was 65 she found a lump. Ever the cheerleader, Rolland said it would be nothing, they’d go to the doctor and he’d confirm it was nothing, not to worry, it was nothing. And when the chemo made Emma’s hair fall out, Rolland said it was a great time to wear all the colourful hats crocheted over the years and hidden in the back of closets without any recipients. And when the tests confirmed that Emma’s cancer wasn’t responding to treatment, it was the peanut butter jar that let Rolland put a hospital bed in the living room and take care of Emma at home through to her last breath.

The bed had been moved out immediately following the funeral. But the rest of Emma’s belongings remained, like an afterimage of the woman who had filled the unassuming two-bedroom home with such brightness.  When they’d bought in the early 70’s, the second bedroom had been an unspoken dream of new members to join their family. But as the years wore on, and Emma’s doctor confirmed, there would be no tiny footsteps scampering through these hallways. Rolland had let Emma consider adoption for a short bit, but they’d both come to the conclusion that travel would be much more difficult with a little hand to hold, and they let the notion fade.

But there were no journeys. Neither modest nor extravagant. The furthest they’d been together was Cleveland to check out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after a friend’s wedding had brought them to town. But even that had only been a weekend away, and away had only been a 3 hour drive.

And here was a postcard from Niagara Falls, on one of Emma’s more realistic lists, a mere 6 hour trek. Rolland still felt the shadow of guilt that he’d never been able to let Emma’s dreams manifest into reality. Between hours on the factory floor, he’d considered a second job, but pain and fatigue always kept him close to home in his off hours. The two of them had been each other’s best friend, rarely making waves in social circles. Emma had her Bridge ladies and Rolland had his tobacco pipe; both finding solace in their activities. Though they’d been ever present during Emma’s downward progression, bringing casseroles and cards of hope, Rolland couldn’t imagine any of those ladies setting up this scheme with the postcards, it was just too elaborate.

Standing in the living room, in front of his wall of postcards, images from across the globe, Rolland let his mind wander down the current ever-present mystery. Where were these cards coming from? The literal answer was easy, they were coming from everywhere! But who had sent them? He knew it was more than one person, as not only were they so frequent, but also each “Wish you were here, Love Emma” was written across the back in so very many different fonts and slants, that each postcard was certain to be from a different hand.

Something like a tingling ran up the back of Rolland’s neck and he had an impulsive idea. Striding over to the kitchen and bending to open the cupboard beneath the sink, his aging bones crackling as he did, Rolland retrieved the peanut-butter jar. The jar itself, still wrapped in it’s long-faded sleeve, felt lighter than ever, but Rolland twisted the top suddenly certain something lay waiting inside. And he was right. Here was a bundle of folded sheafs, feathery against his fingers as he unfolded them to reveal Emma’s familiar script.

The top most page was dated a month before Emma’s passing, the lettering was easy to follow and read, but as he read further, the dated pages moved forward in time and her long-hand became messier, the last of the 5 pages was dated mere days before the end. Rolland felt moisture pricking the edge of his vision, but was still unprepared for the first tear to escape and mark the ink on the page before him.

It took Emma several days to explain in her letter, as fatigue and weakness fought against her determination to compose these ideas to her husband before she passed. Here, in blue markings before his view, Emma told Rolland about her discovery of a website called Reddit, a place where people could write about simply anything. At first she’d stayed in the travel subreddits, reading stories about other people adventuring around the globe and sharing comments with fellow onlookers. But soon she’d branched into topics and lists that had nothing to do with travel, even earning something of a name for herself as a top commenter. It was then that the idea struck her. Emma knew she had a bit of a following, a minor sense of fame, so she wrote openly about her cancer, inviting others to share their own experiences and feelings about how they, too, were facing death. There were heart-wrenching tales about young patients leaving behind partners and children, there were lonely sufferers who had no one to leave behind to remember them, there were women sharing how they’d been gifted a crocheted breast to fill their tops after life-saving mastectomies. All of these people thanked Emma for the opportunity to share their stories in a thread where she always responded, no matter how many people wrote to her or the length of their post.

And then Emma began to explain in her letter how her idea had taken fruition. Emma started a post about this very jar of peanut butter, empty under their sink. She had come to terms long ago, knowing that travel would not be the apex of her existence. She was content with her life, with living vicariously through others, with all the knowledge she’d learned  about so many varied places in the world as she had planned her trips. But the one thing that would bring tears to her eyes every time, was the notion of leaving her best friend behind. Emma and Rolland had been high-school sweethearts. They’d never loved anyone else and they loved each other dearly. Emma knew he had few friends and acquaintances who would be around after she was gone. She wanted somehow to reach out to him from beyond the veil. Of course this wasn’t possible, but Emma was a crafty lady. She lay out her plans in a message and gave it an expiry date — she knew she didn’t have much longer.

Emma had somehow, with her words, convinced all these amazing people from all these distant countries to send postcards to her lonely husband for her, suggesting that any postcard, from any where, at any time would do the trick.  The simple words were taken from a song they’d both admired in their early 20’s and listened to on many quiet evenings in as they aged. Music was eternal, Emma had been known to say.

Rolland turned over the last page of the letter, finding the words “I love you, Emma” at the bottom and then held the pages to his chest. She had done it, she had reached out to him even after she was gone. He walked back into the living room, staring at her gifts to him, pinned to the wall and whispered silently, “Wish you were here.”

Spiraling

 It wasn’t like he could just walk away. He was invested. 

After 17 trips to this small blue and green planet, trips he could remember nothing of, he knew one thing for sure — being buried alive had never been on the itinerary.

CJ knew he came from a place filled with white light and all the joy one could imagine, and then some more on top of that. CJ wasn’t sure how he knew, how he remembered, but that’s what they felt like. Memories. There was a place in his mind that he could only describe as “warm” and “home”. And he knew, when this was all over, he’d get to return there and feel safe again.

But that wasn’t right now. Right now, he was in a dark place. Surrounded by, secluded in, encapsulated by, darkness. His sense of time must be fading, because he felt like he’d never been anywhere else in his 40 turns around this unimportant sun, on the far end of a remark-less galaxy, randomly scattered amidst an unwatched Universe.

He’d been here long enough to have other memories, too. Memories that faded more every moment longer he spent in the darkness. There had been laughter, and smiles. There had been touch — touch! His only reason to be corporeal. His fingers reached out, in darkness, before him, touching a rough stone surface. He was somewhere then. Somewhere tangible. He could feel the cold from the rock before him seep into his fingers and he pulled his hand away.  

The memories contained other people, friends, family, lovers. He knew there had been lovers, many, maybe too many. But it had been pleasurable, right? Touch brought pleasure and pleasure for its own sake was still pleasure. 

CJ felt his arms cross in front of his chest, he felt his hands aloft on the skin of his arms, rubbing softly, as though trying to release the coldness from his fingers and find some comfort in the warmth of his own body.

There!

A light!

His eyes had been shut for decades, CJ blinked, blinded by the bright light. It must be the surface, it must be the sun, for it was ever so bright.

But as his vision returned from the red blindness of the initial shock, he could see that no, it was not the sun. It was a single candle, burning alone against the darkness. He watched, transfixed by the flame wisp-ing and growing as it flickered in an unfelt draft. Would it stay lit or go out?

CJ held his breath, unsure what would happen in that moment. The light seemed warm, welcoming, a lone soldier standing strong against a darkness that had all but swallowed CJ whole. Would it be able to stave off the monsters lurking just beyond its circle of glow? Did it even know there were monsters in this dark?

CJ slowly released his breath, so as not to disturb the flame.  As though discovering he had feet for the first time, he took a careful, unsure step forward. 

Avoidance

 

• • • • •

Let’s talk avoidance for a minute.

If you are struggling to find balance, wellness, recovery (however you define it) you know that there is work to be done.

That work is tough, anxiety provoking, painful and at times can make us feel worse.

I want you to trust me when I tell you that everyday that goes by that you are AVOIDING by engaging in harmful behaviours you are making that part of your brain STRONGER.

Wellness means re-wiring your brain to have new thinking patterns, new reactions to stress and new habits to make you feel better. This requires fighting against, what for now seems right, normal and Okay.

For today, pick one pattern that has been hard to challenge. Isolate it and try strengthening that other, newer, less familiar part of your brain.

It gets easier, it’s worth it.

Beat it, kid

sometimes, when you’re not here
I can’t breathe and I feel empty
and I cry
because it shouldn’t be this way
I have so much
around me, surround me, with me

when you’re here I breathe easy
my heart beats in a way that makes sense

but when I’m alone
I can’t hear it
beat
beat
beat me

tears fall
around me, surround me, with me

sometimes, when you’re not here
I think about
what it would be like to not be here

to simply never have existed at all

and I can’t
let it
beat
beat
beat me.



10:26pm July 28, 2018

Tree of Stars night (at LOST)

Journal prompt #1: struggles

Sometimes we find ourselves
Twisting in a place we've been before
Returning again and again
Unbeknowest to those close to us
Gaining strength from the repetition
Giving only the slightest notion
Leaving us to ask what is this for
Each lost to the vast plane
Struggling to catch our breath

Journal Prompt #2: home

a) Inside your embrace is where I seek to find home. Strength, softness, warmth. Knowing I need only turn my face to find yours and see the depth of emotion in your eyes mirroring my own. Home is much more than a place, it is a feeling of safety and a sense of well-being and comfort.

b)

• I've moved more times than I can even remember. I'd quickly run out of fingers to count on if I tried to suss it out for you. So I know that 4 walls and a roof are not what create it.
• I've lost all I own due to various situations, sleeping under a towel on a carpeted floor, so I know it takes more than a bed or a couch to make it.
• I've lost partners, friends, family, and pets, so I know it is not just the people we populate our buildings with who make it what it is.
• But somehow, if you squeeze all these pieces together and add in some love and support, some warmth and caring, with the people who really matter, you can create a space for yourself in this unforgiving world and call it home.

Journal prompt #3: self-care (list from group)

- blogger.com
- self massages
- no cell phone
- avoid news
- watch comedy
- letter to self about "things I like about me"
- de-cluttering (home and head)
- walk
- youtube yoga
- blowing bubbles
- help someone randomly
- write
- talk to a stranger
- learn to make a new food
- just breathing
- enjoy a cup of tea
- quiet
- headspace (app, guided meditation)
- mammalian dive reflex
-  go to library w/ a friend
- look through old memory boxes
- eat in shower (a dripping fruit)
- re-wire the brain

A Poem for Max

He's sick, he's sick
What do I do?
My kitty cat
Has got the flu.

He's thin and slow
and will not eat.
I've tried it all
I fear I'm beat.

Took him to
the Doctor now,
who poked and prodded,
took blood anyhow.

I'll wait and see
What might be wrong
I'll hope the prognosis
isn't long.

My kitty cat
Has got the flu.
He's sick, he's sick
What do I do?

Found in a journal ...

Sometimes I write and sometimes I don't, but I'm always crafting stories in my head. Stories about the man who crossed the street in front of my car or the girl who served my coffee or the tired voice on the other end of the phone line when I call my child in sick to school. I don't, and won't likely ever, know any of these people, but I create intricate back-stories for them, shaped from the way they carry the tension in their shoulders, or the way they've layered their clothing for the day, or the sligh hitch in the roll of their 'r'. These faceless, nameless people become a rich tapestry to the fantastical stories I write in my head as I weave my way through the everyday mundane.

Tree of Stars night (at LOST)

Journal prompt #1: Who is your superhero?

For a long time I would easily answer that with 'my sister' -- and while she for sure is my hero, always has held that spot in my world, now I think I have a new answer.  My kid is my superhero.  He is just turning 14 and he is already so headstrong & bold. He knows himself intimately in a way I, at nearly 40, am only just discovering.  My son was AFAB but that didn't stop him from claiming his true self and identity. He is embarking now on a journey of transition that I can do no more than scaffold him through -- the choices will be his and his alone (of course, Doctor-informed choices, but still, the direction he wants to take his body is a journey I cannot make with him) and I couldn't be prouder of how he is handling himself in all this new-ness!

Poem: The lost night of Tree of Stars (April 10th 6:30pmish)

I flew through the gaps
seeping into oblivion
I only knew it was never enough.
Try as I might
I couldn't find purchase in their land.
Spew my hurt into
physical being
I took this hate and turned
it into fuel.
I will expel until I dig
deep and discover joy.
Desire leaves me wanting
but truth will set me adrift
in a sea of my own
understanding.
Drowning is no longer an option
as I plant two feet upon this
soil and call it my own.

Journal prompt #2:  Name 7 things you can do for self-care that are free

1. Grounding --> earthing. Bare feet in the grass, sand, soil
2. Come to a group at LOST
3. Water. Drink it, bathe in it, play in it. Water is revitalizing.
4. Let it go. Grab a pillow and just scream into it. Let it all out.
5. Meet up with a friend. Go for a walk, sit in the park, just connect --> no phones!!
6. Find a free app or use YouTube. Play some relaxing music and burn some incense and meditate for 5 or 15 minutes. Gently bring yourself back to focus if your mind wanders
7. Journal. Do 'free writing' -- let your pen walk and don't think too hard about what you're writing. Get it out!

Overheard at event: Nothing can go wrong with a paper and a pen. 

The last day of Summer 2017...

Tomorrow is the first day of Autumn.... a time of maturity and bounty -- harvesting the fruits of our labour.....

I've been in a relationship since Spring. A wonderful, life-affirming relationship. I wake up every morning excited to face the day, knowing I'll get to interact with this relationship. I go to bed every night with happy memories and warm thoughts for the future.

Can it last?

I believe it can, but I worry that New Relationship Energy is still lingering, 6 months in, and one day we'll wake up to the cold reality that it's hard work and we cannot sustain this level of excitement for the rest of forever.

We've already had a few bumps along the way, at least two that threatened to tear us asunder -- and yet somehow the connection that pulled us through has only made us stronger on the other side, both times.

I drive to pick him up, and I watch through the windshield as he exits his house, turning to lock the door and quite literally my HEART BEATS FASTER. Six long months in, and I still feel my pulse quicken whenever I get to see him.  He sends a text, and I smile. He calls randomly from work, and I glow....... is this really still just NRE?

I'm certain it's love that is meant to last. I'm certain these are the telltale signs of something that is right, something that works, something that fits, something real.

But what if I'm wrong?

He has so much anxiety around relationships. He worries that he's not good enough for me, that I deserve better.  He wonders what I could possibly see in him ..... and sometimes, I wonder the same from my perspective -- why me? Why does he choose to spend his time with me? What have I done that's been so worthy of all this attention and energy?  I tend to only question this when he's questioning himself, but still, I question it ......

Are we only fooling ourselves? Are we just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl...... grasping on to straw-filled dreams?

Polynormal

this path I’ve chosen

cleaved in two

a magician couldn’t dance between

near half as deft as I

but it leaves me drained

and questioning

just what did I think

I was getting myself into?

love grows the more you love

spread love with all

who cross your path

and love will exponentially multiply

at least, that’s the theory…

the practicality, the reality, is

we’ve all been conditioned in a world

full of hate and sin

too hard on ourselves

too stuck in our heads

too worried we’ll lose

too busy fulfilling those prophecies all on our own

so why do I feel like

two and two and two make one?

can I really ever breathe again after this?

12:25pm Aug 24/17

With Teeth

Have you seen it? That’s what it’s like. Dark. Tangled. A mess of limbs and faces and hands. It is the hands I can’t stop seeing. The faces are all contorted, they don’t even look human. But the hands. They are pushing and pulling. And reaching. What they are reaching for I can’t quite explain, perhaps don’t even fully understand. Where the light comes from, so I can see in this heaving, thriving, pulsing mass of bodies, simply doesn’t make sense. But I can see. I can feel. I can smell. How to convey the sense of smell with a digital blip on a screen. If I simply said it smells bad, maybe you can dredge up your own sense of what that means. Is it a rancid garbage heap? Or a dirty gym bag forgotten in the bottom of a closet for months on end. I’m not sure what that bad smell is for you, but this place smells worse than you could ever even begin to imagine. It has been rotting for so long it might as well be eternity. Time doesn’t stop here. It goes on and on, without any method to mark it. A moment stretches for all time. There is movement, but no space within which to move. There is no travel beyond the position. The sound is deafening. It is constant and so becomes unheard. With you every breath of the way. There is nothing to breathe. Every inhale is like being under water and every exhale is like pushing against a tank with your shoulder and expecting it to move. Can you see it? Can you smell it? Can you feel it? Can you hear it? How could I forget ….. taste. It is so dry that the idea of water is long forgotten and dust seems like the perfect drink, if only your tongue would stop sending signals to your mind, then there might be a moment’s reprieve from the taste of rot in your mouth. 

Someone once said your life cycle determines your death cycle.  I’m here to tell you it is the other way around. 

From the moment we are born our body is dying. It has an expiration date. Our cells recover and regenerate, but only so much. They age and rust with every oxygenated breath. We are literally breathing in the poison that will eventually kill us. But without it, we cannot live.

Like pomegranate seeds packed together tightly. Or better yet, soap bubbles in suds. Each their own unit, but connected, sharing the same walls, the same whole substance. A big cloud of these bubbles all touching and floating together. Noise like a cocktail party, only no real music or conversations, just the hubbub of sound. Happiness, but more like contentment, but not really because it is the absence of hate, fear, jealousy, rage, remorse, guilt, shame, anger, resentment, envy.. no concept of sin, of wrong-doing… simply existing and being, and being complete by that existing. All connected. All accepting. No worry about the past or the future. Only the ever-present now. Lighter than air. The best words might be warm and home. An ever-present bubbling from centre towards the outer edge. Once reached, the outer-most bubbles break off and fall down to join. There is no sense of loss, no good bye. Simply an acknowledgement of it being the next turn.

But why would we ever leave?

To know.

To know what it is to touch. To feel. To cry. To laugh. To think and share and listen and be heard, to create. To run in the wind and dance in the rain. To fall in love and to have your heart broken. To have faith. To pray. To want. To need. To be entitled. To last. To win and lose. To ask and learn. To give, to receive. To give life, to take life. To fight, to hurt, to kill. And to die.

And we come back.

Oh do we come back.

We remember, but we forget. We learn the same lessons and learn new lessons. We watch ourselves from afar and forget ourselves in the moment. 

But we come back.

Faith? No. I don’t have faith. I simply know.

A creator you ask? Oh. You and me, we created this all. I think I’ll have a long chat with the limbs department — why two hands and not three?!

The separation between you and me is the same between one of my cells and the next. If you take a sample of my blood or my skin or my hair, is that still me? Once you cut it away from me and look at it under a microscope and see the cells before they die, are they still me? Or once they’ve left my body, are they no longer me? What about the dead parts of me? Hair? Finger nails? What about my teeth? 

What is it to be _me_ that makes me different from the chair I sit in or the tree across the street? Am I separate from the screen in front of me, or am I just using a very archaic form of communication by keying these letters on an actual keyboard?

Does what I say mean anything beyond being a pixel in a jumble of other pixels? It certainly won’t last. Unless perhaps I use ancient Egyptian hieroglyph techniques and immortalize it in stone for countless generations to ponder over. But even then, in the grand scheme of this great moving thing we call time, how much do those generations really matter? And more importantly, is it tea time yet?

The river of grief and how to keep being

This article is so very well written, I had to share it... grief is a topic we so rarely discuss in common conversation -- but we all experience it and we all fumble our way through it... this article gives it a framework for pushing through and I think everyone should read it:

In grief we must take time to be in our bodies, even when our minds couldn’t possibly go on.

Written by Jini Maxwell

 

 

When I think about grief, words don’t really come to mind. What I do get is the visceral feeling of being too deep underwater. When I think of grief, I imagine the sudden stab of fear that accompanies a realisation that you’ve dived deeper than you first thought: your trapped breath like a weight in your chest, the glimmer of oxygen perpetually too many arm lengths away.

Grief is more than a feeling. It’s really an environment, a new condition to your life that you have to meet with your whole self. No amount of swimming against the current, or scrambling up the banks, will make it easier to navigate. Most importantly, it is not a puzzle you can think your way out of. It’s something more bodily than that, like the mammalian diving instinct.

At first contact with water, an infant’s heart rate slows, oxygen moves more slowly, and the glottis spontaneously blocks access to the lungs, all before the conscious mind can react at all. Living with grief is an animal experience, and surviving it requires the action of a body that knows how to keep being when the mind couldn’t possibly go on. Your body knows how to keep you safe, not just before your conscious mind, but instead of it. You just have to be in it, and it has to be processed as a part of you.

The bad news is, no amount of time in rivers of grief will prepare you for a new one. The good news is, you didn’t drown then and you’re not drowning now. Your body is carrying you through the experience on instinct. Take a deep breath and listen to yourself from the toes up. Feelings are hard, inconvenient and unpredictable, but the less time you spend fighting your body’s messages, the more you can learn from them.

Survival is, in the end, a game of trust, and not of thought. You have to trust that you can survive your own emotions. You have to feel, even if it’s overwhelming. The most important thing to remember about the river of grief is you’re not surviving it wrong. It’s not taking too long. You’re not moving too quickly. The river you are in is just the river you are in, without moral resonance. Trust that you can cope with doing what you need.

It’s easier to think of grief as something of a redemption arc, starting with pain and ending with the well being you knew before. But mourning exists without narrative; it’s not something you can itemise in a eulogy. The river’s current will stick with you for longer than you expect, and you’ll emerge and re-emerge from the worst parts of it feeling as shocked by the ways you’ve stayed the same as you are by the way you’ve changed. Like a newborn in a swimming pool, trying to analyse your progress is only going to make the water feel heavier around you. Your body knows what it’s doing.

In the moments that you feel yourself entirely submerged, trust that your heart rate may slow, your throat may close and the pressure may build, but your body knows how to navigate this space, even if your mind does not. Every fibre of you is already working slowly and carefully to navigate this new emotional landscape, if you let it. That’s how survival happens—by gentle instinct, not by achievement or analysis. Take the time to be in your body, listen to every soft and hurting part of yourself whenever you feel the urge: beat to beat, without scrutiny, until you can resurface.

However you’re going, you’re going okay.

[ source: https://www.dumbofeather.com/articles/the-river-of-grief-and-how-to-keep-being/ ]

About Loss:

The relationships we have in our lives shape and guide us into the person we are to become tomorrow.  When they end, they can change us just as much as they do while we are in them.  Sometimes they smooth our edges. Sometimes they harden our resolve. And sometimes, one comes along that seems to carve out our insides and lay us bare before all of creation.

I think some people shy away from those last sort…. saying that they never want to love again, if it means they are going to hurt that way, or cause someone else to hurt that way, ever again!

But I think it is this last sort that make living all the more worth it. Only a great love can leave us so completely devastated. Only a truly deep connection, one that meets us on so many fronts, one that seems like it ought to last an eternity of lifetimes, not just one lifetime, can gut us to our core when it finally reaches an end.

Only the very few are lucky to meet their life partner early on in the process and spend a lifetime together.  For the rest of us, we must be worked through the ringer several times over, before we connect “for the last time” and even then, some of us may never make that lasting connection.

Are we really so afraid of the loss, that we’d be willing to give up the depth of love that comes before the crash? Is the pain so great as to wash away the feelings that built to be able to create such a maelstrom of destruction in our hearts and psyche?

I can’t imagine ever not wanting that loss, if it means I could have what comes before.

Sure, it’d be best if what comes before could last — but even knowing the risk involved, I’d still take that leap of faith required of me to fall in love. Every. Single. Time.

And y’know what, I think you would, too.

Human beings are born with the capacity to love. We love our parents before we even know words, let alone the definition of love. We love animals just as easily as other human beings. We love friends and family. And eventually, if we’re lucky, we fall head over heels over senses in love. We throw all caution to the wind and we give ourselves completely to the vulnerability that is love. We let that love grow and surround us; we attempt to find balance, but so many times we tip over and let love ruin us.

I’m not going to talk here about how to maintain a relationship — that’s for another post, another time. What is important here is the idea that …. love is worth the loss.  The truly amazing high is worth the truly destructive low. It’s what we do with both of them that matters.

Love like there is no tomorrow. Love like every moment with your loved ones is your last. Say what you need to say, be honest, be bold, let your feelings show. Never shy away from how you feel. Let your partner in and let them in all the way. Build trust and be honest and always communicate. Love freely, unquestioningly, without conditions. Love with your whole self.

And if it still ends, when it’s over, it’s okay to hurt. It’s normal to hurt. It would be abnormal if you didn’t hurt after a love like that. Let yourself feel the pain, allow yourself the freedom to mourn for a great love lost. Cry in the shower, write angry poetry, listen to music that makes your soul bleed. Hurt like you’ve been carved apart with a knife over and over again; like your heart still beats, but it does so outside of your body. Ache like you’re never ached before. Long for the love back and long for death to stop the pain.

But as time ebbs and flows, it will take away small parts of the pain, it will soften the edge of the sharp knife and eventually the pain, when touched, will be almost gentle.

It will happen. It may take more time than you’d like, but it will happen. You will be almost numb to the hurt, almost, but never fully.

And when that finally happens, take a deep breath, and be open! Be open to another opportunity to feel that great love again. Be open to the small loves and the medium loves, be open to friendships so deep they’re almost like that great love. But always be open to the great loves again! Even knowing the hurt that may come, never give up on the great loves.

For what other reason is there to be alive, than to feel the way a great love does?

All things are impermanent, and life is the longest thing you’ll ever know. Love like it is your last breath, and I promise, every breath while you love will be easier and life will feel excitingly longer.

They say we all die alone, but I think we all bring those great loves to us in those last moments. We wear them like a hug, like a cloak, like a living shroud …. we are whisked away on the wings of our memories. And it is the great loves that we will remember the longest.

She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink

This is a really great piece that gets at the heart of an issue that I think has popped up in most relationships, whether romantic or otherwise... it's a great read.  Re-blogging it here so that I can find it again easier! These are not my words:

Shared from: https://mustbethistalltoride.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/

She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink

Article written by Matthew Fray

It seems so unreasonable when you put it that way: My wife left me because sometimes I leave dishes by the sink.

It makes her seem ridiculous; and makes me seem like a victim of unfair expectations.
We like to point fingers at other things to explain why something went wrong, like when Biff Tannen crashed George McFly’s car and spilled beer on his clothes, but it was all George’s fault for not telling him the car had a blind spot.

This bad thing happened because of this, that, and the other thing. Not because of anything I did!
Sometimes I leave used drinking glasses by the kitchen sink, just inches away from the dishwasher.
It isn’t a big deal to me now. It wasn’t a big deal to me when I was married. But it WAS a big deal to her.

Every time she’d walk into the kitchen and find a drinking glass by the sink, she moved incrementally closer to moving out and ending our marriage. I just didn’t know it yet. But even if I had, I fear I wouldn’t have worked as hard to change my behavior as I would have stubbornly tried to get her to see things my way.

The idiom “to cut off your nose to spite your face” was created for such occasions.

Men Are Not Children, Even Though We Behave Like Them

Feeling respected by others is important to men.

Feeling respected by one’s wife is essential to living a purposeful and meaningful life. Maybe I thought my wife should respect me simply because I exchanged vows with her. It wouldn’t be the first time I acted entitled. One thing I know for sure is that I never connected putting a dish in the dishwasher with earning my wife’s respect.

Yesterday I responded to a comment by @insanitybytes22, in which she suggested things wives and mothers can do to help men as an olive branch instead of blaming men for every marital breakdown. I appreciated her saying so.

But I remember my wife often saying how exhausting it was for her to have to tell me what to do all the time. It’s why the sexiest thing a man can say to his partner is “I got this,” and then take care of whatever needs taken care of.

I always reasoned: “If you just tell me what you want me to do, I’ll gladly do it.”

But she didn’t want to be my mother. She wanted to be my partner, and she wanted me to apply all of my intelligence and learning capabilities to the logistics of managing our lives and household.
She wanted me to figure out all of the things that need done, and devise my own method of task management.

I wish I could remember what seemed so unreasonable to me about that at the time.

Men Can Do Things

Men invented heavy machines that can fly in the air reliably and safely. Men proved the heliocentric model of the solar system, establishing that the Earth orbits the Sun. Men design and build skyscrapers, and take hearts and other human organs from dead people and replace the corresponding failing organs inside of living people, and then those people stay alive afterward. Which is insane.
Men are totally good at stuff.

Men are perfectly capable of doing a lot of these things our wives complain about. What we are not good at is being psychic, or accurately predicting how our wives might feel about any given thing because male and female emotional responses tend to differ pretty dramatically.

‘Hey Matt! Why would you leave a glass by the sink instead of putting it in the dishwasher?’

Several reasons.

1. I may want to use it again.
2. I don’t care if a glass is sitting by the sink unless guests are coming over.
3. I will never care about a glass sitting by the sink. Ever. It’s impossible. It’s like asking me to make myself interested in crocheting, or to enjoy yardwork. I don’t want to crochet things. And it’s hard for me to imagine a scenario in which doing a bunch of work in my yard sounds more appealing than ANY of several thousand less-sucky things which could be done.

There is only ONE reason I will ever stop leaving that glass by the sink. A lesson I learned much too late: Because I love and respect my partner, and it REALLY matters to her. I understand that when I leave that glass there, it hurts her— literally causes her pain—because it feels to her like I just said: “Hey. I don’t respect you or value your thoughts and opinions. Not taking four seconds to put my glass in the dishwasher is more important to me than you are.”

All the sudden, it’s not about something as benign and meaningless as a (quasi) dirty dish.

Now, it’s a meaningful act of love and sacrifice, and really? Four seconds? That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing too big to do for the person who sacrifices daily for me.

I don’t have to understand WHY she cares so much about that stupid glass.

I just have to understand and respect that she DOES. Then caring about her = putting glass in dishwasher. 

Caring about her = keeping your laundry off the floor.

Caring about her = thoughtfully not tracking dirt or whatever on the floor she worked hard to clean.

Caring about her = taking care of kid-related things so she can just chill out for a little bit and not worry about anything.

Caring about her = “Hey babe. Is there anything I can do today or pick up on my way home that will make your day better?”

Caring about her = a million little things that say “I love you” more than speaking the words ever can.

Yes, It’s That Simple

The man capable of that behavioral change—even when he doesn’t understand her or agree with her thought-process—can have a great relationship.

Men want to fight for their right to leave that glass there. It might look like this:
“Eat shit, wife,” we think. “I sacrifice a lot for you, and you’re going to get on me about ONE glass by the sink? THAT little bullshit glass that takes a few seconds to put in the dishwasher, which I’ll gladly do when I know I’m done with it, is so important to you that you want to give me crap about it? You want to take an otherwise peaceful evening and have an argument with me, and tell me how I’m getting something wrong and failing you, over this glass? After all of the big things I do to make our life possible—things I never hear a “thank you” for (and don’t ask for)—you’re going to elevate a glass by the sink into a marriage problem? I couldn’t be THAT petty if I tried. And I need to dig my heels in on this one. If you want that glass in the dishwasher, put it in there yourself without telling me about it. Otherwise, I’ll put it away when people are coming over, or when I’m done with it. This is a bullshit fight that feels unfair and I’m not just going to bend over for you.”

The man DOES NOT want to divorce his wife because she’s nagging him about the glass thing which he thinks is totally irrational. He wants her to agree with him that when you put life in perspective, a glass being by the sink when no one is going to see it anyway, and the solution takes four seconds, is just not a big problem. She should recognize how petty and meaningless it is in the grand scheme of life, he thinks, and he keeps waiting for her to agree with him.

She will never agree with him, because it’s not about the glass for her. The glass situation could be ANY situation in which she feels unappreciated and disrespected by her husband.

The wife doesn’t want to divorce her husband because he leaves used drinking glasses by the sink.

She wants to divorce him because she feels like he doesn’t respect or appreciate her, which suggests he doesn’t love her, and she can’t count on him to be her lifelong partner. She can’t trust him. She can’t be safe with him. Thus, she must leave and find a new situation in which she can feel content and secure.

In theory, the man wants to fight this fight, because he thinks he’s right (and I agree with him): The dirty glass is not more important than marital peace.

If his wife thought and felt like him, he’d be right to defend himself. Unfortunately, most guys don’t know that she’s NOT fighting about the glass. She’s fighting for acknowledgment, respect, validation, and his love.

If he KNEW that—if he fully understood this secret she has never explained to him in a way that doesn’t make her sound crazy to him (causing him to dismiss it as an inconsequential passing moment of emo-ness), and that this drinking glass situation and all similar arguments will eventually end his marriage, I believe he WOULD rethink which battles he chose to fight, and would be more apt to take action doing things he understands to make his wife feel loved and safe.

I think a lot of times, wives don’t agree with me. They don’t think it’s possible that their husbands don’t know how their actions make her feel because she has told him, sometimes with tears in her eyes, over and over and over and over again how upset it makes her and how much it hurts.

And this is important: Telling a man something that doesn’t make sense to him once, or a million times, doesn’t make him “know” something. Right or wrong, he would never feel hurt if the same situation were reversed so he doesn’t think his wife SHOULD hurt. It’s like, he doesn’t think she has the right to (and then use it as a weapon against him) because it feels unfair.

“I never get upset with you about things you do that I don’t like!” men reason, as if their wives are INTENTIONALLY choosing to feel hurt and miserable.

When you choose to love someone, it becomes your pleasure to do things that enhance their lives and bring you closer together, rather than a chore.

It’s not: Sonofabitch, I have to do this bullshit thing for my wife again. It’s: I’m grateful for another opportunity to demonstrate to my wife that she comes first and that I can be counted on to be there for her, and needn’t look elsewhere for happiness and fulfillment.

Once someone figures out how to help a man equate the glass situation (which does not, and will never, affect him emotionally) with DEEPLY wounding his wife and making her feel sad, alone, unloved, abandoned, disrespected, afraid, etc. …  Once men really grasp that and accept it as true even though it doesn’t make sense to them?

Everything changes forever.

2017 is a new year!

A new year, a new leaf? Fuck leaves..! I'm still me, it's just a change on the calendar... but this me is going to try to be more consistent with my writing.

I know I've tried it before, but this time I've made a plan, and as Wayne Dyer says "If you fail you plan, you plan to fail."

I am out at a lovely coffee shop down the street from my home, I have a stellar mug of Espresso Latte to sip at, a strange pineapple cream-cheese fritter to nibble on, and a cup of yoghurt, granola, fruit and honey to start it all off.

I have grabbed a book at random -- a book of my earlier writings. And that's what I'll do .. I'll start filling in the void from the past. I am going to finally get all my old journals and diaries and writings from the past digitized.

That's the plan. I'll need to set some timelines, like, at least once per week. I have my trusty tablet and keyboard, the coffee shop has wifi .... I should be good to go.

So, here's to new plans and new years. Check out some of my old (old old old!) posts from 1993 maybe?

The Nameless shall remain Nameless until otherwise noted.

I know almost nothing about you … but I can’t get you out of my head …. your smile is like an arrow shot straight to my heart …. I feel foolish, caught up in this love-affair all in my mind…. you’re a stranger… but nothing is stranger than the way I instantly felt about you.
[written Day 2, posted Day 3]

Fall is almost upon us... it certainly seems like the best time to fall.... head over heart over heels into something that makes me feel precarious.

I wonder what you smell like... what your kisses taste like ... how your laughter trills.

Do you think of me between moments of connection? Have you thought of me today?

Hopelessly, irrevocably pierced with a notion of lust leaning towards lost in love.

...and so my inevitable demise has begun.

The Other Me

I think there are only two kinds of people in this world.

One sort gets up in the morning and knows they’re doing the right thing. They turn off the alarm, stretch, and then go about their day with one step in front of the other, one moment to the next, sure that each decision they make, each minute choice will taken them one step closer to the right thing for them …

The other sort, the sort that I seem to fit into, is the sort who can’t figure out how to do anything right. I’m not even sure I know my right from my left. How can every move I make feel like the wrong move. I’m intelligent and I think things through… I make decisions based on the best of my knowledge, I add my heart into the mix …. and every. single. thing. I. do. is wrong.

How did I get here?  

Where was the me that was once the first sort of person… maybe a little carefree. Maybe a little obnoxious. But ultimately not concerned, or worried, that my next move might be the wrong move. It was just _a_ move and a move always had to be taken, so let’s take this one next…….

At what point did this calculating, self-doubting, self-criticizing me that I am today … when did she get behind the wheel and start driving?

All the flotsam and decay of my life… which bump in the road knocked me off kilter to such a degree that I truly think I am doing the wrong thing, no matter what I do?

I don’t like the way this me looks at me in the mirror. The way she lets light pass over the contours of my face and never quite pauses to see the me that is behind the eyes…. the scared, anxious, nervous, worrisome, critical me.

Am I the worst parts of my parents? Am I the worst parts of my classmates? Am I simply all that’s left after the joy was surgically removed (by me, and placed in a glass jar and tucked somewhere safe so that no one could steal it, because I treasured it, and I could see that the path I was taking could only lead to heart-ache, so I best squirrel it away for a rainy day)….

But I’m crying and I’m crying and I can’t stop crying — if you’re waiting for rain, it’s falling down my face in a torrential downpour.

When I’m alone, and no one is there to tell me what to think or what to say or how to act, or which piece of etiquette I ought to take down and shine today….. I don’t think I like who I’ve become. But I don’t know how to be the other sort of me ……….

10:33pm June 9, 2016

moments

The problem is.. I can’t talk about the automatic thoughts and behaviours and moods that really matter.

That half the time I don’t believe in reality. That half the time I’m stuck in this alternate-universe mentality, belief that I’m the only person in all existence and everything else here is just a screwed up computer program designed to keep me from being lonely and destroying myself.

It would take a month of talking for me to explain the whole other “game” that goes on.

And I’ve shortened it down into saying that I have “moments” because I can’t explain any of those moments without the whole 16 year back-story.

Some days it gets worse. Some days I believe my cat hates me. And like THAT even matters.

I had a GOOD day today, and here I am at my computer writing this with tears streaming down my face because I feel like a horrible person, guilty of leaving my cat alone for hours on end in a dark apartment, with very little for amusement. He’s a CAT — we live in a society where it’s deemed okay to do that to “domesticated” animals. I feed and water him and (mostly) give him a clean place to shit. I’m not harming him….. right?

But I don’t believe that our social structure does anything good. I don’t believe we are ‘humane’ even to humans.  The way we treat our elderly, our mental health practices, those who live at the fringe, of poverty, of health.

How am I just supposed to SWALLOW all of that and move on with my day. Not think about those big picture pieces, because I can’t do anything to make them any better so I have to focus on me and my life and making my little piece of it better for me and my daughter (and my damn cat)

well that feels like a fucking crap shoot.

And half the time I don’t believe in any of it anyhow …..

it’s all just busy-work for my brain to keep me from seeing the truth.

But I pull it together, wipe my tears, and tell my daughter it’s bed-time… like the good mom that I am.

What to do

 What do you do when it finds you … unprepared, unwilling, unfit for public consumption …

What do you do when it keeps knocking, even though you’re certain you haven’t answered?

What do you do when you peer through the peephole and realize your sentiments mirrored on the face you see….

a floating face…

a voice in the night …

a hiccough in your daily journey, the grind from birth to the grave…

What do you do when you want something you simply can’t have… you shouldn’t want… you don’t want to need.

You give a welcoming smile and say “come in!” ….. of course you do … cuz you’re you … and you don’t know how to do anything else.

*sigh*

12:51am Thurs, Mar 3, 2016