Here I am alone between the heaven and the embers ….
Just walking and writing this morning. A new favorite is Matthew Hussey. A video by him Matthew Hussey
Also reading Marcela Lobos about awakening our true purpose and her story.
After one client and my own therapy tomorrow morning I am going to Kripalu. I love it there. And to see my dear Elizabeth Gilbert.
The drive is probably my most favorite part of the trip. I can just waft through any thought that has the tenacity to arise. There’s just something about the open road.
Last time I saw Marcela Lobos and Alberto Villodo, shamans. 💜
Last night I saw and early showing of Beetlejuice. I had fun! That’s fun for me. This couple was there and they were dressed up and I think that’s so fun. Camaraderie. The movie was a little dumb at first but did not disappoint in its wild depictions of the afterlife and with original cast members. Catherine O’Hara also never disappoints ha.
It’s a new era. My kids sort of out of the house, sort of in. Always home base but each exploring their edges and identities.
I am reflective of a time when I was so stressed all the time something would go terribly wrong. And at times it does, but no more than in a “normal” human life.
I’ve made significant changes over the past year again. Again and again. I imagine I often will. But this time at the same time I’m putting down deep roots of confidence and steadiness. I’m so damn proud of me.
So much less all or nothing. And what’s left is maybe there for a reason I’m not yet clear on or privy to. Who am I to argue with a force like destiny or soul contracts.
That didn’t stop me before ha. My spice derived from the pain of not being heard or seen. Argued everything. So happy to not live like that anymore.
What’s next if there is a next : I don’t know. I don’t need to. Is this faith? That has taken shape when I didn’t even realize what I was building with all my thoughtfully placed yes’s and no’s.
Not too precious to make edits.
All my love,
C
Ps a short one for now, a shower and admin calls. Hope to write more this weekend. The little prince turns 23 on the 17th. Love that kid! Heart for days on that one. The world needs his heart and yours. Don’t forget it! 💜
I want to play all day amongst the shelves of Barnes and Noble.
Finally I can breathe again (when I write). I’m on Belmont. Home. Starbucks in hand. Grande hot caramel macchiato half sweet and upside down. Swoon. This is a treat now. In the morning before 11:30 it is I’ll take it black please. Most recently I see their green apron blend and want to try it. It’s on my ever expanding list.
Therapy with Melissa yesterday was so so good. One of the best sessions yet. Funny how relationships build in this way, who knew. Melissa gives me back to myself each week. I feel seen. It’s the most healing thing, and it inspires me as a clinician to work in such a way to provide that to my clients.
To not fear emotions or my capability and just keep doing what I do in the way I do it. Being magic brings magic. Like attracts like.
That was one part of the session. Talking about a central theme of how to know what is real. When the mind, especially a traumatized one, can be such a skeptic. And she explained energy to me in a way that makes so much sense, and that I know in my cells I believe. Hmmm.
When you have more than you ever thought you would sometimes it’s so overwhelming, the emotions of that, that it’s like it doesn’t exist at all. Like if I feel it I’ll just explode. Like maybe there’s a wrinkle in time, and if someone finds out I’ll return to the life that seemed destined for me.
Something else she said is that the mystery is why some people have an innate will / spirit / something that makes them make their lives so much different than they “should be” by their metrics.
I want to leave my children a legacy of safety, and freedom. To change our stars. I want to leave them with abundance and security, and I won’t stop until that is accomplished.
But I also wouldn’t drive myself into an early grave to do it. So writing the blue prints is filled with the necessity of balance.
While I’m writing this I’m digging Anywhere Away from here, Rag n Bone man and Pink. It has the right combination of piano and raspy vocals that set my spirit soaring. I could cry right now. I might.
I don’t think I told you that I feel out of place….
Will I come sit out on the beach today?! Probably not, but it will be one of my go to’s.
I was a fragrant chef this morning. Trying this and that. I am soaking in the last weeks of my daughters being at home. Oh yeah there are the tears sigh. Who knew I could have just cleaned all day and not thought. I’m recognizing left unchecked I’d have some serious OCD. The way my other letters ADHD contribute to hyper focus or none at all. Sigh.
I also talked in therapy yesterday about my relationship to food. No one taught me Melissa said. I don’t think about that or like that, I just move forward. Which is why it’s easier for me to cook with no one watching or present so I don’t get overwhelmed.
Then I find my flow and I’m singing and dancing and creating and all is right with the world.
I cook things patched together (like the quilt my life truly is) from past lives with people, friends, lovers, families. A mixture of creole, Spanish, Italian, a blend. I’m still trying to perfect red rice and beans, sweet plátano etc, as a white girl the odds are against me. But I am determined and my life has given me enough spice to persevere.
I got my haircut last night. Took an hour and a half. But my barber was teaching. And the cut is perfection. It’s taken years to realize which cut for which season. Went shorter this time because it’s HOT!
Speaking of hot. I have a black car with leather seats now. A Jetta R line. I can’t believe I don’t have a Honda. I love it though. Just need window tints eventually and I’ll be happy as a clam.
The great car buying crisis year of 2024 is one for the books.
Driving here today I saw a dragon fly that seemed to hang with my car for a long while. Hi team. My ancestors, my loved ones, the universe.
I saw 30 people this past week and have 32 scheduled this next one. I’m jamming. My work deepens. People weave in and out, stretch their wings, and then return. My client family.
I’m on the 4th book in the Dune series, getting out of it a little, and need to get the umph to finish. I hope to finish it this weekend along with Normal People that I’m listening to on audible.
On the day to day there’s been a lot of Groundhog Day lately. Chop wood carry water. And it’s becoming so satisfying, the simple tasks. I was always a simple things girl with a complicated mind.
I do more outside and in the world than I used to and have much less anxiety. I can’t remember the last time I took a Xanax now it just makes me feel icky. I don’t like it.
I over think much less, my mind no longer being a prison. There are less and less spaces and relationships in my life I feel emotionally trapped in.
I only allow full authenticity without discounting a single drop as far as what each has meant to my life. I am fiercely protective of myself, without needing to be fierce at all anymore.
Love is the answer….. the love of life itself.
I love the smell of Barnes and Noble and could literally move in there, and coffee shops nearly equally. Recently I read my poetry in front of a small audience in Fayetteville. Due to the belief of someone very special in me, who ever pushes me to be the best version of myself. I still can’t believe that. I was shaking so much!
I just looked up to see a couple walking in their bathing suits. I notice in the rear view some silver grey hairs catching the sunlight and glinting in it. I have more than I’ve had, and yet I’m younger in so many ways these days.
Able to play
I still carry my grief and my scars. It just isn’t so heavy anymore. I still look for some people and things in everything I do. My attachment system is something to be reckoned with. But I can no longer keep stories of things that never existed but were only dreamt.
It’s not fair to me and to my life and to my work.
I don’t have to say goodbye because it all lives inside of me. Every page of my story I am keeping. I don’t need to burn them. I love the whole thing.
Amor Fati
And this is what’s going on with me…..
Now if this can please open the doorway to more consistent blogging. I need to be writing. I was offered love from the universe and a spot in Victoria Erickson’s autumn immersion.
I had the house to myself for a bit which was so strange. A foreshadowing perhaps. And tried to watch Remember Me with Robert Pattinson. It’s going on four days to finish. Ha. I will also finish that tonight I think.
This day is slipping away from me more and more. Once I go home and read a little, it’ll be time to get Sunday stuffs for twin A’s homemade caramel sauce, and a few groceries for the week. And before I know it bedtime….
Always Remember Us This way will serenade me on my drive home.
Happy Saturday everyone
Ps a line from Dune before parting: “and it’s the survivors who maintain the most light and poignant hold upon the beauties of living.”
Just landed in sunny Florida….. “I’m in a hurry to get things done I try and try … all I really have to do is live and die, I’m in a hurry and don’t know why…..”
As I sit here on a plane, halfway through Ross Rosenberg’s new book The CoDependency Revolution. I was just slammed with a memory of that single counseling session in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.
I recall bristling and reeling at the therapists suggestion I maybe consider looking into some resources on co-dependency. That tumbled and rolled me down a whole hill. I wanted to resist, deny, unhear, but I could not. It’s not in my nature.
It’s a testament to the profession that the counselor was as straightforward and honest in a very early on couples session. Would I have been so brave, so bold? So not co-dependent.
Now on this airplane a few tears shed at watching father’s with their baby girls, being part of a team with the mother, being affectionate and cutesy with their daughters. In other words I’m having a moment.
As far as the rest I’m on a plane with no anxiety, did not take a Xanax, and am on my 4th week of intermittent fasting. The eating is greatly helping me iron out more securely my boundaries with food, which is a beginning step towards my fit by 50 goal. As you can see I’ve given myself plenty of time.
I have learned to do this over the past several years. To hold my sensitivity and nervous system needs sacred and holy, and fully allow myself to seek and share my needs.
Getting better each day one step at a time.
Speaking of that I rarely take Xanax anymore. It gives me a slight headache and unclear feeling that I detest. Which makes it very clear to me that it works for a panic attack when it needs to, but in the absence of that acute level of anxiety, no thanks !
I’m 333 days sober today. I’m not sure what’s in store for me with balance around this. I may remain a non-drinker for health reasons, and for solidarity for all of those harmed by its presence. I may not. I may choose to have a drink on an occasion and indulge in wine pairing with a fine meal.
I don’t know yet…..
I finished Stray (also an old running title for my memoir, now it’s Starved) by Stephanie Danler, in two days. It’s raw and gritty and everything I hope to be as a writer. Albeit with my own voice, which is becoming clearer each day.
Ever since 2020 this has been a tough time a year for me. Reminders of events I am not a part of, and many other things. However there’s a reason the rear view mirror is smaller than the windshield and I will not live the rest of my life in a form of sabotage. In one tomb or another from all the lives that weren’t.
I am most interested most of the time in the life that is. Though my old selves, and those they loved, and wanted to be loved by are now wholly part of the package.
On an errand to help out twin B. My solid as a rock not so tiny any more bundle of love, joy, possibility, and so many things. Following a car accident she has been having post concussion issues which include difficulty driving. So we have moved her home to convalesce and are now collecting her vehicle and her things from Florida.
Upon examining my flying anxiety I realize it to be a product of the combination between my writer’s imagination and my cptsi (complex post traumatic stress injury) symptoms, mainly intrusive thoughts. A helpful dose of CBT, steady frequent reminders that a thought is not reality without at the very least a choice, and voila a much better experience.
I choose to believe when it’s my time it will be my time and nothing I could have done differently would have changed that. This of course assumes a relatively healthy and balanced lifestyle. I allow this to comfort me now. When previously I believe that I subconsciously felt relief by being in a nearly constant state of terror of some kind or the other, because then nothing could catch me off guard.
I feel my memoir / whatever book I will write taking shape. It comes to me in the early hours of waking, in the shower, on the road. I hear powerful lines from it, and when I’m lucky enough I capture them, like butterflies in my childhood net.
Nature at least provided some solace that people did not. See there’s one now 😉
So between the reading I’m doing and seeing these men be fathers on this plane a post emerged. I hope the rest of my trip is so fruitful with the writing….
I’ve been sitting with a lot of new awareness recently. About things missing inside of me. My true hearts desire has long been to break the curses inside of me that hold me back from expression.
I’m not rough around the edges. I am a locked vault, with a well trained expert veneer. I am good at my job. I’m great at my job, but even that will hit its limits, because knowledge without enough heart falls flat.
The right combination of both is magic!
Just as I’ve made a tiny bit of progress I catapult ahead and then crash wildly on my own walls. I have to then slow down again. Look again. It’s exhausting and frustrating. I am reminded of somebody that I used to know.
Full circle. Everything does always come. Again and again. Round and round she goes, and where she’ll stop nobody knows.
Scarcity runs through my veins and colors every interaction I have. Not just in one area, in so many. And I am tasked to alchemize these emotions into something palatable?
I’m angry
Sad
Lonely
Lost
Most of the time.
Even surrounded by love and happiness. It can only penetrate if I let it.
There is no external fix or factor that can change this. No new car, fancy dinner, or trip. You’ll always return to your inner most thoughts.
This is an inside job. And I feel at times already past retirement in life years trod by my efforts.
But that’s all just a crappy story.
I can do better. Not perfect. Not everything. But better.
Heart opening is the name of the game.
Did you know when you do that you love everything and everyone, and cry at every damn thing. And it feels so unsafe with no extra skin to protect. Feel raw and naked all the time, in an exchange for keeping everyone else safe from the irritability and rage that built all the years the needs went unmet.
That’s a lot of debt. Will it ever be paid? Is it really so simple as “letting go”.
All or nothing. A totally wide open heart or a castle with impenetrable walls.
Doesn’t there need to be a middle? Or is that just another not enough….
I am safety driven, and the things that register safe for me are often not. A hall of mirrors a haunted fun house. Never knowing the thing I’m supposed to say, instead saying something scathingly critical. Yep it’s true.
Hyper vigilant to a fault. Trapped inside myself.
A one trick pony with a broken saddle. Caution cuidado.
Am I going round and round or am I moving forward. Always the question.
I’m on Dune book four and don’t want to lose momentum with supercommunicators, how to know somebody, and the many other books I’m reading.
I think I’ll take a break soon and read so many I’ve wanted to for pleasure. Julie and Julia, Under the Tuscan Sun, PS I love you, A Winter’s Tale, memoirs. All of these classic faves I’ve always wanted to, but have been too busy working.
I suppose the secret is loving someone exactly as they are until the love transforms the original into a masterpiece.
Love transforms
Fear freezes
Can stillness
Be filled with warm
Breezes
And will this block
Of ice I have become
Ever thaw
Never enough food, money, affection, the list goes on.
I believe this will be my first Mother’s Day I am not haunted. If you could ….
I will not lose my life force in being haunted by the things that have hurt. I will rise above them and sit peacefully sharing the knowledge that has been hard earned.
I finished Dune book one this morning. So much in there. I think of the foreshadowing of Ulay, how I became the bomb, and 90 days and everything in between.
I think of how next week I’ll sit at my daughter’s graduation and instead of wanting to crawl out of my skin w sensory overload I will own my seat. I will bask in the glow of our accomplishment having the difficult bloodline we have. Very little support, and also so much, just from a different form, a harder one to recognize or acknowledge for it requires belief.
I will be able to feel why I am there, what we are celebrating, rather than a desperately disconnected seeking numbness that pervaded everything and mirrored back such awkward desolation.
New lands…..
Belief is a powerful thing. May I always examine mine carefully to make sure it is from love and not fear, for the rest of my days.
I must not live haunted because if I do I cannot learn. I need all my focus and all my heart open to the world, so I can receive also.
To make you feel my love. My love will be felt. Not just my fear. The heroes journey.
To have alchemized scarcity and hardship into peace and abundance.
I had never planned so far that I’d make it out alive, because it never felt that way.
Awake is all I can ask for. Not existing inside a story or the bonds only of fear and trauma. A lineage I refuse to pass down.
And now I rest….
I got a b12 injection yesterday for the first time since November. Sometimes I forget I was ever so sick at all. Those people treat me like the best thing since sliced bread and I chuckle to myself of all the time I spent in a dark cloud of feeling unloved.
Love was all around. Love is….
There are turning points. New chapters. New books to be read and to be written.
For nearly 43 years holidays (so many of them) have been a nightmare. The nightmares held me captive even when some were good but inside all that roiled and rose up like bile. being told I should appreciate with little understanding, and worse treating myself that way.
A good little soldier
I will not allow it to persist into 44.
Another turning point.
A million lives within a life….
And I have every part of my story inside me and I won’t cut off a single thing.
A whole
Shattered segments gathered and made whole with gold….
Happy Mother’s Day to all the loyal curse breakers just doing their best with impossible tasks everyday.
I love you all more than you can imagine
And to the lost ones….. my people also
My heart is with you
There is light
With great courage there is light and your path is your own.
“And you’ve come from a good place with a happy family, the only bad thing you’ve ever done was to see the good in me. Find someone who plants flowers in the darkest parts of you.”ZB
As I sit here this morning, in my favorite window of me time in the morning. I am reveling in the notion that if you travel deeply, you keep returning to the same things again and again.
For example this morning I’m reading Anita Mooriani’s Sensitive is the new strong. It was around 2013, while working amidst the produce at Trader Joe’s in the wee hours of the morning I was listening to Dying to Be Me. It was with the first generation of Apple headphones and the iPhone with the button in the center, or earlier if I recall.
I resonated deeply with that book, though it was very hard to believe at the time, and my mind still tends towards skepticism, even as I am a believer.
I also listened to Paulo Coehlo books then, the Valkries, the Pilgrimage, etc.
A line: “you can’t unknow what you know” stands out to me, about any experience we have really.
I sit and think why didn’t I stand up for myself in so many ways, for so many things?!
When someone is actually telling you the truth to you, without being direct. I think of all I would have said. But I don’t think long on it now because there’s life to be lived and joy to be had, and of course because this is me, work to be done.
So I’m revisiting my birthright of sensitivity and the many resources needed to keep me in a good place with it. Very helpful. Also the highly sensitive person in love, by Dr Elaine Aron.
My traumatized mind grasping always to control its external environment, when the internal is so disorganized. Now I do the opposite.
I am building a home inside myself. A palace really.
Yesterday was the culmination of watching This is Us. It’s my new favorite written show. So much in there that makes you think, triggers and epiphanies alike. Of course because it’s tv if you let it, it could make you feel terrible about your life. All those warm and wise conversations about the important things between parents and children. I’m not naive to the knowledge without a written script many of us didn’t get that, or dole it out.
But it’s never too late to start.
Knowing who you want to be is as necessary as knowing who you are. I enjoy the journey of both. I am enjoying them.
I’m a UConn Husky Mom now! That’s exciting! I move a child into college for time number two in August. One more birdy out of the nest, and another migrating home for a few months before her next venture.
I will blink and the kids will have their own nests and flock home less, but still hopefully often. I have a wide open array of possibilities in life, still, always. I’m hopeful to rise to that occasion, even if that means allowing myself to sit and read a novel in an afternoon, without feeling I’ve missed a thing.
I don’t need to be in a hurry to capture everything. I just took a deep satisfying breath.
My window of time with the morning is closing soon. Everyone is buzzing about the eclipse. It’ll be time to walk the dogs, give Henri her medicine, carry her up and down the stairs, feed them. Take a walk and a shower. The shower is such a great part. All the thoughts gently cascading, all the recharge from the water….
And then to enter the day.
Taking twin A for blood work for her first time. She’s nervous. I know what that feels like, and usually I’m the last to say you’ll be fine, and to be reassuring. I’m more likely to be awkward and say something scary. My mind can be a delightful playground of deeply imprinted survival mechanics.
I’m just trying to take off the suit.
This is an homage to a dear friend. His is much cuter than mine of course. Mine is probably more like a Spartan, he the Pink Ranger.
Another day trying to connect with the humans and not be too sensitive to saying the wrong thing, as I often do in my real life, contrasted by often having exactly what someone needs in my professional one.
As I heal and create new comfort zones outside the walls of my original ones. As I build. I look forward to bridging those gaps. Filling the bullet holes inside myself with new skin, bone, flesh, and blood.
Less a project and more, perfection from birth that I wasn’t able to see.
With new mirrors and lenses I invite the day.
Hello world give me what you have for me, and I vow to show up with integrity, honor, and to be of service.
I was called to my water to write this morning. I just got waxed, ow. Sometimes I feel half my life is concerned with hair removal. Did you chuckle ? I did. But for real it’s not even about how I look, it’s a sensory thing.
I am finally accepting my high sensitivity and empath ness and trying to work with it rather than deny, minimize, outright reject, or attempt to reverse the adaptation that’s about being adaptable. Ironic isn’t it.
A barrier to this was always worrying about being grandiose or the way some people use being an empath in toxic ways. As always if you’re worried about it it’s probably not something to worry about.
So can I finally accept my birthright and my gift and use it to help me achieve a better quality of connection to myself and the universe.
That’s a resounding yes !
Speaking of ironic Alanis and the episode of we can do hard things on high sensitivity! Boom. It is ironic oh yes I really do think.
Time seems my most elusive currency lately. How lucky am I that my life is one where I want more time to do and experience the things I love.
How lucky am I that I’m working at better understanding myself, and having a healthier relationship with me.
It turns out I’ve been looking for her in everything, and everyone, and everywhere she’s not.
Inside of me.
So that’s what I’m spending the most of my valuable currency on.
Writing my poem, my story, my lyrics, my melody, my script and on and on.
I have so many things to write about, but sometimes once I open the post I just relax so much nothing intelligible comes. It’s when I don’t have the pressure of the page that my thoughts float gently to the surface of my consciousness and tickle my fancy.
My fantasy
Lately I’ve been loving the lyrics of Zach Bryan. My girls led me to him. Some of them are just well wow. Your head in my neck is weightless.
This morning I’m re reading The Highly Sensitive Person I love and it’s already blowing my mind, in showing my experience to me with a lens that helps me cope.
Deep and profound love is often the kind that doesn’t last, and then there’s the kind that does that is also those things.
I was trying to crack the code on love using logic. Now that’s ironic.
Now I’m using all of it, and most often working to get the story straight, keep it simple and direct, and develop a consistently healthy relationship with myself.
The work is delicious, no longer a burden. I am blessed.
The work takes the charge out of the pain, rather than rivers of it threatening to flood at anytime. I’m building a dam. Speaking of that I’m often thinking lately of slowly doing more DIY things. Like fix the drywall in my basement. I’m not sure yet whether that’s an idea and my schedule and sensory stuff means it’s not really conducive. Stay tuned on that one.
I’m watching this is us, and oh my god the triggers and the insight and bliss. Kevin’s twins being born and just watching the trials of these three’s lives. The nuance and the variety of topics covered in this way.
I’m enjoying it immensely….. not have I enjoyed a timing of a show to show me some things since Six Feet Under. This one is a profound love.
I’m reading Dune which is so odd for me. It is and it isn’t. What I appreciate is being attuned to intuition and that that is real.
I want my dreams back, and to be connected. I am figuring it out. Softening, thawing, warming, while also reinforcing my non-negotiables and boundaries.
It’s absolutely pouring.
The waves are crashing around the cement dock that I’ve walked to the edge of so many times and felt like I was standing in the middle of the ocean. Like I could walk on water. Don’t worry no delusions of grandeur here.
Anyway I have more to say later probably or tomorrow. I’m needing woods and water and empty hours.
I had so much pain I never dealt with. I’m only just coming to terms with how compartmentalized I was and the whys and the how’s of it.
I went swimming yesterday. Floundering awkward. More tuned to everyone else at first hyper vigilant non breathing. As it turns out rhythm and breathing is essential to swimming and well every other aspect of life.
I used to experience such shame for being so out of sync and step with those that were given acceptance and love.
I could feel it radiating through me as if I myself were a neon (because I was born in the 80’s it’s neon lol) beacon of different.
I am trying to wear that proudly now and to teach as I go. To advocate for myself and others to not be silent or more accepting. To not cut off parts of our stories or ourselves in favor of making other people more comfortable. I won’t.
In fact I am doing the opposite I’m excavating my story and working at believing it myself, getting it down, getting it out, writing it.
This is not easy. I have a thousand suitcases (white oleander reference), and it’s so overwhelming to even try. It makes me short of breath to even try.
So that’s where I am. I won’t be ashamed or change trajectory for anything. This is me.
I’m doing all body therapies currently and stretching only to my edge moderately until the muscle gives a little. Gentle yoga. Regular kills me still. Being in the water. Taking too much in, feeling headachy from being stiff and awkward and scared.
Just breathing …. Acknowledging…. Being with….
I took this season of writing immersion off to better balance some other things that need attending to and I’m scared shitless to lose the flow I found. But I often share in sessions we can’t lose “the work” it’s integrated and part of us. Accessible anytime, think Dorothy and her Ruby slippers.
I am reading It’s Not You by Dr. Ramani, I read it in like a day. That’s what happens when material makes you feel seen, you know it’s for you. I am reading Fight Right, which helps me hone my relational skills. I am reading Lessons in Chemistry. I am reading the list goes on!
I am watching This is Us. I’m shocked I missed the bus on this emotion porn, but also grateful because any sooner and I think it would have just made me feel worse about myself.
To speak to that I read something in Dr Ramani book, about permanent grief. Is that what I’ve been in?! That would make sense why I didn’t even know or couldn’t even feel other ones at times.
I became a doing. There was no being. And what has brought this so boldly into my attention is how my children felt in relation to me. As if their only value is when they are doing. Oh the heartbreak and regret.
So I’m working at becoming an open hearted and loving human being literally one minute at a time. The guards are many and they are intense. I have body guards upon body guards that I never asked for. Constantly telling me what I can and cannot do.
So much control. Lose control. No control. All control. Organize around others. Perform.
No breathing. No living.
So now I’m figuring out what this living thing is all about. Making friends with my emotions and my body. Introducing myself to them. We are pioneering uncharted waters here. So I guess it’s way finding then.
That makes sense !
Anyway that’s it for now but there may be more posts as I spend time with me this weekend.
First it’s a long walk for the dog and then gentle yoga and then massage.
I am reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. As I continuously recognize the magnitude of trauma through the story of others, I close the distance gaps between mine and me.
There’s a line in the book about how a human being could be so thoroughly bifurcated, and that has haunted me ever since.
Is that what I was (am), bifurcated?
And much more specifically not just from my other half, an other half, but from my personality, my soul’s essence. It’s heartbreaking to even write. As the truth seeps inside my skin and takes root.
I recognize, that I recognize the magnitude and then it disappears before my very eyes like the proverbial bird in the magicians cage once the cloth has been drawn back.
Each day a blank canvas in the way that only a survivor can understand, as if nothing has ever existed before. The only thing holding a human life together at times is the glue of the people around them, who they hold shared experiences with. I’ve taken for granted that hallowed glue, and yet I haven’t.
I have known how important and this knowing led me to rush desperately, or maybe it was the trauma and not the knowing that caused that, and to create these unions out of a place of desperation.
See what I do there? How I take responsibility for things I couldn’t possibly be responsible for. But then how does one figure it all out anyway. What is theirs and what is not theirs and what is fair has no place in the realm of humanity. Because things are simply not fair.
Fair is a striving if anything, it is not granted by some mystical or even judicial force, and it’s certainly not a perfect system.
Rather these days I think what is the lesson, and the lesson is always love. Not in simply a romantic sense but an all encompassing one.
Is material like this this so relatable because of my many life experiences and similarity or some divine force that has me connect with exactly what is needed at the time?! Both.
Do I bore you going on and on and answering my own questions in your presence? I cannot attach to that it isn’t my business anyway if you’re bored or not. And besides what do I always say?! You’ll never be bored. I’m not boring and my life is certainly not, though it can be quiet and peaceful now.
I’m learning to allow that.
Anyway this book and watching This is Us for the first time, has me breaking open daily.
There’s something about watching two people sharing life together that want their children that work hard at loving them well, that well just flays me open.
No surprise there.
Watching a father love his children and do his best, and the same for a mother. And how they balance their dreams and their own desires with that.
And how fucked up my path looks in comparison, which is why we don’t do that.
If I look at my life individually the whole story it’s so much easier to see the beauty in it. Watching families who love each other and have traditions and traditional anything just sets my skin aflame like the emotional burn victim I am.
Do you see my scars?
This book though. This show though.
Piece by piece I’m collecting me and I’m putting together a self that has all her original essence, from all the shards.
It’s slow.
There is no longer a rush. It’s slow and beautiful. Everything is art. Every meal cooked and eaten. Every dark thought banished by compassion.
This book opens me. My clients open me. Life opens me. It’s exquisite and excruciating and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A continual surrender. A cease fire on myself. And finally burying my armor and replacing it with something realistic, something lighter…..
Like you’ll never be bored ha. I never am. Sometimes I think I’d like to be until I’m actually there.
Then of course I want to be somewhere else.
I’m doing a lap before taking twin b to the hospital for fluids and stuff to help her tummy. I hate that she got this disease.
I hate how my heart aches when she doesn’t feel well. How my gut wrenches when she wretches. But this is the price of admission and I’d gladly pay double, and it’s taken me a long time to get here.
I’m grateful beyond words lately.
Surrendered, open, loving, letting go. And boy is that difficult for me, to stay consistent with that. It’s daily work.
I can now see fear, control, and so many other things so much better. I can now see myself and others that way, thank God.
I’ve had such artful posts flow through my mind the past couple of days but couldn’t get it down and that’s ok. It’s softer now. There’s faith I will.
I will. Not owned by my will. Will you?!
Where my mind goes in all intimate moments, the all nighters, the special moments. I have as much control over that as I do gravity.
I want to be free. To play, to think, to write, to create. To breathe.
I have needed to and am becoming a better person through letting go. I used to think that it was a process of holding on, to beliefs, to safety, to my opinion. To anything.
God I was insufferable. I suffer just thinking about some of the damage I’ve done, and with that is all I’ve overcome. Conjoined twins.
What is solid and will always be, are my boundaries around choices, they will be made from my most authentic truth bravely, and not recklessly.
I will only be and accept direct straight forward honesty. That makes me breathe easier. That is my commitment to myself. I love her fiercely.
God she’s beautiful.
I am my best friend, and sure we fight sometimes but these days we repair quicker and cleaner.
I am committed to this work. To my beautiful clients who show up and show their scars, pain and hearts to me. It energizes me. If you show up my energy is yours to share in. I’m here.
My life is not only worth living it’s exquisite. A masterpiece. Nothing is allowed to steal my peace anymore, nothing.
I have family, coping mechanisms, love in my open heart, courage, a fierce mind, and I love living, and life with all that I am.
I wouldn’t move one piece of my puzzle.
This year I’m going to work on solid layers of self and continuing to not abandon myself, while also becoming better at love.
I see how much threat alert I lived with daily and what it has caused. I watch the damage daily in my children’s struggles. However I am right here for them. A rock. A River, an ocean. A warrior.
I am fiercely loyal, and that loyal was always going to need to include myself. I learned it didn’t.
Update ER for four hours. An experiment in the observation of humanity for sure. I may never come to one again. Somehow you end up worse off. Gah.
I watched the movie Burnt the other day, with Bradley Cooper. It resonated. Amazing movie about passion and recovery and food and creativity. It really touched me. I’ve watched it since.
I seem to stay attached to those type of things. Movies and music that make me feel something. It stays. I stay.
I’m back to reading schizophrenia and beginning one book after another but not committing, and resisting finishing them. Sigh. Time to slow down. Same with writing. Although there’s some new on that front. I’m beginning a therapeutic memoir writing course in January in addition to the immersion I’m already doing.
Investing.
There are new beautiful things happening. New energy.
The old and new converges into a brew a stew, a crew.
Coming soon, talking about connecting with family members I never imagined I would, and knowing things I never imagined I could. A bond with my father posthumously I didn’t expect via a family member.
And the ongoing process of how in the hell to decide how best to spend the time and talent I’ve been given. The ever elusive balance.
There’s so much ground to cover. But for now let me prevent myself from ending up in jail as a mom on her 5th hour of watching her daughter uncomfortable and not being able to do anything.
