Tag: #creativerecovery

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How sales is changing me or how is sales changing me.

The new insights that are coming from solar slaying are fascinating. It’s learning people from a whole other angle. In their homes and directly in their lives. A couple is making cream of chicken soup over a beautiful stove, they share warmth and hospitality with me. A man who smokes Newport’s and drinks Budweiser in his pajamas during the day, shares with me that his wife has been cranky lately because he has lung cancer.

New couples trying to afford to live and make it in this world, financially and emotionally. Being out on the doors as we call it and talking to people is also much like doing therapy. But I can see even more of their lives, and therefore learn more is the idea there maybe. But then I am only with them a brief time and the temptation to drop by with flowers or to stop in for a coffee is always present. I closed a deal last night and the woman seemed so sad I wanted to reach out and comfort her. I can still see her grief filled eyes and I want to do something.

Should I, shouldn’t I!? The answer is you always should when you can. Perhaps I’ll bring her flowers. The resilience of people astounds me. Recently I am included once again in this category but in a new way. We have suffered a great loss and are currently waiting for a new equilibrium as a result.

I’ve had many blog posts bouncing around in my brain like many a brightly colored rubber ball, but then the energy dwindles as fast as it comes and my pursuits are demanded elsewhere.

Some things I’ve noticed so far on the doors is that my brain moves even more frantically and settles in to write less. Produce produce produce. There is always some incentive and always the want for more. I already know ahead of the curve that once the money starts coming in, the desire for more will pique. What was once unheard of will become normalized and you’ll need more to be excited.

Life normalizes invisibly and we don’t realize it until often our behaviors have caused us issue. Many a change we never saw coming. My gift is seeing ahead by the way if intuition and much life experience to draw off of, and a deep understanding of human behavior.

This is yet again when I have to put some work on knowing my boundaries and what my priorities are, otherwise I will be swept up in the hustle. The glitz and glamor of it all. The streets that are paved with cheese. Notice I said cheese and not gold. Any small sentence can give you a clue into a human beings deepest desires.

The promise of more… there can always be more. But more is not always more of what you really want. So it’s sort of ironic that I’m working more and more on (not to be confused with moron;) ), to get to a peace filled existence of writing, reading, and being present with those I love. Is it the way? Or is this just another learning curve on the way to the way. As if there was just one way.

Will this cabin on this sacred space be an answer to my writer’s heart? A spiritual healing. Will the idea turn out as I imagine it to be ? Or will it be sinking a 50,000 (ish) ship and that being yet another lesson. Oh the woes of being a whimsical risk taking dreamer, versus a pragmatic, careful, financially minded planner.

Could I become a “salesman” that becomes more and more hungry and just keep telling myself it’s for my family. So many do you know ?! Probably the smartest course of direction would be to pay off my student loans and invest. Who else can pay off their student loans in the span of one year? That is the promise here. That’s always the smartest course of action. In the real dream scenario I will be able to do both, but that will require time and sacrifice.

If you asked my kids they would probably tell you they just want even five minutes of true presence from me over all the riches in the world. If only I had ever loved myself enough to know that when they needed it even more. But that as usual is the harshest possible version. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. And I forgot the long ago truths such as how I didn’t have to balance work and motherhood in the early years.

It was me who held them every single time and I looked down on them with a love burning with the power of a thousand suns. I remember that in moments, but the trick is they can’t. Their logical memories can’t anyway, perhaps their feeling ones can. Perhaps that’s why they do so well now, but because I pushed them so hard, but because I loved them better than I give myself credit for.

There are many ways to love. For me as a mother my love was shown primarily by working on my self so carefully so I didn’t cause them some of the damage that was bestowed upon me. Somethings with that plan worked really well, and others left something to be desired for.

But either way my every though in every breathing moment of my life all comes down to them. It doesn’t matter how caught up in dreams of love I was and then they crashed and burned. What I saw as my motivation and my dreams always had them in mind. This is something I rarely gave myself credit for when I listened too much to the critic(s).

Isn’t it interesting how different the idea of what I will write is compared to what I actually do? The post I thought I had inside was much reflection on the past year, and how I want to use that in this new one. It will probably still come, but this is what was on the presses today.

Hot off the presses of my mind. A life lived quite uniquely, or perhaps not at all. I just am not privy to the many other minds like mine out there.

Happy New Year everyone! I can’t wait to see what adventures 2019 brings all of us!

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Connected

*I guess we are all one phone call from our knees. *

I don’t think I could have bargained for all the gratitude this experience is bringing me. I can’t feel it too much yet, everything is just so painful. But I know that it’s there, and growing, and that this experience has already profoundly changed me.

If I do it right it’s going to make me realize all the things I take for granted each day. It’s going to make me realize what a gift and blessing my kids are in a new way.

We need to hit the refresh button on life often folks! Not just when bad things happen, but consistently. Not just once a year. Refresh, open your eyes, and look around at the landscape of your life.

My God I could have never imagined this. I never believed I would trust or love myself as much as I do now.

I would have never believed I’d be here living out my dreams. Here I am.

It’s interesting to choose a person early on because of a hunch and an intuition and then watch them unfold and get to know them with faith and trust the rest of your lives together. Love grows as you go through things. We have been through a lot this short time together.

Prior to this I moved quickly into love also, this was a need based approach it wreaked if desperation and seeking a buoy in the ocean with sharks swimming around. I’ve finally climbed onto an island and am relaxing. I did not purposely use those people. I didn’t even know my own bs as most of us don’t, until hindsight affords clarity. Hurt people hurt people. It isn’t nearly the intentional process believe I don’t think.

Now if you realize this is what’s happening and you don’t do something about it that’s a different matter.

Love now:

We know one another’s soul, and yet we learn new small things about the other each day. We become more and more familiar as time moves on. A confirmation of the original hypothesis. The other times were disproving and they were as devastating a loss as any for both parties.

Life is a learning playground is it not? I’ve rarely seen people set out to harm another, that’s a different category all together. But I’ll tell you what I still scan myself often and thoroughly for signs of being what I came from. I still take any feedback that could be construed as negative about me and make sure it’s twisted into that either way. This is one of my greatest areas of work.

Am I taking up too much space with my big feelings? Am I selfish? Am I like them? Do I make people uncomfortable with my rawness, and is that the same As the chaotic discomfort of my beginning. It is not the same. Thank God!

As I work for Vivint I’ve been meeting lots of people who lost their loved one recently or within the last few years, and my empathy as a person grows. After having something like this I get it. I’m already aware of the depth of suffering I’ll have when I lose it. I’ve never been able to cruise along in blissful ignorance, though I’ve often envied (probably falsely) those who have.

If you had told me two years ago that this year I’d be spending trying to get pregnant with the love of my life, I would have thought you were crazy. If you would have told me I would get so close to this dream after so much hard work, and then lose it suddenly and have to push it back again significantly, I would have told you I wouldn’t make it through something like that.

And yet here we are.

The courage of my wife astounds me. Her grace and kindness and gentle soul. Some people are just made angels from the very beginning, and others have lives that make them need one. We are the perfect match. Blissfully she seems to feel it’s the other way around. I’m still trying to figure out how that’s possible.

I am able to know I can be kind and unselfish when things are hard because she believes me to be that person.

I am trying to put this into practice with my children. Coming from a life of hyper vigilance and a huge lack of trust this has been very difficult. I’ve been RE wiring myself as long as I can remember and it’s difficult for anyone who doesn’t know what this work is like to understand the profound exhaustion that comes with it.

I am not exhausted from my children. They are my reason for getting this far. But over the years if you looked at my life you might have thought that, or that I valued my romantic relationships above them. Something I’ve long been accused of. I knew I needed a certain kind of love to heal parts of me, so those parts didn’t damage them. I had the foresight to know this.

And foresight is serving me again with this tragedy we are currently experiencing, because I can already see how the awareness it brings is challenging me to love better.

To my kids: I know it has taken my entire life to become a whole loving person that you deserve. I know this journey hasn’t been easy for you. I think the only redeeming part is that your lives will be better for it in ways you may only ever see when you’re my age. Distance brings clarity. I hope your lives end up as full as mine has been. Full of adventure, challenges, new experiences, real feeling, and the love I worked so hard to find, and to help you connect to it.

I’ve worked to connect with others and myself despite incredible connection difficulties.

And now here I am a connected and real person and boy does it feel different.

During times like this for a small moment I wish I could still be safely disconnected from my real feelings. But that never worked I always felt separate from the humans like that. It was terribly lonely.

I am connected to my self and currently my suffering too, and to the Universe, and to everything.

I am grateful for that. Thats what the smile below is about. It’s a different approach at times to this grief. For me great grief also brings great gratitude I have any of this at all. That I have someone to be sad with and lose something so important with. And we can try again for this, but this love is a once in a lifetime love. It’s the kind that always helps me love myself more, and I needed a lot of that.

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Yale Schmale: Ivf Horror Story

If something doesn’t feel right it probably isn’t. Bottom line. We have had a terrible experience with Yale Reproductive Center. I don’t even want to walk back through those doors. And despite what this will be chalked up to this is not just an emotional meltdown grasping for something to blame in grief. I know all about that. I’m a mental health counselor. This is about trust. You trust a doctor because you think they know more than you, but what was missing here is that they did not care nearly (if any) about us. I’ve felt this way for a long time, but since I wanted to keep my eye on the prize and “stay positive”, like everyone tells you…. I stayed quiet. I stayed quiet through the many alarms going off in my head. My hunch is even our IUI’s could have been planned better and paid more attention to.

I think if they communicated and paid attention then we would have a baby right now. I believe that with my whole heart because of the many evidences of them not knowing what was going on with anything.

And I already know what they can and will do. They will cover up for negligence by the fact we are clearly just emotional. That’s what will happen here. That’s how large medical practices get away with things all the time.

So here is our story:

Worst experience I’ve ever had with a medical institution. You are a number. You see a different “fellow” every time, and your “doctor” one or two times. In my opinion we would have been pregnant long before if anyone in this place communicated with one another. I’m sure you could and then will chalk this up to being in a painful emotion. But that’s minimizing what actually happened here. How many irresponsible things happening with our time, our money, and our hearts.

From not knowing our correct protocol, and if I wasn’t on top of it we would have started taking incorrect medicine. To the fact that the offices terrible communication led to a decision about frozen or fresh transfer to be made immediately while I was seeing clients back to back. The woman called back and asked my wife (I’m a woman we are gay) if she wanted to talk to her husband. We have been patients of yours for over a year, you’re handling the future of our baby and our joy here, and you don’t know who we are?

Then let’s get into the back and forth over frozen or fresh transfer. It’s appearing now that we should have done frozen and we think someone set it up because that was best, but another person said it was borderline. In the end the morning of it took a long time for everyone to get on the same page. We never spoke to our actual doctor at all about this, again a melange of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year fellows.

I am not a doctor and I was concerned about the high thyroid levels that spiked with the fertility medications, the ones that we tried so hard to get down prior to trying to conceive. Our thyroid checks were not stayed on top of throughout, because no one speaks to each other.

We get a report in the beginning of mono diamniotic twin pregnancy, we are cautious as it’s early. And nervous because it’s higher risk and we know that. We go back in and it appears there is one sac and a hematoma on the other side of the membrane, we are possibly a twin down and we went in for heavy bleeding. At this time we see a tiny heartbeat and are given hope, sent home with a picture of our baby. No one said what I was thinking the whole time. If one twin goes because of a chromosome abnormality and they are identical the other is going. Was it too early to know these things. Sure. Should we have been fully spoken to by our doctor, a full experienced doctor about the risks. The heartbeat was 110, the bottom of the scale, it was on its way out too and yet we went home excited and the staff encouraged that. No one said be cautious and specifics about the mono di.

In fact no other resident even mentioned the twin situation. An actual doctor dr Pal, did the first ultrasound and gave us real info, including how early to tell. We aren’t stupid, but it’s the most questions I had answered the whole time. She did not check on us when we had bleeding, she did not check on us at all.

At this time we were told to come back 3 days later on a Monday to check things. My wife called to make the appointment and they said they didn’t have anything til Thursday. Again if we were told to come for bleeding where is the follow through.

This fertility clinic is the do it yourself variety. This is the target self checkout and if there is an error you better know how to fix it yourself. I have so many questions, so many anxieties, my wife and this baby we want to have are my world. I’m not a number. I’m a human.

So the set up was one baby was ok with a heartbeat and the bleeding stopped fully and we got excited again. And when she went to the ultrasound I was on FaceTime because I’m trying to provide and it’s just an early one. I had been at every other appointment no matter how small. But this one my wife’s twin went with her and I was on FaceTime. I got to hear our baby has no heart beat and probably hasn’t in a week from another different doctor over a screen before my 3 pm client. Again no word from dr Pal. We should have stopped progesterone a week ago so my wife and I could get on with our grief, and we would have known that if they talked to each other and prioritized our Monday appointment. We had just had bleeding. No one cared whatsoever.

Yale gets picked for its name. And I think they have forgotten real human values. It’s a machine, and contrary to their words to dismiss my many concerns they are not “a well oiled machine.” I will never affiliate myself with this group again.

My wife was sent home with a hat to collect our dead baby in and a specimen cup, and a two sided pamphlet about support groups. No word any of the way through our miscarriage from the actual experienced doctor.

The only comfort there are the few gems of nurses we will remember fondly in our hearts. The ones who get it. Doctors became arrogant and lost, and I just plan to learn from that. That I’m not too important to sit with a human and talk to them fully about what they are feeling and going through.

We will be just a statistic to them, an angry customer clearly clouded by grief, but they have a legacy with us.

We will be seeking out a space to share our very intimate fertility journey with people who genuinely show us the attention we deserve when they are getting thousands of our dollars, and holding our hope in their hands. There is a way you treat people and this was not it.

We will not be walking back through the doors of Yale fertility! There is a reason their reviews are terrible. I am so disappointed and hurt with the lack of care we have received.

I will never again put our care in the hands of someone who is an expert in medicine that isn’t also an expert in caring about the individual.

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New is scary…. everything is so fucking scary

I’m thinking back to Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic, and how much it helped me to change my perspective on fear.

I am in a space right now where things are scary again. I am learning many new skills with understanding the business of solar and how to present numbers and designs to clients. I am so not a numbers gal. This is really intimidating for me. You come out of the gate needing to understand how to present information to people. And I am so literal and it is so important to me to be honest. I am finding if I don’t fully understand something and am trying to explain it as if I do it feels incongruent in such a way that I completely freeze up. So lately I am doubting my ability to close the deals so to speak. This is called a Welcome Call in my world. I mean I know that the District Managers can’t close my deals forever.

So here is what I am trying to do. I am trying to think back to my level of fear before I knocked my first door. The very first day that I tried I sat in my car driving around for hours trying to get enough courage. I texted Courtney lots of times of how afraid I was, and how I couldn’t do it. And she just kept telling me I was so brave, until I was forced to believe it myself. When someone believes in you so thoroughly you have no choice but to rise up to that blessing. She is my blessing. So I knocked. It ended terribly. The woman was beyond rude. And yet I went skipping down the steps with glee at the fact I had mustered enough courage to even knock this first door.

It did not get easier as soon as you would have thought. The next day I got up enough courage to knock three doors and by the time I was done I needed a serious nap. In between each one it probably took an hour to muster the courage. My heart pounded in my chest when I knocked and I hoped they wouldn’t come to the door. When they did I stuttered and stumbled. These nights when bed time came I passed out fully clothed on the outside of my bed. I was too tired to even undress. Now that I am reflecting on this I am thinking in one perspective I could wonder what is wrong that this isn’t easier. I could be nasty to myself. But when I am looking right now I feel like a warrior. Because this is my real experience with this and I am still going. That is the only thing that matters is that you still try. With parenting, with relationships, with learning something new. The only thing that matters is you keep squaring up with your fears. You don’t let them drive the car, they have to come along to keep you safe and aware, but they don’t call the shots.

So 20 days into my 60 day trial period where I have to prove myself I have 4 out of 10 welcome calls. One more and I get to attend a cruise to the Bahamas, and if I get all 10 then Courtney gets to come with me. I love a good challenge so this is fun for me and keeps me feeling alive and engaged. Why not?! It’s the challenge, and the small incentive challenges within the challenge that makes it fun for me. I have always enjoyed being challenged. That is kind of comical if you knew my life, because if I am not challenged from an outside source I will create my own, setting them up like a track of hurdles at a meet. I make pole vault sized hurdles, and then expect myself to get over them as if they were just jumps.

And because I believe I can I do.

The fears nipping at my heels the entire time. You aren’t made to do this. You don’t understand ALL the info you aren’t an expert yet, so you’re going to look stupid at a closing alone. You will stumble and get nervous because these people are intimidating, and think you’re out to screw them over, and if you’re afraid that’s what you’re doing without knowing it, you’ll fear being insincere. If you don’t put everything into one thing then the rest of anything will fall apart. I’ve cut back on my hours of the stable employment that I LOVE to grow myself.

But did you hear that? I did it to grow myself. If I am going to help others grow, my continual self-growth is crucial. Staying fresh and engaged. Again I will think of my hero Elizabeth Gilbert and her style of writing. The fact that before she writes a book she will spend 3-5 years immersed in researching everything about the topic, and then like training for a marathon she quarantines herself with her love, a delicious tryst versus being caged. She shows up dressed and ready early in the morning to commune with her writer’s gift and she creates works that her reader’s love. I want to find my groove with writing, and to do that I need to buy some time, and to buy some time I’m going to need some more money and a space that I feel as if I can commune in.

Our baby is the size of a raspberry this week. 7 weeks and 2 days (ish), it has a tiny heartbeat and looks like a little hunched over tad pole. We get to see it again at the end of this week, and I am wondering when we “graduate” to the normal OB, and who we will pick for that special special task of helping us deliver our baby in a way that feels best for us, and keeping him/her safe until that point.

I have so many questions. I always have so many questions. It used to be annoying to others and I always knew that. Now more and more I see it for the gift it is. To stay curious and open is to be engaged in our lives. I want always to be this way in my life.

There is a work truck outside that has interrupted my morning commune with myself, and I am none too thrilled about it. I’ve tried to do what I can to drown it out. I want my Nature and quiet at the colony in Woodstock. I am still trying to figure that out, as I stash the cash to be able to purchase it. Will I be able to take THAT RISK. When I have that kind of money. Should I not put it to my student loans or a down payment on a different home? So many things need to come before that.

Shouldn’t I be able to write anywhere? But that just isn’t true. Right now I write in the bath tub to drown out all other enough, and in certain ways as you might imagine it isn’t ideal. I want to walk in the woods and have that unique meditation. I think I will have to make friends with the space I am in. Know it well enough that nothing new is spiking my interest before my attention will relax itself enough to produce writing. I need a spiritual space where I feel accepted and alive. I felt that way there. I also felt that way at Omega. I must answer this dream. I must.

So to be able to answer people’s questions and know what I am doing this will require some studying and learning and rehearsing. So I am not frozen in the moment. Truth be told I am probably more interested in all the human aspects of people once i am in the door. So many of them are widows and recently lost a loved one, or new and starting out.

That is what I am interested in, not if I can close the deal.

Such a large portion of life is discovering who we are and who we are not. We can do a great many things that can be taught, but do we want to is the question? For me I have no other choice but to strive for tasks that light me up and make me present. Counseling does that, and yet I still need to stay fresh and learning new things. And I never liked that to be only one thing. I am learning so many things about people from being in their homes and having the challenge of challenging them about a new and scary concept. A new way to source their energy. Tired and overwhelmed people who just don’t want to bother with something new whether it’s a better idea or not.

Anyway that’s another blog post I think. So I’m just here learning new things each day, preparing to turn 38, wondering what I’ll be like as a mom this go round, being in awe and radical gratitude of my capabilities….

Learning is life..

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We don’t love like the humans do….

This experience is leveling me to the ground. And whilst I am laying here I can see perfectly clearly using my lenses of hindsight.

I never noticed what a true miracle the three kids I have already created are. They are miracles. They made it through pregnancy, through my immature phases, through so many changes. They love hard still. They are wide open and warm. And I have hardly had the vision to notice this. I think if I had I would have spent day and night afraid I would lose them also.

My children have had to wait for me to come back to life from traumas so severe my only choice was to become numb and survive. The mechanics that make you that way do not lend to calm and gentle seeing presence.

“You cannot be everything you want to be before your time.” I have always wanted to be everything for them.

I love them more than I am able to convey in ways that feel like presence to them. Some people I’m guessing are able to choose to abandon any other thing to choose one. Their kids are their entire meaning. My kids are also, but if I didn’t make my own growth and healing a priority I would have only ever been able to love them at 50 percent capacity of my being.

They would have seen pain behind my eyes. You cannot hide things from children. You can lie to yourself that they don’t see, but children see the world much more clearly than us jaded adults do. They are much more capable of magical thinking and beliefs and therefore likely to be able to be happy, creative, and kind.

I know no matter how I look back I will always see the things I missed, some of them quite profound. I was there, but I wasn’t. If I couldn’t be fully present with myself, if I abandoned her too because that’s what I knew, of course I would be too afraid to accept their love and endless faith in me.

I am often envious of the partners I have given my children too out of desperation. Financial desperation, anxiety desperation, fear of myself as a mother desperation. It has often felt like I would be swallowed by my feelings. So I saw these happy people who were functioning and I wanted them to always have that. I could be more of what I was around. I was just trying to choose the right thing to model myself after.

So many times what looked warm and safe turned out to be much different underneath. An in tact family is not the only criteria for a good situation. It took me years to learn that. To see through the very alluring most attractive parts to me.

When you have subsisted on crumbs for so long, half a moldy cookie on a table looks like a Thanksgiving feast. And this is an expression of my path and pain. No person I have ever shared my heart with was a moldy cookie. The health of the relationship for various reasons (many due to my attachment fractured beginning), was the rotten part.

Some family of any kind is better than none right ?! So why wouldn’t I have stayed? Stayed for the kids, stayed for me. Perhaps many of the kinks would have worked themselves out over time, or perhaps I knew beyond my consciousness in some way what was best for us. This thinking seems correct based on where we are now.

But what have I caused up til this point?

And you see there it is. Taking responsibility for everyone and everything.

This is a product of trauma. The person is forced to become self-sufficient to a level beyond them, and this is a side effect. And later in life they suffer immensely trying to be an island, needing to be one, but also wanting to belong and connect. The obfuscation is immense. The dark wood feels seemingly endless.

Until that one person, or many along the way, see something in them they can’t yet. Hence the reason I am a counselor, it wasn’t a choice, it was written in the muddled beginning.

I needed people to see the good in me. I needed it so much that was the only factor it took for acceptance into the fold of our family. It fed me to be seen. I have been accused of feeding off of others to meet my needs. And I accepted that fate again as the bad guy, but finally I am able to see there is so much more to that story.

We watched Cheaper by The Dozen last night. A comfort. It was making me think of all the movies that have resonated with me over the years, made me get goosebumps, and how I would watch them over and over, and listen to songs over and over. People would tease me about my love for sappy movies or my behavior of repeatedly watching them. But these were me comforting my heart and shaping my dreams. Watching stories of people’s lives drafted in artist interpretation. Trying to find something to model after.

It would take me a long time to differentiate the romantic portrayal of movies and the grit it actually takes in real life to create a healthy and thriving family.

I wanted my story to be something more than it felt the first half of my life. I’ve fought tirelessly for that. And the fight has left me so exhausted in my soul, that often times regularly expected trials and tribulations of life now feel too much to bear. And it doesn’t take much invalidation, even and especially accidental, to wound me. Just think positive, well yes but that takes for granted every way that has wired me as far as my experiences. “You’re too introspective, you’re exhibiting frightening mental states like your mother.”

For me I just need to vent my feelings. To know they are there. To pinch myself to make sure I’m still capable of feeling. To lay my hand across my chest to make sure it still rises and falls.

The love of my life understands this about me. This line brought more tears to my eyes. There have been many the past two days.

I’m trying to accuse myself of wanting more than I already have right now. Worst case scenario-ing my character at every turn. It’s what I am best at. My very own valid feelings end up becoming some fatal flaw. And this is what I am working on in myself right now.

I have to make sure this life I have often rushed to create now takes into account the feelings of all participants and not just mine, I wasn’t so good at that in the past.

But I see I didn’t just force this onto my family, this is all of our dream now. We have always wanted another child to share our love with. I have known that from the time one of my best friends rented our downstairs and gave birth to her son in this home. As I often kidnapped him for snuggles and a bottle.

I have accused myself of wanting children for selfish reasons, and not because I have all that is required inside of me to properly nurture them. I will always be hyper vigilant that I may not. If you saw what I came from you would understand.

I have long wished I could just play some scenes from my childhood back on a tape so that the people knowing me could know. I’m torn between not wanting them to feel sorry for me, see me differently, and between desperately seeking understanding for the differences in me that feel like the separate me from the humans.

Thankfully I am loved by someone now who can see it without having me show them, and they love me harder for it. And that extra love that was missing has filled in all the gaping holes.

I am healing. I am still healing.

It’s no co-dependence, it’s not taking advantage, it’s not pathology, it’s not selfishness. It is healing. It’s taken this much. I could have turned out so many ways. But what I need for those I love to know the most is I’ve worked so hard on myself so I can belong with them. So I can feel my heartbeat near theirs, and not shrivel away for fear of damaging them with my damage.

We want to bring a child into the world to share all of what we have learned in our new story together. The kids want this baby too, and the transition from “babies” to baby is utterly painful right now. Seeing my wife’s pajama bottoms with the blood soaked through on the floor still because we were too exhausted yesterday to do anything about it is devastating. Not knowing whether the rest of the pregnancy will make it through this turbulence or not is gut wrenching. And that’s all ok. I still love my first kids that much too.

I still know it was early and blah blah. I feel things this much. So fucking what! This is who I am. It’s how I’ve been made, and I can’t help a thing about it. Except to do this (write) to cope, and to allow my story to be shared, whether or not anyone reads it.

So here I am wide awake with all my feelings always at the crack of dawn. In my morning watery womb of my own creation RE-birthing myself daily into the person I know I can be.

Here I am wondering with faith in one hand and science in the other, and what the universe has in store for our family.

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Tea cups….

I should never be trusted with soft and luxurious white hooded sweatshirts! They never stay without stains.

We lost a twin today. How does one even feel about that? I’m supposed to be happy we see one heartbeat right ? This has been such a roller coaster I’m just swirling around in a tea cup ride of emotions. The whole rest of the world is a blur. If the other one makes it to term will it feel like something is missing it’s whole life? I’m quite sure I’ll be told to think positively etc, but are real human feelings actually negative or are they just feelings? These are mine either way.

I am waiting to decide how to feel.

And we are also waiting to see if the rest of the pregnancy is ok. We did see a tiny heartbeat today. A glimmer. My intelligent mind fears the fact that if the genes are identical and one didn’t make it, that logically the pregnancy is in trouble.

And my heart hopes.

But what this blog post is really about is the first thought that plagues me as we haven’t been able to get pregnant for so long and now this.

This is unnatural, it’s a sin, and we are being punished. It’s against God. We are two women we shouldn’t be having a baby.

I know I don’t hold these beliefs and if there is a God, ours loves us too. I know that, but I have to fight so hard to feel that way.

I’ve forced myself to treat myself as normal as anyone else. To bravely announce proudly everywhere I go I have a wife. One day I just got tired enough of feeling like a bad person in so many ways for being gay. For breaking up a family, for hurting my kids, and their dad and his family.

Eventually all that responsibility just got too heavy for one person to hold.

I cracked open into fearless courage. It became necessary. It was a natural evolution to how deeply I harmed myself with negative thoughts about myself for so long. I tried to beat the gay out of myself. I would have done anything. I tried everything.

I think I’ve been in denial. I’ve built such a strong outward presentation for myself, that I’ve ignored the sting of my minority status.

I don’t speak to my mother. Guilt. I’ve been divorced twice. Guilt. I’ve put my feelings and needs before my children’s at times. Guilt. I can make deep connections but almost all of my early ones are severed. Guilt. I’m fucking gay. Guilt. I have a million thoughts. Guilt. I talk a lot. I am big and enthusiastic and open.

More Guilt.

I am guilty of being in denial.

I am denying the fact that if just in one aspect life could feel any easier for me for one second. If my family could walk down the street and have people look at us like a thing of stability and beauty, like the majority of families are already guaranteed. Instead of wondering who will whisper or become nervous around us.

I forced myself long ago to be so out and so proud, that I’ve been hiding in my comfortable life not advocating for those who aren’t as lucky yet.

I shouldn’t have to work at feeling normal should I?

So because we are gluttons for punishment we ate food we didn’t taste, shed tears we didn’t feel, and went and saw Boy Erased. It was intensely emotional.

After the movie I wonder why I don’t specialize in LGBT clients. I mean I never wanted to be pigeon holed to one population, but now I’m wondering if I would have just felt like a fraud. How can I help someone with something I still haven’t figured out.

Why is my first thought of us not being able to get pregnant and the potential of losing this one that it’s not the way things are supposed to be.

Why am I stuck with a belief in my head that’s not my own?

He’s the Boy Erased, and I’m the Girl in your Face…..

and the tea cup spins.

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These Dreams Go on When I Close my Eyes….

So this morning I am scheming and dreaming. I’m at the vision board and I’m designing.

The goal: my wife and I want as much time together as humanly possible. We found each other late in life. I understand with extreme clarity the fragility of our time together, and I don’t want to spend it in an ordinary way. What I mean by this is toiling and only having a free few moments together. I don’t want to be rich in money, I want to be rich in time. And it would seem though that money can buy time, and as long as you don’t spend ahead of the making, and get above your means, I think this can be achieved.

This is what I’m thinking about most of the time lately. Originally I had hoped to do this by writing a book. However as I learn myself more and more, I realize that to sit quietly I need time, and to get quiet time I need money. And with twins on the way I’ll never have that hehe 😉 but I still think I can do it. I always think I can do it. It is this naïve enthusiasm that has powered me this far.

Couldn’t we all have more naïve enthusiasm?

The problem: My wife is a 911 dispatcher and 7 years invested in a pension. And she holds our amazing health benefits that keep my Crohn’s securely cared for and has funded our IVF. Her schedule is terrible. She works 7-3 one week then 2 days off and then 3-11 the next week and 3 off after. We can never get into a schedule and I cannot imagine how she will do this with twin babies. Her commute is an hour plus filled with traffic. And her job is a lot of sitting to which her body feels as if it’s falling apart. It has gotten us this far, but we have added so many other elements to the story we are going to need a change.

Needs: good benefits for us 4, the big kids have Tricare insurance through their father. A flexible schedule to be able to take care of the kids. Less commute, more time together. Yes these are needs, not wants. So this is a tall order right ?! But how can you say it doesn’t exist if we don’t look? At this point we could have a reality tv show 😉

So we need to find her ideally a part time job with good benefits that she can enjoy, but have most of her time at home crafting and being a mom like she wants and loves. Something she can be active and engaged doing what brings joy to her.

So if you want something different you have to lay blueprints to those dreams. Then you have to ask, look, research, and not stop until you’ve found a solution. There are always many solutions it just never feels like it because our minds are wired to see potential danger. We don’t see possibility nearly as often as we see the potential for a harmful outcome. Fear rules the roost.

Our dreams: time together raising our family, having the means for a vacation together and to see Hamilton as a family, having a family cottage we can create memories in and mom can write a book, our little identical twins make it safely into the world, Tyler gets into the college he wants and transitions as smoothly as possible, our family will love and accept us and want to be engaged in our lives, writing and sharing our story, and there are many more! Oh and paying off student loans and financial freedom to buy time together.

To enjoy life. To really taste food. To get goosebumps more often. To art. To cry regularly. To love gently. To encourage and nurture humanity in humans. To be kind. To learn new things.

In other news I have been enjoying talking to people, walking in neighborhoods, fresh air and perspectives. I am enjoying the newness of it all. I’ve also begun to feel the heat a beat of less relaxation and more my mind spinning towards one task or another. And scheduling has been hell! Trying to fit dr appointments, knocking time, trainings, meetings, baby appointments, kid appointments, client appointments, and the list goes on.

I have long known that this level of chaos feels at home for me, but also parts of me have changed in that regard without really knowing. When I am busy and engaged I am happy. It’s no longer trying to outrun something, but more an energy fueled be enthusiasm. Yes that’s it! I’m not running away, I am running toward. And I feel good about myself in the world.

If you would have seen me 5 years ago, my struggles, my behaviors, my outlook…. you wouldn’t even recognize me. Life is all a matter of perspective, self-acceptance versus critical abuse, and finding connections that energize your soul.

I had to pick this post up later, and I’ve been very scattered. I would guess it reads that way. Life is a jumble when you’re in the midst of change, and it’s difficult for most to tolerate that feeling. I’ve lived on a healthy dose of it my whole life, and have found the payoff to be quite grand.

Write a new blueprint anytime you want to make a chance, you are after all the lead architect of your life, and you don’t want fear getting a heavy hand in your project.

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Big Dreams growing even Bigger

*I was pleasantly surprised to find this morning that even though I’ve prioritized some different matters lately, I am still a writer. This is an actual text I wrote to my wife this morning. “Babe I’m not out here separate on my own creating dreams and you asleep in bed. I’m out here trying to reach dreams because of how tenderly you wrap me in every fold of your heart. No one has ever loved me like you do. Not even a parent ever. Don’t you know what that means.”

I love a good blogging on a Sunday.

I was thinking this morning how amazing a thing it is in humanity that we can try on new ways of being in each new day. I think sometimes we forget we can give ourselves this special permission. It’s so exciting to try something you haven’t done before. Upset about your sex life? Do something about it! Go buy an outfit or read a book by someone blessed with the ability to have found openness in that department. Ps they never look how you think do they? We picture kinky sex goddesses and then see the author and surprise it’s just a normal person of average height and size.

Funny before I wrote this sex wasn’t close to my mind, ha. It’s odd how life and the mind work, and these days I am loving not having it figured out. But seriously take anything you’ve wanted to try or be more of. Want to be more adventurous, plan an adventure. Don’t think about it just pack enough stuff in a bag for the night drive away and stay somewhere. Stay in an air bnb, meet new people, eat at a new place. Actually taste your food, rather than eating on the go.

Have kids and think adventures like that are no longer yours? Make whatever you’re doing an adventure. A trip to the grocery store can be an adventure. Try a new sample, pay a person a compliment, drive a different route there and take a walk.

Anything can be an adventure!

A dose of mindfulness can bring magic to the mundane. Anytime, anywhere, anyhow. It’s all in your mind and your story.

Want to try a different kind of job? Do it! Where there is a will there is a way and if we plant an intention and water it with curiosity and exploration, anything can happen.

Many of my important a ha moments and inspiration for dreams have been brought about by movies. Which is really watching someone’s creative endeavor about a story right? So in my quest for love there have been some key movies. Julie and Julia helped me know how I wanted to treat and be treated in relationship. Watching Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep delight in one another. That movie was more me than I was at that time, and it gave me a road map to my dreams.

A roadmap to my dreams was carefully wrapped in a 90 minute film that many might consider corny or not worth their time, but for me it resonated. A roadmap to our dreams can be anywhere. It can be hidden in the most obvious place. All you have to do is look with the magical gaze of childlike enthusiasm. Somehow I never lost mine. I thought I had, but when I met the love of my life it opened like a dam.

I’ve been blooming with creativity ever since and the courage to accept my dreams that have been laid here before me all along.

Another one of these movies was Cheaper by the Dozen. My favorite line was Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt looking over their high school yearbook and that one of them wrote to the other, “I finally found someone whose dreams are as big as mine.” I think of that line all the time in my current love. And of course my mind that was afraid to accept my own greatness thought well that’s just a movie, and of course in the movies people always have enough money etc. and that was just another way I told myself I wasn’t worth my big dreams. And I held myself back.

So not too long back I wrote about a dream about a cottage on a nudist colony in Woodstock Connecticut. One where I can write naked a jay bird and in my most authentic. A place that is free from all varieties of shame. My shangrila if you will.

But how would I do that? I was behind as usual, which is why my constant inner fairy godmother led me to solar, and here I am. I refuse to give up. So now I am banking the funds for my cottage in the woods. I mean look at this place?!!

Cottage is a bit of an understatement eh?!

Anyway so let’s do a dream checklist? Though I’m thinking of an art project that involves a dream map, and all the places the my roads diverged, and then when I have arrived so far….

Feeling like I belong: check

A healthy, respect filled, glowing love: check

Financial stability: while I often still have fears around this: check

Kids healthy, safe, and know they are loved: check

Education on a career that I adore and am passionate about: check

Writing: check

Self-love: so so much further towards this check than I ever was… in progress as always

Life still being filled with adventure: check

Big family: double check. Double being the operative word here.

Anyone see what’s going on in here ?! It’s very early to be completely sure, and can we ever be completely sure of anything ? But it looks like we are going to be having identical twins. We know they are identical because we only transferred one embryo from our IVF cycle.

So please sign us up for family of 7 reservation to our colony cottage. Mini-van and sanity checks necessary. 😉

Now just to wait and see if they are boys or girls….

And a fond shout out to the one who makes all these dreams possible my lovely wife. My wife who has endured hormones, injections, and poking and prodding over the last year that I’m quite sure she never anticipated in her life. An egg retrieval procedure, and then an embryo transfer. My wife who is battling through fatigue, 3 x daily progesterone insertions, nervous anticipation, nausea, new aversions and smells, bloating, and all the while enduring a horrific commute and protecting our streets by day and night.

My wife and my kids are my heroes and my biggest inspiration! They are holding down the fort and cooking meals, while I am knocking doors day and night to fuel our many giant dreams.

I am blessed beyond explanation, but par for the course, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying.

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A Very Thankful Thanksgiving….

As all these big feelings wash over me (they used to crash, now they cascade), I can tell it’s time to bring my heart to the blog and weave.

I am bursting at the seams with gratitude this Thanksgiving. Holidays as a rule are difficult for me, and that’s an understatement. I am always a guest in someone else’s Family Stone Family, the one whispered about when I leave the room. Thankfully nothing like Sara Jessica Parker in the actual movie. I was the Claire Danes, but still….

I was always liked that was never the problem. The problem was I chose my partner for the kids and for safety and love. I was at such a deficit. And don’t get me wrong all the people I’ve shared my time with are special and I learned so much from them. I really have no horror stories in my love life. Sometimes however I fear I became theirs. A taste of love and belonging and then yanked away. I experienced those losses too though, whether they were my decision or not. Another family, another warm heart beat pulled away, excruciating.

They weren’t a fit because their hearts were as unsure as mine if we could pull the whole thing off. I wonder at times if I had more faith in life and myself if it would have been different. But then how could it be when I am this happy now, and they are in their journeys towards happiness as well.

I figure those who take the actual time to read through this whole thing deserve to know our IVF has worked. We are 5 weeks today I believe. And once we hit 2000 HCG (we are at 1100), blood level then we will begin ultrasounds. We won’t make any official announcements until it progresses a bit further, but that whole thing is so superstitious and sort of the opposite of faith. I hate the whole privacy idea in a way. Sure it might be exhausting to share bad news with your loved ones, but you will need them right ?!

We need each other, all of us beautiful fragile human beings. Why isn’t that allowed.

We are so fucking careful and so private. I’ve never liked that, but since my life isn’t just me anymore I have to walk that line a bit more carefully. I do not want to live scared of anything ever again. I’ve spent most of my life anxious. Anxious I won’t be loved or even liked for that matter, and often I wasn’t. Anxious I wasn’t enough. Anxious I wasn’t smart like other people. Anxious about my health. Anxious about how everyone around me feels, if I have somehow hurt or bothered them. Anxious about money. Anxious at any minute something terrible could happen. And it always could.

On fucking eggshells most of my life. Profound exhaustion. And now I’m stepping out into the light and loving myself enough to stop stressing my body and my heart with these anxieties. I am practicing enough self love that when someone else doesn’t see me how I’d like to be seen I can weather that storm.

Rian just popped in the bathroom and said, “you should watch Courtney butter this turkey, it’s making me uncomfortable” bwhahahahhaah! I told her to butter that bird up with love and she’s doing just that. There is actually a video, but I’m not allowed to post it 😉 sorry guys!!

My latest self-inflicted therapy is of the exposure variety. I am going to get over my profound nervousness of if people like me or not, by exposing myself to the highest possible annoyance. Arriving on their doorstep to tell them about how solar can save them money and the environment.

Last night a lady told her adorable children who came to the door to tell me to get away. The house was so cool too and I was warm and friendly. Scolded like a bad dog, and instead of reacting I simply smiled and thought of a time I would have done the same because I was overwhelmed, and thought I needed to protect myself from someone trying to take advantage of me. So I get it lady. You keep paying your giant electric bill and teaching your kids to be rude. Ok so I’m as enlightened as I can be, but still human 😉

But these interactions don’t up end my world anymore, reaffirming a long held belief that I’m bad, wrong, and unworthy. I’m learning to let them roll off my back, that they have nothing to do with me.

And sure enough I landed a nice couple with a giant electric bill, amazing sun on their roof, and it warmed me right up. They also had a 6 month old baby who adored me and laughed the cutest and it made me so excited to be a mom again soon enough !!

“There will always be light and dark in life, and often we never know which we will find behind the door we knock. We must knock anyway, even if it’s mostly dark, because eventually you’ll land the right door, and things can change in an instant.”

The dark is always more seductive, it gives us permission to blame and to throw our hands in the air. We had a deep rejection this holiday, and I’m surprised to find myself watching this one from the outside. It’s been so long since it felt like my sexuality was a shameful thing. I should say since someone else shared they thought our sexuality was a shameful thing. It cuts like a knife to the heart, we will feel the sting and the loss today.

But it will never be as bad as the pain of living a life inauthentic. I always know that truth. Sad, scared, and unhappy people will always spread those feelings, the best we can do is to love them anyway. From a distance. I’m proud we won’t let this be a dark cloud on our happy time. It hurts, but it won’t block out our sun. See what I did there 😉

I’ve created my own solar panels for how I receive energy in my life, and it’s clean energy. I’ve chosen the kind of want to focus on and absorb and learning to protect myself from pollution.

This Thanksgiving is the first one where I feel like I belong. I am about to be 38 years old. It seems like that story would be a sad one, but I assure you it is anything but.

I belong here and am not a guest. I am grateful beyond measure for my kids who believe in a mother who has made herself from scratch. I am grateful they let me make mistakes and love me anyway. I am grateful for my beautiful wife who is the glue of this whole operation. I always thought I had to be the glue and fell into resentment at times, but it turns out she is. She is the constant warmth that keeps me glowing. She made this house a home in so many ways.

I am in radical gratitude this year!!!

My life gets better and better with time. Thank you to all who follow my journey. You are definitely a dedicated reader, and you are part of me being able to believe I am not too much.

A toast to family, red wine, and turkey basters to all of you 😉

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Ivf: a love story

Every time I have fallen in love I’ve always thought my heart could not possibly get any more full or it would burst. Then every time I do, I realize it’s stretching capacity. It’s like a pair of jeans that never get too small, every person’s dream right 😉

What I am in the midst of learning blows away every variety of rigid thinking, supposed to or should be. Never underestimate your adaptability folks. Your brain is wired for it. It can be a little hard to wrap your mind around that, because it’s always wired to complete tasks quicker by the railways of habit. So when you make it think a different way and go off the tracks it’s first reaction is to balk.

But if you keep going through that resistance that’s where the payoff lives.

Lately I am completely wordless with presence. I’m living less in my head and more in the storybook creation of my life. I like the layout, the language, and I can’t put the book down right now.

Yesterday was embryo transfer day, and I am just here basking in the glow of so many emotions I didn’t even know were there. Sometimes you can’t know how you will feel until you’re feeling it. Sometimes you’re just called by an unnameable gale force wind and you have to follow that absurdly until the next great realization.

I’m in love with my life lately, and that’s more than I ever imagined. It’s like being on ecstasy 24/7. Disclaimer I’ve never actually done that truthfully, drugs freak me out I’m too much of a hypochondriac. Life already burns bright for me. I feel gratitude for every tiny thing.

Anyway yesterday we experienced being able to see our new baby be transferred inside my wife. It was unreal. Admittedly there is a lot to sort through emotionally using the sciency approach and fighting feeling it’s somehow still less natural. It’s always a challenge in some way not to feel less than, and that challenge is increased when you’re a woman, a minority in any capacity, etc.

But it’s the challenge that makes you even more fiercely grateful, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

We are lucky and blessed to have our family and friends cheering us on at this time. I’m still my whirling dervish self and constantly need to be learning and challenging myself to new growth levels. And I’m enjoying being a parent, a partner, a warm guide, and a friend.

Baby’s first photo. This is a fully formed highest quality level blastocyst (baby dust) hatching from its protective layer. Hopefully right now the little one is firmly embedding itself into the uterine lining and will develop from the size of a microscopic speck (anyone else thinking of Horton Hears a Who), into our much anticipated bundle of joy. And sleepless nights.

Yesterday was a gorgeous New England fall day (in November).

My wife’s twin was able to come, and the reaction of all the fertility doctors and nurses was hysterical, many double takes. They made the hole thing really fun and many hugged us and wished us well. Snow patrol chasing cars came on and of course tears were shed. The embryo traveling in looked like a quick shooting star, and there it is: we must wait and see if that spark becomes a glow, and that glow becomes our beacon. And if for some reason this one isn’t the one for us, we must have the courage to begin again, but we aren’t at that part of the story yet. And for once in my life I refuse to skip ahead. I want to taste every delicious word as it unfolds.

We celebrated our victory by getting tacos and an authentic churro to share, at the food trucks on Long Wharf. The water sparkled under the sun’s golden fingertips like a bed of diamonds. The air was crisp and cool, and not a single fearful emotion could touch my mind, not a single one.

This is what living is really all about. Daring to reach for what you really want in life, sometimes not even knowing what exactly it is until you have created it!