Tag: #grief

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What’s next ….. what’s now?! Love

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same

Hello dear readers, I wish to be intimate with you today ….. I miss this (writing), this you, so much in its absence.

Sometimes the silent spaces in between are the most important, and you don’t see until much later.

Life is a great mystery and if you’re brave, a great story of your own making unfolds.

As it turns out when you’re not reacting to life all the time there’s a lot less to say.

That’s the quiet that’s been deeply reverberating right now.

These lines have been sitting here awhile. I keep missing the boat on waves of inspiration that hit. But this is ok because I no longer feel a sense of panicky desperation.

I’ve been learning a lot about what love is and about what it isn’t. A researcher of love above all things.

What makes it safe and trustworthy?

I do. By being responsible for cultivating that in myself.

I’ve been navigating the letting go process of deep bottom of the heart, grief, for the last four years. For my whole life really, but this new awareness has the last four years more standing out.

Now that my head is so much clearer, now what?!

Reading, relaxing, counseling, hanging out. Being.

You don’t get high on it, but you don’t crash either. A new kind of magic unfolds.

There’s a trust in the unfolding now. A deep breath and a sigh. A meandering walk among the halls of my heart, lined with many many shelves, and many stories.

I walk among them.

Deep wisdom settles under my skin, and I can draw from it as needed. Not running from myself, chasing someone else.

In this stillness the universe whispers and we become fast friends.

I am watching myself step into my gifts and twirl around in the mirror admiring them without self recrimination or admonishment.

The way my body reacts I had understood as anxiety, and it sent me into a panic. What that really was, is the depth in which I’m able to feel things.

It’s what empathy feels like in the body. The most powerful force on earth. Misunderstood I thought my body was trying to sabotage me. Not have a simple conversation and guide me.

Who knew ?!

So much opens up now.

Everything becomes a possibility. Everything always was, but now it’s known and felt.

I have long loved Wicked. We saw the movie the other day and I thought I might crack right open with feelings that movie evoked. As someone who saw herself as wicked for being the truth teller, and reacting to the many mistreatments.

As someone who has worried she was bad in some way.

During the dance scene at the oz dust ball I about cracked in half with emotion. Shaking with it. It was the first time I recognized my anxiety as “powers”. It clicked.

Suddenly I can see all the love around me I’ve created.

As the patriarchy falls and a new revolution takes place.

How love is the furthest thing from control. How control suffocates love out of the equation.

Years and years of attempting to control myself through manipulation and will, as a means of surviving those who would have tried to control me.

It was a lonely and dark path out of my own hell.

Now that I am shining the light ….

What’s next?!

Never mind that doesn’t matter.

What’s now?

Love

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Book Lovers. Grand Openings. Melancholy Musings.

There is a wishing booth in Chester! How adorable is this ?! This town is ridiculously cute!

So I’m driving to Chester Connecticut to attend the grand opening of Montgomery and Taggert, a romance bookstore, opened by two friends who shared a dream, and a love of romance.

I am listening to Lisa Tadeo’s Three Women, preceding watching the show. My goodness I love Shailene Woodley girl next door, but also bad ass! Florence Pugh is also on my radar of late. Reminds me of my childhood best friend, and probably crush although I didn’t realize it at the time.

I am writing this through voice memo, so I will clearly have to edit before posting something much more apt to do these days, than in the past.

The house was a flutter this morning with daughters and boyfriend. Although I am an “empty nester”, I have a very full life, and the birds are often still flocking home on the weekends.

I enjoy the flutter around me, as long as it’s at a measurable volume of course, and I have the option to enter into a quiet space or state at any time.

Wow, I just saw a whole group of bikers and several of them doing wheelies on the opposite side of the highway in oncoming traffic.

I just heard a line in the three women book that I really loved: The hurt doesn’t disappear it changes, it turns the manageable color of a bruise.

Recently in therapy, me being an introvert is being explored. I never would have fancied myself one, and if you had met me when I was younger or seen me in certain situations, you would not think so. But as a matter of fact, I am completely utterly refueled in my alone time.

According to my therapist, this is because I am unable to shut off my natural level of empathy, which pulls me to be considering the emotions, feelings, actions, behaviors, and what have you’s of anyone else within a 10 mile radius.

I am grateful for drives. They seem to be the place other than the shower, where my thoughts can float most clearly to the surface to be communed with.

I was helping twin A find her birth certificate this morning. Little by little my children’s important paperwork dwindles from my folder, and transfers to them. A very tangible piece of evidence of how quickly life is moving.

She was telling me about how she and her boyfriend are preparing to celebrate their fifth anniversary. I asked her if he is her lobster, and jokingly will have to put up with him forever lol. She is hopeful, of course.

And I have definitely learned that the length of a relationship is not nearly as much of a testament of the health of it, as society would celebrate or have us believe. I have allowed that to gaslight me in multiple ways over the years.

I much appreciate Margaret Mead’s quote about having three marriages, and all of them were successful.

I received Matthew Hussey’s Love Life book in the mail two days ago. I am already halfway through it. Lots of great advice whether you are in or out of a relationship at this time. His central thesis is to have the hard conversations versus avoiding them. Now that is something I can really get behind.

It does however fall into the easier said than done category.

So many times I open my blog to make a post because such a startlingly perfect epiphany came to mind. And by the time I open, it like a rare butterfly, it has already passed. I don’t let this stop me from writing any longer. I figure if I go on long enough, it may come back and alight on my shoulder.

You see now that I just named it (the block/ the blank).It came right back. I was going to talk about the ache.

Write to the block. Lean into the ache. Die to the page.

The Ache

And then the energy of that hits and everything just stands still, and I feel heavy like lead.

This is when you have to decide to keep going into it, speak it, explore it or whether you compartmentalize and move about your day.

I am fairly skilled in these options. But it is less easy to decide which one to choose.

This is all I’m going to write for now. I got pretty much the central theme out and I’m going to listen to my audiobook for 27 more minutes until I land in Chester Connecticut. Somewhere I have never been before, a date with myself on the brink of fall in New England.

How lucky am I?

Edit: this is now nighttime and I am home. One hundred pages deep into Book Lovers by Emily Henry. There is no shame in my love of romance. I am happy that was able to be rekindled recently.

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Music and Movies and Musings on an Overcast Saturday

The Guernsey Literary and potato peel pie society….

And so it goes……

It’s a Saturday. Overcast. The mosquitoes are biting. I just got nailed four times while chatting with my neighbor. Who may be moving soon 🙁 which is a whole other thing. Sigh.

I have many choices for the day, coffee shop…. But now I don’t want to go anywhere because at the moment I have the house to myself.

I put “the blend” on lol and Tears for Fears Shout is kicking things off. I was listening to Tina Turner last night. A random ear worm that needed satisfying.

It’s the Milford Oyster Fest today, the 50th in fact. I have zero interest in that. Typically too hot and the possibility of seeing lots of clients. I’ve been exploring with going towns away for that very reason. And because I like exploring.

I watched a movie, The Guernsey last night. I got emotional right away at the beginning, when she is passionate about being a writer of course. It was the perfect movie for me to watch. That Glen Powell he’s everywhere right now. He kind of reminds me of a much taller and larger version of my first love, sorry Mike 😉 it’s something in the eyes etc. I like him.

I have been thinking a lot about how lucky I got with my first love. How pure and real, and that we still have such deep affection for the other. Can still appreciate all our memories and songs and send one another things about it.

That makes me think about seven hours of music about Love. The longest playlist of the bunch. Having to look for meaning in crumbs is its own answer. It’s its own answer Christina.

I have learned that love shows up, and I have learned it the long hard way. You don’t have to go so seeking, hoping, looking for it everywhere because if it’s yours you won’t have to look far from where you’re sitting or standing.

I looked so much for so long. Years really. Long enough to realize what love isn’t. It isn’t lies and it isn’t manipulation. It isn’t abandonment, confusion, obfuscation. It isn’t fear, stolen, or on borrowed time.

It’s right there. The air touching you, the sun, the trees, the ground under your feet. It’s words and water and poetry and it’s in everything, especially you.

I’m sitting at my breakfast bar looking at a card that a fellow teacher wrote about my daughter, nothing I didn’t know, but it still makes me tear up.

I’ve softened so much it pains me even to kill a bug, even when we are supposed to with those lantern flies. It’s such a strange sensation to have changed so much, and yet still be the same. We all have a core. Core memories (very few). Core traits (very dicey lol). A core self. (empathic/ wounded).

My core self feels things very deeply, feels music throughout my body. Saw Lindsey Stirling recently that was phenomenal. If you have the chance do that, amazing for younger kids as well, anyone.

I feel music and movies and people and energy at such a high frequency. The more I remove my self will and skepticism, the more magic there is.

So that’s where I’m at. This am I listening to Mel Robbins and Matthew Hussey episode on relationships. Lovely.

I’m hoping to write and read and catch up on podcasts and finish Dune book 4 today. Those are my plans. Maybe get in the hot tub since the water is fresh and won’t skeeve me out.

I’ve recently re started another round of morning pages and I’m on day 20, so tomorrow is 3 weeks. I went back through a companion workbook and instead of feeling like I’m not accomplishing what I mean to, which is the usual feeling, I’m noticing how on track I am. Week two is about recovering a sense of identity, and defining boundaries etc, and I’ve been cleaning house lately.

No when it’s no, yes when it’s yes. Getting clear, and as I do that and stay the course with reading and writing more opens up. The path keeps opening up before me, and in turn I keep walking it.

For a little bit there I allowed myself to become critical and judgmental again and to doubt and it’s like all the lights get shut off. The realization is I always have the switch. As soon as I’m back in my intuition and grounded, everything is illuminated again.

It’s truly that simple and complex all at once.

I had a massage last night, and my friend / massage therapist worked on my jaw muscles, who knew that was a thing. They are so sore.

It’s a full time job healing. I will never take that for granted or that it is an honor to be awake and aware. Not some horrible prison as the story can make it, when one is feeling particularly lost.

Writing fall immersion begins soon, Tuesday 6-9 and Sunday 12-3 in a wonderful container of people.

Just like the a song with saxophone (80’s nonetheless) comes on to serenade my sentiments as I unearth my sediments and find the rhythm of my soul.

“Hold me now, touch me now, I don’t want to live without you. Nothings gonna change my love for you….. “ Glen Medeiros

Love is everything and also it isn’t. There’s knowledge and self development and adventure, but what will any of that mean if there isn’t love. If something is out of alignment.

Crossed wires are the burden of the survivor. Having to decode and re-program the mind so it can fit. Square pegs and round holes. That phrase has come up so often lately along with Leaps of faith.

Soon that will all make more sense than it does now, right now they are only fragments.

For now I will bask in the glow of my own growth and cultivate my gratitude and presence.

As I slowly move from every manner of destructive mind hazes, change phases, hear my words not just the phrases. Roll them over and over in your mind. Tumble them like stones until they shine.

These are some of the thoughts pulled from a once turbulent, now peaceful mind.

Happy Saturday and travels folks ….

Ps I need / want to do my artists date and walk but what about the darn bugs ?! Sigh. Nothings gonna stop me :p

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To make you feel my love ….

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.

In the face of abundance can I accept it

Or will seeking scarcity (home)

Always have me running

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No More Nightmares on Mother’s Days

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.

Trust yourself always

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Sensitive is The New Strong, Dying to be Me.

“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.

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Have I Really Gone my Whole Life Without Knowing How to Breathe….

Just breathe they said ….

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.

First we learn to breathe, then we try to live.

Love,

C

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Reading A Little Life, While Living A Big One

Willem and Jude

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…..

C

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When I surrender to love, love has interesting things to say to me.

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.

Posted on

Purging Demons in the Night, Writing About it in Dawn’s Light

“I’m out of my mind but still I’m holding on like a rolling stone. A thousand miles from anywhere.”

I’m soft and squishy this morning. The aftermath of another wave of grief. My grief is very physical. This episode I didn’t see coming. It’s rare for me to not see something coming. The rarest, and some of the most beautiful, and the darkest things have been of that variety.

Yet what is living if you can’t let go, and let life surprise you, and take the wheel sometimes.

Love is the most powerful force on earth: you simply cannot control it. Though I’ve tried my whole life.

Having so little experience with the stuff, I’ve tried most of my life to bend it to my will.

I’m not God. I wouldn’t want that job. Believe it or not 😉

So now I need faith. How do you believe in something that was never a natural part of your life. Something you’ve tried to learn logically while you still have oxygen in your lungs.

I’ve been in a hurry to learn love, until love had its way with me.

I’ve put all the narratives down. The shields. The sword.

I am naked.

Bare.

My story is all that stands left, unedited. No parts cut out. The whole thing.

Here I am.

It all matters to me.

I’ve put pathologizing down too. Trying to keep others safe from me, just in case, and instead causing harm any way. And I’ve had harm caused to me. It’s all part of living. No one is getting out of here alive.

I’m sober. I may not stay that way forever but right now I can’t afford emotional ups and downs more than I already have as an artist. I feel everything all the way through.

Everything except compassion for myself, for having survived this all or nothing existence, cut off from my own emotions.

My whole life I’ve been a coping mechanism, and now I’m healing into a human, and I’d almost prefer to go back, because the breaking and resetting is excruciating. There is no description that does it Justice. Yet 😉

I finally understand why people give up. I really do.

It’s not in my nature and my work is too vital. Those are my main motivators right now.

Most days I’m in agony and I’ve been ashamed of that. Like it might rub off on someone, like they can catch it. Like I’m supposed to just be ok and move on, because if not I’m sick like my mom. Always this demon lurking over me. Accidentally watched White Oleander the other night before bed. Not a good idea. Give me a good Disney movie. Oops.

I’ve been purging demons lately. That’s what trauma work is, quite literally. It’s what being possessed is…..

In giant waves of illness and stillness and comfort and rest after. The migraine melts immediately as soon as the true root of the pain is expressed. The robbing vice releases, and I can stop throwing up.

I haven’t thrown up since I was young.

Too much control. Too little love.

Now I have it all around it and I am it, and I’m adjusting. Why is love an itchy wool sweater for me?! There’s more than the judgment, there are other things too.

I’ll write them out. I’ll go in. I’m all in. Committed.

I began a new journal today, and ended my hamsa one yesterday. This one is all black with a skull and four gold leaves on the cover. It smells of Italian leather and reminds me of Día De Los Muertos. Makes sense and is a good dead of winter book.

Maybe it will contain more about all my dead selves than I’ve ever captured before.

I’m in writing immersions with Victoria Erickson. Learning to allow my life force and energy to flow, come what may.

Slowly working on home improvements. New office carpet, stairs and a railing going in, in the next few weeks. It’s so cozy in my sacred space. Just want to make sure it’s safe for my clients.

I made a contractor friend who is going to teach me how to do dry wall, and a few new things.

If I’m not learning I’m not happy. That’s a fact.

I want to learn everything all the time.

I’m beginning Barbara Streisand’s new memoir ! I love it already she’s so funny and real.

I am scheming a project to write my barber’s memoir. It’s been a spark for a long time. If you’re a person of the passionate variety, that’s all you need, and pretty soon it will catch fire.

I finally had the courage to pitch it, after last haircut. Today the spark became lit. He’s excited.

I’m hoping the practice will help me unlock mine. Not doing it alone helps.

Go Easy on Me just came on.

Flying twin b home from Florida for Thanksgiving. We will all be together in this home. That’s all I want is family. It’s all I’ve ever wanted really. No fight about where anyone will go, just offering love, and allowing those who want to gather.

To love my work, to be cozy with a good book by the fire, to continue to learn, and to connect with other human stories like myself, and share.

I’m the most myself I’ve ever been, and it’s been so much to get here. I cannot even tell you. There’s still so much work to do, it will never be done, but I’m so happy doing it.

I’m in uncharted waters. Exhausting and exciting. Always keep curiosity just a little bit larger than fear.

I’m burning off layers and layers of shame and pain. With every mile, every word penned, every sunrise and set.

Letting Go

All my love,

C