Tag: #grief

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What Kind of Writer and Life will Emerge from All of This….

All the intellectualizing falls away and only I emerge. A singular woman with simple details and a complex set of coping strategies.

Life is simple right now. I sit on my couch and marvel at how on fire my mind was and how on edge all of my senses were a mere year ago today.

Today I watched Bourne Identity, with my son, after clients. I ate comforting fall type food. I stayed comfortable, and I napped hard. Hard deep sleep. I browsed hotels for the girls and I since the air bnb cancelled, annoying, but not life altering. Something better must be out there.

I sift and waft through memories, but no longer do I feel the battles and emotions of life and death. What is this variety of living. This might be my heaven, even in the absence of all I thought I wanted.

Utter groundlessness. Only moments of impact. I am just calm. There is nothing else. When I’m not calm, I’m really not calm. I’m a triggered frantic wild primal animal. Thankfully I am rarely that anymore. Life doesn’t burn as bright either, however it’s settling into something real, something spherical, no jagged edges. Something wholesome and good.

An assassin of the senses who is finally allowed to retire. “It’s over”. What is it? Possibility? Is that dead? No! But all possibilities thats are not healthy and transparent and what you see is what you get. All of that is over.

I’m also reading, because of course I am, a book called Every day. And a part I just read inspired this post. “I have to decide the importance of each and every memory. I only remember a handful of people, and in order to do that, I have to hold tight, because the only repetition available- the only way I am going to see them again – is if I conjure them in my mind. “

“I choose what to remember, and I am choosing Rhiannon. Again and again, I am choosing her, I am conjuring her, because to let go for an instant will allow her to disappear. The same song that we heard in Justin’s car comes on – and if only I could, I’d make a deal with God….”

“I feel the universe is telling me something. And it doesn’t even matter if it’s true or not. What matters is that I feel it, and believe it. The enormity rises within me. The universe nods along to the songs.”

In some ways I feel like I’m office space that I have been hypnotized. I just walk around dazed wondering what to do next. Unable to get extremely stressed about details, and also unable to feel intensely good either.

I look out over the landscape of my life, At everything I’ve conquered, every possible ending beginning and everything in between.

I live in the present now, which means I live in moments rather than in stories. I look around most of the time and can’t even believe the possibilities or that this is my home and I have the means to make any decisions. I forget that when I become instinctively overwhelmed from old programming. When I forget that I have stability and options.

I’m working on refinancing this home: I can do that now. I’m looking at the possibilities more than the devastation and somehow that doesn’t feel real. I must be missing something. This is all mine. I created it and it’s stable. If I need a new refrigerator I can pay for it in full. I don’t need to take out a line of credit and wonder how I’ll pay the bill.

I must be missing something. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it probably will, it just won’t be what I think. It won’t be what’s on the radar and that’s scary.

Deep breath, and one at a time.

What unforeseen thing will happen that is unimaginable. It isn’t possible that fairy tales exist, only moments, and I’ve already had so many. Could things actually get good beyond my wildest dreams, as I do.

If you had seen what I came from. I never imagined I’d have all these adult choices to make, or that I’d even live this long. Now my overwhelm is from abundance and not scarcity.

Now I can what if over all the choices and no one to bounce it off of. Why is it so impossible to believe I’ll do a great job, beyond great even.

I’m getting sleepy now. I didn’t expect that because I napped. I’m so tired lately. I do need to move my body and get some energy, that’s highly out of whack right now, but I will.

I have this beautiful home, these beautiful children, and this whole world, and life says that could change at any time. I can’t be too fragile for difficult circumstances, however I can also still believe in dreams.

I think of the things people regret, and I’m listening to that in the Midnight Library, and of course it’s having me take inventory. I realize in my life there’s very little to regret. I was so lost in all of that. I’ve made mistakes, I have issues yes, but nothing so much worse than anyone else.

In my 40 years I’ve become a mother, on that first day, those first days, and every day after. I didn’t wait for perfect conditions. And for better or for worse I’ve left a legacy. I’d like to think better. I’ve gone after a meaningful career and found my way to something I love doing, and it’s in no way over. I can still do so much with it. And love I’ve worked as hard as any human ever has to crack that code, with all my attachment wounds.

I’ve done therapy. I’ve lived in many different states. I’ve met people. I’ve taken risks. I’ve tried and failed at many things, and succeeded as well. If I were to get that phone call tomorrow, no portion of my live is unlived. Nothing has stopped me:

The rest of this is literally just getting to choose what I want and having that choice and being capable to make it for the right reasons and in the right ways.

Everyone is all strapped in tightly together and come what may….

Come what may.

There isn’t a single stone of my soul unturned. I am not afraid. I have comforts. I am not dying any longer burning alive in fear alone in this over sized bed. I can go to bed at night and be comfortable. Don’t get my wrong it’s not my preference, but I also don’t need to abandon any parts of my soul to go after what I want.

Empowering.

I went back and got all my childhood pieces and United them, and I don’t need anyone to understand this journey, because the right people already do.

Watch me live now…. My life is beautiful. I burn off insecurity by the second. There is nothing left to fear but fear itself, which sucks the joy out of life.

💜

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The Greatest Force on Earth

Unhealthy love claims lives, healthy love saves them…..

I have always believed in the power of love, and this portion of my life has been learning the limits of it, and of my capacity for enduring what should never be endured.

This lesson has been one of the hardest and one of the greatest. Coming to terms with myself in a fair and balanced way while also understanding what happened to me in the past and in the present.

I am coming to believe our psyches literally prevent us from accepting the existence of certain things. Perhaps that is what mythology has derived from, the human yearning to make sense of an experience.

Knowledge is power. It eventually can put the pieces back together of something broken. If that broken thing is a story, then we can see either the devastation or the transformation of a human being.

So what makes the difference?! The intention behind it. The true intention not the stated one. Someone once told me we judge other people on their actions and ourselves on our intentions. The very definition of manipulation I suppose.

To simplify the complexity: does the person care about the well being of another, and to what extent and under what circumstances…. Wait see even I’m doing it. No Christina. Does the person care about the well being of another ?

We care as much as we are capable of based on what we have been taught, our values, and a complicated elixir of our innate temperament mixed in.

Where things can go really really poorly is when it’s obvious the impact you’re having is negative and not only do you keep doing, but you’re gaining supply from it all while continuing to shout poor you.

This is the lowest of the low. And when a person high in empathy consistently identifies emotionally with that persons wounded parts (because of their own), and forgets the ways they are different, the troubles arise.

One exploits with no genuine desire to follow through correcting their behavior so it no longer harms. The other painfully devoid of support and resources keeps trying to get out of the issue by using the same thinking that started it and failing.

The victor is the person who stays in the fire of their own mistakes long enough for it to change them.

My programming is immense. My coping mechanisms are survivalist in so many ways, however I can finally be able to see who I actually am, from seeing who I am not.

I’m thinking of Stephen King a lot lately and wondering what motivated him to attempt to capture the dark sides of humanity and also the hope, in his landscapes and characters. What happened to that man? Who was he really ? He sublimated and I’m attempting to do the same.

I tried to protect my kids from anything I could become from scarcity and survival instincts by keeping them with family systems that felt safe, however my self was not able to develop. It was frozen somewhere on ice. And now I’m so out of chronological order and so aware, that shame threatens my forever separation from others.

So hyper sensitive to threat and criticism and then feeling awkward and lonely, the perfect food for a predator. And who looks crazy?! The victim that’s who. Driven to the point of insanity purposely. The victim looks crazy.

I’ve never been able to accept what happened to me then or now, because it makes me feel like it’s me. That is what abuse does. People incapable of loving in a healthy manner perpetuate suffering that is almost incomprehensible to the human psyche.

We, including doctors, counselors, people in privilege and power, don’t want to believe it when it’s right in front of our face.

Abuse

So we tell stories. And we learn about character and behavior through story that we hope a man sets forward in motion those qualities in him that are protective and virtuous in nature.

If anything I’m so protective that sometimes ends up harmful because I’m easily triggered and who to protect in what way or moment can become very overwhelming for me, and as a result of that overwhelm I act out of character and then doubt myself.

This whole process is clearing. Along with it the digestive issues, headaches, tight muscles, nausea and nauseating levels of self doubt and low self worth.

The not enough of it all. That season in my life is over. There will always be scars, but never again will I abandon my own knowing to feel loved in a moment, while not even being known let alone loved.

I didn’t think it could happen to me again….. I didn’t think it actually did the first time, the abuse.

I sound crazy right ?!

I assure you that I am not and I am. A lifetime of neglect and poisonous manipulation will make anyone crazy.

Google the symptoms of complex ptsd for a very good description of what it feels like to be “crazy”.

Do you know what crazy actually is to me? Someone who doesn’t listen to someone they love when the person says “this is hurting me”.

I vow to always listen to myself. I wanted marriage vows to save me from myself and the life I had. That security of belonging. Instead I just keep becoming visible to myself in a realistic light. My light and my dark, and I assure you all of it is enough and that I’ve had enough abuse for a lifetime.

What heals is holding myself accountable to listening and being gentle with those I love and continuing to invest in healing and believing in myself.

Enough. I am enough and I’ve had enough ….. enough ..

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Grief Will Drag You to The Depths of Who You Really Are…..

I’ve been hiding and it’s time I come out. I’ve been hiding how pain I’ve been in and how hard my life has been for me from everyone, because I thought if I did that I’d have a better chance at being loved.

People don’t want someone who is set so far back with themselves, people want people who are strong and confident and ENOUGH, which was the theme of my EMDR this morning.

I’ve proved every thought or fear I’ve had wrong about myself over and over, and yet I never get to benefit from my own warmth and love. I’m kept out in the cold from me. Always pressing my nose on the glass peering in at the warm family events.

And ironically enough my devastation would begin at one such an event. The complicating elixir of feeling like I could belong and hold my head high without being numb or shaking with anxiety. Dear Evan Hansen. We will get to that later. I was excited to be out in the world belonging, but where and to whom did I belong and why?

This is the level of lost I’ve been at for going on three years now. And I committed to the unthinkable which has been staying with and in my pain to dig myself out. Even writing those words I begin to cry hard. A hard guttural wild animal cry with frantic panicky eyes.

The things Evan Hansen did to try to become visible. Does anybody see me or hear me? And the answer was no. I became so effective at being seen as I needed to be to obtain love and affection. And my God if I never shame myself again for how I’ve needed to save myself.

This is the commitment I need to become fierce about. To repairing this constant demon of not enough (or worse bad and toxic) that is so deeply entrenched in my programming it’s threatening to squeeze the life out of me. I’m stripped to the bare bones of just who I am to lean on, and not what I do. What I do to fix it, what I do to understand.

I’ll get a breath and then get dragged back down to the bottom of the ocean with an anvil on my foot and drowning over and over again. Sputtering fighting for oxygen, every day of my life unless I became part of someone else’s family which always temporarily numbed the pain and made me feel safe and loved. But that could never be sustained because I was empty of myself. There was no self left that I could see. There were too many words inside my head that conflicted and too many emotions flashbacks.

I can’t get any oxygen. Help me.

I’ve been saying help me so often now, and it brings up shame every single time and more waves of unworthiness. Will this battle ever come to an end, or will these memories, thoughts, and genuine body harm and tired take my life along with my soul.

I’ve been battling for my life and the worst part about that is I don’t look like someone who is battling for their life. There are no scars that can be seen, no marks. This is why we teach visibility by example and why we protect.

Dear Evan Hansen…. I am you. That scared lonely child, who still tried to fight to be seen and then felt bad about that too. For shouting or crying because I learned to gaslight myself out of my own reality to try and survive with my mental faculties.

I think of Viktor Frankl here and why I connected so much with that paper on his book in grad school, and why I have my tattoo and why it means so much to me. He kept his by having meaning, and that meaning was the love he derived from his partner, that’s what he held onto, it was love.

The only meaning I could get in my childhood was acts of service, doing. That’s the only way I got attention of any variety and usually that was to obtain more of what I had to offer. It was not to protect, invest, and be interested in me just for the sake of being so, for the joy.

The purgatory I’ve been has been wanting to be the parent I didn’t have and to be able to do that for my children and trying every way known to man to achieve that. I knew I felt the most alive in the things I’d been so deprived of. So I tried for love.

And then I felt selfish and was told as much and became my mother who also wanted love, but she didn’t give it either, and I do. I am not my mother.

I am not her.

Most days I don’t think I’ll come out of this alive, that is my truth right now. Most days it feels like too much work to breathe. This trauma work while having no love needs met or secure family system and feeling horrible I’m not only not offering that to my children, but I’m not able to access it in myself well going through this. I’m all locked down and sick.

This illness of being lost to oneself and not having much in the way of relief is deadly. It’s a deadly game. I can’t digest food and my head feels as if it will explode. For so long the things I did to comfort were also harmful and I’m aware. I’m viciously aware. I can’t get out I’m trapped in here help me.

The more I say help me and the more I allow myself to be loved only in the safe ways I need to be that the universe constantly puts in my path, healing tries to take hold. And my nasty worn out mind tries to swat it away, and I crumble.

I can only hope that this experience leaves me in such a heap that I never forget I don’t know what someone else is going through and I become kind by design even though life has not handled me gently. The warrior of the light.

All of the ways I was responsible and disciplined long before I ever should have been eroded the very thing I would need in adulthood to sustain the love I so badly desired and deserved.

And this latest period watching my children shout at me to figure it out mom, we need you, except they don’t say that as teens, they say I hate you and you’re going to end up cold and alone because you’re so difficult to deal with. What I’ve been dealing with has been unbearably difficult and I’ve been primarily alone in it. Too ashamed to get any help or even visibility because I chose this right ?

Every time its my fault. Wired for abuse return to abuse. Every time its my fault. And the tape begins you’re selfish, you’re your mother, you’re….. and it breaks my spirit, soul, and heart. Never mind that happening from the outside I’m adept at always doing it from the inside. I could really go for a good coma right now. Yes Moira.

And then when the person that you love tells you in so many ways this is your fault, that’s a rock bottom that knows no bounds. And when you identify with their wounds, but miss all the differences, and you are betrayed and betray yourself and internalize more shame, it’s easy to get a full understanding on how people get to the point where they take their lives.

That will never be my path because it just is not. Not because I’m better than anyone who has. I am not. No more or less just different. If I don’t continue to make meaning out of this suffering by learning my story and then sharing it so others can get the words to heal, that being the healing, it will have been for nothing.

It’s not in me to give up, and I hope I passed that along to my children. I just need to figure out right now how to keep myself full of love and safe, and stay away from anything that is not that.

For my beginning today I reached out to my energy healer and my first step is to go see her, and what I will say is I need your love and support. I have no thinking left. I’m not there to think w her or come up with solutions. The solution is love. And I’m going to be it, and ask for it, and work on recovering.

This is what it looks like to grieve a childhood you never had, and both parents, and a broken and confused reality and scattered mind you have to live with. To grieve all the potential of who you could or would have been with the right ingredients.

This is messy, grimy, slippery, dirty, painful grief. I am going through these things, but I am not these things.

I am enough

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Casi Sielo: I Was Blind but Now I See….

“Oh thinking about the younger years….” a little Bryan Adams this morning. Appropriate…

I’m in a blog writing mood this morning. Now that I feel alive after another death. Which was probably just raging hormones. Isn’t that supposed to stop at some point? Let’s play is it trauma, depression, grief, or hormones. Do all 40 somethings play this or just ones with significant trauma history? I’d like to speak to the person in charge please. Of the Universe ? Yes exactly. Always take it straight to the top.

I guess I’m a little punchy this morning. That makes sense. Last night was the first satisfying night of sleep I’ve had in what feels like forever, but in reality is about a month now. A month can sometimes feel like a year.

Yesterday was one of those days where I felt like a lead block and numb and like it was too much work to breathe. I woke up like that. And just kept thinking this feels like dying to be that low. I’ve been scary low lately. I’m lucky to be aware enough to know this is truly un-becoming. Lol not in the sense of not attractive as my father would have used that phrase, what is and isn’t becoming of a lady. Vomit. But unbecoming in the Paulo Coehlo sense.

Nobody warns you how truly excruciating this process is. Burning off old patterns and coping mechanisms and re wiring. Everyone outside of me keeps saying “I’m doing the work”, for me it just feels like dying of terror over and over and beginning a new day to do it again. Doesn’t that sound like fun guys? Now I know why the “enlightened” are so popular, and also why not many embark on this.

Listen I’m no guru or saint, most days I feel like a lost soul, though everyone tells me I’m not. I was for most of my life. Once was lost and now I’m found, …. Amazing Grace. Holy shit (lol) now I understand that song I heard a million times in childhood. Religion another story to comfort our weary souls.

Funny I should mention comfort. I’ve lived my entire 40 years begging and striving for just that. And my whole life feeling unsafe and scrambling for security in any shelter possible. Anything that could bring my nervous system relief and then I’d try and try to maintain it, having none of the knowledge or tools to do so.

I’m not a victim I’ve hurt people along the way. There’s hurt that’s been burning inside of me that I didn’t ask for. This is trauma folks. People often judge and shame, too much, too sensitive, too intense. What they never did was understand and connect the dots to why someone is being the way they are. That simple inquisitive nature inside of me has saved my soul, and I’d like to think the sharing of this knowledge has and will save others.

Sound dramatic? Yes it is. It doesn’t sound dramatic it is. If you could see it on a screen you might understand a little better. I used to say all the time I wish I could just show movie clips of my life, because I desired to be understood.

The thing about trauma is you have to be responsible for something you never asked for, for the rest of your life. You have to carry it whether you want to or not. And most trauma survivors spend their life running for it, for shelter, punching the air, crawling underneath something and hiding, or frozen and staring into space, imagining fantasies of grandeur and someone doing nice things for them or coming along and offering support and comfort.

I had a client say to me the other day that they know they won’t reach the potential they would have without this “brain damage”. And my heart broke. And as I watch myself as a counselor I scramble to fix it, but what I did on the way home was think how I don’t want to jump so quickly to do this or do that, I want to truly keep holding space and validating. You’re right and you deserve to be as angry and sad as you want about that without anyone giving you directions how to fix it.

They are correct their potential has been changed and it often feels an uphill battle. The only thing I would say is you don’t want to keep a story you don’t want to be shackled by. I can’t buy that my life will be less meaningful or I won’t reach a full anything and rather I choose to believe it is significantly changed by my trauma, but I refuse to let myself be lessened by it. And I acknowledge that it tortures me daily.

A tortured meaningful existence huh? Did I not read the contract? of course I didn’t I was never afforded the privilege to concentrate long enough.

So here I am and I really how much over the last couple of years I’ve censored myself. How much shame has kept me from truly bringing my story to the table. And in the coming time I’m not going to do that. I will get comfortable with my uncomfortable feelings and stay in my truth and my course, and burn off shame and put down the burden of any terrible stories I can tell about me, for how I’ve tried to survive.

I never intended anyone harm by rushing for comfort, and each person is responsible for their own choices. AND I’m sorry more than can be seen from the outside for pain that was caused from the coping mechanisms that came from my trauma. From me having been separated from any sense of self in childhood. I need to own and stand proud in this story and hold my ground.

I’ve been like a wild frantic animal for all the years of my life and keeping all of that tame for everyone else so I can still try at a life and try to love. I didn’t even expect to be loved. I don’t ever expect it. Why would I? I expected myself to work really hard at love, and believed that was the way.

But I couldn’t work really hard at everything all at once, and I couldn’t have this without that and I scrambled and scrambled. I’m egg at this point.

And now I am still and forging a relationship with myself that refuses to be anything but healthy no matter how tiring, boring, etc, that is.

This is me….

So yesterday I moved my therapy appointment to make sure I got to my daughters soccer game. They are on varsity which means they often don’t get to play. Which breaks my heart for them, but hopefully they know they are an equally important part of the team. I hope they get their shot soon. We won 3-1 against North Haven yesterday.

I arrived early to the game. I was numb and lead and could barely keep my eyes open. So despite the late of it all I went into Starbucks. It’s a place I still love. There was a time I couldn’t go in there, but I’ve returned to allowing love, as I have the solid trust I’ll never allow anything to let me betray myself.

I’m allowing all the love I feel for all of the people in my whole story. Anything else is manipulation and I’m not doing that to feel better or stronger or for any other reason.

So in the calm waters of this new phase of grief I bought myself a tall half sweet caramel machiato which I thoroughly enjoyed sipping while talking to a soccer mom from way back, and a LB of 2021 Casi Sielo. Which means “almost heaven”…. I think I’ll take that as a sign of the direction I’m going. I drank a little black, a learned behavior, the student is also sometimes the teacher. And I allowed myself a moment of sadness that I had no one purchase this for me, and also joy that I can enjoy buying it myself and wafting through the memories old and new.

And that in my life there is no need to deny any part of my story, or to manipulate myself or anyone else. That my friends is freedom.

I allowed my Apple Watch to flash me pictures I hadn’t been able to look at in a long time. I took screen shots. I sipped my warm life giving beverage and I burned off some more shame.

Now I am organizing my life, finding my priorities, planning vacations with my children and feeling like I’m safe to do so. I believe I’m capable of these things, things I thought I couldn’t do without another human being. Because I never felt safe. Imagine spending 40 years not feeling safe?! Imagine what that does to a person. So I’m not going to be ashamed for it any longer.

I’m so proud of myself for staying in this pain long enough to find the truth of who I am, what I need, and what I want, and never to settle for anything less than my entire story as is without shame.

This is me…. 💜

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Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow, but the Show Must Go On….

How is it possible saying goodbye to an office is like saying goodbye to a lover? It’s saying good bye to a time, to a place, to a different self, and to a thousand memories. I became a counselor in this space. This is a second home to me. A refuge. I thought I would be ok, but now that I’m actually doing it I am overcome with emotions.

I don’t know if I can…. Perhaps I’ll just keep it forever. Eccentric. Why does it feel like ripping off my limbs? Nothing about this is ok. I had so many dreams for this office. So many big dreams. So many dreams in general. I couldn’t have bargained for all the changes I’ve made, and that have been made for me. For how this all feels, the changes it has made in me.

Writing in this office cuts through my insides like a cold blade. My guts wrench. I spent the first half of my life being able to Men in Black shiny thing myself (erase my memory) and begin over and over. And now my past haunts me daily. I sleep terrible and throughout my life that hasn’t been an issue since I was little.

I just want to run out of this space, leave everything and never come in it again. How does anyone do this grief thing. I was in this office when we found out we lost the second identical twin boy. We were supposed to graduate to the regular doctor that week. What the actual fuck. Searing hot. Scars burning. I found out over a screen with an adolescent in my waiting room: I thought I was doing the right thing as a provider. Only appointment I ever missed. It doesn’t matter now.

What matters is how fresh all of the pain is and the only difference is it doesn’t drag me under anymore, or to versions of myself I don’t like. I’m learning grace.

I have thousands of memories in this office, some burn brighter than others, all of them legitimate and a huge piece of my history. I am aching. My heart is aching.

I had hairapy this morning. It’s beautiful out. I have hope in my heart. But one more goodbye? I don’t know if I can handle one more goodbye. Almost six years this relationship with this space and it’s time to let go.

I am taking a vacation in October, a whole week, just me. I am so happy about that. I have needed this for so long. I’m finally making a home within myself. It does get better. All of the stinging is still there, but I can breathe again in so many ways. Lean into the sharp edges.

I have no idea what the rest of my life will look like and that’s oddly comforting as the terror releases it’s grip on me.

I finished Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids last night. I finish things now. I just keep getting back up after I get knocked down. The second sentence is old, the one before it new.

I stay.

I can’t be here anymore with this legal pad and pen staring at me. I’m going to throw up. Please …..

I remember every second of every moment in this office. Every single one. I can replay them like some fucked up episode of black mirror. The blessing and the curse of high sensitivity and a nearly photographic memory, never mind sensory memory. I can close my eyes and always access all of it.

My eyes are burning hot and wet, the tears trickle and drip. Ok no more for now. I’ll come back to this later. I don’t want to miss Chip’s visit.

I want to do fall things. To watch Hocus Pocus and Beetlejuice and to go to ciderys. It’s later and I’m utterly exhausted. I’m going back in forth between reading The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, and writing in my journal.

I’m very sleepy and deciding if I have enough time to nap before picking up my curbside order at Bj’s and making dinner with twin A.

This day couldn’t be any more beautiful. The wind is gently teasing the leaves on the trees and they are rustling with joy. Dancing and talking to one another happily. They are good company. This house continues to become a home, not unlike how I continue to become a human. Visible to myself, friend even.

Slow and steady wins the race. I’m glad I’m no longer in the rat race.

My new ink is in the itchy phase on my elbow it’s bending and driving me nuts. I relocated my office lamps to my bedroom, well one for now, I’ll need to make another trip. So hoping that feels a little more homey. I brought some of my artwork home as well. Bittersweet.

My office is a mess currently so maybe I’ll spend some time on straightening that. So many projects. One at a time and just finding joy in them is the goal versus became overwhelmed and being down a rabbit hole of anxiety. No point in that.

Everything is quiet these days, well besides the teenagers. I’ve never been so still. It’s so peaceful and so lonely. But nothing at all feels rushed or chaotic and for that I am grateful in my bones.

I’ve been doing little outings and day trips. Last night I had dinner at Gusto in Milford. I had never been before. Sal my piano teacher played there and the staff was so great. My server was so nice. I was able to be at peace by myself. I didn’t look around much at all I don’t have the gathering of families together. I thought of the opportunity this was to be with my thoughts and that there will be plenty of time for gatherings and I have plenty of warm and loving connections.

My next outing I want to do is to go to Bad Seed Cidery, it’s on Pancake Hollow rd in Highland NY, nearly 2 hours away.

I added a couple more Stephen King books to my collection from used bookstores. I will spend time with me until and then after because, I enjoy my own company. There’s so many things to do and see and I never realized it before. I was completely blacked out.

Lately I’ve been spending time with my neighbor. She has a new puppy and she’s so cuddly and cute and I don’t have to be responsible for her. Just two women; each alone, living in these giant houses next to one another. She’s so strong. I admire her tremendously. We enjoy one another’s company. And isn’t that what it’s all about anyway.

I’m between lives and selves right now and it’s a strange but not unhappy place to be. My mind continues to wander in and out of the many memories and stories of the past few years. I’ll just keep attempting to capture them and my journey and immortalize it via the page.

Onward….

Ps I think I’ll watch Mermaids tonight or Julie and Julia. I’m in a comfort mode, not lost in it fortunately, but it’s a lovely place to visit occasionally.

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A Counselor in Need Without Self Awareness is a Danger Indeed.

I’m watching ATypical with my oldest. We are catching him up on episodes one and two of the newest season. The kids and I watched the first few seasons, what feels like years ago. So it’s nostalgic and warm to be watching this now.

Comfort. This is a lot of my goal right now. As I learn healthier ways to do it, I realize how unhealthy some of my old coping was. This is a lot to sit with. A lot to sit with.

As life starts heating up to a boiling point I’m able now to marvel at how I take hard circumstances, criticism, etc, and use it to push me to keep making myself better at a reasonable pace. Well the whole reasonable pace thing is new 😉 as many of you know, lol. This is making me think of how I resonate with Black Widow, the new movie. Pain only makes you stronger, it can, but it can also make you crazy if you can’t make sense of it. If there is no structure that is safe to heal within. My current safe healing structure is friends who know me when I’m lost to myself and a therapist that models good boundaries and is objective and consistent. Safety. Deep breath.

I would have lost my mind long ago if not foe therapy and my own healing process with writing.

Truly an epic battle of light and dark inside of me, and I won’t give up the fight or outsource my self knowing to anyone else.

So today is my beloved Sunday. I’m too in my head and not enough into a project and moving around so I need to get out some energy in that way shortly or to do some walking. After Chip’s visit I will.

Today is filled with reflecting, writing, and reading.

Today I reflect on an unhealthy counseling relationship and the damage it has caused, and how dark things have been in our world for the last while. How to turn these crisis into opportunities for growth and bonding and using a creative approach.

Today I’m going to share with you how counseling can go wrong. It can go wrong when Clinicians are trying to juggle too much and or as a result not having continuity of sessions and making sure to validate change. If we don’t catch and validate change it doesn’t become reinforced and if it doesn’t then it won’t stay (stick).

I’m going to be working on some counseling models in the up and coming days. Well I already am, but talking about it here.

There must be grace because during Covid it has been tough for us all, however we have an ethical code to do no harm, and a responsibility to own when we have due to blind spots and our own unhealed areas.

Recently during a family counseling experience I am learning a lot more from what didn’t work than what did. I’ll give you a hint if the counselor is talking about themselves in any way that does not pertain to your counseling and enhance it, that’s a red flag. If the counselor seems to not be following and staying focused on your need etc, please share this with them so they may grow.

Counseling should always be focused on the client need and progress should be validated and followed up on. And if something in the relationship isn’t working, if the client tells you, be willing to repair. And also be self-monitoring with integrity at all times. It’s more work, but this is our responsibility to our ethical code.

Lazy counseling is damaging. Someone who is in it for the wrong reasons or past their expiration of energy to expend. It’s as bad as distracted driving. We have people’s mental well being in our hands. They come to us sick and scared. If we are not dedicated to this work for the right reasons we can inflict great harm.

I personally am taking this situation and using it to slow down and pay attention, listen better, talk less, and truly be with the client experience versus wanting to fix it to gratify ego. This is a lifetime process. It’s nice to see my clients faith and sticking with me over the years as I am imperfect and grow, but they know my heart is in the right place and that I’m always growing myself to better meet them where they are.

A client is the expert on their own lives, a clinician who is skilled, competent, and there for the right reasons will only enhance the clients own knowledge about themselves using an empathic mirror and warm guidance. It’s a difficult balance and a very challenging career. The only one for me!

Never give up. That’s my motto. And keep curiosity larger than fear. Keep moving forward. Makes me think of the movie Meet The Robinsons and the song Little Wonders. I think I’ll go have a listen….

Enjoy your Sunday…

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Warrior of the light, prisoner of my own dark.

Relax and Write…

Strengthening the Therapeutic Bond. Yalom

When Things Fall Apart.

That’s where we are now.

Things fell apart my whole life. I became the glue, at the expense of knowing who I was or what I wanted or needed. I became a machine that met the needs of others, while begging to be loved.

So it is not surprising that healthy love was a complete mystery for me and while I’ve spent lots of time trying to solve that with my own experimentation. Simultaneously I’ve been living in a manner of consistently seeking to make the pain stop.

I’d do anything to make the pain stop for a few moments. And then became shamed and shamed myself for it.

This is the cycle I’ve been living in for nearly 41 years of my life.

And the only way to make the pain stop is to acknowledge the experiences that shaped me and how that has affected the children I brought into this world. Which brings another red hot wave of searing pain.

The only time the pain really stops is when I can use it for meaning, which in my life means to serve others with the knowledge I’ve gained. And to also be less alone in those moments. To stay in my humanity, rather than falling into insanity. A tether to belonging that has become consistent, and hopefully modeling that to myself.

It hurts to become.

My work makes me enthusiastic and hopeful and useful enough to make the pain stop. But rarely if ever is anything unconditionally provided to me. I have to look to the Universe for that. Nature, which also usually feels like an enemy as it bites me and makes me burn and itch, and in its vast unknown presence I always feel in danger.

So I return to the ways I know how to make the pain stop.

While this is happening I have tried to raise my children to the very best of my ability. Always doubting in that, my ability. Why wouldn’t you doubt something you’ve never known ? Something that was only dangerous and painful.

The tears slide down my cheeks.

The self doubt is probably the most painful part, and what I have drawn into my life, what I’ve chosen to invest myself in are things that end up harming me further. Then I harm myself with my choices.

I feel an experiment in human suffering and would victimize myself if I wasn’t so damn curious and concerned with meaning. My saving graces. The light shines out of the darkness, but not very much right now.

The message is to rest. But how when you have never known it, and when there is no loving touch to soothe to sleep.

Craving and starving touch, constantly leading to choices that harm some more. Self harm. Way more than cutting. There are far worse wounds to be had.

It gets good when you do. They say. The mystical, mythical they. The generalizations of our time.

I do good and I feel good. I do bad and I feel bad. What goes up must come down. My mind spins round and round.

Suffering. Relieved by service.

Will I always be fragmented or am I becoming whole and I have no vision for this because there is no template programmed into me.?

It’s all meaningless my existence except for moments. Moments of relief is what my life has been characterized by, with a lot of chaos.

I hope one day to see myself differently.

In the wake of all of this grief hope is difficult to find at the moment. It is times like this we just stay the course.

Steady as she goes…. Becoming steady out of chaos, that is the path of the warrior.

It takes one and it makes one.

This warrior is weary ….

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Home is Where the Heart is….

It’s been such a very long day…. Literally non stop even though I sat a lot of it, which is regrettable. I can only focus on so many things at once.

It feels like every home project that gets accomplished, five more happen before it’s even complete. Today a new whole house fan went in, and also new storm doors. Complications! First of all the door was brown and it was supposed to be white, something the installers didn’t know. So this will be a whole pain. Also the front door needs a larger storm door so good thing since it’s the wrong color they have to come fix it. In theory. Which requires calls and a whole pain again. I hate such things.

Although I will say it feels good to be making a home and taking some pride in joy in these things. They still aren’t my priority but I can enjoy making a home beautiful and be really into it, because I want to, not because I have to. Also the whole house fan needs a certain kind of switch, and there are outlets that aren’t working downstairs and are not an easy fix. So to complete that project it still requires and electrician to come out.

Once these smaller projects are done, the back stairs and then the deck and Juliette porch, and the pool will be up and running again next year.

I already need a plumber again, another leak, grrr! It never ends literally. However I’m just thankful I can do all of this without stressing financially. It’s more the time that’s frustrating.

So today to distract myself from discomfort I decided it would be fun to delete over 60,000 emails from 4 different accounts. Eight hours later. I kept saying I’d stop here or there, and obsessively I had to keep going. When I am determined I am determined and I won’t stop until I see it through.

That feeling of no notifications, which ironically I don’t even really care about. Life is too short. But we will call it a step in organizing my life in general to make sure I stay on top of things.

I don’t look forward to anything in my inbox anyway sadly. Not like me at all, but this is where I am.

Life is short. My tattoo artist got a stent put in on Friday, we were supposed to finish my books (highlighting, and some white) that day and do some more sleeve planning. We will do it Tuesday now, after clients, an eye appointment for twin A, and my therapy. Long day.

Most of my days are long, fulfilling, satisfying, and desperately lonely. I am making friends with lonely. Just being in and with her.

Today I cooked a delicious hello fresh holy moly it was good and everyone was fed and happy. Jen hung out and we watched movies all day while I deleted my emails and the house was being worked on. We watched Stepmom and something else and some Schitts Creek.

I already need a haircut again. Is my whole life just going to be a series of hair removal and preening. It’s stupid. Oh that’s what else we watched It’s Complicated, a favorite. I never realized how entirely a dick her ex is in that movie. I mean really selfish. It’s funny though. In particular was what made me remember when I was talking about hair removal. He says “I see that you have stopped getting bikini waxes, you’ve gone native, I was into it.” Lol!

All my bad habits are quit. I’m a few weeks out and the stability of that is taking hold. Now to get addicted to movement and strength building because I want and need energy. Discipline and routines and focus and writing.

In this moment I’m thinking about cuddling and how much I miss it. Affection and warmth and passion. The loneliness aches and burns.

This will now be the first post of August. Only five minutes in. I can’t wait for fall. I’m looking forward to snow and hoodies actually and the before and the running and hiking. Reading while snow is falling outside, and the silence that is felt when the world is covered in a white blanket.

And one of my favorite things when ice forms all over the trees and the sun hits them, and it looks like something out of a fairy tale. God I love that.

Anyway this helped me get sleepy…. I’m so so happy with all of my heart it’s Sunday tomorrow. I want to read and take a bath for sure. I haven’t been doing my bath much. Partially because that bathroom keeps trying to kill me, but mostly because I’m so busy from morning til night.

I’m just sitting here thinking how working on this house is making me feel affectionate towards it in a new way: we are creating a bond. This is becoming home. My home. I’m no longer a guest. There are still a lot of tweaks and I’m still not ready to do anything to the bedroom except take out the flooring. But for now I’m doing too many other things. I’ll be a monk like minimalist when it comes to that. My bed is all I need.

I’m finally working on playing my first actual song on the piano, though it’s been very slow going because I’ve been laying it all out with my clients. Seeing lots of people and showing up fully, there isn’t a lot left at the end of the day.

I need to move tomorrow running early before it gets hot!

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The Courage of the Noticer Attending Weddings and Funerals

I have so much to talk about right now it’s hard to know where this will go. I was going to say to know where to start, but that’s actually not hard anymore, I just do. Progress over perfection.

So let’s start with this morning. I went to a funeral. An all day long funeral. This is something I typically dread. The first reason I dread it is because I’m a special breed. I’m not only highly sensitive as a trait, but I have come to fully embrace that I’m an empath. Anita Morjani describes it best in her new book Sensitive is the New Strong.

The type of alien I am actually has a description. High sensitivity is sensory and perception, and empath actually feels other people’s feelings with them, sometimes before they do, and we have a sixth sense. Deep intuition. Sometimes I talk directly to people’s higher selves. When I describe this it’s hard not to feel grandiose or self important, however it is the truth.

So needless to say being crammed into a hot room with many people feeling big feelings, especially some I care about tremendously, is not easy for me. Since I don’t have much family I’ve been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to not have many to attend.

Complicated grief. Is there a simple grief? I think so. Complicated grief is not even knowing if, when, or how to grieve because there is no familial or other structure.

As I sat and listened to people describe their loved one, particularly as a mom here were some of my thoughts…. Besides being present of course because I was, but it also creates my own thinking. What will people say about me. Will anyone besides primarily my clients (if that’s even a thing) be there to say anything. Now I used to think these things much more bleak and not have answers: today was actually not so bad. Immediately as I hear the good things said I think my kids wouldn’t be able to say that about me, and I want to fall in despair.

Then I bring myself back to how I arrived as a guest at this celebration of a life and the integral part I have, and I try to look at some different things, primarily myself differently. But what sticks is how alien I feel and truly I know hardly anyone that has my situation.

Even children who are given up for adoption have some kind of structure. I slipped between the cracks, and the only way I was even visible is when I was quiet, accommodating, and useful to others. I was loving and engaged and would go to the ends of the earth, and it’s easy to see why I don’t expect reciprocity in this area now, because there wasn’t any. That expectation was never set. (It shall be from now on)

So then the preacher man laments about how 40 some years ago he had also married that couple, and my despair grows deeper. Here are the good and better people, the ones who got it right and come from good families and Christina you don’t belong here. That’s what it feels like. No need to feel sorry for me, no one wants that, it’s just the truth.

I literally burst apart with their pain of separation by death that is spoken of on that day of vows and how much sooner it came than deserved. I was present for them as well, but I am human, so these events bring forth my story as well.

The persons children spoke, and I wondered what mine would say. We all know mom struggled a lot. Is that what it will be? Is that all I am? Struggle? Why do I have such a distorted view of myself. I know why.

This funeral made me think of weddings, my last one in particular. In my living room w my kids and wife only, a fact hidden from her family. We hid in shame. I hid in shame. I’ve been fucking ashamed my whole life.

Today I recognize why there’s never an event where someone has something to say where they know me well, I want to say I never stay long enough, but my god that’s being hard on myself.

I try with my whole heart to do so many things at once so my kids didn’t miss out on anything, and so I had ground under my feet to love from. I tried hard and I tried fast the best and only ways I knew from my life and I got shamed and faulted for it. Where was someone to ask what happened to me?

Where was that person who saw something seemed not quite right and it wasn’t a fault or flaw in me, it was something fundamental I never even had and I’m still trying to live like and with those who did! Where was the one to say I see you, and the wisdom to help me feel secure.

So I became that.

I think of how I didn’t know I deserved to wait for someone to see me and take that time with me and that it does exist. I think of how you promised me a family and how opposite that was and how now when you post videos of blending families and relationship articles it’s so bizarre to me because those people are transparent, genuine, congruent, honest, considerate, brave, etc that’s how that works and why that works. I think of how you try and make it seem like it’s me, and how that doesn’t work anymore.

I wasn’t the one you needed to talk to about cohabitation and outside the box situations so I could accommodate. That was what you were supposed to be doing in the therapy you said was for co parenting. That was your job to do with your ex partner and family to lay that groundwork and communicate with me, and everything would have been on the table, nothing to hide. You post these things that you aren’t living congruent with. I am not the issue, and you know it. Blame isn’t my thing. Growth and forward movement is and we both know I’m perfectly capable.

And how if you had done that work, any of it, you wouldn’t need to try and manipulate me from a blog, it wouldn’t even be a thing. We would already be living it. I think of the emotional black mail, and how that has nothing to do with me. I’m light years beyond that and open and free to have a loving and fully invested relationship when I find someone willing to show up their whole authentic selves and be all in with me.

I think of how I know it exists now even when I’m in dark and lonely moments, which are often as of late.

So this evening I came home and wanted to write, but first I listened to an episode of a podcast and it also made me feel so many things. The link is below. Hearing Glennon and Craig talk to one another makes me wish that I had the wisdom as well as the support to have had this grace with my ex husband and not taking everything so reactively. I mean he had his part, but my biggest threats were tapes I played on repeat, of my own creation.

Glennon and Craig talk about divorce and co-parenting

Sidebar what I found most wonderful of the many things in here was the idea of everyone having a voice whether things were agreed upon or not. Our family therapist brings this to my attention a lot during sessions, very strategically I might add. And I recognize that by fighting against what their dad thinks of me, I shut those voices down, because of my own ego and my triggers and I regret that deeply. I’m working on healing that now. So they feel heard and deeply respected by me, and we can have the relationships we all deserve.

Attending family events has always been bittersweet for me. It’s so validating to hear many clients with difficult trauma histories like mine, share how difficult events like this are. How many feelings it brings up. Today was no exception. But what was remarkably different is that I didn’t want to crawl out of my skin and leave as soon as possible.

I didn’t feel so awkward I could barely breathe, and I didn’t feel I didn’t belong: I knew I did.

I thought about my last marriage a lot this morning and at the event. The last funeral I went to after all was her fathers. A father who refused to acknowledge who I was to her or hardly at all. I never became part of that family in any real way. The closest I ever felt were with an aunt and uncle, and her cousins.

Don’t get me wrong no one did anything wrong. They did the best they could in general, all of them. But I never knew where I stood, and I’m still trying to sort out what might have made that gap bridged differently. But they weren’t my family to know that about. We showed up around one another, but never knew one another that well.

I think what were we thinking getting married so fast. Why? Why didn’t the one w a family think maybe we should get to know my family first. I mean if didn’t decide and create it all myself right ?!

I think of the line in The Little Prince it’s the time that you spent on/with your rose that is special. And that any amount of investment is never wasted, however I am exhausted of starting over. I don’t want to. I never did. But I was always going to need to be in the equation and what I’ve gotten good at over the years is being invisible and accommodating and ok with that.

I’m not ok with that. I’m as worth getting to know, for a willing partner and family to be enthusiastic about, at a realistic pace when the time comes.

But here is what I’ll never be again, anyone’s dirty secret, anyone’s lie, anyone’s anything that needs to be hidden, and I don’t need to make myself into something for that to happen. It was never supposed to be that way.

I am on a journey of not hiding how I feel, think, my wants, needs, emotions, in an attempt to not lose something or to get something. I will not be modifying, disappearing, shrinking to fit, pleasing, hiding, or any other thing.

This is me…. I exist and I’m not going to try and earn my existence or explain it away by my efforts. That is exhausting.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have a wedding again traditional or otherwise. I don’t know whom will be in attendance or what will be said at my funeral,

But I do know from this time forward I will know I am worthy of belonging somewhere and to someone, or perhaps everywhere and to everyone….

And that makes all the difference as to what you accept and what you don’t…..

Onward as Beautiful Liz says….

Onward

Ps my kids have been gone and will be back tomorrow, it’s so strange being in such a silent house. They have my car so I’ve been rocking the silver civic, Louis ha. I haven’t been sleeping much this week, totally unlike me. Oh also I realized during the funeral I have never really mourned the loss of the babies we lost. I did just like I’ve always done and tried to just keep going. I thought about how we honor our losses, and that for her and I we didn’t even honor our union by having family and friends present. I never felt worthy, and that’s a lot to sit with.

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Days Start Strong, Night Brings the Nothing

“There are many kinds of joy, but they all lead to one: the joy to be loved. Every story is a never ending story.”

It’s going to be a two fer today. Who could have guessed. This is the downswing. The loneliness settles in right around now. I’ve surrounded my day in all the ways I wanted it. I’ve indulged, relaxed, and spent my day with the writers I love.

I finished Wild Game, and am now onto Amy Tan’s, Where the Past Begins. She of course is talking about the writer’s process, and the longing sets in.

She dedicated her book to her editor because he took her many frenzied emails and listened to them. It’s me! It’s me! I’ve tried every way around this. I know I can open an email and write to myself, to a friend, to my therapist, but nothing is the same as when it’s fueled by the passion of the excitement of becoming known to one another. It brings me to life. A huge part of who I am. I feel lifeless and listless without it.

She writes, “my emails were not carefully composed. They were dashed off with free-form spontaneity, a mix of rambling thoughts off the top of my head, anecdotes of the day, and updates on my dog and perfect husband. In contrast, Dan’s emails were thoughtful and more focused on my concerns, although they also included notes about Moroccan cuisine. He sometimes responded to my off hand remarks with too much care, thinking I had expressed serious wringing of my soul.” This last line be still my heart. Me too. I feel seen.

Later she goes on to say what had enabled her to write those thousands of emails was spontaneity. I underlined and starred this. If I applied that to writing a book, I would be able to finish quickly. Spontaneity is the answer. This thing I continuously fault myself for as impulsivity. My wires are always crossed towards seeing me in some horrible light. When what comes into view most often is how right I have been and am. Just because something hurts does not make it wrong. Not in the ego sense of right. In the spiritual sense. I am on my path damnit. I am enough, and I will figure out this balance while also being compassionate and loving to myself.

Longing will be the theme of this evening and post I believe. I can do all the self work I want, but it’s not moving this period of time in my life. Amy writes about how her writing in an email is different, and the hairs on my arms stood up. I’ve never heard anyone describe the differences in modalities in a way that made me realize how much I miss writing letters to a lover.

That is my thing. My truest self comes out to play in those correspondences, and I was in love with that consistently exploring myself with another person, and hitting the ball back and forth, as much as anything else. I’m thinking how wanting to be known is a theme of recent.

And entirely different self emerges when I open my laptop (which I haven’t written on in months). I just felt a stabbing pain at the realization I don’t even write my blog posts on there, because touching that keyboard is as much touching the skin of my lover. That is the place I would go. I would open up the screen, describe some of the surrounding details and fire away.

Did I have a lover to facilitate my writing, or my writing facilitated the love? Either way I wanted that consistent space, but I never wanted to stop writing, or working at love. Recently someone suggested to me “does it have to be so hard though, or that they didn’t think it need be so hard all the time.” And I’ve been sitting with that and thinking about it a lot. I think of how I differentiate good hard and bad hard, and good tired and bad tired.

Is consistent engagement in a variety of ways using creativity and feeling alive hard? Does it have to be? For me it’s hard not to be those things. And for some I suppose it feels like work. When work is fulfilling it ceases to be work, for me at least.

I am lonely ….. deeply lonely. Longing to be known and engaged with in a way where someone shows up, is consistent, reliable, interested in building, engaged, and all in. And that isn’t something available to me right now and so it’s stretching my limitations to go day in and day out without. I’m constantly threatened with falling into bad habits or pits of despair. And knowing that if I can’t maintain on my own.

You know what that’s crap! What if I can’t because I don’t want to, because we aren’t made to be alone like this. I don’t buy it. At least I’m not. But there is no default either.

I read a post by Brene Brown today about how she’s ready to go down the writing spiral and how her process is all or nothing and she gets lost. And in another book I read just today as well, about a supportive family tip toeing around the writer knowing that’s who they are and what they need, and I think what must it be like to have that kind of support.

I can’t write with love and I can’t write without it. Although I think not being able to write with it was prior to the crucible that has been this past year and a half. I was desperately disconnected in so many ways. I could have never written anything without the connection to me.

But now I want that playground for my psyche that is the art of e-mail and all the other forms of connecting, that is that secure grounding of that one main place you go when you want to be your full real self. And here come the tears.

Melissa would say just be with that feeling. It won’t swallow me, end me, and truly I finally know that. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck completely.

I want to be held and touched and considered and from someone who can show up as a whole person to want to be consistently engaged with me creating a life together. The loneliness is like jagged teeth biting into my flesh. There is very little relief. I get moments and glimmers, and I know I’m on path.

I’m frustrated with feeling impatient, or too intense or this or that…. Those are judgments. Just because certain things did not turn out the way I thought doesn’t mean any of that is true. But that’s my constant battle. Which means I still have work to do on my relationship with myself. I will always have work to do and I’d still like to be held, touched, worked for and with, by someone enthusiastic about me, that is able to stay two feet in and fully engaged.

It’s not too much to ask and it is ok that it hurts right now. That the loneliness stings…. I think the biggest area where I hurt myself is still being used to turning something that is not something into something. Straw into gold. I need to be still and do me until I invite a fully present and enthusiastic individual into my orbit.

The lens of scarcity colors everything different than abundance does. Moving slower helps to see what’s really there. I see why I just tried to use my will and determination before because sitting in the disappointment is sometimes unbearable. It’s especially unbearable when I go to that old place of alone in childhood; where there was no reprieve and no relief. At least if I told myself life was what I made it, and boy did I live by that, it gave me something to focus on that kept me alive and sane.

Burning right now. Burning good, versus burning bad. There’s a light at the end of this tunnel. I can’t feel it yet, but I can see it, and that’s something.