Good morning ! It’s beautiful out. I’m here for it. My toes are itchy and uncomfortable due to the two giant water blisters that currently inhabit my pinky ones. Due to wearing the cool shoes to see Pink at Fenway this past week.
This didn’t stop me however from seeing her again at Citi Field two nights later. It’s Pink! And she’s every bit as infectious and enthusiastic about life and what she does as I thought. I’d like to catch this infection please.
I already have silly.
Anyway I’m groggy this morning. Very over-tired. Lots of late nights and events as I prepare to launch twin B into the world in a few short days.
I am blessed.
I couldn’t keep a pace like this for anything, nor would I want to. I love doing things and all, but I am someone who likes a lot of quiet contemplation and I’m finally allowing that to exist rather than making it mean something negative or wrong.
I’m always something negative or wrong or doing something wrong is the survivors general default setting.
This morning I’m reading Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington and being concerned about my elderly dog, and thinking about attachment and life in general. Henri may have suffered a stroke, or it may be an ear infection and clear up. The jury is still out. So I am carefully poised for a potential loss of my longest relationship with a pet and my constant office companion.
I am anyway, regardless of this situation, she’s thirteen years old. So that has been weighing heavily on my heart lately.
I have three clients today, for the first Saturday in what 9 of them or so?! This is because of a second Pink concert so I can’t be mad about it. I’m just not used to it.
I’m thinking about hiking at Southford Falls tomorrow morning and then maybe some writing at a little coffee shop nearby before my writing immersion from 12-3. My writing immersion is coming close to an end and I’m not sure what the heck I’m going to do after. I will have to set something similar up, because it’s a necessary way of life for me to regularly write and share my pieces and I’ve found my way further into that journey, and subsequently my body. Go figure.
I’ve got a million Pink lines in my head playing at random. Battling for space with all of the rest. Counseling theories. Memories. Dreams. My to do list: write my newly found Aunt back, practice Duolingo, connect with my cousin, and so many others….
Now that the heat waves aren’t as intense I’m eager to get back into my walking routine which is very comforting.
I snuggled a baby boy last night and spent time with friends.
I had therapy yesterday and still continue to turn corners and heal in ways I never imagined I could. I surprise myself often.
This morning I’m contemplating committing to a year without drinking and to write about it. Here of course. What I notice. It’s largely a decision for my health.
I just want to be fully awake and present and not tamp that down with anything. I prefer life that way, but it’s so easy to get caught up in social events and norms and to use it to lubricate my squeaky gears and self-conscious parts.
I think for me I’ll need to make it a project and document my emotions and make a commitment to it, or it will be so easy to just have a drink for this or that reason. The sober project? Will I give it a name ?! Hmmm.
I believe in being made more whole by any commitment undertaken in earnest that’s stuck too, and exploring the emotions it unearths. The archeologist of my own bones if you will.
I want a deeper commitment and attachment to myself and my own emotional process and to truly take the time to know her, inch by inch, inside and out.
I’m ready to really explore the role substance has in my life without using stories to absolve my discomfort etc.
I wonder how it will change my life? Now to pick a start date without doing well there’s this event or that event. There always is. Let me go think on this and see my clients before my massage. I can’t wait to relax today!
I am listening to Ruelle radio. I heard a song by her I loved in a movie last night. Wildflower I think the movie was called.
My chest has been heavy lately. Only partially the bad cold I just had. I’ve had anxiety. Which is interesting because in the zoom out, big picture of it all things are going really well. Me doing the work is going really well.
I’m being and becoming more consistent and grounded. I’m in my body more than I’m not. It’s a disconcerting sensation attaching inside a body after years of compensating in a variety of ways and adapting to disconnection.
I am nothing if not adaptable. It’ll be on my headstone. She adapted. It’s not the strongest of the species, but those that can adapt that survive. What was necessary became a lifestyle. What is no longer necessary leaves room for what is essential.
Insert a quote about a prince and his lesson….
Belmont street beckons always. Woodmont is busy today. Normally that would bother me but I’m making time and space for myself anywhere these days.
Today I recognized I’d been too long without the oxygen that being alone provides. Despite all the events being good ones including Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell, it’s a major non negotiable of mine to be alone often and for spans of time. I crave it.
As today I was craving my smoothie water drive and park and meander, through the world and my mind equally.
One day I will look up and…. I lost my train of thought. It went off the tracks. Just like that.
One day maybe I’ll have one of these houses that faces here, because this space is sacred to me. There’s not an explanation. I’m just called to it always and feel at home here.
Hearts are like that too. Inexplicable. Finicky. Unpredictable. I’ve learned a lot about that during my life.
I miss writing here. There’s always so much to say I don’t get to, it pains me.
Life around me is moving fast, and inside me it’s much more still. Thank god.
My nest is nearly empty and yet absolutely full.
My triggers subsiding. Fingers gliding across your surface.
My poet and my scribe and my novelist are all scrambling for front and center lol, no surprise there.
Found twin B her first car. Milestone moment. Able to help and have her do some in her own, the epitome of success as a parent, in my opinion anyway.
I appreciate it all now. Every moment I can get. Yes, even when it’s difficult. Even with a thousand triggers. I’ll take a thousand and one deep breaths. I don’t wanna miss a thing.
She’s leaving for her first year in college. Florida. Bless her. I hate Florida. Hate the humidity and one or two other things. But I’ll love to visit her and hear about what that’s like for her.
The Little Prince has his first apartment with roommates and it’s very close to the house. He’s taking care of himself and learning life.
Twin A is going to finish her second year of college and then head off to UCONN.
In one years time ish unless one comes home I’ll have none of my children living under my roof.
I’m just sitting here facing my beloved water and thinking about this. My life is vast, and full. I’ve lived every inch of it, every corner. And yet there are lifetimes more. How exciting.
My chronic pain is profound. It is not trivial. But I learn to cope a little better every day and it no longer makes me anxious the way it used to. I just learn what I need and how to love and talk to me better. How to listen better.
Heart opening, softening, thawing. Mercy, Grace.
My goal is relaxation and creation. No more hustle and grind. An early retirement of sorts, a peace treaty of the mind.
Man or a monster Sam Tinnesz et Al.
I am proud. That’s what I am. I show up. I stay. I’m steadfast and strong and loving and everything I never came from. And I am finally, finally, not kept out of my own warmth. No more gaslighting. No more making myself small. No accepting less …..
I can’t believe how much cold, hard, estrangement and desolation I lived with inside of me. That breaks my heart.
Monsters by Ruelle. Some kind of theme here :p. I feel endless possibilities at this juncture.
I’m Christina Jenkins now. I’ve never had a last name that felt like home. Now I do. It’s extra ironic and pleasant that was my notebook name of practicing when I dreamt of marrying my first love. And guess what I still love him. A wholesome heartfelt relationship that has lasted our whole lives with a family who loves me as a bonus.
I love my name. Who knew getting married wasn’t the only way to have a name you love or a family for that matter. Now I have many.
An abundance of belonging. And an abundance of tender affections for me.
All my love,
C
Ps it’s a beautiful Saturday. I’m not working. I just saw a Frenchie. I am loved. My needs are met and I now allow my whole story and every inch of my memories and emotions regarding that to exist.
There are things that need to be written from the origination point.
Im listening to I Will Find You by Audiomachine and it is transcendent. It’s making my experience of staring out at the water with my toes in the sand somehow more magical.
In this state I can feel everything I need to feel to have daily presence with myself.
Feeling is safe. Feeling will not kill you.
Writing is safe….
I’ve somehow managed to make my favorite day even better by permitting myself the experience of Victoria Erickson’s writing immersion: Ashes and Rain.
This is where we come alive out of the shadows and into the light….. next song! I can feel it rising, golden waves of sound. Ruelle Radio. The smell here is divine.
So many things are coming full circle for me at this time in my life. Breaking out of the story, any of them and into pure presence. Less perfection. Who knew how much of that I actually had hanging around. Not me that’s for sure.
My third immersion class today, and yesterday was my third Saturday that was my own. But who’s counting? Me. I am!
I’m reading the exact book I need right now. It describes this path I’ve been on. Stephen Cope Soul Friends. I can’t believe how similar so many of the experiences described are and that someone else was able to articulate it in this way.
So of course I’m on a reading journey that book spurned. Exploring Thoreau, Dickinson, Forster (Maurice), a separate peace. And many more. And also being introduced to many new poets via Victoria. Ada Limon, David whyte and more.
I will carry you came on. As I’m getting ready to depart and back in my car in its usual spot.
I have an immense feeling that I will live in Milford the rest of my life. When I die I’d like my ashes spread at Woodmont, at all my spots along this stretch. It has called to me long as I can remember. I first found it by wandering on some of my first run/ walks with self as a young mother trying to create a space for her thoughts.
I still remember the day I first walked down Belmont St. And as the road rose up there’s a moment when you can first see the water. That moment is my favorite part. I still feel that when I drive here. The moment water and I meet, magic.
I’m more embodied now which means that I’ve expanded from hours in the bath to bodies of water out in the world and to nature as well. I’m learning to keep my attention when out in the world, and to still be able to write.
We write alongside life…. Not separated from it. I am learning.
I think a new Sunday routine may emerge of contemplation by the water along with my exercise prior to my writing class 12-3.
I go to therapy one time weekly now. Friday mornings. It was a long time I did two days a week. Doing only one isn’t some accomplishment, as in I’m more healed. It’s just a natural progression to using that time in other ways. So maybe it is ha 😉
I’m getting ready to embark on a new level of healing with that therapy that is focused on the trauma held within my bodies. The things my mind cannot access. Denali sized blocks.
I’m scared. Raw and shaking. Heart racing. Sweaty scared. And I’m grateful to be able to fly that close to the truth and to survive it.
Transmuting pain into personal power. Becoming a healer also to myself.
I’m writing poetry. I’m thinking of the connections that drew that side out just based on the emotions encompassed within. Those who recognized the poet and the passion within me. Who saw. Who felt me.
I am with them all the time. They are with me all the time. There is no need for separation.
I’m learning to no longer censor myself. I am de compartmentalizing all that has been and this is a painful process.
Becoming fully embodied and present. It’s excruciating and also the most beautiful suffering I’ve ever experienced. That look you saw wasn’t darkness it was the depth of my ability to connect. Interpret as you will. But I see it now.
I see it now.
The transformation is exquisite…
I’m on the rise is the song on now….. pay attention…..
There are times in our life where we need that so badly that we accept it in the form of someone who doesn’t keep us safe.
Then what?
Only to be shown what’s possible but then put them back up even thicker.
Needs are an interesting thing.
I’d venture many if not most broken relationships are the result of not being able to communicate our needs and be responsive enough in the demands of the culture and society we live in.
I used to think America was the greatest.
Because I was told that right. Now I’m leaning much more towards it emphasizes all the wrong things.
What fundamentals are we built on? Stepping on the backs of others to achieve our own status while not considering others. A beautiful Instagram feed?!
When mostly behind the pictures are struggling lost souls.
There is no pleasure allowed, only the pursuit of the American dream.
I’m finding at this point in my life other cultures have it so much more figured out. That life is also about family and connection and pleasure and the TIME to have those things.
Time!
How is one to have time if they have not achieved society’s idea of the American Dream.
But what are my dreams ?! Where are my dreams?
Completing the stress response cycle ? Perhaps. Hint Emily Nagowski probably spelled wrong.
I dream of not having my trauma and coping mechanisms dictate my life.
I know I’m far from isolated in that dream. Many people share it and are seeking exactly that in my office.
Spoiler: I don’t have it figured out either, but I desire that.
There’s desire! Hi my old friend how have you been?
I need to understand you better.
You’ve caused such grief in my life, but also had my back and opened so many doors.
You raging compass.
You really fuck me up sometimes …..
But you also led me to my true self and north.
Why’s it gotta be so complicated. You get it Avril, and Taylor, and Pink…..
Music you get me. I’m writing this to the tune of the piano guys radio.
Music pulls down my walls and gives me back to myself.
It’s why I want to play it, listen to it, more fully experience it and myself. Don’t forget yourself champ. But how ?!
And the song ended.
Now maybe there will be a different rhythm to my writing.
I’m sweaty and lost and sad on a Monday morning. And I’m also hopeful and excited about the possibilities of the day. These are my defaults as much as anything else. Thank god.
Music stimulates my brain in the right way to bring the walls down. It’s steady. I am in control. If I don’t like a song I change it. But I rarely do actually. I like to take in everything music has to teach me because it’s safe.
Writing is too I am learning and I’m finally letting go and doing it.
Having no idea the outcome.
The guy in 22 is trying to navigate his grass. He stands over it puzzled begging it to look as nice as the other lawns. But he’s just beginning. Someday it will because of his patient attendance and devotion.
So it’s one day at a time for now with music, walking, reading and writing.
Finding balance between thinking and feeling. Head and heart.
They are navigating too…..creating their connection.
“Many people say that you have to love yourself first before you can love others, but really, if you learn to love others, you will learn to love yourself.”
There really is no place like home.
I have roots, who knew. The Mountain is You speaks to uprooting and it resonates greatly to how I lived my life so many years.
Have I mentioned that I hate flying ?
And I love seeing and experiencing new things. So there’s a lot to manage there. I am adventurous but also nearly crippled by the level of anxiety signals and the ease with which they become activated.
For example I cannot make my mind settle for statistics on the safety of flying when my body knows I’m sailing above the clouds in a sophisticated tin can thousands of feet in the air. My entire body is tense until landing and despite how I distract or medicate myself, the body knows imminent death is at hand.
It takes days to recover from even a tame venture that involves flying. I may be a feet on the ground kind of gal. And is that alright !!? Now I want to listen to that song.
And I shall.
Connecticut has become home.
The air is home. I feel something upon returning. My feelings often take me by surprise. Mostly that I can feel them at all in real time. It’s startling and sometimes unsettling, even the good, especially the good.
The only thing we need to do with feelings is feel them. Who knew this? I thought a feeling means you must take an immediate action. I’m a good little soldier after all. 🙁
I want you to look right in my eyes, to tell me you love me, to be by my side….
Want to see your face as I fall with grace at the moment I die…..
My mission to go to a book store on any trip I take and then inscribe the front page with date, time, and thoughts about my travel almost did not come to fruition. Florida doesn’t believe in books apparently. But I was determined so I ended up with The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab. This book is interesting to say the least. It’s a little tough to follow in the beginning, but I’m confident the threads will come together.
My hope is to leave a library of my experiences and thoughts for my children and their children. I hope to pass down my love for books and hope that electronics don’t ever swallow them, as they have so many other beautiful things. Like the ability to think and be bored.
I finished most of East of Eden in 2 days which was a breathless experience. Lost inside her pages. I am home there too. Weaving my own story in my mind as I experience another’s creativity. It awakens mine.
Speaking of that I’ll be at Victoria Erickson’s writing workshop at Kripalu this weekend. A last minute choice. So absolutely necessary. I also have Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell in June. What life is this?!
I went down to my office this morning and I experienced such overwhelming comfort. My sacred healing space. So many intimate moments held there. Realizations. Tears. So many painful memories left in my keeping, entrusted to me. It’s a healing space. A powerful one.
I had so many more things to talk about, but session time has crept up on me as it usually does. So I guess it’s just my fear of flying and love for reading, and ability to do both much more successfully than I have in the past.
Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person. Madeline L’Engle
It’s so interesting I’m reading East of Eden right now. Nothing is an accident ever.
Years of generational trauma are coming to a head in my little family. We are all facing our stuff.
I had a dream ……
I think of the beginning of Mama Mia, how many times I watched that movie thinking I just liked Abba. Ha. It took years to click that a movie about a girl who has three father’s that show up all wanting her, was obviously going to tickle my fantasy.
I remember my own father (during a short reconnecting I initiated, it was not a warm reception) mocked me for liking such a corny production. Oh the irony there. He was a smart man from the little I knew him, but severely lacking in emotional intelligence and empathy. Or maybe that’s just because he never continued his connection with me. I most likely will never know. It matters less in this present time. Not as much of a gaping wound.
Mama Mia is an intelligent play with a brilliant cast. You’ll never make me think differently.
I also dreamed of being a good mother, a dream that often felt out of reach. People would try to encourage me, and I would make sure they knew they just didn’t know what lurked inside of me well enough.
But as it turns out if you’re courageous and you don’t give up, you can absolutely attain what you desire.
As a generational curse breaker it was never going to be easy. I couldn’t have imagined it would be this hard, or this worth it.
I stand with the misunderstood and the misunderstanding in their pain, and now I also stand with myself.
My children are strong and beautiful and all heart, at times to their detriment, but that’s normal.
They are kind to others.
My children are kind to others, not perfect. They are kind.
They too are learning to turn their pain into power.
We have been in family therapy for going on three years now. We have all wanted to give up I’d imagine. We have been through therapist’s, and harmed by them at times. Others have helped.
We show up.
It’s often a slow hard slog through painful sludge. At times it’s excruciatingly like being burned alive.
Most of the time I’ve doubted it’s the right thing, as it’s not the popular way. Just let them be kids leave them alone, and do it in a more acceptable way. Make things look better don’t introspect it’s dangerous. I feel the opposite, it’s dangerous to people when you don’t/can’t/ won’t.
Most of my life I’ve doubted the good in me. I’ve spent it separated from myself. That is excruciating. It is torture.
Then I became tortured.
I didn’t want to breathe anymore I was so lost. All of the truths I thought I knew shattered and an even worse view of myself to climb out of.
I stayed the course.
I still have plenty of healing to do. We still have plenty of healing to do. But the heaviness is lifting, and in this new freedom we all attempt to connect naturally as best we can, with no force involved.
No having to constantly control my own emotions or attempting to control anyone else’s so I can have an illusion of safety.
Just a free fall into the clouds. This blissful peace that warms my sore bones.
I feel at times like I’ve been hypnotized or am in an alternate universe. That’s how far away good has felt for me. If something is good it feels like it’s in a dream, foggy ethereal, surreal.
And certainly not mine…..
I remember driving to my office in Fairfield and just asking over and over if this was really my life. I actually was aware how dissociative I was, but I stayed right near me until it was safe enough to embody my body.
As it turns out that can be the most painful “surgery” you may ever endure. Once inside you feel everything via the body.
Well I don’t believe in wasted time, but I understand his meaning…..
Good morning! Here I am because habits are easier to follow through with. I’m still toying with my daily routine, and probably always will be due to my belief that routine can be the death of creativity. It can also be the vehicle in some ways so once again….
Balance is essential.
I’d say for me balance is a larger obstacle than anyone with a lesser degree of trauma. My executive lobe probably looks like Swiss cheese or whatever a damaged executive lobe looks like on MRI. Can you just request an MRI to see the degree trauma has affected your brain ? I need to look into this more.
I walked one mile this morning. I have an 8:15 this morning and then back to backs until 6:30. When I say back to backs now I mean with 15-25 minutes in between if I end on time. I don’t know what I did or how I scheduled them with no time in between. Now I do my note and use the bathroom or whatever. And this keeps me much more satisfied overall. Who knew.
I’m about to change my schedule so that my weekends are always mine. I’ll likely work m-t and Fridays I’m in love, aka my therapy and writing, maybe a book by the shore or a coffee shop, and then two more real estate days Saturday and Sunday.
What will life be like?
I’m scared and excited to often be less scared and excited from actual fear. It’s training. A whole lot of training. And a whole lot of grieving.
Grieving all the things that never were, that I’d hoped and dreamed for and allowing myself to do that while also moving forward. It does not need to look or be some perfect way. This is not the time or the place for good ol’ right and wrong. Those concepts have stolen enough of my life thank you very much.
So my walk this morning. Exhilarating. The season helps of course. Begin the day with endorphins and energy. At least one mile, when I have more time between two and three and I’m thinking of ending the day with a lap as well, a lap is a mile. When I am able to, some days are packed. I am grateful for the packed days as well.
This morning I ended season one of the CoDependent Mind with Brian and Stephanie. I’ll copy my notes from it, the standouts that I’d like to elaborate on at a later time here. These are all things the author said.
I’d have to try to process it later because the fear and the shame were too overwhelming.
My attention was often consumed with emotional avoidance techniques.
Compartmentalization to avoid cognitive dissonance as well as a feeling of helplessness imparted by the trauma.
Compartmentalization was one of the first causes of Not being able to feel and respond to emotions in real time.
This is a thought I had as a result: all unfinished for now. There will be layers at a later time I’d imagine. There’s name calling as a tactic and name calling as an emotional reaction when overwhelmed. Both are unproductive. Both can be transmuted into a healthier choice.
It’s interesting the musical foreshadowing of my story of my very own life. I’ve always loved the Cure Friday I’m in Love. And now it’s a day for me to kick off the weekend… sacred. My own. All those delicious hours to create with.
So my routines and focus working toward healthy eating, exercise, reading, writing, thinking daily. These are my days.
I don’t like being altered. I’ll have an occasional glass of Chardonnay with oysters, a summer fave, this just began. I’ll have a cold Bad Seed to unwind after a long hot day or if the mood strikes, and or a dirty martini out to dinner. Once in awhile I get adventurous and go for the craft cocktail, but more often than not I find them headache inducing and cloyingly sweet.
I no longer drink beer basically at all. I like the idea of it, but not it itself. Boy isn’t that a metaphor.
Learning how to say no and to know what I want when I want it and what I don’t want, has been a steep learning curve. As the podcast suggest it’s much safer to agree and assimilate and nearly lose oneself entirely.
My bathtime is beginning to dwindle and I need to finish my pages and I’d like to read one chapter of East of Eden before my day begins.
I’d like to incorporate one hour of reading time daily ideally and at least one of play and connecting in whatever form that takes.
These are my priorities.
I’m entering such a different phase of my life right now and it’s a bit terrifying if I’m being honest. It’s also liberating.
So for the rest of the morning I’ll ponder why liberation brings such great fear…. I could give you a fast intellectual answer. But I’m more interested in what my heart wants to speak now.
This will be at the center of all good things in my life. Always has been.
This morning I had an intrusive thought. We got these crazy sharp and expensive cutco knives from a friend of the girls selling them. It’s a cute and funny memory. But one slip of one of those suckers and like butter your finger will be gone.
My kids like me, can be ultra sensitive about things. It’s a product of trauma and also innate. A double whammy if you will. Anyhow she understood me as laughing at her for the way she was cutting an apple and got angry, just a little compared to before family therapy. I knew if I said anything about how to cut differently I’d be met with an anger that shrivels my soul immediately and makes me want to run for cover.
The only threat present here is misunderstanding, and being misunderstood. It’s the biggest threat present in our family. And finally with a healthier clinician than in the past, the tangles are becoming a little bit undone.
I’ve been hungry to write, but also overwhelmed about gathering and organizing my thoughts. The story of my life. It will be on my headstone. Many years later of course which I now might actually be able to believe. Instead of the story about the shooting star lifespan, bright and gone as quickly as it came.
We all are most likely shooting stars in the scheme of things.
I’ve been having clarity and connection and moments which are all part of a natural ebb and a flow I never thought I’d have a part in. My triggers and coping mechanisms felt as if they swept me up and gave me little choice in the matter.
I know better now.
How to find the delicious sweet spot of acknowledgment of symptoms and experiences and also the compelling why driven reasons to keep moving forward.
You, my loved ones, will always be my why.
I am emotional and open and atoning.
“Everyone is the narcissist but you Christina” plays and re-plays, until I shake it clear of my head and remember the hurt that propels such statements and how deeply misunderstanding I was of myself, which invited energies that would misunderstand me.
I am too aware and too motivated for change to consistently employ such a defense mechanism. Do I have layers of protection that can emit projection and all the other beautiful aspects of control and hiding that that involves.? Absolutely I do.
I am committed to breaking generational curses. Yours, mine, and ours. It is my steadfast promise. I become steady, courageous, accepting, gentle, open, and loving.
It is possible.
I am de programming myself. Shaking off all of the abuse replaying, mine, as well as my transgressions. Enough internal secure ground laid to face the heat of the truth.
The truth has legs. All the things she said playing in my head. All the things I said and did. How outlandish and ridiculous I sounded when I was a walking, talking, coping mechanism. How sad the pain that can be inflicted.
And it’s not over unless life is. I will still make mistakes, and have misunderstandings. But I am here and I show up and I am sturdy and proud of the life I have lived, and the one I’m creating now.
I watched the Glass Castle the other night. Wow. Poignant. Devastating. Relevant. Just incredible.
I watched it through a lens of seeing my transgressions. The worst is the freeze. It’s worse than screwing up. Because I couldn’t be loving either. I admire the fucked up families that stay I always have. Would the children have been better off or not?!
I held back so much, held myself so carefully so I couldn’t be damaging from my damage until I better learned, that for a time I barely existed at all. I couldn’t be fun or playful and I now think rather than only how hard for them, how hard also that was for me. I couldn’t express. No wonder writing felt so important. I had to find some way.
Now I get the privilege of becoming who I’ve always been, and being able to feel it and be connected to it. I am awestruck at this possibility and genuinely compassionate as the suffering involved from my almost entire separation from myself and purely external functionality for enough years I could have become a pillar of stone.
Now I try not to look back lest I become a pillar of salt.
I want to enjoy being a pillar of stability and wisdom and love for my loved ones. It is my daily prayer and mission no longer impossible.
I can say unequivocally that my departure from my own was necessary. I’ve since stopped watching others grief process and wronging myself.
It’s been so exhausting weighing every movement I make, and anyone near me, for good or bad, right or wrong, safe or unsafe. It has been one of my greatest burdens and taken up so much space. But it has also made a conscientious and grateful human being who appreciates even a crumb.
I no longer desperately subsist on scrambling for them, but a little glimmer never hurt anyone. The words often rise. All that glitters is not gold. That memory is sharp, pungent. Control. It worked.
Life is a treasure. It no longer matters.
I was so tired of being misunderstood even before that began. All I needed was to be understanding of myself. I am that now. Soft when I can be, as often as I can be because that’s my preference.
I love Sundays. I love walks. I love reading. I love writing. I love learning. I love connecting. I love warm hearted open people, the ones who mean well and do things ultimately for the right reasons to the best of their ability, according to their awareness at the time.
I believe whole heartedly in no man left behind and I never have, they live on in my mind.
Love is not an emotion, it doesn’t behave as emotions do, it is steadfast promise. Karen McLaren. The language of emotions. It exists whether it is present and practiced or not. In memories, in moments. In the wonderful Brutiful trap that is the mind. The door is open you may come and go as you please.
I am at peace.
Oh and also I’ll be attending a getaway at Omega again finally. Haven’t been since 2015. Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell. Be still my heart. Their article why do we Thank our heroes was printed and given to as many clients as possible around that same time. The first time I saw Liz in person. Those are such intimate memories.
I have more I want to write but for now I broke the silent spell and that is enough for the moment.
I was never going to be able to write unless I got safe.
Felt safe
I was never safe with you and you made that about me not staying, when the truth is I had stayed past any logical point that any human would endure.
Any human that wasn’t wired with love being harmful, inconsistent and dangerous.
My ideas of love and my wiring are all crossed. I’m so angry about this. This is so painful.
They probably look like cords behind an entertainment stand, or underneath a computer desk did in the 80’s. Or still do for me because I tend to be old fashioned about things.
With my mom I was always responsible for her pain and not abandoning her. But the relationship was a one way street. Love was expected from me. Unconditional affection, acceptance, supply. But I was given nothing of the sort in return.
(To this day she pops up curious about my life, and ashamed because of how other people see her not having a relationship with her daughter. She and her boyfriend try and find pictures to print and display, from the internet. I do my best to shield all of us from that. To live far enough away.)
I was given terror.
Then when normal things would happen. Teenage moods being unpredictable I reacted like a feral animal, and not the steadfast parent I wanted to see myself as. Another life sentence inside my head of shame. I crawl out a little at a time now.
I am programmed for pain, when it comes to love. So now when I am loved it feels odd, suffocating sometimes, scary. I feel responsible to return it right away and scattered about how I should do that. What’s the formula.
I was rendered only able to think, never safe to feel.
So when I do feel now in real time, the moments become sealed forever to be replayed for survival. A reel of pictures in my own mind to survive off of when inevitably the same exile over and over will occur.
It’s hard to say these things, because if you say something it’s more true right?! Maybe if you just don’t acknowledge it, it will go away. Freeze and hide.
Once you say how you feel it could be a life sentence. Someone could take it out of context and once again misunderstand you so egregiously. I’ve served several of these after a desperate bought of honesty begging to be loved. And I never thought it could happen later in life after I’d worked so hard.
What I mean about a life sentence is having been so alone when it comes to relationship, you develop only an inner dialogue about what you’re doing right or wrong, and usually it’s wrong and why. And that’s your primary companion.
This companion serves the purpose of trying to make sure if you have even a shot at love, that you aren’t abandoned. So it critiques and controls your every move via your thoughts.
I was alone with all the things she said, running through my head, she was me. I was alone with how bad I was because I was the one who exploded right. The other is calm cool and collected. Yes Taylor, the problem was me.
I often pair love and food together. If I have felt love when I have eaten a meal, I have a photographic memory of that time. Every single detail and the taste I can recall. I crave that food. I try and recreate it, but it’s never the same.
I can only imagine this as a product of the scarcity of both I once had in my life.
I can finally speak about it without my inner roommate telling me I’m whiny, going to be judged, being a victim, manipulating, it wasn’t that bad Christina. You’re so dramatic. And the like…..
When I talk about my past my breath quickens to short gasps, my chest tightens, it feels like I’m choking. The fear is as if snakes were crawling all over my body. My ears get red and hot and I feel like I’m burning alive. Sometimes just for fun, this happens unprovoked when I’m just trying to live my life.
I felt this way the last time my mother touched me, which ironically was over my grandfather’s deathbed. Talk about confusing.
The words released were always an act of treason, my truth always caused me trouble. No where to turn but inward.
Like my love with my grandfather wasn’t complicated already. A harsh authoritarian constantly telling me I’d be a slut like my mother if I preferred the company of boys, at the ripe age somewhere between 10 and 12. Constantly commenting on my body, those long legs Chris you have to fill them up. Always comments on my body.
I was a Tom boy. I preferred the company of boys and their clothes and that was wrong and bad for so many reasons in that household. So was talking too much, and being enthusiastic, and taking up too much space.
I wore strange clothing because grandmother always tried to find things on sale. One year my wardrobe consisted of those Mc hammer workout pants popular with muscly work out men in California. They were cheap so I got every pair of a different design. Neon black and yellow lightning patterns, t shirts with kittens on them and Fanny packs.
I never stood a chance.
I was a walking target of weird. Including the bargain haircuts my aunt gave me while she was in beauty school. Nails were her gift. Not hair. My haircuts looked like a Lego man hair cap.
I’m terribly lucky I got braces. One of the only things that turned around how I felt about myself later was having nice teeth.
And paying for things for my moms bastard child came under hot scrutiny and loud verbal opinions by my aunt, and others. The welfare bitches welp is taking my inheritance again.
Every time I got a gift or something uniquely for me, it caused a terrible fight between my mom and my aunt. Every time I received I was punished. See anything familiar here.
Not a thought about how the child felt in the scenario. I heard all of it.
I tried again and again to shrink to fit, but my humanity ending up bursting forth in the form of behavioral outbursts and undesirable traits at school. Begging to be loved and seen as something good or at all, at all the inappropriate times.
My desk was always next to the teacher. I picked physical fights with boys. I was always rescuing the hurt and drawn to staying so close to them. I’ll never leave you. I know it’s unsafe at home. For me too it is, but yours is probably worse and definitely more legitimate.
You have a family. One of those unicorn things.
So anytime I was welcomed into a family circle, inside, the experience is always powerfully compelling and at the same time repelling. Terror and confusion, mixed with beginning to feel loved and seen.
Spoiler alert: it’s only a matter of time until you see how bad I am. This will always be in there, the pain of it, even if the cognition can be expelled via emdr.
Dance with the humans you belong. In childhood dancing was a sign of sexual wrongdoing. You did not do it it was dirty in every sense of the word.
Which makes sense the strong attachment I felt to my childhood best friend whose family while also Seventh Day Adventist, was a “little more progressive” and I learned so many things I loved.
She had older brothers with cool cars, and bad habits and it was so exciting, like being at the zoo seeing how other families functioned. Those real ones with moms and dads and siblings where things were not so incredibly fucked up (but still were).
I borrowed dirty dancing and faked sick from school the next day. I paused all the sexy parts and felt dirty and shameful and alive. To this day I could probably quote the whole movie by heart, and also never need to watch it again because I see it in my mind.
You could have thought it would be Footloose, but no it was dirty dancing. I probably related a lot more to Jennifer gray, her mousiness and child like demeanor, good girl persona.
Good bad good bad. Pick a side like the movies and it will play out like a movie. There is no real life. Only the one in my head.
I wanted to be good and do good, but I also craved to be cool so I would be…. You guessed it loveable.
So I could be loved.
Who knew that later in life the pairing of the offering of a family that wasn’t real, or theirs to offer, and …. I lost my thought. So painful when this happens, this is what happens when you write in communal space, and have teens lol, sigh.
I only ever could dance with alcohol and the sting of the comments by people when I looked awkward doing it, nearly too much to bear.
So that day when I danced sober with a family and a young child I loved, was magical for me.
I was only there because of something else that felt magical for me.
When something feels magical and then turns to immense suffering because I couldn’t even trust my own mind….
Not being able to trust your own mind is a special kind of hell.
My own mind is so often all there was. I was so alone with my own mind sometimes I thought I would never emerge a person.
It was the beginning of the end.
A soul death.
I am here in recovery trying to balance closing up the wounds and moving forward with my life in a way that for the first time can feel whole.
It is a gargantuan undertaking.
Recovery can be brutal and is also beautiful. Brutiful Glennon would call it. Make no mistake it’s a full time job and anyone who has to spend most of their life recovering from their childhood should be compensated appropriately so they can live out the rest of their days in peace.
If ever I am in a position to do so I would use funds to make this a thing.
I thank God, the windows, and the walls for the enthusiasm I was blessed with, that has me never giving up. Because it has hurt enough to make anyone want to.
I have more peace than enthusiasm these days and sometimes that is painful, it’s temping to feel less alive in it.
One should not have to come to great harm to feel alive or to feel love.
💜
I’ve outdone myself this Sunday. It ripped wide open. Just the beginning….
There are whole schools of thought around whether this type of introspection is helpful or not. Let alone sharing it. Allowing myself permission to exist as I am with all my parts and all my thoughts is cathartic. This is my vehicle.
