Tag: #lovedoneright

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I’ve never been in love with a house before…

I’ve never been in love with a house before, in fact I never in my life imagined to be buying a home of this magnitude.

I’m used to being so focused on love. Obtaining it. Cultivating it. Claiming it. Keeping it. Explaining it to others. Analyzing it. And this is making me realize how that pretty much took up my whole reserves of energy (what was left after all that was already needed).

So here I am repeatedly combing through every photo of our new home wondering if it will feel as good as it seems…. if the reality of it will be as good as the idea.

My new writing studio 😉

This leap feels gigantic for some reason and I can only imagine that means I am attached to my feelings this time around. So I won’t need to worry about them catching up to me six months in and suddenly changes needing to be made are thrust upon me without warning.

I feel my feelings in the moment they are happening now.

This actually makes for less writing I think. My writing was (is) so attached to my healing that now that I’ve come so far, there is some fear I will lose the writer self too. Or that this writer self is not as dynamic as my whole self, and only had this intense dark stream of consciousness inside it and nothing else. A one trick pony.

I suspect this is not the case. That soon I will have the courage and mental bandwidth to do anything I’d like. And that possibility is as daunting as the feeling of not having it. Survival is a task set before you, and it is a demanding mistress.

In my clinical world my wisdom grows. Seeds planted have become a beautiful garden that I bask in daily. I no longer worry I won’t pull the weeds, and tend to this garden or that suddenly it will be infested and decimated. Pity this is only a metaphor, my actual gardening skills are abysmal, unlike my late grandmother who could whisper to the roses and they would bloom.

In our new yard there are twin trees. Which I found to be quite prophetic. I am not sure what kind they are yet, but they bloom and have gorgeous giant pink blossoms, whose petals shower the yard with beauty and contrast. I have twin girls, I’m in love with 1/2 a set of twin girls, and we lost identical twins in December. It make me wonder if we will have twin girls this next time and it will become a major family legacy.

So soon, we will be moving and living in the town of Milford. Everything changes. My firstborn son graduated high school a few days ago, and he will be off on his own at WPI. A terribly exciting prospect. I have not lived without my boy child since I was 19 years old. I don’t know life without him. I don’t know myself without him anymore. I’m so delighted the world will get to experience him, and he it, but my mother heart skips a beat with fright for this unknown, and knows already it will feel as if several of her major organs are missing from her.

Please keep him safe and fulfilled!

The best way to describe these days of my life are that I am living with a grateful presence. That I am growing myself as a tender gardener, not a punishing one. And that all my most sacred dreams are coming true so loudly, that I can not argue to keep any of my limitations any longer. Life does not let me, and I am so blessed.

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Love and Moving: Thoughts from Provincetown MA.

I’m just sitting here in our cute little apartment style Air BNB lodging in Provincetown MA, and thinking about what it means to enjoy someone.

Last week I tried to write a post about what was going on. Essentially how I’ve felt frozen with writing or reading as we are in the administration phase of transitioning out of our home and into a new one. I’ve been obsessively consumed and focused on this task. It has shown me I really am this way about everything, not just love 😉

I’ll re-look at our new home online on Zillow over and over, and wonder a thousand things. As a highly sensitive person I know now that this is natural that this will be very intense for me. This home on Berkshire rd was a beginning and an end. The end of a certain level of poverty and not having my own. And the beginning of an adventure into myself.

To make it work as I went through loss we moved my dear friends Jen and Dain into the mix, and then they brought Joey into the world while living there. They became family. They have since moved onto their own home but their spirit and our times shared linger.

However so do the ghosts of exes past and I also had to get my ex name cleared of owning this home. And Courtney and I want to begin fresh! Once again in this lifetime I get to take threshold photos, though I very much doubt either of us will be carrying the other. We now live in the realm of nearing 40. Aches and pains and bad backs and a few extra inches to love and snuggle.

What will it feel like that first night sleeping there? What will it be like the move? I still see things through eyes of youthful naïveté and sometimes expect it to be more fun in my mind, and then when I get there realize moving actually is very stressful. Though I should like to think that’s a matter of perspective. But sometimes it’s probably a matter of emotion and change and in the spirit of The Velveteen Rabbit I’ve become more real as of late.

Real meaning I am connected to my emotions and feelings as I go now, versus being naturally and unintentionally capable of compartmentalizing to a frightening degree. I feel my feelings and boy are they huge. I am beginning to be able to love that about me, versus shaming it.

So here I am with my wife this time on the brink of another grand adventure. On this trip I’m finally able to have some space with my feelings to see what all is going on in here… and what I am finding is becoming emotional every few minutes with a deep and intense gratitude. She is such a happy person. The antidote to my serious heavy sides.

I teared up several times driving here yesterday when she shares with me so unabashedly her affection for me. She tells me she never knew she could love someone so much. How I look, how I smell, my sense of humor. The woman delights in me and I’ve never been the subject of such deep adoration.

This kind of love is like a magic potion. It is changing me daily, and now I’m trying to learn it and be that way with my kids. I wonder sometimes if this is not the natural order of things and if I’m expecting too much from myself. But due to being a young mother who was married into the wrong one per her sexuality and actually a few other things that that blinded her to, I am oft to behave in such a way that my kids could feel a burden. This breaks my heart.

So can I at this late stage of the game when they are 17, 15, and 15 show them how I delight in each of them? Rather than being a task oriented General that commands her ship well, but has lost some of the essence of what is truly important to a child. Or rather never had that perhaps. But has now learned it through watching others and this delicious love.

There is nothing to escape anymore in this life I have made and I try to make my body and my mind catch up to that realization, but they are slower to adjust, and that takes its toll sometimes.

Anyway I just wanted to share about this love. That we just enjoy each other immensely whether we are completing tasks together or on a getaway. We work seamlessly and are always gentle with the other’s heart. Gentle is not something anyone would have ever described me as I don’t think prior to this.

I don’t know that my kids would describe me as gentle either. I am striving towards that in this half of my life, and to be a fully engaged parent interested always in what they have going on. And I am, but how to show them more, when mostly I live in my head.

In the morning when the lake of my mind is still I can see all the way to the bottom of the depths of my affection for them, but as the day goes on and the water is alive with busy, they hear did you do this, did you do that?! I’m hoping to invite them to the still lake of my morning mind to see how much I would do for them, and how they have changed all of my life for the better. How much time I spend thinking about them and their happiness and dreams.

My children and this love have saved me from a life of persistent suffering of the mind and spirit. It still lingers often, but attending to them pulls me back out into presence and now I am still building that secure foundation.

Thank you dear witnesses for seeing my journey, you heal me as well, by bestowing your most precious resource …. time.

Tick tock tick tock….. what do you want with your one precious go round in this lifetime? It goes faster, much faster, than you realize.

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The winds of change are blowing….

11 B road

A picture of the front of our first real home together as a family.

It’s been way too long. When I don’t write it feels like I am underwater. When I do it feels like taking that first breath, or that first day you feel better after you have been sick. Everything burns brighter particularly gratitude. I would describe the way I have been lately as present and in a euphoric state of gratitude, while also being plagued by feelings of discomfort that such fast and profound changes elicit. Yeah that pretty much puts it exactly. I love that I am able to do that. It is such a gift. Thank goodness for my gifts. Thank goodness that I am a gift. Who would have ever thought.

If you know me very well you will know that most of my life has been plagued by fears of who I am as a person. Narcissist, selfish, too loud, too much, awkward, not feminine, not pretty, chaotic, poisoned by association of my genetics, too intense, weird, and the worst of these: a bad mother. It took me until about 2013 or so and a very good therapist for me to even entertain the idea I could love my kids in a traditional way (whatever that is), and I remember the times I allowed myself to refer to myself as a good mother. It felt like a foreign language and when the words accidentally spilled out so did a river of tears.

My morning pages has been hard to write lately, and I have worried that this means my relationship with my self is slipping a bit, when I won’t give myself that much time for my thoughts. This new dawn I have decided this is not the case, much like many of the things my brain tries to put a negative spin on. I have been present. This is what it feels like to be present. I am coming out of my shell, which is not a play on introversion, it means I’m coming out of my head, out of my mind palace (dungeon). I am living and breathing like the humans do. I have emerged owning my many titles with fierce love and pride.

Trauma survivor. Not just any trauma a special kind, the kind that is more difficult to notice. So having a strong personality lended itself to me denying those parts in favor of feeling strong and capable. Which was good while it worked, but then turned against me when I couldn’t validate my own experience or understand why such anxiety began to plague me as I began to thaw out. I spent most of my life trying to parent myself into something that I didn’t even have the slightest idea of. Making up the rules as I went because I was an adventurer with creating my self. I didn’t begin with a model, so I looked to everything that seemed like something I wanted to model myself after and got to work. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be so I often worried I was some awful thing. If you could actually see what that struggle was like, witness it….. I wish there was a way that people could see me. I’ve always felt that way, and I guess this is the way, that’s why it feels so important. At the same time I am still plagued by shame in some of my deepest layers. You can know things logically, and they can still be trapped in your body. This is something I want to do work on.

Fabulous and sexy gay woman who is a tomboy and would be caught dead in heels, but really appreciates seeing them on women 😉 Allowing my sexuality to be a beautiful thing has been a lifelong process for me. I may seem so out and proud and strong, but loathing is often internal thorn filled winding vines of darkness penetrating every corner of the self. Allowing my gender expression to be allowed. It is such a shame filled journey. I was always othered in such uncomfortable ways in my “family” of origin. Religion added another layer of wrong, and as I write I don’t know sometimes how I ever stood a chance.

Anyway I have many other titles, mother, counselor, advocate, friend… I could go on… and these days I am embracing and enjoying them all.

See even my writing trails off because I favor presence lately. I get in that beautiful zone or flow and then something moves in my home, and the wave of inspiration just sort of passes. The words seem to either tumble out of me like a waterfall or not at all. I wonder if I will be able to find a steady rhythm and go in and out of it as I please without losing the flow ever? Or if this is just how this works in my writer’s process.

So what’s funny is I actually got on here to update about the many changes that are about to happen in our lives and how I am in such an odd position in them as I change myself. A set of Russian Nesting dolls, except tornadoes instead of dolls. A storm inside a storm inside a storm and rather than being still in the eye like I’ve been most of my life I’m joining the main stream in the storm, connected with others, not watching carefully so I don’t screw up my chances to belong. So my habit is to write deeply introspective even though lately I am not needing it as much, and I view that as a good thing. Rather than shaming it away, or wronging myself for it I am discovering a sense of peace that it will move along on it’s own accord as I am ready. This is where peace comes from.

We are selling our home and buying a new one. This will be an entire post, but for right now this means today I will be painting a front door, helping the kids store their things in bins for the showings, and mopping up their emotions as I go along. Something I didn’t even know I could do. It’s been a little rocky at first. I’m more likely to be just deal with it because that is what I had to do to myself so many years. I have literally re-wired myself to respond warm and compassionately (usually after I realize I haven’t). It is hard to write that. I want to backspace and delete those words because so often my vulnerabilities are turned against me. That is the reality of another struggle I am having in my life. How do you fight back against that without talking poorly of a child’s other parent? I am trying to stand up for myself, and also be compassionate and apply grace. I’m trying to scramble around and take care of everything as always. This historically would get me so tired out and running in circles that I would lash out.

I am attempting to change all of this. To stay in warmth, compassion, grace, confidence, and to truly be the rock of a mother… .wait I’ve always been a rock they are hard and cold. The lighthouse of a mother? The one I have always wanted to have I am trying to be that. That has always been my mission. Dorothy the power was in you all along? For me if this is true it was so deeply deeply buried in who I needed to become to survive all this time. I kept evolving and moving at lightspeed so in this lifetime I can know peace and my children can know the safe arms of a mother who loves them.

I just love differently is the thing. Again differently than what? I love with my whole story included. I wasn’t willing to part and parcel it out anymore in favor of something that looked or felt better at a face value. I needed to love with every part of myself brought along, all the dark and stormy ones too. I had to go back and recover them. It’s more work than that of 10 lifetimes and I’m doing it in one.

So here we are next to a gratitude waterfall that just keeps me standing in awe. I am standing in awe of my life right now, always almost close to tears.

I am safe. I am loved. I am safety. I am loving.

I have worked my way to financial security and approved for more than I ever imagined home wise. I am making good financial decisions, not just ones to comfort myself. I am becoming a calm place rather than the storm. I think I’ve said that line a lot recently. I am at the next upgrade on myself and I’m so afraid to step into that outfit/role because what if I don’t fill the shoes? See what just happened I went to say how amazing it all is and I got scared again. Fear is always all of our constant companions, how we use it is what is important.

Anyway it is time to go back to presence, I am hoping this post just unlocks a little bit of what is going on. Today I will be painting our front door, cleaning light fixtures lovingly by hand, moving furniture, and getting ready to say goodbye to the first solid thing I was able to help get for my kids. Our first real home together that has been ours.

Please keep our family in your thoughts right now and send us healing love. There is so much old energy that is being dragged up. Emotional dust is clogging our nostrils and making us sick. We are all nervous about the many changes and highly charged with nerves. Please help us let these emotions make us stronger and closer versus scratching and biting at one another.

foundher

I found her…. 

I am living in a new home inside my head, and physically we are moving into a new home soon. Magic

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The Elusive Consistency of a Creative

This is the grief puzzle …. It’s finished now, though the grieving isn’t….. A perfect metaphor for process.

I’m trying to figure out so many things currently. My gears are turning and I’m deeply inside my head, figuring out how to get outside of it, when I should do that, when I shouldn’t. Ew should and shouldn’t. I preach against such words in my practice. I could re-frame right now. I “should” 😉 But I have to be human too.

I took my 15 year old daughter to her eye surgery 5 week follow up this morning. Everything is good there. I can cross that off my list of things to worry about. Good eye position, she’s healing well. I am grateful.

The things on my mind the most are consistency and self-discipline. I’m having trouble untangling because Starbucks and distractions.

I need to DECIDE on my mindset, the one I want to keep most consistent, so I do not get thrown about by every emotion I have because they are plenty. If you’re thinking easier said than done, you’re damn right.

How do we take someone who has thrived on chaos and survived not by careful planning and structure, but by the ability to bob and weave and to be constantly moving, and tell them to slow down and organize? Life is calmer and more peaceful for me these days, but my nervous system and psyche are not as ready to accept that. I still have a lot of threat response reactions, many of them physical.

All of my current goals involve self-discipline. I am a person who can talk herself into and out of anything using whatever story I decide to tell, and often I realize the stories I tell myself are not congruent with my mission. This is going to require some work.

These episodes of flushing are really getting annoying. I’ve about had it. If the solution to this is rooted in my weight and my health, then we are going to go hard at figuring this out.

How do I choose what thing to give my most attention and consistency too when there are so many?

This is my biggest issue right now. I’ve been trying to push work aside and show up for my kids, and being in my home and doing the things to make it run as smoothly as possible. This is the least easy to do because the reward has to be found by introspection and is only by looking down the road. It would be easier to get rewards I can see more easily, like the screen light up on the Vivint Board. All the screaming and yelling of my success. Rather than being yelled at at home, which is a lot of what happens when you have teens. I hope somewhere they really see that I am trying. And not that I am putting myself aside and all that martyr crap. But that when they talk I listen, and I try to actually put forth the effort.

The problem is all the areas I have to choose between. Limit your choices and discomfort could potentially go down, but there has to be another way. I don’t want to my choices limited.

Ultimately I need to feel good about myself, and not much I am doing lately is helping with that, because I keep doing different actions than the goals I have in mind. And I believe stories such as I am tired etc, but I’m more tired when I am not working towards my dreams. I am more tired when I eat like shit, that thing I said I was going to let myself have as a reward. There is something wrong with the system.

Talk less, smile more…. work on my focus more while smiling, rather than gritting my teeth. I want to feel joy in my days, and as a matter of fact I do so much. A lot of options I am successful at and people wanting what I have to offer is a good problem to have.

I have good problems now in my life, the problems I used to have I would classify as bad ones. This is like the difference of having to dig out of a 20 foot hole, versus having to avoid a pot hole here and there. And the biggest types of pot holes I need to avoid are ones that suck me into a story that takes me to an old emotional place that is outdated to all of the effort I have done.

I need to prioritize feeling good in my body, it needs movement and appropriate nutrition and this feels like it could be a full time job in and of itself. Why does everything feel so daunting? Could it be because my period is going to start at any moment? Yes, but it’s also more likely that my self-discipline is low.

Now the question is why is it so low? I am going to do some research about this, as well as dig into some of my stuff. I think a clue is how long I went without. Without enough of so many things. Not enough love, not enough stability in a variety of ways. Not enough of myself accessible to myself or anyone else. Now that I am thawing I allow myself to indulge, and then that quickly becomes habit. Hard work is no longer necessary to my survival, now that it is more of a choice, I allow myself to be tired.

But what if that’s more a story that I tell and then believe, rather than something that actually ends up making me feel better. Give yourself this reward of this thing that builds up to something that ends up making you be constantly in conflict with yourself.

There is no worse place to than in conflict with yourself, and I am so often there. I am just here trying to figure this out. One solid choice in the direction I want to go after another should really be where I focus, but my brain is like a disobedient puppy, and training gets tired after awhile.

I also think there is something to be said about intelligence and attempting to wire ourselves for automation so processes can become easier. My mind defaults to indulgence now, rather than to my goals and discipline.

I am retirement age in spirit years and this is causing my soul a lot of confusion.

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It’s elementary my dear Watson…

sherlockblog.jpg

Recently Courtney introduced me to the BBC series of Sherlock Holmes with Benedict Cumberbach et. al. It isn’t very often that I will watch a show and it will captivate my attention more than wanting to be full throttle ahead in the pursuit of my dreams. But I could tell right away that there was something more to watching this show. It was another way for her to show me she sees me. It’s literally my life.

Sherlock goes through the world being primarily misunderstood by most people and putting most of them off as well. Until not very much by accident at all really he and Watson are introduced and they seem to fit together. Sherlock begins to become ever slightly more human, and Watson provides him nearly endless mercy. And in exchange Watson is most certainly never at risk of being bored.

Do you know what this means? That long before there was ever a me, there were people who think like I do. It means I am not alone. So as a gift I bought Courtney (me) the entire set of original Sherlock Holmes books and I am reading through them, and noticing things I never would have before. Things such as in the book the way they meet is because each asks a same random acquaintance about a roommate situation. This time when I hear this I think destiny. I think a miracle a plan. More and more as I go about my life I think we are exactly where we need to be, and even the tiniest event may actually have been orchestrated way before us. I’m not sure what you call it, and my inner skeptic who is a much more comfortable personal has had a hay day being in charge most of my life. But when I look at how things are for me now, it just isn’t possible any of this is accidental.

I was given Courtney because I needed her, and she needs me, and we are each exactly necessary to the other’s well being and dare I say growth, in ways that we won’t even know until probably much later. I can see myself changing, so much of the dissatisfaction parts of me are melting into a deep surrender.

I mean don’t get me wrong, I still get into these mood fits of restless: wander/wonder/creative/disaster/glory/magnificent/confusion/supercalafra-just kidding. And I get into them frequently, but now I am starting to see a rhyme to my reason. If I am not stimulated by some new experience constantly I go nearly crazy. For Sherlock if he wasn’t solving a case that was challenging his brains (stimulating him), he was a nightmare to behold. I am a similar character.

If someone can write this and make it take shape, then there is no reason with this brain that I can’t write anything that I so desire. Believing in myself, (you had the power all along Dorothy), has been the battle… and that is becoming less and less of a problem.

I get so caught up in the details of it all, in how I spend my time, rather than lost in the experiecing of whatever it is I am trying to embark upon. Thankfully it doesn’t take murder or solving a case to get my juices flowing. My child like wonder and naivete that never before had the kind of space they do now, make even delivering a pizza via Uber Eats, an adventure for me. Who will order food? What will it be? Where will it be from? How much will it cost? How much will they tip me? Something about when that little app lights up and sends me on a mission I am filled with wonder.

Who can be filled with wonder about delivering a pizza?

And yet somehow I can. Because someone ordered, and there was some reason they ordered it, and perhaps we will get to talking and something magical will take place. Can you think of anything better than realizing your mind makes magic out of the mundane, if you will just sit still long enough to realize that.

If I could just stop trying to find fault in myself long enough to realize how wildly creative I have been all along. I am WILDLY creative. I have spun straw into gold with my life. I have made amazing connections, and they are all the product of risks I have taken that the average person just never would. I am much more likely on a daily basis to find the wrong in all the things that I do, but aren’t we all fighting that battle, until we realize we don’t have to anymore.

Something is going to unravel out of this madness. I just know it.

You know what’s funny? I actually began this post from a place of self-deprecation, and as the words came out they aren’t even habituated to that behavior anymore and I found something totally different as the story. You see there I go again… MAGIC.

I want to tell you about the silliest argument my wife and I had this evening. Because it’s so Sherlock and Watson of us. My wife tells me today that she purchased a second unlimited car wash package for our other car. My mind immediate thinks, “why”? So I say as much with very little sensitivity or thought. “Well I just don’t understand why anyone would care about such a thing.” I mean isn’t it futile really the washing of a car? Kind of like cleaning up leaves in a yard. I’ve never really done it and nothing has ever happened to me. I haven’t suffered in some intense way as a result. In fact I can see no difference in my quality of life whatsoever due to the fact I’ve rarely had a clean yard or much of a clean vehicle. And yet I have been taught to teach my children these things are important. So I have. But I guess I haven’t really modeled it much. This for a different blog post I should think.

So then poor Courtney begins to see things from the angle I am painting them and thinking she has been had by marketing and advertising, and feels less than smart. And then I feel badly for looking at things in this way, and nervous that I am not upholding something important simply for the fact if it is important to her then it will be important to me. My logical mind just blurted out my thoughts on the matter. And then I grappled to understand how in the world when we rarely argue at all, that we are feeling each misunderstood by the other over two packages of unlimited car washes. LMAO. It all feels so hysterical now. My thoughts were over the course of my 38 years of existence rarely has it occurred to me that the car needs washing. Perhaps 10 times in total, perhaps not even that many. And she was just being her Watson-y self and being considerate, practical, and studious in ways that make sense to her from her own story and upbringing. A conclusion is that neither of us should feel badly for our way of thinking, and the most important part of all is that we are never rude to one another, or condescending, or unkind. I think if either of us comes close to this, it is me because of my analytical, pragmatic, and intensely driven to the core of meaning in all things mind.

When you look for depth in everything, many things seem superficial in ways that seem to not make sense or are hard to be understood by others. She understands this in me and let’s me be myself, and because of that I always want to let her be herself. ALWAYS. Because of my wiring I think it may take something extra spectacular to teach me how to be gentle enough to make sure I create space for this. Sigh.

The point is that IF it is important to her, it doesn’t matter whether I deem it important or not, this is the way I CHOOSE to show up for love. It doesn’t matter if I see it as futile, illogical, meaningless, and by pointing out all the ways I did I only ended up making her feel like shit. Which both of us know logically neither of us can make the other feel anything without our consent, it’s why we work so well, we know this. But we still are not immune to the emotional ups and downs of human existence. Such a silly thing to become so sensitive over.

Is the conclusion that there are two types of people: those who care about washing their car, and those who feel nature will do it for them? Or perhaps there are infinite types of people: such as a type that will never own a car because of a value system or geographical location, or different priorities, and yet another subset that will own several hundred cars as a collector, or to showcase their status? As I could go on and on, much to the reader’s distress we shall call this case solved.

We are on a journey that so many others are on currently, that is to each be ok with ourselves in the light of so much comparison, and so many seemingly good reasons to find fault within ourselves. I am so grateful for this health relationship, where we can have a silly disagreement and my labrador of a mind can try to analyze every crevice of it, until a much needed distraction comes along. My son wanted to talk to us about some of his feelings, as soon as we became engaged as parents, we forgot the silly old discussion anyway, and it ended with Courtney saying, “Honey we parented together”, like we don’t do that all the time. But her enthusiasm about the whole damn thing is what is most healing. She’s enthusiastic about all of us, with all our imperfections, now she will just have to include herself in that generosity and the sky will be the limit 😉

With Heart,

Christina

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Meeting my Spirit Animal: Liz Gilbert

Good Morning from the International Women’s Summit in Phoenix Arizona! Just hanging around with Laverne Cox (no big deal), Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed, and Glennon Doyle. NO BIG DEAL! You know what I realized this time around however, is that I am not as star struck as I used to be. I realize that due to their bad ass ness I have these power house women available to me all the time anywhere I want. Elizabeth Gilbert for instance has been downloaded into me (this is actually something she spoke about here, about her beloved Rayya). Her words are literally a part of me now, and so too I am realizing is her spirit. So when I was able to have the courage to show her some words I wrote about my experience in 2015 and receive an amazing nurturing hug from her, I absorbed it into me and it just gave me more encouragement for my own journey as a bad ass.

I’m just sitting here trying to wrap my mind around this experience. I was going to write that even words fail to capture it, but that simply isn’t true. Words haven’t failed me before and I am willing to bet they won’t now either. I just don’t know which ones will come forth at this time. Isn’t that exciting?!

Isn’t that the very definition of magic, that we don’t know what is going to happen next?

It can be magical. And for people with anxiety it can be terrifying. I am both. It depends on how grounded I can find myself in any given moment and what I am facing down in the mirror that day. These events have a way of doing that to you. Bringing you face to face squared off with any existing feelings of unworthiness. Four years ago at one of these I could barely make eye contact with anyone. I was so afraid they would see straight through to all the hurting parts of me and decide I wasn’t meant to be there. At the same time I was desperately wanting to be seen. We can be both, ALL, all at once.

Elizabeth Gilbert ended up telling us a very intimate story (that she stated she hadn’t planned on) about her beloved Rayya, that she lost two January’s ago. By the way if you haven’t read Rayya’s Memoir, “Harley Loco”, I highly recommend it. Harley Loco !!! She describes the process she needed to go through to come to terms with losing the person she always went to for everything. How could she exist in a world without her, and she ended up saying at the end of the story that this process made the download complete. She talked of radical mercy, the kind that defines who we are as people, not the person we are being merciful with. She keeps Rayya inside of her now, and can access her voice at any time, because she knows her so intimately, that she knows exactly what she would say in any given situation.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. This idea that we can keep people well beyond their expiration in a variety of ways, not just through the written word.

Also at the panel lunch (that only gold tickets have access to, something I can hardly believe I am able to do, never would have been able to before), they talked about this idea of leaving a legacy and how much pressure we women feel to do that AND all of the other things on our plate. One of the bad ass women said something along the lines of rather than thinking of some large scale way to do this, the end result our biggest dream come to life. We leave our legacy anytime we touch another human life with connection, mercy, kindness, integrity, anytime that we see someone that needs to be seen. This idea was so comforting to me. It gave me the sense I am exactly where I should be RIGHT NOW. Not that I am somehow desperately missing some imaginary mark that was set for me. A way I have always felt restless and disturbed about.

I am experiencing more peace, even amongst all of these very big emotions, and so many different energies, here this time. In my personal journey peace is probably the thing most would describe could seem the most unattainable for me. I do not have a peaceful mind, often I have a vicious one, but I am learning to love it/her right into submission. She is melting into a puddle of positive thoughts, and solidifying into a beautiful deeply rooted willow tree. Strong and grounded, and capable to allow her branches to be lifted and moved by life’s experiences, without fearing total annihilation at every turn.

I barely even recognize myself on this trip.

So for this morning I will share one defining moment from it, there have been many. At the top of this post I shared a passage I wrote in September of 2015. At that event I wandered around, not knowing whether I was doing peace or being spiritual correct or not, feeling very insecure about my place in the world.

This time I took my shot and I asked Elizabeth Gilbert to read these words in the front of my very worn copy of Big Magic. She READ MY WORDS! And she gave me the best hug, she didn’t let go first she just held me. My hero held me for a few moments and read my words. I can do anything now! She saw me. And that was enough. It didn’t need to be more. And so perhaps maybe I too can entertain the idea that I am enough, and nothing needs to be more, and then hopefully I can model that for all of the women who look to me. My daughters, my wife, my friends, my clients, my found family, and anyone I come into contact with: WE ARE ENOUGH! We are exactly where we are supposed to be, and life can be full of magic if we are willing to face off with our fears enough and to keep going when it burns enough to see the horizon over the next difficult spot.

Keep going my friends. Dreams do come true. Here is what it looked like when one of mine did…

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A Sunday Untangling….

The yarn is multi-colored and vivid….this above is a live capture of my brain. When I can get one thread undone and use it properly, the feeling is pure bliss.

Blog from the bath on a Sunday afternoon. I decided to attempt to restart my day as I have been cranky. A combination of my period, waking up with a migraine, and existential questioning is contributing to this.

Days never seem to go as planned have you noticed this? I once told a client the song lyric, “you can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather” (an OutKast lyric) though I am sure the phrase has been around long before they have, and they tattooed it on themselves. Not a bad choice considering how relevant a phrase. This happens in my life all the time.

My health is what most often derails my plans, and rather than accept and nurture myself for this, I am usually hard on myself. Today is no exception. If I could just push through and create one account (for Vivint). The biggest problem with this job, while there is many good aspects, is the constant self imposed pressure. There are group chats, and a leaderboard, and it activates every competitive drive in me, which is obviously the point.

The challenge? I suppose is to trust myself more, give myself more permission and space, to not determine my worth by that scoreboard, and to find balance within, versus seeking external acceptance.

This is all well and good except…. that I can’t keep thoughts like, “if I just worked a little harder that’s 5,000 more to help my kids with college with”, and “I need to be less selfish and self indulgent.” But I just can’t drive as hard as I used to in any aspect. I can’t because I won’t allow myself to not rest, to not validate my disease.

I think I’d appear more successful to others if I could just keep up this grind and pace I have my whole life.

There it is, there is the epiphany I was writing towards….. the truth is I’ve had “grit” my whole life: it’s what has made me so successful, and also so deeply bone soul searingly tired. I am both of these things.

The truth is my spiritual self is already at retirement age. There is our chronological age, and then there is our life experience age. No one sees or recognizes the latter. In God years, Dog years, and warrior years I am 137. I just guessed at that number. I think it’s really like Methuselah (can’t believe I still remember this Bible crap), who was rumored to have died at 969 years of age. Yeah like him. Also small disclaimer I’m not actually anti anything to do with anyone’s faith or belief system. I have some deep wounds that were inflicted by the devout Christians in my life, and that’s my cross to bear. No pun intended :p Wah wah

With sales and money it only gets more seductive, all of it. The competitions, the numbers. The more money you have, the more you need to keep up. I will have to beat this system, but I catch myself already doing what all the humans do which is strive for the nicer things to validate their existence of course, as soon as they begin to get a taste of success.

I was perusing a commonality among these Vivint DMs this am, that’s district manager. Most are men, and most are tall, handsome, tattooed, and have a bombshell on their arms, and or a gorgeous family. I caught myself being envious of their trips to Fiji and fancy cars, and how their life looks.

And then I’m wise enough to know that pictures may tell a thousand words, but so often they can also tell a thousand lies. You just don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no.

Money may not buy happiness, but it for sure can buy a certain amount of peace of mind, which is what I crave most lately, if you know you can pay your bills, you’re much more sound emotionally than when you can’t. I know that from my vast life experiences. But it is hard to notice when in the midst if you’ve crossed over to the dark side of this equation: seduction, greed, production at the cost of your health, etc.

I’m so grateful I can usually head off most destructive processes at the pass now, by doing just this. Reflecting, thinking, using an open mind and heart. Not getting too conclusive, and also not getting too careless with my emotions or behaviors. At least their is some silver lining to just a torturously analytical mind 😉

Guys I’m almost there. I’m on the brink, of teaching, talking, training hopefully. I don’t know whether this will be the product of an article I submit to Psychology Today or Counseling Today, or whether it will be down the road during or after getting a PhD, if that’s what I do.

I’m craving a change I know that. I’m always craving a change, because there’s more opportunities for learning and growth. I just don’t know yet what that change looks like. If it will be brought on by us having a baby (embarking on that journey again), or by moving to a different home, or a different state which I’m really craving. I’ve been thinking of Oregon lots lately. It’s calling me. But that would require so many logistics. So it is likely long down the ride, though I’m not sure if it has to be….?!

With only one life (perhaps I should get more into the idea of multiple ones so I can cultivate a sense of peace that everything will happen that needs to). One lifetime hardly seems enough to fulfill all one’s dreams, not this one’s anyway 😉 they are too big.

And then I’m right at gratitude again. Thank goodness for this enthusiasm for living. Even when I’m afraid my gigantic feelings could swallow me, or grief will end me, I’m so much more resilient than my feelings would lend me to believe. We all are I think.

Sometimes our resilience works against us for along while after it has protected us from great trauma. The same mechanisms that are meant to protect, also harm in ways the subconscious won’t even let us be aware of without that magical observant impartial party: the therapist.

I want to write so much more about trauma, what I have learned about my own and others. I want to trust that I have something to contribute that hasn’t been said or done in the way I will say and do it.

This is where life finds me today. In my 38th year, often wondering how long I have left, because this is how my mind is wired. Because I am desperate to share my gifts with the world. It finds me in love with myself, my children, my partner, my work. It finds me being someone others seek for solace and wisdom, a position I’m so honored with. It finds me the parent of children who are wise beyond their years, and driven, and brave, and intelligent, and determined.

My son is in love for his first time. And it’s interesting to see how much like me he is in his thinking, and depth of feeling. I’m both elated and terrified by this realization. He faces many difficult decisions, young love is not for the faint of heart, and does not favor the weak of constitution.

My daughters continue to learn and grow and navigate this world as a second sex, their birthright affording them no mercy with regard to how fiercely they will need to love themselves to suit up in this society. They will need all the strength I have bestowed them with, and all the resilience life with me has required them to develop.

My wife is grieving more gracefully than any human I’ve ever encountered. So many changes she has had since we have fallen in love. What a bad ass!

And me… I am here just learning to play and to be gentle with myself and others. How does one ask a freight train or a tornado to be gentle, after they have had such a need to develop into those things?

I’ll be here trying to figure this out…

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Travel

cravetravelblog

Why do we travel? What makes it so interesting? I am sitting in Crave restaurant, it is a local hangout in Ansonia Connecticut, the most upscale and only choice in my mind. Not because of the upscale part, but because the food is consistently good no matter what, and it just feels good. Not sure what about it accomplishes this, but it does. 

Anyway I am sitting in a new and different perspective. I am by myself facing the street. I can see the antique shop across the street, some very interesting looking industrial buildings (see picture), and a sign that says Bennet & Walsh Attorney’s at law. There is a 103 on the door, the numbers are horizontal, large black font laid on gold or silver background. The doorway is rounded and the building is of stone. So cool. 

Have I ever seen this before? The answer is yes and no. I have seen it many times I am sure, but if I never attended to it then it won’t be encoded and won’t really mean anything. 

When we travel because we have added this expectation, parameters are set for experiencing the new then our brains are more likely to acquiesce. People are going outside to smoke. Interesting enough this no longer creates a craving in me. That is a realization in and of itself. I remember years where I had a single track mind of obtaining a cigarette and being afforded the reprieve of avoiding whatever social interaction was making me anxious, but escaping into the cool air and polluting my lungs. It wasn’t even the cigarette it was belonging to a group that made me less intimidated, and the escape of it all, and it gave me something to focus intently on, that was not tearing at myself. Hmmm. 

I am just thinking of how we don’t need to travel ever to see new things. We can see new things, or through new eyes anywhere and at anytime. Be exploring with our curiosity versus drowning in conclusion and despair. This is a choice we have at our fingertips at anytime, but it never feels that way. This is a lie. I think anyway. 

Magic is the fact that I used to not know where my next bill was going to get paid from, to being able to indulge myself in simple pleasures that I give myself permission for. To enjoy the moment, a moment. 3 years ago I would have felt guilty for anything I spent on myself, that it should have been going for this or that, or to savings. And now I have created the ability to both take care of my responsibilities and also to be able o experience joy in a cup of a coffee and a flan in a restaurant. Small sips, Savor. 

I have created so many of my dreams already, and yet my human brain rarely registers this. It tells me “Christina we are dissatisfied with your performance, we know you could be doing more.” Maybe I could, but do I want to be? Isn’t that as important a question as any?

Soon (in March) my wife and I will be traveling to the International Women’s Summit in Arizona. I have never been to Arizona, and within the US there aren’t too many places I can say I haven’t been, so this will be cool. It’s going to be warmer, we will need to adjust for this. I am tempted to pack nothing, and to make part of our adventure buying some new things while we are there, but then we will need to bring back luggage, hmmm. 

What does one see in Arizona anyway? What are the famous things to do or visit? I guess we will have to do some research. 

I think I have spent most of my life thinking something has to be grand to experience it to the fullest. It must be a grand gesture or trip of a lifetime, but the possibility for magic moments are held within the everyday also. We can go to an area we never have been before even where we already live, and look around, be alert. 

Anyway back to my notes about writing my memoirs. My beautiful wife got me this pencil set for Christmas, and it IS marvelous. She has infused them with her belief in my capability to do the things I set out to do, and if that isn’t magic I don’t know what is. 

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Hamilton: What will our play be called ?!

Thank you for seeing me in this way, for delighting in me and in us. It has literally saved our emotional lives. We had our physical lives before you, but our emotional ones are taking such beautiful shape now. And I want to write about it. I want the world to know your bright love. And I what we have created here. 

The image suggests perhaps a playful post about our experience in the city. Wouldn’t that be a more pleasant read ? Perhaps it would, but it wouldn’t be written by me then, at least not tonight. 😉

This blog post is a letter I wrote to my wife tonight. Whether or not all things are meant to be shared I think there is always a power in it for someone. This letter bled straight from my fingertips, it fell onto the page in waves of truth that couldn’t make their way out fast enough. A catharsis. Isn’t it always. If someone else has a different experience with those words who am I to stop them.

Clicking publish has always been an act of bravery…. one I never gave myself much credit for. Warning it begins with graphic Crohn’s Disease material exactly as I experienced it.

I had a stomach episode tonight unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I thought I was going to have you have to call 911. I almost screamed for you. Literally. I had visions of me passing out and dying on the toilet. I woke up doubled over completely, and I mean completely. I hobbled to the toilet. I didn’t know if I would vomit or faint. I felt like all 3. I felt like I was going to have to poop but didn’t know what thing would come first. It felt like I was being ripped in half. My shirt was completely soaked, completely, and contrary to the scary fast heart rate I will have usually during an attack my heart felt like it couldn’t even beat, it was low 50’s. 

I just held on and tried to breathe deep as I could through the waves of pain and head swimming until finally I pooped literally probably 3 toilet bowls full. It wasn’t all at once. First was getting the hard part out, and then a ton came. 

By the time I was done I was left shaking and freezing and now I’m more wiped out than you can ever imagine. I just can’t even quite describe the pain.

A couple of things happened. One, I felt a tremendous wave of compassion for V and guilt at not feeling more present. It’s like I can’t weather watching her suffer and I must because I’m mom. What a confusing thing. And two, intense fear that having not taken my injection even for a week has thrown things into some terrible state with my health. What if?! And what if V is in for a lifetime of chronic suffering with her tummy that impedes so much of her adventurous self. My god that will break my heart. And then that I really do love my kids moment. Well of course I fucking do?! How could I ever be so unkind to myself, ?’ To not give myself this benefit of the doubt. 

And then I think of the good thing that I’ll make sure she is safe and supported forever. Never scared she won’t be able to support herself. And then the realization that I’m a steadfast supporter and provider and that I’m creating / have created that from scratch. 

And this is literally what a profound RE frame in thinking looks like. I’m strong and proud and safe and I’ll keep my family safe, not some impulsive person hanging by a thread.

I’m creating something beautiful in myself and for others and it’s my story. My legacy. What I want people to say about me, when they tell my story like Eliza did for Hamilton. What will they say?! We all wonder what people will say.

This makes me think of you: do you know all anybody says is nice things about you?! I always wanted to be that person, but I make too many waves, take too many risks, and don’t think enough about how I’ll make someone feel. You think too much, and I not enough. If you take us both you have the perfect person 😉 boastful? Perhaps. 

I make people uncomfortable, but do it with good intentions lol. Don’t they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions;) I make people uncomfortable by pointing out what is so readily visible to me, that for others it takes them a lifetime if at all to notice. A gift and a curse. 

I wonder if V felt a fraction of how I felt just now. If she did I feel terrible for her. I’m gonna root around in your magic bag of goodies, the bag leftover from our dead dreams (to be dramatic and truthful) and see if I can find some life giving electrolytes in the form of Gatorade to settle this tummy. It’s feeling like knives are raking it currently and I can’t be out of commission this long. 

If anything happens to me babe please tell my story. I need my story told. The need is getting fiercer now. I need people to know how hard I fought just to be ok on a daily basis and my kids to know how strong their love makes me. They are the fuel to my fire, and everything that makes me the person that I am.

Every person I’ve ever helped has them to thank. 

And I have you to thank. You’re such a source of comfort to me. Speaking of…. I’ll need to restock our sick supplies. We were so fortunate to have all these. Though the reason we do and they are unused is still excruciating. 

Babe I know your process is different but please know that if this didn’t happen I might not in some really profound way have truly known how much I want it. How I want to enjoy the tiny new life that we create rather than ever viewing him or her as a burden. And my life has already been so heavy so long, any small thing sometimes does feel this way. But in part due to experiencing this loss with you, I know even more profoundly how much each second even is worth. 

I do in a fucked up way feel it is meant to be this way. This sense that everything does happen for a reason, and not that that’s just something we say to make sense of things when they are too fucked up. It makes me believe in destiny and magic. 

Does that mean we couldn’t have done without this toll to our hearts, this wound, and these scars… of course not. 

But life would not hold as much meaning without the whole picture, the whole journey, and my life now is beyond filled with meaning. 

While I don’t plan on going anywhere soon, I am satisfied with my life right now. I need you to know that. I don’t regret for me or be sad for the rest of my unloved life ever, because I have lived it to my fullest already. I do want more of course, immense amounts more. But if it wasn’t in my cards I didn’t miss a thing. I knew exactly what I was doing. 

I want you to find the same feeling, but in whatever way Or path that’s meant for you. That’s my dream for you, never give in to self defeating thoughts, ones that lack compassion for your full journey. 

If you did ever lose me I want you to live on for me in the way I would have. Carry my legacy and be for my kids what I would have been for them. You are up to that task. No one is as well as you or I wouldn’t have picked you. They will need you forever. 

I don’t plan on going anywhere, but we never plan for that so I want these words down. I don’t care what laws or rules or fears or whatever. We have something very special here and blood relation has nothing to do with it. We must trust that. You are an irreplaceable part of the kids healing now. You’re already written into the story. And I would never want to let you be snuffed out in the event of my demise. And anyone who would try would do so out of ego or pride etc, finally able to have their kids back from my evil clutches you know 😉 but you know better. 

You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to us. Yes little ol you, it’s true. That’s a truth. And it couldn’t be without you being so much more than you see when you look in the mirror. That distorted perception is your only enemy, it kills more dreams than a semi-automatic with unlimited rounds. 

I hope my kids will delight in my letters someday when they are old enough to read how my mind worked. Find, keep, and appreciate them all, because they are who I always really was inside and kids know so little about that.

I’ll never know much about who my parents really were inside, so much is a mystery, especially my dads side, and my mother’s, a tragedy. So for them to have this insight. To know my mind intimately. Incredible.

Wow so all this feels like a product of a near death experience. Listen honestly. It may sound dramatic, but this episode was no joke. And all this sweating and gross (being on prednisone and scared) the past couple of weeks has been really humbling.

There is a level of acceptance I am at, that wasn’t there before. 

My disease has carried a large piece of denial for the longest. I wasn’t willing. I’ve been in as much denial of it as I have how damaging my childhood was to me. I am reaching a stage of acceptance now, and it’s making me so much stronger. So much more at peace and strong. Someone that you will feel proud and safe to have a baby with. Someone stable that will enjoy that adventure with, not resent it, or fear it, or feel guilty about it because I already have kids.

That is at least the take home I’m recognizing from this tragedy. 

I will get to move forward without a doubt in my mind, and for me, that’s like having rebuilt an entire nation after its downfall. I’ve been a shaky entity bordering on panic for as long as I can remember, to be emerging this strong, still, solid force of love and compassion is unbelievable even to myself. 

I am surprising myself a lot lately. The strong I always identified as prior was a sort of forced kind of strong, a necessary one. This strong now is the accumulation of weathering storms with a sense of grace rather than a frenzy or a panic. 

It’s a strong I am satisfied and proud of, not one thrust upon me without my consent. It’s a soft kind of strong, and I can’t wait to hold our baby in these new arms made of this.

Every time you grace me with your vision of seeing the loving child inside of me. I can see when you see her, I can see her too, and it brings powerful healing. You bring that to me. 

Thank you for seeing me in this way, for delighting in me and in us. It has literally saved our emotional lives. We had our physical lives before you, but our emotional ones are taking such beautiful shape now. And I want to write about it. I want the world to know your bright love. And I what we have created here. 

What if someone else could find this place (when they couldn’t before) because of our story? Or was able to believe in their dreams?! 

Bliss. 

My tummy has burning remnants of the suffering I just went through and I can’t even be bothered to focus on that. I’ve too much shit to do with my one life. Thank goodness because otherwise I’d crumble into a little ball of stress and worry and take days to recover. 

I don’t have days anymore to spend in that way, there’s too much work to be done.

Every word on every page for every day of my life…. are for you….

Now I am going to curl up as close to you as I can and let your breath lull me into a deep relaxation, and help the pain melt away. 

All the love in my heart 

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A birthday tribute to my wife …

It’s my fourth favorite person in the worlds extra special born day tomorrow. Who’s keeping count right?! But I’ve learned over the years I need to be my number one, closely followed by my children, and have now been blessed enough that now we are 5. Still soon to be 6…. that dream floats evermore back into the picture daily. Thank god for our natural innate resilience.

Just 5 humans trying to navigate a painful and divisive world with the biggest of hearts and fullest of enthusiasms.

So I just want to take some time to honor this new addition to our family. She’s new old. We have a new love everyday, that feels like it could/should have been there my whole life. The depth goes that far.

My dearest Courtney you walked softly into our lives, as if on a bed of Snow White powder, silently, and yet the foundation we are laying together is molten lava stream of concrete that has hardened into the kind of solid ground healthy families thrive on. We created this out of a place of deep love for love itself, and for the creation of the family we always dreamed of.

I’m so proud of us. You’re a mighty, quiet, thoughtful, kind, soul, who lights up a room with her smile. People just love to be around you, and I consider it a constant gift that I get to be the benefactor of a large amount of these moments.

Whether you are generously rubbing my back at the end of the day because you know how heavy my walk in the world has been, or cooking a meal that risks you great criticism for my ever changing teenage children’s tastes….. you do it with loving kindness.

You see yourself so often as less than what you are, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to show you your powers. Great healing powers, they are immense.

No matter what else you do with your life from here on out, please know you have saved us. This is not dramatic, rather it is true. You’re gentle with our hearts, when much of life for the kids and I has felt intense.

Your gentle love is an intense space of healing, and I’ll love you like the grateful stray dog I have always felt like, that’s found her forever home.

And finally now this is all ok. It was never supposed to be different. I was never supposed to be more than what I was when I was, and neither are you. We just are.

And this life with you in it is bliss to me.

So I hope your 35th year lends to you feeling as special as you make us feel everyday.

It is fitting we get to experience Hamilton in Broadway together to celebrate. I remember watching you see Wicked and it was one of the most ground moving moments of my life. I knew you felt with your whole self, and I knew that’s what I wanted and deserved.

Thank you in a million little ways….