Tag: #nottoomuch

Posted on

Something I’m Learning is You Learn a lot about Loving from Death

I remember it all too well and Taylor Swift’s Clean were on repeat this morning.

Despite the repeated migraines, nausea, joint pain, and other afflictions, I had to get out and walk this morning. To move some energy. My thoughts were dark and intrusive. I’ve been clenching my jaw and tossing and turning.

There’s a combination of distressing things happening currently, and all around that is regular every day life. Life that I love. The distress threatens to swallow, but it can’t with this spirit. It’ll never break my spirit. Et Lux Intenebris Lucet.

An ex lover and partner’s mother is actively dying. In one year’s time cancer has ravaged her. I had no idea how something like this would feel. The memories it would walk me through. I’ve never been so close to death before. I never realized how entirely I love, and that no longer being connected to the people never removes it. It just exists there.

It helps me to experience myself as loving and I need that right now with everything else I’m going through. The threat of parental alienation is real. I was programmed to always believe it was me, that’s bad, wrong, causing things. And while I’m by no means perfect my perception of myself has been the biggest battle in my life.

It’s plugged right in. People have plugged right in to my trauma and taken over where the previous left off, and the worst part is it felt like home. Love that wasn’t love at all, but a mask for insecurity, a bizarre attempt at control, a lot of things. But not love.

The impending loss of this woman who was a mother to me, one of very few, surrogate mothers. Who cried as I wore a wedding dress. Who loved my children and I…. sits like a stone in my stomach. I am heavy, foggy, and struggling with focus.

I burst into tears to her and her husband when I asked permission to marry their daughter and I meant it. I meant it. I didn’t mean to be the way I was, to not have room for anyone else’s feelings to exist. To be consumed inside my mind. To not stay. Those I didn’t mean. There was a lot I didn’t understand much less meant.

She is happily married now to a person who is well suited and she’s happy. She still loves my children and her partner holds that connection sacred. So they visited a few weeks back. I was nervous and they handed me their little one. Welcoming. Another baby I wasn’t able to have with a woman.

They are about to have their second, any day, while any day the glue and the matriarch will take her last breath. Vibrant, laughing, alive, kind, loving, Karen. It is unthinkable. I cannot even think it because what comes with this will be all manner of intrusive thoughts of myself or my loved ones going like this.

I stare numbly at the wall.

It’s almost show time. The time I show up for my client’s and give all I’ve got until I run out. My energy, focus, love, wisdom. What meaning would my life have without this exchange. It is not a question, it’s a statement. It’s everything. The sharing of knowledge that could make a moment of passing even a tiny bit lighter. I hope..

I hope for the family who is saying goodbye that the new lives beginning, at times provide temporary anesthesia for the pain.

Mother daughter relationships are complex. I’m struggling immensely in my own right now. This morning my mind is busy sending it’s energy to my former lover and friend because I know what that connection means to her, and what losses she’s already endured.

In some ways this is one of my first. The first up close death of one of my surrogate mother’s, and a loss to people I love deeply.

When love is true it still exists whether near or far. There is so much of that in my heart right now. Love and loss, the full spectrum.

I am learning it’s just still all right there. Ulay Ulay….

I am grateful for my deep connections and all of the love that’s helped me get connected to myself, every thread is honored.

Twin A begins college today…. Twin B prepares to move out West, a one way ticket for now with so many possibilities, my family is changing. It is a beautiful agony. One that I don’t know if I could have ever prepared for.

There will be a funeral soon. Life is just an endless cycle of birth and death I suppose after all, and this clinician is most concerned with the meaning between the lines and what’s beneath the surface. It’s not a bad way to live. It’s not too shabby.

Remembering and forgetting moments all while simultaneously creating new ones, because never give up is something that I live by. For me there is no other way.

Will you hear my heart tearing when the plane takes off, and the last breath is taken? You never know the last time you’ll see someone, hug them, appreciate their laugh. That’s a lot to be with, that reality.

What I do know today however is that real love never dies. It only transforms and is transforming. What a comforting sentiment amidst all of this existential suffering…..

💜

Posted on

At Home in a Heart that is Warm, and the Heart is Mine

Piece by piece she restores my faith that a person could be kind and stay ….. piece by piece she filled the holes that you burned in me at six years old…..

I woke up grumpy this morning. It’s a long day ahead, many bills to pay, many admin issues that need addressing. Ones that are intimidating. I’m tired. My b12 has been low, and I’m getting weekly injections. All of my therapies while deeply helpful, leave me gutted of energy by the end, and that leaves me fallen behind in other areas.

I’m mortal after all, not a God.

My tone inspired by the finishing of The Song of Achilles this morning.

Then as I’m in the bath attempting to rejuvenate my spirits and soak my sore body, I hear twin B singing of all things. I’m just a small town girl….. living in a lonely world…

It immediately lifts my spirits. I smiled from ear to ear. Then even more she texts requesting some time with me. I know it is backwards to need love from your children, (or is it just human all too human) but they are my only flesh and blood connections, and the only ones that have been my motivation to fight so hard against the dark experiences that marked my beginning.

I was waiting to enjoy them…. Wish I knew I didn’t have to wait. But I did. I had to connect with me first and that was nearly impossible.

We have had a turning point in family therapy. And even if it’s just a glimmer of hope (I think it’s more, that this is real), I am overjoyed with it.

Finally all being clamped down in our own story, corners, and pain…. It is relenting…. The icy grip releasing.

Could this thaw too?

It must Christina. You did. So how could it not? Remember what it took to get here.

The pool is getting fixed in the next couple of weeks. If nothing else to preserve the value of this home as improvements continue. A trip to a hot tub store in Milford last week ended in us getting the motivation to clean the thing out. I’ll have to post some before and after shots as I learn how to make the pictures blog sized and not make the whole post not work.

I can’t believe we cleaned that thing out. It has sat for four years and I thought there was no hope. That sounds familiar. Then you give a little time and attention and look what happens.

Look what a little presence does…..

Magic

Not a story, with intensity and a movie like script that must be followed or it can’t develop but everyday magic. These little moments….

I’m watching my kids become me in certain ways, and also them of course, but seeing my strength in them is exciting, and of course that I have not done every single thing wrong. The tale my mind so often weaved. Painful. Excruciating really.

Sometimes it really is all in your head. And that doesn’t make the difficulty any less or it any less real.

I spent my whole life running from my pain. Willing it away by just good ol’ elbow grease. I’d create a family. It’s just that easy. I was naive and foolish and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I had ideas, ran with them, then those ideas crashed and burned painfully. Being redirected was not my strong suit. I would stand defiantly arms crossed and be stubborn against my own behalf and not even know it.

It’s interesting to think now that all my rushing for self work was exactly what I needed to be doing because I could have missed out on connections with my kids. I think I just barely made the boat. On real live ones, not trying to figure it out cognitively, but feeling them in real time.

I have come back from the dead. I was dead inside. All the feeling parts. Maybe not fully dead, almost dead, almost lost, only a small part of human left in there. I had to fight myself, my mind, all while simultaneously figuring out how to support myself, to have healthy relationships, to choose a family for myself of people who show up for each other well.

I had to do the opposite of what I was… to slow down. To show the pain, so it could be seen, so I could be helped. Masking was suffocating me.

Last family therapy session I feel like I breathed for the first time ever. My first breath of oxygen as a flesh and blood human, not a robot who just works constantly and can’t feel.

It’s the most beautiful thing, but I’m also the most exhausted I’ve ever been and the most emotionally raw. And this of course coincides with a busy client schedule with some major shit (shifts) going on in the world, that people are feeling.

And some are not making it. Children taking their own lives, and how to hold space, but also not get trapped in the enormity of that reality.

To just smile at dinner or focus when earlier you sat in this pain with someone and your mind is beckoned to go there, and to the possibility of that happening to you.

I thought I knew what heart break was until I recognized how the very thing that saved me was keeping me emotionally distant from my children. That is heartbreak.

I just expected myself to exist without my story attached, without even speaking of it. I didn’t want it Or me, or my mother to hurt them, but It was always going to pass down to a degree. I held it back with everything that I have. Carried it really. Until I recognized the heaviness was crushing me, and that wasn’t serving anyone.

Now that I’ve set it down I don’t know that I’ll know what to do, how to be. I’ve been existing this way a long time. In reality I’ve been setting it down piece by piece and I’m getting to the part where I’m starting to feel naked without it. To shiver and shake with the new.

When it comes to new and trauma survivors, good or bad doesn’t matter, new has a high threat quotient.

Settle…. Stay…..ground

You’ve worked so hard to be here

Home in a heart that is warm despite the amount of cold it has felt….

Posted on

We All Become Our Parents in the End? I Don’t Think So

Christina Aguilera Just a Fool is todays angsty song …..

Random thoughts before I begin my client day. I’m out walking around the green. Looking longingly at benches to read on. Longing….

I’m contemplating words of an ex partner, some of the worst that could ever be said to me. We all become our parents in the end was the gist of it. I vehemently disagree and in my case I’m no where close, but being accused by scorned lovers when the relationship died was very unpleasant.

I went to lunch at Edge of The Woods yesterday. Their wraps have really gone down hill since the pandemic. The experience was lovely though. Exploring and finding new things.

I’m in the midst of discovering and becoming, finding the kind of adventures I want. Without that being daunting and feeling filled with land mines.

The sun beats down on my skin….. sweat drips down the small of my back and my neck and I love it. Primal.

Peaceful and primal is possible? I should think yes.

I bought a gardens something protein powder yesterday and I’m excited to make a smoothie with it this morning, even though it never tastes like smoothie king. Oh well. Drip drip….. sweat.:.. music…. Movement…: dreams!

I’m craving and pursuing health in all matters and as a human that’s hard. Consistency is hard, but I love the fruit of this labor. The flavor melting in my mouth. Descriptives.

So I wrote this the other day and didn’t post it. And now I’m in Asbury New Jersey. Joisy. Sun, sand, walks, reading, kiddos (little ones not mine), and just observing life.

And now this is weeks later again and I’m home on another adventure. I have a date with twin A today. My eighteen year old beauty who loves horses, and has a gigantic heart. We are getting lobstah rolls and then let’s be honest probably icecream. Mmmm.

It’s a Friday, therapy in the mornings, often a client or two peppered in to offset the ending of financial support from the other parent, and then an endless span of hours that’s usually filled faster than they can unfold. Today is pest control (mice ick), and notes, many many notes.

I bought a microphone, the one doctor Ramani has, lol. On Amazon Prime day of course. Will it be another item in my collection to dust, like the video camera and pulse oximeters to do Gottman therapy with. Sigh. Will I have a podcast? How can I choose just one thing?

Where is there room for me in my life. It’s all about you, the critic from past relationships gone bad chirps. Everything is always about you. Nothing was ever about me. Cognitive dissonance. Trapped, in the past, in the future, inside a coping mechanism.

Caged

Free

All or nothing

This is me….

I was talking to my therapist the other day about how I had imagined my life. As it turns out my first divorce still haunts me in the form of how that has effected my children’s lives. The way things were dealt with or not dealt with.

Anyway, I was telling her I had always had a dream of being with that one person your whole life. Knowing them in a way where you know all their selves. Where you grow together. I was devastated by divorce and realizing I was gay, it was a betrayal of everything I had dreamt of and everything I set out to do.

(Everything after became a dissociated blur in so many ways. In such a hurry to correct. To still have that with someone while my kids were little. And all the rushing was always the thing that made life the hardest. I had no discipline or no secure foundation to know that. To know there was another way. I didn’t know. Can you forgive me? Can I forgive me. Please.)

Which was to create a family that stayed through it all.

Now I just try to find where I fit ….into life, into my self, into another person, another family…. It’s often overwhelming, it’s often beautiful.

Mostly lost, a little found, inside a life where insecurity used to abound. There’s a budding security.

She reflected that I had that with my kids, but it doesn’t feel like it, because I was always desperately searching for my lost self.

I was

And desperately seeking to be loved, and more to be understood, when I didn’t understand myself.

And maybe that means they were searching for me…. That’s heartbreaking, but when I go back and look I held, I read, I snuggled, I was right there. I had the privilege of being home with them their most formative years. Do their little bodies remember? Will my painful mind?

What do I do with all of this now?

I get up and try again…. To be more loving, more present, to listen and hold space. To believe it’s not too late to be the mom I dreamed of having and being. It’s much more difficult now as I have to translate this to a template where they have their own lives and need me differently.

I want to go back and also I don’t….

I keep moving forward….

Being the change

At the conclusion of this post, which is now, I’ll be full circle to where the post began. Feet hitting the pavement….. pounding.

Walking my way through recovery.

Dancing my way through life….

Posted on

You’re Giving me Nothing but Shattered Dreams

Darkly Dreaming Dexter Drastically Disturbs Dramatically Dulls
Pain

https://open.spotify.com/track/5DHQKZCOZhGNTbYBCekWx0?si=ZcId9_tnTA2BqYgKLU85ag&context=spotify%3Aartist%3A6fOMl44jA4Sp5b9PpYCkzz

Good morning! From the bath, because where else would I be on an easy like Sunday morning…

There’s a new Dr. Teals and I’m enjoying it. The house is cleaning person clean (something I never imagined having), and I’m trying to find ways to keep it that way. They carve a path and make a special reset, and we scuttle around attempting to emulate.

Do you want to emulate or carve a path?

The girls are being celebrated (Graduation) in upstate New York, with beloved friends and family. Just us chickens here. Chickens ha. A phrase my grandparents would say. I remember more these days, about the little things that weren’t as terrifying as the others.

Speaking of terrifying, the other morning I was driving to an early morning appointment in New Haven. Just relaxing and driving on the highway. Right lane around 55 mph, slow for me 😉 and Bang….. my drivers side window explodes. I mean explodes. So dazed. Looking for a bullet hole. Confused. Pull off the highway onto some exit and into a laundromat liquor store combo near West Haven. I think.

Parked across two spots, door open, standing. What does one do when each movement risks a cut, never mind getting home. It’s natural for me not to panic in panicky situations, I save that for nearly all regularly daily situations. Backwards in every sense of the word. The panic tried to mount when I realized I had an ass full of glass literally. And as I tried to wipe it away began to cut myself and my back.

Still looking for a bullet hole that shock prevented me from feeling. Thinking when I’d lift my shirt up there would be glass lodged into my back. A wound matching the emotional distress I was under that made sense of it all.

I’ve been looking, hoping maybe even, for that visible wound my whole life.

I wandered into the liquor store at 8 am…. And they sent me next door to the laundromat where there was a dirty bathroom and a gentleman on a folding chair drinking a Corona. Didn’t have the bandwidth to worry about that. Was not however going to ask for assistance with glass removal. I’ll do that myself. Normal for me.

Got the glass out of my pants, though scratchy parts within the waistband would remain. Went back outside and used glovebox napkins to break out the rest of the glass so it didn’t hit me as I was driving home. It’s all down inside the door and sounds like a box full of broken glass when the car down is open or shut. Tinkle tinkle.

Came home made calls, Google searched and attempted to understand. The most interesting aspect of this for me of course was my response of trying to figure out how I felt about what happened. Not surprisingly I didn’t know.

As I observed myself throughout the day my focus was nil. Just very out of it. Like it hadn’t happened. By the afternoon I began to entertain the idea it was real and did actually happen and imagine getting in the car again and hearing that noise and began to shake.

Finally it registered that one of my favorite and safest places, sacred to me had just been changed probably forever, at least in some small corner of my mind. Forever is a long time. I’ll always wonder now if that will happen or could happen to one of my children. I’ll always wonder what would have happened it trauma hadn’t given me military like training to remain completely calm in a situation like that.

I should have been in an accident. Swerved. All sorts of things. Instead that typically dissociative reaction took over. Silver linings, am I right ?!

By the late afternoon I ached so bad and couldn’t hang on another second and canceled my evening. I broke down in tears as I allowed myself to think about the lack of safety I had just experienced and to entertain it in reality Vs the dreamlike state our brain tries to keep us in when unthinkable things are happening.

Unthinkable things…..

My nervous system is shot, it was already shot, and pardon the metaphor.

So anyway that happened. The window will be fixed, just like new …. Maybe? But will I ever trust a car window again!? One more layer of jumpy, like the cherry on top. Just what I needed, ironic it’s a Cars song I enjoy.

Am I being dramatic? The question we women particularly are trained to ask ourselves. The answer of course is always yes. Programming is powerful stuff.

Dark humor sticks a toe in the water and I’ve thought of why do you keep me walking on broken glass. A fave old Annie Lennox song. I’ve been nostalgic lately.

Once you have become unsafe enough even when something breaks you lose the ability to feel about it. Desensitization. Therapy is at times RE sensitization. It’s hard not to get all what’s the point about it, when one realizes how quickly safety can be shattered, seemingly, again…. And again.

I spent a couple of years in the shards of shattered dreams. Every where I turned, everything I would touch, tiny cuts. Tinkle tinkle. Oh another song …. https://youtu.be/hVNBC1LI8hs. I will never get tired of the 80’s. Johnny Hates Jazz.

Am I being dramatic?

Today it’s a relaxing Sunday. There is no glass. Going for a nice drive and to see James Taylor this evening. Wading in my dreams in the bath this morning. Gentle. Warm. Safe.

Preparing, always preparing to enter the harrows of the world again.

What dangers may lurk in a typical mundane concert filled evening…..

Stay tuned

Posted on

The Guards Don’t Relent, They are Their own Machine

“Every soul is like a minnow, every mind is like a shark.” Leonard Cohen

I am preparing for family therapy tonight. It has felt like preparing for battle, and it never should have. That’s inside of me, I tried to never let it out. That wasn’t an option. It leaked and poured out the seems and the more aware I was, the worse I felt.

The worse they felt….

The battle was always inside of me, and it would always create one outside. It began before I was born, and it’s my task, not my burden. Though if you caught me on any difficult day, I would tell you it was.

My battle is my task, trauma as a task to absolve. Is that the right word? I damn sure know it doesn’t dissolve, because that’s such a tame word, and it doesn’t.

Feral, tame, feral, tame….. battle battle battle….

To see things clearly and with safety is the ultimate privilege anyone could ever have.

Don’t cry for me, don’t hold me…. Just see me. Show me you see me. The guard goes down just a little, but he never takes off his armor. It’s stifling inside of here, this suit of metal. Once you’re hit so many times it never goes down.

All of the intensity of not receiving support fired straight at my kids. The truth is unbearable at times. I want to change out my suit of armor for robes. Even choosing an outfit is exhausting. I’d like to simplify everything. Maybe it will help. The Buddhist principles. Maybe they will help.

Can anything help?

Is it better to be a tortured soul than a lost one? Are those my only choices ? Most of my life it’s felt like it.

Is this the hill I’m going to die on? The best they could say is at least she never gave up. I guess that’s something for them, and everything for someone like me.

“All I ever wanted was some support that was unconditional. I tried to find that in partnership and failed every time because that’s not an unconditional relationship.

I had to give up me to have security.

Who would I be without my guard. I never let it down anywhere or with anyone except in the bath maybe is where that began.

I ache that I didn’t give you a better family life. That I “failed” every time and became more ashamed.

I ache at the word selfish. I never had a self to enjoy. Everything I looked like I was enjoying I was just trying at, trying to learn it.

I was trying to protect you and that backfired.

That I couldn’t just create a loving and warm mother out of thin air. That I didn’t keep my focus on you because primarily of resources emotionally and financially.

And then to shame myself for it, and then to be shamed for it.

Is agony…..

When I feel I have no support I run around like a feral animal, lashing and biting. I run scared all the time. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone and I’m sorry for the amounts I gave to you.

So many parts child still…

My trauma is also yours…..

I’m sorry

It takes an act of god to access my feelings, let alone show you. So I try to bridge the gap with writing because I can safely access myself there.

I’m like a human machine for detecting patterns and behavior because I spent my life trying to make sure I could keep you safe from me (my trauma).

You just wanted my time and attention and I did too. Everyone was in scarcity.

Now we could have this thing and I don’t know how to let go.

To find the balance of not being walked all over, but also having respect for myself and being able to love you.

I’d like to love you. To have and to make room to be loving. Please know that I need help with this, it wasn’t naturally given to me.

And I also need to be your mom to teach you and have boundaries etc.

This is often out of balance. I’m desperately seeking balance.”

Desperate causes so much harm. The feeling alone.

Desperate my whole life.

I’m running out of that energy and will I land at the bottom of my own inner well (sacred space) defeated in a puddle of my own shame and self loathing.

Or is it possible to rise out of something like this. ?

Balance

If my guard lets down at this point in my life will I just drop lifeless to the ground? It’s all I have ever known. This is my truth.

It took years to turn a sensitive, loving, creative child into a sentinel.

How can you ask me to undo that?

A major rule of therapy is you cannot strip away someone defense mechanism or reveal them to themselves without first replacing that with something more functional. You have to make a safe landing space first.

I’ve been this for countless people in my office, and often times the opposite for my children.

I will need to live with the balance of this truth, with forgiveness and mercy in my heart, if I am to live without constant suffering.

Atonement

How did I even get here? I’m not even religious :p That all caused me so much damage, repression, shame… it was in the wrong hands of course. Are there wrong hands ? Or just incredibly broken ones.

The questions are endless…..

“Suffering had led me to wherever I am, suffering has made me rebel against my own weakness. – Leonard Cohen

“What Happens to The Heart.”

Posted on

I Feel it in My Fingers, I Feel it in my Bones…..

Love is all around….

I’m on a plane, crying in plain sight while reading part five of What my Bones Know. How her partner’s family treats her…. What it took on her part to receive. The fact she stayed. There’s a little girl across the row eating pretzel sticks and suddenly I’m transported back in time. To a life that could have been, to a precious memory.

I’m able to realize now my memories are not a betrayal of the present. I get to keep my whole story and my whole self. I get to waft in and out as I please and take what I want, and leave what I want.

Is this freedom?

A baby cries…. Not mine. There won’t be another.

One of the most unbelievable aspects of life is how much it can change, and how amazing those changes can turn out to be. And that my heart can still swell with love for all that ever was, because it’s all part of me.

My shoulders are sore, the gentleman at my favorite nail place wailed on me this time. Fresh pedicures and fresh bruises abound. There was some drama on the plane about the stowing of luggage as we set out. This is our second flight, we will land in West Palm.

A family I didn’t stay in will visit in a couple of Sundays. A former lover and friend who now has a lovely wife and baby, and one on the way. The kids will get to meet and bond with the little one. And all the adults will potentially have some forms of closure. There will be joy, and no hard feelings. That’s what happens when all people with good hearts are involved. When no one intended any harm, we were just young and immature and ill equipped in so many ways.

The plane is up in the air now. I no longer need Xanax to fly. My first years absolutely adventurous of spirit, until the intrusive thoughts and nightmares began, until I became afraid of my own shadow, body, and every possible thought.

The next years obfuscated by a lack of understanding or time or resources to obtain it. The next years trips inside myself and back out again recovering what I could from the rubble of my life.

A self has emerged. She wasn’t perfect, God knows she wasn’t.

But today I am flying to Florida with my kids. And in my mind I’m crafting letters to them for therapy acknowledging their experiences that have hurt, and hoping for a closeness I never thought possible. There’s a post it on my desk that says “it’s not too late”, and it isn’t.

At the end of this book it talks about estrangement, and how much more common than we know.

I’ve never met another person until Stephanie (the author) that describes so eloquently how although she was invited to things, how she couldn’t feel the things one is supposed to about it. I’ve never felt as seen as I do now, or attached to an author.

I hope that means I’m getting closer to my own. I’m not even sure that needs to be part of my story anymore, it’s just becoming so much better each day.

Eek a little turbulence. I should be well schooled in this from my life, but alas I am someone who wants to feel her feet on the ground even if her head is often in the clouds.

I’m a little nauseated, that’s what waking up at 2:15 am will do. I’ll be too excited to rest until it’s time, but this whole thing is about rest right ?! And bonding let’s not forget that. A wise friend would tell me to keep my weight back when it comes to expectations. He’s not wrong. Be careful with those things.

I’m ready to sip a beverage out of a coconut shell in a beach chair already, and to watch my kids, now nearly adults, enjoy some of the finer things in life. Like a vacation for example.

Hopefully going forward it’s a yearly occasion and there’s plenty more time for bonding, and I’ll be involved every step of the way.

God I love my kids…. Outside all the triggers and fears they wouldn’t learn what they need to be ok, when I see them, really see them, it’s almost blinding.

Kind, considerate, warm, bright, welcoming, loving, intelligent, curious, empathic, funny…. I could go on. It’s almost surreal at times.

Anyway that’s it for now. I hope to write plenty more during this trip.

All my love,

C

Posted on

“Deprivation Runs Deep, it Creates Blank Spots in Us”

And longing ….

It’s late for me to be writing a blog post. Only one or two times have I ever attempted this feat. As if we are talking about extreme sports or something. Kind of.

I put on K.D Lang’s Constant Craving, it mimics how I feel right now. But what?! Could be so many things. Presence? Warmth? Food? It goes along with the title of my Memoir: Starved.

Am I doomed to be restless forever? Even as so many things are so good in my life?

I’ve been working hard. Harder than I ever imagined. I’ve become more me than I ever thought possible. A self, a real self. I’ve been working to make amends with my children, and building trust in myself has everything to do with it. As outside changes take place can I maintain those stabilities? Yes.

I watched The Tender Bar the other day and also have Hillbilly Elegy on the radar. I purchased both memoirs and have been researching the authors. Better at purchasing books than reading them. Another addiction? Maybe…..

I’m reading Beyond Codependency, and a line today struck me. “Deprivation runs deep, it creates blank spots in us.” That line alone could release grief, torrents. I read the passage during several sessions today. My people. The walking wounded. The brave.

I guess that’s why I feel starved no matter what I do.

Listening to Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, on repeat. The piano. Haunted. JR Moehringer writes about the ache of hearing his father’s voice while never having a relationship with him, and how being at the bar was at least something: his uncle Charlie teaching him the man sciences.

The ache …..

No story or obsession can protect me any longer. I live as a real human now. Sometimes I wish I could go back. No, I wasn’t better off. My mind spun. I was in a frenzy. My mind burned. Now it’s so quiet that sometimes the silence is deafening. It’s so still.

Peace is still so foreign and yet I’m better. Better to and for others, better with myself. Softer somehow. Grief has softened me. Every where. :p I struggle with my relationship with my body. Without my all or nothing and my addictions I can’t command myself into whatever is needed, because there is no longer a compelling why.

The last being the anxiety of being good enough. I know I am. So have I lost my edge, or Just my ability to torture myself into performance. I could go numb before and just obey. I know you know what I mean. I gave that up. The dark gift (passenger). The ability to swiftly disconnect. I traded my safety, for a real human life.

I guess I know why the Buddha is round ha. He’s so happy though. I too am happy. I scarcely know if I’m allowed, but my toe is in the water.

My mind is so still, if you saw the difference you would cite demon possession. Perhaps I had a lobotomy in my sleep. So now where is my story in here? Who am I without my coping mechanisms, without the guards. Most of the time I’m too guarded to even trust emdr I have found. But I grieve ….oh do I grieve.

I grieve that chaotic frantic woman ….. she was my constant. I don’t know what to do, as this new self. I’m quiet sometimes because it’s hard to trust new, even when it’s better.

And I love…. As hard as I ever have….. and I get up after getting knocked down….

My whole heart on the line. This is a gift the way that I live. With every fiber of my being. People crave this existence and a touch that makes all the difficult worthwhile. And I have it all, and I give it all.

Every day I live a year long. I’m so fulfilled at the end of each day, even when I’m restless. I fall asleep hard and fast and sleep deeply. Movie reels playing all night long, safely far enough from consciousness, but they are there. My dreams. Body slack. Not waiting for a pin to drop.

Mostly I am humbled daily by the work. Asking for forgiveness, learning, gently having my own back. Self supportive. What even is this….?!

Honing in on what to learn next. Realizing that while I lost a dream there are so many I didn’t realize I was already in. I’ll have grandkids, and I’ll be there every step of the way consistently engaged because I can and want to. Simple. Like how Charlie loved JR.

Sometimes the simplicity of love is startling. What is even more unsettling is how natural for me it is to complicate everything.

The kids and I are going on vacation soon…. West Palm bound. We sat around the table tonight playing skip Bo and talking about the different things we want during that trip. There was no tension or fighting. After all this time, we get to relax together. And the relaxation doesn’t have too high of a cost like it would have before. Stress somewhere else.

If you asked me if I would have been able to afford this vacation by myself or any of the other things we have I would have laughed. The life I live now is one that I saw as out of reach not that long ago. Impossible.

Even better I am rich in the knowing that my children have emotional safety. It was touch and go there for a minute, but I was never a lost soul. I’m too much of an advocate for that.

Sometimes arriving begins with breaking the silence without a plan in mind. This is a jumble of many potential blog posts I never chose to write. It’s tempting to feel it’s less good in its jumble but maybe the habit is the most important part. Just putting words to the page. Say anything…..

One post that’s rattling in my brain is “time will tell….” I think I’ll make that my next. I’ve said plenty here.

Goodnight 💜

Posted on

The Tank is Full

What makes life worth living for me….

I cry for how long I’ve judged my process and my decisions and choices. I cry for how hard I’ve been on myself when I’ve been surviving my whole life. Just because no one could see it. Judged for the ways I chose to save myself. Because I’m a mother, these choices meant I was selfish. The worst part is I allowed myself to believe those criticisms and as a result pulled away from my children.

I pulled away because I didn’t want to infect them with my particular disease. Survival is a great burden, and it’s hardly understood, except by those who have had to. I didn’t want them to understand, and then to feel close I needed them to. And that too became and unrealistic demand. I judged myself so harshly, and held on tight to that.

Holding on and letting go. Figuring out what to hold on to and what to let go of. The stakes feeling so high. I’ve softened all of that. Mistakes are the portals of discovery. In fact some of my most recent joy had so many in the beginning and that is what has made it feel perfect. The imperfect.

Because it’s real. You know? 😉

This morning on my sacred Sunday I am reflecting and wafting through my life. I’m listening to Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver. I am just overwhelmed by the abundance I’ve created in my life by the self-work I’ve done. I’ve done the impossible, changed my wiring in so many ways. People don’t do this, but I am. And I’m fucking proud.

I’m so emotional lately…. That is when I can stop holding my breath. I still do that. I hold on and wait for the bottom to drop out, but I know when I’m doing that, and when I’m not, and it makes such a difference and when I’m feeling safe, when I can reflect, the tears immediately come. The gratitude. The joy.

I made it out alive and I kept my self on ice, ready for exploration once safe. Now I’m here, and so often I’m overwhelmed that it feels like I won’t get the experience in some way. Even when I’m right here in it.

This is a journey not a destination. This journey is so beautiful it brings me to my knees with emotion. The good, the bad, and everything in between.

I ran so fast and so hard. I ran on empty so long, that it’s hard to know how to operate on a full tank, and not just keep watching the gauge. No matter how many times I check, it’s full, won’t stop me from trying. Some things are hard wired.

I’m operating this new soft self. My mind tries to drag me to every worst case scenario and exhaust me into that familiar irritability, but I’ve hedged my bets with all the support I’ve allowed myself permission to seek, and to accept it.

My authentic self is finally taking the lead…. Slow and steady wins the race. I am steady. I am a rock. I am reliable and trustworthy. I am consistent and nurturing and so loving. I can see myself and it’s overwhelming.

I spent most of my life overwhelmed by fear, and now I get the privilege of being overwhelmed by love.

I just took a deep breath. Whenever I’m overwhelmed now, that’s what I do. The restless settles into security and then the fruits of my labors shine and sparkle all around. I blink my eyes and try to bring them in and out of focus. Yes Christina this is real.

It isn’t any longer all or nothing. My life is piloted by self trust, not story telling. And I will not shame myself for what developed out of survival, for I have always lived the philosophy of Maya Angelou. Once you know better do better. And I always have.

And now after 41 years on this planet I’m in my body. Through hell and back so many times. Fighting myself, fighting every battle that crossed my path, permanently in fight and flight mode. The story protected the mechanism and as long as that was the case the pattern repeated.

Now I am broken free. Out of jail and purgatory. It’s like having to learn everything from the beginning again, so vulnerable and raw.

I’m so exhausted, prone, in a good way. Laying spent across the earth finally without all the thoughts of illness and death.

Everything is a first right now in so many ways. Out of the dark night. Reborn. Now when I don’t want something to be over rather than dissociation, I open wider and connect more. It’s never over, the moments, they become absorbed into my being.

Becoming solid, whole, and present.

I am present, alive, for the first time in this way. Overwhelmed by possibility….. life is beautiful. I know I always believed in that, but I never felt it, not like this.

Recovery is a long road, and it can be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be dark. Turn on the light. Allow the universe to have your back and shine its gifts on your pain. Everything is connected….

Stay tuned

Posted on

The Simple Things and On Writing

Hi. I can’t remember the last time I said hi and meant it in the way I’m thinking of now. Actually I can.

I just read a passage in Stephen King’s On Writing that has inspired this post. Page 56. When you write a story, you are telling yourself the story, he said. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.“ Gould said some thing else that was interesting on the day I turned in my first two pieces: “right with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out.”

I made a promise to myself that I will finish this book from cover to cover before the end of the year. It feels like a good goal. A few years back I read the first half, and it felt so sacred and emotional, that I could not bring myself to allow it to be over. Or at least that’s the story I tell. Also I couldn’t focus on one thing at a time or move slowly.

I am relieved these days that I can be still. I had a spiritual experience this morning. The weather is beautiful and I just sat in my living room looking around and the abundance I have created. I had everything I ever set out to do right under my nose the whole time. People tried to tell me this so bad often, but I wasn’t ready to let go of my pain. Or to let it let go of me.

When I slow down and comb through my life I have so many things I didn’t even pay attention to. I was amassing and moving more quickly than I could appreciate. Now I am slowing down and looking through the piles and boxes and dark corners and making new discoveries all the time.

Like this mornings which was a video by Esther Perel on listening. Esther Perel on Listening there were several gems in this. My favorite aspect of it is her owning mistakes as a counselor. I believe in this, but hadn’t yet found the courage to do so. She helps me. We learn more from our mistakes and it also helped me with some work I’ve done recently.

This afternoon between driving one of my twins to her job (we are down a vehicle currently) a pending ski trip motivated some closet cleaning. Amidst some of that were maternity clothes new and still in the bags, as well as many sentimental artifacts from 2019 until now.

The last time I did the first round of this cleaning I thought the emotions would kill me. It’s refreshing to see that this time I’m able to do it, feelings still in tow, but with a lot more acceptance.

The gift I have received from all of this darkness is presence. In the Esther video I referenced above she talks about languishing and about how the opposite is eroticism. Of course that caught my interest. The things that make us feel the most alive. The most present for the sensations. I recalled a time on the beach when I had met a lover I was quarreling with. We could not communicate or come to any understanding. So I requested we sit at the beach together, but not be allowed to say a word.

Now I can appreciate this creativity and effort so much different than I did then. I still remember that day fondly. Today as I was thinking of it I was thinking about eyes closed and just feeling what sand flowing through your fingers feels like. Whether it’s cool or hot, lumpy or smooth, moist or dry. The full sensory experience and how if you tune out the world and tune into the sensations, we are capable of the miraculous, without any cost, …. So simple.

I think of how my traumatized mind made simple things more complicated as my mind jumped to every possible scenario the very epitome of anxiety.

I think of how any trip I embarked upon was riddled with intrusive thoughts of bad things happening, and how I never understood why my mind did that, and worse, I felt defective, crazy, or bad. I shrank inside myself to try and make sure that didn’t infect anyone else.

I tried to protect others from even the possibility of becoming something “bad”, and I have a lot of appreciation for the things I did to adapt, and those that I faced.

I’m making a tender and soft self to operate from these days. Presence and intentionality. If I take a day or two to think about things I’ll usually see how I feel and what I need to do with so much more clarity than I ever was afforded before.

My ego runs the show so much less. It’s not nearly as fragile. I say I’m sorry and thank you for reminding me, and don’t have expectations for my children I couldn’t even keep up with when no one is looking. They truly are my greatest teachers. The work I’m most interested now is working on my listening and doing research around this.

After almost a year of horrible family therapy, now that I see what a good relationship really looks like, with a committed therapist, it’s a true game changer. I was so vulnerable I didn’t even know it shouldn’t have been like that. And I’m a therapist!!! We can’t see ourselves no matter how smart and aware, and vulnerability and grief changes the whole game. I wish I knew this sooner, but I’m glad I do now.

I appreciate Esther and Stephen’s company and guidance today. Fast friends. For now I’m going to listen to some old school Eminem and finish cleaning out my closet.

Merry Holidays Everyone. Life can be anything you want it to, if you’re committed and consistent.

Posted on

The invisibility of domestic violence ….

I was getting kind of used to being someone you loved

It’s Tree Day and Koenig Family Therapy is getting a facelift, a new front door. I’m sad to let the original one go, but it just didn’t fit right, cold air was coming in, and it wasn’t working. It’s bittersweet, what a metaphor.

I finished the limited Netflix series Maid last night. It was a show I wasn’t going to watch because I’m careful with my psyche and triggers, but as it turned out it’s something I needed to see. It’s so ironic that my initial training was in domestic violence. My first internship was at a shelter, and at that time I was so naive.

I was more caught up in work dramas and my own head to fully capture in my mind the importance of the work we were doing and the great minds I was around. That internship yielded a mistake that would teach me one of my greatest lessons. I was so green at that time. I made a lot of excuses for myself. I remember a supervisor there, not mine, helped point that out to me and coached me through a situation. She told me just to say I made a mistake and not all the reasons I felt I made it.

I took that lesson and kept it and cultivated it. It was a seed that’s still growing and still needs to be nurtured. It helped me learn at that time the significance of being with our mistakes. And if that isn’t what I’m having to do right now.

I’ve told so many stories about what was going on. They matched my ability to tolerate discomfort about myself. It doesn’t leave you much to trust when you know you can lie to yourself to feel better, but that won’t get you very far. Most of this isn’t conscious unless you do the work for it to be.

Sometimes I’m ashamed of the work, it feels heavy and too serious and the bullies of the world would tell me just don’t think so much. I’ve been told that my whole life, but what wasn’t happening was people having the understanding of why I was so serious. They just didn’t get it, so I for sure couldn’t and didn’t. More low self esteem just got internalized. The walls of the shame house got reinforced until I was inside a cel.

My trauma has been a solitary confinement I was longing to be out of, but I’d reinforced my survival mechanisms so much that it felt (it feels) impossible sometimes. Until my therapist reminds me I’m already out of the cel I just don’t have any program for this new life.

Stockholm syndrome is real and so is domestic violence. The worst part about it is that often no one can see the mental prison: I’ve been in a mental prison, for so long, that freedom feels like a heavier burden than captivity. I longed for my captor and my mistake. I longed for rage and contempt and mercurial torture, and then I shamed myself for that too.

In an episode of Maid yesterday which I sat and watched by myself…. you watch her lose herself inside the abuse, and it cried hard. It punched me in the face. It punched me in the gut, it beat me raw with the truth.

When she goes to the shelter again and she just rests for days, and can’t tolerate anything. When she doesn’t remember her favorite color, it slapped me across the face hard. It hurt so much I couldn’t breathe. How she walked away from the healthy person who loved her well and ended up back with her abuser because he’s the one who understood her mother and what she came from. It’s excruciating.

She went back for herself….. I went back for myself. When I stood there that day refusing to give up my ground it was about ME. I didn’t have any relationship with me. I didn’t even have a favorite color. I didn’t know what I liked, It was anything goes.

Everything I set out in the world to do was to not ever choose an abusive relationship. I’d abuse myself first and that’s what I did. I held myself to the fire to become someone worthy, all of these years. I squeezed every drop of me that ever emerged to make sure and stay on task. To make something of myself.

I held myself together for my kids, and every person who has ever judged me for my behavior has never seen what I was trying to do. Holding a River of shame that roared beneath the surface constantly at bay. I’ve been fighting for my life. I was holding back all of these memories that felt like they would kill me. I just tried to get away from them.

I used my whole will to try and make the nightmares stop, to walk away from fucked up love, to leave my mother. And even when I watch something like Maid I feel guilty and bad for leaving abuse. I feel guilty and bad for getting out alive. No matter how sick I got in the situation.

I’ve been fighting for my life. I was fighting for my life when you met me, and in that way I did put my kids first, even though I’ve been consistently called selfish. You have no idea what burdens I’ve been carrying inside. I separated myself from them so I could function all these years, but what I didn’t realize is I couldn’t have a self either.

I’ve been going back into the burning building and collecting her one piece at a time. I’m not a hero, I’ve made so many mistakes, but I am a warrior. And I’ll never give up the fight.

This is an excerpt from my morning pages. It’s been a tear filled morning. “Set the bed on fire…. Teddy. I had a rough wake up. Talked to Jen and didn’t even know how bad I was feeling. What about for the people who have choices as far as domestic violence. I chose to stay. The less visible something is the harder it is to get out. I felt empowered by choosing despite being the target of a rage that dialed right into the stream of shame that always ran just beneath the surface. Think the pink goo from the original Ghostbusters. I kept trying to dam it up, rather than drain it. Hustle for my worthy…. Thinking of Beene. That’s the only love I’ve known, the hustle. A narcissist demands loyalty without actually providing anything except rage and contempt. I cry for the little girl in me that thought that was love. I’m living with the consequences and the growth. I was always going to have to go back for me. I put it off until my kids were 20 and almost 18…. I patched holes in a sinking ship furiously. And now I’m a variety of tired I can’t even describe and a loneliness that’s like I’ve been hollowed out. I creak and rock. My bones call to you from their separate skin. I make myself translucent to let you in…. In the absence of fear, a Jewel lyric, I’ve loved a long time. This doesn’t make me any kind of hero, a warrior maybe, but I sure don’t look like one to all of the people I’ve tried to do love with, and since I could only view myself externally I just internalized more shame.

It has been vicious this pain and abuse. I’ve been fighting for my life. In my own head where I was banished to live…..

Knowledge is power, once someone gets their story clear, healing can happen. This is a cause I can get behind with my whole being. It’s what I do, and as I live out my own story with courage I become more and more capable to do this.

Clarity and Connection has resonated a lot with me this year. Yung Pueblo. It will hopefully be named poetry book of the year.

The fog lifts and I emerge and that’s almost the heaviest burden of all. When the wires are so crossed that possibility feels like a heavier burden than limitations.

Scarcity is a cruel master…. I have to actually learn how to accept abundance. ….