Time andMoments are all there is…. In the wanting so much is lost.
And I’m thinking about scarcity and what it does to a person. Autocorrect has changed that to for, and I pause for a moment to ponder if it may have known something I didn’t. Except it will always be a program and I more complex.
This morning I finished my 12th book of the year. 30 was the goal I set and I think I’ll set it to 60 next….. why so high ?! Not so I’m forced to meet it, but because it’s what I want.
I can choose what I want and don’t have to remain programmed.
A beautiful human thing.
I’m wise enough to know that I needed enough abundance to be here now, and that I didn’t create it alone. But I am the one making the time to reflect and get this journey down. And without knowing what that will become.
That is trust…..
As someone who has experienced many births and many deaths I feel such a parallel to Adeline, the Invisible Life of Addie Larue. I finished it’s pages this morning. I read other things too, in this meantime.
So many full circle things right now and strange things are happening, real ones.
No longer all or nothing relationships with anything.
And I’m falling in love with nuance and mystery. With being able to be surprised. Not starving when I’m hungry. Not dead when I am hurt.
Does this change the curse?
The fairytale ?
My relationships are softer with more room to grow especially the one I now have with me. I trust her.
I lived in my head
Not on the earth
Now after so many rebirths
I’m grounded
And ready for real love
Mine
If I trust me I don’t need to trust you,
But I want to
It’s a work in progress
She says to her
I
All the sensory stimuli that created fear and pain, works the other way too.
It makes life burn so bright without an illusion of poison and pain seducing me… reducing me to a primal self.
I can be primal without the pain.
Sing and dance in the rain
Not spend all my time calculating possible losses and gains
Lost in my brain
Drained
Stained with the blood of our broken hearts
Now it’s in a vial around my neck
Not so strange when you understand it
Anyway I’m walking and breathing, sensing and reeling
What is this feeling ?
We went to visit a past life the other day, I held a baby boy that could have been mine if I had stayed. I enjoyed the presence I felt, the invitation, the welcome and the warmth.
Those that can hold space for nuance in a human journey.
And it has nothing to do with making new sets of rules or burning others.
It’s a cool surrender.
My love is a part of their world now and their’s will always be a part of mine.
That’s what connection does. It can be nurtured or not, but like energy it isn’t destroyed. Transmuted or redistributed maybe.
Our will and choices are what we have to manipulate.
More to life than being locked in a relationship with controlling emotions, when all you had was fear anyway.
Wanting will kill you if you can’t appreciate being. The simple things.
I appreciate time and will make anything out of what I have.
I no longer need to know the exact right formula before moving. I never did really, but oh did I get lost in the story.
Good morning ! It’s beautiful out. I’m here for it. My toes are itchy and uncomfortable due to the two giant water blisters that currently inhabit my pinky ones. Due to wearing the cool shoes to see Pink at Fenway this past week.
This didn’t stop me however from seeing her again at Citi Field two nights later. It’s Pink! And she’s every bit as infectious and enthusiastic about life and what she does as I thought. I’d like to catch this infection please.
I already have silly.
Anyway I’m groggy this morning. Very over-tired. Lots of late nights and events as I prepare to launch twin B into the world in a few short days.
I am blessed.
I couldn’t keep a pace like this for anything, nor would I want to. I love doing things and all, but I am someone who likes a lot of quiet contemplation and I’m finally allowing that to exist rather than making it mean something negative or wrong.
I’m always something negative or wrong or doing something wrong is the survivors general default setting.
This morning I’m reading Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington and being concerned about my elderly dog, and thinking about attachment and life in general. Henri may have suffered a stroke, or it may be an ear infection and clear up. The jury is still out. So I am carefully poised for a potential loss of my longest relationship with a pet and my constant office companion.
I am anyway, regardless of this situation, she’s thirteen years old. So that has been weighing heavily on my heart lately.
I have three clients today, for the first Saturday in what 9 of them or so?! This is because of a second Pink concert so I can’t be mad about it. I’m just not used to it.
I’m thinking about hiking at Southford Falls tomorrow morning and then maybe some writing at a little coffee shop nearby before my writing immersion from 12-3. My writing immersion is coming close to an end and I’m not sure what the heck I’m going to do after. I will have to set something similar up, because it’s a necessary way of life for me to regularly write and share my pieces and I’ve found my way further into that journey, and subsequently my body. Go figure.
I’ve got a million Pink lines in my head playing at random. Battling for space with all of the rest. Counseling theories. Memories. Dreams. My to do list: write my newly found Aunt back, practice Duolingo, connect with my cousin, and so many others….
Now that the heat waves aren’t as intense I’m eager to get back into my walking routine which is very comforting.
I snuggled a baby boy last night and spent time with friends.
I had therapy yesterday and still continue to turn corners and heal in ways I never imagined I could. I surprise myself often.
This morning I’m contemplating committing to a year without drinking and to write about it. Here of course. What I notice. It’s largely a decision for my health.
I just want to be fully awake and present and not tamp that down with anything. I prefer life that way, but it’s so easy to get caught up in social events and norms and to use it to lubricate my squeaky gears and self-conscious parts.
I think for me I’ll need to make it a project and document my emotions and make a commitment to it, or it will be so easy to just have a drink for this or that reason. The sober project? Will I give it a name ?! Hmmm.
I believe in being made more whole by any commitment undertaken in earnest that’s stuck too, and exploring the emotions it unearths. The archeologist of my own bones if you will.
I want a deeper commitment and attachment to myself and my own emotional process and to truly take the time to know her, inch by inch, inside and out.
I’m ready to really explore the role substance has in my life without using stories to absolve my discomfort etc.
I wonder how it will change my life? Now to pick a start date without doing well there’s this event or that event. There always is. Let me go think on this and see my clients before my massage. I can’t wait to relax today!
I’m at the New York Athletic Club, in the city that never sleeps. It doesn’t but believe me I do, or there is hell to pay. I’m old now 😉 I was old from the start, even when I was new.
I found out recently I was premature. 5 lbs 2 oz. I believe. I wonder what I was exposed to inside of her. From what I knew outside the odds aren’t in my favor.
I have these new connections with family that feel very grounding and positive and this morning I’m in awe and contemplation.
Is this what most of the other people I know have always had, just naturally. This feeling that they won’t just fly out into space at any moment.
A dear friend once said to me to keep defying gravity. Gravity I think. The invisible force that tethers one to earth. I was untethered and often unbridled and my defense system would shout that I wouldn’t change a thing. But now that I know what I know. You can’t unknow and all of that. I can’t even say that.
What is this feeling?
A feeling of solidness, inhabiting my body. Being at a dinner party with famous Broadway actors and actresses and not feeling less something, less anything.
Famous didn’t matter. It was an intimate gathering, natural. All people passionate about their arts. Some happy and fulfilled, some not as much. There were also wounds at that table. We all have them, some are just more apparent than others.
Yesterday we went to Westsider Rare and Used bookstore. I want to ravage every single one in this city. To touch every spine, cover, and page. To know which one I like best. To feel the knowledge pressing in around me, to hear all the voices of all of those brave writers that made it to the point where they were bound, gathered, and artfully decorated.
I’m ready for a cover and a title and a brand. Brand new. Look at you Christina. You can be and do anything. So what will it be? The crushing weight of possibility. No more crushing weight, only an unbearable lightness of being, he just died recently by the way.
One of the great loves of my life, very early on, came upon me reading Milan Kundera, the book of the very name of above, in a break room in a Trader Joe’s. I had a wedding ring on. I had more naïve enthusiasm than most would know what to do with at that time
All balls and no brain. Which is exactly what I needed to propel me out of a life I was not meant for.
I’ve been shot out of a cannon many times since so to speak. Jet propulsion. My swift expulsion from everything comforting. Including my self concept. Which is more than jarring, it’s actually quite alarming: disarming.
Apparently I’m a wrapper. Who knew. How much is channeled by my early days of resonance with Eminem’s music. Curtain Call. Relatable. It’s not debatable. My mind likes to rhyme.
One of my book store picks this time at random is Junot Diaz This is How You Lose Her. The cover looks interesting, actually not really so much. His name was in a compilation of writers on writing and this made me curious who he is as a writer.
I watched Ammonite the other day. I am haunted by it lately. Still sorting out what that is about. Can’t stop rhyming. Everything in divine timing….
A walk in the park and a stationary store before heading home on the train today. Muji…. I’m told the pages are creamy, buttery, gold.
I just sent out for my passport yesterday. And got two sheets of stamps. I love them. I got Toni Morrison ones and Love ones with puppy’s and hearts.
Here at the NYAC there’s an old fashioned looking letter drop. Between that and the stamps I want to write letters. The art of the letter is long lost.
I write letters that will never go to their recipients, ones only I will ever see. So many of the connections in my life are like that. Extinguished and never without good reason.
I spent so much time second guessing myself. Only to end up here where validation is around every corner and I am safely held.
I just put three new clients on the books yesterday morning. These are a little out of my comfort zone, something I haven’t done in awhile. Hopefully the freshness will be good for all involved.
Fresh eyes, no lies.
The truth will set you free. It always does. There are times I haven’t wanted to be free. I wanted to be held.
You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.
Ok for now back to writing and exploring this iron jungle melting pot, before it gets too hot.
So it’s a Saturday morning. Most of the years of my life I would have been working right now. In fact I had been seeing the same client at that time for about 6 years now I believe. They are now in a different time slot.
This is maybe my seventh Saturday, but whose counting 😉 I now have two full real estate days to create, work, play, etc from…. I can see a favorite plant on the deck in my view right now. I’m a little chilly so before I continue I’ll put on my Untamed zip up and heat my coffee that I still haven’t drank yet.
How many times will I heat this thing up. And life isn’t even busy. Usually we make ourselves busy. Today I’m enjoying some love cleaning. Not to be confused by rage cleaning, neurotic cleaning, or any other variety. There are so many.
On my mind most lately is alone time. Lake house ? Maybe?! Monastery? Maybe. It feels so aggrandizing to speak of feeling closer to spiritual enlightenment and yet I think that’s true. It’s just pure peace. Knowing you can have all the knowledge but not a breathless need to practice it, especially on someone else.
On my mind lately is also the organization of finances and how the hell does anyone decide what to spend on and what not to if you’re being mindful.
I’m tired of mindless. And while most things in my life or not I fall into spending habits that are more behavioral and unconscious than I prefer. So I’m working on that. I’m sure any readers can relate to the amount of money spent on Amazon monthly. Even a business write off, because most are books, is not a justification I can endure any longer.
I crave moving towards minimalism and away from anything I don’t need. I crave to simplify stuff and amplify experiences. However I have a tendency to do the opposite.
I’m currently reading the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. He wrote the legend of baggar Vance, which I actually don’t know much about. The book is about creativity and resistance. I’ve often said resistance takes many forms and he summarizes that in neat concepts in the book. An easy and powerful read!
I’m also reading The Inner Life of The Counselor by Robert Wicks. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, A Separate Peace, and about a million other things.
I’m taking many less baths, which is interesting. Hmmm I could take one now actually. Not a bad idea. I’m working my way through all or nothing behavior as well as thinking. Challenging it.
I tend to be all in my head and not in my body, and when I do get into my body all sorts of complications occur right now. So that’s something I’m being with and sorting through. There are wounds there. There is loss there. That sometimes I just cannot come to grips with.
Through that process I’m learning to be and accept myself and slowly ever so slowly eeking the poison out. The criticism, the gaslighting, the minimizing, the hyper vigilance. The judgment, the fear, the raw pain.
Healing for me, I am finding, is a lifetime art. It doesn’t have to be all dark and storms, even though yes those are there.
Anyway here I am, this is me, working to be wild and free while also contained in a safe land I’m building inside of me.
In the words of Emily Dickinson I’m out with Lanterns looking for myself.
Today’s agenda besides a lunch engagement is to clean my work desk and organize myself to focus on some of my tasks I’ve been procrastinating. An elaborate method of self-harm. But I’m so good at it. But I don’t want to be. Stop it kids. Everyone get along.
My to do list is massive it includes the next wave of changing my last name. All major tasks are done, but smaller ones, weeding out the old (and sacred), the weeds are magical too, the building blocks of my now self were nourished and founded on those.
It includes renewing my passport with my correct info, because I believe some travel is coming up soon. Positano maybe. Looking. Listening.
It includes finishing the process to become licensed in Florida. I will not ever be residing there, I can barely tolerate visiting. But when a beloved long time client relationship moves, you do what you must. And maybe there’s also another reason I don’t know yet.
Then mundane things like paying car taxes and bills, remembering to have the boiler serviced before the season this year etc.
We currently have no washer and dryer, and no flooring in the basement and a mess down there. So calls to the insurance company to follow up are also in order.
Breathe. Breathe is on the list.
And then next week my cousin is coming to visit. An honest to God blood relative that I have a few fond memories with and a felt connection that has spanned the years.
I have become sentimental. Some might say I always was, but I feel the variety maybe of it is different now.
I took a journey on 23 and me and now have three blood relatives I’m in contact with that in enthusiastic about and hold possibility not only for more knowledge about who and where I come from, but also warm, grounding, belonging in the realm of family.
It’s not desperate or seeking. It’s sturdy and profound.
I have also come into contact with my father’s sister and she seems amazing. She calls me niece and it feels nice. Simple and profound. She lives in Washington State near a state forest and that sounds amazing. I feel validated and loved and I never imagined I’d have family I could feel that way with.
Magic is happening. Loss still burns. There are still holidays and birthdays and memories that have left gaping holes. The story can be resolved, but the emotions are much different. They have a mind of their own.
Well that’s all I have for today. I want to KIS, keep it simple and in digestible amounts for now. I’m learning to do that with most things.
I am listening to Ruelle radio. I heard a song by her I loved in a movie last night. Wildflower I think the movie was called.
My chest has been heavy lately. Only partially the bad cold I just had. I’ve had anxiety. Which is interesting because in the zoom out, big picture of it all things are going really well. Me doing the work is going really well.
I’m being and becoming more consistent and grounded. I’m in my body more than I’m not. It’s a disconcerting sensation attaching inside a body after years of compensating in a variety of ways and adapting to disconnection.
I am nothing if not adaptable. It’ll be on my headstone. She adapted. It’s not the strongest of the species, but those that can adapt that survive. What was necessary became a lifestyle. What is no longer necessary leaves room for what is essential.
Insert a quote about a prince and his lesson….
Belmont street beckons always. Woodmont is busy today. Normally that would bother me but I’m making time and space for myself anywhere these days.
Today I recognized I’d been too long without the oxygen that being alone provides. Despite all the events being good ones including Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell, it’s a major non negotiable of mine to be alone often and for spans of time. I crave it.
As today I was craving my smoothie water drive and park and meander, through the world and my mind equally.
One day I will look up and…. I lost my train of thought. It went off the tracks. Just like that.
One day maybe I’ll have one of these houses that faces here, because this space is sacred to me. There’s not an explanation. I’m just called to it always and feel at home here.
Hearts are like that too. Inexplicable. Finicky. Unpredictable. I’ve learned a lot about that during my life.
I miss writing here. There’s always so much to say I don’t get to, it pains me.
Life around me is moving fast, and inside me it’s much more still. Thank god.
My nest is nearly empty and yet absolutely full.
My triggers subsiding. Fingers gliding across your surface.
My poet and my scribe and my novelist are all scrambling for front and center lol, no surprise there.
Found twin B her first car. Milestone moment. Able to help and have her do some in her own, the epitome of success as a parent, in my opinion anyway.
I appreciate it all now. Every moment I can get. Yes, even when it’s difficult. Even with a thousand triggers. I’ll take a thousand and one deep breaths. I don’t wanna miss a thing.
She’s leaving for her first year in college. Florida. Bless her. I hate Florida. Hate the humidity and one or two other things. But I’ll love to visit her and hear about what that’s like for her.
The Little Prince has his first apartment with roommates and it’s very close to the house. He’s taking care of himself and learning life.
Twin A is going to finish her second year of college and then head off to UCONN.
In one years time ish unless one comes home I’ll have none of my children living under my roof.
I’m just sitting here facing my beloved water and thinking about this. My life is vast, and full. I’ve lived every inch of it, every corner. And yet there are lifetimes more. How exciting.
My chronic pain is profound. It is not trivial. But I learn to cope a little better every day and it no longer makes me anxious the way it used to. I just learn what I need and how to love and talk to me better. How to listen better.
Heart opening, softening, thawing. Mercy, Grace.
My goal is relaxation and creation. No more hustle and grind. An early retirement of sorts, a peace treaty of the mind.
Man or a monster Sam Tinnesz et Al.
I am proud. That’s what I am. I show up. I stay. I’m steadfast and strong and loving and everything I never came from. And I am finally, finally, not kept out of my own warmth. No more gaslighting. No more making myself small. No accepting less …..
I can’t believe how much cold, hard, estrangement and desolation I lived with inside of me. That breaks my heart.
Monsters by Ruelle. Some kind of theme here :p. I feel endless possibilities at this juncture.
I’m Christina Jenkins now. I’ve never had a last name that felt like home. Now I do. It’s extra ironic and pleasant that was my notebook name of practicing when I dreamt of marrying my first love. And guess what I still love him. A wholesome heartfelt relationship that has lasted our whole lives with a family who loves me as a bonus.
I love my name. Who knew getting married wasn’t the only way to have a name you love or a family for that matter. Now I have many.
An abundance of belonging. And an abundance of tender affections for me.
All my love,
C
Ps it’s a beautiful Saturday. I’m not working. I just saw a Frenchie. I am loved. My needs are met and I now allow my whole story and every inch of my memories and emotions regarding that to exist.
There are things that need to be written from the origination point.
Im listening to I Will Find You by Audiomachine and it is transcendent. It’s making my experience of staring out at the water with my toes in the sand somehow more magical.
In this state I can feel everything I need to feel to have daily presence with myself.
Feeling is safe. Feeling will not kill you.
Writing is safe….
I’ve somehow managed to make my favorite day even better by permitting myself the experience of Victoria Erickson’s writing immersion: Ashes and Rain.
This is where we come alive out of the shadows and into the light….. next song! I can feel it rising, golden waves of sound. Ruelle Radio. The smell here is divine.
So many things are coming full circle for me at this time in my life. Breaking out of the story, any of them and into pure presence. Less perfection. Who knew how much of that I actually had hanging around. Not me that’s for sure.
My third immersion class today, and yesterday was my third Saturday that was my own. But who’s counting? Me. I am!
I’m reading the exact book I need right now. It describes this path I’ve been on. Stephen Cope Soul Friends. I can’t believe how similar so many of the experiences described are and that someone else was able to articulate it in this way.
So of course I’m on a reading journey that book spurned. Exploring Thoreau, Dickinson, Forster (Maurice), a separate peace. And many more. And also being introduced to many new poets via Victoria. Ada Limon, David whyte and more.
I will carry you came on. As I’m getting ready to depart and back in my car in its usual spot.
I have an immense feeling that I will live in Milford the rest of my life. When I die I’d like my ashes spread at Woodmont, at all my spots along this stretch. It has called to me long as I can remember. I first found it by wandering on some of my first run/ walks with self as a young mother trying to create a space for her thoughts.
I still remember the day I first walked down Belmont St. And as the road rose up there’s a moment when you can first see the water. That moment is my favorite part. I still feel that when I drive here. The moment water and I meet, magic.
I’m more embodied now which means that I’ve expanded from hours in the bath to bodies of water out in the world and to nature as well. I’m learning to keep my attention when out in the world, and to still be able to write.
We write alongside life…. Not separated from it. I am learning.
I think a new Sunday routine may emerge of contemplation by the water along with my exercise prior to my writing class 12-3.
I go to therapy one time weekly now. Friday mornings. It was a long time I did two days a week. Doing only one isn’t some accomplishment, as in I’m more healed. It’s just a natural progression to using that time in other ways. So maybe it is ha 😉
I’m getting ready to embark on a new level of healing with that therapy that is focused on the trauma held within my bodies. The things my mind cannot access. Denali sized blocks.
I’m scared. Raw and shaking. Heart racing. Sweaty scared. And I’m grateful to be able to fly that close to the truth and to survive it.
Transmuting pain into personal power. Becoming a healer also to myself.
I’m writing poetry. I’m thinking of the connections that drew that side out just based on the emotions encompassed within. Those who recognized the poet and the passion within me. Who saw. Who felt me.
I am with them all the time. They are with me all the time. There is no need for separation.
I’m learning to no longer censor myself. I am de compartmentalizing all that has been and this is a painful process.
Becoming fully embodied and present. It’s excruciating and also the most beautiful suffering I’ve ever experienced. That look you saw wasn’t darkness it was the depth of my ability to connect. Interpret as you will. But I see it now.
I see it now.
The transformation is exquisite…
I’m on the rise is the song on now….. pay attention…..
There are times in our life where we need that so badly that we accept it in the form of someone who doesn’t keep us safe.
Then what?
Only to be shown what’s possible but then put them back up even thicker.
Needs are an interesting thing.
I’d venture many if not most broken relationships are the result of not being able to communicate our needs and be responsive enough in the demands of the culture and society we live in.
I used to think America was the greatest.
Because I was told that right. Now I’m leaning much more towards it emphasizes all the wrong things.
What fundamentals are we built on? Stepping on the backs of others to achieve our own status while not considering others. A beautiful Instagram feed?!
When mostly behind the pictures are struggling lost souls.
There is no pleasure allowed, only the pursuit of the American dream.
I’m finding at this point in my life other cultures have it so much more figured out. That life is also about family and connection and pleasure and the TIME to have those things.
Time!
How is one to have time if they have not achieved society’s idea of the American Dream.
But what are my dreams ?! Where are my dreams?
Completing the stress response cycle ? Perhaps. Hint Emily Nagowski probably spelled wrong.
I dream of not having my trauma and coping mechanisms dictate my life.
I know I’m far from isolated in that dream. Many people share it and are seeking exactly that in my office.
Spoiler: I don’t have it figured out either, but I desire that.
There’s desire! Hi my old friend how have you been?
I need to understand you better.
You’ve caused such grief in my life, but also had my back and opened so many doors.
You raging compass.
You really fuck me up sometimes …..
But you also led me to my true self and north.
Why’s it gotta be so complicated. You get it Avril, and Taylor, and Pink…..
Music you get me. I’m writing this to the tune of the piano guys radio.
Music pulls down my walls and gives me back to myself.
It’s why I want to play it, listen to it, more fully experience it and myself. Don’t forget yourself champ. But how ?!
And the song ended.
Now maybe there will be a different rhythm to my writing.
I’m sweaty and lost and sad on a Monday morning. And I’m also hopeful and excited about the possibilities of the day. These are my defaults as much as anything else. Thank god.
Music stimulates my brain in the right way to bring the walls down. It’s steady. I am in control. If I don’t like a song I change it. But I rarely do actually. I like to take in everything music has to teach me because it’s safe.
Writing is too I am learning and I’m finally letting go and doing it.
Having no idea the outcome.
The guy in 22 is trying to navigate his grass. He stands over it puzzled begging it to look as nice as the other lawns. But he’s just beginning. Someday it will because of his patient attendance and devotion.
So it’s one day at a time for now with music, walking, reading and writing.
Finding balance between thinking and feeling. Head and heart.
They are navigating too…..creating their connection.
It’s a gorgeous Sunday. I feel beautiful. Clear and peaceful and calm. Whole. Myself.
I no longer feel I’m outside of my body watching my life, or that I don’t deserve things coming my way today, or any other. Now I say this, but there are moments. The pain is not gone, my trauma is not gone.
I’ve just found a lot more peace in living, created a lot more.
I do however want to write more. I went to Kripalu and that was such an experience and I want to capture it. I made new and dear writer friends. I read bravely, shaking and crying even, but without hesitation and without shame.
I showed up!
I wrote pieces I didn’t know I had in me, many fragments of my life.
Sea glass.
I found myself in others there and vice versa.
I found out I’m a poet, a lyricist, that there’s a rhythm to my writing, and that I’m all in. I knew that. But I don’t mind finding out over and over.
I’m all in. With my whole heart.
This day feels beautiful. It doesn’t just look it. I’m no longer invisible or trying to make myself that way. So much unworthiness is being shedded.
I feel loved. I feel seen.
And I feel felt.
My home is full of loving people and music and food and joy. When I observe from the outside this is what I see and hear. People feel welcome and loved here.
I have new piano lessons that are so much better than the other. And I was able to realize that I didn’t lose any of what I learned (we never do). Once it’s in there it’s in there.
I got paperwork Friday to move forward with changing my name. Yes, I am being adopted at 42 years old, and no I don’t mind the administrative nightmare that ensues. I had been avoiding because of that.
I had a hospital trip last week, and a nurse said my last name and it felt weird. I don’t think I’ve ever felt I belonged to a last name. Sadly even those I share with my children, and is also the name of my business. It would be so easy to go back to that one. And also has the bonus of sharing it with my kids.
I need to belong to myself, and I also want to belong to a family that has known young me, that has shaped me, and that showed up.
I’ve spent long and hard thinking about this and even though I had acceptance and love from a family I kept it at arm’s length because of fear. They will write that on my grave perhaps. I was too afraid to lose it and that they were just being nice and every other fear you can imagine. Judging myself left and right. Analytical to a fault.
I’m done with that. It is with an open heart only, and still some better senses about me, that I choose to embark on the rest of my life.
How did you do it?! Not lose your heart….. it wasn’t easy.
So I am going to be Christina Nicole Jenkins soon.
When I think of love and being loved it’s them that I think of when it comes to family. Them that have known and loved me all the years of my life unconditionally and without expectation or becoming upset with me for the choices I’ve made.
When I think of how I love. How I include my daughter’s boyfriend as he’s one of the family, and holidays, it is them I have modeled the most after. How I have loved friends as my own, my desire to make anyone in my area feel like family. That’s me. That’s my own. It always was.
My first love Michael Jenkins and I… we are still in love. Not the romantic be together kind, but the kind who experienced first love together. I always did wish to marry him, so the last name will do. 😉 I feel warm and safe and seen and felt all these years later with him, and the family who loved me naturally. With him or not. They love me for me.
They just lost a daughter recently. My heart hurts for them. I’m sorry.
So I’m just realizing more recently a lot more about love. What it is. Who I am in its arms. How it’s shaped my life. Whether it was the having of it or the lacking of it. Whether it was lightning bolt love that jolts you awake to so many things, slow love that is learned, love of a friend, love of self, passion, vocation, nature.
What is love is my writing prompt from Melissa. And even if I do know a lot more about what it’s not, I am an eager student.
I used to just go blank when Melissa would ask me anything about me.
So on this Mother’s Day I have a mother and I am a mother, and there’s no internal conflict or pit of pain and despair to be found.
My life is “good enough”, not longing for anything else. Always that burning longing…. a purgatory my childhood years left me to resolve and I’ve turned pain into art.
The art of life itself.
And I love living.
So I’m sitting here pondering the consistent stable things I’ve created this past two years.
I am consistent and committed to my healing. Which includes routines I crave and love. They include exercise, nature, connection, writing, touch, learning, reading, and play. In no particular order because writing would be first, though play in last does track.
And little by little the hyper vigilant guard let’s down my walls and I swim in a sea of love without drowning or jumping out. I’m finding ways to navigate the waters. Ways into and out of myself that are constructive rather than destructive.
It’s not perfect. I’m still doing a lot of grieving. My heart is still heavy in ways that are felt in daily life, especially on holidays, and milestones. There are aches of what was, and what never was. Phantom limbs that tingle. Vivid moments.
I still do grief rituals. Deep moments of allowing. No blocking.
Those are part of life now, and I don’t worry that they will bitter the sweet. They are the product of a life well lived of pursuing that which sets my heart on fire and there’s no shame in that.
I have nothing to be ashamed of or regret, only to peacefully sort my way through gently, ever so gentle with my heart.
Tread softly on me. I have a lot of scars.
I deal with a lot of pain physically and emotionally daily. That’s normal for me. My normal. When I get too down about it life gets harder. When I have some story like I’m meant to be this suffering thing. That’s ridiculous.
I just take things one day at a time and get better at coping with those difficulties and at being at home inside my body and with my wide open heart.
This is where I am 💜
It’s the first Mother’s Day I’ve truly let go and forgiven myself for not being able to stay where I was being harmed. Not wondering if I would attend a funeral for someone who died for me a long time ago. For someone who didn’t consider my well being.
How can a mother ever be that way with a child. I’m not perfect, not near to it, but I’d never give up becoming a mother.
I never give up, and I am loyal when safely connected and seen and felt.
I would have stayed loving her if it wasn’t burning me alive.
She never became a mother.
And thankfully I did and am.
It’s hard to not regret how long it’s taken me to get here. To give without resentment and that edge I always had. It creeps up like bile crawling up my throat. I now know where to put it, and life is much easier.
I want to give now. I’m not as exhausted all the time now.
I want to be a mother and someday a grandmother who my loved ones feel felt by. That I am able to pay attention to them without getting overstimulated, freezing, isolating, fawning, covered in panic.
Separated off in my mind in some terrible intrusion.
So I do the work, walk the line, show up.
I’m emotional often now. Like a raw exposed nerve. Like a burn victim. No longer reacting at every touch. I can lean in to connection and learn.
It’s humbling and rewarding and I am present and accountable.
All my love…
Mom
Ps: oh and the entire reason I began writing was to write about my schedule adjustment, and how that feels, but this feels complete. So next post…. My writing has a mind of it’s own and takes me on the ride.
Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person. Madeline L’Engle
It’s so interesting I’m reading East of Eden right now. Nothing is an accident ever.
Years of generational trauma are coming to a head in my little family. We are all facing our stuff.
I had a dream ……
I think of the beginning of Mama Mia, how many times I watched that movie thinking I just liked Abba. Ha. It took years to click that a movie about a girl who has three father’s that show up all wanting her, was obviously going to tickle my fantasy.
I remember my own father (during a short reconnecting I initiated, it was not a warm reception) mocked me for liking such a corny production. Oh the irony there. He was a smart man from the little I knew him, but severely lacking in emotional intelligence and empathy. Or maybe that’s just because he never continued his connection with me. I most likely will never know. It matters less in this present time. Not as much of a gaping wound.
Mama Mia is an intelligent play with a brilliant cast. You’ll never make me think differently.
I also dreamed of being a good mother, a dream that often felt out of reach. People would try to encourage me, and I would make sure they knew they just didn’t know what lurked inside of me well enough.
But as it turns out if you’re courageous and you don’t give up, you can absolutely attain what you desire.
As a generational curse breaker it was never going to be easy. I couldn’t have imagined it would be this hard, or this worth it.
I stand with the misunderstood and the misunderstanding in their pain, and now I also stand with myself.
My children are strong and beautiful and all heart, at times to their detriment, but that’s normal.
They are kind to others.
My children are kind to others, not perfect. They are kind.
They too are learning to turn their pain into power.
We have been in family therapy for going on three years now. We have all wanted to give up I’d imagine. We have been through therapist’s, and harmed by them at times. Others have helped.
We show up.
It’s often a slow hard slog through painful sludge. At times it’s excruciatingly like being burned alive.
Most of the time I’ve doubted it’s the right thing, as it’s not the popular way. Just let them be kids leave them alone, and do it in a more acceptable way. Make things look better don’t introspect it’s dangerous. I feel the opposite, it’s dangerous to people when you don’t/can’t/ won’t.
Most of my life I’ve doubted the good in me. I’ve spent it separated from myself. That is excruciating. It is torture.
Then I became tortured.
I didn’t want to breathe anymore I was so lost. All of the truths I thought I knew shattered and an even worse view of myself to climb out of.
I stayed the course.
I still have plenty of healing to do. We still have plenty of healing to do. But the heaviness is lifting, and in this new freedom we all attempt to connect naturally as best we can, with no force involved.
No having to constantly control my own emotions or attempting to control anyone else’s so I can have an illusion of safety.
Just a free fall into the clouds. This blissful peace that warms my sore bones.
I feel at times like I’ve been hypnotized or am in an alternate universe. That’s how far away good has felt for me. If something is good it feels like it’s in a dream, foggy ethereal, surreal.
And certainly not mine…..
I remember driving to my office in Fairfield and just asking over and over if this was really my life. I actually was aware how dissociative I was, but I stayed right near me until it was safe enough to embody my body.
As it turns out that can be the most painful “surgery” you may ever endure. Once inside you feel everything via the body.
