I am reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. As I continuously recognize the magnitude of trauma through the story of others, I close the distance gaps between mine and me.
There’s a line in the book about how a human being could be so thoroughly bifurcated, and that has haunted me ever since.
Is that what I was (am), bifurcated?
And much more specifically not just from my other half, an other half, but from my personality, my soul’s essence. It’s heartbreaking to even write. As the truth seeps inside my skin and takes root.
I recognize, that I recognize the magnitude and then it disappears before my very eyes like the proverbial bird in the magicians cage once the cloth has been drawn back.
Each day a blank canvas in the way that only a survivor can understand, as if nothing has ever existed before. The only thing holding a human life together at times is the glue of the people around them, who they hold shared experiences with. I’ve taken for granted that hallowed glue, and yet I haven’t.
I have known how important and this knowing led me to rush desperately, or maybe it was the trauma and not the knowing that caused that, and to create these unions out of a place of desperation.
See what I do there? How I take responsibility for things I couldn’t possibly be responsible for. But then how does one figure it all out anyway. What is theirs and what is not theirs and what is fair has no place in the realm of humanity. Because things are simply not fair.
Fair is a striving if anything, it is not granted by some mystical or even judicial force, and it’s certainly not a perfect system.
Rather these days I think what is the lesson, and the lesson is always love. Not in simply a romantic sense but an all encompassing one.
Is material like this this so relatable because of my many life experiences and similarity or some divine force that has me connect with exactly what is needed at the time?! Both.
Do I bore you going on and on and answering my own questions in your presence? I cannot attach to that it isn’t my business anyway if you’re bored or not. And besides what do I always say?! You’ll never be bored. I’m not boring and my life is certainly not, though it can be quiet and peaceful now.
I’m learning to allow that.
Anyway this book and watching This is Us for the first time, has me breaking open daily.
There’s something about watching two people sharing life together that want their children that work hard at loving them well, that well just flays me open.
No surprise there.
Watching a father love his children and do his best, and the same for a mother. And how they balance their dreams and their own desires with that.
And how fucked up my path looks in comparison, which is why we don’t do that.
If I look at my life individually the whole story it’s so much easier to see the beauty in it. Watching families who love each other and have traditions and traditional anything just sets my skin aflame like the emotional burn victim I am.
Do you see my scars?
This book though. This show though.
Piece by piece I’m collecting me and I’m putting together a self that has all her original essence, from all the shards.
It’s slow.
There is no longer a rush. It’s slow and beautiful. Everything is art. Every meal cooked and eaten. Every dark thought banished by compassion.
This book opens me. My clients open me. Life opens me. It’s exquisite and excruciating and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A continual surrender. A cease fire on myself. And finally burying my armor and replacing it with something realistic, something lighter…..
“I’m out of my mind but still I’m holding on like a rolling stone. A thousand miles from anywhere.”
I’m soft and squishy this morning. The aftermath of another wave of grief. My grief is very physical. This episode I didn’t see coming. It’s rare for me to not see something coming. The rarest, and some of the most beautiful, and the darkest things have been of that variety.
Yet what is living if you can’t let go, and let life surprise you, and take the wheel sometimes.
Love is the most powerful force on earth: you simply cannot control it. Though I’ve tried my whole life.
Having so little experience with the stuff, I’ve tried most of my life to bend it to my will.
I’m not God. I wouldn’t want that job. Believe it or not 😉
So now I need faith. How do you believe in something that was never a natural part of your life. Something you’ve tried to learn logically while you still have oxygen in your lungs.
I’ve been in a hurry to learn love, until love had its way with me.
I’ve put all the narratives down. The shields. The sword.
I am naked.
Bare.
My story is all that stands left, unedited. No parts cut out. The whole thing.
Here I am.
It all matters to me.
I’ve put pathologizing down too. Trying to keep others safe from me, just in case, and instead causing harm any way. And I’ve had harm caused to me. It’s all part of living. No one is getting out of here alive.
I’m sober. I may not stay that way forever but right now I can’t afford emotional ups and downs more than I already have as an artist. I feel everything all the way through.
Everything except compassion for myself, for having survived this all or nothing existence, cut off from my own emotions.
My whole life I’ve been a coping mechanism, and now I’m healing into a human, and I’d almost prefer to go back, because the breaking and resetting is excruciating. There is no description that does it Justice. Yet 😉
I finally understand why people give up. I really do.
It’s not in my nature and my work is too vital. Those are my main motivators right now.
Most days I’m in agony and I’ve been ashamed of that. Like it might rub off on someone, like they can catch it. Like I’m supposed to just be ok and move on, because if not I’m sick like my mom. Always this demon lurking over me. Accidentally watched White Oleander the other night before bed. Not a good idea. Give me a good Disney movie. Oops.
I’ve been purging demons lately. That’s what trauma work is, quite literally. It’s what being possessed is…..
In giant waves of illness and stillness and comfort and rest after. The migraine melts immediately as soon as the true root of the pain is expressed. The robbing vice releases, and I can stop throwing up.
I haven’t thrown up since I was young.
Too much control. Too little love.
Now I have it all around it and I am it, and I’m adjusting. Why is love an itchy wool sweater for me?! There’s more than the judgment, there are other things too.
I’ll write them out. I’ll go in. I’m all in. Committed.
I began a new journal today, and ended my hamsa one yesterday. This one is all black with a skull and four gold leaves on the cover. It smells of Italian leather and reminds me of Día De Los Muertos. Makes sense and is a good dead of winter book.
Maybe it will contain more about all my dead selves than I’ve ever captured before.
I’m in writing immersions with Victoria Erickson. Learning to allow my life force and energy to flow, come what may.
Slowly working on home improvements. New office carpet, stairs and a railing going in, in the next few weeks. It’s so cozy in my sacred space. Just want to make sure it’s safe for my clients.
I made a contractor friend who is going to teach me how to do dry wall, and a few new things.
If I’m not learning I’m not happy. That’s a fact.
I want to learn everything all the time.
I’m beginning Barbara Streisand’s new memoir ! I love it already she’s so funny and real.
I am scheming a project to write my barber’s memoir. It’s been a spark for a long time. If you’re a person of the passionate variety, that’s all you need, and pretty soon it will catch fire.
I finally had the courage to pitch it, after last haircut. Today the spark became lit. He’s excited.
I’m hoping the practice will help me unlock mine. Not doing it alone helps.
Go Easy on Me just came on.
Flying twin b home from Florida for Thanksgiving. We will all be together in this home. That’s all I want is family. It’s all I’ve ever wanted really. No fight about where anyone will go, just offering love, and allowing those who want to gather.
To love my work, to be cozy with a good book by the fire, to continue to learn, and to connect with other human stories like myself, and share.
I’m the most myself I’ve ever been, and it’s been so much to get here. I cannot even tell you. There’s still so much work to do, it will never be done, but I’m so happy doing it.
I’m in uncharted waters. Exhausting and exciting. Always keep curiosity just a little bit larger than fear.
I’m burning off layers and layers of shame and pain. With every mile, every word penned, every sunrise and set.
Walking and blogging is the thing today. Rain on shine it’s always time to feel relaxed and refreshed, and listening to music of course. This morning it’s Is That Alright, a Star is Born.
So I’m on the brink of my 43rd trip around the Sun. I am ahead of time as usual, ironic as so much of my life I agonized about being wrong, bad, and behind. Sigh. All of that stress.
So goals by 45, and then of course we will talk about accomplishments.
To have written one book poetry or otherwise, whether it’s published or not doesn’t matter. I’ll be notified about next steps after this one that’s dear to my heart.
To be in shape. Be able to do push ups sit ups a pull up within reason. To get where I need to go without being winded. To know and honor how I need to eat and drink for my body to feel secure, and in a good state.
To be caught up professionally with all my CE and getting licensed in the states I want etc, and to feel relaxed about it. October 24, my national certificate requires 100 CE, which should in theory be so easy for me. However, the last ten years has been filled with chaos, stops and starts and a lot of disorganization. Soooooooo. We just clean up. No biggie.
This means an item on my to do I continuously avoid, which is entering the things into NBCC, which requires gathering and finishing some courses. Not a big deal, but do need to put some attention on this, ahora.
That’s pretty much it. Consistency, follow through.
I have some new interests and the space in my life to pursue. One being New York City. This one has come as a surprise to me. A big one! I used to be so anxious about the city. Which seems silly now. I love the pulse. I love the wandering. I love the people watching. I love the inspiration.
Perhaps it’s the resilience and heart that attracts me.
I see it so differently now. Something I used to see as cold and frightening. Is alive with heart and warmth and things to discover.
So I’d like to find an apartment/ space to lease or even just more day trips in and write there.
It has taken a lot of letting go for me to allow life to surprise me a little. This is where I’m at Letting Go of control and allowing life to guide me where it will.
I love this for me.
I am writing. Tuesdays 6-9, and Sundays 12-3 in an immersion that is allowing myself to be shaken loose from all the debris in there. Glaciers melt. Heart opens. Here we are !
I get to get to know me. A privilege. It’s a privilege to know this is an option. That I could be enthusiastic about it. Who knew ?!
I’m allowing myself to allow writing to be my priority without judging it, criticizing, avoiding, deflecting. Yes I have done those things, do them at times.
Banishing the internal abuser, is a big part of my work right now. On the other side of that process awe awaits.
True juicy moments filled with heart and humanity.
Ok so accomplishments. When I look out into my life I see that I’ve raised three humans. I can’t even believe I just wrote that. I’ve raised three humans that are full of heart and have strong minds and I couldn’t be more proud. Especially since along their journey at times they were left to raise themselves while I needed to rise, and at times they had to raise me.
I am allowing myself to let go of the shame and guilt around that so I can be free to love better now, especially them.
To make you feel my love, is my mission. That I take care of myself in such a way that, those around me can feel my love in a way that’s nourishing.
And the truth is I’m still learning how to nourish myself. I’m so grateful to be here now alive, and able to pursue this. Me, myself.
It’s a miracle.
It’s not small task.
And I couldn’t be more excited about it.
The icing of accomplishments is healthier relationships with my children and myself.
A thriving and vibrant career that’s alive and well, and with no more panic about really every single thing.
I cannot believe how long I survived living in the state I was, and what it was doing to my body. It makes me tear up just thinking about it. Or should I say makes my eyes sweaty.
My thoughts were going a mile a minute. So perhaps one of my greatest accomplishments is being in my body, a continuous returning, and living to tell the tale.
I can organize and relax now.
And ….
Write
All my love,
C
Ps a new writing Instagram may be under way. I’m told I need a social media presence for my writing. We will see given my aversion to social media these days, how this goes. I am excited about learning. Always excited about learning, and there’s always something to learn.
I realize it’s been too long since I’ve written in here. Beginning again requires no grand gesture, except to splay my words upon the page.
Life is so different now than it’s ever been for me.
The kitchen window is open. I can hear the cars splashing through the wet pavement on High st. There’s a bathroom window open, and it’s making a door creak slightly every so often.
I’m reading Stephen King’s Needful Things. Marveling at how he takes a concept and a belief of his, sets it to quirky characters. Creates a setting based on a place he loves, and takes his shot. His art. How small town washed up people become prone to obsession over items that bring them nostalgia or comfort. What they are willing to do to anyone, to be able to feel better.
In the movie, a young Ed Harris plays Alan Pangborn, the town sheriff. The book is better of course.
I marvel at how I can read a chilling description of two women killing each other and not be kept up at night. Perhaps my ability to find the art in this fiction stays my traumatized mind from its post. I typical do not like to fill it with horror. I have enough reels of my own, should I want a chill during spooky season.
I’m mostly focused on being present. And realizing how much I wasn’t. How unwell and dissociated I had been a lot of my life, without really being aware of it. That has been a slow burn. Burning off shame. Shedding self-consciousness ,and seeing what lies under all of that.
That’s where I am.
It’s a process that requires time and cultivating, and I’m committed.
I’m still figuring out balance with that regard.
Since I’m forty I moved wrong the other day. I am now on steroids and doing physical therapy two times weekly. Lol. So that’s happening. I used to freak at the smallest setback physically. So now I just allow life to pause me when needed.
I began working with a new client last night. They work in a profession I’m intrigued with. The person was very solid and grounded, and my energy matched suit during the session. The person is in their 60’s so that makes sense. Of course that’s not the only factor. But I really enjoyed holding space for their story, and having the privilege of them entrusting their heart and pain to me upon our first meeting.
People’s beautiful resilience and heart captivate me in such a way. I am starting to be able to believe I could be captivating too.
Without being constantly pushed by any force to get out into the world, I now believe it is beginning to happen naturally. And I believe those that have told me the world needs to hear what I have to say.
So I’m working on gaining security behind my voice. Peeling back layers of shame and trauma that attempt to sabotage my goals and dreams.
I read, I walk, I write, I counsel, I love, and therefore I am.
My relationships with my children are healing nicely. It’s still a lot to be with the ways I’ve caused them pain from my own ignorance and my own traumas. I have to continue to make amends and forgive myself, and that’s no easy feat.
I love my clients past and present. I think about them in my daily life and send them love and light.
I think about my life experiences and those I have loved deeply. With every part of me, and how those experiences have shaped me.
I’m doing a course in miracles.
I’m about to go on a cruise to Bermuda. Only slightly nervous about the possibility of motion sickness, as my body likes to feel firmly planted and in control. Ha, what an illusion. I don’t know if that, or the fact I won’t work for 8 ish days is the more frightening prospect. Both are uncharted territory.
Which is a theme lately in my personal counseling. I am in uncharted territory my counselor said to me the other day. Mostly outside my pattern in most way, maybe some days slipping inside it a little.
What can I say I’m a work in progress.
I’m really happy I wrote this post and I’m hopeful I’m ready to make this a weekly if not a daily practice.
Oh and I’m obsessed with learning Spanish on Duolingo. I marvel at how my brain can recall so much and it’s just there without even trying. I often struggled at age normative times to learn another language. And it’s thrilling to realize that was likely because so much space was taken in my brain by hyper vigilance.
I marvel at the gift of being able to be understanding of myself now, and to be able to communicate in a way I feel understood, which is the real magic.
My heart is continuing to open. I’m more consistent with so many things, and that’s a path I’m very grateful to be walking. No longer beating myself into submission. Less remissions, sparsely placed omissions. Oh there I go rhyming. Can’t help it.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll end up returning to my grocery store roots, due to the simplicity of it all. Or bookstore shelves and handing bags of dreams across the counter and smiling. The smell of coffee…. Casi Cielo season.
Another trip around the Sun.
A simple beautiful story. Nothing extraordinary. Everything extraordinary. Glorious contradictions. The story of a human life.
A simple life. A person I can be proud of, while also being real and human.
All of it.
One mile no matter what. No matter how cold, how hot, how wet, how tired.
Sometimes a human is a vessel that can hold tremendous amounts of suffering. They can hold more than it appears. We are all just walking around filled with ashes of our burned and dead things, and trying to still smile and function for our why’s.
The only bad thing you’ve ever done was to see the good in me. That’s a sad lyric.
Covid in the rear view and also not, step on those lantern bugs, lions and tigers and masks and then there’s my past. A beast and demon I can never seem to get past.
So I sit and feed the monster all my parts. It stands over me smiling eating my heart.
Now that’s dark.
And there’s light too, and there’s always room.
All I need to do is write and walk.
It’s my life and my story and it’s big and beautiful and light and dark.
Unbroken
Remember that movie where his strength of mind carried his body through horrors.
Some humans have so much pain to hold.
Sometimes it’s too much to take.
All you can do is rest….
See I separated there. You can see the crack, feel the tear.
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!
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.
“You can do something now to live the life you want to live.”
Grrr this was written the other day. And now I’m on a different one but just noticed this didn’t post.
Running book title: Understanding me.
If I wrote a book now that might be what it would be entitled right now. That’s what I’m working at each day.
Now that I’m not desperately trying to understand the actions of someone else (most of the time ;)), I am figuring out what I want, need, etc. Go figure. And also for me, easier said than done.
So today I find myself in the Storrs Library just over the CT state line. I’m here for my insert number here energy healing. I wonder how many that’s a good question.
I went to look it up on Venmo because I’m me, and the internet here inside the library has not lived up to my patience threshold. I crack myself up. So maybe something to get a statistic on later, if I remember. Slim chance.
So I’m sitting in the library with Things That Matter by Joshua Becker on my lap. Knew nothing about this book before I opened it. So far it begs you to ask the question of what you would regret about not finishing in your life. It speaks of a person’s work with the dung and their shared regrets and those commonalities.
It’s talking about how to live focusing (my fear kicks in with self knowledge here, my arch nemesis), on how to achieve the focus necessary to live according to your priorities.
Living in a way that makes a difference and not “wasting” that.
If you were to die today, what one thing (or few things) would you be most disappointed that you weren’t capable to complete.
Let’s see if I can work through mine here. There is the obvious sharing of my story and writing a book, the two may not be mutually exclusive. I’m still figuring out that.
I would regret not having fully apologized to those I’ve loved, where appropriate, based on the understanding I now have of myself.
Perhaps I would regret not giving enough attention to develop a counseling theory or movement based on the knowledge I have.
And not having a healthier relationship with myself, how I treat myself etc.
So I suppose reading this it’s pretty clear I’m on the path. That’s comforting. Seriously.
I just read make it a point to read books from different centuries because it will come from a different perspective and will challenge your thinking in new ways! That’s why East of Eden! Woooo! I’m ahead of the game.
So these are the five regrets people cited…
💜
And our time together today in this blog is almost at a close. I certainly do not regret making this post.
What I learned today is how close I am to living my life in a way that leaves few regrets and I could have lost all of that by obsessing over some of my mistakes and getting lost in them.
Stop it! I say to myself… stop it and carry on.
Onward! (Thanks Liz) and now I can truly embody and feel that message and how you got to it.
All my love, all of it!
C
Ps lately my thoughts are highly influenced by Soul Friends and exploring the connection that have most deeply impacted me, trauma work, understanding what triggers my symptoms and how that affects my life. Also the reading of Come as You Are, as well as Letting Go. Energy healings, movement, nature, self discovery, reflections, and the places that shows or songs or moving or reading take me.
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.
