I want to write and to continue this blog but I wonder what benefit is created by the effort.  Is it read?  Does it matter?  Where could I go with it in the future, if I do continue it?  I’ve thought of this as my letter to the open void of the potential audience.  “Hey, here I am and here’s what life is like for someone like me.”  Increasingly, though, I feel like a member of a very rare type of human.  One that finds few I can truly share myself with and feel safe.  I feel out of step within the job I have and with many I encounter, just as I did when growing up.  Some days, when even those you think of as friends reveal that they see your struggle in life as irrelevant and those who were supposed to love you instinctively only use their power to harm you further…  Those are the days that get carried around for so much longer than I actually imagine possible, forming part of the strange shell around me. 

Who am I?  I’m loved--I know that unquestionably-- by people who really know me.  I carry that, too.  I’m also the woman who has been abused over and over again under a bright, shiny, banner of “love.”  So, how do I keep the two separated?  Lately, that’s difficult.  Emotional flashbacks or some variant of that popped up not long ago, leaving me feeling even more unsafe and unsafe for others to have in their lives.  I have a new niece that I can’t see, yet my mother sends me pictures of her, tauntingly claiming regret for herself and again shifting the burden of choice onto my shoulders and stamping me the one who isn’t participating in having a family.  My ex-husband died.  His sister messages me to tell me he still “loved” me.  I feel the pain of the blows he dealt me just as much today as at the time I received them.  So, where do I file all these things?  

I feel comfort with the person I hope I can share the rest of my life with in a healthy way.  I want to build something good and safe and nurturing with him.  And, I keep hoping, despite the hurts and wounds that intrude on that that I actually can accomplish it.  Today, though, I’m just trying to keep from grinding my teeth together at this draining job until I can return to that comfort and safety.

3/7/12

I’ve been feeling totally devoid of ways to express what my daily life has become since last writing. Ways exist, undoubtedly, but I’ve found some of those seem trite in print. And, I suppose it’s only fair to add that just living life happily seems to take more time than one might think. So, I will fall back on a list. A list! Oh, boy!

1) I think a lot, on a daily basis, about why this country seems to be shifting into more and more deeply entrenched factions and why a lot of that seems to be devoted to waging a war on women and women’s rights.
2) Love. Oh, the things I could say on this topic… It is bigger and more beautiful than I imagined and, yet, simpler at the same time. It’s been interesting to realize that I have a greater capacity for joy than I thought I had. It’s been a joy to see that there are good things inside me that just needed safety and support to appear.
3) Matt! Beautiful, wonderful, kind, funny, brilliant, playful, giving, lovable bookworm Matt!
4) Things are a-brewing with regard to positive career changes.
5) Some days I think I miss having had real parents in my life until I realize I still don’t really know what that means. I miss the munchkins a lot. The pattern of coping with that is mainly to send cards when I can and hope they get those and any birthday or holiday gifts yet. Most days, I wonder if they hate me or miss me.
6) Some knitting going on but slowly. I taught a couple people to knit recently, one of whom lamented her lack of speed at it and I realized that she’s already almost as fast as I am.
7) Mostly, I’m getting a lot of reading done and loving every minute of it. I spend at least one afternoon each weekend with my love at a bookstore, browsing and, occasionally, buying works to feed our mutual addiction.

And, that’s all I have at the moment. PSG draws ever closer and keeps me anticipating a return home.

12.7.2011

Hey Santa,

Yes, I know you're not REAL real. But, I figure there might be some force in the universe that pays attention to this stuff. And, that possibility makes it worthwhile to send a list of some sort out there. I don't really need these things immediately or by 12/25 but, keep them in mind. I'd like them at some point, especially if this is my only go-round on this planet.

I want more happy days than sad. They don't have to be ecstatic days. The quietly happy ones are better, anyway, in the long run.

I'd like to see this country get back to valuing democracy rather than oligarchy again.

Make the munchkins (and future munchkins) confident and happy and healthy, please.

I'd like to have a house with one purple room, chickens in the back yard, a puppy, lots of nice trees, a front porch and space for a garden and a pool.

You know that guy who's making me all kinds of happy? Yeah, that one. I want him to be as happy as possible, too.

At some point, I'd like some munchkins of my own, please.

I'd really like to have a hedgehog and/or a chinchilla. They're damn cute and I promise NOT to name them George although I would love them and hug them.

How about some progress on world peace and homelessness? That'd be good in the long term.

I'd also love a job that makes me happy. Not jump and down happy, necessarily, but fulfilled and content.

That's pretty much it. Things are ticking along pretty well for me. The world could use more love and less hatred but I think we're moving it along toward that, ourselves, albeit slowly.

11.22.2011

For M., with love

These are the days of Atwood-tripping
Of falling upward
Of favorite Sundays and nerdlove
Sunbeam-bringing, scoopmeup love
Rainbow maker, your soul like oxygen

These are the days of cloud floating, pathway changing joy.

11.8.2011 (gratitude catch-up)

I am continually grateful for trees. It sounds odd to some of you, I'm sure, but I have always derived comfort from them. Spending time among trees has been a way to ground and to find peace for many years. Add that to just how simple and beautiful and varied they are and I can't imagine the world without them.

I am grateful for good, heartfelt hugs. (Do I really need to elaborate on that one? Nah.)

I am grateful for my grandpa McGuire. When I was somewhere around 10, we had a conversation in the cemetery outside the area where the Horton family reunion was held about the Great Depression and just how terribly it affected many of the people he knew who were buried in that ground. When I was in fifth grade (and this is one I've not shared with more than one or two people I think), I peed my pants because I was in the middle of a book and kept skipping bathroom breaks to finish it. He and my grandma had to come pick me up and, seeing how utterly humiliated I was, he told me a story about almost the exact same thing happening to him when he was a boy and didn't want to leave the schoolroom to go to the outhouse. I have no idea if it was true but he made me feel okay at a moment when I felt just about as low as I could get. He was beyond the mold of 99% of men of his generation.

I am grateful for my chosen sisters, Dani and Stina. They have been there since before I got divorced, helping me see my way out of a terrible maze of unhappiness and supporting me through those very dark days. Dani, I believe, was the first person to say, "Leave. It's not getting better." Both of them reassured me and listened to me cry again and again when I was broke and carless. And, neither of them shies away from telling me gently when I'm wrong and helping me accept it. Better examples of true sisterhood are hard to find.

11.8.2011

Transference

We dance of our dreams
But we write of our truths
Carving from flesh the words
That will breathe our visions
Into another's body.

11.4.2011

I am happier than I have ever been. Is that bragging?

Today, I am grateful for my therapist, Karen. She has been remarkable at what she does and, as I've felt myself healing over the last few months (despite a difficult setback or two) I've recognized that she's played a huge role in that healing. It's an immeasurable gift.

11.3.2011

Today, I am grateful for never having experienced homelessness. I have had times when I questioned whether that would continue to be the case but I have always had a bed to sleep in and a roof over my head. As it rains outside, I think about the many who can't say the same and reaffirm my plan to spend at least some of Thanksgiving sharing food with them.

11.2.2011

In terms of weather, October has always been my favorite month. But, in terms of events, I have to give the prize to November. November is the month that has my grandpa's birthday (the 10th), my birthday (the 14th) and, my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. Take out all the hype about Pilgrims and Native Americans. Thanksgiving is the one major holiday that isn't about a religion. Or gift giving. Or, really, anything beyond an emotion, when you come right down to it. For me, it boils down to gratitude and the chance to spend time with those you love. It's separate from all the materialism tied to, say, Valentine's Day (which is supposedly about love but somehow devolves into being about jewelry or flowers). Real love. Just being together.

And, in the spirit of that, I want to start the month right by listing the many things I'm grateful for. I missed yesterday so, here are two to catch me up.

1) I am grateful for having been very healthy throughout my life. Despite not having any health insurance for a great deal of my adulthood, I managed not to have any major crises during that decade. That lack did not lead to major financial breakdowns and, at the same time, made me even more appreciative of the health insurance and care I have access to now.

2) I am grateful for having the right to vote. I have a voice in how I am governed and a way to affect the people assigned with that task. I know that, despite the continued attempts to chip away at women's rights and to deride feminism, my niece, Emma, and many other girls that will come after her, will continue to enjoy that through my utilization of it.

10.31.2011

1) I moved to North County again. Feels familiar in good ways although I'll miss my apartment for a while, I'm sure. The cats seem to be settling in well and the unpacking process is moving along albeit somewhat slowly.
2) I wonder if other people outgrow the desire to just be held sometimes and told they're okay. I haven't.
3) Student teaching is in the questionable category again. I want to make the leap and get out of this job but my increasing awareness of the economy and job market has made me extremely hesitant that this is the right time.
4) In two weeks, I turn 35. The jury is still out on whether that milestone is going to go over easily.
5) The holidays creep ever closer which is kind of bumming me out today. I sent the munchkins their birthday gifts but haven't any indicators whether they got them or not.
6) The amazing boyfriend has been sick for just over a week.
7) I'm unbelievably sore from this move so, good night all.

10.20.2011

Well. It's been a while. Again.

Today is Alex's birthday. He's 11 which was a big birthday for me, as I recall. He's always been more of an introvert than his sister, a thing that I'm sure hasn't and won't change. I hope the universe sends him opportunities for laughter and goofiness over the next year.

So, that's a minor note in a composition that is, otherwise, in a major key.

Happys:
I have a "boyfriend" now. The quotes are for the sake of full disclosure and because boyfriend looks silly in print. Manfriend? *shrugs* He's made of awesome. And, for reasons difficult to absorb, he thinks I am, too. It's cute. We disgust those around us while we roll around in a bubble of happiness. Like gerbils of love.

I get to quit my horrid job and go back to school for student teaching! Given that this job continues to be a horror, that item alone results in many, many, happy dances. It does involve a move back to North Co., though, and that's going to be interesting.

Call this one questionable if you must but I claim it for the happy category. My life is more peaceful now than ever it has been and a huge piece of that is because I'm still keeping up big, spike-studded walls to keep family issues at bay. I'm sharing a lot more on here than I have on social networks just to keep the bio-family from stealing chunks of my happiness. These days, I feel very proprietary about that. It's mine and you can't have it! *cue evil laugh and end of post*

10.07.2011

For Bessie

You are never gone from me.
I can still find you in all the things you painted into my life
The kiss-spark of thorn studded roses
the crispness of yellow skinned apples carpeting the ground
the dewsong of robins amid tawny, crimson, paperbag brown leaves.

9.22.11

I've had a lot of labels applied to me over my life. And, no, I'm not counting profanities. Many of these I have already managed to discard, knowing the sources of them and recognizing that those simply aren't accurate reflections of who I am. Others, though... I have to admit to some of them. Competitive, dramatic, stubborn. And, in some ways, I so badly want to justify those. To say, "here, this is why. It's not really *my* fault." Or something similar to that. The impulse is even stronger when these things come from sources I trust.

But.

I have a very good therapist now. Karen, who I believe I mentioned having a good feeling about in an earlier post, is a big part of the healing I feel happening (and in some respects, more quickly than I expected). Usually, after a session with her, I find myself dusting off some newly unearthed realizations. So, what did I realize that merited this post after so long a silence?

It's my story. I'm writing this one. And, regardless of what life and the universe throw at me, I still get to decide what those events mean and how to respond to them. I get to choose what happens next. I get to look at the labels that surround me, regardless of their validity or source, and determine how much they mean and whether they hurt or are just a part of me that deserves as much love as, say, the labels that read kind or intelligent or funny.

This is my story. And, I'm rediscovering just how much I like it.

8.31.2011

Black Dog

A snuffle


A soft padding through the undergrowth


As it grows closer, a howl of offering to the ever-darkening sky

The black dog hunts.


All the places you would hide,
Teeth dripping, bared

To close your eyes is to open your arms
The tearing to the bone is welcomed
A release from the mundane pain.

7.21.2011

Today was odd. Boredom inspired use of StumbleUpon turned up, within the span of this morning, the poem I read at my grandma's funeral three times. The feeling I got was close to how it felt when I had a dream about Grandpa Fitzwater back in April. So, it feels like she is moving on and was saying goodbye.

When I was a child, she used to do things for me, just for me. Small things like make sure she kept Kraft Mac and Cheese around because it was my favorite or rake the leaves in the yard up over and over so I could jump in them. Bigger things like actually talk to me and listen to what I said.

Before I moved to Texas, in 1998, I set aside a day just to be with her, to do whatever she wanted and to have time to talk. And, I remember so clearly her expression and the way she looked at me, saying goodbye then. "I love all of you," she said, "but it's just seemed like you were always closer." Before she died, she repeated almost those exact words about Emma. As I feel her moving on from this plane, I'm sad but I also *know* somehow that she and Emma and I are connected and will remain so.

7.20.2011

I wonder sometimes why we don't talk more about the words we use or acknowledge their power. We use words to draw things and people closer. Wife, husband, girlfriend, daughter, son, pet. We personify things with names. Sable, Daisy, Zooey, Luna. We grant individuality with names, also, establishing someone's right to be separate from us at the moment they're born.

We also use words to draw a line between ourselves and people/things. Primitive, weird, different, odd. We create a hierarchy with words. Human, animal, meat. We reduce things to their smallest component or a facet of identity with words. Gay, straight, bisexual, hippie, nerd, yuppie. I think leg, wing and thigh fit in that category, as well.

It seems to me that, in both positive and negative ways, we use words to structure our reality, our ethics, our worlds. Why are so many of us so frightened or uncomfortable to examine them or to reconsider the way we use them or to acknowledge just *how* much power they have for us?

7.19.2011

Things I'm thinking about today:

1) Dating is hard. It just is. Finding someone nice is hard, having that happen at the right time is hard, being in a place where you're ready to commit to something at all is hard.

2) The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that violence and eating animals are connected.

3) The therapist I saw last weekend is very nice and knowledgeable. I think she's a good fit, personality-wise, as well. I'm cautiously optimistic again.

4) I took a nice mental health day today. Just hanging out at home in the a/c has been fabulous.

5) I've been cooking at home *slightly* more but I also need to get back to exercising. This heat doesn't help and there's no way I'm going to try to get out there before going to work. More thought needed.

6) Seems like I'm getting asked about the munchkins a lot lately. I'm not bawling over it at every mention but I miss them terribly. No idea if anything there will change at any time in the foreseeable future. I don't want to accept their absence but what is my alternative?

7) Only a few weeks until my road trip to Michigan. I cannot wait.

7.8.2011

Yesterday, I got a raise and a favorable annual evaluation at work. So, if I don't see some progress on the teaching front by fall, I should at least be able to work toward getting out of this department and into one where I don't hate what I'm doing every day. I hope. I also really missed my grandma a lot yesterday. Some days, I'm still glad I have a physical reminder of her at home, even if it is a pillow.

Trying to plan a visit to Michigan to see some of the folks from PSG in either the first or second week of August. This will be the longest road trip I've undertaken alone so, I'm excited and, also, trying to figure out if Hal's up to it.

Got to hang out with Brandie and Chris a bit yesterday evening and have the best donuts in St. Louis as well as good conversation over tea. It was good to catch up and remind myself that my continued focus needs to be on healing. Also on that front, I have an appointment set up with another therapist and am hoping (again) that this one will be a good fit. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please.

7.3.2011

Last night, I went to a play with Lori. Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. Two very damaged people meet at a bar and go home together, engage in creating a beautiful fantasy of what life could be like together, face reality the next morning and struggle with trying to allow themselves the happiness they could potentially have amidst all their fuckedupedness. At one point, Danny tells Roberta that he forgives her for the terrible thing she's punishing herself for because no one else has. He GIVES her absolution for something that, in my thinking, she has no culpability in and she almost can't even accept that. SO much of their dialogue reminded me of some of my internal dialogue in the past. That's what I realized, trying to make sense of how ripped open the play made me feel. In the past. I haven't felt *that* level of self-blame in a while. No, I can't say I never think those things now but they've become rarities rather than the constant background music of my mind. I don't feel as alone and unable to connect as I used to. How and when did that happen?

How is it possible that I can be the person who, yesterday, had to cut more people out of immediate contact with me to protect myself and still feel, today, less like I'm at sea and alone? I can't make sense of it, somehow.

7.2.2011

I can't believe it's July already. I'm still dealing with feeling a bit down post-PSG. Communicating frequently with the new friends I made there is helping but I still long to return.

I made an appointment with my therapist again and am working on budgeting better so that I can make regular appointments more possible. I debated trying to find someone else who wouldn't approach the billing issues like they seem to in this practice but, ultimately, I felt that my current therapist's approach fit me quite well. The other issue is really on me to fix. And, despite not being naturally good at budgeting and tracking finances, I've been thinking this week that not pressuring myself to be perfect at it might help.

I'm being wonderfully lazy this weekend and only doing housework as I feel like it. The apartment hasn't quite recovered from me being gone but, it'll get there before I have to return to work on Tuesday. Re-reading Jane Eyre is so healing for my soul, as always, and returning to my meditation practices is helping me, too.