Third Time is My Charm

Having brothers have taught me that the reach of a woman is strong.  I did it too. Until - no semi ;  listen to mom. Grateful for brothers. I see (as a sister) the sadness of my brothers because of her sadness and her confusion. Fuck you. Mother's birth and let their children decide. 

Why does the sky look different... when you have someone you love up there? Why does the grip of holding on feel chaotic... when letting go is peaceful? Why does healing take place... when you feel most lonely? Why does feeling like you have nothing to lose... remind you that you have it all? I don't fucking know.  I know the sky is more blue because you had blue eyes. I know peace because I can now breath. I know I'm not alone because I have found me. I know material is matter and people you love are more than matter. 

 Life again.  Talk as if death is the end.  End. Whispers in the silence and in between discomfort. Discomfort. Pulling and a facade of embracement Embracement. Engulfment of unexplainable acceptance  Acceptance. What is the feeling of belonging? Belonging. Nothingness. Acceptance. Embracement. Discomfort. An ending to a new beginning.  Gratitude.

 A decade of wondering what was wrong with me. Dating after my divorce felt like an abyss of confusion. I felt seen. I felt like I could attract anyone I wanted and settled for a man, who was a vortex of chaos. It sucked me right in. His chaos became my chaos and I kept sliding further and further into the vortex hole of trauma. It was a tough climb out. The pain of regret kept me falling deeper and deeper into the sucking hole. Who would want this person I was becoming being with that man? Nobody. Nobody could possible accept the constant drinking, partying, and my constant plea for more and more attention.  Smeared mascara dripping from the chin of a sad woman as she curled up to hug a pillow for comfort. Demons in her mind as they chattered thoughts of worthlessness and convincing her she was a terrible mother and even worse companion. Bottles of heart medication, muscle relaxers, and an empty bottle of vodka sat next to her bed that afternoon as she decided to join the dan...

 You know that feeling after sucking on something so cold that you squint your eyes and pull your shoulders up to your ears and... oof maybe hold on to your forehead and cover your eyes? This is the very feeling I felt as a child. As did my siblings. Maybe, and, perhaps- you too.  Sad movies... "are you crying?" "are you crying?" *giggles* Yes. We are all crying. Except you Dad with his belly on the floor. Mom making sure we weren't crying... Kids scattered on the couch digging into the bottom and top cushion of the long couch for some kind of comfort. Comfort: engulfing. embracing. holding. gentle. cry. safe.  Let your brain freeze for the moment- you are more than the feelings that blow with the breeze    

 What a deceitful word; The word "attraction".  Grounded in my commitments and obligations from birth. I am attracted to your freedom. My perception of your ability to be free.  You are so free.  Can you free me too? Attraction, You are but the biggest distraction. I am easily swayed by, and blown with the leaves, that whither in seasons from the roots you are.  There is no holding in the wind as you and I are blown. Roots, I hear the wind from above the ground that I'm now in, and perhaps, have seen before. Plant yourself. You will be just as rooted as the evergreen tree and ever more. 

 Two planks of sheetrock and a couple of 2x4 standing pieces of wood is not enough to hold back my ears- from hearing your tears.  Not enough paint to cover the walls that cover the sheetrock and muffle all of your tears that I so desperately wish to catch of yours over the years. I am tempted to ask who suffers more... The listener or the sufferer. I dare not ask. Not anymore. We are all the sufferer.  Dear Holder, There is always space in the arms of you, dear Holder. In the heart of yours... a Holder. Within and fully encompassed by you, the Holder.  I want to hold too.  Dear Healer, I don't know you. You are but a dream and one of beautiful hope. Do you hold while you heal? or just hold?...  or just heal? If anything, please do both for my daughter. 

 Straight face. Shoulders back.  Just kidding- smile time.... Iron board thrown and newspapers from a flat tired bicycle thrown.. as well. On the grass and punches from a heavyset man thrown on top of "my smile time". Walking man dance. "Keep your tongue in your mouth, will ya?" My smile time.  I never had a smile time, because I knew the nod. 

 I'm learning that withdrawal is something experienced with anything you've relied on and it's immediately taken away. There are different ways something is taken away from you. I heard from a friend "you want to know how to make someone go absolutely insane? - Give them something they love and then take it away."  I am in the process of removing things from my life that cause a reaction that is uncomfortable. Allowing myself to feel the withdrawal because I choose it.  Dear Instagram and Facebook, Wow! I have over 1,000 friends with you. I care about them and like their posts so they know I care about them. My world is so small with you and it's been my world for years. I deleted you July 28 and it has felt strange without you. A little bit of a world flip. I woke up at 3:30am and permanently deleted my account and hiked Mount Raymond. Wow! What a beautiful world and incredible view. My world that I saw in front of me was incomprehensibly massive. Where have ...

 Mind on overload looks like a week in bed with debilitating anxiety. What is it that loads my mind and body to a state of empty thoughts but a heavy mind? Overload of what? Some "friends" would consider me as spontaneous. I'm not. I was reckless with the amount of times I coped with alcohol avoiding what was tugging at the strings of my soul. That is not spontaneous. That was hurtful and damaging to not just the people I love, but to my soul, my mind, my heart. It numbed my ability to feel close to God. It dumbed my mind to forget irrational behavior. It severed the aorta to my heart that is meant to provide real love.  It was a phase of success. It was but a phase in my life of grief. Unexplainable and tormenting grief that I wasn't prepared to handle nor even know what to do when it engulfed my entire being. It felt like it was never going to end. It ended, but the ripple effect will continue to wash upon the shores of my vulnerable existence.  That ripple effect i...

  Dear Dissociation,  Hollow. Separated. Afraid. Untrusting.    Head tilted back and breathing again. *inhale*    hold.    *exhale*    free.    Hello my friend, I wish we would never have met again. I've been running from you, and yet... I still find you. I am trying to remember when I first met you.    Blank.   I am searching for you now. I hope to find you. You are haunting and exhausting and keep me awake all night.    My dear Dissociation,  Your cunning, persuasive, and enticing inhale breathes me in.  I accept the peace of your inhale. I am sucked. Hold me. Please hold me.  I wake up. You are as cunning as I've been told. I want to hold you now. I see you in all the world around me and in the people I love.    Dear Dissociation, You are the heal of false perception, and not the healer.   

 There are places I've been that are hard to revisit. My brother's grave, for example. I struggle to visit where he's buried. I have places I go where I leave my pain behind. Where I heal as I visit. Where the warmth of freedom fills my entire soul with flames of wholeness. It engulfs me completely. I would go visit regularly to feel the burning sensation of the refiner's fire changing, molding, and healing me. I took a long hard break from this healing place of mine. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that there were too many people taking up space. My little personal healing space.  I went through some old notes that I found of the times I'd visit it. I wrote "My faith lacks hope. My knowledge lacks belief. My doubt overrides truth. My brain lacks the memory of that time I once had hope in my faith, belief in my knowledge, and truth once trumped my doubts. I want to live like the river... It has no doubts, it is sure to get where it's going and d...

 I was sitting on my couch just thinking. That's what I do now. I think and I think and I think. Just as Winnie the Pooh would do while squinting his eyes and tapping the side of his head as if searching for an answer while saying "think, think, think". The concept of the pendulum popped into my mind. I have heard people say that "the pendulum swings to the other side", as if to describe what once was positive now became a negative or vice versa. I thought about that and it just didn't sit right with me. I googled "what makes the pendulum swing?" There are 6 forms of energy, but I want to write about the 2 forms that are used in a pendulum. There is an energy that is called "potential energy" and there is another energy called "kinetic energy". These two forms of energy make the pendulum swing. Now, if you think about potential and what we define that as... it is the idea of becoming better than what is. So, we all have this ...

 I have been working with our family dog, V. I've had a lot of free time at night to do this. I have had some interesting and life changing perspectives as I have worked with her. I had a lot of frustration with her in the beginning. She wasn't a breed that I had done any research on and I thought that I would like a velcro dog that just wants to be with me all of the time. Like, a little shadow buddy. It was too much too fast. I wanted to figure out why I thought this dog would be good for me and our home.  "UGH- V! You're so damn needy for attention and it bothers me that you get mega offended when you don't get what you want!"  When I said that out loud to her she just looked me straight in the eyes. I quickly apologized to her and that was the beginning of our relationship. Yes, her eyes told me that she is just a reflection of my worst behavior. I started to study her and stopped trying to get her to bend to me. What a life changing experiment and it'...

Two days ago I sat in my bedroom on a perfectly flat yoga mat with 4 small candles lit in the distance and behind me. I listened to a stranger talk to me while describing a white light above my head and choosing to let it in to fill my entire body. Down and through every limb and joint. With every inhale it sank deeper and eventually penetrated every vein in my body until it was a light that was traveling and circulating with my blood. To the tips of my fingers to the tips of my toes. I was in a place of breathing in oxygen that was colorful and labeled with purpose. I labeled the complete opposite of light to what I was breathing out. The amount of inhaled oxygen is 21% compared to 16% on the exhale. I held on to that 5% that I labeled and allowed it to find rest in my body. This all sounds a little coo coo. Just typing it out makes me feel like I need to check myself into a mental hospital. I laughed at it all before too. This breathing is to show me that although my subconscious min...

 Last night we had a family meeting. I have struggled since my divorce with my children's dad and defining what my family looked like. He remarried 3 months after our divorce. I have a lot of frustrated and bitter feelings when I go back to that time in my thoughts. At some point, I will need to address that within me. Perhaps, it still has control over me because I haven't let it go. I was pretty hurt by how my family handled things during that time and defining loyalty within family bounds was undefined. Broken. That's not what this post is about though.  My family is defined as "V". Our family mascot is a Doberman with the name "V". She wasn't initially named V for the number 5, but that doesn't matter. It is beginning to feel right to feel like I have a family of 5. I never questioned the type of mother I was pre divorce. I don't have one regret of being that mom. I regret the mom I became with alcohol and dysfunctional relationships. It...

 You know what hurts my feelings? When someone says "that's not you." As if people want to wear goggles that will morph my reality to appease their perception. It is me. All of it. Who would I be if I didn't have the ugly? How would I know?  Spencer W. Kimball said in his talk "God will Forgive" that he gave in March 1982- "Another error into which some transgressors fall, because of the availability of God's forgiveness, is the illusion that they are somehow stronger for having committed sin and then lived through the period of repentance.... How satisfying it is to be cleansed from filthiness, but how much better it is never to have committed the sin!" I don't remember when I first heard that, but I haven't forgotten it. It defies what the atonement is for. The only one that never committed sin is Jesus so I guess if we can't be perfect then we should measure up next to each other. To those who have worse sins than the other. ...

 After reading John 4, I came across a Baptist Pastor who talked of this same event. My tears fell as his conviction of Jesus penetrated my soul. His sermon and John 4 is about the woman at the well. That one woman. The one that had to have been completely dry inside, unlike the well she was fetching water from.  Jesus was weary. Tired. Exhausted. It was around noon when he sat at the well. The Samaritan woman arrived with her pale to draw up the water. After the Savior asked for water and while she was working through her shock of this Jew talking to her, a Samaritan "Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither."  It struck my heart to read "I have no husband." This woman had five past husbands and a current man in her life who she was not married to. Whew! I don't know the details of what happened there or how she managed to go through five husbands. This woman was thirsty. Perhaps, in my way of relating to her- absolutely exhausted. Tired. Alo...

I love the practice of Buddhism. Their definition of attachment is "the inability to practice or embrace detachment, and is viewed as the main obstacle towards a serene and fulfilled life." Buddha said "The root of suffering is attachment." Ali ibn abi Talib, who was an Islamic leader said "Detachment is not that you should own nothing. But that nothing should own you."  I believe this is what many therapists relate to as the baggage of emotional garbage people are carrying around. We all carry these "attachments". Unless we have figured out how to get rid of them. What is the secret to getting rid of these attachments? I don't know. I'm asking you. That's why I'm here asking that question.  I do know that when I went back in my thoughts and memories as I'm venting on this blog that it was almost as if the feeling of those events reattached to me. I felt as if I was there again. I had to think about them. Read them. Cry over t...

 I was going through some notes I have on my phone and thought I'd dump them here.  Holding the threads as I watch them shed. Words thrown at my face as I sit in disgrace. Flooded with confusion as it feels there's no diffusion The thumping of my elevated heart rate is calmed by the future I will create. Waterfall.  Some gush with full conversion. Others trickle with much hesitation Like individual snowflakes do we fall, But melt into a plan much greater than us all