Tag: spirituality

Poetry

Just Words

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JUST WORDS

Just Words
I will spend my lifetime searching,
Wandering the pathways,
Pacing through the corridors.
I have already hiked down an Austrian mountain
And yet, I haven’t found them.
I drove across the country from a small town farm in Michigan
Sleeping in my car for days
Winking at the moon and blowing kisses to the stars.
I once saw a baby greet a Christmas light with the tip of her tiny nose
And yet, they still allude me.
Sunsets have poured over hills and valleys,
I have heard lonely trains ring out in the night.
I flew in a helicopter with a glass floor and marveled at the grass below.
But where are they?
“Longing” sounds too friendless.
“Wanting” sings of desperation.
Those are not the right ones.
I’m searching for something sweet.
A seeker, traveler, an old nomadic people,
A people who make love everywhere except a bed.
We are out there and we are adventuring.
All in the hopes of finding them.
“Adore” feels commonplace
“Rapture” has an aftertaste of leaving
“Treasure” is not rare enough.
Yet, I have not grown tired,
Nourishment and apostles lead the way.
My footsteps are one of many, but they are of my own.
With every mile and exhale of relief, I hear your names.
Painters are drinking sangria in Madrid,
Musicians are caught flirting with their eyes
All the while, I am sleeping just to dream about you.
In South Africa, a baby black rhinoceros coos for her mother’s milk,
And bright blue nameless birds fly over a harsh and tanned grassland.
The clever wind knows where to take me, another nameless bird.
Like the soft and marbled clouds, I float and watch and wonder.
“True” inching closer…
“Providence” there is wisdom, but there is no pulse.
What language do the God’s speak?
Have they found them yet? Or were they the first and forever hopeful mercenaries?
Will I always be too human to hear them?
Children and babies have slept in my arms
And so did you, once.
In my love for you, in my pursuit of you,
Oh my dear,
I will one day find the…

Poetry

The Fog

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THE FOG

The Fog
The fog was alive in November
The time when we remembered.
It was a Sunday night,
And the man in the eccentric clothes never walked his dog.
No one could have known,
That the temperature had been just right.
That the birds were softening their sight.
As the mist began to grow
Only one house had laughter within it.
Piercing the street with sounds only lovers could make.
The hypnotic dance had begun,
Echoing and enchanting not just one.
Two young moonflowers unfurled in the dim haze.
Trumpeting their petals, swaying only with each other.
Circulating was the thick cloud, as if searching for her mother.
And just then, consciousness became her.
Delighting was the chant of the silent whisperer.
The twirling new blossoms inhaled the ancient world.
Recalling, enthralling,
The Earth was still somehow revolving.
But there was no proof,
The Bible should have written this.
The flowers were sighing
As the air started drying.
Only the smell of cinnamon remains in the empty field.
The field where significance once sat.

Self-Help, Self-Reflection

Loneliness Is Just A Label

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LONELINESS IS JUST A LABEL

Meditating last night, I found myself chanting “sit” on repeat.  Going through my mala beads at least twice, maybe three times consistently reminding myself to “sit.”

“Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit..”  and so it went.

Having been born in a house of chaos, it’s been challenging for most of my adult life to sit still in times of uneasy emotional circumstances. Instinct tells me to run away from the feelings, either by moving to another apartment, city or even state.  Instinct also tells me to lose all the friendships I’ve made, destroy or abandon them all and start anew.  It’s fear-based, it’s fear that people are getting too close, it’s fear that tells me to run.

I’ve moved 20 times in the last 12 years because of this flight-based instinct.  I have recreated my life and developed new friendships more than I can count.  Only showing people what I want to show them and leaving the rest as the past, fearing judgment, criticism or inability to relate.

Sitting in uncomfortable moments where our anxiety is high, our emotions are abusively loud and our hearts are aching, are signs of true growth.  If I can sit quietly with my pain long enough, I can uncover the root of the disturbance.  In this circumstance, like most children of alcoholics, my root was and usually is, loneliness.

I was alone in my childhood.  My dad traveled 90% of the time. He was home for maybe 1 weekend a month for 15 years.  When he was home, he was devastatingly drunk.  To put this into perspective, my dad usually drank about a half gallon of vodka a night.  So when I say he was drunk, I mean he was terribly drunk.  That led to fights, slurs, stumbles, accidents, hurt and eventually him passing out with a lit cigarette in his hand – to which I often put out at the end of the night when I heard it was finally quiet, and safe.

My mom started out as a very loving and doting mother.  But, from the years of isolation and an inability to self-reflect or grow on her own, she too began to drink as a coping mechanism.  Alcoholism ran in her family as well so it came as no surprise why she married a drunk or why she herself found it easy to treat her symptoms with alcohol.  However, that left my sister and I very much alone.

I responded to this by becoming a classic internalizer.  I felt so much of the responsibility in my household that when problems arose, I turned the blame on myself and wanted to mediate the entire family until there was peace again.  Which, there could never be because alcoholism doesn’t allow that.  I often found myself depressed, anxious and drained by the internal voice in my head constantly criticizing and accusing me of things I’d never really done.

Because of this internal monologue, I decided it was probably better for me to just live in the woods, so that’s what I did.  I retreated inward, into my dark cave of anger, confusion, hormones, self-hatred and dying light of childhood and went into the woods.  I slept under the stars, exhaled the sunrise, listened to fawns gingerly walking towards me on the ever-so-loud crunchy autumn leaves.  And in this solicitude, I started to find some semblance of peace.  But, I also found loneliness.

It took me another 10 years to figure out how to quiet my mind, sync in with myself and my world and my love and realize that I’m never alone.  It took me 10 painstaking years of dating, promiscuity, drinking, drugs, depression, anger, boxing and eventually deep-healing for me to fill that often-referred-to as “God-sized” hole inside of myself.

Now, when I hear myself chanting “sit,” I remember that fawn walking on those leaves.  I see the slideshow of grief and moves and echoes of myself – and they all remind me that I am here, I am whole, I am worthy and I am forever surrounded by love because I am love.  Fear was only a self-induced mechanism to aid in my survival.  Loneliness was just another label for something I didn’t understand, which was quiet.

“Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit..”  and so it goes.

Poetry, Self-Reflection

I’m A Sucker For True Love

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I'M A SUCKER FOR TRUE LOVE

There are so many flavors of love.  There is the kind of love that comforts you, like watching a puppy rummage around in the dirt and roll on his side and sneeze his snout into the grass.  There is the type of love that heals you – when you are tired, or sad and you are given a hug so warm and gentle you can breathe and let your shoulders fall.  There is another kind of love that excites and sends tingles from your fingertips to your toes.  And then yet another, there is a love that is so infinite it’s like staring at the ocean, mesmerized at the expansiveness of the horizon, making you question how far the human eye can see.

I understood the tingly love, boys are good at giving that.  It’s a physical love.  You feel butterflies and heat and inquiry.  But once the clothes are off and the lights are on, I would feel lonely. Not every time, not with everyone, but mostly I would feel it. A hint, a glisten, an underlying simmer of loneliness.

I was searching for the love I had been promised by childhood movies.  The love that would wake me from my forever sleep.  The one that would lift me up and guide me along the skyline on a carpet, or the one that would draw me “wearing this, and only this.” Let’s be real though, Titanic ruined all of us tweens for an actual dating life.  No one could compare to Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson.  Forever be still my heart.

However, I have.  I have found the type of love I had been seeking.  I have received all of the flavors, varieties, swirling colors and prismatic divinity anyone could dream of and the kinds I couldn’t even begin to dream of.  The kind of love that rips your heart apart and then puts it back together with a million new pieces.  The one that makes you want to discover new words, and then you realize that words are useless in the face of her beauty.  The kind of love that longs, and causes tears at the mere thought of a hug from their gentle, perfect arms.

A hopeless romantic, a loveaholic, an explorer for fate – my everything had been waiting.  And then, in the simplest form, as she effortlessly does – love appears.  Patience, faith, and openness lead me to her path. Once you are walking with her, and your fellow falling star, everything begins – just as it always had.

Today, on this gray and cloudy and cold morning, I am grateful for her kindness.  I am so glad love, in her grace, entered my life and taught me to smile in the way only she could make me smile.  And, I am just so damn curious to know… what my love feels like to him.

Okay Jack Dawson, I suppose I can let you go like the heart of the ocean.  I’ve found my own ship of dreams.

Divine
His eyes so confident,
Oh, how he seeks;
Like a wandering Sophophile.
Wise with no words to speak,
I want to be with him all of the while.

It’s a tragically ending ballet.
But I want him anyway.

I show him I’m his and wait out time;
Goodness is a choice and redemption is fine;
All things are clear but then turn on a dime.

Gentle release and then trapped in kind;
Two borrowed hulls endlessly intertwined.

It’s lawless.
Oh, how I break.
To feel the weight of gravity,
Selfishly and recklessly I want to take,
And feel him beside me.

Tell me it’s worth it, my moon and sunshine.
Tell me you want me some of the time.

Poetry, Self-Help, Self-Reflection

It’s Not Purpose – It’s Important Life’s Work

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IT'S NOT PURPOSE - IT'S IMPORTANT LIFE'S WORK

To friends that are close with me, I say that my purpose in this life is unconditional love.  But that statement is such a short cliff note of what I truly mean.  First of all, I think saying that I have a purpose is like saying a single ant’s purpose is to build a colony for it’s queen.  When from a grander perspective, ants as a whole, aerate the soil so water and nutrients can flow directly to plant roots, they serve as food for birds and lizards, and they distribute seeds by storing them in their tunnels.

I don’t know what my humanly purpose is much like an ant doesn’t know what his ant-ly purpose is.  However, I do think what I choose to focus on here is important and my focus is unconditional love.

Nine years ago, when I realized that I wouldn’t make the kind of money I needed as a photojournalist, I was heartbroken.  I had $23,000+ in student loan debt and I lived in California, one of the most expensive states in the U.S..  I didn’t want to move back home and I was freelancing for (sometimes) 90 hours a week to pay my bills.  I lived comfortably, which was a step up from being homeless.  Something I also experienced for a month straight out of college.  I was grateful for the roof, the food, the work – but I was also alone in my apartment every single day for a year.

After I ‘gave up my dream of becoming a photojournalist,’ I realized that I could look at things in three different ways:

  1. That I gave up my ‘dreams’ and my ‘purpose’ and I sold out.
  2. That I chose a career that provided me financial security, while I could still pursue my passions in life: photography & journalism.
  3. That I can dream, that I can envision a pursuit for my life. Acknowledge that gift, and realize I can do anything else I want and it can change at any time.

I chose the third. (And a little bit of the second).  Once I realized that my career, and my financial well-being were not determining who I was or what I wanted to represent, that freed me up to dream even bigger.  And believe me, as someone who has spent 9 years dedicating her life to unconditional love – this is the biggest thing I can think of still to this day.  And that brings me to my next point.  What’s so important about unconditional love?

The reason why I chose this as my study and my important life’s work is to receive an endless and infinite answer. Love, time, and the universe are pretty much all I think about.  They’re definitely all I write about and my poetry can’t seem to find anything else to grip on to.  I tried writing a poem about a day in the life of my cat and that turned into a love poem too.

Unconditional love is a daily practice.  I have to give it to myself, try to receive it from the world, bestow it to others – even to people that I may be mad at for not using their blinker.  Seriously though, it’s so easy, I just don’t understand.

Sometimes unconditional love means boundaries.  Sometimes it means ending a really loving, authentic and genuinely happy relationship because you know you aren’t right for each other and you’re enabling your partner.  Sometimes it means saying goodbye to your dad every day so you can love yourself and heal. Sometimes it means ending friendships because they aren’t healthy for you.  Sometimes it means being honest and admitting something you don’t like about yourself. Sometimes it means putting your cat to sleep because she has diabetes and is about to go unconscious into a coma.

Sometimes you have to receive it, even if you don’t feel worthy.  Sometimes it feels too beautiful and too good to be given to you.  But sometimes, it’s easy though, too.  It’s all around and ready to be felt and absorbed and accepted and then churned inside of you to be handed over like a gift to passersby.  It’s in the sound of the wind, the dancing fall of the yellow leaf, the mother gently caressing the soft cheek of her young baby and the woman pushing her elderly dog in a stroller.

Sometimes unconditional love is selflessness, and other times it’s compassion.  Every day it reveals itself in a new, beautiful and expansive form.  Every day I learn something new about people, about myself and about my important life’s work. One day I will even figure out the words to describe what I’ve learned.  Until then, I’ll just write love poems.

Unconditional
You are the first name I hear upon waking,
The wind dancing in my hair.
When the sun turns gold
And the light feels old,
I hear you once more.

 

Self-Help, Self-Reflection

Grieving with Gratitude

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GRIEVING WITH GRATITUDE

I miss my dad so much right now.  Today it’s been exactly one month since his passing.  I miss so many things and it all floods into my awareness at the same time.  I miss his voice, and the way he said, “I love you.”  The other day I recalled how my dad would congratulate me for doing something good at work.  He used to always say, “You’re kickin’ ass and takin’ names, sweetie.”  Tonight, I miss how he would tell me everything was going to be okay and that he knew I’d figure it out because he raised a strong young woman.  I miss his confidence in me.

We only really got to know one another over the last 8 years and that time together meant so much to me, especially now in retrospect. I remember that evening so well.  I was standing out on our back porch by the pine tree that sits outside of my window.  It was summer, one of the last summers I spent with my family in Michigan. The sky was glowing lava red with splashes of blood orange and yellow.  I miss those summer sunsets.

My dad walked out, cocktail in hand.  At the time, his cocktail of choice was a large glass of vodka with about a teaspoon of club soda and grapefruit juice.  He walked right up next to me, stood silently for a few minutes and then very clearly asked if I thought he was an alcoholic.  I said, “I can’t answer that for you, Dad.  Do you think you have a problem with drinking?”  He said “no,” with a sweetness that came across as quite genuine.  I said, “Well then, turns out you’re not an alcoholic.”

He then proceeded to apologize for not being a very good dad but that he’d like the opportunity to try.  I told him I’d really like that.  That all I wanted was for him to be interested in my life, and to participate in my life with me.  The sunset faded to a haze of purple and pink, and from that day on, my dad was more present with me than he ever had been.  He asked me questions about work, my friends, my boyfriends and never gave me suggestions unless I asked.  He was a very good dad.

Alcohol, poor diet, lack of exercise and smoking is what inevitably killed my father at the young and abrupt age of 66.  He had advanced cardiovascular disease that went undiagnosed and his body just shut down.  I do believe my dad drank too much, and I believe it was an old and bad coping mechanism.  I think he did it to relieve stress, to not feel, to entertain himself, to numb his boredom, to forget even.  Because of some of the tragic things that happened throughout my childhood, I think he bore a lot of guilt and shame. And unfortunately, he was not willing to confront those demons.

I’m grateful I said everything I wanted to say to him.  I’m grateful I had the courage to heal myself, confront my own resentments and hurts and then love my dad wholeheartedly for 8 years.  I’m grateful that I was able to enjoy his company, his humor, his mocking my “libralism.”  I’m grateful that he put in the effort, something I noticed every single day.  And just two days before he passed, he left me what might have been his first voicemail ever, where he congratulated me on my new apartment and how everything was going well over there.  He called me sweetie one last time.  He said I love you one last time. I’m so grateful for all of that.

There is a special bond between a parent and their child.  If you currently have an estranged or messy relationship with one or both of  your parents, but hope in your heart that you can somehow make it fruitful, I would like to stand up and say that it is possible. I worked tirelessly at reestablishing my relationship with my father and I was able to.  And then, I was able to enjoy him for the remainder of his years.  A gift I wish I could give everyone.

Gratitude for the shiny moments you get with someone truly special is what turns grief into happy remembrance.

Self-Help

Dear “I Need To Know Myself,”

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DEAR "I NEED TO KNOW MYSELF"

READ TIME: 10 minutes

Dear “I need to know myself,”

Relationships can be so difficult.  No matter what type of relationship; a father and daughter, friendships, or in your circumstance, with your long-term committed partner. I too have cheated in the past, and I commend you on reestablishing your relationship and working through the broken trust, the betrayal and the hurt.  That is no small feat.  You faced shame, self-loathing and depression.  You self-reflected and internalized and came to a realization that you still loved the man you hurt and then you stood vulnerable in front of him and asked for compassionate forgiveness.

I am sorry to hear this newly reignited relationship isn’t what you thought it would be. I’m sorry it’s causing you confusion and discomfort.  Here are some things that I hope might bring you some relief:

This pain is temporary.

You don’t have to make any decisions today.

You had mentioned wanting to know yourself.  That, if you did leave your partner, it was only to discover what you truly wanted and needed.  I will say, with understanding love, that you can do this regardless of circumstance.  Emotional work is similar to any other kind.  As an example, my husband used to say, “If we had more light in this apartment, I’d be able to do more work.”  “If we had thicker walls where I knew my music wouldn’t be heard by others, then I would practice more.” “If I just meditated regularly, went to yoga every day and ate a consistently healthy diet then I would feel more mindful.”  Those are all very likely and accurate statements.  However, we only have control over so much.  Circumstances won’t always be perfect. That’s like saying that in order for a flower to grow, they require the perfect amount of water, sunshine, space and nutrient-rich soil.  But sometimes, like in L.A., we see flowers sprouting from concrete!

Now, I’m not saying that you should stay in an unhappy relationship by any means.  But I am giving you permission to look for opportunity for change exactly as you are now.  Here’s a beginners guide to help you figure out what you might need to find balance in your life.  And this balance might eventually help you discover who you are:

  1. Am I in a safe place to practice self-love? (Is this relationship healthy enough for you to stay and work on yourself?)

If you do not feel like you can take the time to practice self-love in this relationship, then you may need to take some solo time to learn to love yourself.  Then try to figure out why and how you got into a relationship that didn’t place importance on self-love and personal growth.

  1. Back to the basics:
    1. Have I been drinking enough water?
    2. Have I been eating well?
    3. Do I get enough regular sleep?
    4. Have I done any form of exercise? (even a 10-minute walk a day)
    5. Do I get regular amounts of sunshine?

If you feel like you have not been taking care of these areas of your life, start slowly, and then monitor the progress.

  1. Below is a list of areas in personal life; what feels like it needs the most work?:
    1. Intellectual (am I learning, reading, expanding?)
    2. Mental (do I feel depressed, anxious, restless?)
    3. Emotional (have I felt erratic, chaotic, confused?)
    4. Physical (am I tired? Lonely? Does my body ache?)
    5. Spiritual (do I feel purposeless, aimless or stagnant?)

Each one of these areas is a key component to your self-love practice.  Each one has a new and separate solutions and a variety of ways to access the answers. If anyone reading this wants to know the best way to answer some of these questions – please reach out and I’ll write a separate post on how I’ve trained myself to look intently and honestly at these aspects of my life to find a more comfortable daily balance.

  1. What do I like?

This is a very important step.  Determining what you like, what you enjoy and how you can do more of it is crucial in understanding yourself. Do you like to bake?  When was the last time you did that?  Why has it been so long?  Can you do more of it, and regularly?

  1. How can I communicate this to others/my partner?

It’s one thing to know that you are taking care of yourself, to know that each area of your person is supported and loved by YOU and that you are fulfilled in the things you enjoy doing in life – and it’s another to TELL someone all of this and see if they align with you.  Being rigorously honest is not confrontation.  Let me repeat that for the cheap seats:

BEING RIGOROUSLY HONEST IS NOT CONFRONTATION.

Sometimes I talk to friends and they are scared to tell their partners how they truly feel or what they truly want because they are afraid of their reaction.  We have no control and no responsibility over other people’s reactions.  It is, however, our responsibilities as partners and as humans to say what we want, what we like, what pleases us and displeases us and it is up to the other human on how they choose to respond to this.  None of this has to be confrontational – we can be rigorously honest with love, compassion, kindness and empathy.

Once you meet yourself, it’s very easy to be honest with others.  It’s usually in the “space in-between” when we feel like we are confrontational because we want to place blame on them for not telling us what we want. Or we are so confused with our own internal systems that we can’t tell someone else what’s going on because we have no idea what’s going on!

The 5 steps above can take time.  It is a daily practice for me, but it took me months, if not years, to fully learn how to satisfy the various aspects of my personality. So be patient with yourself.  Be gentle, kind and patient.  No one really teaches you how to love yourself – unless you had kick-ass parents!  Most of us are just clumsily trying to figure it out on our own.  But, in my life, the best way for me to learn who I was – was by looking at myself openly, honestly, raw, and real. The shiny spots and the dark spots.  The kitty-shelter volunteer and the girl who had an affair with a married man.  The liar and the granddaughter that called her grandpa every Sunday for a year when he was depressed and lonely. No one is perfect.  We all have done something that we tragically wish we hadn’t – but I do not regret any step I’ve made on my path because it brought me closer to myself, closer to my universal architect and closer to you.  I’m more human and more myself today than I was yesterday.

I hope you find this helpful in getting to know yourself, loving yourself and being able to communicate more lovingly and authentically with your partner.  Thank you for opening up to me and trusting me. You are so loved.

Book

Chapter 1: Weeds

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CHAPTER 1: WEEDS

WEEDS
I’ve always loved solving problems.  That’s why I excelled in school, I liked the feeling of not understanding a complicated question and then working diligently until finding the solution.  That moment of completion, of knowledge, of pride has been a driving force in my life.  The more challenging the problem, the more excited I am to learn and master the resolution. So it seems fitting that the hardest problem I’ve had to solve, has been myself.  Something that I have had to genuinely work hard at to solve, every day.

While sitting on a couch the size of a small submarine, engulfed by pillows and faced in front of a psychotherapist, I realized I was broken.  I was the problem.  I was the common denominator in all of the bad relationships, the failed friendships, my sadness, loneliness and my crippling fear.  I experienced them all and I created them all and I was a part of them all.

Her name was Chris.  She was a short woman of maybe 65 years, she had a youthful face, but you could hear in her voice she had lived, seen and conquered.  Her blue eyes, overdone mascara and short, pixie length strawberry blonde hair reminded all her patients that she was once a real beauty.  Chris was my Cognitive Behavioral Therapist for over 2 years. Her patience, forcefulness and raw honesty guided me through PTSD, manic depression, borderline personality disorder and suicidal impulses.

I believe we have to tend to our mental and emotional health like gardens, attentively and regularly, to make sure we are remaining teachable, grateful, open-minded, empathetic and cognizant of the world and people around us.  If you just pick the weed’s leaves, it will continue to grow – but if you pull the weed out by its root, it will never sprout again.  But at this time, sitting on this leather sofa with my legs dangling like a child waiting for their mother at the DMV, I did not understand this.  I was just a confused, rattled, angry little girl who had been taught to stigmatize therapy, and live in a perpetual state of denial, guilt and grief.

Chris had me fill out all of these tests that asked about my family’s mental and physical health. She asked me questions about what brought me there and why I felt I needed support.  I told her about the attempted suicide.  I told her about how my childhood was almost all blacked out, except for a few select memories that were so interlaced with nightmares I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.  The words were hot and poured out like lava, burning my tongue and making me sick with the aftertaste of ash.  By the end of my first session I felt high, exhausted, 30 pounds lighter and calm.  I also still wanted to kill myself.

I couldn’t believe the things I just said.  I couldn’t take ownership of my choices because I didn’t feel as if they were my own.  I felt forced into this life, into these circumstances, playing a martyr to all the abuse I faced as a child.  As a woman of 21 years – I could no longer watch myself behaving badly and blaming it on something that happened against my will.  I may not have had control over those moments, but I sure as hell had control of these new, present moments.  The path I was choosing and the woman I was electing to become was someone I did not like.   And how could I possibly go the rest of my life living with someone I disliked?  That’s why suicide looked like the way out.  That’s why it always seemed to look like the way out.

I tried committing suicide twice before.  The first time I was 15-years-old and I think of that little girl now and sometimes I cry for how lonely she felt.  Humans have a remarkably strong will to survive, so strong that we immortalize their tales in movies like, “Apollo 13”, “The Perfect Storm”, “127 Hours” and “The Revenant.”  We are in awe of our own strength, perseverance and this basic human instinct that is so deep-rooted in our genetic makeup that it has kept our species alive for roughly 200,000 years. So to reach a despair as desperate, fragile and bleak as to fight our nature itself is nothing shy of heartbreaking. Seeing that place 3 times now has taught me what hell truly looks like.  It is not engulfed in flames, there is no eternal burning – it’s only numbness.  There is no devil, or demons – there is only yourself.  And after what feels like lifetimes of sleepless nights, restless days and impossible amounts of solutionless problem solving, you come to a decision that it’s better to die than to live.  You become so tired, worn down, so beaten that you have lost any resilience you once had.  There is no longer fear of death because you have felt the most unimaginable pain already and any suffering that exists in the transition of death surely will be more comfortable than what you are currently living through.  At this point in a person’s depression, there is very little that can be said to change or alter the choice.  The only thing left is to plan.

At 15, I planned to hang myself.  It seemed quick enough and I had all the materials already.  On our 40-acre property in rural Michigan we had a large farmhouse barn with high ceilings just outside of our house.  The barn’s walls were made of metal, unlike most of our neighboring farms made from traditional red wood with brown roofing.  Our barn was recognizable because it was a grayish-purple with a bright white top.  My dad kept it in pristine condition, caring for it with time and pride, always raking the gravel and sweeping the wooden floors under his work surfaces.  We built a loft together once, as a family, back when I was younger at maybe the age of 10.  I remember helping bring all the 2×4’s up the ladder in a sort of human escalator.  That same ladder I was now climbing to attach a rope from the ceiling beams no more than 5 years later.  I sat on that loft overlooking my father’s old John Deer tractor.  Remembering with fondness about the time my sister sneezed so hard she slammed her eyes shut and accidentally crashed it into a tree.  My dad was so upset, he yelled at her all night.

Having that fondness quickly morph into hopelessness at the mental remembrance of my dad’s rageful face, I returned to the present moment and how my life was shattered, broken, and unfixable.  I slipped the rope over my little head, with my trembling little hands and wiped the tears from my eyes.  For a moment, I realized how human I was and how remarkable tears were.  I was mesmerized at how people had the capability to make tangible, liquid representations of pain.  And how I had gotten to a point in my young life where I felt like I didn’t have any more tears to give to the world.  When your depression is past the point of feeling and you’ve transitioned in the pits of numbness that is a truly terrifying place to exist.  My insides felt rotten.  I already felt dead and like there was no spirit of a child left anymore. And with that, I stepped off the side of the loft that I helped build with my family.

…

One thing that happens when you go to therapy is that you become aware of all of the weeds in your garden very quickly.  Like when you’re lying in a bath tub, propped up with your feet against the other side and then all of a sudden your footing slips, you lose grip and before you know it, your heads dunked underwater.  I was drowning by my third appointment.  Hell on earth was becoming a frequent gas station on my road, instead of it being in my rear view mirror.  I didn’t want to keep filling my tank up with negativity, self-hatred and pity.  I wanted to understand how people function in society.  How they cultivate happiness and exude joy.  Was it just pretend or do people actually have that in their lives?  It all felt so comparative and judgmental in my mind.  And although I never felt like life owed me happiness, I wanted to see if people could actually obtain it and if so, how.  I wanted to live more than a few years without crippling depression, anxiety and perpetual guilt for something as meek as existing.  Chris said she could help me.  And for whatever reason, I trusted her.

She told me about how she had been an alcoholic for 20 some odd years and that felt safe to me.  I knew alcoholics well.  My dad was one (although he never sought sobriety), my mom was one (although she always said, “there’s nothing wrong with a few cocktails after a long day.”)  My Aunt was one (when I knew her, before my family ex-communicated her).  My grandpa was one (but he was a dry drunk by the time I was born) and the list goes on and on.  If Al-Anon got one thing right – it’s that alcoholism is a family disease.  It pollutes the addicts and everyone that loves them.  So, when I heard Chris was an alcoholic, but had been in recovery for 25+ years, I felt like she would get it.

We jumped from current events in my life to past events quite frequently.  We didn’t focus on my parents, or the drinking, or the abuse, but rather what choices I was making now and how much they pained me.  She never judged me.  She only told me lovingly and harshly when I was making patterned choices that continuously led me into circumstances I wanted to avoid. My patterns were very clear: men.  I loved men.  I loved falling in love with men.  I loved men falling in love with me.  I loved the cat and mouse games.  And it’s all so clear why, and it’s all so cliche.  I was a neglected, lonely, insecure girl.  Getting attention from anyone was a surprise and a delight.  But the men I kept playing with were very unhealthy.

One of the first learnings I had in therapy was that unhealthy women attract unhealthy men.  And I was very unhealthy.  I also had been living in chaos my entire life, so I only really felt comfortable in chaotic relationships.  To define my chaos: I never wanted to feel stable, I wanted to question your love.  I wanted a man who would always look over his shoulder at another woman.  Maybe just slightly or completely emotionally unavailable.  They needed to be an artist, but not a kind, flowery one – a brooding, depressed, consistently miserable one.  Because when I made them smile, I knew I did a good job that day. Make sure they smoked, drank, had a mean streak.  I liked that.  I liked the “heroin-chic look.”  I wanted to question if you were ever in rehab.  I wanted to question if I was safe with you.

These unhealthy relationships were the torment of my current situation and why I started going to therapy and Al-Anon in the first place.  The unhealthiest of all my relationships, the one that brought me to my knees, the one that had me blacked out on my patio in the middle of California winter waking up from a drug-induced, hallucinated state and the one that finally gave me recovery and healing was my 2 year “relationship” with my married boss.

…

I awoke on the barn floor and I could hear Jo-Jo, Mittens and Cupcake, our three outdoor barn cats, rustling in the hay stack behind me.  I took a deep breath and coughed as the sandy floor got in my mouth and lungs.  Starting to groggily and weakly look around, it was as if I had risen from an all too realistic and haunting lucid dream.  The freshly raked gravel on the floor hurt, my skin felt so sensitive.  Like I hadn’t been in my body for a year and suddenly, the feeling was turned back on.  I felt every stone and pebble piercing into my shoulder, forearm and hip.  Propping myself up on my hand, after what felt like 30 minutes, I realized I had not succeeded in killing myself.

I didn’t tie the rope correctly. I didn’t understand how a noose worked and without the internet, I just tied it with a bunch of knots.  Like a flash, I recalled what happened with great sensation.  The knots dug into my skin.  The rope was tight but not tight enough.  My heart raced and I was panicked.  I couldn’t breathe, my feet were kicking, and unable to touch the floor I pulled at the rope gasping, alone and scared.  Flashes of hot flesh on my neck and hands.  The pain seared from external to internal.  I felt heat and pressure in my face, pulsing behind my eyes. My back arched and legs started to straighten, feeling heavy as I tried to reach for anything to make it stop.  The will to live clicked back on.  As I started to slip out of consciousness, my last thought was “not yet.”

My throat aching, still coughing and without feeling I stood up.  And like a familiar ritual, I cleaned up the mess I made, covered the shame and walked back to the house to go to sleep and to wake again in the morning for another day.

 

Self-Help

Ask Me Your Questions, Tell Me No Lies Pt. 2

by Purpose and ProseLeave a Comment on Ask Me Your Questions, Tell Me No Lies Pt. 2

ASK ME YOUR QUESTIONS

“We’re all told that we can make our dreams a reality, that you can turn your passion into your career if you try hard enough and never give up.  But in the practical sense, if you’ve put 4 years, thousands of dollars and then invested 10 years into a career, how much can you really expect to still go for that dream?  It’s never too late, but how do we decide when to transition and how to transition and if it’s a good idea and if we’re ready?”

First of all, thank you.  Thank you for reaching out, thank you for participating and thank you for asking such a wonderful question – one I’ve asked so many times, and still continue to ask myself.

I went to college to study photojournalism, a career I still admire to this day.  I also still cherish and delight in photography and I even get paid for it!  I’ve been published in newspapers and I’ve even received notes and had calls with National Geographic editors.  But, I’m not a photojournalist.  I work at a small Consumer Packaged Goods advertising agency.

I’ve dreamed of becoming a great many things – a criminal psychologist, translator for government agencies, a baker, teacher, and even a blimp driver (which turns out is just a pilot and requires way more work/education/money than I actually thought necessary).  Then, I wanted to become a photographer, a journalist, a graphic designer, website designer, and videographer.  So I did.  I studied, I spent tens of thousands of dollars, years of my life, and even more years of my life paying back the tens of thousands of dollars.

Yet, here I sit – a non-photojournalist.

I think it’s less about “transitioning” and “when it’s a good idea” and more about the making your dreams a reality part. I don’t consider myself a Director of Business Development at an advertising agency.  I consider myself a cat-mom, a stargazer, a wannabe poet, a yogi, a Buddhist, a photographer, a journalist, a see-er of the unseen, a friend, a wife, sister, daughter, aunt (none of this is in order, I feel like I should rearrange this list).

What I’m trying to say is, if you’re unhappy – change it.  I wanted to write, so I started to write.  I wanted to take more photos, so I started taking more photos and now I’ve booked so many gigs (paid!) that I have had to outsource to colleagues from school.  I want to do my graphic design, website design, videography and be a boss lady – so I work at an ad agency.  Sometimes you don’t really need a full-fledged plan just to begin.  You can just begin.

If the day comes where my photography can provide the type of lifestyle I want, then I will have a new choice to make.  If the day comes where my writing can provide the financial security that I have now, a new choice.  If the day comes where my infamous no-sugar, no-wheat, totally vegan pancakes (which are actually totally amazing) somehow land me my own cooking show, again, another choice.  Until then, I am responsible for my activities, the experiences that make up this human expression on Earth.  So, I’m doing all the things I wanna do – time, energy and sanity be damned!

Sit somewhere comfortable, somewhere warm and cozy and ask yourself, “what would make me feel fulfilled?”  When I asked myself this, my gut-punch answer was “I want to write and I want to photograph.”  So here I am, writing a post at 11:30pm before a full work day because I want to write and when I’m done writing this, I’m going to scour through my files for a photograph I took to post with it.  Find your gut-punch answer and then you’ll be surprised how much more time you suddenly have in a day.

Keep writing me, share your progress, your struggles, your successes and let me know what it’s like to fly a blimp!

Poetry, Self-Help, Self-Reflection

The Original Song

by Purpose and ProseLeave a Comment on The Original Song

THE ORIGINAL SONG

Inspired by Robert Frost’s poem yesterday, I wrote the following poem.  But before we get into that, I want to share a little bit about silence.  I spoke with my cousin last night who was distraught upon finding out her best friend had been hit by a car.  He was seriously injured, but alive.  She told me about how when she found out, she called multiple friends but no one answered.  She felt “alone in the universe, I just felt like I was left floating there.”

I remember this feeling back in my depression, I felt so alone and unheard, unwanted and living in fear.  Just as she was.  I explained to her that the unhealthy side of our brains, the parts of us unhealed, hurting, the addictions, the self-indulgences, the justifications, the instant gratifications, etc. That side always tells us bad things.  Our brains are hardwired to make us feel better – at whatever the cost.  When we were hungry as primal creatures, our brains would solve problems to get us nourishment.  When we needed shelter, we would creatively find a solution.  That has not changed, only our problems have.

We now need to be “perfect;” warm, comfortable at all times, loved by everyone, successful, eat the most balanced diet, post only the most beautiful pictures on Instagram, and have the most loving and adoring relationship.  This list goes on and on.  Our brain is constantly trying to give us the best solutions to all of our problems.  For those of us who have unhealthy tendencies; eating to cope with stress, suicidal thoughts, using sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. It’s very easy to let that side have the loudspeaker.  But there is another side.

The healthy side, in that moment for my cousin, was telling her to take some silence.  No one answered the phone calls, but the universe answered the real call. Be quiet in your grief, in your fear, in your hurt.  She wasn’t alone in the universe, because she was WITH the universe.  And this beautiful world wanted her to make a healing wish for her friend and for herself.  Sometimes, silence is the answer.  That is where we grow, evolve, learn and understand ourselves more fully.

Our greatest strength, our greatest wisdom and our greatest kindness is silence. That is our original song.  Silence and love.

The Original Song
Never have I met someone like you
Apologetically heroic while healing hearts.
Kind severity that stares straight through
Unabashed, unadulterated, a destiny long overdue,
Spoken softly, a secret of honey burns at our hearths.

Love letters left on pillowcases,
Sunsets seeping from the text;
A humanity overwhelmed with familiar faces,
Flowers filling up the blank spaces –
In between the places like lovers might suggest.

Words falling short and gracelessly falling out,
Inexplicable in nature, what a marvel you are
Like God himself is even devout.
The land lacking light, without and in drought
And then you, like Renoir, painted the sky with heaven’s first star.