As I went Down to the River to Pray - 10/26/21

 I wrote this while dealing with the COVID pandemic.  I worked in a hospital and I had a particularly difficult day.  

As I went down to the river to pray..

Studyin about that good ole way…

The nurse and I made our way into the hospital room. The yellow isolation gowns were overflowing from the trash cans, alcohol prep pads and saline flush wrappers littered the floor.  The shelf was stacked with misspent hope in the unopened packages of protein drinks, muffins and pastries for the patient to keep his energy up for his body to survive.

And who shall wear the starry crown…

Good Lord, show me the way…

The room carried an undertone of whirring sound from the negative airflow machine that had become a permanent fixture meant to suck all the Covid germs away.  I was hot under all my protective equipment, sweating through my scrubs - but my comfort hardly mattered as I studied the face of the man in front of me.  Peaceful, and gray.  He sported a nicely defined beard but I am not sure if it grew on him while he was in the hospital or if this was his normal face.  I moved the bed so I could fit on one side while my nurse took her place on the other.

O brothers let's go down…

Let's go down, come on down…

Come on brothers let's go down…

Down in the river to pray…

I felt the weight of every face I had seen in this position.  Struggling for weeks to live- only to die.  As I uncovered his body, the nurse put some music on while we cleaned his body.  I wiped the hair off his forehead so he looked his very best and began my task of cleaning and preparing the dead.  First I took his IV out and taped his arm, lifting it carefully because even though he had passed, I was honored to give him his last cares which meant treating his body like he was there.

As I went down in the river to pray…

Studying about that good old way…

And who shall wear the starry crown…

Good Lord, show me the way...

The nurse and I spoke frankly about covid and how heavy it weighs on our hearts.  Watching good and beautiful people never make it, suffocating to death in front of their loved ones, in front of us.  I held his hand and said a little prayer for him because I couldn’t say what I wanted to say.  I’m sorry you died this way. I’m sorry we couldn’t do more. I hate what happened to you.  I wanted you to live.  I am sorry your family has been affected with this huge loss of your life.  Your name matters to me.  I say it over and over so I can remember, because you should not be forgotten. Desperately clinging to hope that I remember you with all the other names I hold tightly in my heart.

O mothers let's go down…

Let's go down, come on down…

Come on mothers let's go down...

Down in the river to pray…

The music played in the back ground as the nurse and I put a new gown on the man I met only once in the midst of his death and got ready to place his body into the body bag to be collected with the rest of those who perished too early.

As I went down in the river to pray…

I cried out in my heart to God “Where are you in all this?” to which my heart heard “I am holding them in the midst of this” and my heart broke even further, because although the answer feels comforting, I found despair in the knowledge that although He holds them, they will still die.

Studying about that good old way…

Is there no reprieve?  Is this the standard now? People just getting sick and dying? Nothing I can do, no cheering when you finally defeat this and leave this place?

And who shall wear the starry crown…

Good Lord, show me the way...

I turned the man on his side while the nurse tucked the body bag underneath him.  I tucked his feet in first, the toe tag startlingly bright against his skin, no longer thriving with life, but settled in death. I then lifted his head and took a good look into his face, I had to remember. I committed his face to memory as we zipped up the bag and tied the body tag to the outside.  I have to remember this.  This moment, right here.  It matters.  This man matters. This matters.

O fathers let's go down…

Let's go down, come on down…

Come on fathers let's go down…

Down in the river to pray…

There is a creator I have decided

When it snows in Alaska, my favorite part is when it catches the light.  The snow refracts it and becomes a glitter sparkle in the pile of countless other glitter sparkles.  For no other reason except the snow flake is designed that way, in all those lovely shapes, each one a different combination and becomes a glitter sparkle.  I am always in awe of the fact that the things that happen around us are just so beautiful. 

I have had a hard time in my life in the areas of love and trust.  To love god and accept him into your heart you have to trust that what the bible says is true.  That was hard for me. It was hard to see terrible things happen to good people or watch children grow up and die in unloving environments –  with no happy ending. I have a hard time trusting that the god of the bible is Loving.  My dad for one reason or another has been distant in my life. It is hard to identify god as my father with that understanding of a father.  The people I can identify with the most are the prostitutes, the unloved, the unworthy.  Jesus was kind to them and I can get behind that.  But faith has been a journey – maybe slow to me since I am still discovering how I feel about God and who he is to me at 35 – almost 20 years to my date of collision with the biggest constant thought in my life. 

When I think of the universe and the passing of time – our understanding that the world is billions of years old, I want to go back even further and watch the birth of the universe.  But if it was a big bang, even further still, where did all the elements come from to create the boom? How are so many things connected in our growth as a species if we are all so accidentally big banged?  And even further, something had to create the elements.  I have decided that there is a creator.  A mass of energy? A wispy cloud of element we call god? A sentient being? a transcended power that resides in another dimension parallel to us? I don’t know but for me it takes more faith to believe something clapped its hands and here we are with all these complexities.  I am resigning to believe there is a creator. 

I have always known of God and have been in church since I could remember.  I know all about the stories, the donkeys, the cross, the whole religion – from a churched child perspective.  And then I asked God to really have some kind of relationship with me ( I didn’t know what that meant really – it was just in the prayer I was supposed to say) when I was younger and it was real for me.  I spent a lot of time trying to atone for all that I was and really missed the concept of free grace because that is NOT what I was taught in every day life and couldn’t trust or accept this reality. I met a guy and my faith was really formed around his ideas of the Christian church.  Unfortunately this was coupled with some religious emotional abuse and I had a really strange understanding about God.  I kind of back and forthed and relied on god whenever I needed to whine about something and blame someone. When I was praying to leave my marriage, I was mad that God wouldn’t do it for me.  When I shut down emotionally at the peak of the abuse in my last marriage, I blocked any and all amount of God out and gave way to any and every sin I wanted. 

Then I hit a moose.  But right before I hit the moose, I felt instructions download into my brain on what to do when a moose comes.  When the moose came, I didn’t even have to think – my body did everything for me, exactly like instructed.  And as I lost myself, spinning, around and around and around down the icy hill in the middle of the night, I let go of the wheel and surrendered myself to whatever the universe had for me.  Because in that moment everything that I thought I knew was surrendered too.  I was stripped to nothing and gave everything.

I have been looking around ever since with a new beauty of the life around me.  It pulses through the cycles of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun or the waves of the ocean.  The Flowers, the passing seasons, the birds, how animals love, the way babies and children grow, love, and trust, the beauty of every person – different in every characteristic, shining like glitter sparkles all over the earth.  I have decided that God is the universe and the universe is my creator and I kind of think maybe he's an artist, a poet, also beautiful- because the story goes that we are made like him. 

When I make something, I am really proud.  I pick all the colors I want and put them all together and I stand back and stare at my creation and I am so proud at the ending result.  God made this world and I can only imagine he is so proud of who we are as people (… maybe not all of us).  And the fact that God created the world with snow sparkles and wish flowers, animals that accompany us and the circle of life- tells me it was thought out.   All the way down to our DNA sequencing, there is order and when there is not, it acts as if it was written to be wild, without order, free to evolve the way it wants.  Kind of like the people God created.  We are all so different, allowed to be full of disorder, allowed to grow and rebel.  A creator that allows me to grow the way I want to and still finds me worthy to keep around ( every morning I wake up again is a gift) is something I can get behind.   And so the journey to faith for me begins here.  My walk into understanding this world and who the universe is.

 

I am Ashes and Light

 

I have been journaling ever since I can remember.  Its been a real therapeutic release for me.   I returned to a blog that I have had since I graduated from college and when I read it, I don’t even know that girl anymore.  I say girl because the things I write about are young, early learning about myself.  Fumbling to understand why I am the way I am and trying desperately to pretend I am not.  Getting divorced was the breaking point in my life.  I don’t want to say my relationship was so terrible, and in the coming weeks I feel open to writing about it finally, almost 5 years later.  It was painful and excruciating – I was held together by all my beliefs I created to make my marriage last and when I had to make the choice to end it, all those beliefs left me with nothing.  I was consumed by the pain that burned like fire all over my soul and the walls I had put up to keep me there.  I was burned to the very fibers of my existence, and I had nothing left to who I was except who I was.  I was made to stare at myself for everything I was and wasn’t and I had to make a choice.  Do I build back up a castle to hide my nothingness or do I deal with myself now?  Well I didn’t know how to build a castle and I was such an emotional wreck that I couldn’t even function so therapy was a place I was forced to go to if only because I couldn’t pretend to be okay.

So therapy.  I unpacked bags I didn’t even know I had. I cried, I begged, I contemplated suicide, I tore my flesh and I was reborn.  Sometimes I think the person I am now is so much removed from the girl I was in these old posts that I don’t even recognize myself.  I am completely at peace with who I am and yet, I am still in the process of discovering who I am. How far I can go.  What this new me is. 

These next few weeks I will be writing.  Writing to tell the story.  Parts of the story.  Some of them wont be pretty, but I have made a pact with myself to honor the truth – even if people don’t like it. Even if its ugly and even if you don’t agree with it.  I wont lie.  

 

With all that being said- when I was in college, I wrote an “I AM” poem.  I wanted to write today but wasn’t sure how to address the change inside my heart.  So I will begin the process of explaining not just for you but for me.  You just happen to have access to it if you are reading this.

 

I Am Poem – template (you should try too)

I am _________________________________________ (Two special characteristics)

I wonder _____________________________________ (Something you are curious about)

I hear ___________________________________ (An imaginary sound)

I see ______________________________ (An imaginary sight)

I want __________________________ (A desire you have)

I am ___________________________ (The first line of the poem repeated)

I pretend _____________________________________ (Something you pretend to do)

I feel _____________________ (A feeling about something imaginary)

I touch ____________________________________________ (An imaginary touch)

I worry _______________________________________ (Something that bothers you)

I cry ________________________________________ (Something that makes you sad)

I am _____________________________________ (The first line of the poem repeated)

I understand ____________________________________ (Something you know is true)

I say ________________________________________ (Something you believe in)

I dream ________________________________________ (Something you dream about)

I try ___________________________________________ (Something you make an effort on)

I hope ______________________________________________ (Something you hope for)

I am ______________________________________ (The first line of the poem repeated)

 

And here I am

I am Ashes and Light  

I wonder what I will do in heaven when I get there

I hear echoes of memories I can’t categorize

I see hope on EVERY horizon

I want my dreams to come true despite myself  

I am Ashes and Light

I pretend I am more important that I think I am

I feel invisible bruises healing  

I touch the future me I am trying to be

I worry that Love isn’t enough  

I cry when anxiety overcomes me  

I am Ashes and Light

I understand change is possible

I say trust the universe

I dream of other worlds

I try to continually change into a higher version of myself  

I hope I can one day live without my trauma responses

I am Ashes and Light

Boundaries

In trauma therapy I learned how we have a moment in life that translates to a truth to us.  For me, most of my truths included how much of a bother I am, how unworthy I am, how I am the problem, how no one loves me unless I am good.  I learned the definition of love the way it was presented to me.  From my mother, it was on her terms.  On a good day, I got great things and on a bad day, I was reminded that I was a disappointment.   When you learn these “truths” about yourself you put on a pair of lenses and see the world through these lenses of truth.  I made poor decisions with friends because I thought “how lucky am I that these people like me” and allowed them to treat me subpar.  Some friendships were mean to me, and I learned new truths about myself: I was fat, I was the “weird” one, I was tolerable.  Some friendships were kind to me, and I learned that I deserved better, that my mom didn’t need to speak to me that way or that what I had learned was wrong.  It really built up the way I saw myself and how I saw myself wasn’t very good. 

Anyways, in my life, I like to disassociate.  I have memories of my childhood and quite a few of them but there are also huge chunks of my life I can’t account for.  I also craved walls.  Oh, I could hide behind some walls. But the most visited place was this place I went to inside my heart when I was stuck with someone yelling at me or stuck in a situation where someone wouldn’t let me leave.  Stuck in a sexual situation I didn’t have the tools to escape.  It looked like big blocks of cement like a stone wall of a castle but a tiny hidden room, about as big as a bathroom.  It was safe.  I would see myself in there, knees pulled up to my chest, head resting on them, arms wrapped around myself and a small little fire across from me.  The walls were especially thick in this place.  I was so so so safe here.  No one could touch me.  This is where I find myself when I am having a trauma response and I can’t kick myself out of it.  This place is where I find myself when I spiral out of control emotionally and all I hear are the old “truths” jabbing me and taunting me, reminding me that I am worthless no matter how much I try to become.  That I am unloved and unworthy.  That my existence is worthless, and I should not be here.  This little place is where I crawl to when I can’t escape those thoughts.  Except I am not myself there.  I am young.  I am so little, maybe 8 or 9.

One of my most transformative EMDR sessions from trauma therapy was when I watched the me, I am today, step inside this little cave and lift that little girl up and hug her. I will protect you now little Jackie.  I will not let them hurt you anymore.  I am in control and if the people in my life can’t save me, I will save me.  And I cried and cried because that’s all I was looking for all along.  I was looking for someone to tell me I wasn’t worthless and that I was pleasant to have around.  I wanted so desperately to not be the problem.  I wanted to be wanted.   It was this moment that I reclaimed myself. 

A lot of how I was raised was baggage and trauma begetting trauma and baggage.  My mom’s father was very mean to her.  I am sure she had a little girl hiding in her heart too.  My father’s father was absent to my dad.  And I am also sure there is a little boy deep inside there wondering why he wasn’t good enough too.  I have to believe that my parents did the best they could and do the best they can with what they know.  I am collateral damage to that. But I am also the rule changer.  I refuse to make any child in my life feel the way I felt growing up.  I will therapy, I will mediate, I will cry and make myself deal with my shit if only to provide the next generation with the love and security I struggle to accept every day. 

Because even though I am better, so much better, and my bad days don’t happen nearly as much, I am still so fragile and full of nervousness.  I am anxious around other people and without the help of my walls, I feel constantly exposed.  See, part of toxic patterns and behaviors is the lack of ability to have boundaries.  If your parents never had them, you never grew up knowing them.  Boundaries are like a fence with a door to your property.  Walls are like... well walls. No one can see you.  However, I don’t have to hide who I am anymore. And I never should have had to.  However, that was my safety mechanism, and I did have walls instead of fences.

The biggest difference is that walls hide, and fences allow.  You can see through a fence, but you have to be allowed to be let in.  The owner of the property has to allow.  Allowing yourself to live without walls is really a very scary thing but I personally desire a life of transparency and vulnerability – to open myself up to real conversations and real talk instead of pleasantries and fake nice peopling.  However, in order to do that I have to be good with my boundaries.  I am not.  It causes quite a bit of anxiety to me to lay a boundary and I think about it over and over, perseverating in my mind what people think, how they now view me, is it a threat? Have I offended someone? Over and over and over in my mind. There is no rest.  Boundaries are excruciating to me and yet I have learned, are also a necessary tool.  When you have a fence, when you say no, everyone sees.  When you have a wall, you can just hide behind it and there is a vague, discrete answer that people can’t 100% identify.  People can’t make a solid opinion about you because they can’t see you.  However, being open and vulnerable, allowing my own freedom to choose and be myself, good or bad means being honest to myself and other people around me.  That means when I advocate for myself and say no or lay a boundary, some people might not like it and create an opinion about me, my situation and my choices.   I personally find this very difficult because again, I grew up in an environment where you didn’t talk about the things YOU liked so no one would take it from you or sabotage it.  I grew up where my honest truth was not celebrated.  I hid my truths behind walls to keep them safe.  Now I have to content with fences.

I was unprepared for boundary backlash.  When I laid boundaries that people didn’t like, I was unprepared for their trauma responses.  See, people are at their best when they’re getting what they want.  I am good at giving people what they want because I learned fast that it was the easiest way to receive their praise, recognition and personal validation despite being the only one who becomes tasked with the job.  But when you lay down boundaries now people aren’t getting what they want, and they become – not mean. It feels mean, but I think people respond with their own trauma responses, their own baggage and their own feelings.  With how hard it is to lay a boundary in the first place, the backlash is all I ever feared anyways and now I’m thinking about it again and again and over and over again.  Its so hard not to slip into the spiral and then go hide in the space where my little girl Jackie lives when she’s scared. 

Despite all this, I stand by the boundaries.  Because at the end of the day, when you are lying down dying in your bed, it is your life that you are reviewing and if you spent it doing things you never wanted to do for everyone else who may or may not even care or know how much work you put into doing the task for them – what then was your life worth? What was it for?  Did YOU ever really live?

I want to live, and I want to do the things I care about because – its my life.  You have your own life to make your own decisions – I respect them, I should receive this same respect.  However, that’s just not how life works – the ego gets in the way, and we personalize experiences that may not have anything to do with us into our narrative.  Boundaries are a tool that allow you to open the fence to the things you allow and keep yourself safe for the things you don’t want to allow.  Although it’s difficult to see poor responses to your decisions sometimes, even we have to step back a little bit and realize that some things are just not about us.  Yes, our boundaries, yes, our decision and yes, they have a response because of it – but I am only responsible for my response – not theirs. I must honor my heart and my choices because if I am hiding and lying about them, do you even know me? Do I even know me?

In my quest to be the most genuine me I can be, I must take the bad things with the good and just hope I can continue to grow and morph into the next best version of myself every day.  Boundaries play a huge role in this for me.

Every event is a chapter in the journey. (Chapter:divorce)

I'm getting divorced.  I am 31 years old and restarting my entire life from scratch.  I don't have the hope of making a family with my partner any more, I surrendered my claim on the dogs, I've lived with a friend for 5 months while I saved money to break out of and renew my reality all while getting divorced from a man I thought I'd shared my whole life with. 

The story is a jumbled mess - one for another time, when I have been able to sort through the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle

I called my marriage. I can't properly articulate that mess right now but what I can say is that I am getting divorced.  Divorced. 

When this process first started, I rolled through a myriad of emotions.  Some days I was happy, some days I was sad, some days angry and others so lost I just flew through the motions. 

The thing I can say is that I am again in a place where I have to learn to live in the moment. I have to learn to take the happy days and the sad days and just be whatever it is I am in that moment.  The uncertainties and inconsistencies drive me crazy. I like to have things organized and nothing is.  I like knowing what to expect and how my heart will deal with situations and this was like being locked in a body I didn't know.  I was unaware of what anxiety felt like prior to this, unaware of what makes me cry or what makes me angry.  I've been trying to hold my shit together and unfortunately, it falls through my fingers like water. 

I am constantly uncertain about things I previously felt certain about- I just don't know who I am right now and it's terrifying and a bit annoying to be honest.  I feel crazy, I feel up and down and all around and a little everywhere and no where all at the same time.  My heart is simultaneously full and empty at the same time. I fear I will never love purely again. My entire world has been shattered, my ideals thrown to the floor.  I have made choices that have surprised me as well as frightened me.  I am just a hot mess really. 

Fortunately, I have begun going to therapy and currently am working on just being whatever the fuck I am right when I am. 

While that interferes with my life, I have come to the understanding that my life is not 

Black and white but shades of various color, grays and very dark blacks. Even better, I have the understanding that it's alright to not be alright in all aspects of your life and that while compartmentalizations offer immediate solace, they do not offer long term solutions. 

I am challenged to cry when I need to cry, to yell when I am angry, to hurt and grieve. And god am I grieving.  Not just the loss of A man who was but is no longer but the hopes, dreams, memories and ideals I have In my heart that has no where to go.  I grieve my choices, I grieve his actions. I am aching one day, feeling renewed another- those feelings in themselves are also cause for grief because I don't quite understand them.  

I am living in the now. If it feels like I should do it, I am doing it. If it feels like the right thing to do for me I am learning to give myself space and permission to do it. I am scared and unsteady as I walk in the new parameters of my journey.   So, that being said-

       My choices are not up for judgement. I may do things that don't make sense to you but it might not make sense to me either.  I am navigating a new journey that has no personalized manual and one that I find particularly difficult and lonely.  I am discovering what a healthy heart looks like by giving myself the permission to be. 

So, if you see me dancing- don't think I'm crazy and judge me because you can't hear my music- rejoice because I'm moving forward, in a direction that resonates so deeply in my core that It would be wrong to do anything else.  

-his beloved 

It's okay to think for yourself

I am driving like a maniac to get to work before my lunch break is over and as I am pulling in, the car in front of me comes to a complete stop at the stop sign and waits (I am assuming to look both ways for the nonexistent cars)  then proceeds to pull out.  I was sitting behind the larger car and I knew there weren’t any cars.  Obviously, there *MAY* have been some but there weren’t.  The car literally stopped simply because a stop sign was present.  After it pulls away however, I am still sitting at the stop sign thinking about the asinine societal customs that we stop thinking about and just do. 

I remember when I was younger, I really held true to the quote “character is what you do when no one is looking.”  I have tried to live a genuine life, full of integrity and honesty – to those around me but more specifically, to myself. It has been a lifelong – code of ethics if you will.  However, as I am fully integrated into our society, knowing the rules and customs, I find myself wanting to redefine my code and argue with the reasons for our actions. 

Does having good character mean following the rules? Who sets the standard for being good of character?  Does not stopping at that stop sign mean that I am bad even if no one was around?  And if it does mean that, why?  Why should I have to stop if there aren’t any cars around (after I have verified with my surroundings, not just assumed) and why should I allow myself to feel bad for not stopping just for the sake of stopping?  Why are we doing things just for the sake of doing them?  Do we even know what our own definitions are?  How many people actually sit down and think about what their actions mean and why they do them?

I have been faced with finding my center recently.  This year has been a doozy and I dropped my fucks off with every month that passed by.  I am finally in a place where I can – (although knowing our roles) disintegrate myself from the habits and focus on the why.  The root of everything we do is the reason we do it.  Does following the rules make us a good person? I don’t think so.  I can follow the rules all day but if I’m being an asshole in my head, all I’m doing is an outward display of societal collectivism.  But I am not this society.  I do not agree with a lot of the opinions, rules, facts or statements made popular by those around me.  In my disagreement, I will meet upset opinions and hurt feelings because I am disagreeing with the norm.  Therefore, I have to understand so I can reason and provide a logical argument for my behaviors or thoughts. 

I have been processing this for a while and I have just come to the conclusion that it’s okay to dare to think outside the norm.  It’s okay to have your own rules but follow the governing rules around you – IF you understand why they are there and use your mind to implement a decision based on your own logic.  We don’t have to be mindless drones.  It’s okay to think for yourself and god, I'm not apologizing anymore. The beauty and diversity we could be capable of is endless. 

Running into the storm

I could feel the tension shake the trees as the clouds formed mightily in the sky 

Twisting and curling, menacing with every wave that the winds blow

I saw the birds circling, cheering on turbulence - diving and dancing 

A primal worship of the storm's might 

The flowers dimmed their shine and huddled amongst themselves, ready for anything. 

The wind blew commands and reigned supreme, the flowers bending low in surrender

I felt the earth as it sang it's song, the tides were changing- a storm was coming 

My instinctual response shouted to go. 

I laced my shoes and tied my belt, lifted my chin and with pride I went. 

The clouds churned above me, the birds sang loud around me- I stretched my legs and fixed my shorts- and ran to the rhythm of the tension reverberating outside. My face kissed the wind as it raged around my body and on I beat, confident in my place.

Clouds twisted, darkened and moved while opening up and unleashing its wrath, slow at first - I raised my fist in the air and yelped in excitement - the tension reverberating in my chest. I kept beat on the rocks under my feet, running with the wind racing me on. I am invincible, I am free, I am as strong as this storm. 

Slowly, fat drops of rain began beating the pavement and I looked around as I stumbled.  I wasn't in time with the space around me, I sputtered at the knowledge that I was at the mercy of the storm around me. Still I ran on, more aware - less confident. 

Lightening cracks the sky as the rain soaks me to the core. My glasses, long since removed, prove no clarity around me. I am blinded by my frailty as well as the rain pelting me so frequently in the face that I longed for something to shield me. 

The winds stormed around me and I am finally aware. I have awakened. My strength is spent and I am small amongst the universe.  The rain pelts on.  I have no control over my fate, I can only run faster.  Maybe a little less sure now, I gasp for breath as fear chokes me - the second crack of lightening blasts to my left.  

Too confident in my original abilities, I become aware of my place in this world.  I have no created anything, I have no control over anything. I am at the mercy of the universe.  Still, I run on- my soul mingling with the storm, something I have no right to be a part of yet have pushed my way into. 

And then.

I have been transcended- in a mixture of adrenaline, endorphins and blissful joy at the craziness of being in the midst of something so powerful I run through the rain and let go of all I am for all I am.  To live through this would be brilliant. To die, would be brilliant. I have given up the illusion of control and I float on the intoxication of surrender.

I am one in the universe and the universe is in me and I have found fear, peace and answers to pain while I run through this storm. The metaphor makes me roll my eyes but I am running to make it. I run to discipline myself. Now while running, I have found myself. 

As I plow through the storm with the knowledge of myself, raw from discovery, I am confronted by my faith.  I feel god in this storm and I am afraid. I just know that I'm having a "job" moment and I remember what surrender feels like.  Knowing I have not created any of this I am humbled and awed by the force I am experiencing. How much stronger? How much bigger? 

I found myself as I ran but as I ran, god reminded me of who I am.  

Embracing the suck

You know that scene in Cinderella at the very end when she overcomes her circumstances, bags the prince, gets free of her stepmother and sisters and finally has a shot at a happy ending? The premise being, of course, that true love exists and fairy tales come true *eventually*

When I dream of things in my future, I don't dream about all the bad things that can (and could realistically happen) I envision all the happy potential I will enjoy once I get to my Cinderella moment. But what if those moments aren't the reason you're on this particular journey? What if it sucks so bad and your only option is to ride the suck? 

I recently planned a bike ride, all sunny and perfect in my head.  When it came time to bike however, the rain was falling so blasphemously that all I could do was stare in disbelief because I was Cinderella- I had the drive, the bike and the destination but I wasn't riding in a fairy tale. That bike ride was hard, cold and wet but I had to do it to get home so I had to just do it.  I raged inside at the complete audacity of nature to ruin my fairy tale bike ride.  

But that's the thing about fairy tales.  Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White- the stories all stop at the beginning of their fairy tale.  You don't know how hard it was for Cinderella to run a castle or if Snow White had a mental illness, Sleeping Beauty obviously had some health issues after she woke but we don't think about those things.  And for the sake of argument, if we did think about those things, we certainly wouldn't be able to really *know* what living with those extra variables did to their fairy tale. 

I think the reason we like the idea of a fairy tale is that it makes our struggle worth it.  All the bad for the good. But life isn't like that.  It ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes, hills and valleys etc etc.  My biggest struggle is to stop trying to live the Disney idea of a fairy tale and let life's tale happen. 

This has been something I've become aware to as I've learned how to incorporate discipline into my life.  ((Just a side note - discipline sucks- but in a good way I think))

I have learned how to find a goal, make a plan and then just keep fighting for that goal, despite my feelings, my failures, my insecurities and the overall desire to be "happy." But even my definitions for all these things have changed in the few months I've strived.  I argue with myself because I don't want to confront it ( or believe it) but in reality, we make our fairy tales.  We choose how to react when things get hard, we choose how to deal when we find feelings we aren't comfortable with and we choose how the story plays out. 

Life is not in our hands.  I didn't choose what happened to you in your life any more than I chose what has happened to me.  For a long while, (I realize now) I just ducked my head and tried to wait it all out. Just get through it, I have done that my entire life- just hold on long enough for things to get better.  

But as I discipline myself, I realize - I was still hiding from the sucky parts of life.  I found distractions in work, relationships and the complexities they provide, food, drink - u name it and I'm sure I've turned my face to it.  But. Grinning and bearing it, holding on till the happy comes, any other lame platitude - it doesn't actually help because I'm hiding from the wave of whatever makes me uncomfortable still- I needed to learn to ride the suck. To be able to embrace that there will be hard times in my life and there may never be a perfect fairy tale ending because we never see the endings. My ending is what I will make of it and I think we can only know how to do that proficiently when we learn to accept the suck and embrace life as it comes. 

Dare I hope?

I covered myself in a shield of your words, 

Darting and furling with the strength of a hurricane.  I repeated the words, hurled in anger over and over until I could hear no others 

I carried my bitterness like a trophy on my back, martyred in the injustice of my broken ideals.  Intimate reminders of stolen kisses and unstoppable laughter a remnant of another world, replaced with sighs and distrust.

I carried on with my pride as it strengthened my resolve while I walked with my judgments held high, broken heart leaving a bread trail in case I'd ever find the way back to happy and normal.

These defenses weighed me down and blackened my soul- lonely and aching at the loss of my source of strength.  Your presence blew around me but I cowered with my walls, aching to grab hold but fighting to push you away.  The pain I felt in feeling you, cut me deeper still and I faced the storm to surrender. Apathetic. You win. Fuck you. I can't win this war. I can't fight what I don't know. 

I plan to let go and I hate myself.  I can't stand in this storm for you without you.  I can't stand in this storm alone.  But hope strikes the stone I've created as a heart and brings light to my soul, if only - if only, do I dare hope? 

You pass by again, seeing me like you haven't - your hand on my shoulder and the words I desperately need to hear whisper in my ear: "I want this to work."  My melting heart turns to mush and I almost miss your touch. 

My walls crumble, pride is spent, bitterness pours off my heart and I am left standing in the middle of the storm. Again alone, the touch of you left branded on my core- dare I hope? Dare I hope. Against my better judgement (damn walls, where are you?) I believe you.  

Take a deep breath and hold on because this isn't going to be easy but I'm coming to find you, and I'm coming to bring you home.  We can rebuild what this storm has damaged, I will learn with you. All I have are my hands (empty) and a heart that doesn't know what it's doing. 

I step into the storm blind but my heart says this is the right way.  Dare I choose to believe? Dare I hope?  

You've never looked more beautiful

I am temporarily blinded by the dark when I open the door to her home. Stale smoke and sweat cuts through the stuffy nose I was fighting and I shut the door behind me. As my eyes adjust, I see her form, tiny under the covers.  Stepping silently into the room, I look around at her life. 

The bedspread that you were so proud of, full of cigarette burns and near misses.  The medicine coursing through your veins undoubtedly had an obvious effect.  Your humidifier is empty, belied only by the red light shining in the corner.  Remnants of the protein shakes lie half filled in cups scattered about your bedside table. A box full of medicine lies open next to you, saving grace that it is. 

You take a deep breath and I am drawn to your face- sunken, sallow, outlined by your skull.  Your hair has grown and after weeks of it being gone, I am still not used to seeing it on your head. Your collar bone, so prominent, reveals the depth of your illness, the cancer that ravages and depletes your strength.  As I come near you, you wake, black eyes unfocused as they stare at me. 

I help you sit up and we fall into pace with each other. 

You're sweaty, I can see it on your face and you feel gross, you've mentioned on more than one occasion.  I run your bath, taking care to move potential tripping hazards from your path.  I pour lavender Epsom salts and bubble bath into the steaming water in the hopes it will bring you peace. The bathroom has been transformed into a sanctuary.  Come find rest. 

The tea is done and we must have a cup before we do anything.  We talk over the rim of our glasses; heavy topics that neither of us have any answer for- Life and death, heaven and hell, pain and peace, being alone. My heart is flooded with love for her, despite my best defenses of protecting myself.  Healthy boundaries has been my mantra of late, and I'm finding it difficult to adhere. She's just so damn likeable, dammit. 

I finish my tea and try to coax her out of her bed- a task that is becoming harder and harder as the days pass.  Finally, with the promise of clean sheets she sighs and stumbles into the bathroom to pee.  Our conversation follows the normal pattern of asking personal questions about her toileting habits and her unabashed answers. I help her slip off her clothes and hold her lithe frame as she steps into the hot water.  Her body visually relaxes and the strain of her illness seems to melt from her face.  

She closes her eyes and sinks back to lay, covered by the water, in a place where she finds relief from her torments.  I watch her as the steam swirls around her.  Her tiny body sporting the remains of a figure ravaged by time. Bubbles stick to the skin from her arms and she sighs, content. Not one to miss a cigarette break she pulls one from the pack I laid out for her and I light it in silence. 

When I look back at Lloydene, I know this moment has already been branded in the depths of my heart - I want to remember this moment.  She pulls her knees to her chest and lays her head on them, long lit cigarette dangling from her thin fingers.  She is tired and worn but never more herself in all her insecurities, fears and hopes.  Her essence was pure- accepted and resigned.  How honored I was to be able to behold such a raw look at the soul of a person. 

She is ready to lay back down so she washes her face and I scrub her back.  She unsteadily rolls to her knees to try and stand to which I lift her wobbly frame from the tub.  I wrap her in her towel and put her in her new purple robe, coveted as one of the few gifts from her beloved sister. She rubs her hands down the robe, feeling like a little girl and royalty all in one. She takes a look in the mirror and sighs, shoulders dropping and I help her to her room. 

I change her sheets, painting a picture of how nice she will feel when she crawls back in. She sits on the chair in the corner, huddling into her robe sipping the vestiges of her tea while she talks to me. When I am finished, I pull the corner back invitingly with a knowing smile. I know what she wants.  She sits on the side of the bed and I help her into her shorts.  She sighs again this time as she stretches out into her nicely changed bedding.  I offer her a smoothie- the food of choice for the past six months, and she declines in favor of another cigarette chased with copious amounts of pain medicine.  

She sits and smokes while I finish putting the bathroom back together and refill her air humidifier. I make sure she has enough water until the next person comes to see her and when I return to her room I find her curled under her blankets with her eyes closing.  

Thank you she whispers, that's what I've been needing all along.  

I am honored that the gift I have bestowed upon her today is a feeling that comes from good places - places like chicken soup when you're sick or hot cocoa on a cold day. That feeling that everything will be okay despite itself. 

I kiss her cheek and feel the bones of her face under her softly washed skin - she has never been more beautiful to me. 

Companions for the journey home

There is a woman who goes to chemo on the days that lloydene goes.  She wears a blue saggy cloth hat to keep her head warm while she sits in the slightly chilly infusion room. 

She was laying under a blanket on a gurney-improvised-bed. She was gentle and her bright blue eyes blazed through her white paper thin skin, stretched taught over the bones of her face.  Her clothes hung from her, a gentle reminder of the weight she'd lost as she waged her battle with cancer.  She carried a champions flag that day as it was her very very last day of treatment and her numbers were looking good.  She carried herself with an air of exhausted regal champion-hood. She was as graceful as a ballet dancer and her refined laugh sung when I told her so.  Trudy- lithe and beautiful had finished her chemo and was looking towards the future. 

When Trudy met us, we were just settling into our chairs for the 6 hour wait while lloydene received her chemotherapy. We talked and shared our congratulations and wished her good luck as her husband, whom walked with a wooden cane and a stiff leg took her home.  Trudy and lloydene had met as people dealing with the same thing but she had finished the race and was way  ahead of us.  They were at different points if the journey and their paths were destined to separate.  The knowledge crackled in the air between them. 

Lloydene is here for her second round of chemo, third infusion.  Her body is tired and thin.  She is so weak, she favored the gurney-bed.  As she lays down, and snuggles into the blanket, feeling miserable, a woman stands up with her iv pole.  I wouldn't have noticed her but the nurses saw the impending trip hazard of her iv stand and blanket on the floor and made quick moves to help her.  It took me a minute to recognize her but once the blanket was fully removed from her stockinged legs I was pleased to remember -The ballet dancer, Trudy! 

I moved off the end of the gurney-bed and lloydene struggled to sit up. 

"No no, don't get up, don't get up" Trudy whispered, her blue eyes watering. "I just want to sit close with you, you might not remember me"

The ballet dancer, I said excitedly and her eyes crinkled with a nod and a smile. 

She sat down carefully and grabbed Lloydene's hand, asked how she was doing and told her how glad she was to see her. 

Lloydene asked why she was here and she looked down. 

"It's not good news" she said through shaking breath. She held Lloydene's hand and straightened, trying to be brave for lloydene, seeking solace in the company of someone who understands that fear of impending death. Trudy's cancer might have spread to her abdomen.  The air of the champion had left her only to be replaced with clouds of fear. She was scared and lost and defeated.  She had stepped back on the path of the journey but the end looked considerably closer for her and the odds were stacked against her.  She was again fighting, but how would it look for her this time? 

They sat on the gurney-bed until it was too hard for them to sit up.  They were quiet, holding hands and hugged each other after Trudy stood up to walk back to her chair.  "We're all going to die sometime" Lloydene said out loud, mainly to herself. A reminder to bring the unreal a reality. 

In all this time, Lloydene hasn't brushed against someone else near the end of their path. Trudy and Lloydene were able to invite one another into their hearts and accept each other for who they were on the premise of knowing something none of us can understand.  They were able to join souls and find a comfort in one another if only for a moment to find solace in their shared sadness. 

Their companionship was sweet in the air as they both drifted to sleep and now instead of different places in the race, suddenly they were a team. 

28 days of selfless love

Love.

I have spent the entire month meditating on what it means to really love someone and be loved back in return.  I have studied religious texts, famous ideals, love songs and examples from literature to help me really refine and purify my understanding of love.

I have spent the month sharing little snippets of this journey on my Facebook page because I like to share great things.  Looking back, my definition of love has already changed from what it was In the beginning.

Why love you might ask? Why do this? Why the interest? Well.. to be honest, things in my life have been pretty chaotic. A member of my family is actively dying and in trying to show her how to live a life in love, I found that I didn't have many great examples from my own life to fall back on.

I realized my love was given, but not in a pure state. I give love to feel better, or make someone hAppy which makes me feel good. I give love to have love returned.  I love to satisfy an extension of myself. It felt so dirty after doing so much meditating on the fact.  So this month while focusing on finding what love really was to me, I tried to put it into practice - which is really hard, guys.

To love unselfishly is damn near impossible. It's so hard to be continuously selfless for the sake of love. It's not like this for everyone, of course- let me explain.

Growing up, love was available but 70% of the time, love was given to me at the convenience of others. Love was not an easily accessible commodity and a lot of times what I thought was love was actually not.    This constant confusion and disappointment caused me to hide my heart from the world.  I built  walls of self loathing, fear, anger, depression - everything and anything to keep love from touching the most sensitive part of my soul.  I spent a lot of time pushing anything away from me to fortify my walls. I hid my essence behind jokes, sarcasm, and half smiles. But that is also how I defined love.

Through this process of trying to redefine love I feel like I have been begging the universe  to strip me of the walls I have built around myself and strip me bare only to rebuild properly.  In fact even in writing the admission of my walls, I feel uncomfortable because it does feel very naked.  I want to be genuine. Therefore I must be able to understand myself- to do that I have to be okay with being vulnerable- because in vulnerability  we open up our souls and touch each other. We connect. It is in this connection that I think I can change the lives of those around me for the better.  I want this to be a battle cry of sorts - be a revolutionary.  Choose to be love and in love help others also find love. Ahhhh... I have such a long way to go haha.

I have learned that this selfless love is hard- so hard because it means I have to put myself last and I just don't want to do that most of the time. But when you love someone - you have to put them first - especially if u want to live a life full of love. - that shit is hard.

I have found that to be selfless, you have to choose to sacrifice your own comfort sometimes for the sake of someone else's. I have seen that this love can be outwardly unrewarding and lackluster in pride.  Most of the time I was loving to someone who didn't deserve it (my definition), or wouldn't remember it.  My own logic tells me that you must have reward for the demand but I think that's backwards too. The reward isn't in the return, the reward is in the practice.  My heart has grown in ways I didn't think possible because I have attempted to put other people before me.

I have gained knowledge by listening instead of talking. Learned examples of love by watching instead of showing. By taking a step back and allowing others be be first, I have learned how to find love by allowing someone to affect me instead of me keeping my distance.  When I chose to put others first, I found love back.

Am I gonna be selfless all the time? Hell no. Im gonna try and I'm gonna fail a lot-but I'd rather spend my life trying to spread the love I want to see in the world than not, so I'll keep trying.
That's where I challenge you.
Try to listen when you want to speak
Try to see when you're being blinded
Try to speak when your pride has silenced you
And try to feel when your heart has been frozen.

I know this sounds like some ghandi, hippie bs and I've been a super big jerk a lot this month but when I actually practice choosing love - life kind of slips into a peaceful zen despite the circumstances around me. I have found an inner strength I never knew I had - every time I choose love, I am full of strength. And I like that. Just thought you might like it too 🙃
#28daysofselflesslove