Jordan, Everybody. Everybody, Jordan

June 25, 2021 by

Jordan Sparks is an aspiring author on the pathway to becoming a teacher, with an education built from a partial BFA in Writing at Savannah College of Art and Design and a Bachelor’s in Secondary Education at Georgia State University.  Until she can achieve her plans of being a published author, with her first manuscript nearly finished, she participates in Nanowrimo and several online writing groups. With a focus on contemporary queer works geared toward young adults, she’s used her experience as a college student and in the classroom as a Deep Writing Fellow to strengthen her understanding of her audience as a writer and a person.

I have a tough time with follow through. That’s not entirely accurate. My problem is patience. It took me longer than I care to admit figuring this out. The challenge is that it manifests itself in so many different ways that the root issue of patience was camouflaged. 

You see, when I get an idea, I am like a dog with a bone – completely consumed, singularly focused, highly passionate. If the bone is a biscuit, a treat, this works for me. It’s consumed easily, quickly, efficiently, all in one sitting. If the bone is a squeaky toy, I can make this work too. I may not see progress in finishing the bone, but it makes a fun noise; I know I am doing something even if I am not completely sure what that something is. 

If it is a real bone, a solid bone, a big bone, this is where I find my challenge. There’s no sign of progress, no way to tell how long the endeavor will take, no certainty that I can finish it or be successful with it. Sticking with this bone in a consistent way is not my strong suit. For a long time, I was tough on myself because I thought this meant things about me that I viewed as shameful. I thought that it meant that I was lazy, fearful, soft, fickle, a quitter. 

This was a tough figure out for me. I was torn between trying to be brutally honest with myself and a nagging feeling that these things were not true about me – even if the evidence suggested that they were. 

One of the first steps to figuring this out was getting some help. I needed someone who could think for me, think like me, but function differently enough to organize my chaos, put me on task, and track what I considered to be untrackable. 

Y’all, I don’t always realize how great my ideas are as soon as I have them, but I realized bringing Jordan on as my assistant was a game changer almost as soon as she agreed to the position.

For nearly three months, Jordan has been my other brain, my scorekeeper, my nudge, my handler, my finagler. When I tell you she is brilliant, trust that it is an understatement. 

It was during the first two of these three months that I attempted and failed to be the task completer she hoped I would be. I was stumped. I imagine she was frustrated (although she never showed it). Here is this perfectly curated plan, brilliantly laid out in exactly the way my brain works. This should be my EXACT type of bone. Yet I am still unable to bite into, to stick with. WTAF?

Patience. I am impatient with myself, I am impatient with the process, I am impatient with the results. The path that Jordan has laid out for me is not a 5-minute quick draw. It is a journey into the productive, creative, academic, successful endeavors I want to participate in. It has always been that. But it took Jordan’s involvement to help me see it. I couldn’t be more appreciative of the discovery and her patience while I find my own. 

Now, I share her with you. I have no idea what she is going to write about, what type of conversations she is going to start, how often, or anything. I just know she asked for space here and I was honored to give it. If she is half as brilliant for you as she has been for me, we are all in for a treat.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: , , ,

Packaging Gratitude with Insight

May 28, 2021 by

You can package gratitude with insight and proceed accordingly

– Ruthie Parmett

Proceed accordingly. Those two words seem so simple. Maybe to some they are. For me, it is a constant battle as I often get hung up on both points. Proceed. Accordingly. 

Let’s have the dictionary define some terms, shall we? Dr. Rago, my Literary Theory professor, would say, “No we shall not.” She would say that I needed to tell you what the terms mean for myself. I would absolutely agree with her. Except, I am not always sure what I think those words mean, so I fall back on established semantics. 

Track with me for just a bit. I’ve jumped ahead and I know a little bit about where this is going. It’s a weird ride, but, hey, it’s how my brain works. 

Proceed – begin or continue a course of action

Accordingly – in a way that is appropriate to the particular circumstances

Appropriate – suitable or proper in the circumstances

Suitable – right or appropriate for a particular person, purpose, or situation

Proper – of the required type; suitable or appropriate

Now that the definition of two words has moved us into the definition of several words, a problem presents itself; there are repeating words. These words, with the exception of “proceed,” are used to define each other. How much help is that?

Why do I need help to begin with? Look, I have not been shy in this space about my struggles with fear. Interestingly, the topic has come up in other spaces lately and the general consensus is my propensity to be fearful is a surprise to a good many people. I appreciate that. It means that I am doing better. My issue at the moment is that I do not feel like I am getting better. The chasm between those two things is formidable. 

Make no mistake; I am proud of doing. I know the work it took, and continues to take, to get here. But I am ready. I am ready for the getting. I am ready to move past the “fake it til you make” idea. I never really liked it to begin with, but life goes on and I have to be here for it. You do what you have to do to not waste any more time. I assure you I have wasted my fair share. I. Am. Ready. For. The. Getting. 

And that’s the message I took Ruthie, my beloved therapist, this week. We had an exceptionally hard session last week. It was bitter, and sad, and hard. It broke me in a way that I can’t (and won’t try to) describe. It was needed, it was necessary, and it was unwelcomed. I went to sleep last Wednesday achingly sad. I woke up last Thursday pissed off. 

You see, I have no idea where all of this comes from. I have no clue, no wound, no instance, no tangible thing that I can point to and hang the “this is why I am this way” flag. And because there is no thing, there is no monster to defeat, no amends to make, no forgiveness to offer, no responsibility to take – there’s nothing. Oh sure, there’s theory, possibility, and perhaps. But you can’t hang this kind of thing on a maybe. So here I am, sure that I am worthy of every good thing, but I don’t feel that I am worthy. And I don’t know why, and I can’t ever remember not feeling this way, and it’s been 40ish years, and I am smarter than this, I am more capable than this, yet here we are. 

And I am pissed. 

I am so angry that I almost canceled this week’s session. I am not pissed with Ruthie. She’s one of the biggest reasons I have gotten as far as I have. But I had a dinner party scheduled for Wednesday night and if there was going to be a repeat of last week right before that, I was not interested. But running from that kind of thing never works. I knew if I did that, I would just spend the rest of the day feeling like a coward. I decided to take my chances with Ruthie. 

“I almost cancelled today. I don’t know that I want to do this. I am pissed off and I have people coming over and I am not having another week like last week. I am over it. I am thankful that I am functional, I am. But I am ready to be fixed.”

Ruthie doesn’t even bother to explain the obvious; I am not broken. We have been together long enough to where we both know that’s not what I mean. 

“I know we don’t use checkboxes, but you have got to give me something. I know we have been doing triage and I’m a little all over the place, and we’ve never really worked like this before, but I need something different.”

Let me take this opportunity to tell you my therapist has one of the smuggest grins on the planet. I love it when it appears because I know she is fixing to pull out some real next level genius therapist shit. 

The next 55 minutes are magical. We have plans, we have purpose, I’m taking notes, I can literally see the steps in my brain. Connections of years of trying to move through, understand, prioritize, evaluate, triage, function, start to come together in a glorious way. 

I am filled with gratitude. 

It is then I am reminded of something she said the week before. 

“I can’t get myself together. I am so overwhelmingly sad. What am I supposed to do with all this? I know we had to get here, but now I don’t know where to go next.”

“Your sad because it is sad. It’s devastatingly sad. But now you have it, and you can grieve it.”

“But there is no ‘it.’ There is only all this.”

“Except you have more and you can find what serves you and let go of what doesn’t. You have it in you to package gratitude with insight and proceed accordingly.”

What she meant was that my trauma is unfortunate and in the past; we can’t change it. But we can find the moments in and/or around the trauma(s) to be grateful using the insight in ourselves. It is in that gratitude that we find our way out of the hurt and into the healing. 

I still don’t know what “proceed accordingly” means. But I am working super hard on the former. I have complete confidence that the latter will come. When coaching me in my abysmal pool game, Daddy always tells me, “Take the easy shots first. The hard ones will come.”

Filed Under: Health and Wellness Tagged With: , ,

Today I Choose Gratitude

December 2, 2020 by

What if there is a “not-so-obvious” secret that is guaranteed to transform any — or literally every area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible? That it would only take 6 minutes a day?
~ Day 2 of the 28 Day Self-Growth Plan
The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM), by Hal Elrod

During a ride the other day, Ally Love said, “The opposite of gratitude is criticism.” I am still chewing on that because, as much as my literal brain rejects it, there is something about that idea that resonates in my soul pretty deeply. So much so, in fact, that it has succeeded (at least for now) in placing itself at the forefront of my brain. I still need to pay attention to how that affects intellectually honesty and healthy boundaries, but for now, it is creating more calm and kindness so I am just going with it.

Day 2 was an exercise in gratitude for me. Beginning with the beginning, I was not excited about the reading. It felt like the worst click-bait tag. Then I remind myself that sometimes I am thankful for clickbait and cheesy marketing. Didn’t a jacked frog get me here after all? So, I chalk it up to my own morning and move forward.

And I have nothing else to say about the Day 2 selection except it wasn’t for me.

I will say that I was grateful for the 15 minutes I spent reading it as it turned into a great emotional and mental workout for me. I’ll try and explain.

There was quite a bit in it that I didn’t agree with and even disliked as concepts. This puts me at odds with folks like Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad) and both these guys have made way more money than me.

What I think we have talked about before is my knee jerk to accept fault (I’ll go look in a minute as I don’t want to lose my train of thought here because I am barely holding on to it). If I find myself on opposite ends of an idea that involves character, any of my Big Rocks, or with a person who can be reasonably assumed to be more capable (that’s is a shit way to put it but things like smarter, more successful, better aren’t much better – but I hope you get my meaning)… If I find myself on opposite ends in a situation like that, I tend to question myself first, give the other side the benefit of the doubt, and live in that position for far longer than is healthy.

To expand a little – I don’t think this tactic is wrong. I think considering myself first and remaining humble enough to consider my possibility of error first and empathetic enough to extend the benefit of the doubt first is a fine step one. My problem is my intention has been historically wrong and I stay there too long. In the ago, I assumed I must be wrong. I was not considering the possibility of my error; I am certain it is there I just had to find it.

Now, I consider those ideas differently. It takes practice. Sometimes that practice is hard and involves uncomfortable and important situations. That isn’t fun. I appreciate times like this where it is great practice and the consequences are almost nonexistent.

I understand that reputable folks find these particular ideas helpful. I am thankful that they had that. I did not. I appreciate books like this as they remind me that free thinking is important and the practice of individual idea is a healthy one. I could be critical (and let me be clear, I do not think a productive critique is bad). Today instead, I choose gratitude.

Sidenote: I did go back and look for the “I think we have discussed this before” post. Turns out I’ve discussed it a lot. I don’t apologize as it is a pretty big part of becoming a better me, but I do appreciate the space. Y’all are saints and I love you.

Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: , ,

My Disagreement with the “Gratitude Practice”

April 22, 2020 by

I feel so much gratitude for my life.

The random, jacked up staircase is becoming a reoccurring characteristic in my dreams and I am finding it very interesting.

There are my two true sentences today.

The idea of gratitude is multifaceted for me.

I realize my life is a blessing. I understand that the challenges I experience in my day to day – even the larger ones – pale in comparison to challenges faced by others. While I am amazingly grateful for those truths, they are not why I have gratitude. I do not view my challenges as less than because I am not a practitioner of comparing strife no more than I am a practitioner of comparing blessings. My shit is my shit. I own it, I walk it, I do not apologize for it, and I do not allow it to be weighed and measure against someone else’s shit. I do not experience gratitude because I am supposed to.

I feel like I am an incredibly grateful person. I do not, however, have what many would call a “gratitude practice.” I am not completely convinced that I am right to not put more priority into developing this practice; I’m not completely convinced that I am wrong either.

I have been told that an intentional gratitude practice can be an effective antidote for fear. I have found that idea manifests itself in the exact opposite way in my life. Focused, planned, intentional gratitude, especially at this stage of my life, creates more fear – not less. I understand how that may sound. Let me try to explain it this way. When I feel grateful in the moment, it is pure joy. When I reflect and concentrate on all the things I have to be grateful for, fear that I can do something, say something, even think something, wrong and mess it all up becomes overwhelming. Of course this is an irrational thought and I get back to the rational, eventually. It is the getting there that leaves me flat for a while.

Therefore, I have, for the time being, let go of the idea that, for me, a tangible gratitude practice is something I need to implement. These types of realizations – the ones that fly in the face of all the memes, social shares, bumper sticker thoughts – always create open loops for me.

  • Am I simply justifying things to fit what I do or don’t want to do
  • If so many other folks are saying this is “the way,” does that make me wrong
  • Am I the only one that thinks this way

And so on – you get the picture.

While some loops are too much for me to tackle, I try to close as many as I can. I always tackle the justification loop first and head on. This one is the most important to me (maybe) and typically pretty easy (benefit). Intellectual honesty is one of my highest priorities; feel good justification is the exact opposite of that.

Because this fight with gratitude and what it is “supposed” to look like has gone on for so long, I have already closed this loop by testing the theory. I have attempted, repeatedly, to create an active, intentional, gratitude practice. My results have always been the same. Now, one could argue that this testing is flawed because I already had a bias from past encounters with this habit. I will concede the point. I will not concede the results. Because I am not attempting to restructure any broad sweeping mental health protocol, I am good with the “if it works for millions of people, but doesn’t work for me, I am leaving it to those millions and finding my alternative” stance.

The “they” loop comes in many different varieties and surfaces in nearly every topic. The unescapable “they” are always hanging out ready to pounce on challenges (especially if it’s not one they particularly have) and claim enlightened, woke, light bringing, nirvana level achieved, Karen education to your “know better, do better” ignorant ass.

Sidenote: I have seen the push to put “Karen” in the slur category. Maybe tomorrow (probably not). Today, however, I find that ridiculous. Some names just have their place in the world. Karen has been given hers. Is your name Karen and you are not, in fact, a Karen? Don’t become a Karen – hang out with a Richard, he has tons of pointers on how not to be a dick.

Sidenote: Maya Angelou would be devastated (ok, maybe not devastated because she is the incomparable Ms. Angelou) if she saw how the “know better, do better” idea has turned into this perversion of passive aggressive behavior. Therefore, I have not attributed the quote to her as that is not the quote I am using – I am using Karen’s version of the quote. For a full explanation, I introduce you to Jenna.

Anyway, “they”…in all fairness, I don’t really consider them anymore and that, my friends, is a benefit of a healthy relationship with my husband and excellent therapy. The “really” part is the key though. I can’t stop the loop from opening, therefore, I can’t ignore it. I have to do the work:

Me: Oh look, it’s “they” trying to stir up shit again.

Other Me: *Doesn’t look up from iPhone* Who cares?

Me: Well, I think I do a little. I mean what if “they”…

Other Me: Stop

Me: No seriously, what if “they” have a point this time?

Other Me: *facepalm* Ok, say it.

Me: Well, “they” could.

Other Me: Say it.

Me: But…

Other Me: Say. It.

Me: Fuck “they”

Other Me: Thank you…are we done here? Again?

Me: Yes, thank you.

Other Me: Anytime

Sidenote: Other Me is not really a bitch. She just has a lot to do in my brain trying to control The Many.

Then there is the “am I alone in this” loop. Once I have closed the justification and “they” loops, this one is pretty much over. It moves from a question couched in fear to one interested in connection with other folks – for the benefit of both myself and others who may also feel like they are less than because of an idea they have that doesn’t fit a bumper sticker.

Ok, this free flow brain stuff works…except I have gone on long enough today…the stairs will have to wait until another time. Thanks for hanging out 😊

Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: , ,

I am a Terrible Person

April 15, 2019 by

Saying what’s true, or rather working through what feels true to get to what is actually true, fucks me up sometimes. It actually fucks me up a lot of the time. I am working on getting comfortable with what is rather than my judgement (or the judgement of others) of what should be. Those thoughts, those feelings, rather than the actual thing itself will tug my heart, strain it to the point that my feels and my tear ducts try to take their turn.

I sat on the porch with myself for quite some time. He looked at me and said, “What’s wrong?”

I love that about him, by the way. Even when he is pretty sure he knows what my problem is (and he is almost always right), he never assumes. He doesn’t try to make me simple in his head so he can manage me. He doesn’t skip the part of the conversation where I have to own what I feel at least enough to say it out loud to him. He doesn’t save me from my fear that I will say something he will find distasteful. He doesn’t try to live for me in an attempt to make me comfortable for him. He insists that I do these things for myself. You wouldn’t think there was so much packed into asking a question you probably already know the answer to, but there is.

We talked for awhile about ancillary woes. He let me move through my process of getting to the thing. Finally, I didn’t look at him (of course, I’d like to tell you I looked square in his handsome face and declared my truth – that isn’t how it happened). “I think I might be a terrible person or at the very least, not a very good one. I don’t think I feel the way a normal person feels.”

And that’s it really. If you take 100 things I get twisted up in my brain about, I would bet at least 50% of them (modest guestimation as I don’t want to exaggerate and I certainly am not going to launch an inventory) pare down to “I think I might be a terrible person or, at the very least, not a very good one. I don’t think I feel the way a normal person feels.”

Here’s the funny thing – and seriously, I don’t care how this sounds – out of all the feels I catch, that one is probably the most ridiculous. Allow me to set down my loosely held humility card for a minute and be clear. If there is anything I know about myself unequivocally, it is that I am a good person.

Now, that isn’t to say I don’t have a good row with my share of selfishness, pettiness, judgement, and many other baser emotions. I absolutely do. I am human after all, and a flawed one at that. Catch me in a bad moment, push the wrong buttons, pull the wrong strings and I have been known to behave less than my raising. But, at my core, I am a good person. The idea that I could be labeled as otherwise is Ludacris (and my autocorrect totally just made that the rapper and not the word and for reasons that I just can’t pinpoint, I am not compelled to change it.)

All that being true, once again on my back porch, I battled with the idea that I was, in fact, a terrible person. And, because one of my greatest goals in life is to be great for him, I knew I had to get to the point where I said it out loud. Because here is another feel almost as ludicrous as the other; I am actually afraid he will agree with me. I am afraid I will say that I am feeling some less than emotion and he will either realize some inner truth about me and be disgusted, or seize the opportunity to finally tell me how he really feels. Either way, I am ruined.

Roll your eyes, I don’t give a shit. I would rather you roll your eyes at my absolute and acknowledged crazy than to go one more day pretending I have something together that I do not. I spent a lot of years that way. It turns that’s a real good way to turn fake crazy into real crazy. Yeah, I’m out.

Anyway, I looked him dead in the other direction and said “I think I might be a terrible person or at the very least, not a very good one. I don’t think I feel the way a normal person feels.”

I could feel him looking at me. I could feel him looking at me in such a way that said, “I am not going to stop looking at you until you look at this expression on my face.” This is a nonverbal conversation that happens between us regularly. But I wouldn’t turn. I was immensely engrossed in the leaf on the tree that was holding on to its branch as desperately as I was holding on to my courage. I hear him say, “look at me.” While you can ignore what might be a nonverbal feeling, an actual request requires acknowledgment. My head turn is met with a solid “bitchpleaseareyouseriousyougottobekiddingme” face.

Funny thing about that. I believe he is being completely honest with me. His complete and utter dismissal of my lack as a person takes every bit of fear I have in sharing this revelation and transforms it into a fierce defense of the feeling regardless of its validity. Yeah, he’s a saint.

“I am serious,” I insist. “A normal person wouldn’t feel this way. A normal person would not be okay. A normal person would feel something different. I think I am broken. I think there is something wrong with me.”

I was grateful when I saw his face change from the “maybe I can make her laugh at the ridiculousness” to the “okay, so we are doing this” look.

“I think that you are just stronger than most. You are able to do things that other people just aren’t built for. You are going to handle what needs to be handled. You always do. That doesn’t make you a terrible person. That makes you the best person I know.”

Okay, some intellectual honesty here. The quotes are used to designate mostly what he said. It’s edited to eliminate some name dropping, situation specifics, and other stuff that is important to us but not for public consumption and would just distract from the main point.

The main point is, by the way, I do forget who I am sometimes. Either due to the opinions of others or because of the Many in my own head. I don’t think I’m far off in my thinking that most of us do.  Having a partner who is gifted in reminding you who are when you forget is a gift. Being able to hear it is a product of the work. Both together, well, that’s just worthy of next level gratitude.

Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fixing April

January 10, 2019 by

One of the healthiest decisions I ever made (that I honestly didn’t even realize I was making) was the choice to leave my menstrual cycle alone.

(Edit – keep reading. Turns out we aren’t talking about periods at all today)

I really wasn’t going to lead with that, but I figured I should go ahead and just put it out there. I realize it’s 2019 but there are still some folks who are funny about talking about that kind of thing and I respect it. I didn’t want them to get a little bit in and feel ambushed by hormones and biology.

Anyway, I really thought I was going to start out by telling you about when I started taking the pill. Funny thing about that – I can’t remember. I just assumed that it would have been a pretty big deal to me back in 199whatever and I would recall the memory upon reflection. I can’t. I can’t even tell you if it was high school or the Navy. At some point, I transitioned to the Depo shot, stayed there for a while, and went back to the pill. But I can’t remember the particulars of those times either.

How interesting is it that there was a large chunk of my life I so misunderstood and underappreciated one of my body’s major rhythm and energy centers that I routinely fucked with it flippantly enough that it didn’t even create a lasting memory. Wow. That’s not quite where I thought this was going as it was a detail I hadn’t considered until just now. Makes me even more glad I just went ahead and put the whole period thing out there in the beginning because evidently, I don’t even know where we are headed this morning.

What I do remember is how emotional my second pregnancy was compared to my first. I remember what postpartum depression felt like. I was lucky that it was the second and not the first. Had it been my first maybe I would have dismissed it as normal or labeled it as a failure on my part. It was 2001 after all. The legions of mommy bloggers, Pinterest boards, Facebook groups, and Instagram inspiration weren’t around. Hell, MySpace wasn’t even a thing yet. Double hell, we had just reached the “more adults own cell phones than don’t” mark. Access to information was markedly different.

I knew something was different and it was probably me. April Trepagnier, See the Butterfly

What I lacked in outside information, I made up for in self awareness and experience. I knew this wasn’t what all pregnancies felt like. I knew this wasn’t what bringing home all newborn babies felt like. I knew something was different and it was probably me.

That was my first experience with mental health pharmaceuticals and, in all honesty, it was very helpful. I’m thankful it went as well as it did as it was the time before a person could do a whole lot of research on their own or discuss with a larger group of people. It took the edge off long enough for me to “get myself right” which, gratefully, didn’t take very long. I am nearly certain that can be attributed to my immediate focus on diet and exercise. Of course, I didn’t realize that at the time. I just saw it as the appropriate steps needed to take off the massive amounts of baby weight I had packed on. It worked; the medication was appreciated and short lived.

My head rested on his back, my sobs transferred the weight from my heart to his shoulders. April Trepagnier, See the Butterfly

In 2005 I lost my baby. That was a situation I had no frame of reference for. Again, the internet wasn’t huge. You knew who you knew, and a lot of business was still private. To say I was devastated and unhinged would be an understatement. In fact, it would be 2017, over a decade later, that I would find any comfort, peace, or closure.  On our back porch in the middle of a sunny day, I told him my story, Gracie’s story. My head rested on his back, my sobs transferred the weight from my heart to his shoulders. In 2005 however, I was medicated. Again, it was helpful, and I was thankful. And again, I wasn’t on it for very long. I got pregnant again quickly and stopped taking them.

Prior to that loss would be the last time things were easy for me emotionally. The next decade would bring a roller coaster of life with one real exception – you can see the drops coming on an amusement park ride; not so much with life.

In 2010 I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder II. This piece of information was not devastating. In all actuality, it was a comfort. It settled the air around me for a while. Those who routinely thought less of my personality felt comfortable “letting it be” and were patient in waiting for me “to get right.” It was a box I could step into, a shield I could hold up when judgements got to be overwhelming.

Unfortunately, it required me to agree that something was “wrong with me” and I had to take the steps to “fix it.” For the first time doctors were attempting to figure out which meds would effectively make me, at a person level, “better” instead of supporting me while I worked through a tough spot.

The last go at “fixing April” was Seroquel. It is an antipsychotic commonly used to treat depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. In my body, it was a nightmare. For three days, from the time my kids left for school until after lunchtime, I would sit, white knuckle clutching the arms of a chair, trying desperately to remember that I did not really want to hurt myself or someone else. After the first day, I called the doctor and was told the meds just needed time to even out. After the third day I flushed it all down the toilet. I didn’t have whatever amount of time those meds needed.

At this point, the internet is moving along pretty good. I start trying to learn if there is a way to fix myself. I refuse anymore prescriptions – even my birth control. I focus again on diet and exercise. I learn about mindful cognitive behavior. I’m vegan for over a year. I finish a 50 mile run. I discover chiropractic care and acupuncture. I get a great therapist. The only medicine I agree to is to control my high blood pressure because, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to do it on my own. Even then, I am guarded and questioning. The one time the docs tried to increase my dosage as the effectiveness was waning, I declined in favor of giving my acupuncturist a go at it first. She handled it.

I burnt it all down. What would stay would stay and what wouldn’t, well, it just wouldn’t. April Trepagnier, See the Butterfly

I wish I could tell you I got real and strong and balanced. I didn’t. I got scared. The more effective and healthy I became, the more I realized I was never “broken” to begin with. But that truth didn’t coincide at all with the reality I was living. Worse, it was beginning to become very apparent that they never would. I was turning 40 and had been battling with myself for over a decade. I was scared to choose between the woman I was and the woman I was. That is not a typo. So, I burnt it all down. What would stay would stay and what wouldn’t, well, it just wouldn’t.

For what it’s worth, that was not the approach the therapist suggested. In fact, she strongly urged against it. But call it impatient, weak, scared, frustrated, whatever, I did not have one more measured step in me. I was too scared, too tired, and too over it.

What stayed was my desire to be better, my want of happy, my love of humanity, my need to know myself. What didn’t was the box, the shield, and the bipolar diagnosis. It took several months to let the embers of my inferno cool off, but when the dust settled, the diagnosis was rescinded. Turns out I wasn’t cycling through mood swings. I simply had allowed myself to attempt to function in an unfunctioning environment for far too long.

I will include the passage I encountered in my reading this morning that prompted this whole thing…but it probably won’t make any sense. I am already over 1300 words in and I really just wanted to tell you about how acupuncture fixed my damn periods and how embracing my natural cycle allows me to feel more connected to my Wild Woman nature. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

“Over time, we have seen the feminine instinctive nature looted, driven back, and overbuilt. For long periods it has been mismanaged like the wildlife and the wildlands. For several thousand years, as soon and as often as we turn our backs, it is relegated to the poorest land in the psyche. The spiritual lands of the Wild Woman have, throughout history, been plundered or burnt, dens bulldozed, and natural cycles forced into unnatural rhythms to please others.”

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves
Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: , , , , ,

Making a Home, to Live, in the Now

April 19, 2018 by

The Thinking ChairMy Thinking Chair is the gift that keeps on giving. I bought it and introduced you to it in 2016. That was the year I turned 40. That was the year I did a lot of things. My Thinking Chair comforted and inspired. Consoled and protected. It is the space where I am able to continually create new space.

We have talked about one of my Thinking Chair activities where I go through the things I wrote in the time from ago and evaluate them in the light of the now. I finally came across the piece where I described buying and living in my Thinking Chair. I shared the actual dictionary definition of the word “live” and explained how I remain alive in my Thinking Chair choosing that definition of “live” as more appropriate for the feelings at hand.

That piece came to me again in its due time. The second definition was untouched in that previous piece written in the time ago as it held little to no resonance for me then.

make one’s home in a particular place or with a particular person

This idea did not feel attainable for my life during much of my 30’s. In fact, in that last year of my thirties I was far more active in tearing down the facade of a home I tried to build as it had become Munchkin Land crushing to a heart that was feeling unrecognizably more like the Wicked Witch everyday.

For a moment I thought that was what I was becoming – bitter, unhappy, cold, unrecognizable, distant. That isn’t my skin. That isn’t my way. That isn’t my heart. That isn’t my home. It had to become the time from ago or I would lose the person I was always supposed to be. I decided I would rather be homeless than live in a home that wasn’t mine.

It isn’t lost on me that I chose to leave the definition I would not acknowledge in the time from ago only to happen back upon it in the now when my heart is open to it. I appreciate the wisdom of my past self even if I wasn’t always the best at paying attention to all the smart things she had to say. The gift finds me in 2018, in this life, in the now, that I live with my love and heart in tact. I see the rest of the definition.

make one’s home in a particular place or with a particular person

First off, if you have read any of this with the “home = house” disposition, stop and read it again without it. Accept my apologies that I didn’t mention it sooner. Accept then again that I do not feel compelled to edit this to put that little clarifier higher up in the reading. I can’t pinpoint the reason I refuse to do that edit. It just feels wrong some how and I don’t particularly feel compelled to question it any more than that.

Now that I can see this definition of “live” in concert with the capability of feeling a real sense of home, the word “or” smacks me in the face. I don’t like it. I don’t want to choose place or person to describe this freedom of “live” or this comfort of creating home. Then I realize it’s fine. While it only takes either to fit the dictionary definition, who is to say you can’t have the “and”? Maybe because I feel I am filling both qualifiers, the bigness I feel in the “live” is understandable.

A lot of work has gone into the achievement of skin comfort. I am proud of it. I relapse far less often than I use to. Exponentially so. It is a powerful feeling to understand and appreciate ones worth and to honor the self just as she is. I now live in my skin in a real way. I enjoy the home I have created in that place. It no longer feels foreign or unfamiliar.

I have made this home with the love of a man who is more supportive than I ever could have imagined another person being. I realize there is supposed to be some sort of self creation and self propulsion in this era of “I can do it all my damn self”. I have addressed that already and I still make no apologies. I found the one for whom my soul was made before either of us were smart enough to know what to do about that. Our paths did what they did and I am forever grateful that we were able to find our way back to this place of home.

He once told me that during the years we were apart, he would call my name in the moments before he fell asleep. He didn’t know why he did it, but he had developed a method for putting me back into the box that my memory escaped from when his mind was trying to find rest. For all the times I have now fallen asleep in his arms, I have never once heard this happen. Partly in jest, partly in earnest, I suggested to him recently that maybe he was making that story up during the early days of our reconnection. No, he insisted without hesitation. “I think that was just my soul calling out for yours and now it just doesn’t have to do that anymore.”

make one’s home in a particular place or with a particular person

And now in my skin, in his arms, in the comfort of my chair, I live.

 

Filed Under: Chrysalis, The Thinking Chair Tagged With: , , ,

Writing and Keeping Receipts on Myself

April 9, 2018 by

Recently I came across a writing folder that contained my earliest works. I mean like 30 years ago early. I experienced a whole range of emotions flipping through the pages. That is a topic for another day. But I mention it because that feeling of holding a piece of you that you had long since forgot about is a part of why this text from a friend struck me as holding way more meaning than she probably considered.

I looked at a few of the pieces. It occurred to me that while they really weren’t that good, maybe they could be. Maybe that could be a long term project of idea mining and rewriting into something that is actually readable. Maybe I could tap back into the spirit and rework the attempt and make it better.

Then I realized I couldn’t remember writing any of it. I know that it was me. I recognize the format, the paper, the typeset. My name is on them. But I don’t remember the act of actually writing them. It occurred to me how different that was from the project a few months back when I went through all the Turn Around Tuesdays I had written. I could remember all of that. Sometimes I could remember too much.

Then this text came through. “Envious” and “appreciate” jumped out at me. The feeling was a bit overwhelming and it has taken a minute to sort that all out. The text, and my feelings towards it, hold a lot of truth, some of them seemingly contradicting.

First, I am appreciative, both of the text and my writing. I appreciated my friend and her willingness to be a positive influence on my life. I know she is a regular reader of my words and it gave me a sense of pride that she sees growth in it. I do appreciate all the bonuses and benefits that come with being a writer. Much of who I am as a person, who I am able to be, comes from the fact that I can put words together in a way that makes sense to me and untangles all the thoughts. It also allows me to taste ideas, experiences, memories, lessons, in a way that I just can’t any other way. I am supremely appreciative for all those things.

I understand envy as well. I have friends that are accomplished in ways I really want to be but haven’t quite figured out yet. I watch people deal with situations, employ a mental flexibility, that I haven’t quite mastered. I am familiar with the want of that not yet obtained. It is interesting to find that my writing catalog has provoked that, especially when the this huge blessing, like most, has a tiny bit of curse hanging around.

Curse probably isn’t the most appropriate word choice. But it is something akin to that. There is somewhat of a burden that comes with having a great deal of your thoughts manifest themselves in a real way so that later, when you are investigating thoughts, you have this tangible thing from the time before. In essence, I keep receipts on myself.

Today, sitting here, I am more appreciative than I am burdened. As I close this one thought, I am already bursting at the seams to begin another. That, my friends, is a good day indeed.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: , , ,

For the “Other” Moms

March 21, 2018 by

I’m just not that kind of mom.

Even as I said it, I knew that it was both true in the context of the conversation and that I wished there was a different way to explain it. I really wished it didn’t have to be explained at all.

While I understand the mom role naturally changes, I have felt an accelerated shift for myself.  The children are getting older the way children do. They are becoming more self sufficient. They are beginning to have their own pre and new adult situations. Situations that, while somewhat similar to my own coming of age, have enough notable differences to be nearly unrecognizable.

21st century parenting, my friends, is not for the weak.

Next school year will find the baby in middle school and two more high school graduations. My Pinterest feed suggests that I should be an endless fount of tears and runny mascara.

I am not.

Our children are co parented and loved by multiple sets of people. My Instagram and Facebook wall suggests that I should defend my position, stay in my lane, feel guilt over the situation to begin with, and celebrate the putting of oneself first.

I do none of these things.

I am just not that kind of mom.

I am a mom advocate. I absolutely love moms. All different kinds of moms – young, old, helicopter, tiger, free range, formula, breast, co sleep, cribs, empty nester, adoptive, birth, borrowed, stay at home, working, organic, boxed, single, attached, woke, tired, balanced, frazzled, together, hot mess, bowed, laced, legging, designer – whatever. I. Love. Moms.

Outside of being a kid, I am of the opinion that being a mom is arguably one of the hardest things to be in cyberspace. I am hard pressed to think of another group who’s collective is, by nature, amazingly personal and infinitely varied, while simultaneously expected to live up to a complex set of changing, unattainable, and contradictory rules.

To this end, I am becoming super comfortable giving the whole “good mom/bad mom” idea a big “whatthefuckever.”

I have known since the early days of my motherhood journey 21 years ago that, while this little creature was completely dependent on me at the moment, it was neither the way it was going to be, nor the way it was supposed to be for long. This child was, and all the children that came after her were, going to leave me. They, if I was ever so lucky, were going to grow and want, and do, and be. All that would come with a change of phone number, a change of address, and a roof and mailbox that were not mine.

In the meantime, these creatures were not programmable. I could not order them according to specifications. They were not given to me to create in my own image. God had already done that. They came into this world people in their own right. It was my job to provide them the safest, healthiest, resource rich environment where they could feel the freedom to learn who they were in their own skin. I failed routinely. I still fail. But that’s part of the deal too. I cannot be perfect and my children cannot be perfect. In our flaws, we feel grace and compassion for each other. We are in this thing together.

Because of this awareness, I have never felt an ownership over my children. They do not validate or define me as a person. I am infinitely thankful for them. I will defend them with ferocity and would sacrifice my breath happily for theirs. But that is because I love them unconditionally, not because of some uterine relationship I may or may not have.

My mother and I are extremely close. We always have been. I also have always had a variety of strong women in my life who love me and I love in return. My mother never restricted those relationships, made me feel guilty for loving another, or suggested that she felt threatened or betrayed – because she wasn’t. Nothing about any of those relationships changed who she was and who I was. What those relationships did do was give me more experiences, more confidence, more perspective, more love, more more.

I was also able to see a bunch of women mommying differently. Not right, not wrong, just different. As I joined their ranks, I saw more variety, more emotions, more preferences. What I have only come to realize recently is while the outside looks different, I think the source is the same.

Mommies love their babies. And we know, on some level, they are going to leave us and be their own people. The emotion that creates in each of us is different because we are different. I don’t cry on the first day of school. That’s not because I don’t care, it’s simply not an event that makes me feel that kind of way. I know moms who are completely distraught on the first day of school. I love that. It makes me feel better when I think about the time the baby, who I knew would be my last baby, lost her first tooth and I sat on the floor and ugly cried.

I don’t get all up in my feelings when my kid makes a poor life choice. I don’t feel like it is a personal reflection on me or my parenting skills. I do get irritated when they play stupid or become overly self-deprecating and I scold myself for not having more patience. I use my strength in one to encourage moms who are feeling less than and my weakness in the other to remember I am thankful for the moms who mommy different and have my six.

We are all the “other” mom. We are all that kind of mom and not that kind of mom. We are tasked with one of the greatest responsibilities on the planet and that path has an infinite number of options. Sometimes I am not super sure I took the right turn at Albuquerque. But today, I trust myself and I trust my tribe. And I am thankful.

Filed Under: Chrysalis, Family, Parenting Tagged With: , ,

Sidetracked

February 27, 2018 by

This is not what I want to write about this morning. But I am not going to ignore the reasons in which I found myself here to begin with. So, I will sit here and do what I do and see where it goes.

I also haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet. As I reach for it, I realize that thought up there may be expressed in a way that comes off a little harder and frustrated than I actually feel. That’s not quite right. A bit side eyed is exactly how I feel, but not because my intentions were so quickly redirected this morning. The more I think about it, I think it’s just the proximity of the redirection to my first cup of coffee. Anyway…

I woke up this morning with the intention of getting back to Daring Greatly. While getting my coffee and settling into the thinking chair, I had a sliver of an idea that suggested writing prompts were a super good idea. It would add some variety to my subject matter. Variety, it happens, has been something I have been thinking about while playing with the idea that my writings as of late have been a bit indulgent and self centered. I’m not sure that I mind that so much, it is my writing after all, and this little blog isn’t the only thing I am working on. But it was a wonder that came from somewhere so I thought it fair to give it a bit of attention.

I grabbed my Writer’s Companion with the intention of just flipping through it a bit while I let the first bit of coffee do it’s thing, before hanging out with Brene. I opened it up to a random, unintentional place, and this is the first prompt I encounter. 

A lot of different things happened in my brain pretty quickly.

First, I couldn’t believe how the opening line resonated with me. This is literally THE thing I have been wondering about most when it comes to my general headspace and tone in my writing. And then here it is. Laid out like permission, insistence even, from the universe to keep doing the work. I understand that I am particularly open to the “follow this inspiration” idea as it is a central concept in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic – the book which is currently blowing my little brain at the moment.

“Holy shit! Would you look at that,” happens next as I read on and see that it is, in fact, Elizabeth Gilbert who gets the mention in this prompt. That instantly smacks of universal confirmation to continue going deep. To continue to write about those hard, fun, interesting, not so different but feels like a battle things I discover or remember about myself. This is a ton of fun and I’m enjoying my little universal tango.

“Leave our lives behind for indulgent travel?” I am sideways smacked with irritation. I mean the shift is instant and jarring. I actually close the book to see what heifer wrote this trash. Seriously. It occurs to me that this a rather extreme response to something that is pretty innocuous. But, dammit, it feels very nocuous. I mean for real. You think the best way to describe a person’s account of blowing up lives and relationships because you literally see no other way to save yourself from being completely obliterated under all the “ought tos” and you’re pretty sure if you don’t do something your soul is going to be lost to the great unknown forever so you pack up and travel to foreign places where you are alone and have to figure out what in the hell you did and what in the hell you are going to do now is with the words “leave our lives behind for indulgent travel?” Get the fuck out of here.

I am beginning to feel something of a temper tantrum toddler, so I slow down a bit. I understand that I hold a lot of appreciation for Elizabeth Gilbert and her writing. Eat, Pray, Love changed the way I look at writing and authenticity and “ought tos.” Committed helped me work through, in pretty quick fashion, a fairly brain tangled spot in the journey from the life before to the life now. And Big Magic, well, that’s just been amazing. So the truth is I felt like someone had said something super judgy and condescending about a girlfriend to my face. That, I recognize, is ridiculous on two main fronts. First, Elizabeth Gilbert is not someone I know personally. Second, neither is Amy Peters. I am currently all up in my feelings about a statement that was probably well intended towards someone who may very well see it as such herself.

But neither do I discount the discord. I have an understanding that not all feelings express truth. All feelings are indicative of a truth, but what is felt on the surface isn’t always the thing. It is my job to figure out the difference and get to the root of the thing.

After I have stepped back from it, I am glad I allowed this momentary derailment of my morning plans to do what it wanted. I am glad I was open to whatever it was. I am glad that when it felt uncomfortable (even if that uncomfortable wasn’t of any real consequence) I didn’t shy away from it. Understand I completely realize what a small thing all of this is. But it gave me an example to draw from whenever I get up in my feelings about assuming someone else’s motive, think I have any control over how things I create are received once I release them, feel like closing myself off from the gentle suggestions of my thoughts. And that is worth a couple hours of sidetracked.

 

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