but only to sledgehammer them away with breaths of unfathomable strength.
Unleash the beast within you,
lying dormant in wait for you to believe in the gifts that you yourself hold the power to.
The weights of this world have nothing on a beautiful,
relentless,
untouchably powerful,
sexy,
woman warrior.
Take that power,
face the demons in your mind,
and those standing in the vicinity of you,
and say the word that will send them to their final resting place…
Freedom.”
When I wrote this, I had no idea it would become a mantra that I would find myself reading back to myself time and time again. I actually wrote it to encourage and empower a girlfriend of mine. It’s crazy how, as writers, sometimes we can write things that are meant for others, and the individual piece ends up changing our own worlds.
It is true as women, we haven’t always felt as though we are at the top of the food chain. At times, just based on our genders, we are shoved aside, not picked or not first pick for the careers that we are the most qualified for, ignored by majorities under the assumption that we are dumb, underestimated on a daily basis, and largely just expected, even in 2021, to simply pop out children and stand in the kitchen.
Ladies, retribution is in a firm, brave, and courageous flip of your hair. A stance of a warrior. A sway of a big, beautiful, wide set of thick-woman hips strolling down this path with a strong mission. We don’t always recognize the power that lies within us. It is there. Waiting for us to grab it and use it. Waiting for us to own it.
I will always wear my scars like a beautiful lipstick. Smooth in color, strength in a smile, and unstoppably confident knowing that at any given time, I could power up, look myself in the mirror, and know that even in a battle for one, I am the lion who comes out last.
I’ve been zoning out again, in my head, feeling inspired, or maybe it’s just pure stress. Either way, here I am. I find that during this time, could be a great time if you listen very closely to the small faint voices in your spirit, and all around you, for it to be possible to hear answers you were seeking, and sometimes didn’t even know you were seeking. It is also a time when you can replay your day, and deal with things you may have been putting off dealing with. A time for evaluation and soul stirring moments if you let it really soak in.
So, here I am.
On a day like today, it is so easy to droop down in your seat and feel sorry for yourself. However, it is sobering to instead, to look at yourself in the mirror and admit that you are not the best version of yourself. Try as you may, you may find that small blips of what you did or didn’t do have all but led you right here. But it’s also nice to know that as you look at yourself, as far as long-term relationships in your life, you have done all you can to solidify and reassure those, times two. And also have done everything you can to fully invest yourself into these relationships. And in recognizing that, it is important to reach a destination inside of that thinking and accepting that no matter what you want in a lot of those situations, sometimes goodbye is the last action needed, if a resolution still has not presented itself.
Profound right? Ha! So, what if these relationships are more complicated than just a simple goodbye? Like a last page you just can’t seem to turn so you can close the book.
But I regress. Because the truth is, we don’t ever really get back what we put out do we? I guess that if you are being selfless, then you really shouldn’t be expecting anything in return really.
I bite my tongue a lot. I sit back in my mind and am sometimes flabbergasted at the way people just spew out of their mouths the first vomit that chokes up, without ever considering that you may be standing on that cliff with only the back of your heels left planted on the edge because the weight of everything is leaning you forward. And, the wind is blowing you so brutally that you don’t really want to fight it much anymore. Maybe they don’t realize that the simple phone call you make to them in the middle of the workday, or the middle of the week, is your soul’s way of just trying to cry out to them. Just to say, I’m scared. I’m small. I’m feeling beat down. Or they post on social media things they don’t realize actually really hurt you. Or they don’t even call when it’s public knowledge that you are 100% not well. But people don’t think that way. Especially when it’s not them going through it. Humans are selfish and disgusting creatures.
You can feel them judging you. Why aren’t you working? Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you doing that? It’s so easy to do that isn’t it? To push those hurtful questions on someone who isn’t you. Especially when they truly will never know the extent of what you’re going through.
Or to think you know better for my child too because you think you could have done it better? Nah. In order to know exactly how everything would’ve turned out with you doing it instead, you would need to go back and live every moment. Starting from being the abused pregnant mom-to-be, to the abused new mom, all the way through each and every heartache your child went through, the bullying, rejections, watching your child be admitted into a mental ward and having to leave her there, the autism diagnosis, multiple mental health diagnosis’s since then, daily suicide talks, daily crying, cutting. Do you know what it’s like to have to go in your house and take every sharp object, or things that could be considered weapons, and any form of medications, buy a padlock, and lock everything up with a key? Or the horrible emptiness in a house the first week you bring them home from that hospital and what torment is trapped in your house? and I could go on and on. You absolutely can’t say you would do it differently or better unless you go back and live in every second of our lives, of my life. You just can’t.
Up until some people made me think different, I had always been thoroughly proud of the mother I was. Proud of coming through what I did and still loving and caring for my daughter unconditionally, always doing my best, although admittedly, it wasn’t much sometimes. A lot of kids that have mothers who have been through what I have, don’t get so lucky. So, I’ve always been proud of at least that small accomplishment. Well, at least until the past few years. At the end of each day, I have only tried to do the best I can with what I have. And I hope one day, my daughter is able to look at it that way and find a way to be proud of me.
You have to, especially if you are sick and limited to the amount of anger and emotional intake you are allotted each day, make the word acceptance a massive part of your everyday life. You have to really get to know yourself on a level you never dreamed of wanting to. Because in the end of each “middle of the night, hard day, faint voices, spirituality time,” it is inevitably you that you are there sitting with.
Personally, a lot of nights, being alone with me is hard. And that’s hard to describe. Because I absolutely don’t hate myself. I think no matter which way I went or roads I took, I would have ended in this same place, here, with myself. However, I want to make myself clear. I am unapologetically fucking sick. I don’t have to beg you to believe it, or care about how you feel about it anymore. I may live 100 more years, and I hope I do. But what a shame if I don’t? Well, shame for you, not me. I’ll be dead. (Insert wink)
One thing I do love about these new standards I’ve set, and these new lines I’ve drawn in the sand, is that I don’t have to settle anymore. I won’t limit myself to life-sucking friendships, drama, and complete two-faced bitchery and fakery! I can take my time and only accept people into my life whom I have things in common with, and who put just as much into things as I try to. A whole new story to write.
I am finally ready to rid myself of the outside bacteria that has long held me back. I don’t have to deal with it anymore. That is at least one think I can finally say I’m free from. And if you know me, that’s so huge.
Cusps of a wrist slit, and all of a sudden you meet a person who changes your mindset. Maybe you meet someone like that daily, weekly, or sometimes, it’s a once in a lifetime meet.
A somber song about whiskey blares out of another car at the pump station, and you think of the last whiskey binge you had giggling to yourself at the tripping of your feet, the way your clothes still smelled of campfire the next morning, and how you can’t quite remember how you showered before bed, but you did.
In these moments, it’s as though the hourglass flips over again to give us another go at it. Laughable and angering at times, because some of those cusps of a wrist slit moments are the only moments in your life where you were 100% decisive about something.
But no matter, because here you sit at the pump station, stealing the music notes of another, as if illegally downloading it to memory. Now, briefly cringing at the thought of understanding exactly what they are saying, and smiling at the prospect of it.
You laugh to yourself as it really hits you. No one has time for your nonsense like you have had for theirs. You recall endless phone calls, endless support on your end, seemingly withered away due to the annoyance of your constant mockery of a life and your bottomless chaos. Yet, you still see beauty in this tarnish.
You now design your brain another future night of whiskey, and you know just who it will be with. That brings a great comfort and even an excitement of what new whiskey adventures await you to piece together once they have came to pass.
You put the car in drive, roll the windows down, and secretly cheers to the silence. For the confinements of your mind, if nothing else, have gifted you the comfort of yourself.
Beautiful and raw, broken and wanting, sexy and explicitly ripped wide open, and smiling through it, even if only for these brief moments.
Love, even if it’s with your drunken body. Runs circles around the fire and all at once, jump over it. Savor a whiskey-fueled kiss with passion and smoke. Peel away your layers and dance naked and free. And cheers to you, on every whiskey Saturday.
The Truth and the Lies of the Journey 