And I have dawned these great dark seas and jungles before
They have long come for me. I have twisted in their wrath and shook in their cold as the sweat of their toxins ran down my brow
You who seeks to protect me while destroying me, what are you truly seeking?
For your paranoia has made you a fool. A tyrant, yeast in its palm.
Calling yourself holy while riddled with holes seeping poison.
I am the keeper of this forest of green. My winds are strong, the brown of my dirt is beastly, and the shake of my ground is earth shattering.
So, who are you to call upon my land? You bring your dented sword to fight the poachers while simultaneously leading them straight to my centers.
Sometimes you want so much to be the keeper, to be the wrath of good, to be the honest gallant, but find that while fighting these hard battles and stepping with agony through each field, that you are the villain you’ve been running from.
So, step aside and let this evil you bring with you come for me. Kneel while they tear me flesh from flesh. Turn away your head while gnash my teeth away.
Let. Them. Come.
For they know who I am.
I have spent much in solitude in preparation for your treachery.
My heart guarded with the thickest of water from the deepest and darkest seas.
If I fall in defeat, you will still be there kneeling, and you and your army will be swallowed by my earth. You will drown in the water of my roots and in turn, revive me again.
And there I shall be in my forest of green yet again, with you beneath my beastly brown, and sentenced to a lifetime of earthquakes beneath my worn feet.
It’s the power in the breaking of a heart that can create the strength that opens your eyes.
It’s the revelation of a moment realized when you are taking that necessary time to be alone with yourself, so you can learn how to be alone with yourself.
It’s the confidence of the first step forward, when you finally stand on your own two feet once again.
It’s the strut in that step when you step back into the jump rope of life that kept on moving without you.
It’s the humbleness of faith, even when bad news stacks on top of bad news.
It’s the smile in the eyes, when you come across someone who completely steals your heart, when you never expected to share it with anyone again.
It’s the butterflies when you are finally face to face in the perfect moment, and your lonely lips meet another’s so sensually.
It’s the birds chirping on a superbly painted mountainside as you walk hand in hand down the trail.
It’s the dogs meeting, and it seeming like they had known each other since birth.
It’s the yearning for another moment when you are apart.
It’s the poetic justice of a finely swooped love letter.
It’s the sexy well-placed hand on your back as you feel heat fill the room.
It’s the waiting for the right time, and being ok with that.
It’s the getting to know every part of them and yourself with them, before intimacy.
It’s the problem solving when obstacles arise.
It’s the soft candles, perfect music, great conversation and that specific kind of kiss.
It’s the ravishing each other after all of the waiting, knowing that it’s right.
It’s the long-lasting, sexy moans, thrusting, and rolling around, and the tracing of the body so attentive.
It’s the after ambiance, holding hands, smiling, and feeling right for the first time in a long time in your life.
It’s making hard choices, and not being afraid to for once, knowing there’s a partner there to back you up.
It’s the support through scary times, taking care of each other, and feeling grateful to do it.
It’s the forgiveness when mistakes are made.
It’s the compromise when differences are discovered.
It’s the can’t wait to see you. You can’t wait to see me.
It’s the sharing a home together, making a home together, and loving what that looks like.
It’s the present moment. Living moment by moment, soaking it all in.
It’s the true love. It’s the leave me wanting. It’s the knowing…knowing you’re right where you’re supposed to be, right at this very moment.
It’s the blessing, after some lessons, and it’s mine.
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.
It’s amazing when a hard, unexpected rain falls down, that that’s right when you have no umbrella. Life is very much like that. Family is very much like that. And most of all, love is very much like that.
In theory, most want love and family, friends and a social life, and great success in life. However, there are some of us out there that find it profoundly moot to follow the same path over and over expecting different results.
It’s absolutely exhausting trying so hard to complete a pattern in your life with a fruitful end. True colors always show, and not many are truly capable of being selfless over selfish, although there are a select few, I will even admit. And in this real world, well, that’s a definitely deal breaker, being on the weighted selfish side of the stomping.
So, here I sit, alone per usual. Obviously a little bitter, and maybe even borderline pouting, and not afraid at all of expressing it. Currently extremely doubtful of a crowd-filled future, and seeing clearly the value and stone coldness of truth. But also humbled by the experience.
I’ve turned all of the lights off in my house. I’m quite sure it’s for multiple reasons. One being that I am all but nearing jump off of the cliff of losing everything, and lights turned off equals less power being used on planet USA. [Insert the echoes of my grandfather’s voice scolding me to turn the lights off at 10, here.]
However, I would say the reason that takes precedence over all others would be the fact that here, alone in this house, I wanted only the glow of the candles I have lit. Or the topper lit up at the top of my undecorated Christmas tree. I can bare no more light than that on this bitter night. It makes me feel less small, less abandoned, less sad.
And now, take part in this pity party with me.
I have never experienced such a deafness in my small world, as those around you hearing your cries of sadness and projected fear, and merely turning their head as if there’s something God-awful in my teeth. But, I regress. I, probably more than anyone, know that there are some paths in your life that are roughly designed for one. And I wholly and wildly accept that.
I also acknowledge that I’ve spent a huge majority of my life purposely pushing people away, needing isolation and enjoying being alone. But when you are sick, it’s different feeling. There is a complete difference in enjoying being alone, and being so very lonely. I realize that now more than ever. It’s humbling. A truly faith-sucking experience and not personally recommended by me for self-revelation.
I love everyone. But in another way, I have given up on everyone. I don’t expect them to understand. Because I never allowed them to, and that’s my own fault. They mean the world to me, in ways they couldn’t possibly understand. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I feel entirely let down, and lost on how to fix that. I would find it easier to go back in time and do it differently, rather than try and fix it now.
I guess, all I can really do is keep continuing to press on as I have. Remaining strong for the one person I have here looking to me to make sure everything stays ok. Even though, deep down, I don’t even know what that means anymore. I’m not truly angry or as bitter as I let on. I love everyone fully with my entire heart. And honestly, I know the trials of life can take us in 50 different directions. We get caught up in our own stuff, and sometimes, we forget that maybe there’s someone out there, very close to us, suffering, scared, and just needing to be told, “Hey, I am here, and I love you.” And, “You’re doing good.”
Well, I am here. And I love you. And you’re doing amazing. Whoever you are out there reading this….
The Truth and the Lies of the Journey 