lmvschmidt

GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

when are you gonna come down? when are you going to land? I should have stayed on the farm, I should have listened to my old man… you know you can’t hold me forever, I didn’t sign up with you, I’m not a present for your friends to open, this boy’s too young to be singing the blues…

Hello there! It’s been a minute. I know I keep saying that, but I really mean to be writing more. If you read my last few posts then you know I’ve been going through some stuff. Nothing serious, just dealing with some heavy shit that’s been eating away at my guts for like, my entire life. And trying to clear it all out, after the fact, has been a bitch, but I’m working through it. I told you I was going to do my best to lighten things up as we move on, so that’s what I’m here to do.

Being inside your own head 24/7 is absolutely exhausting. I recently joined Cerebral and am working on fixing the anti anxiety meds that I’m on. Tweaking them so that they also take the depression down a notch, and you know, help me function. So far, I think it’s working? I put a question mark at the end of that sentence because I’m not really sure yet. I’m still dealing with all the little side effects of upping the dose that I was on. But for the most part, I’m not really numb anymore. I haven’t had to physically peel myself off of the couch in a week or so, so that’s definitely an improvement. I haven’t felt really rage-y. So these little things that I’ve noticed are all steps in the right direction. And the best part is, if I feel like it’s not working, I am actually working with 2 different people on the app who can help me. And that makes me feel a little less alone with the difficult time I was previously having.

Anyway, my husband and I started watching this new show “Kevin Can F*ck Himself” on AMC. We started watching it because Annie Murphy is the lead. You know her as Alexis on Schitt’s Creek, but you absolutely can NOT go into it thinking she will be anything like Alexis because you will miss everything great about this show. I’m not going to get into all of the details because I’m highly recommending that you watch it. Anything I write here won’t do it justice. The show has 2 sides to it. And there is no question, whatsoever, about whether you’ll be able to notice while watching. The short explanation is that she is a sitcom wife who, on the sitcom side of it, gets treated like a typical sitcom wife. All the punchlines revolve around how stupid she is, when in all actuality, her husband is a fucking idiot. But then, the sitcom part goes away, and you see this really dark side of her. The cinematography on it is exquisite. Any recap or review about it talks about how crazy it is that it can go from stage lights and laugh tracks to really dark and creepy so seamlessly.

This isn’t a tv show review blog. I swear. But this show has me thinking. Not about killing my husband like she does. My husband isn’t a fucking idiot, nor does he treat me like one. I literally can’t live without him. What it has me thinking about is the double life that most of us lead. Now, it doesn’t have to be that dramatic, the show is centered around that specific plot, so it works. But most of us do lead a double life. You have the person that you project outward, into the world and the person who you are or feel like on the inside. You have your home life and your work life. You have your lifelong friends and your work or school friends. Some know you better than you know yourself and some of them know what you allow them to know.

Going through the hard parts of depression and anxiety could also be classified as another life that you lead. I get up and go do all of the things I’m supposed to do. I go to my job and I do the work I’m supposed to do. I don’t sit at my desk with signs up that say “don’t talk to me, I’m in a dark head space right now”. I project the person that the people around me need me to be. In the grand scheme of things, I’m there to do a job so I do it to the best of my ability. When I clock out for the day, I can switch that version of myself off and go be the anxious sad sack that I’ve been tucking away all day. I mean, there’s so much more to life than that and you really just have to know that you will get through it. It sucks right now because it’s the thing that is in your face all the time and it’s annoying and messy. I don’t have a very serious case of depression but mental illness runs in my family and it terrifies me. I don’t ever want to get to the point where I can’t cope with it so I scare myself straight and do what I have to do to get out of it. And I know that I’m lucky that I can do that, even if it’s just speaking to someone about fixing the medication I’m on.

It’s all about the dark and light in life. You have to know that in the darkness you absolutely can find the light. But you have to want to find it. And on this fictional show where light and dark are so prominent and literally show how the person is acting on the outside and so drastically feeling on the inside, it really puts things into perspective for me. It makes me grateful that I have people in my corner. That I have people who know the real me and are there for me anyway. Even when I’m so unlovable, they find a way to show me that I’m loved. They break through the dysfunctional mental mess that I’ve created around myself. That is the light in my darkness.

Whoa, pump the breaks. I’m not sure if that was light or dark, but I made it weird in that last paragraph. My bad.

Anyway… go watch this show. You don’t have to be all extra about it like me. You can just watch it like a normal person. At the very least, you’ll be entertained and be like what the actual fuck is going on? Please let me know your thoughts on it if you do. We don’t have to get all psychoanalytical about it. You can just be like “yea, great show, looking forward to seeing this story play out” and I’ll be like “excellent, glad you like it”.

Also, I used Goodbye Yellow Brick Road because this song is always in my head. Metaphorically, it means so many things and makes me feel hopeful about a lot of shit so I’m leaving it here as a reminder. Also, real quick, I started listening to this podcast called No Place Like Home. It’s about how someone stole one of the original pairs of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz and how the FBI pulled a sting operation 13 years after they were stolen and got them back. So, I’m also going to recommend you listen to that if you’re a Wizard of Oz and/or Judy Garland fan. Ok, ok, no more recommendations for today.

Good night!

so goodbye yellow brick road, where the dogs of society howl… you can’t plant me in your penthouse, I’m going back to my plough, back to the howling old owl in the woods, hunting the horny back toad… oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies beyond the yellow brick road…

Song name: GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD/ Artist: Elton John / Year: 1973

ORPHEUS

I know you miss the world, the one you knew, the one where everything made sense because you didn’t know the truth… that’s how it works, ’til the bottom drops out and you learn we’re all just hunters seeking solid ground…

I have been working my way out of this mental hole that has consumed me for the last few weeks. It’s like, an insane amount of work. I have days where I am pumped to get started and keep it going. And some days I physically cannot remove myself from the couch. Depression and Anxiety are the mental health Mean Girls. Regina George and Gretchen Wieners have nothing on Depression and Anxiety. Depression was never at the forefront of my existence. Anxiety always took the lead. With all the healing and spiritual stuff that I’ve been doing, I’m way more aware of the depression. I am aware of all the signs and symptoms. And now I know when my body is giving me signs to chill. And that I can’t do anything but chill when I see those signs.

I never paid attention to myself. I never gave myself the attention that it needed which is why I’m in this mental place right now. It was always easier to give my whole self to others and try to help them before I would help myself. I have never put myself first, it’s still a weird concept for me. I don’t do it unless I absolutely have to. I have been working on setting boundaries, even if I don’t speak them out loud. I know, in my brain, what needs to be done so that I can function, so I respond differently than I normally would for my own sanity. I don’t outright say I’M SETTING BOUNDARIES RIGHT NOW PLEASE SHUT UP. That’s rude and has nothing to do with the other person. So, I respond differently. And the people who have taken advantage of me and/or used me for their own agenda have noticed. What’s wrong with you?

I love that question. What’s wrong with you? I can’t wrap my brain around someone having the audacity to ask you a question like that. As if life isn’t fucking hard enough! Nothing is wrong with me. I’m just feeling my damn feelings. And I guess that’s what really grinds my gears… I let you feel all your damn feelings, why is it I problem when I do it? When you have made yourself emotionally available for everyone and never yourself, and then you try to give yourself an inch, it’s a problem. Because you’ve always been there and maybe they never realized how much they took your emotional availability for granted. And I’m not saying you need to cut them off, unless you absolutely have to, but you need to be able to give yourself some time and attention.

The last 6 months have been weird but enlightening. I never wanted to pay attention to myself but I’m at the point now where my body won’t let me ignore it. I started listening to myself briefly and my body is eating it up. It got a taste of the attention and now will not accept anything less. I’m hyper aware of everything around me and I don’t really mind it. It’s weird having this enlightening experience and not really knowing where it’s taking me. I’m just trying to be more patient with myself. I have moments of impatience, but I can pinpoint what’s triggering me and flip it. I know that old habits die hard and I just need to keep working on shifting my thoughts. I have gotten really down on myself and let myself feel like a failure for, like, my entire life so that’s something that needs the most work. The feeling doesn’t magically go away on it’s own. Even if you’re working hard to get rid of it, it creeps back in on occasion.

There is a light at the end of this mental tunnel that I’ve been living in. There’s always a light if you want to find it. And I really do. It’s taking me a little longer this time around because I can’t stuff the feelings down anymore. Being forced to feel them has been difficult, but I got this. I tell myself things like “you are safe”, “you are loved”, “you matter”, “you are not worthless”. I know these seem like really mundane things but if you tell yourself enough, they’ll eventually start to resonate. In the off chance that you feel yourself slipping back in to worthlessness, you have to remember that you’re not. Once you get to neutral with yourself, you won’t need the validation from outside sources. I mean, that’s always a plus, but it shouldn’t be your driving force.

If you’ve been reading along on this blog journey, I apologize for all of the time that has passed between posts. These last few weeks have been rough, but I’m making my way out. And I’m really proud of myself for wanting to move through it, feel it and then let it go. It’s taking a little longer than I would like, but I’m getting there. And I look forward to the day that I can look back and see that all of this is way behind me…

don’t stop trying to find me here amidst the chaos… though I know it’s blinding there’s a way out, say out loud, we will not give up on love now… no fear, don’t you turn like Orpheus, just stay here, hold me in the dark and when the day appears we’ll say, we did not give up on love today…

Song name: ORPHEUS/ Artist: Sara Bareilles / Year: 2019

HEAVY

I don’t like my mind right now, stacking up problems that are so unnecessary, wish that I could slow things down, I wanna let go, but there’s comfort in the panic… and I drive myself crazy thinking everything’s about me, yeah, I drive myself crazy ’cause I can’t escape the gravity…

I want to start off by saying that this post might be heavy. I mean, the song I used is called heavy, but that’s because the lyrics make sense. But I’m just going to go where the writing takes me. I have been completely out of touch for the last week and a half. Mentally, I just haven’t been doing great. I have tried to write this post at least 6 times. Each version seemed pettier than the one before it. It’s a subject that needs to be talked about but where I was in my head was a little dark. Darker than I have been used to lately, so everything I tried to write was dark. I don’t want to be that dark, especially here, so I needed to do a little work and figure out how I wanted to address this topic and sound like an actual adult woman.

I want to talk about the importance and significance of a healthy father-daughter relationship. It literally shapes every ounce of a woman’s life. It is her blueprint and everything she will get out of life starts off with that relationship. This is not a topic I like to discuss much, but the way a father behaves towards his daughter affects her every single day of her life. I have done a shit ton of research on it because the relationship between my father and I is borderline toxic. If you want to go into that rabbit hole, Google is free.

I am an adult woman and I’m taking responsibility for my life. This isn’t a post about blaming anyone, it’s about my journey and where I am right now. I know everyone has their own issues, it’s just when those issues were forcefully instilled into your livelihood because your parent didn’t do the work on themselves that life, for you, can become a problem. You don’t even realize it because that’s just what your life has been. And it has to be okay with you because you don’t know any better.

It’s the psychology of it all that really messes with me. I’m fine, whatever I deem that to be, the majority of the time. The most random things take me from fine to not fine and vice versa. There are things that are sewn into your DNA and you can’t see them so you don’t know they are there. So, sometimes, really stupid things manage to fuck with you. It’s absolutely infuriating. Especially if you are trying to make changes in your life and don’t understand why some of those changes just won’t stick. My mental issues run the gamut and it’s only now that I’m realizing how badly I have been affected by things that should not have affected me. It’s not playing the victim. It’s adding it all up and realizing the emotional abuse or lack of emotion is making you one. Maybe not to someone who has had it much worse, but it’s scarring none the less. And you wake up one day, realizing just how late you are to this fucking party, and you’re like “hold on, you mean I’m not worthless and I do matter?”

I briefly wrote about the unknown affects our parents’ behavior has on us in FADE. It’s just one cycle after another because their parents did it to them, and so on. Just like you, they didn’t know any better. And I’m sure I’m not the only 40 something (maybe younger or older) who is just now trying to navigate through life without a clue, but you have to want to do better than the generation that came before you. You can’t keep spewing the same shit between generations and expect that you’re going to skate through life without anyone trying to fight you on it. We didn’t get to where we are in 2021 without there being some changes, right? This year alone has showed us that it’s possible. With the exception of the handful of people (we all know at least one) who refuse to change. It’s not my problem to worry how those people sleep at night. They can worry about how they are the dying breed of progressively stunted people.

Anyway, my relationship with my father has always been my kryptonite. It is my Achilles heel in everything I do. Feel free to use whatever cliche reference you are comfortable with to describe something that’s destroyed little pieces of you, this is a safe space. A lot of who I am stems directly from my relationship, or lack of one, to my father. He doesn’t know how to talk to me. I don’t know how to talk to him. Years of resentment just piling up on the both of us. You would think that 2 people who love each other could find a way to sit down and talk it out. We tried and we just can’t. A big reason is that my father doesn’t really do feelings and I literally have ALL OF THEM. And so it’s impossible for him to say something to me without me instantly crying. I’ve done the therapy, read the self help books, I’ve done the work. But dammit, every time we get into some bullshit, you would think I haven’t done one ounce of work on myself.

Let me be clear. I can’t tell you what I actually need or want in this situation. I guess that the years of emotional rejection and me searching for acceptance have absolutely exhausted me. It’s been building up for years and it’s just this void inside me. I have to stop looking for my father to fill that void. There’s no closure and that’s why that void won’t go away. I just keep reliving the same shit because it’s still an open ended thing and my brain can’t process how to close it on my own. If he were reading this post right now, he would say the complete opposite. That this is fine. That our relationship is the same as the ones he has with his other children. No, it’s fucking not. You don’t resent them. They didn’t grow up with constant guilt that they didn’t call or visit enough. You didn’t leave them out of every fucking thing. So maybe your attitude is the same, but their experience and my experience are two very different things.

For someone who fights tradition every single day, it was weird to me that I was adamant about having my father walk me down the aisle at my wedding in November 2019. I felt like we both deserved and needed it. In an attempt to mend whatever jenky fences the two of us had built, I wrote him a letter. I didn’t want the walk down the aisle to be this obligatory thing. I wanted him to know who he was “giving away”. The letter backfired at first, but the months leading up to the big day showed some really big growth in our relationship. I felt in my heart that we had turned a corner and things were more open between us than they had ever been. My broken family made it work for my sake and I was so grateful. It was a dream come true.

I would love to tell you that the dream lived on but I woke up. Since I started my healing journey I just keep finding shit that I’m holding on to and it’s just too heavy. I needed to write this out because it’s my space (aw, remember MySpace?), it’s my story and this is where I go to feel better. I don’t know what I want and need, not sure if I can ever get it, but that void within me needs to heal and close. I am a good person and I shouldn’t have to beg for my existence to be acknowledged. And like, if you think that I sound entitled or are rolling your eyes right now, what are you even doing here?

I’m going to pump the brakes. I let a little pettiness creep in and that’s not what I’m here to do today. I’m here to break the cycle. My husband has 2 daughters and I am breaking the cycle through them. I stress the importance of making sure that they always know they are loved and supported. My husband is a genuinely great human and loves his children unconditionally, but I like to help when I can. There is just so much stuff that I wish I had in my formative years that would have done wonders for me now. The amount of work I have had to do seems endless and I just never want that for my step-daughters. Especially not if I can help.

I feel like in this day and age, how is it possible that fathers don’t know how much they shape their daughters’ lives? That every boy/man/woman that comes into her life is going to reflect the way you treated her because that is what you taught her? If you were an absent father then she’s going to accept whatever person gives her even a crumb of attention. If you were abusive, emotionally and/or physically, that’s what she’s going to gravitate to because that’s what she thinks she deserves. Aren’t we tired of the girl with daddy issues stigma? You were the first guy she ever loved, the hero in her little eyes, don’t you see that everything is based on you and what you’ve shown her?

I’m going to work on wrapping this post up. I remember watching an episode of Girls on HBO, years ago, where Hannah and Jessa were going to visit Jessa’s dad. It was an awkward episode but Jessa’s story resonated really deeply with me. There’s this scene where she and her father are having a conversation and he’s trying to explain to her why her marriage might have failed. The conversation takes a turn and he basically says that he could never and still can’t rely on her for anything. She replies, through tears, with “you shouldn’t have to. I’m the child.”

I let out more than I thought in this post and I hope that the next one and all the ones that follow will be a little lighter and brighter. I just wanted to stress the importance of certain relationships in our lives. And the father-daughter one is a really major one. It’s one of the building blocks that made you. It is rooted so deeply into who you are no matter how much you try to push it away or deny it. I wish nothing but the absolute best for my dad. I will always love him despite our rocky relationship. He’s my dad. I do hold on to hope that maybe one day we will figure out a way to work it out, but I need to do more work to just stop that little voice in my head.

If you take anything with you from this post today let it be this: if you are a parent, your kids just want to know that they are loved and supported. Don’t trivialize their feelings just because you’re not feeling them. They want to know that when life is shitty, you’re on their side. And they might not show it right then and there, but they will realize it later in life, when they least expect it. And then it will all be worth it for the both of you…

Good night.

I’m holding on, why is everything so heavy? holding on to so much more than I can carry…

Song name: HEAVY/ Artist: Linkin Park (feat. Kiiara) / Year: 2017

DEFYING GRAVITY

something has changed within me, something is not the same… I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game… too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep… it’s time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leap… it’s time to try defying gravity…

I wrote a post last night, told everyone about it on Instagram and Twitter, sat on my couch, proud that I posted finally, and then I took it down. I deleted the Instagram and Twitter notifications and removed it from my page. I thought a lot about it in the time it took me to walk from my desk to my couch (basically 6 feet?) and did a quick mental run through of the topics I wrote about. And in those 6-ish feet I realized that none of those topics deserved that kind of attention, at least not on this platform. I felt like it was such a petty post and I wanted a do over.

I haven’t written anything of value for like 2 weeks and I was anxious to just post one already. I read it a thousand times and edited the shit out of it, as usual, but when I got to the couch to watch Schitt’s Creek, I fucking cringed. And so I made it disappear. I no longer want to dwell on shit that pissed me off 2 weeks ago. The truth is that in the last 2 weeks I have made really big steps in the right direction (for once) so why would I continue to let the negativity haunt me? More importantly, why should I give it a place holder on my page? I don’t need to bookmark it so I can relive it. I didn’t have any tips or tricks about how I stopped being pissed off so I knew it wouldn’t be valuable to you. So that’s that… moving on!

We are like 10 posts in at this point so you have the general gist of how I lived my life as the victim. Convinced that the universe had it out for me. Making very small things into very big things because, at the time, I thought they were big things. I dramatized things and made them more of a big deal just because I had no idea what I was doing. I’m going to go out on a limb and sound like such a douchebag right now, but there’s this weird wisdom that comes with age. I know, I know, but let me explain. I never expected to feel wise about anything in my life. But I wish I could go back and speak to my younger self and just be like “you fucking idiot, that’s not good for you, why aren’t you seeing that?!” Such a fucking drama queen (eye roll). There were some things that were valid and those are the things that I continue to work on. Everything else can go scratch.

If I am going to be more forward thinking then the change has to come from within. The last few meditations I’ve done have brought me into that forward thinking mindset and have actually made me believe that it’s possible for me. I need to push and trust myself, which is something that I have struggled with forever. I have made some pretty cool discoveries about myself just by starting this blog. Writing it all out has helped me and given me the drive that I was searching for. I have no intention of putting any unnecessary or unrealistic expectations on this blog. But I know that I am supposed to be doing this, so I’m going to keep at it.

My life consists of patterns and familiarity. I am not fearless or careless. Young Me was both of those things. Then life sucker punched me and told me to take it down a few notches. Not only did I take it down a few notches, I eliminated it entirely. So my job right now is to get to the in between, where it’s not too little and not too much. I don’t need to live my life in fear all the time, but I do need to be cautious. I believe that once I allow my intuition to do what it’s supposed to do, I’ll be fine. I have been filled to the brim with fear about any and everything so my intuitive compass is a little off.

I have lived in the past for too long, harping on things that are no longer relevant. Giving credit to things or moments that don’t deserve my time. I don’t know why I do that. Living in the past is great for the good stuff, but not so much for the bad stuff. It holds you back and stops you from growing and learning. It’s a battle, but I’m here to fight it. I can’t go back and change anything and make it less cringe-worthy, so that’s enough now. I’m working on being present. Right here, right now. I can’t predict the future but I like to try and be prepared. I don’t like being caught off guard; I know it’s where all of my anxiety stems from. Finding the in between is crucial.

I apologize if my writing seems like it’s all over the place, but it’s because I am currently all over the place. I’m getting daily messages that I need to get my life in order. That I need to build the structure and foundation in and for life I want to live. The big message this week was “thoughts become things”. I was the victim for so long because I wanted to be. I wanted the attention or I wanted people to feel bad for me. That sounds fucking pathetic and makes me feel embarrassed. Last week I couldn’t write and didn’t feel confident enough because everything I wrote was unorganized and all over the place. But here I am today, unhinged, if you will, and I just keep thinking “who am I trying to impress here?!” Maybe you’re feeling unhinged too and you need to see that most of the time I’m NOT a fully functional adult. Who knows?

Today was a beautiful day outside and I saw a very rare opportunity and grabbed it. I took a walk during my lunch break. NYC is very scary right now but between last night and this morning I just felt like I should be taking advantage of the nice weather before it’s too hot and I become a vampire (black out curtains and air conditioning ’round the clock). I refused to let the fear of the heroin zombies stop me from doing something that I needed to do for myself. There are days where I sit in my office all day, breathing in recycled air and then having the fucking audacity to wonder why I’m a crabass. Breaking one tiny pattern was my goal today, and I succeeded. I walked 14 blocks on 7th Avenue and paid attention to every detail. I was present. I wasn’t walking aimlessly. I had a destination but I was determined not to let my mind wander. It was pretty cool, you guys. And I know that probably sounds so fucking lame, but I’m what they call “indoorsy”. I get from point A to point B so that I can get back inside. I don’t pay attention to anything walking to and from work, so it was nice to venture beyond that and actually look at what and who I was walking passed.

I know walking around a concrete jungle isn’t exactly being “one with nature” but it was nice to feel the sun on my very pale face. So I’m going to set a goal to break one pattern a week. Get off the skipping record, even if it’s just for 1 day out of the 7. I felt like I accomplished something today, even though it was just a basic thing, and that made me feel better. I gotta take these little steps because eventually they will become bigger steps. I gotta have a tiny bit of faith in myself and taking 1 tiny step out of the comfort zone is a realistic goal, for now.

I’m going to leave you with this: if shit has felt off for you lately, it’s okay. I know that the post pandemic world wants you to think that we are A. Fucking. O. K. but if you’re not, that’s fine. If you’re one of the people that has their shit together, good for you! But if you’re not, please be nice to yourself. You’re gonna get through whatever it is, it just sucks right now because you’re in it. But give yourself the time to deal with whatever it is that’s making you feel fearful, overly cautious, anxious, whatever. Invite it to the table, sit with it, give it some Entenmann’s coffee cake, and when it gets late, ask it nicely to leave…

so if you care to find me, look to the western sky… as someone told me lately “everyone deserves the chance to fly!” and if I’m flying solo, at least I’m flying free… to those who ground me, take a message back from me.. tell them how I am defying gravity… I’m flying high, defying gravity…

Song name: DEFYING GRAVITY/ Artist: Idina Menzel & Kristin Chenoweth (Wicked Original Broadway Cast)/ Year: 2003

ARMOR

what you didn’t do to bury me but you didn’t know I was a goddamn seed… you don’t scare me, I am of the earth… so tired of your empire, blind men only set the world on fire… sad you can’t see it, you brought the flame now here comes the phoenix…

Today I want to talk about armor and where it comes from. Where does your armor come from? If we are talking about personal life experiences (literally all I do on this blog) then we can all agree that we want to be the best version of ourselves and to do that we need some armor. I know that I wear different types of armor for different situations, but the base of the armor is generally the same. And I know I’m always wearing it, even when I don’t necessarily need it, but I feel like I do and I don’t think I’m wrong in feeling that way.

Armor, to me, is something that is earned. Your experiences, good or bad, create it. The things that I have experienced are nothing compared to what I have heard and seen others go through, but there were things that were shitty to me and just because they, maybe, weren’t as shitty as your things, doesn’t make my scars any less visible. How I choose to wear those scars and protect myself from getting more is entirely up to me. Just like your scars and your armor are yours to wear. No one can take them from you. And what’s really disturbing to me is that there are far too many people who believe they have the right to those things that, clearly, belong to you.

The last year plus has shown us that we can live in a virtual world. We heavily relied on all forms of technology to stay connected. Social media was our outlet and people used the shit out of it. Did they use it correctly? Did they maybe abuse it? I don’t know. Is there really a right way to use social media? I know FOR SURE that there are wrong ways. I saw a LOT of wrong across all the social media platforms that I use. And about a month into lock down I found myself digging my armor out of the closet and blocking, unfriending, and muting people because it was destroying my mental well-being. Here I was thinking that I wasn’t leaving the house, so what the hell did I need it for? Yea right!

I know that I am one very small person in this great big world. And I know that I’m emotional and extra to a fault. But I want, so badly, to be the change that I want to see in this world. The problem is that most of the time I am outnumbered. It’s discouraging and makes me never want to leave my house. Sometimes people say things to me and I want to say back “What in the hell made you think that I was the type of person you could say that to?” I have a handful of people in my life that don’t have the same ideas or beliefs that I do but we can have educated conversations about serious topics, we remain friends and maybe even learn some things from each other from time to time. And then there is the other handful of people in my life that I just can’t deal with because they’re too busy worrying about their online persona and they’re not worried about what they sound like in real life. And so I just distance myself because I physically can’t deal or be associated with outright ignorance and blatant disregard for anyone or anything outside of their existence. It’s just not who I want to be and doesn’t work for me anymore. I touched on this in my WAIT IT OUT post but I feel like we need to discuss it further. We live in a free country and a lot of people like to hide behind “free speech” when in all actuality, free speech seems like an excuse to be a fucking asshole.

I try to do the passive aggressive Instagram and Facebook thing where I post random quotes that touch my heart, or re-post something that speaks to me, but like really, what is that doing? I can’t even scroll through Facebook without my jaw being clenched so tight that I get a headache. So I just don’t go on. But then I do, and I get enraged and I’m like “why am I fucking doing this?!” There’s no FOMO here. Clearly I wasn’t missing out on anything that would benefit me. I don’t think I am better than anyone. I don’t feel superior to anyone. I just can’t get down with the idea that there are people who actually believe that we shouldn’t all be treated as equal human beings. Period.

I was ready to go to war last week when I saw a post that was so degrading and ignorant that I couldn’t believe what the fuck I was reading. The person who posted it was being such a hypocrite and that is ultimately what sent me into full on rage. It was something that had absolutely NOTHING to do with anything they have ever known or experienced, yet they re-posted it from some right wing-nut page with a comment about making the world a better place (uuuugggghhhh). Within seconds, I saw red. My blood pressure spiked, my face felt hot and my heart was racing. I gave it some time and I decided not to do the whole war thing. I thought about what would happen if I said what I wanted to say. Did I really want to start this knowing that I already didn’t have the energy to finish it? I played out all the scenarios in my head and not one of them made me feel any better. None of the scenarios calmed the shit storm going on in my head. Nothing I would say would make this person take down the awful post, which would have been the goal. I took a breath and tried to get some clarity. I don’t care if the person wrote me off for saying something, but fighting it out on fucking Facebook wouldn’t change a goddamn thing, so why should I engage?

I have had conversations with this person in real life and they have said awful shit in the past, I’ve disagreed, and they jumped down my throat. And I can’t even imagine the bullshit they would react with if given the time to type it all out. If I really want to be a cheerleader for myself, and eventually the rest of humanity, then I can’t respond to ignorance. They thrive on it. And sometimes they even do it just to get a reaction and see what shit they can stir up. Or they want their opinion to be validated in writing. Who has fucking time for that? Not me. I’ve tried in the past and I just can’t bring myself to do it, like ever again.

I want so badly for people to be compassionate towards one another, but I can’t teach compassion if you don’t want to see it. If you’re not willing to see beyond what you aggressively believe, then nothing I say can change the way you feel. I’m not saying I’m always right but when the fuck did everyone become raging fucking lunatics and experts of shit they read on Facebook? And so that’s when I make decisions to disassociate myself from it because I don’t want anyone to think, for one second, that I think that way. This is the world that we live in. Everyone is walking around with their soapbox ready to force you into submission. Your only job is to put on your armor and protect yourself from the nonsense. And if you are up for a fight, absolutely do it, I’ll even be here to cheer you on if you need me to! But if it won’t help you, please consider your options before trying to fight something that won’t make you better in the long run.

I feel like I live my life on the defense. I have tried to stop but every time I’ve tried, I got hit with a curve ball. And I fucking hate that. Someone is always ready to knock me down a peg. Say something that I think will help? Nope, shut the fuck up, you know nothing. And I’m over here like “aye aye captain, shutting the fuck up!” So I am always guarded. Maybe I don’t need to be so guarded, but too many life experiences have affected me negatively and this is where I am. I’m not even mad about it. Quite frankly, I worried that I would just continue to be complacent forever and ever. But I’m glad that I finally have a little something within me that is here to fight for my well-being. Because all I do is feel all the feelings and take nothing with a grain of salt, so my best life is lived on the defense. That’s where I feel safest.

I do my best to shield myself from a lot of unwanted shit. I have spent so much of my life getting blamed because it was easier just to take it than fight it. Or I was so bombarded with an unexpected reaction that I couldn’t get the words out to defend myself. I’m not fucking doing that anymore. I’m tired of talking on eggshells. I’m tired of letting rude fucking people talk to me like I’m beneath them in this invisible hierarchy that only they’re aware of. If you say something razor sharp and end it with “I’m just being honest” or “just saying” and then you see me rapidly blinking at you– it’s because in my head, I’m hoping that if I blink enough you’ll magically disappear.

We all allow WAY too much, whether we know it or not. I’ve spent my life being a fucking doormat for people to just wipe their muddy feet all over. I know that my abandonment issues from my childhood have followed me my entire life and everything I have ever done was just so I would be accepted. And I know that I’m not perfect, but I never claim to be. You’ve read a few posts of mine by now and know that it’s me against me here (hell, this whole entire post will clue you in on what kind of person I am). But it’s absolutely exhausting trying to constantly figure out what everyone needs from me and just keep pushing myself to the side or taking shit that I don’t deserve. That’s what my armor is for. My armor doesn’t reflect what you say to me back at you. That’s not how my armor works. If you hurt me, understand that going forward, you’ll never hear from me again. That’s what my armor does.

I have spent the last year surrounded by a tribe of people who continually help make my armor stronger and I hope that I can always do the same for them. I can’t give myself to people who want to try and break me down because they see my kindness as a weakness. I can no longer accept blame because it’s just easier than fighting for myself. There are so many things that have affected my mental health in such a shitty way that my armor prevents me from going there anymore. The fear of missing out doesn’t exist because it’s been replaced with the fear of someone breaking down everything that I have worked so hard to build. And I probably won’t ever be done building but I’m tired of working my ass off at shit that doesn’t help me keep building up…

my armor comes from you… you make me try harder, oh that’s all I ever do, ever do… my armor comes from you… you make me stronger, stronger, hand me my armor…

Song name: ARMOR/ Artist: Sara Bareilles/ Year: 2019

ESCAPE ROUTE

I’ve got a life out there somewhere it’s waiting, lined with palm trees and only new faces, if I could look past the present and get there, well baby, it’s worth a shot… just enough time to plan an escape route, I put my map on the wall in the basement, not quite a victory to run from your problems, but it’s the only plan that I got…

I am having a day today. Not a bad day, just a day. I slept like absolute garbage and it feels like the tendinitis in my right bicep is coming back (feels like a knife is stuck in my shoulder joint). I don’t want to go to the doctor to get a cortisone shot, that shit hurts, so I’m hoping if I take it easy it will go away (fingers crossed). Anyway, the general vibe of my day since I woke up has just been meh. I wasn’t awful to myself when I sat up in bed this morning, 25 minutes after my alarm went off, but I noticed that I just felt meh and just continued for the rest of the day allowing myself to be meh. I know I’ll sleep well tonight because I’m exhausted and I can start fresh tomorrow morning. That’s a new thing that I’ve been doing lately. Not to sound like a total douche, but I give myself time to feel all the feelings and then I just don’t let them destroy my whole day. Like, okay, you’re tired, this is normal, move on in your meh-ness.

I felt the need to write again today. Truth be told, I wrote another post last night but I didn’t publish it because I still need to reread it 4200 times and edit it, but I wanted to get it out of my system and onto the screen. It’s ready whenever I am. This was a different feeling though. I feel like all the meh bullshit of today led me here. It’s like a really strong feeling, so I’m running with it.

Over the last few months I have been learning about spirituality. I tried Reiki for the first time right before I turned 40 and everything about it piqued my interest. I haven’t written about it yet because I have been too busy rambling on about literally everything else, but it is a really big part of my healing journey. Talking On Eggshells is not going to be a blog all about spirituality, but if we are going to put a puzzle together, I need to give you all the pieces. So from time to time, the spiritual side of things will be sprinkled in. If that’s not something you’re interested in I absolutely respect that, but I was never really into believing in things that I can’t see and now I really do see things differently.

I wrote out everything going on with my grandmother in NO HARD FEELINGS and it’s been a rough road for her, and us, but the last few visits have lightened things up and that’s definitely a plus. When everything started spiraling in the middle of January I felt like I was losing my mind. My BFF suggested that I try Reiki. She went for a session with the most wonderful Reiki goddess and really thought it would help me. Dude, it like really fucking did. Like most new things, I had no idea what to expect. The environment was very calming and so, within minutes, my anxiety kinda melted away.

I have been to 3 sessions already (bro, I’m due for another one like, yesterday) and the feelings were different each time. The information was vast and eye opening for me. I am more aware of things that I never would have thought of. In one of my sessions, we spoke about using my voice to keep people safe or protect them. And I mentioned that the idea for this blog was percolating and I was thinking of calling it Talking On Eggshells. She immediately said DO IT. And I was like girl, seriously? And she was like YES. I had been searching for domains and hosts for it, had decided on one and backed out because it was way too fucking complicated. NOT SO PRO TIP ALERT: if something is advertising that it is insanely easy to use, it’s not. I got a refund, got discouraged and figured that all of that nonsense was a sign not to do it. So when I went to my Reiki session the next day, I was assured that no, the fact that I was able to back out and get my money back was a sign that I just needed to keep looking for the right spot. And so that’s what I did.

I know that this blog may seem like a little novice thing that a person you know is doing, but it’s a really important thing for me. I don’t like being open and vulnerable with people who know me. You read that correctly. At this very early stage, the majority of readers are all people who know me. And the responses I’ve received (all positive, thank you for that!) are from people who know me. It’s weird for me. I don’t feel brave or empowered. I feel like I am just putting myself out there so people can talk shit about me. And that was the main reason that I hesitated, so many times, and almost didn’t launch this blog. Afraid that people will think I’m insane (I mean, I am a little bit) and have ammunition against me. You have seen some of the things I’ve written here, I’m technically not built for this.

The thing is, since that Reiki session, all signs have pointed me here. And the support of the people who knew I wanted to do this and held my hand as I clicked LAUNCH was enough for me to do it. I hope that this blog reaches the people that need to see it. To see that they’re not alone in whatever they’re feeling. That is the ultimate goal. I’m not writing this so people who know me can feel like they have dirt on me and bring it up at inopportune times. I’m writing this because even though we all look like we have our shit together, sometimes we don’t. And I want to be here for those “sometimes” moments.

Anyway, I brought up the spirituality side of things because I was very aware of it today. I have been seeing sequences of numbers in my day to day life. Before Reiki I would have never thought to read into them. Last night I woke up at 12:34 am. I didn’t look at the clock on my phone at work today until I realized I was hungry and saw the time was 12:34 pm. I looked it up. The explanations made sense to me and seemed very specific to the way I was feeling today. The explanations seemed like they were talking directly to me.

I put on “Getting Younger” which is the after show for “Younger”. Side note: if you’re not watching this show, get on it. I have been watching it since it started 7 seasons ago and literally wait for it to come back every year. Anyway, I was behind a few episodes on the after show, so I went back to the ones I missed. The first one only had Nico Tortorella, who is the younger love interest, Josh, on the show. Normally the host is interviewing a few cast members at a time. The general tone is always very light and funny whenever Nico is on; a really chill and open person all around. I had the episode on, but it was like on in the background, and I was kinda mindlessly listening when I heard something that Nico said. I hit rewind so I could hear it again. Then I hit rewind so that I could type it out.

“I’m in the process of family planning myself and I have noticed a, (pause, babbling), I have already felt this energetic shift in ‘oh, I’m an adult now’ like my priorities are different. And it’s not just for my children or my future children, it’s for everything around me. And finally doing it in my own life am I able to recognize what has happened to Josh. You get older.”

I know that may seem like the most basic statement anyone can make, but it hit me hard and completely out of the blue. Yesterday I wrote this blabbering post about NOT planning because I don’t want to panic or let myself down, and here’s this 32 year old person, confidently saying that they’re family planning because they feel like an adult. And it hit different because I DON’T feel like that. I can’t even remember if I have ever felt like that in my whole life. And it made me think of myself in a way that made me cringe a little. What the fuck am I doing? I have absolutely NONE of my shit together. I financially spiral every. single. month. My husband and I have literally zero means to buy a house. 40 years old and not sure if I want to have kids? Like I have time for that! Guys, I know it sounds like I’m spiraling but this was a wake up call and it has me wanting to jump start getting my fucking life in order. Like, right this very minute.

I feel like I’ve just been spinning on this turntable, day in and day out, just kind of accepting what comes my way. And I titled this post ESCAPE ROUTE not because I want to escape my life. I want to escape this mindset that I have literally trapped myself in. It’s like I don’t want to succeed. I’m too scared to excel at anything so I just keep myself in the stuff I know because it’s familiar to me. But that doesn’t make it any less scary. I don’t like this cycle. I want better for me and my husband. I want to see us kick ass in this life, so why do I keep going in circles and wondering why I am where I am?

I was asleep on my feet today, but I woke up. And I have had moments before when I though that I snapped myself out of it. But I have a different perspective now, I guess? And I don’t want to be stuck anymore. For real, for real. This was not a test. I’m going to get a house. Still iffy on the birthing children thing, sorry not sorry. I know that I am a good person. I know that my husband is a good person. I know I don’t have to keep punishing myself for mistakes I made a million years ago and think that I don’t deserve a good life. Exploring spirituality definitely got me to peek outside the bubble that I’ve created. And I know you’re probably reading this thinking that I have completely lost my mind, but things have never been more clear.

I am still learning so much about how all of this works but for the first time I’m ready to embrace all of it. There is a lot of peace in thinking about all the universe has to offer. You just have to be ready to see it. I have lived in a blur for a really long time but I’m ready to do the work. The signs are all there, you just have to see them. That’s all for me tonight. I’m so tired but looking forward to a non-meh day tomorrow. Goodnight lovies!

all that’s in between a brand new life and I is time… but time has not been kind, it’s not been kind to me, it’s winding backwards… time has not been kind, it’s crawling by… so…
slowly… and if you try to find me now I’m in all the echoes that have faded out so I’m moving on ’cause I just want to feel for once that I belong, and that’s what’s going on…

Song name: ESCAPE ROUTE/ Artist: Paramore/ Year: 2013

HARD TIMES

walking around with my little rain cloud hanging over my head and it ain’t coming down… where do I go? gimme some sort of sign, you hit me with lightning maybe I’ll come alive…

I’ve written a bunch already about life experiences and how they shape us into who we are or who we are becoming. I believe that the world around us has changed us in ways that we still haven’t figured out yet. I’m not writing a post about COVID, don’t worry. I just feel like this year plus really knocked the hell out of all of us and maybe we should be taking it as one giant lesson? Or maybe a whole bunch of little lessons all piled into one big one? I don’t know. I feel like if we don’t do that, then all the shit that we have gone through would just be in vain and that would be a total fucking waste.

I started my healing journey 2ish years ago. Time is completely blurry for me but I ‘m pretty sure I started about a year before my wedding and was definitely pre-pandemic. I started with somatic therapy to help rewire all the short circuits in my coo-coo banana brain and I know I was there for a while. I could check the pile of medical bills but I’m trying to move forward and I don’t need to see that shit. I remember considering tapering off my visits because I wasn’t sobbing at each one anymore and I really was feeling much better. And then March 2020 happened and my therapist asked if I wanted virtual visits and I was like WTF? Um, no thank you. We will be back to normal in a couple of weeks and I’ll see you then. Also, mental health isn’t a cheap business and, at the time, I felt like if I wasn’t with her in the office then there was no point. Cut to here and now and everything is fucking virtual… who knew?

I’m just gonna give you a little side note here: I never heard from that therapist again. I’m on the fence with how I feel about that because I literally just told you that I planned on tapering off, but still. No call, text, email, nothing? Did our relationship mean nothing to you?! HA- just kidding. I know that I chose to go or not go to therapy and it was to help me, not her, but an email to check in would have been nice. She never had a problem emailing me the monthly bill…

Anyway, somatic therapy was my start and it helped me so much. It helped me realize that the feelings I had were valid. And most of the time we just need validation, am I right? Yea, I know I was paying for it but to hear that there was psychological shit to back me definitely helped. And it changed my perspective on a bunch of shit that I harped on for way too long. And I haven’t stopped searching for ways to help me be better since. So that was definitely a step in the right direction!

When the world shut down I found out that I actually gave a little bit of a shit about myself. I was working with a registered dietitian (the best one out there if I do say so myself) and she helped me get all of my stomach issues under control. She did so much more than that. She made me see that I could be better in all aspects of my life. She pushed me to set healthy boundaries and every time I got off of our Zoom calls I literally felt like I could conquer the world. My stomach felt better and life in general felt better. And then sometime in June of last year my boss asked me to come back to the office and I freaked the fuck out. I was afraid that all of my progress was going to go right down the drain. I don’t know why but I’m sure you’ve realized by now that I’m a little dramatic? My brain goes from 0 to 60 in 0.3 seconds and so I meditated to calm the fuck down.

Meditation is one of the coolest things I was pushed to try. I always thought that my brain was too busy to actually take the time to meditate and let it actually work. But it turns out that there is a LOT of guided meditation on YouTube and I found that to be the most helpful. I didn’t think that concentrating on my breathing would ever get me out of my head but it is about changing your focus. I am the most wired person I know and I highly recommend it. I also found it super helpful that a few people told me to not put so much pressure on yourself to get into a meditative state. If you go into meditation worried about if you’re going to meditate or not, what’s the point? There have been so many times that I put in my earbuds and just could not get into it. That still happens now but I don’t push myself, I just listen. And it usually calms me down. And if it doesn’t work, then I move on.

All of these things to better myself have pushed me to where I am today. And that’s all I can give you. I can’t give you what will happen going forward. Every single day I’m still weird me. I can’t pick out clothes the night before because I don’t know which version of me will wake up tomorrow. I don’t like setting myself up for failure so I just don’t do shit like that. I have weird little peckadillos (as Johnny Rose would say) that just don’t allow me to plan. When I plan, I panic and can almost guarantee that whatever I planned will absolutely not happen. I wake up, most days, 25 minutes after my alarm goes off and I rush around to get out the door and catch the train. Could I actually wake up when my alarm goes off? Yes, of course I could. That wouldn’t be any fun though. Why would I actually want to get to work looking like a put together adult woman when I could just look like a fucking train wreck?

So I beg of you- don’t ask me when I’m getting a house or having kids. I’m not there yet. And I know in biological clock world I’m old as fuck and high risk and whatever. My gynecologist said I have until 43 before I’m like off the charts high risk. My husband and I will be the old ass parents you see at the park and we’ll be sitting there with his children and people will think that our kid is their kid and we are the grandparents. It will be fucking hilarious and I would consider it just for that picture alone. Point is, I can’t get my hopes up for things that might not happen. And I sure as hell can’t do it because that’s what people expect of me. I don’t need that kind of pressure.

I know that I have the ability to change and move forward despite all of the time I spent in self sabotaging quick sand. And I know I’m 40 and should have it all together by now but fuck that shit. I don’t have to do anything I’m not ready to do and I refuse to push myself down the road that society expects me to take. I have been defying everything that society says I should be since the day I got here and maybe there will come a day when I want to conform, but I wouldn’t bet on it. My brain still has a little coo-coo banana left in it and sometimes when you tell me that I HAVE to do something, it makes me not want to do it even more…

I have to live with me everyday. And some days are amazing and some days not so much. I wake up with zero expectations but I find that if I start the day being nice to myself then the rest of the day isn’t complete shit. Some days I wake up and should be locked in a fucking closet all day with the mood I’m in, but I have the ability to get myself out of it. I don’t have to be a crab ass and ruin the day for my husband or anyone else that comes in contact with me, that’s not nice. I will leave you with this… On the days you feel like absolute garbage, just be nice to yourself. You don’t have to treat yourself like you’re a piece of shit. And if you need help getting out of it, or want someone to tell you that you’re a fucking rock star, email me or something and I’ll build your fine ass up.

gonna make you wonder why you even try… (hard times) gonna take you down and laugh when you cry… (these lives) and I still don’t know how I even survive (hard times) (hard times)… and I gotta hit rock bottom…

Song name: HARD TIMES/ Artist: Paramore/ Year: 2017

NO HARD FEELINGS

when my body won’t hold me anymore and it finally lets me free, will I be ready? when my feet won’t walk another mile and my lips give their last kiss goodbye, will my hands be steady when I lay down my fears, my hopes and my doubts, the rings on my fingers and the keys to my house? with no hard feelings…

Life sometimes has a way of making us feel uncomfortable. I feel that I am uncomfortable most of the time. The level of discomfort depends on where your head is at. It can be a tiny blip on your radar if you’re feeling pretty good. And it can skyrocket if you aren’t feeling so great (mentally, physically, whatever). I have been feeling uncomfortable for longer than I can remember. My anxiety is higher than it’s ever been. I can’t get my thoughts to last longer than a few seconds (my notes have notes). My heart is almost always racing and I just don’t feel right. My sleeping patterns are all over the place because I’m not calm when I go to sleep. I know the reason why and it’s unfortunate that at this moment no one can really help me. The only thing that I can do is write it out.

My grandmother has been one of my primary priorities for the last decade plus. The last couple of years have been a little chaotic because obviously she was aging (like the rest of us) but she was finally at the point where she was acting “old”. She couldn’t hear or see too well and everything was becoming a struggle for her. She still lived alone, cooked 3 meals a day for herself and her routine was pretty much the same everyday. There were times where I would be concerned but they always passed. Somewhere along the line I lost all sight of rational thought when it came to her and I don’t regret a second of it. I called her a million times a day for my own sanity. If she was ok then I was ok, that’s just how it worked. I called her before bed every night just so I could sleep soundly knowing she was alright.

One night a few years ago, I called 3 times before bed with no answer. My husband, knowing my neurosis when it came to grammy, said let’s just go over there and check on her. When I got to her apartment I noticed that her door was ajar and I heard a very faint “help” coming from inside. My heart dropped into my stomach and I ran down the hallway. There she was, sitting on the floor, her dinner still on her walker by the door. While she was getting dinner ready, around 5:30 PM, she lost her footing. She fell so slowly that she didn’t hurt anything but she didn’t have the upper body strength to lift herself up. She crawled over to her chair and sat on the floor so she could watch TV. I showed up at 9:45 PM. She sat there for 4 hours. I had bought a Life Alert (the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” button/system) for this exact reason but the button was in the basket of her walker, not around her neck. I called my husband to come in and help me lift her up. We stayed there until she went to bed around 11 PM because I was terrified to leave her alone.

I know this probably sounds completely insane but it made total sense to me. She needed me and I had no problem taking care of her. If I called in the middle of the day and something was wrong with her TV, I would leave Manhattan during my lunch break, take the train back to Queens, walk to her house, fix it and head back to work. It was usually an easy fix, like she pressed the wrong button because she couldn’t see very well. People would ask me why I would run over and my answer would always be that she was my old lady and I would do anything for her. If all you did all day was sit and watch TV and the TV was broken, what would you do until I got home from work? Maybe I was wearing blinders but the way I saw it was that she always took care of me growing up so why wouldn’t I reciprocate?

I hate it when people ask me why I did stuff like that for her. I never felt obligated to take care of her. It was second nature to me. And yes, sometimes I would get frustrated because my nerves were completely shot, but when she was good, she was good for a while. I always had faith in the back of my mind that she would get back to good.

When COVID hit and the world shut down I didn’t want to put her at risk. I was working from home and was only a few blocks away if she needed me. I stayed away out of sheer paranoia, plus my husband was still going to work in the city everyday and we didn’t know at the time if he was at risk. We didn’t see anyone but each other for 6-8 weeks. I think we can all agree that March-May 2020 was a really weird time and just like the rest of the world we only saw the people we lived with. I called grammy a million times a day and our conversations were always very light despite all the shit going on around us. When the weather got nicer we would go over to her house and take her for a walk or sit on her front porch for a little while just to get her out and keep her moving.

Things were good for a few months. She didn’t complain much. I remember feeling relieved and impressed that she was totally fine during a global pandemic. Our weekly visits resumed and things seemed to be getting back to normal (whatever the hell that was/is). Sometime after the summer, it’s all a blur right now, her health started to decline. She was going to bed really early. When I would call her during the day she would get mixed up about what time of day it was. She’s in her late 90’s so it’s not like that’s unusual for her age. All things considered, she was in really great cognitive health. I felt the anxiety start up again and I reverted back to my old ways of calling her a million times a day.

Sometime in September her health took a really strange turn. I was going over to her house in the morning before work and at night after work. I’m not going to get into what I did when I was there because it’s irrelevant. Every night I tucked her into bed, told her I loved her, locked up and went home. It was exhausting, but at the time it made sense to me. I finally got her an appointment with a specialist and thought we had finally gotten her pain resolved and under control. But when I called her the next day she was in a different kind of pain and I realized that this was beyond anything I could do to help. I contacted a home health aid agency and scheduled a cleaning service to deep clean her apartment before the aid started the following week.

This particular turn of events made me believe that everything happens for a reason. I hired the health aid and we arranged for her to start on Thursday. I ordered some things to help grammy around the house and got her a brand new walker to cruise around with. I got a phone call telling me that the aid could actually start on Wednesday. My grandmother wasn’t keen on this idea but she refused assisted living and I told her this was our only option. I told her it was like having a personal assistant and she liked that idea. I was really impressed with how respectful the aid was and she treated my grandmother with so much kindness and I was so happy that my grandmother was happy with her.

The next day, Thursday, was bad. I called when I got to work and my grandmother wasn’t feeling well at all. The aid got there a little earlier and called me. She said she made grandma breakfast but she was having a hard time eating. Her stomach was a mess and nothing seemed right. My mother was off from work that day and I told her to go over. I told her that if grammy was in bad shape to push the Life Alert button. When my mother got there and spoke to her, she explained that if they pushed the button she would be going to the hospital. My grandmother told her to push it. My grandmother hated that button, so for her to give consent to push it, things were bad.

Everything happens for a reason. I’m so grateful the aid was with my grandmother a day earlier. I’m glad she paid attention and knew something was wrong. I’m so grateful that the she was with her and that my grandmother trusted her. They rode in the ambulance to the ER together and my mother followed behind them. Since we were still in living in pandemia, my grandmother was admitted to the ER alone. It was unnerving waiting on phone calls from doctors and I couldn’t imagine what it was like for her.

She was diagnosed with colitis and hypokalemia (potassium deficiency) which was so low it could have been fatal. She was admitted and they were dosing her with potassium every 4 hours for 5 days until her levels were finally normal. Visiting hours were a little better once she was admitted and a few of us took turns going to see her. She was still her feisty self but most of the time she was confused and out of it. When she was released a week later they put her in rehab at a local nursing home to get her walking again. She was confused and agitated and it took her some time to acclimate. The nursing home was closed to visitors due to COVID. After a week it was recommended that I fill out the paperwork for long term care since her doctor would not release her to go home alone. She was approved which was great but the whole situation was weird. Things would have been easier without a goddamn global pandemic, obviously (eye roll).

After a few weekly FaceTime calls with her I noticed that she was starting to act like her old self again. I spoke with her children and her doctors and nurses and decided she was the perfect candidate for assisted living. It would be just like living on her own but professionals were there if she needed them. I was excited to see her in person after 2 months but when we got to the assisted living she was furious with me. She expected to go to her own home and couldn’t understand why I brought her to this place. That was a really bad day. The director of the assisted living told me to stay away for a few days and let her get used to it. Within a week she had calmed down and the agitation and confusion had subsided. She was at the assisted living for 24 days.

I went to visit on a Friday afternoon in January so that I could fix her TV (some things never change). The facility was still not really allowing visitors but because she was still fairly new they were a little more lenient. She was in good spirits and we had a nice time together. She asked me to take her outside for a cigarette. After 70+ years of smoking I guess that urge really never goes away. She hadn’t smoked in about a week and got lightheaded. When we were coming back inside, it all happened so fast, but she lost her footing, fell and broke her hip. Or her hip broke and she fell. Either way, I blamed myself. I couldn’t catch her before she hit the floor. I shouldn’t have taken her out for a smoke. The list goes on. They rushed me out of the facility because technically I wasn’t supposed to be there. She got rushed to the hospital and I got a phone call from the surgeon that night telling me her surgery for half hip replacement was scheduled for Sunday morning.

The surgery was a success considering her age. Obviously, she had to get readmitted into rehab once she was released from the hospital. She has been there ever since. Since she was gone for less than a month, I didn’t have to fill out any new paperwork. Her confusion and agitation was worse this time around. She had major surgery and has no recollection of any of it. She has no idea why she isn’t able to really walk. And this whole thing has been nothing but absolute heartbreak. I’m not even saying that for dramatic affect. I know this post is extremely long but it is my life right now. I took care of her for so long and I can’t help but think that I failed her.

None of this makes sense to me. I am doing my best to advocate for her on the outside. Visits finally opened up again so we have been able to see her every week. But it’s absolutely devastating that she is trapped in this body that sits in a wheelchair all day. Her mind is there most of the time which is a blessing and a curse. Part of me wishes she didn’t realize what was going on, but most of the time she does. You would think that considering how involved I was before, maybe a little too much, that this would be a relief for me. She is finally getting the care that she needs. But it’s not. I’m absolutely gutted. I am riddled with guilt and my primary emotion is sadness. I am not alright.

I don’t understand what kind of lesson we are supposed to learn from this. This was not the life that any of us wanted for her. Am I supposed to learn that life isn’t fair sometimes? I knew that already. It is devastating to see her living this miserable existence because she doesn’t deserve it. She deserves peace. Even if I could move her out of there I wouldn’t. The time for her to acclimate to someplace new would be even longer and that’s not fair to her either. It just makes me so sad that this is how she is going to live out the rest of her life.

It really upsets me when people tell me that I finally got my life back and that I’m “free”. I’m free from the burden of taking care of her. She was never a burden to me. All this situation has done is amplified every bad feeling that I had. The guilt, anxiety, all of it. I want to scream at myself for all the times I got frustrated out of exhaustion and just wanted her to agree to go live at a place that could help her so I could get a break. I’m so upset that I didn’t see what was happening and waited too long to get her help before she got sick. I told myself I could handle it and I failed.

Do you just turn those feelings off? HOW? I tried online counseling during her first week back in rehab thinking that if I could just talk it out with someone that I would feel better. The counselor would ask me questions like “what’s the worst case scenario, you get the phone call that she passed away?” NO. That’s not the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario would be that something bad happened to her that would set her back another few months and once again I wasn’t there to help her. And I know that sounds codependent and dramatic but I don’t care. All of this is out of my hands and I’m not ok with it.

The only thing that I can do is speak to her social worker to correct the things she complains to me about and that brings a twinge of calm my way, but it doesn’t last long. Maybe I could use some more therapy but I’m not in the right head space to spend time and money that I don’t have on something I know won’t help. I see her face when I close my eyes and I wish so badly that I could just wrap her in a bubble and protect her.

I appreciate you reading this post and if you made it all the way to the end then you are a champ! I know that things will get better but we often don’t see the light until we are out of the woods. And I am very much in the woods right now. Above all things my grandmother is being cared for whether she wanted to be or not. And I’m grateful that at 98 she is still the spitfire she always was. I just want what is best for her and I’m not sure that either one of us knows what that is at this moment. And if you read this and thought that this whole scenario seemed a little extra you’re probably right, but I can’t hear your negative opinions on it. I should be able to confidently say that everything is fine but I need to get used to it and accept that fact. I am very uncomfortable and I’m doing the best that I can.

when my body won’t hold me anymore and it finally lets me free, where will I go? will the trade winds take me south through Georgia grain? or tropical rain? or snow from the heavens? will I join with the ocean blue? or run into the savior true and shake hands laughing? and walk through the night, straight to the light, holding the love I’ve known in my life… and no hard feelings…

Song name: NO HARD FEELINGS/ Artist: The Avett Brothers/ Year: 2016

WAIT IT OUT

where do we go from here? how do we carry on? I can’t get beyond the questions… clambering for the scraps in the shatter of us collapsed, it cuts me with every could have been… pain on pain on play, repeating, with the back up makeshift life in waiting… everybody says that time heals everything, but what of the retched hollow? the endless in-between? are we just going to wait it out?

Have you spent a lot of time living with regrets? Things you should have done or said? The moment passed and you missed the opportunity? I have heard so many people say that they regret nothing and that regrets only hold you back. I agree with them holding you back but I find it hard to believe that they have not one thing to regret… I mean, just say you have some but you don’t let them cripple you. I get it. If you are constantly going back in your mind and wishing you did or said something different then how can you move forward? For someone like me who is constantly worried about how I made someone feel, especially if it was bad, it is really hard for me not to live in what feels like a constant state of regret.

Now that I’m trying to only move forward in my life, I realize that it would be impossibly difficult for me to think that I have the ability to make everyone happy. It isn’t something that can always be done because we are all different. Our goals in life may align but we are all made up of different stuff. We process our feelings in different ways. Something that might make me really happy could make you feel like shit. Something I enjoy might be something that triggers you in a bad way or vice versa. And when you are trying so desperately to tie everything up into a beautiful bow, you realize very quickly that it’s damn near impossible.

My issue is that I only wish for really great reactions from people. When I get mediocre at best reactions to things that I tried my best on, that’s a direct hit for me. Down the rabbit hole I go, collecting regret, self-doubt and anxiety on my way down. I self-destruct and pick apart everything I did, wallowing in where I went wrong. Here’s the thing though, I don’t have to go above and beyond to make someone else happy. And if their reactions have always been mediocre at best then why would I keep trying to get a great one? Seems a little bit like I was doing it to myself…

I unintentionally set myself up because I have unrealistic expectations of people. I expect everyone to react or respond the way I would when I see that someone put time and effort into something. I want so badly to believe that I’m doing right or that they’ll do right by me. Searching for acceptance in every experience. And when they let me down or don’t do what I expected, it hurts me. That’s a deep rooted character flaw but I’m learning everyday not to expect anything from anyone. And maybe that’s not the healthiest way to go about it but I need to be able to protect myself. I need to be able not feel slaughtered by every disappointment. It is very much a part of life and you can learn from it for sure.

I realized recently that I have held on to every trigger from my childhood up to now. I don’t need a therapist to tell me that. When I’m triggered by a feeling, especially a bad one, I am transported back to the first time I ever felt it. I feel small, like I don’t matter. I really don’t like that feeling at all. I allow myself to feel small and wish I could disappear (like the meme of Homer Simpson backing up into the bushes). When people make me feel small I feel like an idiot for ever letting them know me. That’s a little dramatic, no?

Life experiences are the threads that sew us together and make us who we are. My experiences have made me super empathetic. I mean, I’m really downplaying it here because if I’m being totally honest, I’m a bleeding fucking heart. If you’re upset and, lord help us, it’s because of something I did, I’m going to lash out and cry. That’s not a YOU issue, that’s a ME issue. I never want to make someone feel the way that I have felt and when I do it unintentionally, I just want to disappear into a puff of smoke.

That’s a little extreme but it’s on my very long list of shit to fix. What you can do when you fuck up, whether you meant to or not, is OWN YOUR SHIT. Apologize if given the opportunity. Don’t apologize if you don’t mean it. Don’t say sorry if you’re not. If you own your shit and will die on that hill believing that you weren’t wrong, then do you boo-boo. Life is going to get very lonely for you. If we are all sewn together with different threads then none of us can truly say that we know what it’s like to be someone else. You have to take other people’s experiences into account. I’m not saying psychoanalyze every person you meet but to think that you’re always right and never wrong is a pretty bold statement.

Because I’m a bleeding heart I have been making it a point to see that life is so much bigger than me and goes so far beyond what I have personally experienced. Everything in my world is fine and as long as I stay grateful for it, I know I won’t turn into a miserable piece of shit. Listen, some people are just assholes. There’s nothing you can do about that. There are people who will force their beliefs, ideas, opinions, whatever on you with no valid information to back it up. They’ll stand at their social media podiums ready to push their thoughts directly into your face. There’s no need to engage. These are people who can’t own their shit and would never admit to being wrong, so why get involved? If you are the type of person who lives in a world of ego where only you exist, you will find, eventually, there’s no one left to preach your bullshit to.

So what’s this rambling ass post actually about? Don’t be a dick! HA! No, but seriously, you can live with regret without it killing you from the inside out. If you haven’t been given the opportunity to right what you feel was wrong you can stew about it until the opportunity to correct it presents itself. I know that there are a LOT of assholes in this world and you might be really close to some of them, but above all things, people appreciate kindness. So maybe you were stewing about something you felt was wrong and when you get a chance to say something they may act like it wasn’t even a thing. But the fact that you put it out there in a kind way can only affect them positively. And they may have not even realized that they needed it. You’ll probably feel like a weight has been lifted off of you and isn’t that a good feeling? Don’t we have enough shit to worry about?!

I’m not going to let regrets or disappointments take me down. I’ve come way to far to let that shit slow down my progress even more than it already has. If you know that you’re undeniable truth is that you are a good person then no one can take that from you. You can be strong without being awful. You can have your moments where everything feels wrong and still not be an awful person. Do some people deserve awful from you? YES. But just because they went low, doesn’t mean you go lower. There is always a place for you on the high road.

are we just going to wait it out? and sit here cold? look, you’ll be long gone by then… and lackluster in dust we lay ’round old magazines, fluorescent lighting sets the scene for all we could and should being in the one life that we’ve got…

Song name: WAIT IT OUT/ Artist: Imogen Heap/ Year: 2009

GREAT BIG STORM

Broken hearts, broken homes and broken bones, secret love let me go, you know I gotta find my own way through mistakes that I can’t change… Because there’s beauty in every sin, every single black eye has some blue like the moon just before the sun shines, no I don’t believe in all the things that they preach…

Trauma has been weighing heavily on my mind. I hate talking about it but it’s something that needs to be talked about. I have been trying so hard to sift through the bullshit that swishes around my brain just so I can get a clear fucking thought, but some days are harder than others. The greatest thing that I came across in my healing journey was reading something somewhere a few years ago that said your body holds on to trauma in different ways and in different parts of your body. Do you know how wild that is? Let’s dive in!

When my husband proposed to me 3 years ago, obviously I was so happy. But not long after he put the ring on my finger my brain short circuited. And I put on a front for everyone around me because I knew everything was changing. Everyone around me changed. I was no longer me, I was someone’s fiance. I didn’t know how to be that and it scared the shit out of me like you would not believe. People only asked about the ring and the wedding and that was weird to me. I was going to be someone’s wife. Not just any someone, his wife. The best man on this planet (in my humble opinion), and in my head I was so afraid I was going to fuck everything up.

I had no idea why I felt that everything changed. I questioned why he would actually want to be tied to me forever. I was a mess and I felt like tying himself to me would only make his life miserable. That’s where my head was at. I felt that I would make a terrible wife and I thought that marriage would put these weird expectations on our relationship. I buried myself in alcohol and acted like an idiot and for what? So he would leave?! That couldn’t have been what outside me wanted so why was inside me acting like an idiot?

I discovered that I had a special place buried deep in my body, I don’t know where but it was in there, that let me believe that ultimately everyone will leave me. Abandonment issues much? So when I could no longer stand myself and my anxiety was through the roof, I came to the conclusion that maybe I needed some help. My brain was constantly like WHAT THE FUCK?! And I was like I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!! It wasn’t the best time for me mentally and I decided to try somatic therapy.

Here’s the definition from Psychology Today: Somatic therapy is a form of body-centered therapy that looks at the connection of mind and body and uses both psychotherapy and physical therapies for holistic healing.

I made an appointment, not knowing what to expect but absolutely knowing that I needed to do this. And I’m lucky that my husband loved me enough to let me go through whatever it was that I needed to go through for my mental health. Do you understand that literally NO ONE had ever done that for me? I was always too much, too dramatic, too everything. I am eternally grateful that he gave me the time and space to work through this mental hiccup.

There was a LOT of stuff to talk about in therapy. I was holding on to more trauma than my body could handle. Every 1 hour session had me sobbing. My therapist would ask me questions and I found myself stumbling on my words trying to find answers that when they came out literally made no sense. And she would look at me and I would look at her and her face was like “right?” and I was like “yea”. Sometimes she would ask me questions that would drum up all the tears before I could even think of an answer. Of course it stemmed back to my childhood. OF. COURSE. IT. DID. And I spent a lot of time in those sessions talking to the little girl inside of me that I had been ignoring for years. She was in there and she was terrified. Who knew?!

Just to be clear, I’m not here to blame my parents, I’m too fucking old for that. Eventually you get to a point where have to take responsibility for your own life. And that’s what I’m trying to do every single day. I was too young to remember when my parents split and all the bullshit that followed. For as long as Adult Me can remember my parents were apart. Maybe I blocked it out? Maybe our brains really don’t have the capacity to remember that far back? Maybe… However, if my time in somatic therapy taught me anything it’s that my body still held on to every feeling I ever felt and made me the mess of a person that walked into that office. Am I proud that putting a ring on my finger made me spiral and ultimately helped me find that out? No, not so much. But I’m grateful that I hit mental rock bottom because I could only go up from there.

Was I magically healed from my time in somatic therapy? No, I still have work to do. But it was a kick in the ass that I needed to get me started. And I now have tools to help me navigate through the ridiculous web my brain can weave. I still hold on to so much (ahem, see the last 2 posts) but I’m aware of the need to let go and that’s half the battle. I am determined to break that cycle. I listen to people with my heart and I can see their hurt when they’re acting horrible. I know it’s so fucking lame to say but hurt people really DO hurt people. I was one of them. Was I going right for the jugular intentionally? No. But cue the shame, guilt, etc. anyway…

We all fuck up. We are human beings and sometimes we are total assholes. We can’t help it. When you dig a little deeper to find out why you were a total asshole, well my friends, that’s a damn eye opener. You can’t close your eyes when you’re digging because you could jam the shovel right into your toes and lose one. It would be a disaster. So open your eyes and dig. Where does your rage, anger, fear, sadness, happiness come from? Most of it comes from life experiences, naturally. You find what makes you feel all of those feelings and you either run away or towards those things. My point is that even when you think there’s no reason for you to feel what you’re feeling, whatever that feeling is, there is a reason buried somewhere inside.

We look to our parents for unconditional love. They’re the ones who are supposed to love you no matter what. They are supposed to be the ones who show you how to do this life thing. But they’re just humans. And sometimes they really don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. They’re just winging it. But you put them on this tall, shiny pedestal because they’re your fucking parents. The truth is though, they may have been going through their asshole stage of life right when you needed them to developmentally mold you. Or their parents were fucking awful and as much as they wanted to not become their parents, they did because that’s all they knew. Maybe they didn’t have access to therapy the way we do now. Fixing your mental health is a fairly new concept and I know that people around my parents’ age and older think you’re a fucking quack if you actually want to go to therapy. So when you tell a parent (or both) and they look at you like you’re crazy, that’s like insanely helpful…

Above all things, I want to let go of the trauma. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away. Unfortunately that’s not how any of this works. Ain’t that a bitch? The good news is that there are resources to help you wade through the shit. Not every resource is the right one and sometimes you have to do a lot of work to find what works for you. I personally tried a few and each one of them helped me at the time. And I know that my life was good but really messy and I didn’t get through it the way most people would. But I’m here now. And I have healthy relationships with the people who matter most to me.

Stop putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to be something that you’re not. Regardless of how people will feel or treat you. I learned that the hard way. For the people who matter the most to you, it won’t change how they feel. And if it does change how they feel, they’re not your people. If the people who don’t accept you happen to be your parents, you have to remember that you are here for a reason. They brought you into this world and they were supposed to be your people, but if they can’t do that for you, it’s their loss. You have to know that.

This was an insanely heavy post but I can’t apologize for it. I dug up some really awful feelings thinking about my faults. And it’s your choice if you want to bury all the bullshit. I just have no room for it anymore, so I go through my ways of getting it out. Am I the perfect wife? NO. But my husband wasn’t asking for perfect. When he asked me to marry him he just wanted someone he could walk through this shit show with. Based on past experience, I know I can absolutely do that…

Because we’re holding our own in a great big storm, and though we’re cutting it close we won’t let go… Oh no I can’t believe everything falling down around me, but now we’re holding our own and won’t let go… Holding our own in a great big storm, it’s a great big storm and we’re holding our own…

Song: GREAT BIG STORM/ Artist: Nate Ruess/ Year: 2015