Song of the Day – TALKING ON EGGSHELLS

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

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

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