Divided

It's still me right?
Plastic dump truck, Dismantled toys
Singing carols of good girls and boys

Angry and colorful
Passionately wary,
A song in my head and a young boy to carry

Did I ever know myself

with thoughts of suicide and romance

My dreams grew into nightmares, did I ever stand a chance?

Now here we are today dictated by social media and pawns to our chosen political parties. 

A jury pre-determined

Dead before they leave

free the white man with the gun up his sleeve

One year we win, in four we'll lose

let them riot, they were born to lose

Divided

Disarming

Her words were alarming

We grew up as one and she was so charming

And neither know love but we have our convictions

They're righteous and withered

and spawns of affliction

God, what's the motherfucking point?

Yes, I hate you, your fucking Trump signs and Blue Lives Matter fatuity

Your mullet and guns and tenuity

But we're broken for what, for hatred? For displeasure? For change that hasn't happened, that may never happen. Will we ever come together again or will the world simply implode as our roots spread the fires of our own choreographed anger?

Me and My Dryer Door: A Journey through Violence and Meditation

On Monday night I had a run-in with our dryer door and it attacked my head. I was concussed. I slammed it closed a few times more to remind it that I was still in charge but lost my rage to stars and the sudden inclination to check for bleeding. 

The pain had started at the top and traveled down to my neck and shoulder blade where it became dull and I soon decided to move on to chasing Knox off the dining table and washing the skid marks out of our decorative handtowels after Jude had decided to use them as toilet paper. 

By late Tuesday afternoon, I was depleted of energy and could no longer continue with my day-to-day. Paul stayed home with the kids so I could rest and spend the evening throwing up. That sucked, that's all I can say about it. My stomach has never churned like that, vomit was a sweet-n-sour relief. 

After that, I went to the ER to get myself checked out. We opted out of the x-rays since I was functioning alright and wasn't showing signs of neurological damage but was told I needed to take the rest of the week and weekend off from any work and to stay away from screens.

This is where things got interesting. It took me the remainder of the day and a few hours into Thursday to accept that advice. I couldn't let go of my responsibilities although my boss had already threatened to disable my access to our EHR software and company Gmail. It wasn't until I wound up making a ridiculous mistake at work that only a person with a concussion could make that I finally stopped. I emailed an already upset client, cc'd a provider, and addressed the greeting to my assistant, and yes, I sent it. I cleaned that up fast but finally realized it was no longer about me and I had to be responsible despite being a workaholic, which I am, and do not say with pride. It's a problem. 

A concussion was the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to view my brain health through a new lens. I was advised to stay off screens and to not strain my eyes or my brain. "Do not work, try to avoid stress."

Had I been given that advice 10 years ago I would have surely ignored it and gone rock climbing. But after sending an email I was beyond proud of writing but foolishly demolished through a series of brainless mistakes, I was inclined to take it seriously. The fruits of my labor were spoiled and covered in wormholes, so I closed my computer and stepped away from my phone. 

I painted, baked cookies, avoided my emails like the plague, went on leisurely walks, and listened to great music. A life without stress or a desire for distraction is one I knew little of but was pushed to explore. It was difficult, I was restless much of the time and found myself smoking more than usual and eagerly searching for projects. But something began to shift after two days of this. I was...calm.

When date night arrived with my husband, I could not have been more excited. I felt more present, more focused, and more appreciative of the moments we had together at the arcade and over dinner than I have in years; I was 24 again, but without the drama, naivety, and angst. I found more time to cuddle with my children and listened to them as if there was nothing else in the world I would rather do, and there wasn't; I was with them. 

By day four, I began to replace feelings of boredom for inner peace. It was easier to arrange my thoughts and I embraced the silence that rested lazily between them. I had no desire to play games on my phone or distract myself with emails. This may sound like something small to many but, for me, it was a tiny little miracle that gave me the freedom, permission, and ability to be present with where I was in life and to ask myself how much a certain experience or situation really required the level of stress I wanted to invest in it. I made a choice to manage stress because I had no other option and the benefits were immediate. I have no idea what Monday will be like for me, I could very well go back to the same tense, up-tight person I always am. My hope is that the dryer door, which I now am terrified of, will serve as a constant reminder to take care of my brain and to sit with the silence, the chaos, and the joyful moments with more ease and intention. We'll just have to see. 

Miscarriage.

Nothing and no one can begin to prepare you for a miscarriage nor for the permanence and absolution that comes with the loss. At 5 1/2 weeks pregnant, there is very little to honor the tiny existence that represented a lifetime of hopes and dreams inside of me. All I have are the tears and the blood that I shed as the windows that looked out into my family's future shatter before my eyes in little pieces, leaving behind the realization and the painful reminder that so much of this life is completely out of my control. 

This baby was a she in my mind. She was due on April 1st. She would have been a springtime baby, sharing a birth month with my husband and learning how to smile right around my 40th birthday. My son Jude was going to have a hard time watching me nurse another child and we would have to work through that. Jude would be about ready for a regular bed and we would pass his crib on to her. Her name would have been Esme. I knew all of this from the beginning, that's how much blind confidence I had in this pregnancy, and I feel foolish and ashamed at times to have been so cocky, to have believed I was immune to losing her.

On my way home from my doctor's office, I played over in my head the heart-wrenching ultrasound and the conversation that followed, "it doesn't look good," she told me, softly and kindly, "that is not a 5 1/2 week old baby, it appears as if it's going away, but you're smart, you'll know, only time can really tell." 

I walked through a Whole Foods with a mask on my face and bloodshot eyes, trying to track down a box of sanitary napkins as I felt my baby slowly come out of me in little pieces. When I passed by the flower section, I stopped and stared at the orchids. It quickly dawned on me how badly I needed something living, something besides my tears and my pain, to honor my child. I could've taken the pristine white one, but, hidden within its shadow, stood a smaller version of it, in muted shades of purple and yellow; one that appeared as if the colors were fighting to come out but never truly would. 

At night, I laid in bed, crying and holding that stupid fucking plant, wanting my baby back and knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. This is miscarriage. Loss. Powerlessness. Silent mourning beneath the covers, gripping onto our pain. Trying to breathe beneath the flood of whens and whys; the flashes of moments in the weeks leading up to it that might have caused our bodies to betray us like this; wondering what we might have done, where we went wrong. Wating as the dream of the child inside of us slowly falls out in clots and cramps and bright, red agony. It is vacant, empty, diminishing symptoms and fading visions that brought so many smiles to our faces in the weeks leading up to it. It is unfair. It is ambiguous and confusing. There is no over-the-counter urine test you can buy that indicates a miscarriage. We don't get to know so much as we get to be reminded of its presence with every trip to the toilet and every sharp pain in our abdomen. 

This is a mother's burden; our love is equal to our pain, we can't have one without the other. We absorb the flaws of nature as our own, we blame ourselves no matter how often we're told not to. We bury our sorrow, our shame, and sometimes our own children with it...and then we move on, and the world around us is none the wiser. My heart aches for myself, my husband, and for every mother in this world who had to say goodbye to a tiny little dream and who had to silently carry with them all of the sadness, shame, and anger that comes with such a loss. 

This morning, I officially passed my little girl. I dug her out of the toilet and examined her remains, holding in the palm of my hand the placenta and the collapsed amniotic sac, knowing somewhere inside of all of that, was the tiny little seed that would have one day become my baby. When we're ready, my husband and I will bury her and our dreams of the life we would have shared together under a tree near the lake, where I imagined we would have family picnics, and we'll say our goodbyes. I'll go back to selling real estate and Paul will return to his electrical work and I'll look at our son, Jude, and our two basset hounds and be reminded of our blessings and the aching in my heart will slowly subside. Because that too is miscarriage, it's moving forward, it's gratitude and acceptance, it's the reality of how beautiful and harsh this life truly is. 

For this moment though, I will mourn and I will dedicate this piece to my sweet Esme, the life that never got to be, but will remain in my heart until I can one day be reunited with you again. 

Confessions of a Well-Meaning White Woman

I am ashamed to say this on paper and publish it for the world to see, but I've seen so many of us well-meaning white people saying, "we have to be better." Improvement starts with admitting where we have fallen short, so this is my confession, this is where I've fallen short.

Yesterday, I was called out by one of my black girlfriends on Facebook for posting images of police taking a knee during the protests. In my mind, I thought the images signified hope, but my dear friend brought up two very specific points, neither of which I had even considered up until that moment. One is the conviction that it's a PR stunt, and two is that it negates the validity of the negative feelings and fears that black people have against cops. The first reaction I had, which I kept to myself but mulled over for quite a while was, but what if it's not a PR stunt? I know she's angry but maybe some of these cops really care. My second reaction, as my heart thumped and my hands shook with discomfort was to apologize then delete her, because the child within me wants to run when faced with the challenge of having to look at myself honestly and accept that my deep-rooted actions and beliefs have caused harm to an entire race.

But then I read her comment again, and again, and again. I stared out my car window, parked outside my apartment, considering her words and the gravity of their meaning. It was then that I realized I may be far more blind to reality than I'd like to admit. I began to think about how often throughout my life I would hear about a black person being beaten or killed by a police officer and how, every time, I thought to myself, he/she/they must have done something to provoke it, cops just don't go killing people for nothing...right? I believed in equality and justice, but I clearly didn't see that I was giving preferential treatment to my fellow white people while ignoring the cries for help from the black community. It was with this thought that I had to accept that I have spent a good portion of my life, living beneath the protective veil of white privilege. I might have believed myself to be against racism, but I was propagating an opinion that was immersed in it.

Of course, this narrative didn't begin with me, it was everywhere; my family, the news, teachers, the parents of friends. It didn't begin with me, but for a very long time, I didn't question it either, and, therefore, I perpetuated it. I grew up in a suburban bubble where officer friendly came to our school once a week to visit us and my white friends were buddies with their parole officers in highschool. I worked at a local bar when I was 19 and served beers to the boys in blue at the end of their shifts and, for the most part, they tipped me well. They were always kind to me. They let me go when I cried my way out of speeding tickets. They comforted me when I got in a car accident. They turned up the volume on their radio when I rode in the back and was escorted home. These guys would never. The problem is that I failed to consider that they would just never do it to me, or my white friends, or my polite white parents.

Being a well-meaning white woman, I believed I wasn't part of the problem. I received an excellent education and was raised with compassion. I believed that because I didn't discriminate and because I welcomed people of all color into my home, that I was not racist and had nor ever would be a contributor to racism. But the fact is, when my friend said to me, you're negating our fears and experiences, you're propagating a lie, I was both devasted and shocked. I would never do that! This is her anger and frustration speaking! But that's the problem, I never really listened and when I thought about it, I knew she was 100% right on all of it. Posting pretty pictures of sympathetic police officers was basically telling the world there isn't really that big of a problem. As a white woman, I have failed far too long to listen. The black community has been screaming for help for centuries and up until now, their cries have fallen on deaf ears. It took smartphones and social media to open my eyes to these realities and that is a testimony to how privileged I truly am, it is a testimony to how very little I have actually listened.

I am not proud of this part of me nor the fact that I've carried it with me into my adult life and, although I can't turn back the clock or any of the damage I've done, I can educate myself and I can listen. Change starts within each of us. It starts with recognizing and admitting the harm that we've done and the pain that we've caused. I will never know what it's like to live in black skin, but my eyes and ears are open. To the black community; I see you; I hear you; I am with you.

Pre-Natal Musings

Paul was always meant to be a father, myself, I'm not so sure. It's not that I don't enjoy being a mom, but I need to come up for air far more often than he does. He's down there exploring and I'm down there drowning.

I try to picture us with the easiest of lives. No Jude, no Oliver; just him, myself, and Simone. Maybe Paul would have never been too torn up about growing old without a child of his own since he never knew any different. But, watching him now, our current life together, leads me to understand that it couldn't have happened any other way. In a sense, we've both evolved. I've learned not to take myself so seriously. Paul became Jack fucking Pierson. We're definitely both happier, but with far less time and resources.

So here I am sipping wine and eating sushi, enjoying a metaphorical "last supper" as I'm going to call it. My IUD was removed this morning and we're going to start trying immediately for number two. I've been back and forth on the idea of it for quite some time, but the final decision came to me the other day while I was writing. If something happens to Paul and me, I don't want Jude to feel like all he has it his extended family, siblings drive one another absolutely crazy, but they also need each other. I want Jude to have an abundance of love from as many angles as possible. I want him to be truly known by more than just myself and Paul. Paul always knew he wanted more than one, there was never a doubt, he wants a big family. He wants to study our children and their every move and expression from the eyes of someone who is both thoughtfully brilliant and madly in love with his subjects. I could watch him all day with Jude if he didn't get so insecure by my doing so; his backward hat; slender fingers; the curve of his forearm muscle as he stands, hand on waist, watching Jude with amusement, his half-smile revealing so much more to any observer who's ever legitimately adored a child.

Luckily, Paul still looks at me with the exact same amusement and adoration, which still surprises me since everything about who I am as a wife and mother is completely unconventional. He tried so hard to convince me in our 20s that, like myself, he didn't want marriage or children either. I held to that belief well into my middle 30s. It wasn't until we called off our wedding and went into couple's therapy did I start to feel my undying love for this man. I was, for so long, angry and terrified when it came to him, anybody really. But it was when I let him see me, really see me, and he began to let me see him, really see him, that I began to understand raw and authentic love. It wasn't long after that we were married and pregnant. Of course, this is a rough synopsis and there is a lot more meat and guacamole in that taco than I'd care to dive into. But yeah, I wanted to build a family with him, to create a unit, where we would always have each other.

I've been riddled with anticipation and anxiety since my doctor yanked that IUD out of me (I still don't understand why she wouldn't just let me do it myself out of the comfort of my own home, a glass of wine and a little bit of marijuana can work wonders on DIY medical procedures). The fact is, Dr. Axelrod, during a virtual check-up I had with her at the beginning of the week, basically told me to piss or get off the pot, in far gentler terms. At nearing 39 years old, she kindly reminded me that although we don't know when COVID-19 will die, we do have a pretty solid idea of the life-span of a biological clock. So, there we have it. I'm going to try to get pregnant in the middle of a pandemic.

Paul and I did put the cart before the horse a little bit. Most people would hope to own a home before starting a family, by doing so, things like Murder Hornets and a deadly virus infecting the world's population would not affect us so horribly, as I've now grown to realize the benefits of a backyard and ample space for each of your cohabitants. But that's not the direction we took. Bad decisions triggering bad circumstances triggering bad decisions; a large chunk of our adult lives was the embodiment of the domino effect. Truthfully, I don't know what came first, the decisions or the lousy circumstances. But I can say that even as a Realtor, I still stare in awe at the young buyers I work with, preparing to purchase their first home. I want to meet their parents, I want to shake hands with the brilliant people who managed to screw those heads on so perfectly. Are they in matching, plaid, GAP shirts? Or maybe one is sitting in her study writing an essay for the latest Harvard Psychology Textbook, while the other is preparing his final testimony in a social justice trial. Whatever, they definitely aren't my parents. It's not that I'm saying these kid-buyers have all the answers or are making the kinds of decisions I would have even wanted to have the privilege of making in my 20's, it's just the fact that they have the option.

I do believe that we have the ability to raise loving and compassionate children. We may not own a big home and our debt to income ratio is pitiable, to say the least, but we have very attainable goals as parents that we both hold true to our hearts. We want to ensure that our children know love and compassion and that their dreams are properly supported. For me, personally and most importantly, is that they grow up bearing witness to love, forgiveness, and vulnerability. I want them to view as many resolutions as they do arguments between Paul and me since my siblings and I were never given that as children and I grew up believing violence and abandonment were the answer to every relationship problem I was faced with.

These are my hopes for my family. Financial stability, a large home, and getting out of quarantine would all be pretty rad too, but I believe all of that will come in time.

What in the Actual Fuck

Yes, I'm stoned. Because that's what mothers do! This evening, I literally had to pin my 20-pound son to the ground with my legs just to get him to stop moving long enough to let me put his damn diaper on. Seriously, this is not easy. He lost his running-around-the-house-naked privilege two nights ago when he pissed in 5 different places, with one of them being on our living room window. The cord to the blind was saturated in urine. When I discovered the puddle, my 18-month-old son hopped off the radiator and ran into the kitchen. I began wiping it up and shortly after started to wonder where Jude had gone, why was he so quiet. Then I saw the first of multiple tiny turds near our bookshelf, I Hanseled and Greteled the little crumbs of shit as it lead me into the kitchen where I discovered a low key, but still shocking pile of poop near my son's foot. I lifted my head and we locked eyes for only a moment before he picked up his knee and stomped his foot directly into it. I screamed and ran over to him, lifted him over my head, and beelined it for the bathtub, only to discover, en route, my 7-year-old basset hound eating each individual turd on the floor, licking his lips in between.

What the actual fuck is this? They said it would be hard, that I was prepared for; but my son's shit being licked off the living room floor by my dog's tongue; the violent wrestle with a little beefcake, literally 1/10 my size; me singing "I Will Always Love You" as I imagine throwing him out the window while he kicks me in the knee cap repeatedly; none of that I could have ever been prepared for.

Oh, but he is cute. He smiles and giggles at the most outrageous moments; My husband's offensive wit; A loud belch after a quick dinner; Oliver getting hit in the ass by a bouncing rubber ball. He growls, coos, whispers, but doesn't speak yet. Motherhood is the biggest cluster fuck I have ever experienced. I love him, hate him, resent him, adore him, battle with him, and, sometimes, hide from him in the bathroom just to breathe and reset before facing his twelfth temper tantrum of the morning. At the end of the day, I need a cocktail, within an hour I miss him, and I can't help but sneak into his room, risking waking him, just to stare down at his limp little body, sleeping soundly in his crib. I talk about him, almost nudging his name into completely unrelated topics just to chat for a moment about his tiny butt, his big belly, and his gut-wrenching smile.

Seriously, what in the actual fuck is this?

Making Him Beg; Because, You Know, That's What Grown-Ass Adults Do

Quarantine brings out the worst and best in me, that's a lie, it absolutely only brings out the worst in me. Paul and I have been on a three-day fighting bender with just enough time to recover from one before the next one begins.

Two nights ago I got angry with him because I decided to stay up and watch a movie and he had been looking forward to having the night to himself. He began questioning me about why I was staying up; I thought you were trying to catch up on sleep; wait, you're watching a movie, I thought you weren't going to watch TV all week. I kindly asked him if he was looking forward to having time alone, with all the sweetness and sincerity I could muster in order to bait him into answering honestly to which he replied, yes, a little, I like having the place to myself sometimes. And that was the end of it. I scooped up my things, told him I didn't want to be anywhere I wasn't welcome and went straight to bed. The next day was riddled with ugliness and drama.

You should have talked to me about going to bed late and prepared me, we had a plan! 

While you cancel your plans all the time, at least, for the most part, I do what I say!

It was literally just one big vile shit show between two clearly overgrown teenagers. In the end, we begrudgingly sat on the bed, cross-legged, with our heads down, mumbling apologies for every stupid thing we said to each other.

I'm sorry I made the jacking off comment.

I'm sorry I told you that you should stick with a bedtime. 

I'm sorry I yelled at you and said you were a manipulative liar.

I'm sorry I was such a dick to you.

Honestly, this should have been the end of it, but you hurt the pride of a woman such as myself and it never ends there. He told me he loved me and I gave my final speech for the evening.

Paul, I am a prideful woman and I made you a nice dinner last night and ordered you new shoes and in return you made me feel like a burden in my own home, so from now on I am going to come straight to the bedroom after we put Jude down until I feel safe to spend time in my living room with you without fearing I'm not welcome.

I'm cringing at the recollection. So, of course, he did what any slightly unnerved husband might do, he went into the living room and blasted my favorite movie on TV, the music of Quentin Tarantino chimed through the cracks of my bedroom door as I fought not to listen and to continue with my resolves.

This morning, after a strangely great night's sleep filled with dreams of bringing down Don Draper and giving myself a shag haircut with a pair of craft scissors, I sipped my coffee and realized what a fucking child I am. I actually want my husband to become pierced with such extreme loneliness that he eventually comes into the bedroom begging for me to come out and visit with him, the kind of plea that's gift-wrapped in promises of never being so foolishly misguided again. I don't honestly think these things in my brain when I'm concocting my little plans, I swear to God I don't. It's always the clarity later that brings a plethora of eye rolls and mortification as I slowly begin to realize that I am actually far more calculating and immature than I give myself credit for. Until I feel safe to come back into my living room. For the love of God is that not the most dramatic thing you've ever heard from a wife who is adored by a stupid and sometimes selfish but wonderful man?

I'm sure that I'll be on my couch watching Inglorious Basterds by the end of the day, for now, I just have to get up the courage to peel myself off the bed and face him with a smile of surrender. We are definitely both idiots but I am without a doubt, the most prideful and vindictive of the two of us.

2020 is Still Our Year

After speaking with others, reading posts, and the many virtual gatherings I’ve had with friends and colleagues, I’ve grown to realize that, much like myself, there are many out there who feel devasted by the current circumstances; so many dreams appear to have been shattered; financial goals deferred; significant life events canceled. We’ve been forced to both mourn our losses and celebrate our lives in isolation for something that we don’t understand but greatly fear.  I have learned through both humor and tears, that, on some level, we all feel as if we’re suffocating beneath the weight of this uncertainty.

Like so many of you, I believed that 2020 was “going to be my year.” This was going to be the year I made a name for myself in the Real Estate industry, the year I bought a home for my family, the year my husband and I went on our first vacation since 2018. Jude would attend his first Cubs game, visit his first water park, and go to his first music festival. I share these sentiments not to separate myself from the rest of you, but to let you know, I’m right here with you.

It’s recently dawned on me how very fleeting timelines and schedules can be and that I desperately need to change my perspective on what this year means to me, my family, to all of us really. This will not be the year we thought it would be, but that does not diminish its significance. This will be the year where our character and resilience are challenged, both as a people and as individuals. We are, quite literally, being forced to be still with who and where we are in our lives. We have nothing but time. As one of my dearest friends recently put it, “when do you ever really get this chance and how do you wanna come out? Why not emerge differently?” 2020 is now our year to reacquaint ourselves with the parts of us that have long been neglected, it’s our year to learn how to be still, to uncover the little treasures of opportunity that pop up along the way, to be more creative with our goals and ambitions than we’ve ever been in our lives.

2020 is the year I’ll finish the two children’s books I started back in 2017. 2020 is the year I will finally learn to play the piano. 2020 is the year of gratitude towards those closest to me as I begin to realize more and more the true power and grace of human connection. 2020 is the year that my husband and I come together in a challenge we’ve never been forced to face before as we collaborate on how to help get one another’s needs met in spite of our current limitations. 2020 is the year I learn how truly resourceful we can be.

Yes, I’m scared, I hate uncertainty, I can’t stand feeling powerless and, frankly, being quarantined inside a 900-square-foot apartment with an overactive 18-month-old is kind of my own version of hell, but this can still be our year. It’s not about lowering our expectations, just restructuring them.

As long as a tree lives, it grows no matter what obstacle stands in its way; when faced with a barrier, it may need to deviate from its natural course, to bend, stretch, and curve, but it never ceases to grow. Keep growing my dear friends, we’ll make it through this, sending my love to all of you.

Salvation

I find myself reflecting a lot lately on salvation and how lifevests are thrown to us in unfamiliar forms, from unfamiliar places.

I never wanted kids and I never gave a damn about real estate. Now here I am, a mother of a 1-year old boy and a Real Estate Broker. I so obstinately stuck with the path I firmly believed I was meant to be on that my tunnel vision blinded me from every opportunity that came my way and led me to believe I was destined to suffer.

I'll start with my son because he is where everything began. Although, let me just say, my testimonial to having a child is my experience and mine alone. By no means is any of this to say that people should have children to fix their problems or that those who choose not to will be faced with limited solutions to their problems. Get that shit out of your head fast because it's a mindset that will set you up to fail.

Two days ago I was nursing my son on the kitchen floor because that's motherhood and children are natural opportunists, and my sweet and curious little boy reached up and took a little grab-a-grab for my right sideboob with his two, tiny little fingers. At a point in my life, this would have devastated me. Having spent a good portion of my youth struggling with a severe eating disorder, I saw no humor in saddlebags and muffin tops or the dreaded sideboob for that matter. But I had to laugh when I felt his sharp pinch, especially after the continuous reassurance from my husband and sister that they "don't see it."

There's something to be said about the all-consuming force that drives family life. The am I thin enough and am I beautiful enough line of thinking has been replaced by does he weigh enough and is he happy enough. I can no longer sit for hours trying to figure out who I am, what my purpose is, and how I'm viewed by the rest of the world and I have to say, I never imagined it could be so liberating. I believed I would be giving something up and it terrified me, but my mind was a black hole that swallowed up every self-centered fear and negative belief that came way. Yes, I was so self-centered and had no idea I would be saved from my own railing narcissism by a child. I never went into motherhood with the belief that I needed someone to change me, but I also did not understand how badly I needed to change.

So here I am, still actively working on myself in therapy, twelve pounds above my comfort weight and making money doing something that was not in my big plan. Granted I still want to write and still dream of writing something beautiful and honest one day that will maybe rock one person's world, but for now, I sell Real Estate and I'm paying off my student loans, planning vacations and contributing to a college fund for our little dude. This is what drives me now, it's not glamorous or Instagram worthy, but in its own special way, it's fucking awesome. Stripped of the vanity and the shackles of the childish belief systems I clung to as a means of defining my existence, I was gifted a purpose in a place I never expected to find it, here in my home, among my two Bassett Hounds, my curves, my husband, my fine lines around my eyes, and my beautiful, beautiful son.

Rewiring

I've been listening to the audible, Unfuck Yourself, by Gary John Bishop. I have spent 2019 filling my head with the voices of those who think nothing like me. Grant Cardone, who is surely one of the biggest douche bag billionaires on the face of the earth, opened my mind up to the kind of images of success and perseverance that I had never allowed myself to sit with growing up; Rachel Hollis, so raw and honest and everything I would hope to be as a writer; and Jen Sincero, her ability to paint a picture of what her life once was until she started to believe in herself. And it's so funny to me because this is exactly the shit I made fun of throughout my youth. Now here I am, looking for the secret.

When I thought of money, I saw gaudy Hollywood stars with pools in their backyards and multiple divorces, lifestyles of the rich and egomaniacal. I saw my handicapped brother and the battle for who controlled his estate and all the ugliness that came with my parent's divorce. At the end of it all, I decided to embrace a beatnik kind of mentality. I would spend my life writing and singing for nothing. When I pictured my future, I saw myself in a cheap studio apartment, singing at some shitty jazz club making next to nothing, but it was everything I could ask for. I wasn't even happy in this strange, romanticized version of my older self; just beautiful with a kickass voice. In this dream, my sexually and verbally abusive high school "sweetheart" had tracked me down with a promise to change and be better, and that was always where the dream ended; happily ever after.

So many girls my age were planning their future, applying to colleges and dreaming about the differences they would make in the world while I was romanticizing the fairytales of abuse and seduction. I could sit here analyzing the shallow bar I lived by, sure, my home life was a wreck and I had a deadly eating disorder, but at 38 years old, what or where will that get me?

The fact is, I'm coming to terms with the destructive forces that have routinely dictated my thinking; the forces I've created and battled against for my entire adult life. There's an entire chapter in Bishop's book titled, I'm Wired to Win, and it's not at all what I had expected. He discusses how every aspect of our lives has been a win, even if we consciously felt like we were losing, due simply to the fact that we consistently create the scenarios and results from the foundation our subconscious lays out for us. I have always believed I'm destined to lose and have, without realizing it, made it my life's goal to validate those very beliefs, so in the end, I have won, and it's totally disappointing.

And now I'm faced with a single question; how the fuck do I rewire my brain? I didn't expect so much anxiety to accompany it. There is so much more at stake today. I'm not a bill-free, depressed, self-centered teenager with all the time in the world. The depression is under control but here I am $70,000 in debt later and a beautiful son I want to be so much better for. I'm trying so goddamn hard to reverse those future images of myself of being poor, miserable, talented, and directionless. So, what the fuck does 50-year-old me look like? If I'm wired to win, what do I want to win and how do I get there? These are the questions that keep me up at night lately while I push all the regret and frustration of so many wasted years and tears behind me. All I can start with are images and risks. I stand up for myself on occasion when faced with a toxic person. I see myself writing, debt-free, sitting on the front porch of my own home looking out at a huge front yard surrounded by trees in the early days of summer with a journal in my hand, writing. My bank account is full from passive income and a successful writing career. There So I guess that's where I'm at today.

Fruit Flies

I sit, listening to Bright Eyes, staring out our dirty windows through the plants, hanging fairy lights, and two drapes I ripped in half to create 4. I try to capture the part of myself I've lost to anger and exhaustion. I think about the moment, the loss of one of our best friends, my beautiful son, and frustrations my husband and I hold against each other. I sip my wine, I take a deep breath...why the fuck won't that motherfucking fruit fly leave me alone. I frantically swat and clap the air, furiously determined to kill the shitface ruining the few goddam moments I have. He taunts my eyelash, just barely touching it, what the hell did I do to deserve this? We Can't Be Friends by Lorene Scafaria comes on. I played this song for him when he was living with us. he listened to it in a loop for an hour. "I wanna tear you apart, wanna make your bed, I wanna break your heart, I wanna break your head."

Parker was enigmatic; he was funny, brilliant, and tragically selfish. Like a tornado, if you got too close, you were sucked in and a lot of devastation always followed. But, like a tornado; intriguing, powerfully mystifying, and beyond human comprehension, you couldn't not get close to Parker on some level.

That fucking fruitfly.

When did I become so angry, so unapproachable? Racking my brains, I want to know at what point I completely stopped having faith in the world. I know, I jump back and forth between past and present tense, it's my thing and I don't give a shit. Was it puberty? My parent's divorce? My first hospitalization? After Parker's death, I began thinking about how hateful I am towards to people I love the most. He opened up to me in a way he wouldn't to anyone and I turned my back on him, the forces of my judgment and fear pulling me, maybe at times even against my own will, don't do it, don't hate, don't judge, don't, don't, don't, but suddenly I was twisted and blown away by it all before I could ever say "I love you, you are so important to me." I missed the many chances I had as I, once again, allowed myself to be dictated by pride and ego.

I think of my sister's recent words, "I don't think you like me very much. Angie, every time I disappoint you, you go below the belt."

My husband this morning, "you're always so unhappy; if it's not Jude, or how exhausted you are, it's a client, or your mom, or, most of the time, me."

I'm not going to lie, I pictured being sad, dramatically and romantically fucked up, but not angry, not hateful, not so dam unlovable. I was a joyful and silly little girl who had a world of energy and a thirst for adventure, but at some point, I lost that.

There are people born with a natural charisma, people such as Parker and Bridgette. Paul says that no matter how dirt poor, pathetic, and unemployed Parker has been, no matter how gross his drinking got or how much he smoked, he could get more beautiful women to fall in love with him than anyone we've ever known. Bridgette is the kind of woman who people hand money to. I'm the person in the background throwing a temper tantrum asking why the fuck they didn't give it to me; why the fuck they're not in love with me. Hm, not sure. The fact that I can laugh at myself is my only saving grace, I'm not crazy enough to believe my behavior isn't completely ridiculous. It totally is. Fucking fruitfly.

I watched my son tonight as I nursed him and he slapped his hand on my chest, grappling with my shirt and running the back of his hand against my skin. His fascination with texture and the budding relationship with his senses made me smile, which to him signifies laughter, which is exactly how he responded, lips curled, nipple in mouth, giggling excitedly; his two over-sized front teeth sticking out proudly. Why can't I laugh like that? It was once so easy.

What You Can Do to Help Immigrants Whose Rights are Under Attack

We live in a time where we no longer know what is true and what is false and realities become foggy as we rage and question and hate; watching in disbelief as lies are fed to us and the infrastructure so many of us have grown to rely on urges upon us violence and dissent.

To close our eyes with the hope that it goes away is to turn our backs on everything that is right and good in this world. At the end of it all, we are each human beings striving for a better life and purpose.

So far, as we know, 24 adults and 6 children have died. These are human beings that we tread this earth with, God's creatures, as Christians would refer to them as. They are denied soap, toothbrushes, blankets, a place to sleep, and access to medical care. On average, 75 people are squeezed into a 12 person holding cell, crammed so far in that they resort to having to stand on toilets. And I can't be the only one who feels detached, helpless and incredulous, but I have to wake up, we all do.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” - part of Emma Lazarus's poem recorded on the Statue of Liberty

Donate, fight, keep talking. DO NOT LET THIS GO.

https://www.lawyersforgoodgovernment.org/blog/2019/6/21/what-can-you-do-to-help-immigrants-whose-rights-are-under-attack?fbclid=IwAR2aQtr6_OJj2tV_wcg9soGBsggaSsODB0bjjm3fnO4jwv1pQuxwVbFL8eA

Breathing Beneath a Steaming Hot Pile of Limbo

I used to think that to be at odds with someone I loved meant to sever the relationship. There was no messy grey area. We had a good relationship or a bad one, and to be a bad one signified an impossible undertaking beyond my efforts or control. When I fought with my mom, I believed there were only two outcomes to it, suicide or surrender. We couldn't disagree though, I couldn't have my own identity and opinions if they weren't synonymous with hers; I couldn't because to me that was pure devastation, we were one or we were nothing. I continued on with all my relationships in this same destructive line of thinking. We were with each other or we were against each other. Which is why the circumstances of my current situation are so monumentally bizarre and beautiful at the same time.

I am now living in that messy grey area with my husband, recognizing that I can love him and enjoy him, without currently being with him. For over a month now he's been on the couch while me, our two dogs, and the evergrowing bun in my little oven takes over the bed. Our relationship is so far from perfection it's terrifying. But I need him in every way you need another person. I'm sick, I'm tired, and I'm not financially stable. That and the fact that he continues to be my best friend, in spite of his outrageously large and at times nearly unforgivable shortcomings, has put us right in the center of a steaming hot pile of limbo. And no, for those who are wondering, he didn't beat me or verbally abuse me or cheat on me, it's not that extreme or indisputable. It's just human ugliness, the tools we acquire through shitty experiences in our childhood that unknowingly and unintentionally hurt the ones we love most. I'm just as guilty of it as the next person. So yeah, back to that steaming hot pile of limbo, here I am. I've had to ask for peace in a time where I would normally rage and he would normally sulk; I've had to ask for laughter when I would have imagined tears, and I've had to request dinner and dog walks in replace of the removal of him and all his possessions.

In an unexpectedly metamorphic session with my therapist, I realized the misconception of my own apathy towards those who have hurt me. A coping mechanism that began with one of the worst years of my life, and continued on into adulthood, left me blind to my pain and safeguarded my vulnerability behind a wall of anger and near anesthesia. I could go into it, the Year of the Punishings, the year that began with one of many suicide attempts and a month-long hospitalization where we, as children, were told we were nothing more than manipulators and narcissists, that our depression and loneliness wasn't real, that we were all full of shit and that the only way to cure us was through a strict, year-long process of consequences and the immediate removal of privileges. We were to be broken down and retrained to be better people or we would all be sent away to a residential home for the remainder of our adolescence. The anxiety attacks began shortly after. I no longer believed that anyone could help me. My parents were my enemies, my friends could not even begin to comprehend the situation, and the overpaid doctors who were supposed to be guiding me had criminalized me. And if that wasn't enough to digest at the young and impressionable age of thirteen, six months later my dad packed up and left. Suddenly it was my 8-month-old brother, my 2-year-old sister, and my handicapped brother and I, fending for ourselves while our mom crumbled before our eyes. Here I was picking up the pieces of it all and trying to understand her suffering while I lived with the newfound belief that my feelings were nothing and my experiences weren't real. I carried around the shame of my depression and the weight of her constant threats to run away or to kill herself. I no longer trusted that anyone really cared about me.

In the beginning, I deemed to be perfect; honor roll, theater, gymnastics, speaking at 8th grade graduation, an eating disorder, a bedroom that looked like a museum and a smile plastered on my face at all times, that was who I had to be; only then would I matter, would I be visible to the world as someone authentic and worthy of being taken seriously. But come on, how long can anyone go on like that? It was only a few years later that I began to push my friends away and took on the bad girl persona I believed I had earned. I would be a drug addict and an alcoholic, maybe one day I'd recover and finally be real and my feelings would be authentic and I would have nothing to be ashamed of, but that was down the line, I'd be an adult, everything would be different and make sense, right? I would eventually be better. But for the time being, it was, fuck the world, fuck everyone, that was where I was at. That was my safe place.

So anyway, yes, black and white, that was where I lived, that was who I was. There was no in between. I did not hold on to anything. That dark wall of detachment was all I had. If I so much as had a negative opinion about a friend's behavior, we were over. If I did not succeed at something I had attempted, all future attempts ceased. We were good or bad, successes or failures, rich or poor, funny or dull. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was tired and fucking lonely. The hardest reality I began to face as the years went on was that reaching adulthood wasn't the magical antidote I imagined it would be. Nothing just began to make sense and those coping mechanisms did not just go away.

So here I am, separated from and living with my partner of eight years and I'm pregnant and we've got some work to do and everything is insanely confusing in our house. But in my cathartic session with my therapist, I was able to identify the truth behind my feelings and realized that, no, I don't want him to fall off the face of the earth, to disappear; and yes, I would be devasted if I lost him; if this marriage ended. The wall had to come down for the sake of this child I'm carrying, for the sake of my health. Anger bubbled and boiled inside of me so easily I threw up everytime I sat with it. It was not sustainable and, like I said, I needed him. I need him. So with the help of therapy, I was able to say for the first time in my life, the hard cold truth of what his actions did to me.

"Your actions hurt me, you're someone who is supposed to care about my feelings, and what you did made me feel like you don't care and that you don't love me. It made me feel unsafe. It brought me back to being thirteen again and feeling like I'm all alone and unworthy of love, understanding or compassion. And I'm afraid of being alone, I wanted you to be the one that I could trust, that would respect my feelings, and I'm afraid you don't and I'm afraid I'll never be able to trust you and I'm really sad because I don't want to lose you and because this experience has also made me question myself and my abilities to make good decisions and choose the right people to let in and it's always so hard for me to let my guard down and you betrayed me and I feel completely alone like I did back then."

I said all this to him because at the heart of all the anger was this brutal, raw, messy truth. We've hurt each other, we love each other, we are best friends who sometimes want to strangle each other. And now, through all of that, we are here, in this unfamiliar domestic climate where mental and physical health take precedence over our instinctual urges to behave like two overgrown children. He makes me dinner, we talk and laugh on the couch at the end of our long work days, we watch The Walking Dead on Sunday nights, he hugs me when I talk about my insecurities regarding my changing body, and he tells me how beautiful I am to him, how much he loves me, how adorable my current gluttonous eating habits are. He still feels ashamed and I still feel hurt and untrusting. I hold my ground with my needs, advocating for them like I never have before; letting him know what I'm feeling in a more honest way than I'm comfortable with; sharing how his actions, negative or positive, affect me; listening to him when he has had a lousy day at work, encouraging him when he talks about his ideas and thoughts. We are still scared and we have no idea what the future holds. We hug each other before bed and talk as he sets up the sheets over our sofa and goes into the bedroom to pick out his clothes for the following day so as not to wake me in the morning. He touches my cheek before he leaves in the morning and tells me to have a good day and we text funny messages throughout. Sometimes I laugh and other times I feel the sadness and fear of a potential loss.

But he is not my enemy and if this ends in divorce, I know we will always have a solid friendship and will work well together as parents. I do hope it doesn't, I am actually able to recognize that I care about him, I don't have to hide behind name calling and the old I don't give a fuck that I once believed served me. I didn't realize how badly I needed to let myself admit that I'm hurt by him and that I love him. It makes me wonder how many opportunities I missed out on, to get close to people that I let go of all because of a hurt feeling or a missed understanding. Don't get me wrong, my husband fucked up, but it does not make him all bad, he is neither good or bad, that's been my biggest lesson through all of this. He is human just like all of us, prone to ugliness, prone to beauty. But I don't have to make any decisions right now beyond what I'm going to eat in the next thirty minutes. That's just where I'm at, the grey, messy area in between black and white, and I'm learning how to be okay with it.

Survivor's Guilt

I spent my life longing to be unrelatable; to push the envelope of the unorthodox; to reformulate the extraordinary. I would one day be a rock star, a poet, a writer, a legend. It's amazing how easily the term legendary is stretched and confined and unremarkably unconsidered. At the end of every day, I am my handicapped brother's sister. I fight for him. I long for his love. I yearn for closeness and normalcy with him and for him. It seems though, that the further I try to distance myself from his story, the further I become from myself. His story is mine and every detail of his life is an extension of my own.  This is the one part of my life I can't talk about without feeling ashamed and confused and heartbroken. It is, in fact, completely unrelatable. Now all I want is normalcy, to be able to talk about this part of me without shrinking and withering into the vastness of His life, His losses, and His heartache. I am survivor's guilt, aging, shattered, and powerless.

I Was So Young

I was so young. Foolish young. Idealistic young. But my world seemed filled with possibilities of anything and nothing; it was safe and exciting. I was so young.

I may have come into myself at 36. Although, it also pushed so much out, trying to fit properly within the realm of my narrowing perception. Yet we all still experience emotions, they are driven by this new belief that what we have in front of us is so much more important; vital life coming at us in neutrals and grays, no longer a prism of wild, vibrant, shooting stars moving at speeds beyond our consciousness, or attention span, it’s hard to say at times really. But so little matters the way it once did and I’m not sure if I’m wiser or I just don’t care.

Is this adulthood? I sat at the table with Paul and my family today eating brunch and opened up about the changes I’ve been experiencing, it dawned on me how odd it felt, how it never used to feel this odd really, to talk so personally to my family about my life. I thought we did once, but maybe I’m remembering it wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time. But nowadays we’re all so glued to our phones, intimacy doesn’t seem possible anymore.  We flutter in and out of conversations at our own will, demanding little of our need for connection. We laugh or we ignore each other and little by little everything we ever wanted for ourselves shatters at our toes, we notice it no more than the open wounds at the bottoms our feet as we bid farewell and walk through remaining shards of our broken dreams. How badly we need connection and I can’t obtain it from the people I once most depended on it for.

I wonder if this was all my doing. Years of pushing people away, perhaps I put a giant wall between us and I can’t seem to break it down no matter how hard I try. I grew to understand what a truly lonely life that was, but perhaps far too late.

I see an aging woman when I look in the mirror and it scares me.

Perhaps I’m overreacting, but I want to write more than I ramble, and I want to make beautiful music, not just listen to it, and I want to go into my moments where I am uninterrupted with an intention. But my brain wanders like a blind girl lost in the woods, it’s not graceful and fluid, but rather hopeless in their findings, reaching desperately for the trails of thoughts that came before, but seeing and feeling nothing.  And life moves so quickly, I want to lay down and clock out of all of it; to let it happen because I’m so fucking tired of pushing and searching, thrashing against the current then wondering why I'm not going anywhere. 

Transitions...and Not Writing About Them

Transitions. Maybe that's why I haven't written. Have my growing pains been too ugly to put on paper? Or perhaps just too scattered. They haven't been words even, but rather an explosion of letters, a punctuation shower on parchment, fading images on a high-speed train into my forgettery. When did the moments go from moving too slow, to moving much too fast? Friends, lovers, jobs come and gone. Then marriage. Children? It seems that in retrospect, our lives are always the same, a few of the greats will have an untold story, but I am not meant to be that kind of woman. I don't know how to write without crisis. I built my life around being troubled, obscure, feigning to be unrelatedly lovable.

How do I create a story in simplicity, from simplicity, about simplicity? Looking back, my longing to be unique put me in the center of a steaming hot mess in Cliche Town. Sure, my mess might have been a little more sparkly than the ones you'd find on the barrage of reality TV shows my little sister loves so much, but, stripped down to the bare bones of it all, I was still just that, a hot fucking mess.

Please tell me the best writers were as unnoticeable as I am. Tell me the words will come back soon. I miss you old friend.

Dear Woman Inside

Flaps of skin.
Beneath my pits
Above my Tits
Where my ass sits

blanketing my seat
shadowing my eyes
bordering my smile
A beauty in disguise.

My body changes
but a child inside
I search high and low
where that woman hides

She's supposed to be confident
She's supposed to be ready
Her stance courageous
Her eyes steady

I await her fury;
The paradigm afire
To tell me I'm perfect
To steer my desire

Where is the woman?
I long for her still
There's a hole in my image,
I need her to fill

I'm a girl with dark circles
A skin tag at my ribs
A writer in theory
and a waitress to live

I'm a girl, yet with crow's feet
Crow's that scramble and loom
They balk at my sagging
My impending doom

They squeal at my misfortune
Like twenty-two on the fly
Where is this monumental woman
Who holds her head so high?

I'm a girl; I'm afraid
I don't know where I stand
I hold neither money or photoshop
in my wrinkled hand

I have warts on my feet
and acne scars on my cheeks
I'm imperfect, and I'm strong
See me cry, hear me speak

This is my body,
And this is my soul
I appear put together
But I'm not in control

My supposed to's are weary
My desires still sound
I'm searching, I'm stunning
I'm not easily found

May the magazines be used
As fuel to my flames
I'll set fire to the pressures
of the woman untamed

Come out, Come out
Where you claim to reside
Come to me
Dear woman, inside

Throw that Word Around

What the hell happens when you stop believing in yourself? What next? I can't help but despise all those dickwits in the world who mistake melancholy for depression; those unenthusiasts who just need a trip to the gym, or a day off, or a good lay or a laugh or a fucking night out on the town, some chocolate, some sleep, some down time, some up time, some, god fuck you and your glumness.

When you don't want to live, really, truly, want no part in life. When your dirty and hungry and smelly and pale and you can't laugh, you're too tired to move your mouth, throw that word, that filthy, loathed depression around. Throw that word around. There is no such thing as the functioning depressed. When the meds, the nights out, the exercise, the good laugh and the chocolate is no longer doing the trick and all you want is for it all to end, throw that fucking word around.

Your blue is not my black, your frown is not my agony, your sluggishness not my hopelessness. No, I don't think I have it worse than anyone else, I think I'm lacking. I have nothing tangible to display, to bring forth your sympathies. I am not a pretty face or a falling legacy. I'm just an everyday person, a pair of feet on the pavement, a woman in line at the grocery store buying tampons at exorbitant prices from greedy men's fingers and better cover up for my wrinkles and acne and bags and sadness and inferiority. There is nothing poetic or nobel behind my tears. Basic and breathing and filled with regret and ashamed for those passed too soon, not ready to go, I would give them my body and my health and my beauty, gladly, gratefully, to see it all in the hands of the deserving. Gladly. Gladly.

Why the hell am I here?

Learning How to LIve

Our lives are made up of fantasy and instinct; what we picture for ourselves and what we want for ourselves. How very similar they sound, but how different they really are. Although, honestly, it seems often what I pictured for myself was what I always wanted. It just looked so much prettier at the age of 15. My world was sopping with romance; romantic tragedy, romantic comedy, romantic thriller, whatever it was, it would be too beautiful to take your eyes off of it. But dust settles on life's allegory like anything else that lies complacently against the open doors we continuously fail to step out of. Did I ever once picture for myself, want for myself, to be independent, successful, strong? Was there always a man, always pain, always struggle? My stories endings were vague and as equally unattached as the meat of my stories attached themselves to everything in life I believed to not be capable of. The future me was always beautiful and young and dignified and loved, she was wanted by a single man. Life was complete. Why didn't I ever picture myself a brilliant success, happy, confident, alive with energy and passion. There was always turbulence, as a little girl could I honestly not picture anything else? I need to see my future differently, I know what I want, but still, can't see it. I want my own column in a newspaper or magazine, I want to talk about experiences and how I perceive them, in a funny, beautiful way that keeps people coming back for more. I want to be proud of what I do. I want to be off the internet and facebook and netflix and words with friends and every other god dam distraction that tears me away from challenging myself. I want to live a life of color and happiness and laughter and confidence. I want to put love second for once in my life. Although I never pictured a child, today I want one. Perhaps I never imagined I'd be alive past 30. I spent my life contemplating suicide. Maybe I need to look at myself like I was just given a second chance. I've lived four years longer than I thought I would allow myself too. I'm starting to think I'm never going to do it. Which means that for the first time in my life I believe I will live a full life, It occurs to me that I may not know how to live, I'm learning for the first time. Why am I so hard on myself? I'm seriously new to all of this. I've spent the past 30 years trying to pick the best ways to die, how I can leave romantically, tragically, beautifully.  For the first time, I am eager to learn the best way to live.
Or is it more, is it genetics?  I look at my mom and her mom, how very alike we all are. Are some families just more predisposed to happiness than others?

Maybe I just finally learned that movies go on past the love scenes and the musical video montages breaking everything down into the most outrageous joys and sorrows that exist in a lifetime. I never thought there was a middle, a filling. Did I never want to do the work to get there? To achieve those outrageous joys and sorrows I depended on so badly. Was it pure laziness? Fear?

A Beautiful Mess

I recently got out of a six-month long debilitating depression that was accompanied by a state of complete loneliness and destitution. In my darkest moments, I found myself on websites, researching the quickest and easiest ways to end my life because I was terrified of the risk of physical pain as well as what the end would actually look like, or what it entailed for that matter. I came across a forum that had started; there were thousands of comments from people just like me, talking about how and when they were going to go through with it, how tired they were, how lonely they felt. I wanted to reach out to them, to tell them they weren’t alone. And it made me think about what, in modern day life, contributes to a person’s sense of isolation. I thought about Facebook and that feeling of failing, missing out, and loneliness that seems to accompany my frequent visits. I realized that, here I was, contemplating suicide then posting funny pictures of my dogs and silly things that happened to me. It dawned on me that my double life was subscribing to the growing state of isolation that people struggling with mental health issues are faced with as a direct result of social media. 

Only a select few really knew the reality of my internal struggles, I didn’t see the point in letting the rest of the world know. They would just think I was crazy or pathetic, that was my perception of it at least. How hard it was to share my truth when the rest of the world seemed so happy, so stable, so beautifully put together.  So instead of giving my loved ones a raw, beautifully un-put together understanding of my own sense of alienation, I perpetuated the problem altogether, never thinking for a minute that there were people just like myself. 

As a result of this little lie I was trying to live, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t laugh or play my guitar or even read a book. The bigger I smiled, the lonelier I felt. I had fallen into this horrible pit of self-betrayal, losing every bit of myself with each smiley face and funny meme I delivered with the hope it would bring me that sense of connection I was so longing for. 

Not a stranger to depression, I have invested much of my life to developing coping skills, sometimes just to stay alive. I was never lazy when it came to my health, which only adds to the frustration I feel when I fall back into another “episode.” The fact is, I have spent most of my life watching people who seemed to float through their own lives so effortlessly, feeling envious of their calm demeanors, weekend plans, and ability to socialize and problem solve with such grace and dignity. I wanted to be them, but the harder I tried, the more isolated I felt. My social awkwardness and shame over everything I thought I was supposed to be was a ball and chain on my soul. The truth is, I’m tired of it. I want to be released from that ball and chain, to fight back against this shame and the belief that I am not good enough. This is not to justify or excuse shitty behavior, but rather to recognize that it’s there. Every moment I spend denying who I am, I become less and less of a person. And the only thing getting me through each day is the knowledge that there are plenty of people in this world who can relate far more than I realize. So I want to give back.

Which launches my statement of purpose.  After three full days of being out of my shell and actually wanting to live, I decided yesterday to post my truth on Facebook. Here is what I said: 

Day 3 of surfacing from the longest and hardest depression I think I've ever experienced. Although depression isn't something new to me, it is never an easy challenge to overcome. I think about all the silly posts and smiling pictures I placed here on Facebook and regret not being straightforward with what was going on with me. I perpetuated the stigma and sense of loneliness that so often accompanies a mental health crisis when social media is involved. And for that, I want to reach out to all those struggling with anxiety, depression and whatever else interferes with your ability to be happy and say that you're not alone, in spite of how pretty everything often looks when you are on the outside looking in. I want to thank my many angels out there for holding my hand through this, for loving me when there was no way in hell I could love myself and for making me laugh when it was nearly impossible to simply smile. Liz Moses, Jana Valeo, Stephanie Mooney, Paul Steeb, Jeanette Brousseau, there were moments these last few months where I literally owe my life to you guys. I know I will never be completely in the clear from my struggles with mental health, but I will look back at this time with the knowledge that I was and never will be alone. If there is anyone reading this who has or is facing that all consuming and overwhelming sense of despair and desperation, I just want to put myself out there. Whatever you are struggling with, you're not the only one, and I'm available day or night. Sending an abundance of love and gratitude into this little cyber world, thank you again, it's so good to be back.

Following this post I received comment after comment from people thanking me, telling me I was brave, that they loved me, that I wasn’t alone. I was, to say the least, completely, and very pleasantly, dumbstruck. All these people experienced the very same emotions and thoughts. How often do we hide behind our white picket fences and photoshopped smiles thinking the façade is ours, and ours alone? This is by no means a criticism to anyone sharing their joys with the world through social media, but rather it’s a friendly reminder that the world is not one dimensional, that there will always be sides and directions that we can’t see from our vantage point.  Unfortunately, the phenomenon of social media really seems to have accentuated this extreme disadvantage we are all at.  I used to be ashamed of my transparency, I thought it made me weak, I thought if I could hide the messy pieces of myself, I’d be less lonely, I’d be more desirable, I wouldn’t be judged for my many, many flaws. But the responses I received on Facebook as a result of this post made me realize that my transparency is my greatest strength and, at times, all I have.

So I am writing this for anyone standing on the outside looking in and believing that they are a lonely mess, in an otherwise beautiful world. We are all beautiful messes, and this is my attempt to abandon the false impression that I am anything but just that, a beautiful mess.