It Really Is Time

To grow up. To move forward. To not just 'get' over old fears but charge right the hell over them. To quit giving that little piece of ****-mentality any room in my brain. To go back to school. And to quit making a big deal out of it.

I realized with an absurd, aggravated, and earth-rattling heaviness yesterday that in trying to be a good, decent citizen my whole life long and be a good listener (a challenge back in the day as I have procured such nick-names as Blabber Mouth and Chatty Patty,) I let TOO many outside opinions seep into the inside my brain and became the wishy-washy, insecure, tormented and turmoil-ridden little creep that I was. Just read some of my older entries, you'll see. 

Okay, creep is a little too far. It just is a point of reference for how disgusted I am with this realization; and equally how frustrated.

I mean, retarded. It was absolutely retarded. Simply and finally just grabbing the realization like I was choke-holding it, it was an epiphany of the weary sort. Who woulda thunk. I thought epiphanies were supposed to be dowsed in light and make you feel like skipping all the way to school or something.

You have no idea how this whole idea has got me in a bit of a tizzy.  For no other reason than that is not how my parents raised me. Like I said in a bit part of a few entries ago: where the HELL did that monster come from?

There were two parts to this: 

1) The letting it soak in, the processing of information that had been lingering in the abodes of limbo for a time, the accepting it, the growing furiousness of wondering what in the hell "just" happened, the knowing full and damn well that it didn't actually just fly out of nowhere, and the overlapping madness of wanting to scream, yet again, it was ten or so excruciating years at my expense.

2) What. The. Ginormous. ____ Where in sam hell did she come from? 

I'm not that person. 

That is not how my parents raised me.

That is not even what I believe in being.

Did I ever mention that I think doormat people are the sorriest of people?

 

I don't really think anyone who knew me or knows me now would consider me a doormat, but there were doormat moments for sure.

It just doesn't make sense. When did I got from being a woman who knew what she wanted to being a scaredy-pants, little afraid-of-her-damned-shadow poser who tried to tap too hard into her old self?

Well I'll tell you what it was. I'll tell you how I got there. It was me listening to people and butting my head on brick walls. It was trying to value the opinion of others while slowly tuning out the dreams of my own heart. It was what morphed out of trying too hard to be a doormat and resenting the hell out of it. It was me forcing myself to be something I was not, and it was me making an effort and no one noticing. (So cheap!)

It was the anger and the insecurity of a person who tried so hard to be good, to do the right thing, was really dealing with some heavy crap on and on and on and on and on... along the way, and too backlogged with "whatthehellisgoingon!?" to pay attention until I was throwing syrup bottles at the wall across the kitchen. 

Or, it was feeling placated when I did try to pay attention to what was going on in and around me.  Several people, one at a time over time it felt, were simply trying to placate me or maybe placate a rage they felt on their own. Maybe me making enough gripes and slashing comments (many of which I wish I could take back) unearthed their own discontentment with feeling essentially trapped there. Who knows. I was just too inside the inside.

It was feeling cross about what was "right" for everyone else and nobody else at the same time versus what was right for Amy; and yet so rarely did what was right for me. Instead of being accountable for myself, I was accounting myself to everyone else, answering to them like a child.

It was discovering, albeit rudely, that finding a good ear was incrementally difficult to come by; and not only couldn't I get the help I needed nor rely on friends to simply say, "wow, that must've SUCKED", I didn't even get to have a 'my side' of the story without being linched for thinking the wrong way. 

I had just had enough of it.

Or I thought I had, anyway. 'Cause apparently, even after being sick of editing myself to death, I was still doing it. I was still, still saying what I thought people wanted to hear based on what truths they were able to bring to my attention. Did you catch that? I was listening to other people's opinions, digesting them, understanding their side, and trying to alter my perception to meld to some schmoozy hybrid of them both!

And then I did it one last time. With the so-called 'last' person in my satchel of people I angered to the hilt with my attempt to clean up the hot mess that I was, wanting to get control of myself AND feel validated, a final stroke of contempt plus this massive downstroke of irritating depressive moment yesterday, and it all came swirling together. That's what made me mad. Holy crap.

Have I ever let people influence me!

And then it occurred to me. Regardless of the lack of details, pertinent or otherwise, for anyone sitting on the outside of my skull, or even fragments of the story pieced together by outsiders--by anyone not directly influenced--there is only what's right for me, and what is right for my kids. There is conjecture and perception, and then there is truth. And, as much as I hate to say it, just because someone doesn't like my point of view, it doesn't mean I'm wrong and it doesn't mean I deserved nearly a tenth of what I got. It means, I made a choice.

And isn't it effing ironic that I had a whole entire life of being indecisive and letting everyone make decisions for me (or at least influence the hell out of mine) that when I finally started making my own, I would get very little respect for them.

And here's the thing. I can still hear the voices of the multitude of well-meaning people in my past saying their well-damaging things. 

I had grown monumentally resentful of it, too, relative to the time spent there. 

1 year = isolated hardship frustration times pi r-squared minus some joyous moments X 10 = clusterphuck to the nth. 

But...

...doesn't it just SAY something about me? Yah, what a kook I am, perphaps. Because I'm the only one to have moved in and moved out, with a hefty sum of time having been served on the inside, and being so absolutely "vocal" about it. (Who really knows who reads these things. It never serves me when I'm writing something cool, only the negative. Just ask whatever anonymous person it was who printed out one of my, shall we say, meaner entries some years ago and sent it to my bosses.)

But it should also speak to how hard I was trying to make it all work--living there, working, emoting, partying, sulking, crying, laughing, celebrating, mourning.... Taking my lemons and making lemonade, if you will. Doesn't anything speak for itself?

The worst part about this whole kind of dawning-on-me thing is that it really wasn't new or surprising. And it came laced with feeling dumbass-ey and feeling freaking justified all along. Weird.

The realization that I was drowning in that deforming mentality, rather than staying true to myself. It just sucks.

I mean, family can have their own way of screwing you up, true, but isolated northerners...

And to digress a bit more, yes, I know it wasn't just people back there, that it was just my own experience, that I am grouping the people I loved there/people I did not love/people who weren't even from there and therefore possibly stepping on their toes, and that yes, it wasn't all bad and yes, there were good times there, and yes, it's true that I should not be coloring the minds of whichever 2.3 people that read this with a negative opinion of a community that happily functions at a stunted level, and that yes, I know my contempt screams through every word. After all, there is much to be said (and will be said in an entry soon-ish to come) about the life I had with my kids there, and that was plenty positive.

But I am truly confident that I am not wholly out of line when I say that there is definitely a certain "mentality" because I did live there and did give it more than just a disgruntled chance. I've seen people who've lived there and left use air-quotes around the word 'mentality'.

 

I did my damned best to entrench myself there, live and bloom where I had been planted, and deal with all that I had been dealing with at that time in my life; and contrary to what I have been told in regards to post just like this one, I am not slapping people in the face. I'm slapping a mentality which does afford me some room to gripe. Not to mention that some of the dearest of my friends there admitted, or at least relented to, there being major disadvantages to living there.

I guess it just didn't didn't work for me. For whatever reason. My very two different, Gemini sides were very present through pretty much my whole ordeal there: from start to stop.

A rambling year in review: 2011 in some parts

-So yeah, I don't know. That's just what my thoughts are on it. I think the biggest thing, in rereading my religious entries, is that I am still not satisfied with my answers. Perhaps that may be because I don't know what question I am answering, and to figure that out directly would mean answering directly. It would mean taking a defined stand on something I specifically and intrinsically do not feel I can do, for I see the errors in representation on all sides.

-I had to put some barriers between me and an old friend recently. It really sucked, and I am rather sure she was on her way to doing the same before I even resolved to, but the real pisser of it all is that I was trying really hard to be the kind of friend she wanted and needed and still failed miserably (for a multitude of reasons both sides contributed to) while trying with great difficulty to overlook the fact that we both were probably always friends with each other out some sort of sense of condescending obligation. I mean, that's not to say our friendship was or is a farce. No. Never. But just ended up being more on the ritual side of a prolonged, long-distance relationship, and then when I tested the friendship by making a decision she could not stand by nor overcome, the ugly reality of it basically divided us. I really don't harbor a whole lot of ill will because she had to stand by her convictions and I had to stand by mine. But what compelled the need to put more than a little space between us, and it's more complicated than I give credit here, is that at the end of the day, she could not be there for me.

-I started playing bassoon again and realizing a huge portion of an old dream: to perform for a living. I did not make a living off of playing come true, but I DID get to just focus on playing, practicing, performing, and making some good friends for life while doing it. I realized that I have a ginormous fear of accomplishment and/or failure, and that to get past it, I had to suck up a buttload of old preconceptions and misguided notions. About myself. About others. About success and failure in general. And I did it French.

-Learning French was a much needed benefit and blessing. As a result, my vocabulary and ability to communicate has improved somewhat. I have found the ability to articulate more clearly and be more concise in my communications. Being that French is a more direct language and puts the kibosh on vague and otherwise useless constructs of language, I have figured out how to more accurately state no more or no less of a given main idea, which has helped in my writing, but has also aided in my personal psychology, making introspection and even moving forward more easily accessible. On top of that, I can now listen and appreciate French music and television much more as well as watch movies in French without subtitles. I can walk into my girls' school and utilize my newly acquired French-speaking skills. Overall, it has made my life a much richer experience.

-I never, ever, ever, EVER, ever. Ev-er. Want to live without my daughters ever again. And while that may be just exactly what happens as they go to live with their dad next year, I will scream it from the rooftops of Blogger here and through tensely clenched teeth: I. Do. Not. Want. This. At. All. It is not because of their father. In fact, if there was anybody else to take care of them when it's not me, I would rather it be him. But it is because living without them last year was absolutely hell. My entire adult life has been constructed with being a mother. I do not know who I am without them, nor do I really want to know. Whatever sweet moments of living like I was a freely independent woman and cohabiting with a crazy wonderful man that I just adore to have existed last year were intensely subdued with the pain of being without them and the terrible, terrible state of limbo I was in without them. My life is complete when they are with me. It doesn't matter that I will just have to deal with their absence when they leave home to go to university or whatever mission in life, what my mom said about that absence being like a practice run for me is the shittiest thing I've ever heard.

-I realized how negative I had become. Again. Who knows why or when, and it almost certainly has to do with the tremendous ups and downs of the last year, from divorce to epic disagreements with mon conjoint to living without my daughters, but in rejoining my children's lives to mine, my oldest has been keen to call me out on it point blank.

So, after a negativity/positivity quiz kind of acted like the final smack upside the head, I just kind of, sort of snapped out of it. I quit dwelling or brooding. I realized how easy I could do it. I realized that I couldn't handle boring without brooding, that I had brooded all last year, that I had gone back to brooding after successfully changing my outlook TO be glass-half-full back in the day. I realized that if my daughters could live through the kind of year they had and still be happy, well-adjusted children, well then, so the eff could I. I realized I don't like brooding. So I changed it back again.

It doesn't mean I'm cheery or with sunny disposition all the time. But it does mean that I have, yes, reassessed my life, realized that even with all the stresses of starting over, of tight budgeting, of cleaning up after everyone, of maxing out the overdraft, sewing holes in clothes (rather than getting new ones), scrambling to make rent---in addition to this being the THIRD time in my life that I've started out from scratch and been poor. as. fuck.---my life is still pretty good.

Maybe the third time's a charm. Maybe it's because I have this really cool French boyfriend that my daughters are trying to establish a relationship with. Maybe it's because people are so friendly in this town, or that I'm doing what I love for a part time job. Maybe it's because I have cool friends and a sweet neighbor lady and family that still loves me. Maybe I'm wiser now. Maybe it's because putting all the crap behind me is working and I'm not hiding behind anyone or anything anymore (even WITH the drama and scandal of what I did.) I don't know. But I just know that things are getting better. I know I am seeing signs of hope, joy, love, and exciting times passing my way and just as sure to come.

-Bottom line of the last year: not apologizing for myself ever again. This is not the same as being sorry for people I've hurt or mistakes I've made. But it is about correcting those mistakes, making right the wrongs, and moving forward. I have not always moved forward so decisively. In fact, I pretty much never have. I have blabbed to just about everyone I've had a problem with in email form while continuing to spin out on either 1) blame/wanting someone else to take the responsibility of any given gripe (early on) or 2) force their side of accountability. I will probably never quit trying to be a mirror towards people, but I will not be focusing on what I can show someone else--I will only be worrying about choosing the paths and turns I am taking to be happy and to bring happiness to myself.

In the words of a very dear friend in regards to all the naysayers and judgmental critics: f*** 'em.

Old thoughts, a letter never sent, good reading

Why would I want to go see what you bashed me with? On a site that I'm not interested in seeing? You tend to keep thinking I NEED help, when in reality, I've carved out a pretty hard ass road ALONE and acquired some pretty damned solid morals within my faith in spite of myself, keeping an open mind to all forms of wisdom: great works of art, of music, quotes worth immortalizing, literature.


I don't claim to have more wisdom than anyone or any 90-day program, but I find a very solid sense of the same things you are learning with this program in the skill set I already have and it just grates me that you keep telling me you think you know what I need. I think you just need to stick to knowing what you need because you're not very good at knowing what I need. Most of these programs are carved out of the same principles found in every good-moral book: the Torah, the Koran, the Bible, even great philosophers and literature giants. I'm not trying to impress anyone, You. I'm done dancing to the tune of everyone else's fiddle, and...


...just what am I supposed to do about everybody's hate? I will eventually have to go back sooner or later, and when that transpires, everyone's just gonna have to get over it sooner or later because the people MOST immediately affected by my oh-so-demonic move are already moving on. Also, I'm just not worth the hassle. They are not the ones I screwed over! I'm not divorcing them, I'm not tearing up their relationships, I'm not ruining their lives. The people who still hate me have a responsibility, like it or not, to tell me directly, to approach me, to confront me about, or shut the hell up. I don't want to be mean, but I am physically exhausted and emotionally drained from all the ways other people have felt so entitled to be that angry that even in their ANGER they try to control what they cannot because they lack compassion and understanding in spades. Even in seeing just how and what I brought on myself, here, even now, all these thousands of miles away, this truth cannot be veiled.


I understand that their anger stems from being hurt, confused, misunderstanding, hell even cultural differences and I can't blame them. I can't begin to tell you the torment I've felt over this, the hot tears I've cried, the soul-wracking sobs that come from being 1 person who suffers the opinions of many, but what does you telling me about everyone hating me do for anyone? Does it make you feel better? Do you think you are telling me something I am not wholly and completely 100% aware of? Is it supposed to make me feel worse? Teach me a lesson? Bestow something else, anything else, any other morsel of fruitful bearing, wherein it would just be better to move on? What good does it produce? How does it help you or me or anyone move on, feel better about the things that have transpired or heal deep wounds?


Hurt? Hell yeah, I understand that one. Pissed, yeah, for sure. But telling me not to come back? I still have reasons to come back and if you don't want to be one of them, I can and will respect that, but taking suggestions that don't really come out for my well-being is exactly the suffocating thing that I defied by leaving. All the friends that were close to me/us were friends first and foremost because they had important traits/qualities we found in each other worth saving, worth investing, worth smiling and laughing about, telling jokes, celebrating with. I'll take anything they have to say. But no one is going to tell me how to be me.


As for the lingering gossipy few, there are plenty of lakes around for them to take a long walk off a short pier. Everyone in that area of the world has something to say and I, for one, am not going to walk around like Hester Prinn with the scarlet letter branded to my forehead on account that I'm some abhorrent troll. In fact, I'm not even going to walk around as the least or the most of anything. I will not give a shit. Any. More. The very same noses that have been needlessly, bit-grabbingly poking up into my business up 'till now are all the very same noses that were okay to love me as long as I was doing exactly.... what.... they wanted. And you know what? None of them were around when I needed to talk and none of them stood by me along the way. I didn't make the move I did to protect and gainfully keep any semblage of popularity. The question is: why do YOU care if people hate me?


And as a last-ditch effort, I defend myself. If what I did, by leaving, was so horrible, then what about the good things I left there? Why isn't anyone thinking, well, you know, she was a good woman in X, Y, Z regard or remember the good things, or---for crying out loud---my children! Even though there was probably some silent, collective cheer when my girls went back to live with their father, I can tell you he didn't raise those girls all by himself and they didn't get to be sweet, spunky people that all my friends and all the nose-pickers claim to have say over without their mother! In fact, far from it. And. I was a good waitress. I used to teach there. I made friends from every gammut and circle I crossed. I was reliable. I threw my all into anything musical. I was a fairly productive member of society there. Everyone USED to like me. I knew I would have a lot of explaining to do, that my motion was severe, that it would sever many ties, but only did I expect to answer to those closest to me. I already committed far more than my share of energy in treating everyone with acute equality and niceness (even if they didn't deserve it) in attempting to get along with anyone at all costs. I'm done with it.


If not the past, if the good things I did in the past are somehow now negated, then so be it. I won't point out that I sent my girls to live thousands of miles away with their father pending a whole year. I won't mention that it was me respecting their choice. I won't point out that I could have made any number of battles for keeping them with me, could have made one vague excuse after another and won. I won't point out that I have come to rearrange my whole life around his job so that the girls will have parents that aren't split by plane tickets and geography. I won't point what a superiorly royal bitch I could have really been and wasn't.


The fact is and still remains that no one knew what was going on behind closed doors and worse, no one cared when I tried to even approach the subject. Just toss, toss, toss it under the rug. Don't talk about it, it's not that bad, it's not what you think it is, you're not thinking about it right. Ad nauseum.


People didn't see and people didn't care, so people didn't have a right to judge. The timing of it was messed, the action severe, but I point out: you didn't really give all that much a whoop anyway. But as I sat here once, with all the steaming hot indignation I felt, I couldn't help but see the ironic injustice of it all. All those who yelled at me from their social thrones on high, from their bacteria-cultured cells, through Facebook, behind my back (thanks for telling me)---the ones so hellbent to pin me to the wall---weren't there for the least or the most of the previous 12 years. None of them, not one, dropped by to help out when I was a single mom, alone and scared. Didn't come in to say hello when I had a dearly beloved husband sick and dying in the hospital. No one uttered a word of sympathy or pity in the whole existence of an altered life with an incapacitated husband, nor appreciation. Barely a word or gesture or measure of greeting, understanding, compassion at any single moment or angle of grief in my worst moments and muted support at the best. I wish I were exaggerating.


So then who.... tell me..... was there? Who could have possibly taken my hand and been able to give me the kind of real help and support and/or shove in the right direction I needed? Who was going to be willing to to be loving to me before my adjusted way of living went so far off track that I really felt like there was no one? How could anyone not of dedicated stamina help me figure it all out without exacerbating the world I made for myself? Who was there to think of anymore when I had no one? And who was going to help me so long as I was not willing to help myself?


No matter how many "shouldas" and "wouldas" and "couldas" that are infinitesimally born of the one and same problem, the fact is that I couldn't believe how changed things had become and I just finally had enough. I was fed up with being the kind of woman I swore I'd never become.

Life is hard, but hope is vital

Life is hard, you know that? It doesn't matter who you are, where you live, what your background, what your ancestry, what kind of job you have, how much money you have or don't have, life is just damned hard.

Consider the following:

1. A country whose leader is refusing to step down and turning on his own people with military force, even despite an international warning to back off (several countries working together at an emergency summet in the U.N. this week), which hangs on a delicate balance---this fool's pride/arrogance/deranged-ness. An entire people, innocent and wanting change, prospectively attacked, the families of those people potentially suffering--all the very real effects of extremist behavior that have happened in the senseless taking of lives in the history of the world. Yet this man in power is so.... what?.... so within his own fucked up sense of right and wrong, entitlement or demonstration of force that the situation has become the very fragile potential to singularly ripple through dozens, if not hundreds or thousands (depending on how it unfolds) of relatively innocent human beings? How does one person get to that fucked up state of mind? Even much more than that is how do similarly insane people get so much power?

2. Two girls whose dog gets put down after only 8 years with her due to a chronic degeneration of the hips. They have to learn about loss and about the hard things of the world over a Skype session, just months after their parents split up. Meanwhile their mother can't even be there to hold them. They have to learn about what they can and cannot control, true responsibility, and grieving from a truly personal place. They are only 10 and 12.

3. Men and women who come home from war only to discover their world was not like they left it, even in the most ideal situations where the spouse has guarded over every detail of their lives and waited faithfully with devotion, but keeping in mind for every one good setting there is an unknown, multiplying number of shitty situations, far from ideal and end in heartbreak, domestic warfare, mental issues, post-traumatic symptoms, and inability to keep jobs. Even the ones in the middle who manage to come home and live productive lives, they are never the same. War kills the soul.

4. The kid whose vivid memory of his dad leaving him at 2 years of age and being bullied on the playground surging into the scars of adulthood. He grows into a respectable man who knows and lives responsibility, taking on the tasks of life with fervor and with reverence, but the pain of rejection is never far, and so he has to work twice as hard as anyone to overcome fears that would not otherwise cripple another. He has to differentiate between realistic concerns and irrational fears more analytically. It plays into all of his relationships.

5. The mom who is teaching her toddler to use the toilet, hitting and missing, having to clean up messes, having to pull from a basic parenting skill set but more or less flying by the seat of her pants to ensure her own parenting is what she wants to make of it, including the love she gives and all the things she does to encourage her little one. She realizes this is a part of growing up and is excited for her Baby, but it pulls at her heart strings because she knows these years are precious and fly by too quickly.

6. The spouse who watches over the other in a hospital because he/she is sick, dying, or somewhere in the middle. Day after day of looking into an even more uncertain future than those simply struggling to make ends meet. Life and death is on the line, their point of relativity changes, accomplishment and success are suspended or at least take on new meaning.


The point to my Depresso Rambling here is that none of this is without hope. None of it! The very real problem is that it seems hopeless, feels hopeless sometimes, but that's because we give up first. We really do. We feel defeated because we see trends in society, percentages of failure (rather than success), get balled and bagged down by our own experiences, the news, other people's experiences, wondering at last if there is anything substantial about this life. But that's just what that the negative forces of existence are expecting us to believe. Because it draws our attention away from all that is positive, good, right, light, and loving. At the very least, we are at war for our souls--trying to save them from despair and there being an exponential increase with people (and groups) who are trying to help us win that war (think of any proactive group you've heard about, types of really exemplary people our generation alone has known, the importance of taking care of ourselves, the return to hope and love), but there still being a host of crap in the world that would fight us no matter how much hope we hold onto.

You don't have to be an emo to understand these things, either. While I confess to a few random emo 'moments' in my early twenties, I've generally been a hopeful person. Even when I was going through all that I went through (which was mind-numblingly boggling, intense, angry, contemplative, bargaining, unresting, and unfair--and probably more than any emo could make up) I refused to give up on my beliefs. I didn't feel good about it because it didn't change my situation and it didn't make me not angry or not resentful---and the much cooler choice would have been to wall up and tell the world to fuck off---but I believed in the promise we were given in and around 2000 years ago and had seen so many really, super-drenched good things that such things were proofs in and of themselves that something so much better than this life existed. How can a person refute an inexplicable silence in a whirlwind of storm in the heart where, when pleading for these impossibly grave things to pass, an inexplicable wave of peace settles over the core of the body, allowing tears and relief to flow? It only happened for a moment, but it was just the morsel I needed to carry on. True story.


The fact is, very few believe that kind of stuff anymore. It's time to turn our heads back to our Creator already.

Les canards

Every day I get up, get a coffee and have a cigarette out side. When I first got here and the mornings were still warm, I'd go "all the way out" on the dock and watch the ducklings. (I've been here two and a half months.) I would take in the open blue sky, the towering evergreens, and the thicket of forest where all kinds of creatures hid in the safety of their refuges while standing over the water feeling like the floating dock would take me away.

It was the only thing that kept me from dwelling on the world that I left, an entire other life that felt sacked by me up-and-leaving (a life that I had grown rather accustomed to living.) I breathed in the fresh, pine-heavy air, and struggled to appreciate that I was there and incapable of turning back before I could change my mind.

Before the girls went back with their father, my youngest would come out and greet me a sleepy good morning and sit with me. And after they were gone, it was a place I would go to collect my thoughts and wake up. I've had many a day here like that. Almost every single one. This haven, this beautiful secret garden, has been the refuge I've needed to clear just about every basic (or complex) thought I've ever had.

It has also been, much to my charm, a world unto itself. The ducklings grew and more seemed to join the family. And they've gotten fat eating off the ground where the birds spill their seed. As well, I've had the privileged delight to witness not one or two, but three blue jays, which I've never seen before. Between the birds, the squirrels, the wasps, the dragonflies, the two odd otters (one day only), and the odd porcupine, it is enchantment best saved for the movies.

The funniest thing though, is how the ducks have made a path in the grass with their waddling march to the tree where the bird feeder is. It's truly a delightful little show of mother nature's humor.

Mass in French

What an enriched experience Mass is in French when you have a small stash of vocabulary and the little missal in front of you!

I came here under premonition, decision, wincing in preparing for the barrage of fire, but the one thing that helps me even when I'm feeling like the scum of the earth about my decision to live here like I am is to go to this massive cathedral where I am just a peon.

In the whole sense of the word "blessing", it just doesn't matter what the whole world thinks for a moment in your life. For just one hour, you get to be a person who could be worthy of forgiveness, a person full of graces, and part of a family. For one hour, you can focus on something so much sweeter, nicer, more loving, gentle and warm, forgiving than the weight of all the raucous crap people feel entitled to give you just because you made a decision to do something with your life, and every person you ever knew, ever loved was hurt or pissed by it and had something to say on Facebook about it. (True story.)

For just a few moments, you get to shed the unraveling of the prior week (or weeks), the pain them feeling betrayed. In French, "blessure" means "to wound." In my studies of eternal matters, I have found that many of the saints refer to this "wound of love" that pierces them. It is this pain that they rejoice in because it signifies death to self and a welcoming of the eternal love that floods the soul through the light and mercy of our most Eternal Lord. (Can you imagine the light pouring in your eyes? The pressure of joy bursting from withing your gut? The sheer, overcoming relief of total welcome?) Isn't it something that we refer the the word "blessing" without really even realizing its sheer and pure, yet absolute meaning.

Funny thing is, the scenes didn't all unfold caustically until human judgment got in the way; and, like it or not, I'm finally realizing that it isn't their forgiveness I'm seeking. (Although it used to be. Weird, huh?) But I digress. I still felt like this (refer to "peon" paragraph) before I made the decision to move here and eff up everyone's perceptions of me, hurt their feelings, shock them. You know, when I was a Stepford wife.

That doesn't mean that you are reprieved of the things that you do which suck, or that your journey to be a good person and make fully conscious decisions, complete with consequences just stops there. It means that for a concrete, singular moment you get to breathe. Which is a blessing.

Of course, it seems easier when the people in the church don't know your every last sin, but when you're sitting there with the uncle of the man you're with on the other side, and he knows that you are there under some matter of dramatic sequence, you know you are going to be facing the music eventually.

But even then, it's okay. It's peaceful. Because even when they know my story (at least the people closest around me), I know they're not going to be the type of people to judge. Even if they heard all the gory details down to the final indiscretion, these people I already love already love me and this life, here, is already its own proof that I am not the same person who just lays idle about life and allows everyone else to define her boundaries.

Ici est la cathedrale de Chicoutimi:

If I may...

I didn't meant to hurt anyone. I knew that it would hurt a LOT of people around me, but I didn't count on it affecting every single person who felt entitled to write me and tell me just what kind of person they thought I was before and after the whole initial step.

Not everyone who wrote me had something ill-willed or damning to say, but the entire collection of messages and emails I received did, in fact, make me think about my actions AGAIN, yes, of course, but mostly of yelling my defense amidst wracking sobs from on top of a mountain. I did consider this--and all these things that happened--in the full scope of making this decision before I even left. I have had the darkest days of my life so far contemplating these things. And I've seen some pretty dark days.

I considered the entire drama of it all, the potential tidal wave of reactions to ensue, the confusion, the hurt, the heavy impact of what I was about to do, the most important people in my life that it would affect. I tried to write them letters beforehand, erroneously, trying to explain (why did I even bother?) that what I was doing was huge and that I had to do it.

I made mistakes in my execution of this, used words that poorly conveyed what I really wanted to say, but I had no intentions of escaping the aftermath; and I did not escape it. I faced it full-on, like a matador in the bullring that knows full and damn well that if he dies, he made the choice to be there.

I also considered the people I knew, love, and respect to count on their forgiveness. Not in the way that I deserved it or would even get it or would ever learn of their processing of the entire situation, but in the qualities I saw in them, the reason I could be friends with each one, to believe/hope/see that place inside them that could and would conquer even the obvious hurt. It has been a tremendous blessing to see those who have nurtured their wounds enough to come out from the shadows of judgment and reach out their hands. Somehow I think they knew I would never turn them away.

I considered the light and beauty in each one of them to evolve past the initial tear, once things settled on the first level, in fathoming such a thing; and then to ask questions. I believe(d) in their ability to love past and through the hurt, which I could see in them, was (is) greater than anything I had to offer them, greater than whatever perceptions to come, greater than the general mass mentality.

I considered that no amount of explanation, then or now, would make it any more right.

I considered that at the end of the day, there was and is so much more to get from life than what I was preaching to everyone else to get, to soak up; and that if I had to be responsible for my life and what I got out of it (like I've preached to everyone else), then I had a decision to make.

For so long, people around me my whole life were unwittingly putting me in a cage with words and phrases like "oh well" or similar, critically judging my every move. Until, one day, I just did what was "right" and everyone shut up. Everyone didn't have to worry about sticking their two cents in, no one could tell me how stupid I was being. (No one was listening to ME anyway.) And while any time that people, family, friends meant well, it left me feeling like I couldn't do anything right unless I laid low.

Did I think that my aunties, old friends, dear family should allow me to get away with messed up choices? Of course not. Would have killed them to let me make my own mistakes? What happens when you cage a free spirit just for doing bad? You don't have a chance to see them do good.

I had a chance to change the direction of my life, just the right person to take the journey with, and the opportunity to be true to myself with massive consequences. With the daggers of people's opinions on every side and the future of my precious daughters at stake, I took the first step of my life, braced for just exactly what I got. And I still got the wind taken right out of me. The only load of crap I've ever fed myself was believing that some of the people closest to me would jump over the wide gap of broken pieces to see me for real. Some were able, some were not.

In my opinion, it's never too late.

I didn't figure I was being caged just like that, though, with exactly that intention on my mind trying to "shut" everyone up. I realized from early on that I wasn't speaking loud enough to be heard nor did I give anyone in the infancy of my adulthood the chance to see I was more than they gave me credit for.

I didn't realize I was being that way, and I wouldn't have admitted it had I seen a glimpse of it. I just was doing what I thought was right, following the path that I didn't see was meant to lead me here, making a shitload of mistakes in the process, but wanting to embrace what I was given, rather than discard a moment of it in ungratefulness.

But in a life that was one succession after another of making concessions, letting go of even the smallest dreams towards the end, and finally having lost my voice under the barrage and weight of all other perceptions but my own, it led me here. It led me to making painful, painful sacrifices. It led to the most consequential, supremely massive decision of my life. This wasn't just about a guy. This wasn't just changing life on a whim. It was and continues to be about something greater than myself, which is what I said from the beginning.

All You Need Is Love

One of the greatest song done by the Beatles, in my opinion. But I digress.

Today I have a small window of time before tackling the evening shift at work to ooze something more appropriate than the things I have blogged about in the past.

I have felt, as I'm sure many others have, the despairing nature of the world. Something in all of us, at least, has at least noticed the difference in the societal sense--"things aren't what they used to be", "things weren't like that when I was younger", "can you believe people today?" and so forth ad nauseum. What we are seeing, in all of our varying degrees of sights, is a graphic insurgence of hardened hearts. (I have a friend who could term this better, but for now this will do.) Without analyzing the crap out of is, which I have been known to do, the better question is, "why?" Why do we have to live in a world that is like this?

Already people are pointing to the signs of the times, trying to predict the end of the world, or at least the world as we know it. People are hurting each other, souls are broken and wounded. Crimes of mass destruction and of unspeakable nature are occurring in every minute. There is certainly no denying that, where we are in history, we are engaged in the inevitable last stages, though what "stage" is precisely defined is anyone's theory; and I am not a doomsday advocate. Are there no sacred places anymore? Is there no reaching out for another in humanity? What happened to the simple belief that the One greater than us would take care of all of us; and in that love, care for another? Why is it, how is it, that we, as a people chosen by God, can so easily forsake His great love, so easily forget to treat others with love and humility? It is our duty, our obligation, and our call in this test of life to respond to that love by loving one another.

I am profoundly blessed to be surrounded by those who understand this on some kind of basic, intrinsic level, even to say those who aren't aware of it in themselves. But a new hope, even greater than these, has been bestowed on me these last few days. Hope and light of epic proportions. My desire is that all souls be filled with this light, this hope, this promise. My life now belongs to my Lord in a way that it never has and my only mission is to impart that peace and love that I have been given on others and to share it with others. What I am and who I am are a pathetic, measly resemblance of a human being, but if I can use what little I have to inspire others, especially so in my humiliation, then my existence has been for good. And in a world that is hurting for love, this is all I could ever ask for. To be a servant of Him who called me.

Tiny Bubble

I just want....

...my space. You know? I just put up with all kinds of people all day long and I have to chock away the urge to internalize it all--the general increase in societal rudeness, the general public disregard (whatever happened to the simple joy of human interaction?), my personal judgments (analyses) of where 'those' comments come from, 'those' attitudes. Then I try to prioritize, stay focused, positive, even upbeat, and be the comic relief so that there is some distraction from the daily mundane. I realize that I am being critical and try to "just not think" about any of it, go out for my break, have a smoke, and clear my head. But then a coworker's comment or passing misunderstanding will agitate something new and I'm left to battle a part of who I am to overcome my pettiness.

The fact is, I'm just a critical person. And it, for a lack of a better word, wounds me to admit it as much as it does to be it. For whatever optimism I am trying to impart on my daughters and pull for the world, it's almost as if it is lost on myself and I don't know how to just... change it. To just be different, as in, better. I bank on trying to bring my daughters up to be better than me. But it doesn't say much for where I'm at in the game. And so then I get stuck right there, spinning out on the thought that I need to lead by example, yet struggle with letting go of things, and therefore come up with nothing to get me unstuck. Except for maybe needing to understand why I am so critical, which would require letting go of a WHOLE lot of other shit, and might be something I considering figuring out right after posting this.

At any rate, by the end of the day it seems lately, I am peopled out and I bury myself in my laptop, and I find that what I am motioning through now partly resembles the motions of yore--when I was sitting alone six and seven months pregnant with my oldest in a bare-walled apartment, considering doing my homework and doing something of substantial value, but doing nothing in the end and staring at the antenna TV until I couldn't keep my eyes open. This behavior astonishes me on some level because not only has it been eons since those self-pitying prego moments, but I don't think I even resemble that same girl. The things that happened back then and the circumstances surrounding them are not even remotely the same.

And... I know how to search out my happiness besides there being a whole host of other blissfully good distractions in my life: my kids, my husband, my music. It's just that I can't believe I'm finally acknowledging that I need those moments where I can slip out of the house unnoticed and take a breather on the back deck.

I would just like to go where people can't piss me off all the time. I wasn't built to settle here, or in a place like this; and it's not that I'm above settling down in any capacity, it's just that I cannot see myself growing up any more here. I feel like I've hit a brick wall, blatantly avoiding common friends, unwilling to "up-cheer" those needing to be impressed, and overall-ly withdrawing from the things and the situations I knew before. It sounds a bit like depression. That's because it is.

What do I have to be depressed about? Is this some premature mid-life crisis? I have no assignment to identity through my age--as in, I really don't care about that (although the age thing does play a part when thinking about what I am doing at 30 years of age.) However, the whole entire scope of what Kyle and I have learned coming here, suffering trauma at the yearling stages of our family, and consequently been fire-tested and bronzed with the whole gambit and gamut of running our lives as we have, is far from lost on us.

I have to wonder if it's just now, yet again, as "just now" learning has ALWAYS been with me, learning who I am. Finding myself. Learning what I want. Or... is this just typical no matter what you've been through? See, I find myself wondering if all this was just delayed progress--these times that come and launch me into the next stage of growth with the horrifying change on the horizon--that would have come earlier, say when I had been 20 and in college, without worry or say, 24 and focused on my career and/or getting married. Basically, the time period most people have to learn these things before launching into a family or career, instead of doing everything ass-backwards or, as Ozzy would say "going forward in reverse." ("It's just a sign of the times.")

What makes me so, so, so angry about this all, too, is that I suffered a lot at the hands my own fate chosen by my own decisions and it was even put to my face in much the same way by a friend, who made me feel like I was some princess chalking up all her life lessons to "happenstance." But even with the truth to be found in her words and the hard-hitting realization that a LOT of where I'm at has to do with my decisions, most, if not all, the decisions that I made were out of dire need, repressed anguish, desperation or simply trying to remain aloof to guilt. From early on, I acted tough but needed escape routes. It's not that I really chose this path for myself as in wanting what unfolded the way it has, to exist in this way, with deliberate decisions based on hard, cold consequences (do or die, mild or wild.) It's that, other than choosing to be a mom (and even then, it was about dealing with consequence than it was premeditated choice,) it was the path of least resistance. It's excruciatingly maddening to realize this at this stage in the game, but regardless of how I just chose to 'go along with it' or take the path of least resistance (thereby indicating the decision in and of itself), I had never taken responsibility for the control and the direction of my life, as per it fitting with Kyle's, nor had I owned up to accepting the consequences, good or bad.

So. Here we are, after all this... stuff. The "autopilot crux", the "marriage crux", the brick walls, the intense ups and the down lows, at another brick wall; but now? Now we are ready and somewhat prepared to take on the responsibility of our happiness, the current issue being location, but we have two daughters rooted in the community to tow with us whose safety and security we must consider. Whether we decide to stay or to move.

And so, I'm left to wonder what is best versus what is wanted and wondering if those two will ever intersect each other or destroy the other irreparably. Do we move closer to my mom, in a place where Kyle can grow professionally, and I can access the multitude of possibilities while giving the girls a new experience that they would never get here and eventually be grateful for? Or do we stay here to keep their worlds secure, forsaking our own contentment, living in the bland continuity of day-to-day small town business, suffering all the big fish that throw their unethical weight around so that we can be reduced to a prematurely stagnant family? Doesn't the way we stand out when we are around the girls' cousins say much about what's going on in our dynamic? If not to them, surely to me. And if we secure their minds by staying here, how much are we helping them if we are not truly content? There is no real sense of child-to-parent reliance then, no sense of being able to come to us, no sense of having to rely on us as parents to develop trust and dependence. If we are happy in the sense of real happiness (and not so much as in personal gratification), then can't that make us better providers? Would we not be able to help them through the adjustment of moving? The pains of the school yard? The trials of life? The weight of their world would shift in their eyes, then, causing them to be stronger, the pain yielding growth with an emphasis on the parental role they have not seen on us. How can we help them or love them or expect them to be strong if we are not strong? Pillars of tough love?

It's all coming 'round...