I Am This Flower

I Am This Flower.

I planted this flower 3 years ago. I saw it at WalMart and thought it was beautiful and wanted it in my yard. I was going through a VERY brief gardening streak and thought this would be the beginning of a lot more planting. Nahhhhh.
The first summer, it wilted and dried out despite consistent watering. It's just really hot here. REALLY hot.
I figured that was it and just sighed and let it be. Not long after, we were forced to move out of this house for a while for multiple reasons. My life was falling apart. I was in pieces. I was nearly dead, really.. emotionally, and physically. So we left, and the yard went to ruins again....
By the next spring, I had pulled my life together just enough that I was ready to try again. In my own space. Somehow, out of absolute brokenness and near death, something I WAS SURE I would never be revived from, I was starting to bloom again.
When we moved back in, I checked the spot where I had planted this. I couldn't even find it among the weeds.. shrugged it off and thought maybe I'd try to find a more sturdy flower to plant later.
A few weeks later, I walked out of the house in the morning to find this:
http://instagram.com/p/LMHgE9Qyhq/
(stupid instagram won't let me download my own picture).I was, clearly, excited as hell. It's just a flower. Just one plant. But it bloomed again. Somehow through the winter and lack of gardening it had sat dormant and managed to beat the odds and blossom again.
Kind of like I had, that year.

And, let's just be honest. I've fallen apart over and over again. I've lost "everything" a million times. I have had to start over more times than I can count... build from nothing. At one point I said, I cannot do this anymore. I cannot keep starting over. I can't. And then
I realized the beauty of your life shattering into pieces you can't even recognize. You can't put them back into what it looked or felt like before.
But you can.... you can pick them up and make something else. Anything you want to. It's a beautiful opportunity. It's hard. It's fucking .. almost impossible..... almost.
It's the most work anyone will ever do, internally and externally, continually rebuilding an entire life.
Sometimes I look at my rose bushes and I think, that's what other people seem like to me. I never wonder if my roses are going to bloom. I can neglect them all year long and they still offer up the same beautiful blossoms. Nearly the entire year, every year. They are reliable, the rose bushes never look like they've wilted beyond repair.. they are strong and they just keep doin their rose thang.
But I... I am THAT flower. And no, I don't know what it's called. ;)

Right now, I've been walking through a pretty scary storm in my life.
I've wanted to die. I've come close to dying. I feel like I am losing everything. I might lose it all. My jobs.. already lost my car... my house.. who knows? It's all on the line right now.
Yesterday the last straw was finding out that half the money I'd been saving to buy a new car had been garnished from my bank account. I sobbed all day.
This came after some very painful conversations with "Friends" who
cruelly discarded me without a second thought... a conversation with a employer that left me inconsolable. I felt like I'd been ripped right out of the ground from the roots. Breathless and lifeless. Too tired to even bother to keep living.
My friend said "come over, have a beer, sleep. Tomorrow is a new day, and you're going to be okay."

I laughed at him. Nothing can get better now. It's all gone to hell and I've been working SO damn hard. So hard.. I've never worked this hard before.
But I went and had a beer (or 3) under the stars on his patio, slept...
And then today I woke up in a good mood, and I relaxed with my friend with some morning coffee.. and I thought about life.. and I thought about my options..
and then I drove home, wondering when I'd start sobbing again, when that feeling would come down on me and stop me from functioning anymore, ever again.
And .. I pulled into my driveway and my flower had bloomed, and I realized

I MIGHT lose everything. I might get cut down. That flower? The entire plant appeared to be gone. A gardener mistook it for a weed over the winter and I was pretty bummed, but ... you know, my black thumb could only keep something that pretty alive this long, right?

The damn thing was cut to the ground, nearly killed, no reason to push up and bloom again. I wouldn't have.
Or... maybe. Maybe I am. Because just seeing that made me realize...
You can take away my jobs, my house, my phone, my car, my money, my looks (and even that happened this year, in a fashion, go figure). I can be cut to the goddamn ground and feel no hope of ever coming back from any of this.
But I still have my roots.. I have my family. I have my kids. I have my friends. I have my voice to sing with, I have my body to dance with..
Most important..
I have WHO I AM. Everything I've survived and overcome, everything I've learned. Every person whose life I've touched, even briefly or minimally, every experience, every growth, even the painful growth... I'm still me. And I can always rebuild.
I might spend a while looking pretty much dead. I might think all is lost. I might even go underground for a long time.. but eventually I'll blossom again.
Because I'm that flower.

The Suicide Stigma .... SOMETHING has to change.

It's been... oh, almost 6 months since I posted here? I started a private/anonymous blog because my thoughts became too much to share with those close to me. That may seem contradictory but I learn more, the older I get, the more experiences I have, that it is far too dangerous to be too real with those you love.

That being said, I'm about to get kind of fucking real, and yet I will not say "leave this page if it'll make you uncomfortable."
This is a fucking uncomfortable subject. That's the problem. Nobody can look it in the eye. Nobody can handle it and so we try to bandaid the problem.... we make policies that it's not okay to talk about it in certain ways. We make it a crime to feel something that people have no control over. How is this any less biased than making it criminal to talk about any OTHER thing we may be feeling?
Nobody would look at you and say "fuck you, John, your diabetes are really making me uncomfortable, especially the prospect of you possibly dying from them. Your fears and sadness over your condition are also making me kind of upset, so could you just... you know, not talk about it?"

somewhat relevant and funny: http://www.comedycentral.com/video-clips/annb96/comedy-central-presents-alcoholism

Well, maybe someone would, That person would be an asshole.

And yet...
I talk a lot about the silent diseases that so many of us are plagued with. Depression, Anxiety.. mostly because those are the ones that I have experienced along with RTS and PTSD and fertility issues, but for as long as I have memory of life, I have memories of feeling horribly depressed. Feeling horribly scared. Panic attacks. And I have been told it is all in my head, that I can beat it if itry hard enough. That more sunshine and exercise will do me more good than whatever awful drug I'm on that may be awful but may be the only thing helping me drag my ass out of bed in the morning. I have been told that Not ONLY are my conditions psychosomatic, but that they are such a burden on everyone that I should have the DECENCY not to burden them with the reality of what I go through. That I should be coached in what language to use in talking to other people so as to make it less harsh or alarming for them. That I should sign agreements everywhere I go, INCLUDING the "Safe" place I go to, to talk about how I feel, that I won't talk about it if I decide that I want to die.

Read it again.
In the past week I have been told by 4 very important support systems in my life that I can not TALK about it if I feel that I want to die... (unless it's between the hours of 9 am and 4 pm, or it's in a certain room and not by phone, or I laugh after I say it) Because it could really upset someone.
You know? Me, being in such hell and seeing my uselessness in this condition, and feeling that my LIFE is useless, partially because of how secluded I have become... I really need to cover that shit up in case it makes YOU uncomfortable. It's even a issue with my therapist, while it is not HER fault, I think it has more to do with the nature of the profession and safety regulations, it still felt like yet another brick wall that I ran into..... Really. I walked out of the office today contemplating whether or not to sign an agreement that she said is non-negotiable if I want to continue to come see her. An agreement that I will not say I want to die, and that if I feel that I want to say that I should call a suicide hotline or clog up 911 because they don't have anything better to do than listen to me talk about why I want to do even though I'm not actually going to kill myself.


So here is my question to you, all of you who find people like me so impossible to deal with that you not only willingly DESERT, but berate and belittle us for BEING in hell, for needing help so desperately that we'd swallow our pride and be honest about just how much it hurts to live from one moment to the next... to say out loud how inadequate we feel...  to put our broken hearts in your hands to see in our last desperate gasp for help.. Just hoping that one person could say "this might be hard for me, but it can't be 1/100th of how hard it is for you, so I will sit here with you, and hold your hand, and love you." EVEN THOUGH we're so horrible that we'd be honest about one of the most painful health conditions/side effects of a disease that anyone has ever experienced. That we're so ill-mannered that once or twice we might dare to hope that those few we haven't driven away YET with our reality would look at us in our time of need and say "I'm sorry you're hurting so much, can I HELP YOU not hurt? What do you need?" instead of "don't you dare talk like that unless you want me to walk away. I can't handle it."

No, no... instead, you tell us to call a suicide hotline. Because talking to someone who probably has a script of "appropriate responses" to calls and who is faking their concern and will ultimately tell you to lie to them and say you're fine, or that you'll go to the hospital. What fucking good does that do? Or you call 911 on us because it's easier to send in a jaded law enforcement officers and a couple of EMTS to yell at you or drag you off to a hospital that will release you 2 days or 2 weeks later after what was left of y our life has crumbled to pieces....
Far easier to let someone else deal with the crazy person than to be what they really need: a friend.

And they tell us that friends aren't trained and equipped to deal with a suicidal personal properly.... so they tell us to go to our therapist or a dr... and then that doctor tells us that there are boundaries and things that can't be said, and you find yourself staring at the wall realizing that there is NOWHERE you can turn if you are in this much pain that will actually help you, or be there for you.... just people that will cover up the ugliness and send you on your way, meanwhile leaving you more and more alone... and then eventually we realize that we have been silenced. Our tongues cut out, with threats hanging over our heads.
Our voices have been taken away. Our doctors refuse to be our doctors but cannot be our friends. Our friends refuse to be true friends and cannot be doctors.


There is nowhere for someone to turn when life has beat them to a bloody pulp and they simply cannot get back up again without real love and support that doesn't stand back and distance as if they could catch this "disease" by getting too close or understanding too much.


And at that point when you realize (as I did, today, in my therapist's office) that there is truly nowhere for me to turn the next time I truly cannot keep going in this life...
I won't say anything. I won't warn anyone. I won't leave an explanation because my whole life's writings, my whole life in itself is explanation enough. And those who truly knew me would know that itwas not an act of selfishness (the fuck heads who say that need to take a week or two in our shoes if they want to try to say shit like that)... it was not an act of defiance or a cry for help. My cries for help died out long ago and I suspect I am only one of millions in this situation.
I won't cry out anymore because I CAN'T. And it falls on deaf ears.

I'm afraid that this is an epidemic. I am seeing it everywhere..... Suicide has become the new worst swear word, the most taboo possible subject... just the word can cost me a 5 yr friendship in 5 minutes or a sudden mistrust of a therapist I have loved and trusted for 3 years.
I know I can't be the only one who feels this way.

Families and friends of anyone who is or has been suicidal in the past -- something has to change. Maybe if it did, maybe we would stop dropping like flies. Maybe the epidemic would slow down just a little bit... Maybe if we could speak honestly without everyone covering their eyes and ears and walking away and telling us that the proper place is always SOMEWHERE ELSE.. the proper ears to hear are always SOMEONE else's....
When house cleaning, washing your hair, being a little tired, the drive being more than 10 minutes, or any other simple inconvenience is shown to trump your friend's life (because they humbly beg, probably silently sobbing and shaking on the phone line, beg for a ahand, beg for you to just come sit with them...) Something huge needs to be reevaluated.

You say you want us to live.
Help us live. Life hurts sometimes... for YOU. Life hurts ALL the time, for US. For ME. What hurts us enough to consider leaving a whole lifetime behind just to stop hurting might sting for you to hear about, but if you love someone, you better start listening.
Because the next time, they might not say anything. You may never hear their voice or see their face again. If they stop talking, you better start asking.
I'm writing this for everyone else who might feel the way I feel and have felt. Writing this in hopes that maybe itcould save one person's life because ONE person decides that their life is more important than not feeling uncomfortable or scared.

Enough

I haven't written much, lately.

Life has been surprisingly mellow until very recently, and still, the turmoil is all inside of me. Nothing outside my mind and my soul...

I am blessed. Lucky.

And yet I can barely function.

I am going through the laborious task of weaning off of xanax. Comparatively, as difficult to quit as crack. And more dangerous than any other withdrawal. You can die, if you try to go cold turkey.
2 months in, I am down to 1/3rd of my highest dosage. That's huge, really.... everything I've researched assured that 18 months is an optimistic estimate for weaning off this drug.

But I am in hell.
I can't sleep at night. I sometimes can't help but sleep during the day. I am falling behind in every aspect of life. And without the cushion of the antidote to the anxiety that has accompanied me since I was 3 yrs old... I find myself .. frightened. Unsure. Disappointed.

Because I think about where I could've been right now, if I hadn't failed, continually, constantly. If I hadn't given up on everything, every day.
I am 28 yrs old, and I don't have a paying job. I have, through my insecurities and weaknesses, lost many people whom I was very passionate about. Lost opportunities that could have saved me.
Lost the ability to be what my children need. To give them what they deserve.
There is no worse feeling than looking at the people you love the most, and knowing that you have let them down. Knowing that you COULD HAVE done better, could have given them what they needed. And trying to think about how to do that in the future, you simply feel helpless. Paralyzed. Useless.


Knowing that you are on the speed train to destroying all the good that you DO have....


Every little victory I've had seems like nothing in this moment. It seems like a lifetime of work for no reward. Actually, for a negative benefit.
It's even harder to know you've given your all and it wasn't enough, than to know you didn't give your all.

It's horrifying to know that your all is 1/100th of most people's half-assed effort.

All I've wanted, all my life, is to be passionate about my life and to bring happiness to others.

Instead I observe the destruction that I have left behind me. I struggle to repair the cracks in my relationships. I fight the tears, nightly, that come unbidden as a result of the losses I have suffered merely because of my inherent personality.

I just want to be enough.
I don't care if I'm epic. Amazing. Famous. Rich. Successful...

I just want to be enough, for fuck's sake.. just enough.

If anyone's ever wondered how someone could want to take their own life, this post is a testament...
When you know what your potential should be, but you can barely step foot out of bed in the morning... it's very hard to see the point in continuing on.



PS, I can't afford therapy right now. Sorry.

"Pro-Life" is so misleading... my journey from Pro-non-choice to Pro-Choice.

I think... I wish... that we could change these opposing opinions to "Pro-Choice" and "Pro-Non-Choice". Because "Pro-Life" as opposed to "Pro-Choice" is so... misleading. So ridiculous. They are not opposites. Can't I be pro-life, and pro-choice?

Yes, yes I can.

The thing is, a lot of "pro-lifers" think of "pro-choicers" as "pro-death". I think. And it simply. Isn't. So.

You see, I spent most of my life, most of my 28 years, very hardcore "pro-life". Anti-abortion, I should say. I felt there was no situation in which an abortion was appropriate. Because I know.. I know what it's like to have life inside my womb... I know what it's like to see that heartbeat and realize, there's a human being in there. I KNOW.

Let me crunch some numbers for you that you will judge me for, harshly.

I have had 10. Count 'em.... TEN miscarriages.
I have had 2 babies.
I almost had one abortion, but I changed my mind.

And that one instance changed my life and my entire stance on politics, "pro-choice", women's rights... everything, really. EVERY. THING.

You see, I took responsibility for every one of those other pregnancies. In a way, I even took responsibility for the last one. The one I almost aborted. The one that was a result of rape. The one that when I actually canceled the abortion,and then miscarried, I mourned.. and mourn to this day.

But THAT Experience made me see everything so much more clearly.... so very much.

Because when that pregnancy test came up positive..... I felt I had two choices. Abort my baby, or commit suicide.
Abandon my two living children, whom I had solid relationships with.. who I have worked my ASS off to be there for, to be a good mother to... who I have pushed myself to and through the limit to be a decent mother for.... ?? Or abort that baby. Live with the guilt forever, but know that for Sophia, and for Eli, I was doing what was best for THEM. Because I was alone. So. Very. Alone. And broke. And single. And barely emotionally stable.... on the brink of cracking, at any slight notice. And I didn't make the choice that led to that pregnancy. In fact, I took the morning after pill the very next day....
I put myself through the agony of a rape evidence kit at the ER. I filled out a statement that has probably been put through a paper shredder by now.

You guys, if you think reporting a rape is EASY.... if you think people do it for fun, or for vindication..... you need to go shoot yourself in the foot.... because no. It's humiliating. They ask you the worst questions you could possibly have to answer in the aftermath of being violated. They violate your privacy after your body has been violated to prove that your body was violated. They stick needles in you... I passed out cold, twice. I ran into my attacker, twice, afterwards, and was advised by the detective not to act as if anything was awry, because it could mean compromising my safety until they brought him in for questioning. Which they still have not. 8 months later.

I've been contacted by women's advocacy centers a million times..... but I have nothing to tell them. I have no evidence. My evidence hasnt' made it past the police dept that was dissolved within a few months of this. I can't. prove. anything. Short of saving the miscarried fetus and doing a DNA test (which wasn't exactly on my mind while I was in physical pain WORSE than either of my labors, and emotional pain i can't possibly describe).... I had nothing. Nothing at all to prove.


And this ... and so much political debating.. and so much hatred and venom and nastiness flying around this election... this is all why I am saying this right now.

I am pro-choice.
I have friends who have performed coat-hanger abortions ON THEM SELVES. Because it's so goddamn scary and shameful .. and EXPENSIVE... to get a legitimate, safe abortion. Because people are placing the life of a fetus so high above the entire family unit that existed before it. Because EVERY case is different but people are generalizing. "It's a child, not a choice"?
Well, excuse me. But Me, my daughter, and my son, are people. And had I carried this last pregnancy any longer, I can't promise I'd still be alive. My family could have dissolved completely. My daughter may have ended up with her "father" who doesn't even know her.. thousands of miles away from the family that has helped raise her. My son would be with his wonderful father, but without me... and without his sister, who has loved him so beautifully and completely since the second he was born.
All of that.. ripped apart....

I chose not to abort. I was going to adopt out. And that would have crippled me emotionally (even more than I am) for life.. but I was going to.. because I saw that heartbeat. And I didn't want to take the life of another human being.
But.
Had I  not had the choice, that first week.... I was in bad shape even WITH the choice. But without? I would've been dead 24 hours after the second line appeared.
I actually considered every possible form of "back alley abortion" I could think of. Because I couldn't afford a legit one, but a wonderful woman came forward and lent me the money. Which I ended up spending on necessities for my family, and still owe her.... But she understood.  She, among many others, kept me alive.

When I told my mother what was going on, finally, she simply hugged me and said "no wonder you're so exhausted... you've been shouldering all this on your own." My conservative, mormon, pro-life mom.....
She was pro-MY-life. Because I am her child.

Because reasonable people understand that SHIT HAPPENS.... that you can't control. And you have to make a decision after that... a decision that could affect more than just YOU.  Two, Three... 5... 10 people... more... whole lifetimes....
These aren't decisions that MEN have to make. NO person.. man or woman.. should be legislating what we can or cannot do as far as our bodies. Birth control... early abortions in extreme cases... anything......
People are going to DO what they feel they HAVE to do to survive.
People kill ADULT people every day. People do very wrong things every day, like taking away women's rights... like taking away their choice.. like raping women, children.... I started my menses at 7. So, what if I had been raped and become pregnant then?
Would you all have been so adamant that I be forced to carry that baby to term when I was, literally, still a baby myself? even as an adult, giving birth to my first child broke my body... cracked my pubic bone.. couldn't walk for weeks... my second child, I hemorrhaged more blood than a normal sized person can live without.
I AM as PRO LIFE as one can be.
But I am pro choice..
Because until you've walked in someone's shoes.. until you've lived their life.. their dreams.. their fucking NIGHTMARE... you have NO RIGHT to make that choice for them, about what they will have to live with for the next ETERNITY. Because it's not just 9 months, you guys. It's forever. We live with it FOREVER, no matter what choice we make... not you. Us. So back the fuck up and understand.... that yes, there are assholes out there who don't care and abort babies for no good reason but their own selfishness. But there are so many of us who truly make these decision painstakingly, carefully... and at our own expense.. the expense of our own wellbeing and happiness.... knowing that we will NEVER ever forget or fully recover.. because we have to take care of not only ourselves but others as well. Because we have to consider 20 or 30 or 40 something years of a human life that we may not be able to sustain in such a situation, as compared to a fetus whose 2 day old heart may or may not be beating.. who may or may not feel anything at 6 weeks of pregnancy...

I do not deign to know these things...
I couldn't stomach killing the life inside my uterus despite the fact that it was emotionally killing me.
But I do know one thing:

If we take away the right for a woman to choose how her body is used, what happens to it... what grows in it and what comes out of it....
We may as well just take back the last 100 years of progress. We may as well just make women slaves.... we may as well accept a horrific suicide rate .. and accidental death from "back alley" abortions... because YOU can't understand a situation until YOU ARE FUCKING IN IT. You can't. And you should NEVER be allowed to make that decision for someone else, because you will never BE THEM. Ever.

And this is why I don't vote.
Because I can't possibly vote for someone who would think to take away my rights to my body....
But I can't vote for the alternative either.. I just hold tight and pray. :(
The only thing I could really rally for at this time is harsher punishment for rapists, really. While mine runs free, driving a brand new car, working for the BLM, living under pseudonyms, and doing what he pleases with god knows what other women.

This isn't really all that productive, but I had to say it. I had to.

Random...

This post could go a lot of ways. And probably will.

I'm home, when I had planned to go to a fun night of Zumba and possibly a little karaoke after, because Crohn's attacked unexpectedly, and I'm now barely able to move... joints swollen, intestines screaming, fever on and off... the usual. But it' sbeen a few months. And this is the first time it's ever beaten me out of my plans.
Does it get continuously worse?
I know nothing... and I can't see a doctor to find out. It's incurable and barely treatable, so why spend the money? I just wish I knew... what I am in for.

It's been a difficult 24 hrs. Without disclosing intensely personal information, there was an incident last night that was meant completely benign.... but brought back severe sexual assault flashbacks. And I haven't been okay. It's made me question my solidarity... my feeling that "I'm FINE" about all of it, that finally knowing and accepting the truth has been all the healing I needed. Because I wasn't fine, and I'm still not really fine.
And it's nobody's fault.
Nobody in my real life anyway.

The thing is... those men who took advantage of me in the past.. from god-knows-when/babyhood til I was 7/8... and when I was 13... and my entire adult life up until this May...  do you even have a CLUE what you took away from me? What I have to work so hard to try to restore? How it affects my beautiful, happy relationship with my boyfriend, the man I intend to spend my life with? How it has affected my entire life, my self-worth.... my will to live?

All of it just makes me sick at heart. And I know there are many who have suffered far worse than I.... and that makes me even more sick, thinking about how the hell those people have survived. How they cope every second of every day. how they ever maintain healthy relationships.


I'm tired... of not having enough money for my kids' regular preventative care.. let alone if something happened. I'm tired of not being able to even consider my own personal health. I'm exhausted from believing that I don't and will never be justified in taking money away from our income to go see a therapist, even though I need it. Badly. I don't HAVE anyone I can talk to like that.... about everything.... the people i thought I had have been taken away from me, because life is a bitch that way.


I want a baby, and my boyfriend doesn't, so every month is a fight between me hoping my period doesn't come and him rejoicing when it does... me fighting my disappointment and trying not to be angry at his relief.
I want to get married, but practicality gets in the way. Because men...

I want to be completely past the things that have held me back and hurt me. I want to forgive. But there are things i can't seem to just will myself into fixing in my heart and head.

I want to be grateful for what IS...
and I am.
I've never had it this good, and I'm happier than i've been in a long time.
Believe it or not.... (everyone needs to rant sometimes, even happy people)....

But my arthritis is flaring, a 2" piece of pizza has rendered me incapacitated.. I had to miss my favorite part of the week tonight... My boyfriend has to go to bed before I'm even sleepy. Every night.
We still don't know how we're getting his stuff moved in.
I'ma  horrible homemaker and I WANT to be better, I want my house to look good but it's not in my GENES, I don't think....
I just...
want the boring life. White picket fence. 3 kids. (5). Cars that work. A house with flooring that isn't full of mold and vomit, or cement because I couldn't handle the disgusting carpet.
I want to be pregnant and have people be excited about it with me.

I want to forgive....I REALLY want to forget... I want to turn back time for so many reasons.
I want to reach for my dreams but I'm too busy keeping things from crumbling in my personal life. Being practical.

Sometimes I think my heart is just giving up. And maybe that's okay..............

Dear Imaginary Person In The Sky:
Please let my pills kick in soon.
Please don't let me have horrific nightmares tonight.
Please help me be functional tomorrow because nobody's going to do it for me.
Please strike down the HOA owners.

Thanks.
-Faith.

No more "good" or "bad"...

A friend of mine posted a beautiful memorial today about a miscarriage she had long ago.

It made me cry.. and it inspired me.
I've been aching to write lately, but haven't had time nor the organization of thoughts to do so...
Not saying this will be organized, but it's time for me to let some things out.

Part of this ^ is that I'm having a bit of a "Relapse" of my "never heard" victim complex. I feel invisible, unheard, and like what I have to say and what I do in this life are not that important, and not important to the people I love.
This has been a huge issue since my child hood for multiple reasons.. I can't place blame... circumstances just shape different people in different ways. My circumstances made a quiet child quieter, shyer, and without an ounce of self worth.

As an adult, this is kind of silly. If I want to be heard, I  need to just yell. If I want to be seen, I need to stand up. I need to shine instead of letting the darkness overtake me when I feel lonely and upset about these things.
And yet old habits, sometimes, truly die hard......

Next month, I would have given birth to a baby. A boy, probably. The result of the rape I experienced back in March. I nearly aborted that baby, but after an ultrasound, and seeing that little heartbeat, my heart was bound. I couldn't do it.
And yet sometimes though you try to steer and direct your path in life, nature will take it's course, and I miscarried anyway. Possibly a result of all the unhealthy habits I was partaking in at the time though I cut them out as quickly as possible... possibly just because.
When I had originally decided to abort it was because I felt strongly that I was not strong enough emotionally to carry myself through a pregnancy when I was barely making it as a mother to the children I already had. No, not even barely.
I felt it wasn't fair to them. I felt my already-crippling depression would kill me.

And yet I still couldn't take that baby's life of MY own will.

And to this day I think about it. And many days and nights I lay with my hands on my belly and wish there was life growing inside of it... and so many of my friends are having babies or finding out they are pregnant right now.. it makes it sting a bit more.

But I've been thinking about the idea of not putting a label of "good" or "bad" on experiences. Though so many things I've been through in the past few years could be defined as bad, horrible, traumatic.... unbearable....
If I look at it from a peaceful, clear perspective, I see that everything has simply served to bring me to where I am today, which is a better place than I've been in a very, very long time. Healthier. Happier.

During the period of time when I was making decisions about that pregnancy, dealing with the physical and emotional pain of the miscarriage, and losing friends left and right, including the man who I thought was the love of my life.... I had to learn to trust my son's father again. Because I NEEDED him. Eli needed him. I couldn't be there, and he IS his dad. And I let go of my fears for just long enough to see that he was safe with him AND that his father is a good person, a kind person.

I learned to trust my mom with the darkest side of me, and learned that she loves me no matter what.

I learned to forgive people who don't have the ABILITY to be empathetic about situations they have never been in.

I learned to really appreciate my children... and even on the hardest days to make sure I hug them and make them feel important.

I learned to let go of many things, and many people, and many ideas. That even if something feels "meant to be" perhaps we don't know in WHAT WAY it is MEANT to be. That perhaps the 4+ years of my relationship with someone that I thought was meant to be FOREVER was really meant to be.... but only for that time. Only to teach me a lesson... about unconditional love. For someone else... and for myself. How to respect myself, and to ask for what I need from someone. And to move on if they put me down or make me feel bad for asking for those things. Really, I learned not to NEED from any one person... but to just accept what they CAN give and accept that the rest, they aren't capable of. And that's ok.

Today.. I still love Dan, and I still miss him, but I know for a fact that we are NOT healthy for each other any more. That we should not be in each other's lives right now.
Today, my family is TOGETHER... Eli's dad moved in last night, and I never had a moment of true doubt about this decision. We are all happier. I am loved and I have what I need emotionally. I am seeing my relationship through very, very different eyes.. we are the same people we were 4 years ago and yet so vastly different.

Today, I am grateful for my community service job, for the people I have met, for the people I am able to serve, for the things I have learned. Despite all the pain that the DUI case caused me, it brought me here, too, and so how can I call it "bad"?

I still am sad sometimes. I still fail. I still feel old habits and thoughts creep in some days... but I'm getting stronger....
I think.. I've finally learned enough to allow myself to have some happiness.

Yay. :)

Insanity or .....

So, someone recently pointed out to me the fairly famous saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Mmmhmm.
I can agree with that.
And you see, I've been doing a lot of things differently in my life.
In fact, someone came into my life that gave me an opportunity to basically REdo my relationship with an ex-lover who ... well, let's just say our relationship was THE Definition of insanity. We did the same things. Over and over. And kept hoping it would turn out better, but always crashed and burned.
We had good intent, we loved each other, but neither of us could change our ways, our reactions to each others, etc, enough to get a truly different result, until ultimately, we had to cut off contact completely because we WERE DRIVING EACH OTHER FUCKING INSANE.

The past few months have been months of healing and recovery for me from that. Looking back and realizing what was not acceptable, what I could've done differently, what I should do differently if faced with the same situation again. What I wouldn't put up with again. What I should be more kind and forgiving about.

And then ... along came this new guy. I literally probably only knew him for about a month. But that month could've been a near copy of exactly my first month or so with the ex I'm speaking of.
In many ways, I saw exactly what I needed to do differently, and I did it.
Until my worst case scenario happened, and then without even REALIZING it, I immediately reverted back to my old ways. My old reactions. My clinging. My complaining. The blame-placing, the trying to make him see he was wrong, the beating myself up over "being so wrong" and not being able to trust my heart when something seemed SO right.

I'm not going to say I'm totally past that, but I realized over the past.. er... 24 hours... that the universe had given me the opportunity to do things differently. It never promised I wouldn't get the hard parts of this. It never promised I would get the result I imagined.
It just gave me the opportunity to do things differently. Because if I did, there WOULD be a different result. I don't know what. But different.

I'm nowhere near perfect. I preached "living in the now" and "changing behaviours" and "letting go of outcome" and "not having expectations" for a month. I believed it. I tried to apply it to myself but then I found myself hanging on for dear life, crying over disappointments because I expected something I shouldn't have... weeping over a future I imagined and over the past that I am still mourning.

Today, I promise myself to try to do better.
Tomorrow, I will start my day off by promising myself to do better. Again.
And the next day.
And I might fuck up.
But then I'll recover, and promise myself to do better next time.

It's odd because I'm watching the very person who quoted me this.. I'm watching him repeat something in his life that didn't work in the past.
But maybe he's doing it differently. Maybe he'll get a different result, I don't know.

And on the other side of the coin, there are SOME things I do and will continue to do that aren't wrong. I will continue to be kind, even to people who hurt me. I will continue to be forgiving. And giving. Even though it often results in me getting stomped on.
And I don't expect different results.
Sometimes I will hope... but I do not expect...
and I don't think that makes me insane. As long as I realize that other people may never change. They may never grow, or they may have a lot of growing to do to catch up.....
That won't stop me from
Being Honest
Being Kind
Being Loving

and scariest of all, it probably won't stop me from trusting, again.
I do hope that I'm a little more careful with my heart though.
And that others will be, too.

Maybe I'm crazy......
Maybe that's okay.

Right now mainly I could use a hug. I can talk the talk but right now I'm not walking the walk very well....