I’m struggling on this journey with habits and patterns that I have created at home to manage myself and my PTSD.
If I were home right now I would be sleeping, because it’s still morning. I might go out to work at Starbucks today. I may spend time painting or drawing. I would likely sit outside at the picnic table, enjoying the last days of summer with Janelle before she goes back to work. I’d have made a coffee, and then another, and likely a third. I wouldn’t have eaten anything yet. I’d likely spend a lot of time indoors, binging Netflix or reading a novel. Possibly, I would do some household chores and rearrange the living room for the millionth time. Tomorrow I would do the same, just as this is what I did yesterday. Life became stale. I was complacent in my maximum isolation. So full of thoughts, and hopes, and desires, but not moving towards anything, just talking it in circles and writing down ideas.
This morning I had one cafe con leche and a ham and cheese sandwich. I packed my bag and I hit the road. I greeted others in kindness and compassion for our mutual journey and struggles up hills. I drank lots of water. I stopped and meditated in my surroundings, not concerned with those going past at faster speeds than I. I drank more water and ate a small muffin. I heard music and I stopped to sing along as the Guitarist played Stand By Me (Ben E. King). I encouraged myself to keep moving on the hills, but to stop, look around, and look up. I discovered that what I thought were dates were actually almonds. Who knew they grew on trees in green pods? I didn’t, nor did the three French women who showed it to me, explaining in French. I don’t speak French, but we understood each other all the same.
I found an old cistern on the top of a hill and I stopped to meditate again. Maybe someone took my picture, or they were just catching the view. Someone walked by and told me “Namaste”. I continued to meditate and breathe. When I opened my eyes everything was brighter, my sight was clearer. Even the ants on my bag didn’t ruin my day. I wondered why it is that I avoid meditating regularly. Is lack of peace such a comfortable place?
I arrived at my destination and felt as if I had not come far enough today, but I’m learning I must make myself pause, even when my body insists it can go further. I fed, cleaned, and embraced my body for its strength and resilience. I interact with others through smile and greeting, feeling akin. This is a life one cannot find binging netflix in the living room. I do believe this is a life we can find by stepping out our front door. There is no need to travel, though I highly encourage it. Seeing and experiencing other cultures gives us perspectives to grow and love better. I hope and believe that everyone can take their own journey and not only finds new ways to embrace life, but like I have on this trail, find that life is embracing you back.
Tag Archives: Life
My Flawed Existence
To be human is to be flawed and to succeed by simply the act of continuing to try again. I am great at counting my flaws and I struggle some days to keep trying. I find though that I have had to stop trying to be perfect. The idea of perfection still creeps into my thoughts and I have to do the hard work to not allow it to take control. For the most part, I am glad to say, I am not trying to be perfect. I am most simply these days just trying to be, to exist with the world around me. Through all of this I am just trying to understand my own nature further, and the nature of other humans around me.
I feel that humanity hides itself under the cover of owning things, gaining power/perfection, and trying to hide our flaws. I find deep gratitude when others I interact with are also working on seeing who they are underneath the covers that mask our true selves. In our modern era, full of information and toys, we struggle harder to simply enjoy our lives. I have read various research which discusses how there are too many choices available to us, and this overwhelms our capacity to be happy.
With a world so full of so many things we often makes things more difficult than they need to be. I know that I do. I am constantly speaking with my therapist about getting in the way of my own healing. I set barriers in my life that restrict me from fully embracing the world around me. These are flaws that I have to come to terms with. They are fall-backs that when I am hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or all of the above I will likely revert to.
I have some beautiful friends that I often get to speak with by phone or enjoy over a coffee. I have a flaw of not always remembering to be grateful for them. I have the flaw of being afraid of their judgement or dislike of who I am. I worry that trying to be a simple writer/artist/barista/aspiring bohemian woman seems silly to them. I also worry that in doing so I will fail myself. The truth though is in the words I said at the start of this, and have said many times to individuals I have supported through healing. If you are trying you are succeeding. It seems too simple to be true. It seems like not a big deal and gets pushed to the side by the habits we have learned through our society.
We have to clear out all the many choices and the multitude of things that get in the way. We have to return to the simple self, who are we when everything no longer exists in our life? The biblical figure Job is a good example. The book of Job is about God proving to Satan that when Job has nothing left he still has God. I have in my life been asked in various different settings who I am when I take away the volunteering, the working for others, the trauma story, the activities I do, and the things I call myself. Through one program, You School, I was asked a number of questions that helped me dive into who I am.
Through that exercise I found a key Greek term that I have known for years, Agape (ἀγάπη, agapē). This word is found in the original Greek portions of the Bible and is one of several Greek words which translated to the word “Love” in the English language. This specific Greek word denotes the love which God gives to humanity without expectation of return. It is a benevolent love, one full of good will. When I look at my life and the world around me I find that I often focus on the trauma and the pain. It some days appears that there is not good in the world. I had the Greek Agape tattooed on my forearm as a reminder of why I exist in the world. If I have no other reason to be here, at least I can love unconditionally others.
Part of me hopes what I give to others will be returned to me by others, but ultimately it is a term that I must apply to my relationship with myself. The thing about developing myself and being aware of the world around me is that I cannot care for others if I am not first caring for myself adequately. One of the flaws I hear of a lot from different individuals is that serving others is what gives us meaning in life. I know many people who don’t face their own flaws in the mirror because they are too busy helping with their neighbors crisis or flaw. It goes back to balance, which is a common theme on my journey. Helping others can give me perspective but at the end of the day, am I helping myself?
How can we truly be human, accept ourselves, and in turn accept others, if we are so busy ignoring our own humanity? If we are so busy building walls to protect ourselves from the unknown, the dangerous, the risky, the scary? If we build the walls to keep out those things which we have learned to dislike the most we are also building walls to the joy, the happiness, the love, the true connection and relationship we could have with other people.
So here I am being all smart, right? In fact, I am saying this as much for me as anyone else. I struggle to move past the knowledge bombs I like to drop on myself, to the place where I am actually experiencing life. For so long I have watched the world around me, I have been a spectator full of criticism and judgement as I have gone along. I have failed to accept my own flaws and really embrace them. Though it may not seem like it sometimes, I am trying.
This is why I am a wanderer though, because I do not know what this looks like in the end. I wish I did, I wish I knew the outcome for myself, what I can achieve, what I will look back on at the end of my life. Often it feels like life is just happening to me, so I wander along, trying to just experience it. When I have tried to plan it often fails or doesn’t turn out how I desire. The thing about it all is that I have to find unconditional love for myself. I have to dig in roots here, I have to accept my flaws and my story.
The thing is, I keep digging, sometimes I hit rocks, sometimes its’ an easy passage, and sometimes the roots stick. That’s the funny thing about wandering, the roots start to grow in different places, but they don’t hold you back, they support you to grow more, gain more nourishment, and discover what can bloom on your tree of life. There are knotty parts on the tree, some broken roots, some storm damage, and many flaws. All of this together makes you stronger. So yes, I have a flawed existence, and that is okay, I’ll keep trying. And in trying, I will be succeeding.
I don’t know you, but I love you.
I don’t know you, but I love you.
Last year a friend of mine suicided. Honestly, we were not that close but we shared this passion and this purpose that draws me close to so many people. I attended his funeral and grieved with my friends for the red-bearded giant who loved pumpkin spice lattes in the morning and Jamison to cap the day off. More than his favorite drinks he loved serving others and having a purpose. I didn’t know him well, but loved him nonetheless.
In the last 18 months I have in some way been connected to more individuals than I can count on my hands, who have taken that last resort, that last ditch option that it’s hard to back out of except on accident. When James’ suicide took my community by storm there was an outcry on social media from so many people who were struggling with thoughts and behaviors of suicide. I moved from post to post offering my support as a trained ASIST caregiver, my friendship, and most importantly my love. Some rejected my statements or thought me foolish, one girl challenged how I could love her without knowing her. Nonetheless , I love each of them. I want to tell you why I can love each of you, without ever having met you.
This is a hard time of year for me, because it is the anniversary of how in the darkest of days in my life I was able to love someone that I didn’t even know and in the end will never truly know. I lost my baby in my first trimester. It’s statistically probable and so relatively insignificant that it occurred, in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t a cookie cutter planned pregnancy, but none the less I found myself with child. Something I wanted my whole life. I had no idea who this life was inside me. What a good man he could be. What glass ceilings she might shatter. I didn’t need to know a thing about my baby, who I called Sharkbait, after Nemo. Just like Nemo, my baby would start out with disadvantages, but I believed he was strong, that she could conquer all. I believed that just by being I could love Sharkbait so much that it would never end.
I remember my devastation, after two weeks of hearing a heartbeat while suffering complications, to birth my almost 10 week old fetus in the dark of my room and realized I’d never hear the sound of his heart again. Sharkbait was gone and I loved him no less and maybe even so much more for the wasted potential.
When someone suicides, or simply doesn’t try in life to succeed, I find that I love them nonetheless and also so much more. Knowing this, having experienced what I have, I try each day to love every person I encounter more and more. I’m not always perfect, but I damn sure try, and no one is less off for my love.
I recall very vaguely the few days following my miscarriage where my mum flew me to where she was in Vegas at a conference, so I could be near her. It was a blaze of booze, cigarettes, and a roulette table. It was late nights sitting on a pillow in the bathroom so she wouldn’t be awoken by my sobs.
I thought I would die. I wished for it. It was a shit year full of mental health crisis from my undiagnosed PTSD (at the time) that I couldn’t acknowledge because of stigma. The same stigma that makes people not talk about suicide or miscarriage. The things that make us appear so vulnerable in its’ honesty, so we bottle them up like they don’t exist… until they boil over in the dark of night… at bar closing when we’ve had too much to drink… in whispered circles with intimate friends… in the awkward pause when someone says that I don’t know the pain of childbirth without remembering they know my hidden shame.
When I lost him I told myself the sympathetic response that we’re now taught not to say… “At least you can have more kids one day”… “ At least you’re free now from being tied down”… and the list goes on. No one told me those things, they were mine to say. Mostly other people would stutter, at a loss for words, often they still do. The empathic response I’ve been told are the ones that helped me pick up the pieces and change my own mindset. “I understand.” “Me too.” “I love you.” “I’m here for you.” The most valued response was the love I was given.
Through my own ongoing struggles with suicide post-Iraq, my miscarriage almost broke the camels back. The next year around this time I became even worse than before with my thoughts and behaviors of suicide. In the interim I’d connected to an organization that provided me the opportunity to live and serve others, I did so as a promise to the lost potential from my miscarriage. I felt I had to take on and be the potential, make my life something of value.
It wasn’t enough. The one year anniversary came and I was a mess. There were people who didn’t know my full story, and still won’t unless they read this blog. It didn’t stop those people from loving me regardless of their knowledge of me. They saved me, helped me carry what felt like an impossible burden. I still could not speak of it. Nonetheless, I was loved beyond measure.
Through multiple programs, therapies, medications, struggles with binge drinking, and not always making good decisions I have been loved regardless of how well others know me. You don’t even know what you don’t know about another person. So you have to go on faith that you love things about them you couldn’t even imagine.
We all have secret pains. We all suffer shame and guilt. We all let society and it’s stigma hold us back from the edge of living our true lives and being our true selves.
If you’ve suffered a miscarriage, have a mental health diagnosis, struggle with suicide or addiction, or even feel as if your life is happy and easy, whatever you are, whatever you do… I love you, I really do, even though I likely don’t even know you. You can take faith knowing that you are loved. You are not alone. I look for you in the street, so we can share a smile and be connected a little more. even if only for a second… because nonetheless I will always love you, the same way as after 4 years I still love my Sharkbait that never got to live, but somehow helped me find a life worth living.
Original Post on Medium.
2am and Sober
Sometimes I like it here, in the deep of the night. The 2am without alcohol. The alone-ness of my apartment. Everything around me is silent, except the fan on my ceiling and the low hum of the refrigerator. If I sit quiet enough it becomes like I don’t exist. Slowly without thought drinking cold water from a glass. I can feel my muscles tense and move in my shoulders as I lift the glass to my lips. The silence is almost deafening.
The small sounds are present like white noise in a mothers womb. It is as if I am encapsulated in a bubble that is safe, serene, and without emotion. My mind clears itself to match the silence outside my body. It begins to drift, not to anything in particular, just to drift. My mind samples this thought and that, but has no attachment to any of them. I consider going to bed, but I can’t, because in this moment I just am. I won’t go to sleep yet, because I want to hold on to this peace for as long as I can.
It is in this moment of peace that I plan for tomorrow. I plan to be tired in the morning, but recall this moment where I just was. I will recall how I felt a part of everything and nothing all at once. I will recall how this moment is different than the 2am’s where I drank till I couldn’t remember what time it was. How this moment is different than other 2am’s sober. This is a different moment, where I am not haunted by the dark. Where I cannot be scared by visions of my past, present, or future. It is a place where I can know that the dark is not always to be feared and full of enemies.
I think of the quote that I keep saying over and over, “Be so full that even if they take and take and take you can still be overflowing.” (Alison Malee)
It comes to me in this moment of silence, at the end of the night, when I should have been in bed hours ago. It makes me think of how just at this 2am moment I am in a place that I can refill my cup. I don’t want to be anything but a giver, and so I must continuously learn to find new ways to stay overflowing. In the moments where my vehicle won’t move in traffic and I see the shadow of the clouds shift on the trees around me. In the moments where I take a break to walk or just stand and stretch during a conversation. It is the 2am moments where I feel that I am a part of the whole big world, but nothing in it at all.
I have seen many 2am’s where it’s all hazy and exhausting and often forgotten or needed to be pieced back together. I don’t know who really enjoys that kind of 2am. I could be found crouching somewhere crying or would have disappeared all together. My feet always hurt and often my face was tight from the make-up and the cigarettes. I would drive home hoping to not get pulled over or hit anyone and it was a miracle when it never happened. I hardly felt safe, never serene, and always filled with too many emotions. It is amazing I survived those roller coaster nights. It is amazing that I was too drunk to suicide, though often the thought crossed my mind. I would pass out before I could do anything else. It is amazing I am giving that up, no matter how hard it is to not drown my sorrows.
A character in a television show was asked why he did drugs and drank. His response “I suppose it was because I did not like myself very much.” That stuck with me. I like myself very much now and I work very hard to love myself as well. There are a million reasons to run from having to like and love myself, but they are merely excuses. So when I sit here at 2am and am Sober, I know that I am breaking down my own barriers to being overflowing in my life. With this serenity and fullness comes happiness, joy, and prosperity in my life. The person that I did not like very much is not really here anymore. I don’t want to forget it, I won’t let myself, and so I write to record the person who I am becoming.
The person you are at 1:59am is not the person you are at 2am. I hope that in the change of a moment you grow and do not whither. That you find hope and not fear. That you find peace and not conflict. So stop at any moment, and pause, look around you, take a deep breathe, listen to what you can and cannot hear. Search in the moment of silence for the sensation of how you are a part of everything and at the same time nothing in this world. Just be.
Original Post on Medium.