Save my life

 Sinking

Drowning

Going Down.

My life has a way 

of pulling me down.

into the depths.

Depths of despair...

dark, cold, swirling

desperate.

But does the world know 

that I am drowning?

There is a certain calm

in the chaos of drowning. 

I'm told that

it doesn't look like drowning. 

Which makes it hard to realize

that a life needs to be saved. 

I need to be saved.

Save my life,

I'm sinking.

O Lord,

Let this not be the end.

Give me the knowledge

to recognize the disaster. 

Let this story not be tragic,

not a story of weakness and loss.

But of rebirth,

of growth,

of slow and steady endurance. 

Save me

and then empower me.

Teach me to swim.

Show me the signs.

Let me not go down for the last time.

Emotional Tornado

 Today I feel beat down, 

hurt, 

injured 

by the very things

I seek to overcome. 

Those things I have worked on, strived 

to learn NOT to be about.

Aloneness.

Abandon.

Loneliness.

Sadness.

Defiance.

Whirling and twirling, 

round and round

the vortex goes. 

Ebbing. Flowing.

Eating. Destroying.

The doomsday tornado 

crashing 'round in my head, 

leaves me feeling like I'm dead.

It's angry and volatile,

its wretched and vile. 

The thoughts,

the feelings. 

Do you know what you fffffffeeeeeeeeee.eeeeeelllllll?

Hell no. 

Because I have smothered it in anger

and discontent.

I cannot experience my feelings as they are.

The beast, 

it eats them,

buries them, 

smothers them. 

in anger.

and darkness.

-Carrie Suderman 

Failing to Thrive

 Sometimes blog posts come in spurts, these explosions of emotion or rants or thoughts that ignite and must be shared. And I wonder how I can make a more reader friendly version. But then I lose the flow. The crazy, mixed up flow, that once it starts, demands to be finished and every rabbit hole explored. 

So yesterday was a learning day, a growing day, an oh-shit day. Because no growth happens in rainbows and butterfly days. So today as I process my own trauma and what my part is in that, I think to myself, "Well Care (because I call myself Care sometimes), you are learning something new, something big, or the universe wouldn't have thrown this at you." I don't know yet if I believe myself. Sometimes my optimism lies to me. But always believing in new beginnings.... priceless. Okay, maybe priceless is not the exact right word. Maybe what I'm looking for resembles hope. Everyday a new beginning.... hopefulness. It doesn't ring the same as the old American Express motto/slogan. When I journal/blog, I have this great a-ha moment, hour, day. This time where I realize that my mind goes in circles at 90 miles an hour all day long and never stops. It does slow down sometimes. Usually when I need it to hurry up and process some piece of information. Then I find it meandering aimlessly through the past inside my head. 

A particular sadness that I carry with me is that sometimes (many times?) I say things that don't make sense. Things that are polar opposites of my core beliefs. This giant flaw makes me think my sanity is tenuous at best. Absent at most. I'm not one to think that people who battle mental health issues are crazy. It's a part of life and there are ways to heal mental illnesses. But when I have these lapses in reason, I know that I am totally bat-shit-planet-of-the-apes crazy. I guess I am can console myself that I am not "basic." Nor boring. But sometimes I just want all the noise to stop. To cease. To give me a rest. No wonder I am tired all. the. time. *sigh*

I have been told (by people I love) of things I said or did, actions I took, that are not consistent with my beliefs. And never were. I know that today my belief system has changed considerably from the ones I held in my younger years. The BD years. Before Divorce. Do other people split their lives up according to events? "The Divorce." That was a big one for me. There is before divorce and after divorce. I have a life before middle child, after middle child. Before Punky, after Punky. Before getting my teaching degree and license, after the start of my teacher life. There will likely be another one here. Teaching/after-teaching. 

Today I struggle to find optimism, and I feel as if I really am a failure. Those old voices, ghosts, demons are yelling and shouting inside my head. Counting up the numerous, frequent, fails of late. I have been saying that I am going to learn from my failings, that failure is the building block to success because it leads to growth. True statement. But here I sit, warm and happy in my pile of shit, a failure. 

Overwhelm

Over the last couple of years, I can see my life unraveling. I see.... the slow unwind of my professional life, my personal life, parenting and more. I can see it. I cannot seem to affect a change in the outcome. Like I'm in a trance.... knowing that it's my life coming apart, knowing that I'm the responsible party, that I am the one who has to change something. But as one in a trance, I cannot seem to move, to motivate, to start the change. It seems, to me, that I am unable to do anything but watch the unraveling of my life. 

I know that on some level, this is simply not true. It's my life. I can live it by default, but I am still the responsible party. I'm the one who pays the bill. It's my name on the blank that says "responsible party." And life just may come to collect. 

It's time to pay the piper. 

The truth is, this is an extremely uncomfortable place to be. The unknowns plague me. The demand to be acknowledged, and yet, no resolve in sight. Just more unknowns. Where do the answers lie?

I've heard that answers lay beyond the end of my comfort And here I am, dangling out in the deep, dark world of discomfort. Hoping for some answers. Answers in life. 

I feel the itch. the itch for something new. Creative. Something fun. Something true to my self. 

My prayer today is to find that passion. The spark that is true to me. My true self. The part of me that shouts to the world, "This is me!"  That part that can no longer be tamed or denied. That part of me, that doesn't have time for any detail that does not enhance my life. Amen?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Uninvited Rage

What happened? Why are you stuck? These are questions asked by my therapist. We were talking about how, for awhile, I wrote every day. Every. single. day. And now I don't. I just quit.

Well, I am in the anger stage of grief. And I don't want to be. I don't want to be angry. at Dad for leaving me, but I am. I don't want to feel hatred and rage toward the brain surgeon who cut him open and let his brain bleed and not recover. But I am. I don't want to be angry at Dad for getting on that 4-wheeler and wrecking and laying facedown in the dirt, inhaling that damn dirt that grew that fatal bacteria that invaded our lives and took over and ruled over us. BUT I AM. Angry. Rage-filled. Bitter. Hateful. Full of bubbling, brewing, festering, infectious RAGE that at any moment could spill over and cover my entire world with a bitter plethora of colorful expletives and the stench of toxic emotion. I am so fucking angry.

I have been aware of this. But I don't want it. I have viewed it as something to ride out. like a storm. But it's not something I will ride out by ignoring it, by just knowing that it is there, and yet pretending to be capable of living a life of of peace, a life of honesty.

I am going to have to embrace it and let it overcome me. Consume me. I will need to let go of control and become submerged in it. Or at least in sort form of it. I will have to accept it and surrender to it. And let it wash over me.

I guess I am scared of that. First of all, I don't want this. I don't want to be consumed by anger and rage that I logically don't believe. It's not Dad's fault. It's not the surgeon's fault, no, wait, that one I don't fully believe. In this regard, I push down my feelings because my family is of a pacifist background and will never sue this man for malpractice. But I don't know that this wasn't some sort of carelessness by an overly-confident (cocky would even by an appropriate adjective) surgeon. But I have tried not to be angry about this because I see no resolve and that is even more frustrating. But I see where all this pretending has gotten me. Festering. Smelly. Infected. Toxic. Stuck.

But to go on, I don't WANT to be mad at my Dad. But he is the one who got on that 4 wheeler that day. He is the one who left me to face the rest of my family without him. He is the one who... oh hell, he fought so FUCKING hard to stay here, even when he was in so much pain and decay, see... I just can't blame him. I can't let that anger just live. Because he didn't want to go. He fought like a Son-of-a-bitch to stay. He loved life. He loved us. He wanted to be around for a much longer time.

I want to end this with that sweet summary of how I've faced this, walked through it, and now I get to experience that gratitude and know acceptance. But no. I'm not there. I am still angry, bitter, broken, and full of rage.

Missing Dad

Every day I wake with a little more of Dad inside of me... my heart, my actions, his voice in my ear, and in action (WWDD?) And everyday that he is a little more deeply embedded inside of me, he is a little less here outside of me. A little less of his energy, his presence, his passion embody the things he made or made happen, or built. They are little less of my Dad and more just earthbound things.

What does it even mean, he's inside of me?!

I feel him. I can't explain it. It just is. And I'm grateful. Because this Daddy's girl is so, so lonely for her Dad. But he's here. He's a part of me. Every day that I wake, I become a little more like him, because he is within me.... his energy, his gentleness, his compassion.

I don't know much, but I am willing to learn

My least favorite thing in the world. Feeling the feelings. Walking through my pain. But I have spent so much of my life both practicing and condemning avoidance. At the same time. I talk about my family of origin and how it was never okay to talk about.... well, anything really. I stew and fume and just keep it there to be my only source of angst whenever I wish. But I have also fostered it in my own life. I avoid the things I don't want to talk about, the subjects I wish NOT to tackle. But the truth is, the healing comes in the feeling and talking and walking. Walking the pain all the way to the end of the path. In that process is the pathway to peace. The victory of contentment. And I realize that being reasonably content is far more achievable than the ever-fleeting happiness. Happiness is temporary. But true peace, true contentedness, comes from a place of working through things and realizing that life isn't always rainbows and unicorns. And when that fleeting moment of happiness dissipates, content and peace will still remain. As long as I remain willing. Willing to walk through feelings, good or bad. Pain. Willing to learn a new way of thinking. The Bible talks about faith the size of a mustard seed. I think that applies to willingness too. If I have just a sliver of willingness, just a grain, on those dark days, it will be enough. Enough to pull me through and change me. To pull me through and open my heart and my mind to whatever God has for me. I try to remember this. Because I know my mind is a dangerous playground and a ticking timebomb. I know that if am not careful, I can be swallowed up by half-truths, by insane narratives in my head, by insecurities and fears. I know it can happen. I know I have to keep that doorway of willingness unlocked, even though some days the only thing keeping it from latching is a tiny grain of mustard seed.