March Commitments...

 I belong to a drawing group on Facebook. This group is called Simple Daily Drawing. I am not so good at keeping it simple. But I am working on it. I have challenged myself to do the daily drawing prompt every day in the month of March. I missed day one. That's okay right? But I have posted days 2,3, and 4. Which is also like my other commitment this month. I signed up for Slice of Life writing challenge to get myself writing again. Did you know this is a blogging challenge for teachers? I guess I knew that. But I'm now a "former-teacher." I never meant to be part of that attrition statistic. But that is another day. Or days. What I want to touch on is.... March commitments: SoL and SDD. 

Simple daily drawing is a group that posts a new prompt every day of the month. They are posted for the entire month and you can post on a day that is not that day's prompt. I had a habit (maybe not the best one) of picking and choosing prompts and just posting 5-7 prompts a month. Okay, that works. In a way at least. But here are few things I have discovered or want to discover. 

One: there are many ways to follow and fulfill a prompt (and I'll include my March drawings at the end of this post). If you don't like the prompt per se, find a way to make it work. March 1st, I didn't do it, but I thought about it, a lot, that day. The prompt was #dart. Some friends drew lawn darts, some drew the darts for a game of darts, some drew a poison dart frog (which I would be enamored with, I think frogs are fascinating and poison dart frogs are beautiful and colorful), some friends drew a dart fish. I thought of darting quickly. Like a bicycle messenger darting in and out of traffic, or a super fast motorcycle zipping between cars on the freeway. Or a dart in a curtain or in your pants, and the art of sewing. 

Two: it is a good discipline to do what everyone else does even if I do insist on ALWAYS thinking outside the box. Following prompts.... following directions, keeping a job, being able to be directed or coached. Good ideas. So I want to develop the discipline to follow the daily prompts.

Three: drawing every day of the month would be the same thing. Discipline. And who doesn't need to practice self-discipline?! Well, okay, I don't actually know about you all, but what I know about me.... I need a little discipline and a little less whimsy in my life. So commit. And do the damn drawing prompt already. Sheesh.

Four: Drawing. you know my favorite quote about art? I have probably paraphrased it to the point that the original author of the quote wouldn't even recognize it, so at this point it might even my own made up artsy quote. Here it is: "If you are good at art, you're an artist. If you are not good at art: you're an artist!" Hey, hey! Because let's face, the science supports it. Creating is calming. And coloring is rhythmic and calming and downright healing to our over-stimulated brains. So.... art.

Five: connection. 

Six: I can make this list expand all day.

Seven: well, okay, I'm moving on now. I could seriously keep going, but I am also passionate about writing and want to expound on my Slice of Life commitment as well. 

Two-writing teachers started this writing challenge a WHILE ago now. And several years I have attempted to do the writing challenge and write and post it every day in the month of March. This year, I am unemployed. Ironically, I am busy as heck. But not a "real" job. Just writing and drawing and creating and farming and tending to chickens and a kid and throw in some "normal" stuff too.... housecleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. In order to read today's Slice of Life posts, visit the blog by clicking on the Slice of Life image.

Currently we are one car household. The really interesting thing is that it is the kid's car. She bought it with her own money, it is her name on the title. But she is battling some mystery illnesses and I'm the primary driver. So I taxi to all kinds of appointments that are 10 miles away at the least and 30+ on average. Anywho.... 

I signed up for Slice of Life Story challenge on the 1st and then went about our daily stuff. Except we didn't get home until like 8:30 in the evening and then I had to feed and water the outside birds (chickens, ducks, geese), tend to the inside birds (the back room is the place for birds that need special attention and Carrie's whack-a-doodle veterinary services). After that it is time to take care of dogs and cats and make sure the people eat something. So... after signing up to slice in the morning, the next time it crossed my mind it was after midnight. So I figured that starting in earnest of the 2nd was good enough. 

And I love it. I love writing about a slice of my life ev

ery day. I have big ambitions to write a book. Probably just in blog form. or whatever. I mean, once I finish a blog post, I am exhausted. And it makes for great bathroom reading. Or something like that. Coffee table fodder? 

These are my commitments this month. But my kiddo just stuck her head out of her room to remind me that I also committed to help her and I said I'd be ready 5 minutes ago. Time to get busy on life outside the blogging community. 

I am adding my drawing so far this month. March 2 prompt was upside down, the 3rd was roaming ostrich, and today's prompt (the 4th) was Blue Jean Baby.

Starting the day...

 Today's slice of life is brought to you in a free form poem. So much goodness in the morning... 

To visit Slice of Life, Day 3 stories, click on the icon, the link *should* take you there! Happy Thursday. 

Sensing the Day
coffee brewing,
smells of heaven
guineas squawking,
sounds of life
Sunshine on my face
wind across my body
earthy smells
dirt and grass and fresh springtime
Princess is howling
reminding me that she needs me 
and loves me
a cat chases a fly 
sailing through the air
running off tail up high
Daytime sights
sounds
smells.
Today will be a good day.
Today.
is a good day.

~Carrie Suderman/Carrie Horn

(Of course, so much to critique. Do I like the title? not sure. I am also transitioning my thinking about my name and what name I wish to use when I write... my maiden name, or my ex-husband's last name.... )

March is Slice of Life month...

All month?! All month. The challenge is to write a slice about your day, every day, during the month of March and share it on the blog developed by Two Writing Sisters. I have not been successful in the past. I've been incredibly hit and miss. And for several years now I haven't even tried to participate. But the timing is changing and my life seems to be in a space where I am ready to accept and rise to the challenge. 

I've been encompassed by my past life, teaching, of late. I was not invited back to a teaching position last year. And that in and of itself is a whole gamut of emotion. Up and down and angry and twisty and knotted and sad and indignant and blaming and then self-blaming and hopeless and then back to angry. and let's just go around another time. Ugh... 

Last year, I took on a whole lot of new. A new grade, in a new district, including a move to a new community, and more. I moved from 1st grade to 5th grade. And I was lost. Lost, lost, lost. But to compound things, I was teaching the smallest class I had ever had (11 at it's largest), with 2 of those students having parents on the school board and a 3rd student having a parent that was besties with the family of the president of the school board. There was no room for error. I made an exorbitant amount of errors.

I could have developed a love for 5th grade and even a niche for it. It could have been my jam. But not with the amount of time I had and the margin for error that was afforded to me. Zero. That was the margin. 

Not by my administration. My principal/superintendent afforded me a margin. An amazingly wide margin, knowing what I was up against with the parents and students. She was amazing and she did everything she possibly could have done in order to help me. She guided, she encouraged, she empathized, she ran interference, she found me some capable assistance, she counseled. So what was my deal? That is the question I still ask myself almost daily. 

Why, with that amount of kind, accepting support, could I not succeed? Was it pure laziness? Self-loathing? ineptitude? Was I just too overwhelmed? Too tired? Too scattered? Was I simply in over my head? 

Why?

Seriously though.

My inner chatter goes through this on the regular. And I vacillate. One day it's all about the indignant, self-righteousness, and the voices in my head blame those sons-a-bitches who had the audacity to treat me with less than fair and reasonable expectations. One day, or maybe the same day that starts out angry, self-righteous, and indignant, the overwhelming take away is my own failures. And self-ridicule. What is the hell ever made me think that I could teach? And teach 5th grade?! I am a Kinder teacher at heart and an okay first grade teacher. I can stretch those little minds and make them readers and make them love me and do literally anything I ask of them, which makes them try. try. Try. TRY. 

I went into this gig thinking I could make 5th graders try. (insert insane laughter here). I do not have that much power. I cannot influence them in the same way I can Firsties. And I cannot influence them when they are NOT SUPPOSED TO BE INFLUENCED according to parental dictates and judgements. 

On the good days, I still strongly believe I was on a right and good path with some things. Writing. My students had to journal every day. Every morning, whether we met in person or in a Zoom meeting, there was a journal prompt waiting for them in google classroom. Every morning. And a rubric to measure their writing quality that laid out clear expectations. Which is something parents seemed to want. But apparently their children were not to journal because the parents thought it was dumb." I had no way of showing them what all their children were learning when they follow the prompts. So some students did the minimum and got the marks to match. Which furthered the divide. Some of them didn't do the journaling at all. In spite of parent contacts and detention. So you can lead a young writer to the blank page/screen, but you cannot make said writer pound it out on the keyboard. 

Okay, that is only one tiny slice of that slice of my life. It's like if I took this piece of my teaching life, this one small year and split it into a million other pieces and then chose one of those pieces and slivered it down even farther. I know. So that means that this is not a clear and complete view of this part of my life. Maybe not even a complete slice. But it has drained me and saddened me and overwhelmed me in just this short glimpse. So that's all folks. Tomorrow being a new day, I may or may not give you another slice of this same cake. Only tomorrow will tell. 

If you want to read everyone else's slice, visit here: https://twowritingteachers.org/2022/03/02/day-2-sol22/

Sometimes the answer is just RIGHT THERE

Lately my days are full of humble pie. Two-slice Hilly humble pie. Well, maybe not totally, because Hilly ate two slices because it still tasted good. My pie doesn't taste good. Like last night one of our dogs gorged herself in order to be a bully to the puppy and eat all her food. And then it all came up again. And when I went to clean it up, first I had to tell the other dogs not to eat it and then I also had to tell the cats. But I myself, I was gagging at the smell alone. Now imagine eating something that smells like that and invokes an internal reflex like the gag reflex. That is how my pie tastes. So I'm kind of over the daily dose. 

Here's the thing I know that I don't want to know. Or don't like, or it makes me so uncomfortable I go into avoidance mode (Ostrich mode: head in the sand mode; run away mode; geographical fix mode). I am at the center of all of actions, shitty ones and not-so-shitty ones. And until I actually eat the humble pie and choke it down and keep it down and learn the freaking lesson, I will continue to endure humiliation. over and over and over. and over. 

(insert disclaimer here >>) So I started this a couple weeks ago already. But being plagued with a plethora of shortcomings, I have managed to enthusiastically avoid coming back to it. And then again, much has changed since beginning this post. The shit pie I was talking about largely had to do with my constant compulsion to over-share.  I even know that the consequences could be big and I could be overwhelmed with humiliation and shame and regret. But as you know (or maybe you don't), compulsions don't easily succumb to reason. So then I have an overwhelming compulsion to over-share, knowing the end result could be disastrous is not enough to control the urge. I don't know about anyone else, but I have found that regret tastes similar to humble pie. It is not as bitter going down, but the bitter aftertaste lingers and seeps into all the flavors around it. 

I want to tell you about all the lessons I've learned and the wisdom that I've gained through over-sharing my elephant with you. But the truth is, that bitter aftertaste, well, it leaves me shuffling off into the nothingness to wallow alone and to bask in my self-pity. 

On the surface level of the problem, the actual no-money-no-job-no-insurance level, many have reached out and offered assistance through prayer, through resources, through ca$h (let's be honest, that is probably my favorite kind of assistance/connection), through hooking me up with what has been deemed "social capital" (it's not what you know, it's WHO you know), through caring words, through thoughts and prayers and even fund-raising. These have not cured what ails me. Because let's be honest, what ails me lives inside of me. 

What these gestures have done though, is give me hope. Like a tiny seedling struggling to take root, it has brought the tiniest glimpse of hope to me and it is continuing to grow into a vining, green plant of hope, with blossoms that are beginning to open and beauty that is seen by fresh eyes... seeing the color seep into the gray and color my world. 

What all of this has done is give me hope. God promises that if we have faith the size of a grain of a mustard seed, we will see it grow. That is how I feel about this hope. It is many tiniest of actions that bond together and form something formidable and real. A big, bright, ball of hope that is not to be discounted or discarded. 

The update about the Hippie Chick Farm. She is going to make it. My one last-ditch effort to find a solution, to stop the hemorrhaging, was a bust. Hopeless. I felt hopeless. This was on the morning of the Friday before the Tuesday when the sale was scheduled. So three days to get my hopelessness under control (I'd just as soon see her run over by a train), find hope and a solution, present said solution to the lawyer in the suit and get the sale cancelled.

However, this last idea that I had to gain a shred of hope, the free consultation with a bankruptcy lawyer, was summed up by him saying that he could not help me. But what he did was stay on the line for the rest of the 30 minute consultation and spit-ball ideas. And I/we came across an idea that had not come to me before. Or let me say, if someone suggested it earlier in the game, I did not hear it. Know how it is that you cannot hear some things no matter how clearly they are presented? But for whatever reason, this resonated. Loudly. I did some checking and low-and-behold this idea would get me out of hot water. So I called the lawyer, who could not commit to an answer, but called his client, and called back with the final outcome being that we reached a solution and the sale has been cancelled. 

Today, the shortest day of the year, Winter Solstice, is a day I will bask in hope and I will reap the joy that lies within the smallest glimmers of hope that friends and my community bestow upon me. And low and behold, I know the days of sun will begin to get longer. Not just in the sky and view that I love so much from my farm, but in my heart as well. Seems a fitting analogy. Today I will respect the cold, dark depth of the Winter Solstice, but I will look forward with hope, knowing the days of sun will continue to grow. 

Effing Elephants....

 Self-sabatoge. Something I am quite adept at. After all this time living with me, you'd think I'd either adapt to this, or overcome it. Some days it is more cunning than others. I'll be wandering along in my bubble, my rose-colored bubble, and *BAM!* there it is. Popping my bubble and intruding on my feigned serenity. I'm writing about something I don't want to write about. Because it's big. But then again, that is why I'm writing about it. The damn elephant fills the whole fucking room and I can't figure out how to maneuver around it and keep pretending that the walls won't come crashing down if this bad boy charges. 

Oh hello. I see I am speaking (writing.... whatever) in metaphor and rhetoric again. Well, this flowery crap lives in my head all. the. time. Running dialogue. So.... purging it means sharing with you, my audience, whatever weirdness might present itself. So if you read my flowery ramblings, remember to speed them up to at least twice the normal speed and tell me you're not exhausted afterward. Trying to chase different rabbits down different rabbit holes and ending up at a place where it all makes sense in a realistic amount of time with a veritable amount of sanity. Back to my current dilemma. The one with the self-sabotaging behavior. Yeehaw.... 

The elephant is named Debt. More specifically.... property taxes and mechanics liens. I just call it fucked. With a capital FUCK. And it "should" be a relatively easy fix. Except that I have no income right now. Well, I receive child support every 2 weeks, to the tune of $250ish a month. And unemployment is still placing a hold on my account, so after being unemployed for NINE weeks (9 f*cking weeks!), I still haven't received a payment one. So if I were not unemployed, I could probably find some place willing to take a chance on me because the amount I would borrow against the house would/will be the only lien against the house. So.... there is that. Or for the low, low payment of $1400 I can file for bankruptcy. I (only) need $700 to file the bankruptcy. But again, no income. 

Throw in this.... my knees are crippled with arthritis. So bad. And very limiting in the kinds of jobs I can do.  And as I am working on getting a disability judgment, I am supposed to keep making and going to Doctor appointments, and follow doctor's advise in regard to work and movement and taking care of my knees and other ailing areas of my body. Have I said this yet? I'm only 53. I am too young to need knee replacement. 

Oh boy, I digress. again. *sigh*

Let me tell you the story.... 

When I first received a tax statement, it said it was taxes for 2019. I dismissed it thinking that it certainly had to have been paid already by the previous owner, since I just became the home owner in October of 2020. And then when I realized that no, it wasn't a mistake or a fluke, that I really did owe the county nearly $1000 for taxes for 2019. And I was working at a "new" job, not teaching, and it was a steep pay cut from my previous job. But I still had this false sense of balance and hope. I believed I was going to somehow pay that $1000 plus the  current tax of $460+ that would be coming due in December. When we moved in here, it was fall. Fall of 2020. The happy news, I bought this place outright. The current unhappy news. Take those back taxes and no way to pay them and add on a lien that the roofer put on my house. Roofer? What?! Oh yeah, last fall, I get this notification from my home owners insurance that if I want to keep my homeowners insurance I would need to make the following updates to my house. One of those things was to put on a new roof. Anywho.... I'm in trouble.

I knew the money from the sale of my house in Mac was circling the drain rather quickly. But I also knew I needed homeowners insurance. I needed to have a roof installed by December 14, 2020 in order not to lose my homeowners insurance. So I secured a roofing company to do the roof. They couldn't do it by the cutoff date but I hoped that sending a copy of the contract would stave off the threat and I'd keep my insurance. The roof wasn't completed until mid-January. And so throw in my bad financial habits, and overall lack of savviness in regard to money, on top of holidays and home repairs and so on, and a general "head in the clouds" approach to things that overwhelm me ("oh, it will work out. I don't know HOW it will work out, but it will.") Blind faith. Cluelessness. Alternate reality. Whatever you call it, I live here a lot of the time. So excuse me while I stick my head back in the sand, but I have some avoiding to do.

Here I am with a pending sheriff sale to satisfy the mechanic's lien (between $7000-10,000), and the $1000 for property taxes. Sheriff sale is on December 14.  That is a mere 10 days from now. Unless some sort of miracle happens, I might just lose this little farm, my little slice of paradise, that I love with my whole self. It seems surreal. This is my Hippie Chick Farm. My chickens, ducks and geese live here with us and our dogs, cats, and guinea pigs. 

I *think* I could keep the house by filing for bankruptcy. I can do that for $1400. Of which, "only" $700 is needed to start proceedings and stop the sale of my house. And miracles never cease. It could happen. Right? Except that I have no cash. No holdings that I could make into cash. 

I know. I know, know, know, know, know that God will take care of me. Take care of us. He always has. Over. and over. and over. Sometimes that doesn't mean what I think it should. I love this place. I have believed since day one that God showed this place to me. I asked. I got. So I'm furious with myself that I would put myself in danger of losing this place. Foolishness. Stupid. And on and on. The berating goes on and on and on (...and on). But the long and short of it is that The Hippie Chick Farm is only 10 days away from not being mine unless a miracle happens. 

I have been brainstorming miracles. I know God doesn't need my help, but I also know that I can't find the miracle if I don't look. I have plotted and schemed and here are few ways that the miracle could happen: Kansas Department of Labor, Fraud Department, would actually review my unemployment claim (and read the emails from the call center, and the many, many notes in my file about my desperation) and release the fraud hold on my weekly claims. That would be a BIG miracle. Or maybe I could find a friend to lend my the first $700 to start bankruptcy proceedings. Or maybe I could find 7 friends to put $100 toward the lawyer for the bankruptcy. Maybe I could start a fundraising drive. Like a go-fund-me. There are miracles around the corner. I know there are. But you know, Tom Petty imparted a valuable piece of wisdom when he sang "the waiting is the hardest part." Well, the waiting, and not giving up, and still believing that in my desperation, a miracle will commence. But miracles need the window of hope to close or at the very least, grow dim. So I'm thinking that place is near. Because I am starting to live in panic, on high-alert, all the time. 

I mean, I can't eat an elephant. I know the story.... to eat an elephant, you just have to take one bite at a time. Maybe this is the first bite. Being so desperate that my desperation outweighs my humiliation and shame at thinking about exposing my inadequacies for the whole world to see. 

I am truly tired of eating humble pie, it leaves a putrid after taste. And I am not excited about tackling, or eating an elephant. And for certain, not this particular Effing Elephant. 

"The Hippie Chick Farm"

 

Fake it til you make it?

 I was taught something totally different than what people seem to interpret "fake it til you make it" to mean these days. As a newly sober/clean addict, I was told that sometimes you have to fake it til you make it. This was not intended to be in the spirit of F.E.A.R. (f*#k everything and run), but in the spirit of overcoming in the sense that I didn't have a clue as to how to live differently than I had before. It is a nice sentiment to say, overcome your F.E.A.R.  by facing everything and recovering. But I didn't have a clue as to how to live in recovery mode, facing life as it came to me. So through mimicking the actions of others who were successfully living a life I desperately wanted, I might be able to learn. But it will not be my first instinct or a natural response. Possibly not ever. But for sure as a "newbie" to recovery or in regard to any new challenge. In order to build muscle memory, I have to do the action. I have to fake it, when I don't really have confidence that my life will work out if I take this action, and take the action anyway. Because. Well, because I have done such a fine and upstanding job of making my life work out the way I have wanted it to by doing the same dysfunctional things over and over. In order to build new habits, instincts, and neuropathways in my brain, I have to repeat actions that are not instinctual to me at this time. I have to "fake it." This is often messy, embarrassing and occasionally humiliating. It is full of the Face Everything and Recover kind of fear. The John Wayne kind, being courageous enough to saddle up in the midst of my unknowing, the middle of being scared shitless. And not waiting until I feel brave or empowered of equipped. Just do it. 

This is different, however, than damn-the-torpedos-throw-all-caution-to-the-wind-and-act-with-reckless-abandon. This is doing the thing I know to be right, even though I don't actually know how. This is asking for help, accepting advice, and uncomfortably doing things in a way that I have not done them before. This is step work and taking my own inventory and realizing just how many times and how many ways I have NOT accomplished whatever it is that I have to become willing to face and act upon in the face of my fear. 

All of this "jargon" is stuff I learned in recovery. Some of it spoken with the intellect I hear all over the workplace today. And the talk of trauma and re-wiring our brain and all those education buzz words. Well, I have heard it before it became popular. Some of it spoken through the wisdom of others who told me, "you can act your way into a new way of thinking, but you cannot think your way into a new way of acting." Change requires action. And if I don't have the strength, knowledge or ability to successfully maneuver this path, I will have to borrow this from others who have gone before, who are willing to share their experience, strength and hope with me. I have to trust them and then saddle up and do this action that I don't understand or even believe in (yet), and be willing to do it over and over until I've built a new muscle memory and carved new grooves in my brain, lighting up new dendrites and growing new habits and instincts. But until I have uncomfortably faked it over and over, I cannot face it instinctually and be in a new path. 

Fake it til you make it is not bullshit advice. It is deep, it is real, it requires an action, even though I don't like the action, or feel comfortable with it. Until I know better, I cannot do better. In order to do better, I have to do the thing that is not natural to me. 

Today's rant is brought to you by this photo that facebook "suggested" to me. This photo has some amount of validity. But don't you think that "face it til you make it" requires you to fake it? It requires acting like you know something when you don't and just doing it until you do know it. In my not-so-humble opinion...

What is a Black-hole-Soul anyway?

I was what you might call....hard to handle. A handful and then some. I have a lot of "punny" descriptions. I took a self-help/self-improvement class once and this phrase has stuck with me: "She's fun to date, but hell to live with." Well, I was certainly the bestower of living hell on my family and I was not one iota willing to share in any sort of responsibility in the matter. 

I often wonder if this is a product of a black-hole-soul. I've known for eons already that my soul is a black hole. Suck-you-dry-and-leave-you-wounded-and-begging-for-a-reprieve kind of hole. The one that can never be filled. No amount of love, pets, alcohol, drugs, hate, adrenaline, sex, or thrill-seeking can fill it. Nothing. Every single thing leaves that Black hole unfulfilled and begging for more. Eventually, it also does this for the family, friends, support circles, and even acquaintances of the one who possesses the black hole in their soul. Because no matter how much one gives, the BhS (Black-hole-Soul) is never renewed or refreshed. And everyone knows that one can't pour from an empty vessel. So those in relationship to the BhS are drained, waiting for their giving to produce fruit and be returned. But it never, ever happens. And everyone in the wake of this tornado is damaged and broken. Not "just" the owner the BhS. 

This is me. Owner and operator of a BhS.

So having been born at the tail end of the 60's, raised in the 70's (and 80's), I was full of the whole F.U. culture that women's liberation was rolling out. (Please don't insert politics here, there are whole other stories we can debate conservatism or liberalism in). As I type this, I have Joan Jett on replay in my head.... "I don't give a damn about my bad reputation...." complete with guitar riff and even a little head banging action. Yep. As a teen, I carried this around like a badge, just daring someone, anyone, to fuck with me. Do not step on my toes, I will fuck you up and I will not care where the carnage lands. Your reputation. My reputation. Your nose, my toes. Your house, my family. Carnage. Destruction. Because if you somehow manage to offend me.... you know, maybe you look at me wrong, or you got out of bed today..... then my black hole is raging and that in turn angers me. With that insatiable anger that rolls out like desire but with a side of deadly destruction. 

I have a friend that talks about how he may not love himself today, but he no longer loathes himself. Ahhh. My brain lights up at this. Self-loathing. Loathing. Black and vile hatred spilling out of the BhS. I can relate. Occasionally today I can relate with the learning to love myself piece, but in all reality, my brain perks up at the phrase "self-loathing." Because hatred is just too benign of a word to describe what the BhS does to me, makes of me, creates in me. 

As a person who possesses a BhS, hatred of my own self is such a roiling, billowing cauldron of hot and stinking shit that it has no choice but to spill out. It stinks up every corner of your BhS life. My addiction to pain, to adrenaline, to anything that might make that BhS less formidable and more tolerable somehow, is real. Overwhelming. In my life today, I have stopped trying to either soothe my Soul or kill myself, taking as many down with me as possible, in the form of drugs or alcohol. But make no mistake, the residual affects of the BhS are still present. Strong. It lurks in self-destructive relationships, in brazen thrill-seeking, in larger-than-life self-pity and one-up-man-ship, self-sabotage, and just general irresponsible behavior. 

It's not something I've never worked to improve, but it IS at the very core the cunning, baffling, and powerful part of my addictive nature. The yin and the yang of my desire to protect my Soul from hurt and danger and hardship and the precise inability to recognize anything that is good for my Soul because of that damn blackhole. 

When I see other people's BhS spilling their stink onto me and my life, I am appalled when it is pointed out to me that I am not so different from them, that I have wreaked untold amounts of havoc on every life I touch. 

The BhS story is never-ending, but because this kind of honesty is exhausting, not to mention stinky, I am drawing this post to a close. I didn't tell you all this so you can send me hug emojis and emoticons and ask me if I am alright. I wrote this out for the sake of 1) purging it, and 2) trying to sum up unexplainable behaviors that accompany the life of this woman with a BhS.