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. 

Living with Asthma.... or is it?

Is it really? Living? When you are constantly overwhelmed with asthmatic suck-the-life-right-out-of-you lack of breath. Oh. Wait. I don't actually have asthma. I live with someone who has asthma. and it is a full time job when my asthmatic is in the throes of.... well, any kind of respiratory-distressing villain.  And I have to say, I do it too. The whole down-playing of the severity of the disease. Apparently, it really is a disease. I hate that word. Because I hate the thought that this will plague "us" forever. The Punky-girl (aka.... the Punk, Punk, Punky, Punkinseed, Punky-brewster), got the roving respiratory crud about 3 weeks ago. Trip number one to Urgent Care.... negative for Covid; negative for Strep; negative for Influenza. "Just a virus," "get plenty of rest, drink water, take breathing treatments. It will run it's course." Uh-huh. So.... cough suppressant, breathing treatments, sleep, rescue inhaler.... here we go. And go. And go. Trip number two to urgent care... Covid test: negative; Influenza: negative. It's "just" a virus. Really? Because her breathing is getting worse. Ummm.... well, let's do a steroid. Okay. and.... two days later my kiddo cant catch her breath, wheezing like crazy. Mom, well Mom, is trying not to panic. Make it to her PCP appointment. the wheezing is audible. The horror is real. so we enjoy an ambulance ride (well, you know.... she does) to the ER while receiving a breathing treatment. I meet them there. At which time, the breathing treatment magically worked. X-Rays come back clear. Testing for.... RSV, Covid-19, Strep, Influenza, and 17 other viruses: negative. This is almost 2 weeks in. A little better... a whole lot worse. two steps forward, twelve steps back. Here is sit, selfishly wishing, waiting, for Punky to feel better. To get better. To breathe freely. She is my baby. I admit, she is spoiled rotten. But when your baby starts battling for breath as a child, well, I just do whatever it takes. *sigh*

We are still being antagonized by a mystery, the elusive breathe. Chasing the "dream." The dream of breathing freely like most people take for granted. Wouldn't that be something. breathing freely. Seems reasonable. Please dear Universe, grant us this freedom. Please dear Lord.

Missing You....

 The sting is fading a little. I miss you everyday. But it no longer makes me draw in a sharp breathe and experience acute physical pain on a daily basis. I know that there will still be days and moments and gaps in time when I will only feel the intense loss so deeply that I cannot breathe. Cannot function as a human being. 

These days though, I'm able to smile and chuckle and generally enjoy that every day there are multiple times that I think about a connection to the day that brings me to you. "Dad would be so proud..." "My dad would have torn through that field and chased that coyote...." "The bucks my dad got were bigger....." "My dad was a problem solver. He knew how to create and fix and build things." 

I wonder about your artistic side. Those metal sculptures you used to make. The barbwire windmills. And so many other ways you were artistic. The rough cedar walls in our family room. The fact that you converted a garage into a family room and put in the fireplace rock that you wanted in there and made it the room you dreamed of.  I always think about MY artistry. But I see now that you, too, were an artist. And recently I've seen some of Mom's artistic side as well. It's always been there, but I just now was able to look past the end of my own nose and see what was given to me, what was laid out by my dna. 

I know that I will never be the same Dad. The day you left, the world got grayer, less loving, less colorful. But now, a year and a half later, I don't feel the sharp spasms of grief every time you cross my mind and my heart. Once again, I am able to feel that love, the tenderness, the warmth of your memory. 

Pop (or Pop-O as you would say), I miss you dreadful awful. But it's more bearable now. And it brings a smile to my face as I think about you and how much you taught me; how much you gave me; who you really were.

Pop, your Lynner-skinner loves you. Miss you.... 

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?