And it Builds, that raw emotion

This morning I was kicking around the idea of writing poetry. But the day just slipped away and here it is almost time to go to bed and I haven't written today. But I've been watching crazy documentaries. Tonight I'm watching The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping. It's devastating to watch. A lot of the expertise is from people who were held in this place and the raw emotion is overwhelming. It brings a lot of unhealed emotion to surface. And I'm raw and weeping again. Why was it so very hard to live when I was young? And why has it followed me my whole life? Why am I plagued by thoughts of death? By unspeakable sorrow? By brokenness? 

And It Builds

I'm feel my pulse

racing through my body

and pounding through my veins.

I hear the blood 

pulsing in my ears. 

I feel the sorrow 

welling up from deep, deep down.

It builds,

it swells, 

it crashes.

And here I am 

alone,

in deafening silence.

My thoughts, 

my feelings

and me.

And it pulses

and builds, 

and ebbs and flows. 

I'm relieved 

as the feelings,

the raw, unrefined feelings,

retreat. 

And leave me 

alone

with only the roar

of silence.

-Carrie Horn

To read other what others contribute in the Slice of Life challenge, click on the orange slice.

... Just like that

 Just like that my hopes are flared and the fire is stoked. I got an email this morning that I have received my standard substitute license. Valid til 2029. And a lead came on a long-term sub position, and I have started the process of reaching out. Now the panic sets in... What about my disability? What about insurance? What if I don't like it? What happens if I work and then don't get a permanent job? What if they don't like me? What if.... What if.... 

So now that I have had a big adrenaline rush, now I'm coming down hard. And reality is sort of setting in. But hard. You know.... reality with a good hard kick of paranoia and fear attached. A bad case of "what if's" that take those necessary questions to the next level. The crazy level. 

Oh Lord, I'm exhausted, and I don't even know if they are going to call me for an interview?! 

So I remind myself of "deep thoughts" from those who've been around the sun a few more times than I have. And my favorite quote keeps coming to mind... "God took care of my dumb ass when I was out there drinking, what makes me think He won't take of me now?!" RIP Gene, you were one of kind my friend. 

This was my "Slice of Life" today. To read other blogger's who've joined this writing challenge (write everyday for the month of March and publish to Two Writing Teachers "Slice of Life" challenge posts), click on the orange slice. It should direct you to today's post, scroll down to the comments and choose a link, read and enjoy.

Instigating Chaos and the Illusion of Control

 "Don't sabotage your peace just because chaos is familiar." I ran across this quote somewhere on social media. It was not attributed to anyone, so I cannot give the credit it is due. But it takes me back to a conversation I had recently with a friend. I had been craving a drink. And I have a little time between me and bottle now, so while it's not the end of the world to have a craving, it is something to sit up and take note of. Maybe make a few changes in my daily routine and habits to fill my life with more things that bring me contentment, not restlessness and discontent. What we spoke of was that I was craving chaos. I said I wanted a chaos that I created, that I controlled, instead of the chaos of the unknown. I was craving sex, drugs, and rock and roll. To oversimplify. 

Isn't it funny (ironic funny, not so much ha-ha funny) how my desire for control would lead me to an act of loss of control and chaos? 

Don't we all desire to control our destiny? If you study the cycle of abuse, the abused sometimes provokes the abuser to end the constant fear of never knowing what is coming next. Provoke it and you'll know what is next. Violence.

Right now I have a home life situation that causes me resentment. And I feel like I can't control it.... the situation or that I feel resentful. But if I instigate conflict, I can feel justified in my anger and less like a heel for holding onto this grudge so tightly. Sometimes I provoke an argument. Then I feel vindicated in my seething rage. Yuck. Not a pretty thing to look at. But it drives home to me that yes, I really do crave that control over my life and the unknown. I want to know what is unknown and I want to control that which I cannot control. Even if it is self-inflicted chaos. 

So I'll sit with this. And I'll mull it over. And I'll pray it over. And maybe, just maybe, I gain the courage to release the need to feel in control and trust God to take care of me, once again, as He always does. 

The Slice of Life challenge: write every day for each day in the month of March and post your writing on the Two Writing Teachers page in the comments for each day. Click the orange slice to read everyone's slice for today. 

What Does Love Look Like?

 I have come to a place in my life where I consider myself more of a spiritual person and less of someone following a set of religious rules. Ironically enough, the longer I pursue God in light of this freedom from rules, the more I have seen my gravitation toward the God of my youth, the God of the Bible. I still hold a giant grudge against so called Christians, and as I learn to pray more, I realize I have to pray about this because this giant boulder on my shoulder ain't goin' away without some divine intervention. You know, we have all been hurt in life. No one gets out of this journey unscathed. Ultimately, no gets out alive. 

I've come to realize that believing in God and even the God of the Bible is very different that swallowing the fundamentalism bullshit that has been served to me over the years. 

God is love. And as such, God desires good for everyone. Another blogger wrote yesterday about kindness and how kindness has essentially bit them in the ass. And not to expect kindness from them any longer. I am a big proponent of kindness. As I am of love. Agape love. All we need is love. Love is the answer, what was the question? Love, love, love. More love, less hate. Hate is too great of a burden to bear, I will choose love. Love is patient. Love is kind. 

But I think we've taken the Kindness Revolution and the Love Wins ideal too far. When do we count? How can we be kind all time and still "win" (for lack of a better term)? Sometimes I think we have to choose what kind of love and what kind of kindness we will pursue. Appearing kind in a world of hate is admirable, but if it allows others to manipulate us and trample us, what is the point? We must be kind and loving to ourselves first. And that doesn't always look like love, peace, kindness to the outside world. Or even to ourselves. Because we've been shamed into believing we must not hurt anyone else even if it means we are withering and dying inside and our souls are screaming that love is a lie and begging to be saved. This is when we are the only ones who can save us. God made us intelligent. God made us empathetic. But God (the crazy, unorthodox God I've come to know) never intended for us to lay and down and be trampled by people because we "love" them. Sometimes love looks like a mental wrestling match where we triumph over our own crippling thoughts and misconceptions and find the truth of self-love. Love and Kindness aren't always easy and the waters aren't always tame, sometimes it's a stormy sea of violent weather that sets us free. And this is also love. 

To read other Slices of Life, click on the orange slice. Hundreds of educators all over the world choose to write every day for the month of March and post it for the world to see. 

The Crazy Merri-go-Round Ride of Disability

 The ride that is disability. I was diagnosed with menopausal osteo-arthritis in my knees. My life changed drastically in what seems like a few days. I was walking 5 miles a day, three or four times a week and suddenly my knees were giving me pain and they were swollen and I felt crippled. I was very quickly only able to do my daily walking required by my job. Which wasn't nothing, but the walking for my health after work came to grinding halt. The following school year, with the help of steroid injections I was barely able to do the required walking that goes with teaching. I decided not to teach the following year. And I was able to get a job, one I was probably not as able to carry out as I implied when I was hired, but I got a job nonetheless. Through unrelated circumstances though, I was forced to abandon this job for the sake of my family. Now, however, my knees were bad enough that I couldn't fool my way into another job. So I filed for disability and fought for an agonizingly long 15 months to get approved. During this time, I burned through my KPERS (my retirement), and relied on the kindness of others to pay my Electric bill every month. I learned that it's possible to live on nothing. Fortunately, my house was paid for, I was only neglecting my taxes and home owners insurance. 

During this unsettled time, I had both of my knees replaced. Total knee replacement surgery first in the left knee and then six months later, in the right knee. The right has always been the easy one. It healed fast, it has better flexibility and mobility range. The left one I've fallen on twice. It swells, it gets tight, it is hard to lift my left leg without pain. I am, to my dismay, disabled. A fall risk. 

Some days are better than others, but the truth is, it's a merri-go-round ride. It will come around to the pain and swelling again without a doubt. I find myself once again in physical therapy. My therapist is a miracle worker and simply amazing. I must admit that. But here's what I'm seeing.... 

When I work too hard in pt, I have pain and swelling, making me inactive and sitting around with hot packs on my knees and this crazy nerve on the left side that sends pain pulsing down my hip, thigh, knee, calf to my ankle. But being less active flairs the pain again, making me less flexible, less adapted to a life resembling normalcy, and more likely to sit, sit, sit. Which in turn increases my fall risk, my inability to gain more flexibility and long-term mobility. I feel trapped in a very real, very unnerving (har-har) cycle. More movement = more swelling, pain, and "tightness." More tightness and pain = less movement. Less movement makes it so that when I do stretch, do PT exercises, work to strengthen and lengthen, I face soreness, tightness, and swelling. Forcing me to slow down again. Making me admit, that in this moment, I am, truly, disabled. I may not be forever, that is my hope, my prayer. But my current status not just a title, but reality.

See the cycle. It drives my mind into insanity, thinking perhaps I'll never be able to return to my passion... teaching. Will I be strong enough to maybe substitute teach a couple times a week? Currently this is my prayer. But I have these hopes and aspirations that I'll be able to teach full time again. That one day I'll have the strength and stamina to submerge myself into the chaos that is teaching again. But for now, I keep riding the merri-go-round. I keep fighting the pain and swelling. I keep hoping. Keep going with the ebb and flow that is disability. 

The Comforts of Home

Tonight I sit in the comfort of my living room and I wonder about the plight of the homeless. In the town near me, there seems to be an alarming and growing population of homeless. Their needs are beyond what I can conceive from my seat in my own warm home. There's a page I follow that's a "gossip" page and there is a post about a homeless man who needed some way to stay warm and out of the weather one night this week. The person who posted had spoken with the homeless man and was requesting help for the man for shelter and warmth. The overwhelming responses were from people willing to donate blankets, financial resources to help the man seek shelter, to bring warm meals. This warmed my heart. However, there is always one.... 

One of the first comments I saw read: "Has he applied for jobs? Has he?" 

This got my blood pressure up pretty quick. Why? What's so wrong with this question anyway? Well, hold on a minute while I clamor up onto my soap box. 

Here we go....

Let me start with the idea that whether or not this man is worthy of assistance seems to be tied up with whether or not he has applied for jobs. This is wrong on so many levels. Starting with the fact that the man deserves to be sheltered and fed whether or not you want to know about his job history! Don't even get me started on the entitled dictating to the less fortunate how to pull themselves out of the gutter. This chaps my hide faster than you can say "boo." Most of us have no idea what it is like to try and survive on the streets. When you're cold and hungry and dirty and haven't showered for days, is it really realistic to think you should be out pounding pavement for a job? In education, kids come to us hungry and tired and stressed out on the daily. Educators have the saying "Maslow before Bloom." Bloom's taxonomy of learning is central to education. And we all know about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Your basic physiological needs must be met before you can address even the next hierarchy of safety (i.e. employment), and learning is hirer up yet. But for our homeless man scenario, the first items of business would be finding a place out of the wind and rain, finding food and a place to rest of the night. The brain cannot focus on the need to be gainfully employed or how to reasonably achieve this when those baseline needs are not met. Can I get an amen? 

Now, the pendulum does swing both ways. One poster said that she had a camper in her backyard hooked to electricity and he could stay there. That seemed foolish to me. Another poster mentioned that the homeless man of mention had attacked them previously. And desperation makes people do crazy stuff. I am not sure I'd invite this homeless man or any homeless person to my home and expose myself and all my earthly possessions to them. But I've been down and out and I have witnessed the goodness of others who have reached out and taken care of me. I can't discount the need for people to be good to others. I have been the recipient of such goodness. Maybe that is why I'm such the bleeding heart. I just get twisted off pretty fast when people are hard on the down-trodden. Show some compassion for goodness sake! Or badness sake! For sakes people! Be compassionate! You do not know anyone else's story or the depths of their sorrows!

March is "Slice of Life" month when teachers (in particular), educators and students link up and commit to write daily for the month of March. If you want to experience other Slices of Life writings, click on Slice of Life icon and it should take you to today's post. Links will be in the comments. 

Confusion, It's not just for breakfast anymore

 I am going to attempt to put words to feelings that I don't quite understand. There's a lot of social grooming for lack of a better term that surrounds the sexual rights of women, the essence of our being as women is inundated with confusing messages from a very young age. I don't believe this to be unique to me. I believe I've had some unique experiences as we all have, but the general conditioning that comes from Western society is broad and all women experience it to some degree if they grow up in American culture. 

One of my children says it's part of the whole, "the reason he picks on you is because he likes you" nonsense that we tell our young girls when boys are intimidating, physical, or bullies to young girls. I have a hard time swallowing that because 1) I have perpetuated that myth, and 2) I can see some truth in it from the stand point of young humans with big emotions that they have no way of processing and it comes out sideways. I know this to be a truth. But I also see how this is harmful. Teaching girls that boys (and I say boys because I am deeply heterosexual, I see things from a boy/girl standpoint. But I know/believe that this is true in any gender or love interest interaction) must like them when they pull hair, punch them, push them, call them names or chase them on the playground is wrong and teaches the receiver of this attention that violence is a normal part of love and to tolerate it. It confuses us. I can only speak to my side of this, the receiving side, but I thoroughly believe that it confuses both sides. Okay, now that I'm actually reflecting on my childhood, I know that I did my fair share of chasing. I was love-struck at a young age. Those poor boys.... I chased them all around the playground. But I don't remember entertaining the other bullying tactics that we dismiss in our society. I didn't use demeaning names or violence. I don't think I did. But I also imagine that my mushy love names that I spouted at boys could have had the same effect and probably left them feeling uneasy at the least. Because it's confusing behavior. In no way is it a show of respect. But I got off track. I was going to say that the chasing, it empowered me. It gave me a sense of being in control. And I was suddenly a part of the other person's world whether they wanted me to be or not. Power and control. 

I have been trying to figure out this rage that is welling up inside of me lately. It is ever-increasing and I have been really angry at.... well, at me, because I think that I shouldn't feel this way. My thinker is well-schooled at shaming my feeler.  I'm a feeler to the core. I am an empath times ten. Therefore, I am feeling confusion to my very core. and shame. I feel ashamed of my feelings. But aren't feelings just feelings, not right or wrong? Then why do I feel so guilty and so intolerant of myself because I feel something I don't immediately understand. Even knowing I feel this way and expressing it and on some level believing it is right, I think it's wrong. I say... "I don't know...." "I'm sorry...." "It's me, not you...." "if I knew, I'd tell you..." Are these little lies or big ones? They are starting to loom large no matter what size they really are, or what size they started out to be. Because the lying is to me. To my being, who I AM. 

I often wonder if I was sexually assaulted as a child or budding young adult. There's so much time that is just gone. I don't remember a lot of childhood unless there's a photo to prompt my memory. I detest feeling pressured into sexual behavior of any kind, even on a benign level, like flirting. It fuels that rage. The seething, simmering rage. Rage that is currently bubbling dangerously near the surface and is likely to boil over and burn my life in all areas. Not just sexual areas. 

A lot of victim guilt and self-shame comes from the fact that our bodies react to certain things.... touches, actions, behaviors. It felt good in a way, so I must have liked it. It must have been my fault. I have been giving myself this message frequently lately and I have also receiving this. 

The thing that makes me want to vomit faster than any other thing lately is the whole idea that I secretly like things that I say no to. And that no doesn't actually mean no. This is an old school way of thinking and it victim blames. I believe in America it is generational. And I was not as exposed to this train of thought as some one as much or as little as ten years my senior. A decade. How society changed. But then again, did it really? Experience-wise I'd have to say "not-so-much," 

In high school I was inappropriately touched by a boy in a stairwell. When I confronted him, he said, "You didn't scream, you must have liked it." This significantly squelched me. I wouldn't have told my teacher anyway because he frequently spouted sexist remarks from his position of teacher. And he was good friends with the other male-chauvinist teacher in our school who often spouted inappropriate remarks and engaged in taunting the at-risk kids in the hallways. Me. I was the at-risk kid in the hallway he taunted and belittled and damn sure didn't TEACH. Well, I take that back, he taught me a lot, but it wasn't academic in nature. He taught me about positions of authority and exploiting of those who don't have the control, he taught me that as the minority (and in this case I mean minority to mean the lesser of) I had no power and those who did have the power were not accountable for their actions. I was taught that I did not count and that I did not have a say. He taught me that if I was to have power it would have to be through cunning and street smarts and covert actions. Overt actions were for the favored ones, the strong, the bullies. He and other similar authority figures taught me to go ahead and smoke a little pot and drink a little drink because I had no future anyway. 

So I'm sitting here more than a little overwhelmed at all the feelings I'm walking through right now. And wondering... does that mean that I'm blaming others for my actions? Because we're always taught that we should not do that. That is wrong. Weak. Those who blame others. But I'm also overwhelmed with a sense of "a-ha! This makes so much sense to me!" Which is sort of freeing. I always want to know why I am the way I am. 

I feel like this is much deeper, bigger subject than one tiny rant in my blog. It's true. There's so much more. More to the idea of sexism and sexual shaming and the rage and guilt and self-loathing that goes with it. More to the exploration of events that happened to me that I had no control over that shaped the way I interact with men to this day and the age of perpetuation of ideas that are just flat out wrong. The victim blaming/shaming. There's more. But I've bitten off some big emotion this morning and I'm coming down from the adrenaline rush that came with writing this and I'm emotionally drained. Exhausted. So I guess this is a end of this little tirade today. More to come as the universe is constantly revealing more to me.