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men

Just call me Angel of the Morning

September 21, 2016

Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
~Juice Newton

I just looked that song up and it is way more depressing than I remembered. It is absolutely about a one-sided one night stand. Nope nuh-uh. That is not what I want at all. I think my child’s mind mixed that one up with My baby takes the morning train (Sheena Easton)…I can get behind that sentiment, because he came home and she was waiting for him.

My child’s mind, constantly misunderstanding lyrics. Early memories of music and early mornings.

My alarm went off at the same time as the church bells. Chimed 6 times, and I was out from under the covers by the last bell.
It’s still dark. Wrapped myself in a blanket and sat on the porch sipping coffee, smoking and musing about my day. I had a letter to write, and a book idea that presented itself yesterday. Of course on a day where I slept in and I couldn’t do a damned thing about it, although for the first time since I started this new job I was tempted to call in sick.

I’ve had my alarm set for 6 for a while now and I don’t often get up. Preferring instead to stay in bed, force REM sleep and enjoy the strange dreams that occur in between 6 and 7:15.

(I was in prison, you came and I handed you a tiny precious snake to look after, you said you would)

Also, I have been getting into the wine and staying up later than I mean to.

There is something magical to me about being up in the darkness, just a little glow from one or two incandescent bulbs. The radio turned on low, hiss of the coffee maker, sleepy eyed and wrapped in blankets.
It meant something different when I was little. It was a break from our normal routine. It meant an event was occurring, like a trip to London, field trip at school. Excitement, different than trying to scarf down my cereal before it got soggy and the trek to the bus stop.

If I was exceptionally lucky two things would happen. I would get to watch cartoons until the bus came and even more important, I would get to see my dad. Standing in the glow of the stove light, sipping his coffee and I could hug him before he left for work. My dad worked a lot and those tiny extra moments were precious.

When I lived on the farm I used to catapult myself out of bed at 5 or 6. Not because I had chores to do, I had finely tuned my critters not to expect me till 8 or 9am. But for the stolen moments of peace. I don’t need both my hands to count the hours I was actually in that house alone over the course of 6 years, so I started carving out my own alone time. Occasionally jumping in my Jeep to catch the sunrise over the causeway.

Freedom is just chaos with better lighting. (Alan Dean Foster)

Another 5 year relationship, he was up at 5am and gone by 6. He’d let the dogs into the bedroom and I’d snuggle them for 20 minutes before I got up, again, just enjoy my alone time before getting myself off to work. Sadly, that man couldn’t be alone, so by default I wasn’t ‘allowed’.

Now that this second book idea has made itself known, 5:30 with a snooze it is. The muses have spoken.

I have to make time.

Life isn’t something I have. It’s not something that happens to me. It’s something I participate in, wander around with childlike wonderment at the beauty of, and something I create with my thoughts and actions. I want to be awake to enjoy it. My night dreams are mystical magical things that are fun to interpret. But my day dreams are infinitely better. I sat awake this morning in the dark and let my mind wander to a time and place that haven’t happened, yet.

It’s been over 3 decades since those frosty fall mornings as a child, waking up early just so I could have a few extra minutes with my dad.

I am 42 years old now. I don’t have to steal moments or feign sleep to get alone time. My life is my own and so is my time. And I cannot think of a better way to spend it than waking up before the sun, to the hiss of the coffee maker, wrapped in a blanket just to be awake enough to spend a few extra moments with a man of my choosing.

Uncategorized

Scars and Stars

September 18, 2016

Oh my god.

I am actually happy.

Cue the tears.
(They are currently cathartic, full of overwhelm and gratitude.)

This is the point where I would usually see something shiny, veer off the path, start falling for some fuckboi’s bullshit promises, slap on some Radiohead and sabotage the shit out of everything.

Fucking Postcards from 1952 history repeating and rereading old articles instead.

Radiohead would have been a safer, saner choice.

Forget about your house of cards and I’ll do mine

Not today Satan, not today.

(author’s note: of course 2 nope, now 3 of them showed up AS I was writing this)

I have this loop in my head right now. U2 song, Elvis Presley and America “you’re through with me but I know that you’ll be back for more.”

History dictates that if I build myself up, they will come. If I get happy it’s like turning on the porchlight and they use it as a beacon to find their way home. My porchlight shines like the sun apparently, or the Stella Polaris. I know this like I know the constellations in the freckles on the back of my hands. These same hands that were once held and then dropped without warning.

What if I decided not to be here when they came back?

What if I stopped living in the past and started being here and now?

I’m already doing better than before.

I’m fighting the good fight right now. Against doubt, fear and temptation.

I am almost strong enough to look the god’s in the eye and say ‘fuck it, go ahead and tempt me’.

I have been saying no like it’s my first language. But just to demi-gods. The titans remain blissfully quiet.

I can do this. Been practicing.

Something was planted in me when I was young and it gets watered when I am happy. But it is not a good thing that grows, it’s a vine that twists and turns and chokes the life out/blocks the light out.
It only recedes when I go back to being lost and alone wondering what the fuck just happened. Then I get to breathe and see clearly. As much oxygen as I can sneak in through the sobs and as clear as I can through tears anyways.

My natural state of being is to love and not to be loved back?

That can’t be right.

How did that switch get flipped from lovable to unlovable?

More importantly how do I switch it back?

It’s become pathological. I pick men and situations that feed this thing. The seeds I plant have come in these packets labeled temporary. Perennials. Nothing that comes back on its own accord. Just stuff that dies when its done and I have to start over. Or worse, I hand them salt and they sprinkle it on the earth before they go and nothing grows for a really long time.

I said to a trusted friend ‘I don’t even know how to move with this much space. I don’t know how to not cover my mouth when I laugh trying to hold myself in and back.’

He texted back two words make noise, and I have been. Joyous ones unto the lord. Derpy deep-throaty laughs. Moans of pleasure. Whatever feels like flying out of my mouth.

The moon was full last night as was I.

I read something it being a good time, astrologically speaking, to “use your wounds to learn and not worrying about healing them”.
Fuck, I wish I could find it, but I don’t want to get distracted by the shiny internet before I get this out.
I’ve lost my head, my hands, my legs and my heart and I am still standing, feeling, touching and seeing. Even the worst wounds heal on their own. This I know. Just like the earth reconciles itself, as do we.

But what have I learned?

I am trying so hard to be good. So hard to focus. So hard to just be okay being me. No edits, not hiding. It helps that he is unapologetically himself and doesn’t mind me being a dork, seems to prefer it actually.

I had a moment after, sitting in his lap and there was this feeling of butterflies, trying to beat their way out of my stomach, trying to reach his hands, his skin, his anything. And I had a fight or flight response. I remembered my third option and I froze. Just stayed in the moment. I stopped being scared and those troublesome butterflies started to feel nice, all flutters and caresses with gossamer wings. He touched us. Repeatedly.

I sat on his couch last night and I watched him. I watched him watching a movie, getting up naked to stretch after sex, heading to grab us another beer and over my shoulder as I walked out the door to go home.

He doesn’t look like anyone or anything I have ever seen.
He doesn’t act that way or speak their words either.

He looks like nothing I have been through.

A huge part of life, and one that I tend to skip over, is going new places and trying new things.

I have to remember that once I landed in LA and after a day it felt more like home than anywhere I had ever been.

men

Sleepovers

September 14, 2016

“You can stay the night if you want you know.”

I wanted to scream with joy.

Deep breath. Calm down.

“No honey, I didn’t know that.”

Me and Jon Snow go waaay back.

I know nothing.

I presume nothing.

I demand nothing.

I ask very little.

I lie, never.

I came as close as I have to lying in a good long while. T’was a half-truth.

I filled in the other 50% the next day.

What I said was “I don’t want to bleed on your sheets.”

“You didn’t come prepared?” he said.

Good point…

I used to be. I used to have clothes, bathroom kit, with tampons and errrthing stashed in my trunk.

When did I stop doing that? And why?

Maybe because the circumstances that dictated I might need to bolt in the night are long over and I let it go.

I said “Honestly, it was 8 when you called, 9 when I got here, I figured I had an hour, two tops.”

That was the absolute truth.

He gets up well before the sun, his sister lives upstairs and shouldn’t be disturbed.
There were rules.
Or I thought there were.
I think he changed them, in my favor.

I guess enough time has passed, enough words spoken, enough exclamations of ‘go team’ for him to be comfortable.

He told me a story involving a few other women would come the night before, sleepover and still be there when he got home after a 10 hour shift. I recoiled in horror…how could anyone be so shameless, presumptuous and invasive? Bad manners.

I could never. Even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

Yes, I have allowed myself think about falling asleep after sex, waking him up with my mouth, how well he snuggles on the giant-sized couch and how it would translate to his giant-sized bed.

He fell asleep a few times that night, every time I wiggled or readjusted he would pull me back immediately and even closer than before.

I should’ve been happy, and I was. But I was terrified too. These are the kinds of things that would haunt me, I know my ghosts better than the living.

I hadn’t seen him in 6 weeks, and every ounce of my being wanted to stay, fall asleep next to him and draw the moment out as long as humanly possible and then make some sort of agreement with the gods to slow time down for me.

The one thing I DO know? Every moment could be the last one. So I make it count.

But I panicked.

I haven’t slept beside a boy in a good long while.
Last time I did, I was the interloper and I woke up not knowing how I got there, knowing I didn’t belong, that I had stolen time and sleep in a place I had no right to be in. Good thing I didn’t bleed on his sheets or she might have known I was there.

I never want to be the girl who leaves things behind. I won’t overstay my welcome or make excuses to come back. I abhor being where I am not welcome.

The girls my husband brought home loved leaving clues and excuses, both for them to come back and for me to leave. I didn’t listen.

This ‘one who said I could stay’ has been around for a good while. We talk every day, but schedules and vacations planned before we knew the other existed have made it so we haven’t physically seen each other in what felt like forever. But when I walked in, his sister said hello like I belonged there, the dog gave me a cold-nosed, warm greeting and he made space for me on the giant couch, pulled me right in and said I could stay.

I am sure that if my body functioned as bodies tend to do, at his house, he wouldn’t be disgusted and throw me out. He’d probably just say ew with a grin, kiss my forehead and point me towards the washing machine.

I know how to clean up my messes and leave no trace. Been doing it for years.

I have been trained that the best parts of me are the ones that don’t exist, just the spaces between. Between my legs where I let them in, between my ears when I pretend I’m not as smart as I am, between my words where I wait and listen, in the deep breaths where I gather myself enough that I can pretend my feelings weren’t just blown up by the bombs they just dropped. Ignoring the holes in the landscape of my psyche and acting like I was never there or hurt.

Until a boy I like asks me to sleep over and I have to pull off the highway because I am crying too hard to drive home.

Precedents.

-18 months with one and he begrudgingly said I could stay one night, so I fought exhaustion and risked falling asleep at the wheel to make it home. The relief on his face when I said ‘thanks, but no’ was all the answer I needed.

-3 months with another. He had such a bad sleep in my bed the first time I put him in the guest room and shut the door every other time he spent the night. Never did see his house from anywhere but the road.

-Another with preemptive, awkward excuses as to why I couldn’t possibly stay. I never asked.

*There was one good one in there, stayed at his house once before he fell apart and took any notion of ‘us’ with him.

It’s been 4 years.

I pretend these things don’t bother me, but they do.

I have this huge false bravado when it comes to men, dating and the things that have happened to me.
I never ever blame the new one for the ones who came before.

I’m too busy blaming me.

I was too loud, too much, said the wrong thing at the wrong time, expected too much, took up too much space, too much time.

So I keep them at arm’s length, pretend I don’t need anything beyond the slightest scraps of attention and affection and I starve just to make those spaces that were so coveted by the old ones that much bigger.

Truth is I am terrified.

I wasn’t ready yet.

To risk racoon eyes and morning breath, snoring.

What if I talk in my sleep and say half the things I am thinking?

At some point I am going to fill that space he makes for me, the one he pulls me back into and actually stay the night.

men

Laughter is the Best Medicine

September 12, 2016

I haven’t been writing much lately. The book is stuck in a weird spot, my hero and antihero took themselves a walk ages ago and took my motivation and outdated muses with them.

I am also scared of manifesting what I’m writing about. I don’t want my book love anymore.

I found something better. Safe, sane.

The kind no one wants to read about, and the kind I don’t feel compelled to write about or share.

My girls tried to pry my phone from my hands last night to read what he’d said that was making me smile.

Nope, nuh uh. This is mine, besides, they would need a decoder ring and I am not sharing that either.

It doesn’t look like anything spectacular on paper.

I have had ‘spectacular on paper’. Boys and men who wrote so eloquently, words dripping with love and intention and promise. Then nothing… and the silence was deafening.

Magic words, conjuring spells and beautiful illusions.

That is the thing about loving these magic men, the final act is always the same.

Puff of smoke and they disappear.

Or they are just a man behind a curtain. Looking and sounding bigger than they are.

It wasn’t the talking wolf in Red Riding Hood that saved her, it was just a lumberjack who happened nearby.

Truth be told, I’d already killed the wolf. I don’t need saving, I just want some snuggles.

I was talking to a darling friend of mine. She is a writer and she loves my writing.

She sent me this.

https://www.facebook.com/MonikaCarlessAuthor/photos/a.808458765894457.1073741828.807727775967556/1175781619162168/?type=3&theater

With the message “I feel like this is about you and one of yours. Past love maybe?”

T’was.

He was my poison, and my remedy. For a while I had more of him in my veins than my own blood.

I had to keep him on a low dose, metered IV drip, the withdrawal was too much. Then slowly but surely I started weaning myself off. But every now and again, there would be a puff of smoke in the air, a turn of phrase and I would be back at square one, tremors, shakes, tears and a craving I couldn’t control.

I am feeling better now.

My cells regenerated, triggers lessened.

Time heals even the deepest wounds.

I called him by his real name for the 3^rd time ever.

Rumpelstiltskin Rumpelstiltskin Rumpelstiltskin

She got a little starstruck and curious, asked if her impressions of him were true.

They were, so I let her keep them.
Spoke only of his talent and intelligence.
His passion, intensity and wisdom.
How he motivated me to be better, at everything.

But one story slipped out and it made me sigh with a rather huge twinge of nostalgia.
Twinge is an understatement, this memory grabbed my arm, wrenched it behind my back and wouldn’t let go even after a 1000 cries of uncle.

He more than once said I was guarded, because I was. After a few scoldings I stopped talking too loud or too much. Kept my swearing to a bare minimum, tried to conduct myself with dignity and composure. Failed miserably, I am not a composed girl. But I tried. Only told stories upon request, kept my answers short, like I was on the stand, on trial. And I was. Left as much emotion at the door as I could. Held my dorky self down until she passed out from lack of oxygen.

Except this one time.

We were talking about the weather of all things, he was perplexed by how hot/cold my part of Canada gets. There were metric conversions and I said something ridiculously stupid and I started laughing. Hard. At myself. I had to put in Herculean effort to stop. When I get the giggles, there is no ending them, but I managed.

You must understand I have the derpiest laugh ever. It’s this low ridiculous chuckle better suited to an old black woman in a rocker on a porch in the bayou, with a slight case of dementia. My friends mock me as they laugh along with me, which makes me laugh even harder and derpier.

I love letting go, but in that moment (with him) I was scared.

That laugh was capable of crushing the eggshells I walked on with him.

I waited for him to make a thinly veiled excuse to quit the conversation.

Instead, he took a deep breath and told me a pirate joke. Even did a rather convincing pirates ‘Arrrr’ at the end for effect.

And I laughed my strange dorky laugh some more, and he joined me.

For a minute there I thought everything was going to be okay. With him.

I wasn’t wrong, everything is okay. It always is, at varying levels.

I hope he is okay wherever he is.

I learned something from all of this.

It feels so much better to be unedited.

Yes, there are things I can always change, tone down, turn up, learn, etc…
Life is a natural progression of refining who I am as a person as I experience the world. Seeing some of my behavior in others and using them as a mirror to reflect on what works and what doesn’t.

I laugh at older outdated versions of me. The girl who cared too much, who was scared too much.

Belly laughs are now (and always have been) important to me. They are my joyous noise unto the lord, my unabashed moments of bliss at being alive, they are a spontaneous explosion of gratitude for this one perfect moment. It is my brain mixing up a superb cocktail of happy chemicals and me getting tipsy on it.

Laying on the couch with the new boy the other night, he grabbed my hip in a ticklish spot, squeezed and I giggled. I apologized for immediately, saying I knew I had an annoying laugh, which is my knee jerk Pavlovian ingrained response. He proceeded to pause the movie and tell me funny stories in funny voices and tickle me until I forgot I wasn’t supposed to be laughing.

gypsy travels

My Lake

September 6, 2016

Driving home I could still hear the waves crashing in my head. I still can now actually. My lake was in fine, angry exhibition this time home. I felt proud, oddly. Standing in front of her, introducing my girls. Have you met the undertow? Do you know what to do if she catches you?

I call Lake Huron my lake, but really I am hers. She soothes me, soaks my sins away, batters me with waves until my soul comes out clean. And I don’t know what she does to my hair, but damn. I didn’t want to/have to wash it for days after I’ve been in.

I don’t have a God per say. I have a moral compass of my own. I do what feels good and light and right.

We 4 girls spoke on the way home about religion and its purpose. Sacrificing virgins came up. I said “well this one time somebody killed a girl and it rained the next day, so they kept doing it for 1000’s of years.” And sometimes the rains came shortly after, because of weather patterns, not virgins.

That’s what it felt like in the lake that night. God’s marionettes. Tossed and tumbled. Thrown out, knocked over all the while blissed out beyond words. With moments of fear.

She deserves respect.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” Ezekiel 25:17

The line I was going for when I looked that up was ‘you will know my name is the Lord’ spoken in Samuel L Jackson’s specific cadence.

Lake isn’t evil, she might be God, or the closest thing I have to it. I crave her when I am lost, think of her often, bring home rocks, set up little altars, palm them when I am stressed out. I hear her echoes in my ears when I am homesick. I love her on the days I am up to my ribs and it’s so clear I can see my toes and I revere her on the days that she rages and churns.

I think she is just trying to wash us clean. Like when 6 of us went in naked, played and fought waves, riptide and undertow and laughed with delight. We all made it out, but there were a few waves, ocean sized, that had me sucked under talking myself out of that panic that will kill you. Ass over teakettle into the dark oblivion, no air, no idea which way was up. Then finding my feet, standing in awe and humbled as I coughed, sputtered and spit water back where it came from.

I am grateful for the reminder that she can get in anywhere she pleases. That water is relentless, changes shape, form, and eventually washes everything away.

I am water, I am her daughter, I can do the same.

regular lust

Boys Lie

September 2, 2016

Not poetry exactly. But pillow talk.

My girls wanted vacation dick and vacation dick they got.

I was the facilitator, I was the adulty adult, I was the common thread.

I drove us all back to the cottage, while they squealed and squirmed and talked much too loud. I woke up after 3 hours of broken sleep to drive the boys back to their trucks before the sun was up during what counts as rush hour in that tiny little town.

I used to be the girl getting driven home at dawn to make it to work, a lifetime ago.

As they were getting laid I laid in bed, worried at first for a myriad of reasons.
Are they safe? When 2 of them didn’t come back right away from the vicious lake I could not sleep. Then I heard a soft giggle through the window and relaxed a little until it quickly morphed into ‘what will the neighbours think?’

I only care what the neighbors think in said tiny town where I am from because that worry is in my marrow like a cancer I can’t shake, or a bone long ago broken that never mended quite right.

Then the soft gasping and moaning of sex came from inside the cottage and I relaxed a little into sleep. Had strange dreams.

The girl beside me on the other side of the locked door said she was a bit envious. I wasn’t.

Back in the days that I lived there I had no such friends, or very few. No one that wasn’t viciously jealous or angry when I got the attention, some attention, any attention. My ‘best friend’ would make sure there were days of consequences for minutes of pleasure. It was good to be home with my girls from the present hanging out in my past. It was cathartic. I got to see a very clear line between what was and what is.

I forwent the vacation dick. Joking that I couldn’t possibly sleep with anyone because I probably knew their brother/wife/girlfriend/parents etc. it’s a really tiny town.

Case and point, one vacation dick was my sister’s best friends little brother, born 4 years before I left that place so I didn’t even know he existed. He didn’t know about me either. The lake isn’t the only dangerous water. I am careful where I swim.

I found it odd and almost lovely to be sitting in the same place I had sat 23 years ago, at a table with a different incarnation of ‘my girls’ in the exact geographic location we used to.
Once upon a time it was almost always my job to get the girls and the car home. Some things stay the same.

Truth be told, I didn’t want anyone anyways. I am in the middle of sorting something out with someone and vagina has taken a rather high road about it. We begin to covet what we see every day, and what I see are texts from Lumberjack. I covet.

Mind you, I had a twinge of jealousy on the ride home. The two who got laid were speaking of pillow talk and snuggles.

Fuck I miss my lumberjack.

My kingdom for some snuggles, my kingdom to hear his actual voice again. See how closely my mina bird brain has mimicked his tone and cadence in the inner dialog when I am reading aloud the written reiterations I get from him daily. I heard a boy outside of a pizza place last week and my head whipped around, the voices were close, out east and steeped in honesty.

Then I wasn’t jealous anymore.

One of the bearers of vacation dick was actually a dick.

I sat quietly in the back seat as my 3 girls waxed poetic and got excited about how this one guy was such a good fit, the things he had said, he’d talked about trips to Bali. She was pontificating about how things might be.

I said nothing. But my mind was screaming no.

Just like every character ever in Star wars I had a bad feeling about this.

It was confirmed when we got home, found him on Facebook under a slightly different name than he had given, both profile pic and cover photo of he and his girlfriend.

There had been no mention of a girlfriend. Why say Bali? Overkill?

“Way to say everything I wanted to hear, asshole.” Was her message to him.

Here is what hurts me. And I will tell her this when I find the words.

Yes, it sucks balls that he didn’t tell you about the girlfriend so you could have made an educated decision. But all the things he did in the moment were good. They had prolific, great sex, we all went skinny dipping in crazy high waves and lived. We had a good night on the patio with an amazing dinner, laughs drinks, good times.

And now her memory of a lovely 2 day girl’s vacation is sullied not by a cute boy per say, but where her mind took him after the fact. She is mourning and angry about the things she wanted to see coming, not by what was.

When I lived in that town there was no Facebook to fact check. And I did have random sex with random boys who probably had girlfriends back home. It’s a cottage town and a risk you take for a night of fun.

I am not justifying his actions. They were shit. I just hope one day when she looks back on this she can appreciate the good times that were had and not the future she wanted that didn’t materialize.

I walked away from the weekend feeling clean and good and so very content with mylife exactly the way it is now.

Yes, I dream of Lumberjack and snuggles. But I am trying really hard to live in the moment and not look too far ahead.

Whatever will be will be. And what is…is good.

Uncategorized

Imaginary Friends and Enemies

August 27, 2016

…26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Matthew 12:26-28

Stop dividing yourself between what you did and who you are.

Did a bad thing? Okay.

Still doing it? No. Good job darlin’.

He said: I was afraid to see you after 22 years. I know the things that I have done in that time apart and I somehow assumed you did too, but you don’t, do you?

I replied: Nope, I don’t, but it doesn’t matter, I’d love you anyways. You are what I remember. We’ve all done some sketchy stupid shit, myself included. There is no judgement here.

Funny enough he brought me handmade scrabble tiles that spell out L.O.V.E.

We only let love in this house.

We’ve both changed exponentially, but the things that made us friends stayed the same.

“Never apologize for how you had to survive.”

But everyone does. Just makes you human and humble. That’s okay.

We’re all trying to navigate the 4 lane highway between do no harm and take no shit.
But then emotions get in the way and we covet things/people we ought not to. Life happens and we get hungry.
Or we run into the selfish soul suckers and we find ourselves fighting them on their turf and terms and then the shame sets in.

What did I just do?

Doesn’t matter, the question is ‘what do you do now.’

Just get back on the highway, or climb in and let me drive for a while.

I’ll pick you up gladly, but leave the past in the rear view. Don’t tow it behind.

I have music, cigarettes and enough gas to get us far away from here.

People love to tell me the things they have done, their deep dark dirtiest of secrets.
And I listen.
I don’t ask why.
Why is a useless question.
You did what you had to do/wanted to do and no amount of worry/guilt or shame is going to change that.

If someone starts drowning in the past I throw a life preserver labeled…“But did you die?”

Yes? Cool, I am communing with the dead, how can I help you?

No? Let it fucking go.

I scrolled back through my Instagram and I was struck by how much things have changed.
I know I’ll do it again in a year and think the same thing. I chuckled at myself. I remember being sad because I didn’t get what I wanted.

Then I pulled myself out of the muck and mire of ‘what was supposed to be’ and setting my feet down on the firm ground of ‘what is’.

I was stuck in detours and rest stops that were actually really dirty and dangerous in retrospect.

Get back in the car.

As I look for stories to tell here I find myself falling back on Facebook/Instagram memories.
There is no drama presently, nothing to dazzle y’all with.
Just a girl who likes a boy, her job, her house, her friends, her life, in this moment, right now, as is.

The past is just a story we tell ourselves. Chuck Palahniuk

And those Gods and demons we thank and blame?

Just imaginary friends of our own making.

I do envy those who blindly believe in god. How easy it must be to give your every action over to an omnipotent puppet master in the sky.
Personally? I gotta call bullshit.
You did the thing and god doesn’t approve or disapprove, own it and move on.
If it made you feel bad, don’t do it again.

I am my own moral compass. If my gut flutters with butterflies, I go that way.

If my stomach twists and turns and hurts. I run. Or I hang out for a good long while, cry a lot and then I leave.

My friends that don’t believe in god still carry these heavy burdens of guilt about where they came from, the things they’ve done.

Baby did a bad, bad thing. (Chris Isaac)

Again, I have to ask…but did you die?

It just means you are better than those who hurt you. Start acting like it.

You survived. Enjoy.

If you tell me anything and the beginning of the story is ‘once upon a time’ I will remind you that there is no such thing, all we have is this moment now and you’re spending it in the past?

Stop doing that.

Tell me where you are going, not where you’ve been.

They label this darkness as ‘demons’.

Stop.

That makes less sense than god.

At least we give god credit for the big, beautiful, miraculous things we enjoy.

What do those demons do for you?

Not a damn thing.

Mama says “If they can’t play nice then they’re not your friends.”

If the cd keeps skipping, toss it out the window and make a new one.

You are writing the story of your own life with the memories and feelings you choose you hold onto.
Edit yourself a better life.
Sugar coat that shit all you want, remember the good things. Put the rest in a filing cabinet marked ‘what not to do’, yell ‘plot twist’ and get on with your life.

No one will know in a year.

Gods and demons are just fictional characters, time to invent some better ones, and make sure they love you even when you are acting the fool. If they don’t, they aren’t your friends.

Smile at your own ridiculousness, because in the end, it won’t matter.

How about this… I am your flesh and blood friend, I exist and I absolutely forgive your absolute worst.

I’m your goddess of mercy.

I don’t care how you got here, I am just glad you made it.

Uncategorized

Coming Home

August 25, 2016

My boss pulled me in the office the other day and asked me what I wanted to do at this new company.

“Do you want to come in and casually help out or do you want to take over and run things?”

Told me to think about it for a couple of days.

I knew there was no wrong answer and I thought about it pretty hard. But I already knew the answer.

I am going to run it.

He wants to build a tiny empire and I want to help him.

My strong suits are his weak points and vice versa.

Every job I’ve had in the past lends itself to this one. I got this.

I had the job when I walked in the door, I just had to say yes.

And I did.

I knew it would change things.

Like being up at 5:30am to write. But I like being up when the world is still asleep.

I haven’t had a straight job in 4 years and that ended as badly as anything could. I was to have a 5 year contract, paid over the table, a chance to save my money and build a life. It ended fast and furious a few months in and I was forced to regroup. I did a pretty good job of it and I love my life now. That place literally burned to the ground after I left.

I’ve been getting by on the grace of god and a bit of my own wits. Mostly god, and my comfort in being naked amongst strangers.

I just moved in with my Sunshine and it’s not perfect, but it’s really good. I love our little nest, I love her. I want to stay for a while. I really don’t want to move again until I buy something.

I want to finish this book and start another. I want the book to do well enough to keep me comfortable for a long while. And it very well could. I finally cracked the thing open after a month of avoiding it and damn, it’s good.

I always figured if I won the lottery I would probably keep working, I don’t sit still well.

JK Rowling got knocked off the billionaire list because she gives so much money to charity. I will be that way. What do I need a billion dollars for? My sisters need houses, people need food, dogs need rescuing and I wouldn’t have a clue as what to do with that much money other than making sure me and mine are comfortable.

Comfort to me isn’t about yachts and limos. It’s a cabin in the woods by a lake I can swim in. With a garden and roses.

It is possible to be an optimist and a realist when you realize anything you can imagine is real.

My dreams are my own and the only thing needed to make my life better is to dream bigger and work work work work work.

I am poised on the precipice of finally knowing what I want and having that be a good thing for once. Bliss.

I still say to my son “it’s a one in a million chance that you will become famous or a rock star, or an athlete or win the lottery of have some stroke of genius or luck in your life that leaves a big mark. But never ever think for a minute that it won’t happen. It does, every day. People win at life, amazing things happen. Why not you?” It is within the realm of possibilities. Everything is.

I have my Eeyore moments, everyone does. Mine are usually regarding men and relationships because let’s face it, they haven’t gone well. If they had I wouldn’t be here talking to you good people about how to tuck and roll when shit starts to burn.

There was a back and forth on this meme.

I have a +2 credit or I’m at 7, if the 3 good ones subtract from the bad, and they do. My girl said it was never going to happen for her and I wish I could gently reach through the ether and tell her that isn’t the truth. People win at love all the time.

It came along right as Rob Breszney posted this

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/20160825.html

And my horoscope.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)
I invite you to dream about your true home . . . your sweet, energizing, love-strong home . . . the home where you can be high and deep, robust and tender, flexible and rigorous . . . the home where you are the person that you promised yourself you could be. To stimulate and enhance your brainstorms about your true home, experiment with the following activities: Feed your roots . . . do maintenance work on your power spot . . . cherish and foster your sources . . . and refine the magic that makes you feel free. Can you handle one more set of tasks designed to enhance your domestic bliss? Tend to your web of close allies . . . take care of what takes care of you . . . and adore the intimate connections that serve as your foundation.

Of course I cried. I really want to go home.

My soul let out a triumphant bellow and a cathartic sigh.

I am so close I can taste it.

Of all these people, places, jobs and relationships I have tried to call home…they just didn’t fit. The bed was too soft, the porridge too hot something was always off and I would get rereleased into the unknown like a dandelion fluff on the wind. I would settle in hostile territory and grow anyway, just to wither and die and send my wishes back out into the world looking for somewhere to call home.

I am getting close to touching down, I can feel it. Somewhere where the ground is fertile and the sun shines and the rain falls, somewhere I can put down roots and grow that isn’t the cracks of a sidewalk or an abandoned lot.

Somewhere like a cabin in the woods, near a lake so I can swim. With a garden and roses.

Uncategorized

What if her Name is Actually Becky?

August 24, 2016

Mama Susan (My Queen Bee) said to me when I posted this meme…

“The day is coming when you’ll realize that your pussy is humble and you are magic.”

“Soon” she said.

I already have. He’ll probably see it too. Pray he don’t call me when he notices.

So what are you gonna say at my funeral, now that you’ve killed me? Here lies the body of the love ~~of my life~~, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head. Here lies the mother ~~of my children~~, both living and dead. Rest in peace, my ~~true~~ love, who I took for granted. Most bomb pussy who, because of me, sleep evaded. Her god listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks…

I’ll drink to that eulogy.

Pray I don’t die here.

I’m not dead yet.

Once upon a time Sunshine said she was going to finish her water and get into the wine.

I said “baby please, drink that Ménage a Trois the Giant left here, get it out of my life.”

Rolled my eyes.

Middle fingers up.

She said she wasn’t going to get turnt, and I laughed, “How can you baby girl? It ain’t even a full bottle”.

She said ‘say goodbye to boys that don’t pick you & show up half-drunk with half-drunk bottles of wine’.

The biggest grin pulled up the corners of my mouth and I spit ‘tell him boy bye.’

Gift me liquor, tell me to keep drinking, then dismiss me for what you coaxed me to do?

no no HELL NAH

And I don’t feel bad about it
It’s exactly what you get
Stop interrupting my grinding
(You’re interrupting my grinding)

Middle fingers up.

Leave unfinished business in my house?

Tell him boy bye

Make me apologize?

Tell him boy bye

Text me while you’re with her?

Tell him boy bye

I ain’t sorry

I’d only heard snippets of Sorry by the Queen B. flipping through radio stations.

“… Her shroud is loneliness. Her god was listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks.”

Heard it full through the other night and everything came rushing back. Broke my heart and filled it up simultaneously.

I love it when women get strong.

She was then I was the fucking side chick. I was ashes. The fire went out.

He poured ¾ of a bottle of wine on it after I doused it with 3oz of vodka in a wine cooler.

I ain’t sorry

Let’s have a toast to the good life

My therapist told me I am allowed to have more than one emotion at a time. I laughed so hard I cried.

I told Giant I had run the gambit of feels and landed on shame.

But there was more, there is always more…until there isn’t.

I am shocked anyone found my off switch as I am forever turned up and on.
I am pissed.
I carry with me the tiniest bit of uncharacteristic hope that he will wake up one day and he’ll realize what I am* and what he’s lost.
Beyond Most Bomb Pussy…

He always got them fucking excuses
I pray to the lord you reveal what his truth is.

Yes Queen B, she said it better than me. And those Beyoncelogues, damn woman. Preach.

Intuition, I knew this was coming.

Denial, I pretended it wasn’t.

Anger, I was venomous.

Apathy, now I don’t care.

Loss, his.

Emptiness, I found room to move in this space.

Accountability, I own what I did.

Reformation, I don’t want to be loved by halves, I’m whole on my own.

Forgiveness, I forgive, until I can’t anymore, and then I forgive myself.

Resurrection, I deserve better.

Hope, I am better.

and I can do better.

Redemption makes him look small.

He only want me when I’m not there

You better Becky with the good hair.

Sorry, I ain’t sorry

No no hell nah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxsmWxxouIM

http://www.bustle.com/articles/156559-transcript-of-beyonces-lemonade-because-the-words-are-just-as-important-as-the-music

unable to even

Fortunate Cookie

August 21, 2016

Everyone this is Sally.

Sally this is…everyone.

Angel came down from heaven yesterday, she stayed just long enough to rescue me.
Jimi Hendrix

Sally isn’t an angel, but she has wings, close e-fucking-nuff.

We used to ride through the hayfields on the tractor. The mantises would whir up out of the grass dancing in the motes from the hay we were cutting. The golden glory when the sun was going down made it look like fairies and heaven to me.

She came in from the less than heavenly porch and landed on my desk lamp the next morning.

My son anointed her with the name Sally and the working title “Guardian of the House.”

I moved her to the golden glorious morning glory porch, lest she starve, and there she stays. Guarding my house.

Thanks Sally.

The book I am writing starts out with a girl, much like me, who is a writer, much like me, sitting outside and a mantis lands on her startling her out of a daydream.

The pic in the background was a gift from the man that inspired the book.

Now, I am not saying it’s a sign from god, but it’s a sign from god.

A few things happened that keep pushing me back to the book that I don’t want to write because my muses are treating me like dirt and leaving me in the lion’s den then pointing and laughing when I got bit.

There was this fortunate fortune cookie.

And then Rob Breszny said things. A lot of things.

And then the moon was full and I was left unsupervised.

The theme of this full moon?
Leave your comfort zone and go explore the dark, your magic is in there.

I did that.

and this…

The theme of every full moon ever?

Let it fucking go.

“The mantis comes to us when we need peace, quiet and calm in our lives. Usually making an appearance when we’ve flooded our lives with so much chaos that we can no longer hear the still small voice within us because of the external din we’ve created.”

I have to return to therapy next Tuesday and she is invariably going to ask me if I worked on the book and I am out of excuses as to why I haven’t.

For a while there I didn’t know what to write.

I get it now.

I have to finish the thing.

I have plans and the book being done and sold is part of my future.

I have encouragement from other published writers that it is good and I should keep going.

So what of my fortunate cookie?

Double entendre.

My favorite.

I am writing my literal financial fortune.

I can finish this thing any way I want.

I got stuck on the book during the part where our dear heroine gets assaulted in a parking lot
Life imitated art and I was scorned by the hero and anti-hero because of it.

“Well what did you think was going to happen?”

Um, not that and definitely not this.

They left me to my own devices, laughed when I got hurt. Made me feel dumb and small. An insignificant speck floating around in a huge sea of blue.

“Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

I’ve always been able to write the story of my life.
I just forgot for a bit and handed my pen to others.

The ending has always been up to me.

Now I know what I don’t want.

I love the ocean, god knows I do. But that doesn’t mean I want to go ass over teakettle off the side of a boat in the middle of nowhere breathing canned air with no idea where the land is.

I am content playing in the surf near the shore. I can go under, get wet and stand up when I am feeling overwhelmed and catch my breath.

I just want to play in the waves, I am done drowning and choking.

Neil Gaiman said his favorite stories were the ones where women saved themselves.

I am swimming to shore.

So now I know what I want because I know who makes me cry when I look at my phone and I know who makes me smile.

It ends like this…I get loved as is. By someone who doesn’t make me feel like I am gasping for air, grasping at straws or unworthy.

He isn’t a poet, but neither am I.

He calls me a ‘dork’.
I know it means that I am adored.
It’s not everyone’s happy ending, but it works for me.
I’d rather that than be someone’s sexual soulmate and never hear a word.
Or someone else’s Lady of Stars, but we have to end this gracefully.

Fuck that fuck this fuck them.

I want peace and quiet. I want a relationship that doesn’t have me posting to this blog every 5 minutes trying to work shit out because I am not getting any help and I can’t breathe.

I am a good girl, I just needed a good man to see it.

I’ve done my PhD. in Fuckboi Languages, Variations and Interpretations, I have the Scorpio decoder ring, learning how to speak pragmatic lumberjack is going to be a cakewalk.

Or a cookie walk.

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