Tag: Everything

Grateful

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

~ Oscar Wilde

Sometimes the rough points in life seem endless. There is no light at the end of the tunnel and bad things are just going to continue to occur without pause. That is life and it goes on, so they say. 

2022 has been one big pile of unimaginable tragedy, pain, illness, and trauma, not just for my husband and I, but for folks within our tight knit little “framily”. My heart has been at a complete loss for why all of these incidents and heartaches are taking place at the same time. Is it just our age? Have we reached a strange place where this is just, how things are for a bit? If so, I cannot say I am enjoying it in the slightest. Nope. 

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”

~ Buddha

So here we are in February after a lot of pain and mourning, hard decisions and healing, feeling surprisingly ready for whatever the rest of 2022 is here to bring. Priorities, plans, and finances redirected to finally begin pursuing what we have been putting on the back burner for our own growth. Feeling immensely grateful for the grace, empathy, and support we have received in our little circle during the heavy when it could have just been an “I told you so!”. Sometimes it is the littlest things that have reminded both of us we are worthy of better.

I could not feel more thankful for this moment of feeling a strange, unimaginable sense of peace. 

For those feeling less than worthy, I implore you to start your new year now. Redefine and rearrange what amplifies in you “I AM WORTHY!”. Find yourself a few folks with integrity who will check you when you need it and lift you when you cannot lift yourself. Fill up those timelines and follows with focus on the positive, the uplifting, and the safe.

The power of taking control over your own space is one you will never want to give back. 

X’s O’s and Skittles

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Head(space)

“unbeingdead isn’t beingalive”

e. e. cummings

Another draft from the beginning of December for my fellow winter, bluesy babes because vulnerability is all I got left. Hang in there folks, it’s war out there.

~

I hate the cold season.

In the warmer seasons, I already tend to feel fidgety and anxious when saying out loud ‘I am not well, at the moment.’ There are many reasons for this, of course, but none of the reasons help ease the discomfort. The cold just makes it worse.

It’s come back in spades over the most recent weeks, whether it’s a sound or a phrase, the instance of the holiday season, or the ever timeless triggering social media post. A collection of tiny things haphazardly stacking themselves on top of each other.

I have not been able to write much lately. Dealing with medical issues while in a phase where I am just trying to get through the work day so that I can kiss my husband, potentially eat food, maybe touch yarn, and sleep (maybe even pet a cat or two). I rarely have the energy to take care of myself. Showering feels like hiking up the side of a mountain and back down again and then by the time I am clean, it’s time to go back to sleep. It’s the time of year where waking up causes anxiety and depression because you were hoping, just hoping, for things to look different that morning.

I’ve held on to this fleeting notion that I’ve experienced so much growth and change over 2021. Starting another book, sharing my story unashamed, speaking up, speaking out, and being honest (for the most part). Trying. Just trying. It’s amazing how one moment, one sound, one human, even, holds all the potential to rip it all away in a day. Suddenly the growth is just taking ten steps back to square one. The thought, feeling, floods of worry have hit the front lawn. You are nothing again and everything is doomed.

Well, of course this isn’t true, but the mind IS a terrible thing.

It cannot be put into words the gratefulness I feel when I step back (forced or otherwise) and remember those who hold space for me when I am unable. People who let me vent when I do not understand what is happening to me, and who remind me I am loved when myself and others have convinced me I am not. No strings attached. No gaslighting. No risks of abandonment or loss. Just being allowed to have feelings and reminded I am loved despite them and how illogical they may be. Sometimes feelings are just that. Feelings. But they still matter.

I have started to have a love/hate relationship with my occasional ability to wear my heart on my sleeve now. Just tell it like it is. Where I am in life, what I’m feeling; my hurts. Currently, I really hate it. My ‘standing naked in a crowd’ is set somewhere cold and my feet feel like ice.

No matter my particular feelings in this case, however, I know there are other humans out there feeling the exact same kind of empty and hopeless. Sometimes it’s just nice to know we are not alone in feeling alone.

This time of year is such a trigger for so many, it does not matter how much you physically or mentally attempt to prepare for it. It can feel heavy and endless. The days of roller coaster emotions will feel like eternity. I am so sorry if you are one of those many.

It’s going to be ok. We are going to be ok.

For those feeling the same: I see you, I understand you, and you are loved.

~

Cheerios,

XOXO

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Re-introductions(?)

Recently I’ve realized that, outside of my pretty yarn photos and goofy comments, I have not properly introduced myself to all the new people that I have gotten to know on the social interwebs…so instead of writing one out again, I did a thing…

Who knows. Maybe I will do another one…😏

Cheers,

XoXo

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whispers

tonight i whispered
goodbye
on the wind;
it danced across the keys of
an untuned piano,
and
carried through an
opening door,
and
slivered through
a black, lace shawl,
and
whistled through
the leaves of the
tallest tree,
and
tumbled across shards
of broken glass,
and
dove into the
violent sea,
and
was swallowed by
the dark
before it could reach
you

tonight i whispered
goodbye on the
wind,
a goodbye that
never came


~ A. L. Stippich

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We had a fight

Weekends around here are always a gamble for my husband and I. The weeks end up draining everything from us due to both of our insanely stressful jobs and by the weekend, every ounce of energy is just gone. It’s always difficult trying to even have social lives when, by the weekend, we cannot even be our best selves.

This past weekend finished up a three week stint of covering out of office co-workers with piles of tasks I had never done previously and had to learn for the first time amidst my own work. It’s been rough but strangely rewarding. This weekend started off in fatigue-land and, unfortunately, the hubby ended up having to teach Sunday morning. I think we have all been there, working on your days off when you are already spent. That feeling of being stressed and crunched for time to attempt to relax. It’s disheartening.

In the midst of trying to “do it all” in a day, tensions mounted and communications unhinged and, thus, erupted a verbal explosion. It does not happen often, once or twice a year, usually our arguments are mild and easily resolved, but every so often, that explosion occurs that sends the blood to your ears and makes every opposing scream a notch louder than the last. It’s not a brag; coming up in very difficult and abusive home situations tends to make you non-confrontational so your communication styles adapt to a pacifism. Screaming is a trigger for both of us so it’s always a last resort. Nevertheless, sometimes we scream. It happens. We are human.

I still remember that time the neighbors heard during our very early years of marriage. I was carrying in things from the car, post explosion, and one of the older neighbors stopped me, smiled, and said “It’s going to be ok, ya know”. I looked up reluctantly to let him see my tears and smiled back, “I know, I know it is.”

“At the end of the day, you’ll both realize it just doesn’t matter that much” he went on, “but don’t go to bed angry today. It’s just not worth it.” Part of me wanted to tell him to mind his business but I had to accept the fact that if we were going to broadcast our business, we should not expect people to turn off their ears.

The sincerity – in his smile and in his words still resonates with me during these moments when the explosions occur. Years later, as I ponder over this moment and those words, it made me have a thought. No one posts when they have a fight. I am not talking about airing your dirty laundry out in the breeze and providing all of the juicy details of your arguments for all to know.

As a church kid in an abusive home, fighting and a home in disarray were taboo subjects. We were strictly instructed to not speak on what went on inside. I grew up prior to the age of endless information and everyone owning a cell phone so seeking help during fights in our house was not easy. Between this and limited resources, the idea of a “healthy argument” was beyond my knowledge. This was just how normal people lived.

The day my father decided to chase my mother down with a frying pan after flipping a table on her, it was fight or flight. I could not have been older than twelve or thirteen at the time. After hiding my brother and making him stay in one spot, I escaped with no shoes, making a careful, tip-toed beeline to my best friend’s home for help, which was just shy of a mile away through a rough Philly neighborhood. Arriving in a state of shock, I had no time to explain before being caught and dragged back to my own home where the terror continued. I still remember looking at their faces over my shoulder, hoping, praying, please help us; please see me.

Unfortunately, there would be no help in our stars.

After that incident, we became good at finding hiding places huddled together until the storms blew over. I gave up on finding help because, for us, this was just our normal.

~

Is it strange to question the lack of normalizing fighting and talking about it freely? I really do not think so. I wonder sometimes if I had been exposed to more ideas of what healthy fighting looked like in the real world, if it would have made me more comfortable with continuing to seek help in the past, more comfortable with healthy debates, more comfortable being in the world. Fighting is healthy and normal, but there are clear ways of doing it that are not.

I love my husband more than any words can fathom, and we fight. It is not always pretty, and like anything, it is easy to forget that anything worth doing takes time, practice, and work. Growing together has strengthened our communication process, even when it comes to fighting, because we put the work in to making it better. Rome was not built in a day and I can certainly confirm that we are absolutely no Rome. We are still the little gift shop being built next to Rome selling cute tchotchkes to tourists; building, nonetheless.

We got through this blowout like we have in the past, by taking space to be angry and upset. By thinking over and then sitting down to discuss.

I wonder what young people think when they see happy couples posting nothing but happy shit all day every day and, not making an ounce of effort to talk about the times when it gets hard. These times happen. Make space for figuring out the best ways to resolve it and if you don’t know, phone a friend.

Also google.

Peace and love, xoxo

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April Showers

The month of March has really beat me to a pulp, hence the lack of posts. Sometimes the emotional ups and downs in mental health are just too much and the idea of practicing vulnerability feels more like horror and suffocation and makes me want to hide forever.

With that being said, I am going to attempt to start April fresh with a hearty month of poetry (and plants. And yarn…).

What it looks like when I try to take a photo of myself but forget Midna has to check herself out first…

Enjoy.

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take me to church

“Religion is a breeding ground

Where the devil’s work is deeply found…“

~ Sleeping at Last

*Triggering Content Warning*

What does it mean to say “I grew up in the church.” Some of us make the statement without even thinking about the weight of it, myself included. Just a standard fact of observation, a piece of historical data written into your code. We do not talk about how it affected us, positively or negatively, how it shaped us to be outside of the church walls, and how we interact with other human beings on a day to day basis because of it. The environments with which we are raised define everything about the final product of which we become, and being raised in a church setting is not free of its destructive demons.

It is a different story each time. Some people have had amazing experiences within a church setting growing up while others drift away from their church, often from experiences that are starkly contrast.

My experience was the latter.

In our world, gossip was currency. One prayer for a juicy detail that would make its rounds through the slacked jaws of the church pews until it came back to you, diseased and distorted. Emotional manipulation, blackmail, and racism were just a few more of the first things I learned about what it meant to be a part of my church.

My experience has far too many layers to gather within a single post or even a chapter. So lets just start from the beginning.

~

“By the time I was a preteen, I was a bible hugging, awkward, and overly curvy brown girl with hair no one knew what to do with, nor wanted to deal with. To top everything off with the sweetest of cherries, I grew up having no inkling on how to socialize outside of warped, cult-like church beliefs and ideas. I felt like the divine recipe for a walking disaster. I was always saying the wrong things, giving the wrong looks, talking too much, talking too little, and everything in between. With body parts most preteens had not even started growing yet, I had no self-esteem and was surrounded by dozens of skinny, straight haired, white girls who could wear their hair down and adorn scant bikinis while a simple two piece was considered ‘inappropriate for a body like’ mine.

I can recall as early as ten years of age having my body stared at, discussed, and over-sexualized by adults in the church community in open and public conversations in front of me, sometimes even pulling in their own children to demonstrate my iniquities of having a shape.

“look at my daughter”, I vividly recall one mother boasting loudly in a hall bustling with my rowdy peers. She roughly yanked at the bottom of her offspring’s man-sized, knee length, tie-dye monstrosity to indicate minimum length requirements. “Modest, Christian girls wear shirts like this, not like yours,” she huffed in disgust as her gaze scanned me from head to toe.

I was wearing a t-shirt and a club vest.

How I looked was always being picked apart by adults who just provided their children with ruthless ammunition to make their own assessments of my body. I became a constant target practice for the girls within my religious clubs, made up of non-profit evangelical groups, that my parents had enrolled me in at the age of five. Bullied incessantly for my hair, the way I talked, and more than anything, the way I dressed; my thrift store clothing purchases were never the talk of the town.

I still remember my first pair of Nike shoes, white with baby blue lining that almost glowed. I was beyond excited to finally have something that would help me fit in. It was not even a week later when I would be shoved into a dark corner away from adult eyes, pinned against the white washed, brick wall, having my Nike adorned toes stomped on over and over while being accused of buying fakes. It was around that moment that it began to feel like nothing I could change about myself would make things different.

Even pedophilic men within the church, some fathers themselves, were no strangers to myself and my female peers body types. It was not uncommon to hear a man in his forties approach a father to inform him that “his [twelve year old] daughter’s tight fitting look was causing himself and other men in the church to stumble.”

Translation in the real world – a forty year old man and his buddies, who could not keep it in their pants even during Sunday church services, were struggling to not find a twelve year old as a sexually viable candidate and it was the child’s fault. It was always the child’s fault.

~

These same men who cheered on their sons as their one night rendezvous were tallied up between high school and college like a competing scoreboard that defined masculinity the higher the numbers grew. The same men who, when women approached them for safety from spousal abuse, no matter how beaten, bloody, and bruised, would give the same repetitive, monotone advisement –

“That’s something you’ll just have to work out with your husband…”

In the church, even from childhood, I learned two very important things about how the sexes should behave and obey. Men were given every single excuse in the book on a golden platter while women were instructed to keep their men “happy” in the bedroom and in the kitchen or else they deserved every ounce of disrespect, infidelity, physical and emotional torture they were dealt.

A fresh take of hell on earth, surrounded by adults catering to sick thoughts, family structures, and the poor moral judgements of other adults. A cult under the guise of a steeple.”

~ For No One, by A. L. Stippich

Our stories are important, no matter what the elements are that make them up. To ever believe that your history is what should define your road moving forward, however, is not moving forward at all.

Many will ask me today where I am with Christ and if I am a Christian still, and while the Ron Swanson part of my narcissism would prefer to say I’m a “practicing none of your damn business,” my answer is usually just ‘yes’ and then it is time to move the conversation along.

My faith is my own now, and for the first time in my life, it is protected and healing from the decades of war caused by others tearing it down. It is not for anyone to dissect and analyze under an equally flawed microscope. My faith belongs to me, and my spiritual journey is no longer defined by a building filled with other broken human beings.

It is between me and my god.

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