That concussion still hasn’t released my head from the ache. So instead of writing I leave you with this.
Emotions
Roar-10 Minute Poem Challange
The lion roars in the darkness
Not wanting to be seen
Only heard
By many
By few
But mostly by the pride
Just because I roar the loudest
Doesn’t mean I am heard
I roar the loudest
To be seen and heard
Yet both elude me
Like the gazelle on the plain
If a mighty roar is uttered
And nobody “hears” it
Does it make a sound?
Looking For The Good-Positive Post #2
The other night B and I were out taking our usual late night walk. It was a beautiful evening, cool and crisp, for this area of the country. The moon shone bright and the stars were singing the Twinkle song. Everything was perfect…except… where was the sparkle between us?
About mid-way through this jaunt we stepped into a quiet and very dark place where I told B, “I think that instead of concentrating on all the characteristics I don’t possess or all the things you feel are missing from this relationship, perhaps it would make us happier if we both looked for the good in one another.”
“That’s funny,” replied B. “That is exactly what my therapist said tonight and she gave me some homework to do in this area.”
Instantly we reached for each others hand, reemerged, and continued walking along. Immediately I got that sense that both of us realized that by looking for the best in each other, instead of the worst, things felt immediately different. Better. For while you are in the dark there is nothing to see, but when you change perspective and step into the moonlight, the sparkle returns, and you can begin to be able to shine once more.
Falling Spirits And Falling Faces
My face is falling as are my spirits
My life in free fall too
The jowls of my life crammed and swollen full of life’s misery
While the jowls of my face sag and slide into other parts of my body
Lines like jump ropes criss cross my life
Over which I play an endless game of jump rope
The beat as they interrupt my life kerplop, kerplop, kerplop
In rhythm with my teardrops falling
While my heart goes into an arrhythmia making up its own disorganized beats
The lines around my eyes crinkle
Belting out a song sounding like an opera of sadness and worry
Madame Butterfly perhaps
These lines now permanent reminders of times gone by
And things yet to come
Scary things, sad things, worrisome things
Over which I have little to no control
Will I find joy with the hand I have been dealt?
Or must you look for it under rocks and in deep dark forests?
Elusive joy. Elusive happiness. Elusive everything
My eyes are closing through no fault of their own
Loose skin moving like an avalanche
And weighing them down
The suddenness of this onset surprising me
Taking me down
Down further than I have ever been
I hate it down here
In this sad and lonely place
I have given myself a week to digest this doctor’s news
Give myself a pity party
And then I shall climb back up
Plaster a smile upon my face
And find some sort of life
With the new knowledge at hand
What it will look like
I have no clue
Do we ever?
Copyright 2016 as are all writings put onto this blog
I’m Confused…Can Confusion Increase Creativity?
I’m confused. Most of my life I have been confused about one or two areas of my life at a time. Now I am confused about everything. My marriage, my children, how to plan for the future, how to sit with the silence and how to live in the now. Everything is confusing and I DON’T LIKE IT…one single bit.
One of the major issues I have with being confused is that often you cannot see the forest through the trees. This confusion often leads to living in limbo, a state I consider akin to having a gas mask at hand with a limited time sensitive filter. Knowing you cannot see, smell or watch the gas coming, do you put the mask on now and risk using up a filter that will protect you for a short but specific amount of time; or do you wait for the person next to you to drop and hope you are not too late in securing it around your face? Yep, for me limbo is one of the worst experiences known to man.
Yet, surprisingly, I have recently experienced confusion as a positive thing as well. Because it seems to me the more confused things are the more creative I’ve become. While confusion can shake your soul, rattle your senses and sometimes lead to a sense of paranoia because you can’t seem to do anything but stand there because either way you move seems equally dangerous or intimidating; it would appear that confusion can also lead to creativity. Instead of seeing only the limiting options of A or B, confusion often allows you to explore many paths that would normally go unnoticed like JJ, Z and Q. Confusion can stretch you, it can lead you and it often makes you examine minute details that while once seemed unimportant become pivotal to your understanding of the situation. It makes you ask the basic questions of:
Who
What
Where
Why
How
It is the answers to these questions which often help clarify the situation.
So I am confused. Really confused. But I am also glad (kind of) because the way I am approaching problems and issues is bringing me a sense of peace that I have looked at all options as I walk this journey. At least all the ones that present themselves at this time. And I am okay with that. Because I am holding the hands of those who have gone before me and they are holding me tight so I feel safe and my doomsday gas mask is put in the deepest darkest corner of my Place of Mysteries.
https://myhusbandwantsadivorce.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/the-place-of-mysteries-303-days-to-fix-this/
So Paul’s Therapist Says…
So Paul’s therapist said to me yesterday, “I know you are not going to like this much, less want to do it, but you will have to do this so it gets through to Paul. If he attacks any member of the family you must (without telling him) call the police and have them take him to the hospital on a 5150. He is getting too big and he needs a reality check that if he hurts someone there are dire consequences. If you do not do this now at this age while he still has a chance as he ages he will be incorporating this behavior more and more into his life. You have got to try and stop it now.”
Hearing those words cut me. Deeply. Call the police on your own child. You must. You have to. It is your obligation. Failure to protect your other children charges could be brought against you if you don’t. He has to learn.
And so I “get” the logic I must ask … if he was rational I would agree. BUT if someone is undergoing and episode of psychosis/mental illness how can they just stop themselves? Is it as easy as all that? I think not.
One of the things that scares me is that police will come to our door. What if Paul were to run, resist being taken or because he cannot stand being touched in certain ways..hits an officer? We all know what happens to minorities in these times of situations. Often they are seriously injured or they die. How do you risk this happening because a 14-year-old is in a rage?
Yes, I know it is what must be done but what unintended consequences might result? Could I live with these if something horrific happened because I picked up the phone? Could I live with these if something horrific happened because I didn’t pick up the phone?
How do you wrap your head around all of this without it destroying your soul? Without it destroying…you, relationships, your child and your heart?
Nothing makes this possibility better. Nothing. All it looks like is a long scary road which I do not want to take but will in order to try and save my son.
Dyed Love
I loved you once you know
Deeply. completely. selfishly
I devoured you…wanting you to know
Everything I was thinking
Because you couldn’t tell me
What was in your own head
So , instead, I put ideas into your head
While trying to force you to examine things
You had hidden away
From yourself for protection
Of a soul shredded
Long before I came on the scene
I am tired of you blaming me
For what the ghosts in your past
Did to you
And I am tired of seeking answers
From a man is not brave enough
To figure out whether he wants a life with me
Or without
I feel raw, used, scattered
Blown up into pieces that are gone
There is not enough glue in the world
For me to painstakingly put them all together again
Because I am busy and tired of trying to fill up
Your empty spaces and your selfish wants
The ones you know about (yes… those ones you selfish bastard)
And the ones you aren’t even aware of yet
but I am…
I am aware of more than you give me credit for
But I cannot put you together anymore either
You have to do it yourself
Stop depending on me to make
You feel good about yourself again
I can no longer carry your feelings for you
I can barely carry my own
When I remember I even have them anymore
Instead I remember a grenade
That exploded deep within my soul
And you are the one who threw it
Wounding us
You and me
And I wonder if we will ever be the same
For I am running on fumes
Somewhere near the end
Of wanting to figure all of this out
Wanting to run away from the pain
From You
From this life
That at times no longer feels right
Or loving or kind or cherished
A life that is made more complicated
By the issues of others
Until I can no longer differentiate between
Their issues and yours
But find I am growing tired of both
Of giving of myself 100%
When I just want to retreat
Somewhere deep. silent. and kind.
A place where I am no longer wounded
On a daily basis
A place where I can heal
And I can stand up again
Full of confidence. happiness. and belief
That I really do have purpose in my life
And that it starts with me
My purpose. my wants. my needs.
Alone
Without having to consider
And put first
The needs of anyone else in the world
To My Child’s Teacher-The Hurt In Family Tree Assignments
To My Child’s Teacher:
I wanted to make you aware of something you may not have considered in regards to these “Where I Came From/Family Tree” type of assignments. My daughter does not have a birth picture as most international adoptees do not. This can be very painful to some adoptees when class assignments such as this come around. My daughter was born in Korea where children are adopted in a very legal and orderly manner with children being placed with agencies after birth. Yet, part of her past is missing. And some kids from China are left in public places as it is against the law for parents to abandon a child and in that culture the gender of choice is male. Therefore, often girls are abandoned. In addition, due to the one child policy; abandonment happens to females in high numbers. These children often struggle with the fact that they were “left” somewhere.
In addition, having to include a story of their birth is very difficult because many children who are adopted have no clue about the story of their birth. They can’t say things like my mother ate pickles during pregnancy and cried and cried when I was born. They have no idea of the circumstances of their birth except that in many countires it is one of disgrace and shame. Instead of their birth being a happy time many adoptees feel that it is a time of sorrow where they lost their identity and their heritage.
My daughter cannot answer the questions of the hospital where she was born and who came to see her and how her mother felt. We can answer those questions from when we first saw her picture at three months and when she came home at almost 8 months but this seperates her out from the other kids. In addition, we only encourage her to share what she knows of her birth story with people she wants to and frankly it is not appropriate for just anyone to know nor it is not everyone’s business to know the circumstances of her birth.
These kinds of assignments can be hurtful to adoptees or children who come from “different” families other than a two parent mom and dad type of family. Many kids now come from gay families and may not be comfortable sharing that. Many kids now come from single mother with unknown fathers and may not be comfortable sharing that. Many children come from foster families and had abusive first parents who may have told them over and over things like, “I wish you had not been born.” Many times the birth of a child is not a “happy” time in a family and a child may know that. While the jist of these assignments are made with the noblest of intentions, in reality, these types of assignments are often uncomfortable and hurtful for children not just because they single them out but because their past is full of loss and pain.
Just wanted you to consider this from another point of view.
The Things That We Keep
I lift a battered and worn cigar box out from beneath a massive box of family photos, 150 year-old letters and diaries. It and all the treasures it contains belonged to my G-Grandmother, Eva, born at home in 1873, somewhere in the woods of Ohio. I marvel as I hold in my hands a small remnant of a piece of pink and blue calico cloth; a dried flower; several old cards with cherubs on them; calling cards of long forgotten friends; and a poem written in script so precise that I can actually imagine the school teacher standing over an eight-year-old Eva making sure that each swirl is aligned correctly with the next.
All these precious things still remain while Eva has been gone for almost 75 years. It makes me wonder more about the type of person that Eva was. It makes me question why these cigar box momentos were so special to her? It makes me ask why don’t we tag these love affairs of the heart so the next generation understands what was important and meaningful to us? And it makes me ponder why it is we hold onto the things that we do?
Therapy this week has been tough full of the good and not-so-good. It has left me questioning myself about why I hold onto the things that I do. Why do I take a piece of this from my past and carry it with me while leaving behind a piece of that? Why do I continue to hold onto anger that helped me survive as a 15-year-old runaway but is no longer useful to me today? Why do I choose to stay rather than leave? The answers to some of these questions remain elusive and hidden in the Place of Mysteries that is nestled in my own mind. Yet, I know this much to be true…that the things we hold onto say more about us than our words and that sometimes we need to examine why we hold onto the things we do. Fear, neediness, love….just what is it that drives us to keep things in sacred spaces and at what point are we free to let them go? Are “things” and emotions meant to be forever or do they have expiration dates? Or are these precious items, thoughts and feelings best left to remain in a small battered cigar box for the next generation to find and wonder…why?
What Is Happiness?
Lately I have been thinking a lot about happiness…as in… what is it really, how do we get it and most importantly how do we hold on to it?
Sometimes I know what happiness is. It is a warm cuddle with a baby who looks at you, eyes wide, and smiles so broad you wonder how it is contained on such a small face. It is laying my head on my husband’s chest and feeling its rhythmic rise and fall and with it the feeling that everything will fine in all that we have created. It is writing the ‘perfect’ piece in which you feel you have gotten your point across and a bit of your own humanity as well.
But, I wonder, is happiness suppose to be this fleeting…small moments in time that when added together don’t account for all that much? And what is the difference between being content or feeling joy? Is joy just happiness on steroids and is contentment just joy three times removed? Or is happiness just a deep appreciation for a moment felt whether it lasts three seconds or five minutes? And the big question… how do I feel more of all of these positive feelings and hold them in my hand like pearls savoring their smoothness, shape, color and beauty?
I once had a friend named John who swore he never had a bad day. His secret, he told me, was that he would get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say out loud, “John, you are going to have a great day!” And according to him he always did. For John, a “great day” was simply a state of mind, a place that his mind took him to and stayed with him there as the hours counted down from midnight and back.
I’m not sure what happiness really is but I know I would like to experience more of it and expand that feeling for a longer period of time when I do happen upon it. I would like to find more of that “elusive state of mind” that allows happiness to be seen easily and enjoyed fully. And finally, I would like to one day be able to define for myself and others exactly what it is because until I can answer question I suspect that it will remain a random feeling instead of a large part of my everyday life.
So here’s to happiness…may it find us all easily and may we chose to see it when it arrives.
Gardy Loo Pismire 