HastyWords's Blog, page 2

BALANCING THE WORLD

Art prints available on HASTYWORDSART.com

There are a few things I’ve learned in my 54 years of life. I feel like I should have learned more but I got a few truths I live by.

1- If someone doesn’t love you or like you don’t spend energy trying to change that. The only exception is if there was once love then fight for it but you really do have to decide if it’s really worth the fight. Sometimes there is still love but it’s changed and that will require new boundaries and new rules of engagement.

2- Don’t sweat the small stuff. There are plenty of big battles to prioritize so don’t waste energy on the little things.

3- There will be lots of people just aching to make you the villain in their story. Trauma will cause them to need you to be the villain. You don’t have to play that character. You can walk away.

4- How you react to someone’s behavior is on you. Stop letting other people pull reactions from you that are out of your character. Too many people climb that ladder of oneupmanship and when that ladder falls all parties are injured. The key is to stay off that ladder.

5- Balance is what makes the universe work. Extremism is the real evil we fight. Within ourselves, on a physical and molecular level. I include political and religious extremism in that. Far right or far left extremism always has the same result and it always involves hate for something or someone.

I had so many nightmares last night. And I spent the morning trying to figure out what was on my mind. Sometimes you just have to reflect on who you are and what you believe because the news, the back biting, the name calling even as a joke can start to gunk up your heart.

Bad stuff is happening. It always has and it seems like it’s getting worse. It is more important than ever to focus on kindness, on exposing the dark with our light. We can’t allow ourselves to get folded into the hate. We must remember to be the balance the world needs.

BE MY EYES: an art piece I did from a ruined canvas. It’s pink and blue with blood shot monster eyes peeking through what looks like a wall of muscle.

MAGIC TORCHES

I was thinking about friendships and relationships and how I gravitate to those who aren’t afraid to carry light into the deepest darks. Those who aren’t afraid of tears. Who help you back up when you have no strength left. People who help you fight the lies and hunt for truth.

I fell in love with a man

Who carries a torch

That turned out to be

More like a magic wand

I discovered things

About myself

I’d never have seen

Had he not braved

My darkest dark with me

Identity Crisis

Identity changes

Melts and freezes

Speeds up

Then slows

Like breath

Fogging windows

Like rain

Catching fire

Like milk

Becoming bitter

Like smiles

Stuck like Velcro

A robot lost

Programming

Deleted

Identity changes

Until I find me

Yet again

LIMBO

Lost inside empty aisles

Fairy tales disguised

As hopes and dreams

Full sentences ended

Punctuation’s hanging

I feel like spring

Like the smell of rain

I feel like autumn

Like promises of snow

I feel like I’m waiting

Inside the anticipation

Inside the creating

I’m the word

In between thoughts

I’m the journey

Waiting to start

The I “want to” stuck

Inside those empty aisles

IN THE MIDDLE OF NIGHT

I’ve followed myself

Down the quiet hallways

Snuck up behind myself

When shrouded in night

And it’s unsettling

That perspective

The apart and away

That strips off

The emotional brain

That undresses

The remembering

And peels off

All the experiencing

Because what’s left

Is just a shadow

Sneaking down

Quiet hallways

In the middle of night

NOWHERE NEAR PERFECT

I’m happier

Now at 54

In my own skin

I really am

Big huge smile

I tell the world

My boyfriend

My daughter

I am heavy

But loved

And yet

I see her perfect

Everything

Influencing us

All the men

And the women too

Wanting her

To BE her

And I open Amazon

And the search bar

Populates itself

With help for

Sagging neck

Sagging breasts

Sagging knees

Hooded eyes

Forehead wrinkles

Thin skin

Disappearing lips

Hairy legs

Balding eyebrows

You need

GLP drugs

Patches

Pills

Injections

Vitamins

Medications

I sigh

Close Amazon

Stare at myself

My floppiness

My softness

My nowhere near

Firm fitness

And thank it

For its strength

And all the storms

It’s weathered for me

AUTISTIC LIFE

I have been stewing over this for days and needed to wrap my mind around a few things before I wrote about it. Mostly when I write it’s because I want to lend my own perspective. I know not everyone will agree with it.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services recently came out and said that people who have autism “will never pay taxes, hold a job, go on a date, or use a toilet unassisted.”

The statement is dangerously innaccurate. And I can’t imagine a majority of people believe it. Autism is an umbrella that includes a big expansive universe of experiences. Everyone diagnosed with autism experiences it differently.

I have autistic friends that are making a better living than most people in my friend set and have been holding down decades long relationships. I have other friends who are caring for adult children maybe for as long as they live. But these adult children are so varied in personality and talent that we can not and should not put them in a box.

We are and have been making great strides in the scientific community to understand the brain. The safer people feel in getting a diagnosis without being labeled broken the better our progress will be.

And of course the number of people diagnosed has risen because adults finally feel safe enough to get diagnosed. Many feel great relief with a diagnosis because “now so many things make sense”.

We have as a society designed how we learn and how we communicate based on neurotypical expectations and we are now learning how limited and short sighted those expectations are.

This isn’t just about autism. It’s about how all of us have a brain that isn’t “typical”. Depression, ADHD, Dyslexia, Synesthesia…. The list is LONG.

It is dangerous to limit scientific progress by making people afraid to talk about and be fully invested in learning how their own brain functions. And with learning we gain tools that help us communicate with the world more effectively.

The more I learn the more I realize “neurotypical” doesn’t exist. It is a word that someday will be considered a product of ignorance.

Just my perspective.

Be my eyes: Just a picture I love of me and my beautiful daughter when she was younger. She is making a “Loser” L on my forehead and we are laughing and being silly.

BLACK SPOTS

Flimsy black spots

Morph into lungs

Breathing screams

That sound like

Laughter

Gut busting

Belly squeezing

Ab eating

Laughs that die

On swollen tongues

That run away

With spoons

Because

Nursery rhymes

Are for nightmares

And black spots

Belong on the moon

BUSY BRAINS

I wake up dangling

Spinning as a spider

Caught in the wind

There is no up

Down is everywhere

To fall is to die

To let go suicide

So you spin

And spin

And spin

Until the ground

Finds your feet

And you can finally

Finally

Finally

Fall back to sleep

COTTON CANDY AIR

The sky is sagging

Have you noticed?

I caught some

Like cotton candy

A breathing mist

And it felt weird

Like sand

Instead

Of heavy air

And like mercury

Seeking blood

It made a home

Inside my lungs

And I stopped

Seeing with eyes

And began to see

As air sees

Inside everything

The truth

Without ornaments

Without graffiti

Just truth