HastyWords's Blog, page 23

MEASURING GROWTH

Every year, about this time, I start falling hopelessly into a past that nearly killed me.

2011 was the year I turned 40. It was a pretty strange year in that I was a totally different person than I had been previously. I had lost 100 lbs and had made lots of new friends. It’s also the year binge drinking started to get out of hand.

2012 was a slow and constant spiral into what felt like a steady fade into madness. Emotional, paranoid, overthinking, and so anxious and sad I couldn’t sleep. In fact, the night my mind nearly convinced me to commit suicide it had been a good 6 months since I’d had a good nights sleep. I was sleep deprived and running on negative energy feeling powerless to stop a train that no longer had me at the wheel.

It took several years to gather all my pieces back up. To wipe enough of the fog away to see my face clearly in the mirror. It took cutting several people I loved dearly from my life, it took getting a divorce, it took getting sober, it took a stable routine of emotional checks and medicine changes.

Below are pictures I can remember very clearly. The first I was waiting for Zumba class to start. I was just laying down listening to music. I look happy. But this was the beginning of my depression. I listened to music every moment I was awake to try to silence my destructive thoughts. Do I look depressed to you?

The second… the first time I can remember letting my emotions show. End of 2012 and I was desperate to figure out what was wrong with me. I knew I wasn’t okay. I felt crazy.

Now it’s 2021. I’ll be 50 soon. I’m sober. I have a wonderful boyfriend I will marry someday. I have not only one daughter but three who are all so incredibly amazing. And some beautifully patient and kind friends. I feel stable far more days than I feel wobbly.

Omg I worked hard for it too.

YOU-NESS

You are valuable to me. Without you I’d be less alive. You are my Batman. My Wonder Woman. My supporter. My fire starter.

You remind me I am not alone. That possibilities are all around me just waiting for me to engage. You are potential. You are energy. You are my community and my possible growth.

I look at you and can’t help but wonder about you. Who are you. What do you need. What do you offer. Each and every one of you in your you-ness. I have seen your best and your worst. I have seen your extremes and in betweens.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for trying. I hope you choose to offer good things. To make the world better by making us all better. What we choose to offer and accept matters. It’s all that matters.

I matter.

YOU matter.

LIVING IS A CHOICE

Living is a choice

Every single time

And it’s been awhile

Since I imagined death

I wanted to know

How the water would feel

If I breathed it in

I’ve heard it hurts

But only for a moment

And then I wondered

If it would matter

If it would hurt anyone

And I couldn’t imagine that

That’s worse than death

Because I love people

Even when I don’t feel loved

So I emptied the tub

I put on my jammies

Dried my tears

And told myself

To get a grip

JUST SOOT

The day absorbed me

Painted me black

Spit me out as smoke

And watched

As I tainted everything

I touched

Just soot and ash

Worthless

DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER…

We are thirsty and hungry and no amount of whatever will satisfy us. We will, most of the time, be full but never satisfied. It’s a side effect for being alive. A constant yearning from the moment we are born.

I believe we love and have the ability to love very deeply but we always long for more. We want what we cannot find. And I surmise it can’t be found because there is more. A place that will make us fully ourselves.

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” ~C.S. Lewis

THE CLOCK ON THE WALL

I really feel this one today even though I wrote it years ago.

The clock on the wall
Spins faster these days
It has slowly sped up
As each day comes to call
And each night hardly stays
I swear it’s true… shhhh
Just listen
As the tick tick tick
Moves steadily on
As echoes migrate
From an underwater past
To the surface of now
A million tiny bubbles
Waiting to burst
With every beat
My heart takes
I can feel its rhythm
Nearing the end
As if wasted minutes
Are plotting revenge
Constructing vengeance
A sort of reckoning
That only time can allow

THE PAIN OF PERFECTION

I realized recently much of my anxiety was attached to a feeling that I needed to be perfect. Act perfectly in all things.

I know logically there is no such thing. I mean I KNOW that. But I don’t think my heart ever got that message.

I must execute plans perfectly. I must do exactly what I say I am going do perfectly without change. Projects must be done perfectly or not at all. Be on time or the world will end. Carefully map out all possibilities or you’ll be left with no options forward whatsoever.

I always feel like I fail of course. I always felt like I wasn’t succeeding. There were few celebrations over accomplishments because I couldn’t accept they were accomplishments. Just keep pushing. Keep reaching for better. I am not good until I can be perfect.

People were just people doing people things but here I was always feeling like a failure at being one of these people.

I broke down once. A friend was upset with me. I don’t remember exactly why now because he was always upset at me it seemed. But this time I think I was trying desperately to make my feelings heard. They weren’t regular everyday feelings. They were very complicated tangled up and messy feelings. I was depressed but I didn’t understand what depression was yet.

We were working out at my house and I was on the treadmill and he decided to leave. He was leaving because I was trying to tell him I was worn. Not worn from working out. I was life worn. And then he left. I remember crying. And then blubbering. And then I was laying on the treadmill bellowing out all the pain I couldn’t speak of. All the pain I kept bottled up so I wouldn’t bother anyone just came barreling out.

Good lord it felt good. Like the cork finally flew off and all the fizz was escaping.

He walked back in with a look of contempt on his face. The kind of look that says “you are every bit as fucking crazy as I always knew you were”. I swear that face still haunts me. After that the breakdowns started coming more frequent. A tidal wave of inner turmoil had started breeding because… I had lost control and there was no taking that back. Ever. Not ever.

I still look back on that day and feel betrayed by him. I broke and it wasn’t perfect and therefore I could no longer pretend to be perfect. That crack stayed and along that crack were born other cracks. I was falling apart.

That was a decade ago. I clawed my way back to life. Glued all the broken pieces back together that mattered and let all the shattered pieces go. I got divorced. I got a new life with new people and kept less than 5 old friends. I love them and they don’t expect perfect.

I was never perfect. Not within miles of it. I, like every single person on this planet, am imperfect and I have to be ok with that. People who love me also have to be ok with that. Not everyone will give you that grace.

There are people who need you to be what they want. They have no use for you if you can’t be that for them. And they will leave searching for their perfect person. And if you are like me you will feel like you’ll never be enough for anyone.

“Being perfect is a state of mind. As long as you strive to be perfect, you will never achieve it. But once you feel content with who you are, you will realize that you have been perfect all along”

Sandra Cooze

I am not perfect. I have good intentions. I try to follow through. I hold myself accountable. I cancel dates and I sleep when I need to. I cry and sometimes that’s ugly. Sometimes the pain I don’t realize I’m holding in will exhale when I least expect it. And all of this is perfectly me.

FAVORITE CHILDHOOD TOY?

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This is me and my dad! We have the same smile. And look at that haircut

Remember those big bouncy balls with a handle? Do they still make them? It was so much fun.

What was your favorite childhood toy?

WE ARE GOLD

So often I think about how connected we should all be. Not like the The Borg in Star Trek with it’s hive mind or anything but maybe more like a hive soul. It feels like when we let one child down we are letting all of humanity down. When we turn away a person in need we are turning all of humanity away.

I know it’s complicated. I mean in this world we take advantage of one another. People want want more than their fair share. We are greedy. And that makes being kind… difficult.

There is nothing simple about humanity. I feel like we will look back at the end and wonder why we made it all so complicated.

DISTRACTING POTATOES

Outrage for Sale by Gretchen Kelly

I roll my eyes a lot. Not at people but at headlines. More often than not it’s because you can tell a person or a company is just trying to stir up shit. And it works. We fall for it.

The post I link to above is worth reading. What exactly is cancel culture? Well… it’s not about a toy potato.

Distraction. It’s something both the left and right do. The religious and the non-religious. It’s something journalists and attorneys are expert at. The art of distraction. The best way to keep people from coming together is to give them reasons to fight.

We don’t have to fall for it though.

I think people and companies have a right to do better and be better and if that means letting things and ideas become antiquated then that’s the way of things.

It’s not about being sensitive emotionally. It’s about understanding that compassion is superior.

Rarely does “cancel culture” actually cancel someone. But asks people to take responsibility for their actions, and their words.

For instance women fought for years to cancel the culture Harvey Weinstein created and he finally got held accountable. Before that happened though he had spent a ton of money trying to cancel the culture working against him.

Cancel culture in my opinion isn’t new. It’s why we don’t have sexist ads in Good Housekeeping anymore for instance.

Progress is about finding a better way.