Hollow Little Boxes

I have to admit, I thought you would text me last night. I lay awake late into the dark, silent night waiting for the promising trill of harp. I find it hard to believe that after all you said to me you could just dismiss my as simply as that, regardless of what she wants. I hope you know how much you're hurting me. I hope you know, not because I want you to feel guilty but because I don't want to admit I spent the last four months of my life with a man who can not empathize like that. Who won't.

And yet, as cynical as I try to be I realize that part of me is always straining forward for that second when you'll borrow your friend's phone to text me, tell me you're alright, beg for forgiveness for deserting me like everyone else, tell me you still love me even though it cannot be just now...

And yet all I have is a silence that echoes through my hollow little boxes.

Shattered Little Boxes

This morning my empty inbox rang like a shattered glass bell and I saw that I had finally heard from you. But the message was devastating and my heart sank into the sickness that suddenly filled the stomach which had been as empty as the inbox only a moment before.

"I've just lost my family!!"

And I didn't know if it had been on purpose or from some accident but my first thought was how you'd said if you ever lost your daughter there would be nothing left to live for. It had gouged bloody trails in my heart when you'd said it.

I wasn't enough to live for. I didn't mean enough to you to keep you alive. I shoved aside the selfish thought immediately, scolding myself for taking you too literally, for reading into things that weren't there but then this morning, when those horrifying words were blazoned across my inbox I panicked. The fear shot through me and I demanded back that you answer me. That you tell me what was going on. I called once. I called twice. No answer. I felt sogoddamnedpowerless.

 I threatened in text that if you didn't answer I would call your mother, call the police, anything to keep you from what I pictured you doing. The mistake I pictured you making.
The Forever Mistake.



You called back then and the cold dead voice I thought I would hear wasn't there. Instead, your voice was pitched for panic. You were begging me. Begging me to sacrifice myself. Your voice was the voice of a man so beyond panic that sense was no longer a concept. You knew what you wanted. You perched on the cold edge of losing everything and you knew instantly that you couldn't let that happen.

So you plead for me to throw myself over that edge instead. And my heart cried red tears. And my heart went numb. And the world began to slow.
And I heard her voice and she sounded so young overlaying your ragged cries in the background and the grief you two shared was so fast and so harsh that I gave you over. My life was so still in that moment. So silent and still and alone.

I felt so old and you two seemed so young that when she barked her harsh curse I almost laughed out loud. Almost. But in the end my still sorrow was all I could hear. And it echoed in all those empty boxes, it echoed in my empty heart like the ocean.



Then the line was dead. And my heart was dead. All those words of romantic love pulled from the insides of valentines candy boxes had seemed so real. Your love had seemed so real but now I knew it was just... what... I don't know. I still don't know. Probably won't ever know if what you felt was real or just a reflection of my own love shining back from your eyes.

The numbness stretched on all day. I slept. I ate. I read. I dutifully removed all evidence of you from my life with the leaden grace of a fishing weight in murky waters. But as the sun began to arch from the sky, as the dark came, those empty boxes began to sing and the lead began to melt.

Now my heart aches with all the tenderness of a thousand heartbreaks and I rage at the "it's just as wells" that are cast my way. And the tears flow and flow and flow and choke me. The ache I feel for you stretches across my chest and into my back, down into my hips and along my legs and feet. Across my shoulders and into my neck, my head, my face. My body is a live wire of pain, electric pulses that echo my heart beat.



No anger though. Only the lost empty ache of someone who grieves, who mourns for a loved one who has died. Because that's what you are. She has killed you to me. She has killed the happiness in me. And she had already killed that happiness in you. And she will kill the happiness in herself.

We're all doomed.

Empty Little Boxes

I have people who promised they would never stop loving me telling me now that they just "can't". That it isn't in them right now. Now, when I need the support and reassurance the most, when my self esteem is balanced upon a pin and crumbling. Now, when I'm left to feel most alone. And I'm supposed to feel guilty that I want them to put aside their own problems and give me the love and comfort when I need it. I'm the one who is supposed to feel guilty for having the bad grace to fall to pieces right when they're in the middle of redefining who they are, what they are and are not capable of.

And so I'm left alone. And you're the worst offender. I wait patiently for you to text or email me and I count the empty inboxes like I count the minutes on the clock. My world is hollow again. Empty because no one finds me sexually attractive and the platonic love and support feels like it is merely a matter of form. Another pat on the shoulder. Another discretely passed tissue to wipe the snot and tears that roll down my face as my heart breaks again and again and again.

Because I don't learn my lesson the first time. No, that would be too easy. I continuously go running back to my empty inbox because that is what you've trained me to do. I run back hoping for a note or acknowledgement of my existence just as I did all those years ago waiting for a birthday card or call from my father. All those empty mailboxes and all these empty inboxes and all the time my pussy sits like another empty little box. Waiting for some sign that someone finds me suitable for something other than pity.

You all don't love me enough to nurture me. You don't want me enough to fuck me. You don't even care enough to tell me that you don't care enough. So I sit waiting.

With my empty little boxes filling with tears and sighs and self hate.

And when you come back you wonder why the sex is mean. You wonder why my words are angry. You wonder why I wander away with a blank stare reflecting my tears. It's because I feel unwanted. I feel unworthy of every man who ever touched me and, in your case, even some who haven't yet. I feel as if there is something fundamentally wrong with me that only you men can see and recognize. So I ask you to punish me. I want you to beat whatever that flaw is out of me.

Instead, you disappear.
And again I'm left with my empty little boxes...

Every Scar is Our Song

Just like that it feels as if the storm has passed.
I know it's most likely just an illusion and all the pain will come rushing back without a moment's notice but, for now at least, the thought of you brings me only love and calm. There is a little ache that lives behind my heart but that will likely be there forever. I think it is a long healed scar that aches during emotional storms like an old war injury. It is a tender feeling but one that I can't help poking at occasionally, experimentally, as if to determine the nature or the cause of that long ago injury.

I'm not sure I'll ever know. I did realize today that my actions with you were very likely REactions instead. Pre-programmed into my subconscious by The Other One just as guilt is programmed by The First One. I'll call what happened "The Petulant Backlash".

I try so hard not to let my expectations dictate my actions with you or with the children. Never the less, I often find myself critiquing your behavior. Not in comparison to The Other One. Never in comparison to him, hut sometimes in comparison to an ideal I have built or what society has taught me of The Perfect Man. I hold you up to this ideal never once thinking that I don't even like these ideals and the one I truly love is you because you DON'T align with these ideals. Ideals like fake chivalry, misogyny, or narcissism. Your flaws are what draws me to you, are what make you attractive to me. And I don't just say that in a self placating way or in an attempt to blow smoke up your ass. I say it because it's true.

I love you because you haven't done the right thing, because you do have a weakness for me that supersedes what society deems is honorable. I love you because you are willing to break the rules to please me, you are willing to make yourself truly uncomfortable to make me happy. I love you because you honest feel that you are not worthy of me. These are the things that, in any other man, I would see and weak and annoying. In you, I see them as shining examples of how much you love me.

I love you because I am encouraged to be a better person, a more loveable person for you.

So, I am terrified that this thing we have created won't work out. That the fairy tale will be just as hokey and fake as all the other romantic horse crap we've been fed. But I'm calm now and, for whatever reason, I'm willing to wait to see what you decide.

But I know the storm will rise again. And I can't always promise that I will be strong enough to weather it.

"I Can't Quit You Babe I Think I'm Gonna Put You Down For a Awhile"

It gets harder when its quiet.
Like at night or on the weekends.
I strive so hard to live like those pithy little memes on Facebook. You know, the ones that say the only person you need to be happy is you. That you can't truly love another person until you love yourself. I post them by the dozen on my page, wanting my belief and the sheer number of them to be enough to make it true. But, in the end, I only wind up resenting them as being unreasonable and unrealistic. I love you so much that it physically hurts to know that we may never be together.

I thought I was having a heart attack last night. No joke, the pain radiated down my left arm and my jaw ached. My chest felt so tight but I could still feel that hollow echoing thud. I thought how great it would be to have a heart attack and die out there. No car, in the middle of the night with the girls sound asleep. I could die and not have to spend another minute living without you. You know suicide just isn't my style. Suffering slowly and loudly. That's my style. But now, a heart attack, that would end it all without having to worry about suicide or suffering. My chest felt like it was cracking open. I was sobbing so loudly I couldn't understand why the girls didn't hear me. It hurt worse than reading a Twilight fan fiction.

I was fucking living one.

Dying would have been too convenient. Heart attack would have been too tidy. I woke this morning with that same wet pain in my chest. Its been so easy to fake happy today. After the girls peeled me out of bed this morning, forced me to face the world, it was easy to pretend that everything was just fine.

I texted you. I messaged you. Of course I did. I can't help myself. I love you and I always will. Nothing will ever stop that. But I kept it casual. I asked if we could be friends. Asked if I could be there for you as just a monotonous little nobody.
I'm like the fat girl on the diet that gets a job at the bakery just so she can at least smell the fucking doughnuts. Except, she's never happy with just a little sniff, is she? No she'll eventually take a crumb or two and when that isn't enough she'll find herself in the corner of the dark stock room with powered sugar on her chest and drool on her chin, shoveling jelly filleds into her maw.

Edward tells Bella that she is his "own personal brand of heroin". That's how I feel about you. I'm filled with a vague sense of longing for you until the sun goes down or I have to go too long before talking to you again and then I start to show signs of withdrawal. Even now, sitting in the quiet, I can feel my body crave you in ways I shouldn't crave a man I've never held, kissed or fucked. And yet, here I huddle, shoving jelly filleds into my maw.

I fucking hate Stephanie Meyer for getting it so right. I hate her for understanding the simplest bond between two adults is a sheer need that defies logic or understanding. It defies explanation. But you're sick. You're so exhausted and so stressed out and I know that while I'm not a gigantic factor in those two things, I am one of the factors that you... WE actually have some control over while the other factors are more like acts of God with wills of their own.

I fucked up before by trying to quit you cold turkey. I was selfish and wrong by trying to leave your life. I know now that I can't ever leave your life any more than I could pull out my veins and arteries and use them for a jump rope. But I can try to be your friend and try to eliminate some of the stress that comes with being what we are. I can try to support you instead of being just one more thing that knocks your feet out from under your. I can be the one thing in your life that comes to you with no expectations on your time, energy or love. At least that's what I hope.

And later...
Later on if you feel better and you want something more. I'll be there then too. If that's what you want. Because I can't convince myself that loving you is bad for my heart.
That sooner or later heart attacks really do happen.
And that they're really just as messy as any other kind of hurt.

Fuck You Very Much

I've been waiting very patiently for the past six months. Standing very calmly while you all jostle for your positions on top of me. You fight for the choicest spot to inject your viscous wrath and bicker and fight over who has the right to harvest the most tender bits of me. My husband was the most patient. Nineteen years of laying in wait upon my back like a monkey I just can't quit. He slowly ransomed his favorite parts; my naivete, my optimism, my trust. He plastered up the holes with a crumbling concoction of cynicism, bitterness, and vulnerability. Then came my mother, slashing with nails of guilt and self doubt. Gnashing with teeth of fire and jealousy. She replaced her stolen bits with, "My you've gained a bit of weight, haven't you?"

My son took my power, my ability to rule the home and mete out punishment and replaced it with jeers and rolls of eyes. He knew my grasping fingers had become, at that point, merely an illusion I showed the world. My sharp tongue was wet ash. Next, my brother took whatever familial ties I had left and, licked his lips and tasting tender tears gave me back only half truths. I choked on his fear of me.

Now you fall in line, harvesting heart like so many wasted minutes waiting for you to call, like counting so many empty inboxes. I know you can't help but hate me just as you love what I represent, the freedom to love as you would without all of your own beloveds stealing juicy bits from your own trembling form. You don't have the strength left to love me and hold yourself together, a sad fatherly form of duct tape and medical gauze.

And all the rest of you offer only empty platitudes, so afraid that my fear, my anger, my sorrow is contagious, stretching from me to you like so much warm, discarded bubblegum.

There's nothing left for you to claim from me. I am become an empty shell of cardboard and outdated dreams. You have created a golum of your greed and fear and tears and now I stumble from one of you to another, clumsily grasping for acceptance. Nails raking for support. Teeth gnawing for unconditional love.

Harvesting the juiciest little bits of you to feed my empty soul.

Leaps and Bounds

I'd forgotten how good it feels to be here.

I just reread my last post and it was chilling to realize that Mom passed only two weeks after that on Father's Day. It was painless and she passed in her sleep, or more specifically, a kind of coma. Mike was sick again and thus unable to go but dad and I sat by her bed for a long while. We talked about letting go and I suggested she hung on because he hadn't yet given her the assurance she needed. He resisted at first. We both cried a great deal. Finally, he went to her bedside. He's become so stiff in his old age that it was painful to watch him stoop toward her ear. But then he did it. He told her that if she needed to go he would be alright. He gave her permission to die. Then he went home and I went to the hotel. She died at 5am that morning. Both a blessing and a curse.

So much of my life had been absorbed in her struggle that I'm not sure I knew what to do with myself. We prepared her funeral. It was a good turnout. That's what they always say, don't they? As if the population of your funeral had anything to do with how you lived your life. She was a loving, caring, devoted person in health. She was alone in sickness. I understand that acutely now. People didn't avoid her because she was a burden or because her frequent bouts with dementia made her unlikeable. It was because her illness forced them to face their own mortality and there is nothing people like more than blinding themselves to negative or unpleasant aspects of life. My friend TJ calls it unnecessary problems. My own illness has brought a similar reaction from some but not all of my acquaintances.

I remember thinking that the Paster knew nothing about her as he read the scripture he'd chosen for her and that I, a veteran pagan, could have chosen more apt scripture for her.

That's been just about two years now. We spread her ashes under her beloved Mulberry tree. I think of her often, dream of her frequently. When I first became ill I was struck by seizures. After an extremely forceful one I couldn't remember that she had passed. It must have been terrible for Mike to have to tell me again. I know it was awful enough living it twice. People often comment about how they still feel the presence of their loved ones either as a spirit or a running dialogue in their minds. I'm happy to say I feel none of that. I feel that she is truly at rest. The girls spray her perfume every once in awhile and on those occasions the pain becomes sharper but there was never a feeling of leaving things undone or unsaid and for that I am grateful.

I miss you, Mom. Everyday you are in my heart just as you always were. Your memory guides me even though your spirit us at rest.

Dreams About Birth Inevitably Turn To Thoughts of Death

I had a dream about my mother this morning. We were on a native reservation somewhere in the woods. My friend Jeanette Garcia was there. We were working all together, gathering sticks and binding them together in bundles. On the path ahead of me sat a small round piece of drift wood. As I reached for it, it turned into an owl, spoke to me (words I don't remember) and then flew away. I turned to my mother and she had streaks of blood along her thighs. The streaks of blood became earthworms and I knew from that her time had come. We put her in a birthing chair in a small smokey room and the baby began to push its way out. I heard one of the elder men say from outside the tent that my mother needed to birth a "workhorse". I knew by that he meant a boy baby. The baby slid out into my arms and as I was trying to clear its mouth I poked one of its fragile eyes. It began to cry and sputtered out amniotic fluid. I noticed it was a girl. Donovan tried to hug it and I told him the baby was covered in blood and he should wait for me to clean it. He then tried to cut the umbilicus and I told him he must clamp it first. I remember thinking that this work was enjoyable and fulfilling and that I should get an apprenticeship under my friend Kamy Shaw. She would help me learn. My mother began cramping again and I assured her it was only the placenta passing. I left her to get a bowl big enough to hold it and that part of the dream phased into another one about a double decker carousel with fairies.

The thing is, on the surface of it I understand consciously why my mother may have been pregnant in the dream. Because her liver and kidneys aren't functioning her abdomen is filled with fluid and terrifically swollen, even as her limbs and face are wasting away. This "fluid filled abdomen" is exactly what it is to be pregnant. The fact that she had a baby girl instead of the "workhorse she needed" indicates that I feel like a failure to her. That as a weak woman suffering from RA I am much more ineffectual in helping her than if I had been born a strong boy. The thing that concerned me the most was the presence of the earthworms and the owl. I have been taught that these are symbols of imminent death and as I have always believed, death is also a form of rebirth, thus leading back to the birthing sequence. In essence, I delivered my mother from the womb of my own mother. I am then called to look at the word "Delivered" and understand that it has multiple connotations, one of which is to rescue one from a bad situation. So, here I am knowing what it all means but wondering if it was all made up by my subconscious or if the universe planted the seed in my mind to help me prepare for my mother's death being sooner than I thought.

I did call her this morning and my father said she was fine. The dream still has me in a very thoughtful mood this morning, however.

Howling For All The Wrong Reasons

The doctor says I have shingles. They itch really badly and I've been promised by multiple people that pain will probably follow. The doctor also said that stress can cause them. I told her about my mother and about my new puppy and about Loki the cat's insane pink eye. Then I looked her straight in the eye and told her it probably was stress after all.

Mother called a couple times today. She is still fully convinced that she will die tonight. I told dad she needs to put her advanced directive on file at the hospital just on the off chance she gets put back into the hospital which is really very likely considering they would have put her back in today if a bed had been available. Both the numbers in her blood pressure are in the double digits and the home health nurse says that her kidneys are shutting down. Dad says everything will get better if they can just get her hydrated and back on the milk thistle. She has tricked us so many times that I really don't want to believe her when she says she is going to die tonight but part of me says if anyone is going to know wouldn't it be her? Then again, a very dear friend said that its possible its just the dementia talking and that she could have years left.

BUT it rained tonight and I'm watching a biopic about Allen Ginsberg and his poem "Howl". The puppy is curled up beside me asleep and Mike made a wonderful green chili crusted grilled salmon and latkes for dinner so my tummy is full. The night is cool and I'm contented. If mom passes on tonight its what she wants and if she doesn't then that is just as well because it means that I get to spend more time with her.

Gods and goddesses bless us with whatever is best for us now.

"Real Women Have Curves... Not the body of a fifteen year old boy."

I just joined a facebook group with the name above because I thought the title was funny. I don't necessarily enjoy my curves one hundred percent of the time and I thought it would be mentally uplifting to become part of a group that did enjoy their curves. Perhaps it would make me more appreciative of what I have. The whole group was nothing but trash talking between fat people and thin people. Pure hatred going back and forth. All the thin posters said that "curvy" was just code for fat. They used words like "fattie" and "rhino". It was ugly and hateful. They made assumptions like all curvy women have diabetes or all curvy women cheap horny women just looking for some. The curvy women were just as bad. In the end I left the group after only being a member for a couple of minutes.

I did a search for groups that represented curvy women in a positive light and couldn't find any. All I could find were groups of skinny women calling other women fat and so called curvy women calling skinny women all kinds of terrible things. The interesting thing is, most of the women who had posted pictures on this group I wouldn't even consider over-weight and I got to wondering if anyone stopped to even look at these women. I am 5'6" and 177lbs. I've been this weight for almost 6 years. The medical world considers me overweight but not obese. I think most of the women who had posted pictures on this group had a lower percentage of body fat than I did. And people were on there calling them "hippos". One person said it was "easier to hit like than to go out and exercise".

Suddenly these women who are trying desperately to like themselves and be proud of who they are were being attacked not because they were being physically unhealthy but because they had the gall to try and be emotionally happy. One thing I don't think any of these women understand is that becoming emotionally happy is the first step to becoming physically happy. If these women are supported in their lives to becoming emotionally happy  they will become strong enough to be physically healthy.

I wish these women, both skinny and curvy find the strength they need to be happy and healthy and like themselves regardless of the world around them.

The World Doesn't Stand Still

It is almost midnight. Summer break so the kids are all still up. They are watching something on the internet that has them all cracking up. I watched a silly horror movie with Kevin Costner in it. I ate Taco Bell for dinner with a large Mountain Dew. Tomorrow Keira starts her acting classes and Donovan has a dentist appointment. Maybe Barnes and Noble with call me about an interview. It seems as if nothing is different. Everything is good, right?

The fact is my mom called at 2 this afternoon and told me I should drive to Deming because she wasn't going to make it through the night. She knew she was going to die. Arianna came with me, so brave for a ten year old to face what very well may be the death of a loved one. She knew the implications and came anyway. I went. Not because I thought my mother was going to die but because I knew if she did and I wasn't there I would never forgive myself. I told Mike is was like prophylactic guilt protection. I didn't go to what I called the Death Watch because I wanted or needed to say goodbye to her or because I didn't want her to be alone but because I knew I would feel guilty if I wasn't there.

All the grief that a daughter can feel bottled up into one crystalline moment that shatters when my mother said "I made a mistake, I didn't really need you. Go home."

And so here I sit, the world still turning and everything feeling all normal as if it will go on like this forever. But it won't because one day she really will die and what if that guilt isn't enough to sucker me into her drama next time... or the time after that... or the time after that.

Blogging is good for the soul

"I think she only crawls out of the woodwork to blog when her life sucks."

Yes folks, I haven't posted in forever because frankly, things were going pretty good there for a bit and I thought everything I could possibly post was boring and redundant. It was almost as if I was waiting for that moment when my life turned to shit and got exciting again.

We had that huge snow storm two weekends back and the pipes all froze and we had rolling blackouts which was fun. The kids and I played "Grandfather's Store" by candlelight. I realized that when I used to play with my parents we used what their great grandfather would have had in their store and I was still kind of stuck on that era. I kept coming up with things like "washboard" and the kids kept coming up with things like "atom bomb". Technically we were both right - it just depends on whose grandfather you are talking about. Except Keira who insisted on using words like "giraffe" and "penguin". I think she was using Diane Fosse's grandfather - or Jane Goodall. Or maybe that guy from The Snows of Kilimanjaro, a movie I might point out, that has neither snow nor Kilimanjaro in it.

Anyway, I should have seen it coming - It's like the curse of Valentines Day, right? Saturday an Sunday we house sat for Sabine in Radium Springs and the weather was gorgeous and the river was low. We spent most of the weekend on the sand bar, playing in the sand and the kids watched movies and we had snacks, etc. Sunday Mike was home all day. It was warm and we grilled. I got to see Rebecca's new baby Coraline and it was amazing to hold her and play with her. At the same time it was good to see that Rebecca was wearing motherhood like a new dress. Monday morning was V-Day and I got up feeling chipper with little to no expectations about the day or romance or any silly thing like that. Mike slept late and then we went to have lunch. We talked a little bit about the future and decided that we may as well stay in Las Cruces for a year to save up money for a real move. We've done the poor move twice and it sucks, especially with kids. I'd like to do a prepared move for once.

Michael mentioned he wanted to take me out to the movies for Valentines Day but by the time 5pm rolled around it was like thunderheads gathering on the horizon. I could smell the ozone in the air and knew it was not going to be a pleasant night. A night at the movies with my honey quickly deteriorated into dinner with the kids at "wherever you want". The dryer broke. Michael started getting anxious and throwing up again.

By six am this morning I'd had little to no sleep, almost chopped my hand off in the dryer, fought with Keira about 80 times, and realized I was still so far behind on homework I'd never see the light.

Optimism is just the guy that sets it up so the fall really hurts this time...

Shedding the Pounds

I've been trying to lose weight the last couple of weeks - I've been exercising by riding my bike to school, eating better, drinking only water. The first week I gained 6 pounds. I was livid but Michael said it was only water weight and when I finally lost it I had also lost two pound so regular weight. So, in the spirit of bettering my life I began spring cleaning and in the spirit of water weight I gain a whole bunch more stuff before I was able to get rid of other stuff. So now my house is trashed but I got rid of 3 bags of garbage and several boxes yard sale goods...

Selfish

I decided, since everyone is out of the house and its my birthday weekend, I'm not going to clean the house alone.

Power Dynamics of the Patriarichal Home

I feel like I'm stuck in some power struggle I don't quite understand. Mike fought all night to sleep on my side of the bed. I've slept on the same side of the bed for 14 years and suddenly last night he started sleeping on my side of the bed and refused to budge. I slept on the couch for part of the night, tried to sleep on his side to no avail and finally wrestled what little space I could on the edge of my side. As soon as I got up to wake the kids this morning he resolutely moved back into my spot. What is going on here?

I know I'm a little OCD that this even matters but seriously - you run your life a certain way for 14 years and then someone up and changes it without explanation, without remorse.

Keira's another one. She looks me straight in the face this morning and tells me, "I have no clean clothes." Her drawers are filled with stacks of clothes we bought her at the beginning of school and here's the kicker: Some of them still had tags on them. So when I put the nice new jeans on her she throws and absolute shit fit. Yelling, screaming, kicking. You'd think I'd suggested we lobotomize her the way she was carrying on.

Ari and Donovan have chosen their sides, the quit doing homework two weeks ago and have been lying about it ever since.

I'm tired. My psychologist says the only one I can control is me but it feels like when I stop trying to control them they either give up or gang up on me. The house is trashed because no one will clean it but me and I haven't had time. Homework isn't getting done by anyone but me. And I don't even get a side of the bed anymore. And this is where I'm supposed to come up with some startling revelation that will help me deal with myself and the world around me but you know what? I got nothing.

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1.02.28

I Curse Her For Leaving the World the Coward's Way

"I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted

To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.

How free it is, you have no idea how free——

The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,

And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.

It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them

Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet."

-Tulips Sylvia Plath

I know that need for peace that she speaks of. The image of pale white palms open on white sheets is almost religious, I have seen pictures of Jesus and Mary with their palms facing outward like consolation. But the hugeness of the peacefulness, and the permanency of it... That is what scared me away.

Now the need for the quiet, for peace, is not so alluring and I can gain peace and happiness from my day to day mad rush. I can take a minute before the family wakes to write this journal. I can sit on my meditation pillow and ask the goddess or gods for Grace. I can ask them to grant me peace and tranquility. Yesterday they gave me the gift of the flowers. Today I can only imagine what they will send my way. Tomorrow, perhaps I will get no peace at all.

But the important thing is that I know what Sylvia wanted and I know she finally got it. I commend her the strength she had in going through with it but at the same time I curse her for leaving the world the coward's way...

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1.02.28

Jung Would've Laughed...

I dreamed about bad poetry and old high school gyms all night. I also dreamed that my old boss got a promotion and was moved into the basement. The faculty down there was dirty. One of them was an FBI agent wearing a wire. They almost killed him until I hit one of the glass walls with a baseball bat. The climbing wall was made out of pvc, plastic and duct tape and little kids slept in the folded up bleachers. Maybe Freud would laugh too.

Dreams aside, I've started to get a complex that the world it out to get me. I know that sounds crazy but if you can't sound crazy in your diary where can you sound crazy. The only people who read this understand that I was already crazy years ago anyway. Anyway, when I need to do homework the internet quits, when I want to clean the house the kids go on strike. It is as if every time I want to get something accomplished some thing goes on the fritz, as if I'm still in a dream. A very frustrating nightmare. I know my shrink (and probably Freud, too) would say that my need to control the world around me is short circuiting the things I most wish to control. My kids represent my ability to control my family's future and ensure they grow up to be good, well rounded people with stable futures. The internet represents my need to have stability in my life where the bills always get paid, the power is always on and we always have a roof over our heads. Despite my best attempts I just can't seem to keep my bills paid on time. Maybe that has something to do with the strange current of incoming funds that seems to dry up suddenly, or maybe it has to do with the fact that I tend to spend money on stupid shit instead of important things.
I think Jung would see this as a stage in my process of individuation. I'm recognizing the issues lodged deep in my psyche and now I just have to figure out a way to fix 'em. And I do recognize, as I mentioned in my last post, that I'm controlling and co-dp. I guess I'm also a little high strung and over-dramatic at times. (The world is out to get me?)

By the way, its really hard to take the morning seriously when the sun hasn't even gotten up yet.

03B0E900-3553-B642-0C2B-6B0309EE90F0

1.02.28

Hangs her head in shame...

Ok, so I've been a horrible blogger and an even worse diary updater. Usually when I've gone this long before updating I give a really long recap post so you all know what has being going on. This time I'm not. Sorry but here is the recap: Shit happens. And it happened to me. A lot.

I'm working on two things in my life right now, my need to control not only every minuscule detail in my own life but also those around me, and my co-dependency (from her on out referred to as co-dp). I'm pretty sure these things go hand in hand but if I chose to take them as two small problems instead of a giant humongous single problem, its less overwhelming. I'm reading a bok called "Co-Dp No More". I'd love to say I'm no longer trying to control everyone around me but I haven't made that much progress. I have made enough progress to recognize that I am a controlling bitch that suffers from roughshod insanity when things are out of whack. So that is some kind of progress.

In school we are studying the Confessionalist poets Lowell, Berryman, and Plathe. I realized shortly after we started that they too suffered from roughshod insanity. A ton of poets and writers were. Completely, shithouse insane. I feel like I'm in good company. This is a good realization in my life because by recognizing the problem we can take steps to solve it, right?

In the meantime, I feel fall in the air and I love it. I want for it to be mosquito and allergy-less.
I want the smell of pumpkin on my hands, the smell of chimney woodsmoke and fresh baked bread. I want everything that is fall. Summertime has officially become a doo-doo head and needs to go to away. I think I want to use this as my commonplace book. I have been keeping my commonplace book in my backpack but it is giant and heavy and it makes so much more sense to post it here. A commonplace book is a journal filled with art and poems, stories and vinettes written by you but also by people that you admire. Its like a collection of moods and emotions. I've never done one online before and I think it might be tricksey but I'm going to work for it.

I found a long lost friend on facebook and she accepted my friend request but now she ignores me and doesn't answer my wall posts. Ok, I can see being pissed off at me and I totally understand holding a grudge but why accept my friend request? Why not just ignore it? Another friend that is still kind of angry at my treatment of her in highschool accepted my friend request with the caveat that we not talk about the past. That makes complete sense to me and I respect her for it immensely. We've both grown and become different people so it is important to leave the past behind us. Maybe I'm reading into it, maybe the more recent add is not still mad at me from high school but is just too busy to respond. I'll set it on a shelf and let it stew a little bit.

5 days until my birthday. Thirty four. This number doesn't hold any fear or angst for me. I just really don't give a shit. I remember when I was a kid, every morning on my birthday my mother would ask, "So, do you feel any different?" I remember I always tried very hard to reach down inside of me to find a 'differentness' but I never could find one. I guess the last couple of years I've just stopped looking for the element of change inside of me. I am changing all the time, making myself a better person; more spiritual, more giving, more patient. My age doesn't have anything to do with that. Wisdom comes with practice not with time. Again, I guess those go hand in hand.

I'm going to apply for a job. I know this ruins my "June Cleaver" credibility but to be honest the house doesn't stay any cleaner with me being home than it would if I were bringing money to help pay the bills. My house is a shambles. I'm sorry. It will be clean when I retire. I've have one of those spectacular perfectly clean and tidy homes when I retire. Right now I'm doing what is important: Helping Keira learn to writer her letters, helping Ari with her spelling lists, helping Donovan with his "Allow ballcaps to be worn in school" petition, and keep my own grades up.

Next? Maybe a poem.

Crossroads Woman

My surgery is scheduled for December 10th and while I am super thrilled about maybe getting rid of the pain I am still at a point where I am mourning that part of my life. Though I am being physically ushered from the mother stage into the crone stage earlier than my body planned, I also find my spiritual life following along behind.

I'm doing a big paper for my Honors Art and Mythology class where I take a really in depth look at the social and historical factors involved in the Demeter and Persephone myth. It has pulled down, headlong, like Persephone herself into the Underworld. I see the symbols left by the myth everywhere. In Underworld, we find that Selene has been brought over as a young girl to vampirism by the "King" of the vampires. This directly correlates to Persephone being forcibly removed to the underworld.

In John William Waterhouse's Narcissus we find a young girl picking flowers, oblivious to the dangers in the world around her. Indeed, Narcissus were the favored flowers of Persephone and Zeus told Hades where he would find her.

In the Matrix sequels, we find a character named Persephone who is married to a gangland boss type character who owns a club called Club Hel. Her husband figures into the story as being in charge of lost souls.

A sometimes used character in the Persephone myth is Hecate, Goddess of the Crossroads. She is sometimes styled as a psychopomp who journeys with souls into the underground, her torches lighting the way. She is the goddess who presides over crossroads where three roads converge and I find this especially telling in the trinity of the Three aspects of Woman. If Persephone is Maiden, Demeter is Mother, the Hecate is Crone. Persephone is, more precisely on the cusp between maiden and mother, she was a maiden but her innocence, her childhood is "dead" and she has tasted of the pomegranate, a fruit that mimics eggs in the womb. Demeter is on the cusp between Mother and Crone. She is mother but her child has grown and left home. Her action of bringing winter to the world is a symbolism of her now barren womb. Hecate too, is a woman on the cusp of a great journey, for she is the wise woman of cronehood but can also travel into the world of the dead. This leads me to believe that all the main female characters in the Persephone myth are one woman and that woman is all women. We are all at the crossroads. In honor of that realization I jotted down this poem:

Crossroads Woman

At dawn, her shadow sat like fat limbed Cupid upon the wall.
She bathed in the sweet nectar of Narcissus blossoms,
Her journey was just begun.

At noontide, her shadow stretched like the silken locked Kore
She bathed in the sharp, tart juice of the pomegranate,
Her journey half done.

At Evening, her shadowed rounded like Hecate upon the wall.
She bathed in the heavy scented musk and clove,
Her journey undone.

She was a woman at the crossroads, and had always been so.

Dia De Los Muertos

Charles T. Snyder
Alberta Synder
Marion Snyder
Thomas Fetters
Price Chisolm
Richard Fetters Sr.
Richard Fetters Jr.
Jean Block
Bertha Ronkko
Andy Ronkko
Donna Barber
Julie Morgan
Bonnie
Hector Telles