What I know at 30.

Dad issues are real. And they are far reaching, blindsiding and raw.  Abandonment affects attachment style more than I could have ever realized.

Sister-friends are something special; they are carriers of inside jokes, shared family insanity and middle-of-the-night texters.  They are on your side, endlessly, even when they disagree with you.

Being called the "cool girl" is not actually the defining compliment.  It is where fear and shame and a fractured sense of self lies, waiting to be defined by a male whose worldview will never allow him to treat you kindly, with respect or as an equal.

Needs are a right, not a privilege.  No one has the right to take them from you. And if they can't meet them, they need not occupy your inner circle. 

Sometimes, "No." is a complete sentence.

Home is defined so much more by who you have around you than what you have around you.

The small permanent creases around my mouth, eyes and forehead are daunting.  They are also lovely scars born from helping to heal the scars of those who do me the honor of sitting across from me everyday and trusting me to protect their experiences and feelings.

Loyalty is not something you are forced to define until you experience the cavernous break that creates a "before" and an "after".  Your definition of loyalty will be tested. And you will discover true loyalty from the most unexpected places and betrayal from the most unexpected places.

Music is necessary.  Necessary to burrow and fill your spirit and cement experiences into memories. Necessary to make you feel and hope and lose yourself.  

I exist in a continuous battle with spirituality and faith.

  "Good" fighters are scary.  They make you lose your stand and question yourself. Sometimes you need to recognize how a strong opinion being thrown at you is actually just a defense against that person's incompetency.

I have never understood this statement as much as I do now:
"I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”

fabulousness.

I don't have to be at work until 2pm today.  Which has meant a leisurely morning of coffee and the first cool winds of fall through my east facing windows.  Apparently, what also occurs in these daytime hours, is that the elderly gay couple in the house across from mine in the courtyard plays classical music with the windows open. And it's really, really peaceful.  I could get used to this.

Wholeness.

I actually attack the concept of happiness. 
I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit  of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. 
It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying 'write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep', and 'cheer up' and 'happiness is our birthright' and so on. 
We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. 
Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. 
Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. 
Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say 'Quick! Move on! Cheer up!' 
I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word 'happiness' and to replace it with the word 'wholeness'. 
Ask yourself 'is this contributing to my wholeness?' and if you’re having a bad day, it is.





-Hugh Mackay, psychologist and social researcher

ever since

in the sudden abandonment, i disappeared. though i guess that is somewhat impossible. how do you disappear when you are the one left. with suddenness. with a ceasing to exist. and so i guess i followed suit and made sure to fully disappear.
the only way one can these days. delete the facebook. block the gchat. erase the number. not that i forget it. how do you forget a number that was your emergency contact for four years?

i hate technology.

but one last form - one i kept, but that i was cut from. it is all private and closed off and there is no access.
but the bio remains. and i run across the bio - in a careless slip.  and it has changed. and it states,

"black belt in avoiding confrontation"

and i feel sick.
he is taunting.
that four years and then another without connection apparently did not stop me from making excuses for someone who is a pathetic excuse in and of himself for a human being.
he knows. he is aware. and he is smug.
humorizing his actions, or lack thereof.  being prideful in the worst kind of cruelty. of disappearing and abandoning and assuming more power than the original actions had already contained.

and i am re-injured. a shocking truth that is not so shocking. and yet renders me on the floor once more with the glaring truth that a beloved had knowledge and understanding and made a choice. made a choice to hurt. and not make a better choice. and not be better. and it is that choice that makes all the difference.

letting go

forgive the time spent with a man you now have not one nice thing to say about.

and forgive just how long it is taking to get over him. 

he was not good and not kind and he is not your fault.
keep some secrets closer.
forgive the nights you cannot sleep--sadness or some unnamed force pressing heavy on your chest.
forgive the mistakes of the last several years. so you made them. okay. enough. move on.
the mistakes and the fault-lines, they are the foundation.
forgive yourself that you did not choose an easier path.
fear was large and biting. 

forgive the anger you feel. feel it and then look again with kinder eyes.
forgive yourself for not handling it all better, for feeling like you let others down.
the path is not done, the road is not finished, why are you trying so hard to rush the whole thing?
celebrate the fact that your story has some major departures.

humanity made visible!
you will be loved all the more for this. you will love yourself all the more for this.
and please, for the love of all that is good and holy forgive yourself for loving a man who cannot love you back.
send that love into the world and let it fill you up.
the only way to know the story is to go out and and write it. live your way into it.
ferociously. begin to live and work and fight and love with an unparalleled ferocity.
let fear dictate nothing.
unfurl your chest, you have all the armor you'll ever need.








adapted from the wild and wily ways..