...28 (in days gone by)...

  In Days Gone By:
 19.January.2021

While the kitchen tile project was ongoing, I'd the chance to reorganize all the file folder storage that "lives" beneath one of our sideboards and came across paperwork dating back to before I was married. Tax docs, our marriage license and copies of checks to all the wedding vendors, my ex's student loan repayment receipts, multiple certified copies of the restraining order (now expired) against him, etc... Enclosed in one were childhood photos of him that I had carefully placed in an envelope for Johannes at least 15 years ago. So while Henri napped (praise!), Johannes and I briefly sat down and looked through the photos, before he decided to dispose of them.

(As someone who takes a few photos (I kid, I kid) here and there, looking at these was...interesting...)

There's promise~possibility~potential, in those sweet little shots of baby and toddler...in those early teen/peak of athleticism track shots...even in the student and work i.d. cards. But to see them now, it's naught but illusion...a sort-of "alternate reality".

He's been spiraling for years...a vicious cycle of peaks and valleys that damages everyone involved.

From all accounts, he's been off his meds and is back to "self-medicating" with increasingly dangerous substance abuse.
From all accounts, his grasp on reality is in the wind right now.
From all accounts, his health is failing. It's terrible, and it's tragic, and it's...karmic? All that pain he's caused finding it's way back...

Tomorrow, his birthday...yet another year gone and nothing but wreckage to show for it. All the good advice and assistance and flat-out-doing-for-him-what-he-won't-do-for-himself by SO MANY people (myself included) just wasted effort.

And soon enough, a month away, Johannes turns 18. Despite his throwing away those photos and rejecting any "leftovers" (papers, photos, sentimental items), he'll carry this as part of his legacy his whole life. Nothing I have done, can do or want to do has ever erased the damage done by both action and inaction, threatening presence and dismissive absence.

If only it were as easy as tossing photos in the garbage, or shredding old files. If only it were as simple as shutting the door and ending the chapter.

But, you see...one chapter bleeds into the next. One door leads into another space. Everything gets carried on...

...and miles to go (before i sleep)...

"You look...tired."

Thanks. I know that. I am.

Were we chatting IRL, there'd have already been an uncomfortably long pause, as I struggled to locate that brain-to-mouth connection.  Silence would stretch into awkwardness, as you waited for me to keep up to my end of the conversation.  "I'm sorry. I'm so tired.", you'd hear.  Over and again.  A mindless repetition during even the shortest of exchanges.

(Just ask my *Sea-Star...she can attest!)

I. Am. Tired.
In all the ways.
And it shows.
I look, in my less-than-gentle appraisal of self, much like a worn out pillow...gone all soft and mushy and grey about the edges.  My shoulders slump in like empty casing, and my waist...ugh...what waist...
Where once I stood tall and firm (in disposition and musculature), now I slouch and slump.

I am tired.

There is added weight...both figurative and literal, round about me.

The postpartum pounds that are stuck like glue, by prolactin and cortisol.
The grasping toddler limbs that need constant reassurance and pick-ups.
The strain of caregiving that spreads out far wider than just this little household.
The burdens of others very real and very present and very overwhelming needs, and my own inability to not dive in to try to help.

The unwanted weight of shackles round my feet...roots I can't yet untangle...others' luggage strapped on my back...

I am tired.
And I am tired of being tired.

Because I remember the alternative. I remember the me of 4 or so years ago.
I remember her, and I want to be her again.

I want:
 her energy and her spark
her sparkle and her creativity
her resourcefulness and her grit

Four years ago, after biking through the bay area at Sandy Hook.

And oh yes...I want her body.

The one that could recover.  The one that could stretch and lift and power through.
The body that I could push beyond its limits...take 5...and then go again.
The body that wasn't so tired.

~~~

"You look...tired."

Thanks. I know that. I am.

I'm not getting enough sleep. I'm not getting the right fuel.
I don't have a village...or even a hamlet.
The team? It's me.  I'm the team.
(I'm also the problem.)
I'm so damn over-extended in serving everyone else.

~~~

I'm tired.

Of this.

This version of me that doesn't feel or look or act like me.

This version that is Just Worn Out.

So I've gotten back on the bike.

Not this one, sadly. This one was crushed when a tree fell on the storage shed.
Like most of the losses, it's yet to be replaced.

Literally.

The stationary cycle.

The one that, for a while, I was cranking away at each day.  On which, for a short while there, I was putting in my daily 20, sweating my way through lockdown/postpartum and distance-learning and Covid and social-distancing.  Pedaling toward victory...until I quit.

When things got...hard...harder...more complicated...more chaotic...

I've chosen September to start back up.

I've a plan in place...a challenge to only myself...

1 mile for each date.

1 for September 1st

2 for September 2nd

and so on...

through the 30th

And as for accountability?

This.

This page.

This post.

Where today it's the 8th of September and I've done

the 7 and 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 1

of this month's yesterdays.

Where I was about to finish up typing and hop back on finish out my 8...

but now it's storming outside, and I've boys to wrangle into the safest corner.

465 miles.

By the end of the month.

465 miles, just for me.

Cycled in silence...or in the chatter of a phone vent sesh with my *Sea-Star...or in the sweaty hands turning the page of a book read for pleasure.

465 miles and all the minutes and hours I'm taking for myself in which to cycle through them.

Because I'm tired of being this tired.

I want to be strong again.

*Sea-Star: the nickname for one of my

biological half-siblings as we navigate

our strange sisterhood of genes and

choice and overcoming.

...tenuously tethered...

There is both shame and serenity in realizing how insignificant you are.

Both exist, in equal measure.

Shame: of self, of purpose, of effort, of...hope founded in the unfulfilled need of the inner child.  Shame in the wounds both caused and suffered, and the map of scars left behind.

Serenity: of...permission to detach, of finding the bottom and finding yourself still standing, of...hope unfettered.  Serenity in the familiarity of the scars that knit you together.

The understanding of how very little you matter,

sometimes even to those who matter to you,

can blaze up suddenly...

and make cinders of all the formalities...the constructs...the obligations...

The understanding of how very little you matter can reveal itself in the smallest of moments...

an unmasked glimpse...

a careless turn of phrase...

a single photograph...

Like both a gut punch and a full breath...somehow, caught in the same moment.

Despair and deliverance.

Shame and serenity, in equal measure.

A 'putting in place'.

A relinquishment of responsibility to reparation or relationship.

That moment, suddenly there, where before there was angst and hesitation...

That moment...as though someone has unlocked the door on the gilded cage..

saying "you are free to go"

saying you are free of the cage

but

also

saying you aren't special enough to want to cage...to enclose...to keep...

saying...

you aren't important enough to take care of.

It is the very essence of bittersweet.

Realizing...

as you move through the shame and the serenity...

that you need no longer make yourself available...

that you can leave the door open, without also standing in it as guardian and greeter...

The understanding of how very little you matter,

sometimes even to those who matter to you,

is a lesson well learned but hard earned.

It's recognizing that 'the ties that bind' don't...

it's realizing that roots once severed grow divergent from one another...

it's resolving to be in the now...

It's moving through the shame and into what waits beyond it...

It's finding serenity in the present when we stop trying to fix the past...

It's cutting yourself loose and plotting the course without being swung by the weight of responsibility.

...reclamation declaration...

Well, here we are...at the actual eleventh hour...
Tomorrow is my birthday.
And today has been...challenging.

Birthdays as an adoptee are...weird.

No other word will do.

It's part "Hey, let's annually remind you of the day your very existence was someone else's biggest problem or dirty little secret."
With a sprinkling of "Happy reminder of how your own mother didn't want you."
Mixed with a rehashing of the very trauma of adoption and being reared by people who, in order to get the happy-ever-after,2.5 kids-and-a-white-picket-fence that they think they are owed by life, contractually purchased a human being and then proceeded to erase its very identity in order to imprint themselves onto as empty a vessel as possible.

Birthdays as an adoptee are weird.

They aren't the invocation of oft rekindled memory...of how a family grew...of miraculous first breath...first coo...first cry.
They aren't founded on a mutual memory at all.
They are...in fact...the anniversary of 'what came before'.
What came before the bond was forever broken.
What came before the spirit was forever wounded.
What came before the child was forever traumatized.

Birthdays...my birthdays...

They are the mocking calendar notation that reminds me of how inconvenient and undesirable I have always been.
They are the remembrance of abandonment and the ever-present fear of being rejected.

Birthdays wake up the voice I've always known...that lives down deep inside and never misses an opportunity to tell me I am nothing but someone else's discarded trash.

Birthdays are rife with expectations of others.

The expected cheer.

The reminiscing.

The ghastly simpering over the false narrative of an existence that was artificially constructed on the ashes of who one was at birth.

Birthdays are supposed to be...happy. 

But what of those of us for whom a birthday is triggering?

What of us?

What should be done about those of us who inwardly cringe at the greetings or gifts?

I know the answer.

I've lived it all these years.

We're to tamp it all down and plaster smiles on our faces for the comfort of others.

We're to ooh and ah appropriately.

We're to fill our empty shells with the personification of a rooted, whole, fully realized child-come-adult and pretend that the family stories are ours to claim.

I'm supposed to feign happiness.

Fake it till I make it.

I'm not supposed to think of her.

That...creature...

That...problem...

I'm not supposed to pull on the thread of my very being that leads back to my maker.

I'm not supposed to acknowledge that there was ever a 'before'.

I'm supposed to only begin when I became theirs.

But here's this date...on the calendar.

A date that came from 'before'.

A date that holds...depth...weight...a figurative black hole of substantial 'before'.

A date that holds my very dna...my very construct.

A date that belongs:

 to the person 'before'...not to me, but to her...and to it.

To it.

The shame of my existence.

The shame of my conception.

The shame of reality.

To it.

She who shall not be named.

She who the meeting of, nearly broke me.

She who the manipulation by, did break me.

To it.

The dumpster fire.

Birthdays as an adoptee are weird.

~~~

So I'm not having any more of them

~~~

Tomorrow, I'm turning one.  

Tomorrow, I'm celebrating my first birthday.

Because...

I created myself.

I gave life to who I am and to what I have built.

I'm turning one because this is my year to heal.

This is me healing.

Choosing to start from where I start.

Choosing to claim myself.

Choosing to celebrate the person I reared myself into becoming.

Choosing to reclaim this date.

Choosing to dig deep and plant my roots...the ones I had to slice deep in order to propagate.

Tomorrow, I'm celebrating...for the first time.

It's my first.

My first to wake with anticipation.

My first to genuinely delight in the notifications and messages and calls.

My first to make a real wish and believe it can come true as I blow out the candle.

It's my first.

And it's moments away...a tick tock of the clock as the midnight hour chimes...

My first birthday.

I'm happy.

...may-bee, may-bee not...

Writing, like seemingly everything else in my life these days, comes in fits and spurts...

That previous post?
Was
Not
What I sat down to write.

Not at all.

But out the words tripped...fingers clicking away...mind swirling through memory...

It's fine.

I'm fine.

Sometimes the quiet words just write themselves out.

~~~

What I intended to sit down to write was this:

May has been full of bees.

And because May has been full of bees, I am on overwhelm.

Okay, may-bee not just bee-cause of the bees...

~~~

Spring sprang a leak this year...making a muddle...or should that be puddle...of all my 'big plans'.

Life, leaking out all over the place...one spill running into the next.

I've been jokingly referring to myself as a 'crisis manager' of late...because, seemingly, every day brings another to my doorstep.

And the bees are witness to it all...buzzing about each window and watching me unravel.

I'd like a redo...right about now...write about now...a rewrite of May.

One in which I can make plans and keep them.

One in which progress is both linear and exponential...and altogether measurable.

Instead of a maelstrom.

Instead of a meltdown.

Instead of a let-down.

~~~

May has been full of bees.

At the windows.

In the doorway.

Worse, yet, the ones who find their way in through some yet un-caulked crack.

From sunrise to sundown...a constant presence...a constant threat.

The "landlord" solution has been...less than ideal, so the swarm remains, having simply moved to higher ground and sworn on revenge.

They've kept us indoors, more often than not, and stalled our usual outward expansion of spring.

~~~

May has been full.

Of bees.

Of crises.

Of emergencies.

May has been full of effort and failure and things that just don't work.

~~~

I'm learning the hard way, I suppose, that the trauma-based coping mechanisms I've relied on for too much of my life really-truly aren't meant for long term sustained use.

It hasn't gone unnoticed...that the year in which I finally resolved to heal, has brought so much of the damage right back to the surface.

It's as though the calendar saw my resolution and said "I'll raise you...let's do it all at once!".

So rather than parsing things out...bit by bit...sitting with one wound or another and letting my inner child cry it out...May has been a "throw it all in a blender" month.

The therapeutic approach, of course, is to tackle one thing at a time.

But that doesn't account for the moments or weeks or Mays when it literally all hits at the same time.

~~~

This quote found its way to me recently.

“Break often - not like porcelain, but like waves.”

― Scherezade Siobhan

I read it...once, then again.  Clicked through to copy/paste/save.

And then promptly forgot about it.

But today I happened upon it again, and this time I really...really read it.

There's no doubt that this healing requires breaking...requires not only feeling the old wounds, but picking away at the scabs and scar tissue they've been covered in.

So if breaking is required, may-bee...

Maybe I'll break like waves...relentless, unceasing, changing the terrain with every move.

Maybe I'll break like waves and heal as I flood out all the wounds at the same time.

...phone a friend...

 Clarity, these days, seems hard to come by.

Whether it's the sleep deprivation or the 'crisis management mode'...or just the gears rusting in this brain of mine...the ability to step back and observe the whole has been lacking lately.
Tracking the unpredictable but perpetual motion of too many balls in the air has caused me to get stuck in laser-focus mode, and I've found myself floundering when it comes to big-picture planning.
Despite lists and calendars and planners and organization...I've been (poorly) jumping from one action task to another, with no attention for the outcome.  It's plugging one hole in a sieve, while the rest pour out unstopped.

Until right now. This very moment.

(Okay, truthfully, not THIS very moment...but a few moments ago, before I thought to write it out here.)

There's an annual phone call I make, to an old...friend.  Weird, that. Not sure what the label is.  Former boyfriend.  Of eons ago.  Long-distance by phone alone...but somehow, connection...to a previous iteration of me, to a shared past, to parts of my experience that only he could understand.  
Ugh...I digress...

(As I do...)

Every year, the birthday calls.  Mine, outgoing, at the end of May. Returned a week or so later when it's my turn to celebrate.  Always a moment of startle in my mind when he picks up and the voice is both familiar and stranger.
Every year a rushed recap...a few laughs...perhaps some insight shared in one direction or the other.
A feeling of normalcy, because so much of what formed me...he was present for.

~~~

The call was a few days late this year.  Belated...my doing.  The birthday fell on a Saturday. I didn't want to interrupt.  And then it was a holiday weekend, and...  So I called today.  And had that moment of familiar but strange all over again.  Always marveling at who we carry along with us.  Forever navigating the momentary discomfiture of...is it muscle memory...or auditory memory that stirs up emotion long passed...

Our conversation the standard sort of catch-up.  His successes and health.  My children.

And in the middle of all that back and forth, there it was:

A reminder of what I already know...but daily forget.

An outside voice...outside perspective...

An acknowledgement by someone so very far out of my focus...that my feelings of alone...solitary...at a loss...are, in their own way, both valid and not.  An understanding of the different path....different timeline...my eldest is on.  And the gift of encouragement by way of his experiential knowledge and singular path to success.  

I'm over here marveling at the 'weirdness' of that.  Once upon a time, I was in love.  Once upon a time, I was deeply hurt.  And here, in the present, we're...friends...of the genuine sort...  And of all the people who could have set me back on my feet in 'this moment in time'...

Weird.  Just...weird.

Thank goodness for the weirdness.

I'd almost called him, months ago, when life took an unexpected turn and the past 'knocked on the door'.  I almost picked up the phone then.  Because he alone knew the players of this particular game...he alone knew how I'd been changed in meeting them.  

But I didn't.

It felt...unfair to unload that particular emotional baggage on a once-a-year phone-a-friend.

I wanted insight...or, guidance...a pointed 'yes...throw in' or 'no, back away slowly'.

What I wanted in those early moments was to pull from the past and have a friend beside me who knew how emotionally attached I was to the idea of birth family...to feeling a part of something... and who knew equally how it nearly broke me. 

There she is...the me of that part of the timeline.  Gosh, she was young and naive.

But that isn't fair, is it?

To dredge up the old.

To call on a shared moment in the past as reason for interrupting the present.

So, I didn't call.

But it came up today.  Unfiltered.  Stream of consciousness...much like I write here.

And in me...a perceptible shift...a sigh of relief to hear a familiar-to-the-original-experience voice remark on the present.  A flickering of 'not alone' in this, too.

~~~

I isolate.

Not news...certainly not new news.

I batten the hatches and shore up the barriers.

I lockdown and work at the problems in solitary confinement...coming up to breathe only once I've found resolution or solution.

No one would accuse me of having healthy coping mechanisms.

I've always had this sense of needing to handle things on my own.

Not be a burden.

A disruption.

An interruption.

Not to cause worry to anyone else over what I might be struggling with.

~~~

But...

This year...

I'm working on healing...

And today, that meant a phone call to an old friend...and opening up...at a comfortable distance of both miles and years...just enough to receive a sprinkling of clarity atop a tangled mess of crises.

...headed for a breakdown...

It's been...a minute...since my fingers hit the keyboard in *this space* and I'm not all that sure, as my fingers fly, of where the words will go or what they will decide to say.

I started this year with fresh perspective and lessons learned.

I started it with an end goal, and the strategies to get there.

I started it with a word.

And here I am, start of March, covered in scabs from freshly-picked wounds.

Mother-wounds
Inner-child wounds
Trauma-wounds

February was a whole thing.  A month. 
A slow-motion crash? A journey? A karmic joke?

 February was a bubbling up of things I meant to address...someday, somehow...not now... 

Ha!  'Cause that usually works out so well for me!

February was the stretching of scar tissue and tearing of stitches and the knowledge that my journey to healing was going to involve reliving the past and getting wounded all over again.

February was a month of connection and division.
 Of frantically trying to snuff out both little sparks and raging wildfires.
Of trying to clear all the refuse and somehow compartmentalize each action item despite the impossible tangle of intersections.

February saw my intention to heal and said, "Great idea...so, hey let's go ahead and break you all the way down to your original parts first with a series of completely overwhelming experiences."
And I had no choice but to turn myself over to the process.
This time...opening myself up to the realness of it all...feeling the feelings and poking at the damaged parts...allowing that pain to wash over me afresh...

Because...
Healing means:
   breaking bad habits
breaking down unstable barriers
breaking toxic patterns

Healing means Addressing It All ~ Analyzing It All ~ Accepting It All...

...and only then, Releasing It All and moving forward in wholeness.

~~~

So here is March, and I'm slightly woozy from the wounding and rebandaging.

But I'm on my way.
Little pieces I'd left in shambles are...reconstituting...resurfacing...reanimating.
Little bits of me I'd buried are coming back to the surface, and I'm learning...daily...how to share the beauty of them with my family and with myself.

I'm healing those wounds and those patterns and those foundations.

It's slow...and altogether unsteady...with sudden gaping drop-aways...but it's happening...

Healing.

...tied up in knots...

Healing.

My word of the year for 2023.

Healing.

The literal and the figurative.

The physical and the abstract.

The body and the mind...or the heart...or the soul...or the lost, lonely inner-child still looking for a soft place to land...

It's more than a word, as I'm coming to realize.  More, even, than a change of lifestyle.

It is painstakingly untangling all the mess of all the intersecting traumas, and the barricades and avoidant/reactive responses that I once thought of as a safety net.

Healing is finding that every time I cautiously pull one on small thread to see if I can loosen it and pull myself free, it snags on something else.

Damage spreads, like a hairline fracture that gradually becomes deeper and longer.   The hits leave behind bruises...flesh and spirit becoming weaker and more sensitive.

And housed within one body...one mind...trauma and pain grow in overlapping layers, each spreading out and attaching to others.

The breaking of you becomes the making of you.

Which means, I'm only just now reconciling...

The making of me, will likely require the breaking of me.

Because some of those knots can't be untangled.  Some of them weren't made by me.

Those knots?

I have to just cut.

Cut, and hope that the whole tangled mess doesn't collapse in on itself.

Those knots are at the center.

~the unwanted child~

~the shattered victim~

The hard part of healing is that it isn't just one thing...one piece...one string at a time.  They all pull on each other and fight for dominance.  And the harder you pull on just the one thing that you think you can tackle today, the more you risk snapping that string and breaking the fragile web of safety knots with which, you've surrounded yourself.

So healing isn't easy.

Okay.

I guess.

I mean, if it was, wouldn't I have already done it?

Healing isn't easy.

Or linear.

You can't cram it into the calendar...one date at a time.

Because every step forward is impeded by a pull-back in some other area you weren't ready to acknowledge yet.

Healing is exhausting.

It's insomnia and panic-attacks.

It's adrenaline-surges and trembling hands.

It's forgetting how to form words and feeling your feet step backwards even as you are willing them to cross the threshold.

It's journaling...daily...taking note of every sensory reaction...the length...the aftershocks...and the recovery time.

It's tripping over strings you might have untangled but haven't yet discarded.

It's celebrating one success, but not being able to move toward the next.

Healing is hurting.

Healing is breaking down.

Healing is trying to break things down into smaller pieces, only to have them multiply and solidify and burrow down even deeper.

My healing, right now, is a repeated circuit of picking at one tangle at a time, to see if there are any loose threads I can pull out.

My healing is an exercise in exorcism...as old, unhealed wounds rise to the surface once again.

I'm tired.

I feel defeated.

I want to give up or give in or just settle, again.

Which is why these words are on this page, today.

To hold me accountable.

To dare me to try again tomorrow.

And hopefully...

to remind me, someday, of how far I've come.

...cauterizing the wound...

 The irony is not lost on me that I went into January with a focus on healing...as first my youngest~then my eldest~and now myself (and my partner) all succumbed to the viral Winter '23 virus surge.  Presently, I'm curled up in the recliner, blankets wound about me in perplexing tangles, with a veritable pharmacy on hand beside me.  I'm medicated, and then some, and slightly hazy around the edges.

Yesterday was, among other things, the perfect counterpoint to my word for the year.  It was a bitter reminder of how far I'd allowed myself to fall.  And a lesson, by deed/not word, of what not to do, for my children.  In fact, later in the evening I very intentionally said to my eldest " Don't EVER let one bad thing that happens to you jostle you so off-course that you wind up here." 

Talk about shame...and self-loathing...and...
...terror.

And the self-feeding cycle of all those emotions as I struggled to come to terms with what I already knew...

My focus this year was going to be on healing.

On my terms.

At my pace

In safe, gentle ways.

Was.

But here and now...my hand was being forced without time to process.  I was...sick.

My youngest came down with cold symptoms and eye-discharge first.  Then my eldest spiked a fever, chills, congestion...and pinkeye.  A week later, I woke up with a burning throat and a steadily rising temperature.  Excruciating throat pain with every breath...post-nasal drip...pressure in the sinuses...etc..
But I "soldiered" on...tending to my children and my partner, easing their discomfort, convinced I could power through mine. 

Just pop the Aleve and keep the citrus coming.  I can fight this off myself.

Mind you...we all just got over RSV which paid a visit in November and over-stayed its welcome.  I'm nursing, still, and I'm quite convinced that my body is putting more effort into making milk then it is into healing itself. 

But I digress...

I was sick.  I needed real medicine...not just fever-reducers and clear liquids.

But the very idea of stepping through the doors of a medical office made me want to cry.

I'm not a crier.  I'm a blink it back...swallow it...never let them see you hurt...

Perhaps learning how to cry is part of healing?

So, something happened.  Once. One bad thing.  Horrific, really. 

You don't need to know, and I don't need to write it out.  Not here. Not now.

It was a bad thing.

One bad thing that I have, in my post-traumatic avoidance, allowed to fester and grow into an all-encompassing terror that stops me in my tracks.  It defies reason and logic, and the pursuit of health. 

One bad thing happened.  To me.

And I have spent all these years, trying to protect myself the only way I knew how...but in reality, just continuing to be a victim.

Because I just stopped.

I have tried.  Please know that.  I have made the appointments, and from time to time, I have managed to force myself to go.  But eventually the fear overrides my earnest attempts, and the years go by.

This is trauma. And it has always been stronger than my will.

So I have gone years without a check-up...without dental interventions...without primary and continuing care.  Because I am weaker than my fears.

Yesterday, I was so sick...so weak...that my fear-response weakened, too.

I made it in the door.  I made it to the counter.  I asked if there was someone on-call for sick visits.

And I was turned away.

Because, you see, my fear...my fear had kept me out of that office for more than three years...the outside window of time that my practitioner has for considering someone an established patient.

There I was.  Inner monologue firing off warning bells as I held myself rigid so as not shake.  Having fought a battle just to cross that doorstep.  And...no...   No, I couldn't be seen.  No, I couldn't get help.  No.

I said "thank you" and walked out.  I got to the car and collapsed inside and broke into a million little pieces of self-loathing and shame.  This.  This was what I had done to myself.  Here and now, unable to get the medical help I needed because I hadn't been braver...sooner.  Why was I so weak...so pitiful?  Oh, how I hated myself then.

(In hindsight, with a cocktail of pharmaceuticals in me as I type this...it's the man that I hate...the one who did the thing...the one who made a victim of me.  But yesterday, I could only see my own shame.)

Home again.  In defeat. In shame.  Sick.  Exhausted from illness and from the fight to get past the fear.  Feverish and dizzy and weak after weeks of caring for everyone else while ignoring myself.

Aiming for stoic on the outside, but hysterical beyond the point of return on the inside.

Thankfully, my youngest was still napping.  My eldest helped me into the house...settling me down and wrapping me up like a burrito...tending to me as I've tended to him.  I hid my face as I cautioned him to not let fear ever disrupt him.  I hid as hot tears spilled out of my burning eyes.

I hid my shame. My fear.  My weakness.

I was an embarrassment.  A broken, useless thing not fit to be his parent.

And he tended to me.  Cool water and warm blankets and soft hands on my forehead.  Lights out and silence and whispered reassurances.

(He's a miracle, this one.)

Some time later, my partner returned, having found an urgent care that would accept my insurance. (Most don't, and we don't have the financial security blanket to cover medical emergencies.)

Back into the car...inner dialogue of tough-love resumed...and off we went.

I made it in the door...over that threshold.  I filled out the tablet-intake screen.

Followed the texted prompts and typed in the necessary fields.

Sat in the chair, waiting, repeating over and over...stand up, walk in, don't cry.

Finally, my name was called.

I stood up.

Walked in.

Gasped in a breath of face mask and cold, sterile hallway as my temperature was taken, and found myself in triage...counting the black dots on the wall in front of me as some part of my brain answered the assistant's questions.

Temperature, again.

Step on the scale. Ouch...my brain registering a number higher than I used to be.

Sitting down...blood pressure cuff.  I froze in panic as it tightened...feeling invisible fingers clenching my arm.  Black dots. One...two...twenty-seven...  Done.

"Follow me."

Back in the hallways with bright lights buzzing and astringent smell.

Then the gaping silence of a small room.  My adrenaline firing at every crinkle of the paper beneath me.  My breathing suddenly so loud that I didn't hear the footsteps or knock or door opening.

"I'm Doctor ____.  What brings you in here today?"

Rote answers.  Rehearsed in my head in advance.  Hands clenched around each other to no one could see the claw marks my fingers were leaving.  Pain to override freezing panic.

Checking me over.  Checking my chart.

Lights.  Swabs.

Gagging and tearing up.

Apologizing, over and over, and asking for a moment.

The doctor...older...stepping back, confused but waiting for me to gather hold of myself.

A second try at swabbing my throat.  I stayed rigid this time and didn't break.

He said "good job" and I felt a flush of...embarrassment...pride...something...

The assistant vanished to run tests while the doctor checked my ears and nose and throat again...palpating glands sore to the touch.  Asking again about my children and their symptoms.

He stepped out and I yanked my mask down, gasping for unhindered air.

Then chastised myself for that weakness and hoisted it back up.

The door opened again.  Rapid results all negative.

Caution to quarantine until the next set.

Diagnoses as he checked my sinuses again.  Directions.  Pressing in on those swollen glands and cautioning me to take everything as directed.  A moment's pause as he stopped to look me directly in the eye.  Then a hand-pat of reassurance..."It's all in my notes.  You don't have to remember it all."

Still nursing, so only one kind of antibiotic allowed and only at a lower dose...so...

Antibiotics.  Eye drops. Rinses.  Fever reducers.  OTCs for the post-nasal drip and cough and sore throat.  Homeopathy for increased comfort and symptom reduction.

"I'll put it all in my notes."

Referrals to specialists in case I need them.

Another hand pat.  "I don't expect you to need them."

Then out the door to discharge.

Features arranged and held on pause....blank...waiting for paperwork.

Back to the car.

Safe.

Collapse.

I did it.

I did that.

I made it through.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm sick.  Medicated.  Fuzzy and feverish.

I liken it...yesterday...to cauterizing the wound.  A painful, but necessary sealing.  Burning to stop the ongoing bleeding...just long enough to store up energy for the next step.

(In my limited, layman's understanding of that process.)

A beginning to healing.

There will be more.

They may hurt more...or less.

But now I know what it feels like.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This year I chose heal as my word.

Apparently, it chose me back...and upped the stakes...forcing my hand, maybe before I thought I was ready...but in its own perfect time.

Yesterday I was full of shame.  Full of self-loathing.

Today, I'm full of meds and a little bit of pride.

Just enough of each to write it out of me.

Just enough to take note of the triumph.

...leftovers...

 Yes, yes, we all get it...
We carry the past along with us into the present.
But...
really...
2022?

Here I am, making plans and setting intentions, and the door I closed firmly behind me swings wide open...creaking, shrieking hinges and all...

"Settle"...it intones.
"Settle down and simmer. Settle in....you're not done yet."

That healing?  Welp...

My eldest has pinkeye...and a viral congestion "thing" and we've had to hit pause again. 

Small space living means any illness requires some form of self-sequestering...and halving our living space.  Which, with a rambunctious and ever-curious toddler, is...definitely settling for less.

Ugh!

Thankfully, today...day one...the weather is GLORIOUS!  So, Henri and I are taking full advantage of open windows and open spaces (outside) while Johannes huddles up in his blanket of misery, confined to his room and blissfully excused from any technology-limits.  He's settled in comfortably, with all the comforts of computer~3d printers~Keurig...perfectly prepped for the long haul.  Now he just has to settle down enough to get those eye drops in!

And I?

I'm settling down...down...down...and setting aside my to-do list for today.

Settling in for what's likely to spread like wildfire.  

I'm settling for acceptance that there will always be things that come along to trip us up but healing as an active process means moving through them without falling.

So here I am... 

2023 ...

with last year's lesson on settling learned...no matter how many tests you decide to send my way!

...a fresh coat of paint...

Blank slate, right?
The first Monday of the new week...new month...New Year.

Blank slate?

Hmm...not really.  After all, I'm still me...mess and all...

Perhaps a better visual is "fresh coat of white paint".
Everything that's gone before is still there, after all...just under the surface.  But in layering this New Year on top...with all of it possibility and promise..it's a chance to create something more...something different...something beyond what last year's picture of life became.
That fresh coat is a way of acknowledging that there's history.  It relies on what's gone before to build up the layers on which it lies. There's...topography...under the surface.  Hills and valleys, shadow and light...there's history, and it's forever altered the shape and weight and texture of the canvas.

The fresh coat glides smoothly over it all...rising and falling where I have done the same.  But it's very existence...all that empty white space...means the art is changing... 

 So here I am, first Monday of the New Year, with a white expanse before me on which to start something...not new...but beyond.  To create a piece of art of this life of mine that takes my history into account and finds beauty in every brushstroke.

~~~

Honoring who I am and what I've endured is important in this process of creation...of healing.  Rather than diving in and risking immediate overwhelm~burnout~panic, I'm taking it slowly.  I'm resolved to be gentler with myself this year.  To treat my breaks and bruises with the same tenderness I would anyone else's.  To, instead of working through them, allow them the time and space and attention to heal.

So today, between the hustle and bustle of daily life, I'm taking one very small, very cautious step forward by finding the time to organize all the papers and cards and phone numbers that I'll need in order to schedule health-appointments.  I'm hoping...pausing as I type, to cross fingers on both hands and whisper "please"...that this forced abandonment of my previous hit-the-ground-running will mean that I can take in the associated fears individually, in manageably smaller doses...rather than forcing the issue and risking breakdown.  The goal, for today, is to unemotionally approach the logistics side of my health...by organizing what I'll need on the future day when I have the right support by my side to make the calls and schedule the appointments.  

And in doing so, mindfully, I've already begun my journey of healing.  Recognizing that my previous pattern was harmful to me, and only giving myself one actionable task at a time, while recognizing that in order for me to heal in this area, I need to break it down into smaller chunks and make sure that I have someone there to "hold my hand" when the fear sets in.

~~~

This year ahead has 363 more days left. I don't need to do it all at once.

~~~

Healing means taking things as slowly as needed to stay within my boundaries...my comfort zone.
Healing means setting my foot on solid ground with each step forward.
Healing means acceptance of my limitations...addressing the core of my fears...and allowing my loved ones to support me.
Healing means praising my efforts, even when the pace is slow.

~~~

Today, healing means:

sitting down to write it out

stopping the lesson to laugh

playing instead of tidying up

a phone call with my former m.i.l./good friend

listening to the pain and readjusting my grip

organizing the necessary paperwork

~~~

Today, 2nd January, first Monday of the first week of the first month of the New Year...I've put color to canvas and begun to create what comes next.

...a single word to guide me...

 The year has almost chimed its farewell, and a new one beckons...full of things to come and dreams yet unrealized and moments that will become part of the story we live.
What a relief.

~~~

As I wrote previously, my intention to thrive in 2022 was thwarted at every turn, and I found the only recourse was to accept the year's demand that I settle instead.  It was a hard lesson.  A bitter defeat of my hope and my desire.  But there, you see...the word above?  Lesson?  Lesson, indeed.  And I, the unwilling student, finally learned it at the 11th hour.

My study of a year's time was that of :
settling with and settling for now and settling in and settling down and settling for always. 

It was a lesson written out in frustrations and disappointments, in discovery and acceptance.

It was...settling.

I settled.

I am settled.

And having done so, I'm ready for...

...rising back up

...breaking back out

...moving forward and moving on

What I'm ready for is what I've learned, by settling, is what I have to do before I can thrive.

I'm ready to heal.

We'll come back to that in a moment.

~~~

My partner's word for 2023 is "teamwork": his earnest hope that he'll learn to become a better team-mate.

For him, the word encompasses:

being open to other opinions or understandings

being supportive

being supported

finding his own strengths and taking the lead in those areas

taking a back seat when others are better equipped

working collaboratively

defining goals and working toward them independently and cooperatively

communicating effectively

My eldest son chose "expand" as his word to manifest in 2023: a challenge in every area.

He's setting out to:

expand his knowledge base

expand his creative output

expand his business

expand his social and support networks

expand his horizons

expand his use of his talents

expand his opportunities

etc...

~~~

I chose "heal".  I'm guiding this year to come, setting my intention and making manifest that which this past year has taught me I need.

Because if ever I want there to be a year in my future in which I truly thrive, first I have to heal the broken pieces and tend to the bits that need extra care.

If you've been here with me on these pages for any length of time, you know my longstanding motto has been "roll with the punches".  It was necessity, you see...the only way forward.  Just barrel on through despite the blows and keep moving to avoid the pain.

But I want to thrive.  I want to flourish.  I want that for my family.  I want that for myself.

I want to write this story with a happy ending.

So, I need to do the healing work.

It's broken down, in my mind, into a series of actionable tasks:

1) Heal the body:

a) I need major dental work.  I've needed major dental work.  All my adult teeth came in with fissures, and I've fought cavities and tooth decay and major dental pain my whole adult life.  But what few know is that a traumatic experience with a dentist years ago in Ohio has prevented me at almost every step, from seeking treatment. It has so debilitated me, that even the thought of scheduling a dental appointment sends me into full-blown panic and hysteria.  But I am writing the words here, to hold myself accountable...to make the appointments and allow myself the grace of having someone hold my hand the whole way through.  

b) I need to make a general appointment, and follow through on referrals, and determine what to do about my neck and shoulder pain and stiffness.  I've done it before...I can do it again.  I need to force myself to accept that PT might not be enough, and that it's not a matter of mind over matter. 

c) This body of mine needs to be allowed to recover, properly...restfully and with gentle care, from a challenging pregnancy and traumatic delivery.  I've asked more of it than I should have, and I've forced myself to push through pain and discomfort instead of listening to those warnings that I was further damaging myself.

2) Heal the heart: 

Kintsugi -that transformation from broken pottery into something precious~unique~and functional..by piecing what remains back together and binding the cracks with gold.  The beauty of highlighting the places in which you were damaged but continued on.

a) embrace, honor, and celebrate the scars that you've stitched yourself back together with

b) reparent that broken little girl who grew up feeling unwanted and unloved and unlovable, and tell her who she really is

c) embrace that devastated wife who tried her best to fix a broken man, and release her from the guilt and shame of having failed, and let her finally let it all go

d) turn the love you give to others back on yourself, and be as gentle and loyal and generous to yourself as you are to others

3) Heal the psyche:

a) silence the negative voice that bellows when you look in the mirror and choose, instead, to see yourself as your sons see you

b) accept that you can't do it all, and you shouldn't do it all, and not doing it all doesn't make you less than enough

c) reinforce your boundaries, stay resolute in your no-contact, and reach out for support when you feel yourself wavering

d) write it out

e) dance it out

f) sing it out

g) allow for tears...of sorrow, rage, humiliation, fear.  allow for the whole human experience, weak and tender, and stop steeling your spine.

h) remember who you are and what you've already overcome

~~~

Yes, this year...this New Year that's almost here...

This is my year to...

HEAL