...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.

...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.

...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

...on failing at the intended, while succeeding at the necessary...

 Scrolling through social media in this last week or so, one theme has stood out. Whether it's family, friend, acquaintance or veritable stranger...everyone is beyond ready for 2022 to end.

2022, seemingly, was an equal-opportunity devastator.

A year that spewed disappointments...traumas...unhinged agitators and power grabs...
A year of breakdowns: emotionally, mentally, politically...in society.
A year overflowing with more than its fair share of devastating loss as good men and women fell.
A year where the good was outweighed at every turn by the horror of a reality in which the most unintelligent and most hateful were afforded not only space and time, but amplification.

It was a series of bad days, with little in between to offer consolation.

~~~

What feels like a lifetime ago, 2021 was chiming out its last and I had chosen "my word" for moving into the New Year.  Hopeful, naive, and buoyed by the excitement of a fresh step forward, I chose:

Thrive.

2022 was going to be the year in which I thrived.

Oh, the New Year and I had grand plans...grand plans indeed.  I was going to create the time and space to let my creativity thrive.  I was going to thrive as a mother and partner and person. 
I had plans, you see...a schedule and goals, and plans.
I had it all broken down into details and actionable tasks, this thriving.  I knew what was needed, and it felt within reach.
This, 2022, could be the one...the year I finally got back on track...the year I thrived.
Oh, baseless hope...and foolish wishes...

~~~

That.
Is not.
What happened.

~~~

You've only to scroll through some of my other recent posts to see all too clearly that I am not a woman thriving in the end days of 2022.  

My roots have withered or been clipped.  My habitat confines.  My few sparse blossoms are poorly tended and pale.

I am not thriving.
I am...surviving...
...on caffeine, and sugar, and the sustenance of a few good moments sprinkled in.

~~~

But what you don't see, in between words on the page or in my day to day, is that 2022 brought its own word for me...and it took this rearview contemplation as its hours run out, for me to finally see it.

That word was
Settle.

~~~

Settle

Transitive verb:
    1) to place so as to stay
    2) to establish in residence
    3) to cause to pack down
    4) to make quiet or orderly
    5) to fix or resolve conclusively
    6) to establish or secure permanently
    7) to conclude or close
Intransitive verb:
    1) to come to rest
    2) to sink gradually to the bottom
    3) to become compact
    4) to become fixed, resolved or established
    5) to adjust differences or accounts
    6) to come to a decision
    7) to conclude 

~~~

Prior to this past year, I would have shouted with the masses "Never Settle!".

I have, at times, made that my rallying cry. 

Never Settle: for the first option
Never Settle: for less
Never Settle: in one place for too long
Never Settle: into someone else's comfort zone

~~~

But this year, I learned that there is beauty in settling.  

Peace in acknowledging the "less than" and settling for what's here and now, for now.

Growth in dismissing your need to fix everything and settle with the way things are, for now.

Health in closing doors and concluding toxic relationships, and settling accounts and relationships, for always.

There is beauty in settling.

Settling for less, because more comes at costs you shouldn't pay.
Settling into routine, because the change you want will take time.
Settling down, by setting boundaries and shutting down access.

~~~

In 2022 I failed to thrive. Complete and total failure.

But...

in 2022...

I settled. 

Regularly, routinely...sometimes on purpose, sometimes by force...

I settled for what I could make do with.
I settled for what I could tolerate.
I settled into the who and what and where and when of now, knowing that change might come but not counting on it.
I settled things...and relationships.
I settled in.
I settled down.
I settled.

I settled when frustrated...when disappointed...when hurt.

I settled when challenged, by finding alternate routes instead.

I settled when knocked off course, by setting my sights on achievable goals.

I settled for less than I'd thought I wanted and found more as a result.

~~~~

And in settling, I found successes.  Maybe not thriving...ok, fine, totally not thriving, but succeeding in keeping my head/hopes/standards/expectations up...just enough to get through the minutes and hours and days of 2022.