“I feel very sane about how crazy I am.” – Carrie Fisher
You know, I write about my grief here for two reasons: it’s the truth of what I am experiencing at this time, and also I want this type of conversation to be normalized. I am out of my mind right now, mentally ill. If I had the flu or cancer or any physical form of illness, it would be socially acceptable to speak about it. Nobody would think anything of it. Let’s make that true as well for mental illnesses. Let’s take the stigma away. Mental illness comes and goes like the common cold, and it does not mean we are insane. Insanity is terminal and requires different treatment all together. Insanity is self-destructive.
There is a common denominator between all illness, of the body or the mind: the goal is health. No one wishes to be unwell. But when we are, we need help from others. Let’s normalize that help, and let’s fund it. The U.S. is, as far as I know, the only “civilized” country in the world that does not provide health care for all it’s citizens. That, to my mind, is obscene disregard for our humanity. But then, you can’t keep people enslaved in poverty if you provide human services. Watch out for those strong, healthy people – they won’t hustle for your minimum wage.
Are you familiar with the Bodhisattva vow? I don’t know much about Buddhism, but I know it is the vow taken by all participants who seek enlightenment, and the short version is this: nobody is finished here until everybody is finished. Didn’t your mother teach you that?!
My dear therapist has done nothing but listen to me cry for an hour a week four weeks on end now. Poor woman. She’s grossly underpaid. She’s good; to her credit she doesn’t try to talk me out of my sorrow, or fix it. She just listens. My son and a few close friends have been stoically doing the same practice. They are hanging in there with me, “keeping vigil,” as one friend says. I’m not sure I could show as much patience, although what choice do they have, really? I’m uncontrollable. I’m entirely dependent on them right now.
My counselor did say yesterday, “you are grieving all the losses of your life again.” I think she’s onto something there. And more: I am allowing myself to grieve all the losses I perceive, mine and my loved ones. And by loved ones, I mean you, and the trees, and the animals. I am grieving because, as I said to my counselor yesterday, “given the state of things, how could I not?”
Life as we previously knew it is over and we’ve fucking survived, for better or worse. I remember watching the war in Vietnam on my television every night and being shocked that humans could possibly treat other humans that way. Am I the only person who saw screaming naked children running from the bombs? For years to come I lived in the comfort of complacency, believing things couldn’t get any worse, and that surely – surely – we had learned something there. I mean, something more than how to be better at war. How to achieve the goal more efficiently and cheaply, and screw the loss of life. Apparently that’s a renewable commodity.
So here I am, sobbing unconsolably. Pay no mind. I’m grieving the loss of my mother all over again. Being in this horrific blackness, I just want my Mom. I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow that. George Floyd didn’t. You haven’t either, whether you know it or not yet.
If I were to list all the things my subconscious is dredging up these past days, all the harms and grievances I have apparently filed deep inside somewhere over the past 72 years, we’d be here for decades. I’d produce volumes. Suffice it to say that I have not learned how to process grief and anger. I seem to have a lifetime of it stored in every cell of my 187 pound body. I don’t think it will ever be consoled again.
The cruelty of the current political regime in the U.S., and the fact that so many Americans support this, has me right back in my high school mentality of shock. 50 years later. Absolute and utter shock. There is no other way to say it. The blatant disregard for humanity is not something I will ever learn to “process” because I am unequivocally uninterested in processing it. It is wrong.
The way women are treated, and people of any religion other than our own – wrong. There is no other here. The fact that children are being gunned down in school – jesusfuckingchrist. WHO thinks it is alright to live like this?! WHO?!
But let’s pause here a moment and remember something else: I have ALWAYS known right from wrong. I did not need to be taught this awareness. I knew from early childhood that the world does not need guns. Killing has no justification. Neither does the slavery of poverty. None. Period. Do you hear me?! I shall assume that you are also a highly sensitive person or you would not be here reading this blog. So we don’t get it. We’ll never get it. Because it is insane and we are not.
This immense grief that is threatening my way of life, perhaps my life itself, began a month ago with the death of my cat. It’s seems far greater than our brief relationship. But I will not diminish the importance of our devotion. I miss him terribly. I don’t care how silly it sounds that I am grieving the loss of my cat this deeply. He was a magnificent being who graced my life with his companionship.
What happens now? I haven’t a clue. I want the world to change and we both know that isn’t going to happen. I want to find hope among the ruins of my shredded heart. I can’t see it. I want the pressure in my chest to let up. I want to feel love and kindness again. It vaporized. Fuck this “earth school” approach to reconciling trauma. That does not work for me anymore. Don’t come to me, world, with ideas about healing. Not interested in anything about anything.
Do not – I repeat, DO NOT say to me that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I have been strong for far too long. I surrender. I only want to be softer. If the world eats me whole, so be it.
Maybe don’t talk to me right now. Pray instead. Stop talking and pray as if our lives depend on it.
With few exceptions family and friends feel as if I have withdrawn from the world, from their lives. It’s true. I don’t reach out much any more. I have (even recently) with a couple of friends, who would likely be shocked to realize that I have simply given up. I inquired as to their health and well being, asked if I could be helpful, maybe even suggested a visit. Invited myself over, or stopped just short of it, not wanting to be rude. While they responded with valid reasoning to postpone an interaction, they also never picked up the phone or texted again…and so, I have left it. I might hear from them again or I might not. I know they’re busy. Life is intense for everyone right now.
What continues to shock me is when I hear from them and they express defensive feelings of being left out of the reporting of my life events. I literally – literally! – maintain a BLOG with regular postings of the goings on in my inner and outer life! And yes, they ALL know about it. They could Google it if they don’t want to subscribe, on any random day or night, and catch up in minutes. I’m living out loud here.
From my perspective they prefer to have their nose out of joint because I didn’t contact them directly, again and again and again. They want me to make an effort to make them feel special. And they ARE! Let’s just say I’m burned out. I imagine everyone is, so there are no hard feelings on my part. I get it.
And right now I am sad. Okay, in fairness, I’ve been sad. For the better part of the past five years, to be honest. But since the pancreatitis a few months ago I have gone off of antidepressant medication. I’m not willing to do anything that will tax my liver and pancreas. I must strive for optimal health as I age.
As the long, grey days of winter begin to set in (it is snowing today) I am also grieving. So please be patient with me as I learn to be patient with myself. I don’t know how to do this.
Let’s choose ourselves over performance. Let’s finally, finally, honor our souls and take a step back and reassess our priorities, our values. We are exhausted. I forgive each and every person who has ever slighted me; I ask the same in return. But let’s make better choices moving forward and choose to be true to ourselves rather than act out of conditioning. I’m not a good girl. I’m not sweet. I’m also not fine anymore, not by a long shot. Sometimes I am not kind, although I’ve only begun to realize the profound importance of that as practice. Thanks for being here.
Bitch, please…I grew up in Detroit. For those of you who are not familiar, or accept the cultural collective’s jokes and voodoo euphemisms of Detroit, you’re missing out. Detroit is the heart and soul of America. It is fu@king awesome. Go. Stay in the New Center area and spend a couple days at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Drive around and take in some of the most spectacular historical architecture in the United States. You won’t see it all in that time, but enough to enjoy yourself enormously and appreciate it’s beauty and world-class culture.
Then take yourself “up north.” This is where I have lived the past 40 years. Let me tell you a bit about how I came here, and why I stay.
My father grew up on a farm outside of Traverse City, where my Irish ancestors had immigrated and settled during the potato famine. About to enter high school, his father moved the family to Detroit during the automobile boom. And so I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and often visited my great-grandparents and aunts and uncles on Long Lake, west of Traverse City, in the summer months. By the time I was in my early twenties I would spend as much time as possible here, staying with my great Aunt Edith, my grandfather’s sister, in the old farmhouse out on Cedar Run Road. My young son had baths in the big iron sink after I pumped water from the well and heated it – on the stove I’d built a fire in. I would put on one of my great grandmother’s old house dresses, crank up the Victrola, and dance around the living room…romantically imagining I lived in a simpler time…way back when. Until Aunt Edith became impatient with my immature fantasies and reminded me that we had no trash pick up or mail delivery – and I needed to get my arse in gear. Those errands were not going to do themselves.
I have about a million and thirty stories I could tell that depend on the geography of both places, and all around the Great Lakes. There is nowhere else like Michigan on earth. And while it is great, not all of my childhood was great. I came from a big dysfunctional family that often settled differences with fist fights and spent years stubbornly not speaking to one another, depending on the current offensive issue. This blog is full of many – by no means all, of those stories, from day one, back in 2012. That was when I began to write as though my life depended on it, not knowing how true that was.
The move from Detroit to Traverse City was purposefully to get my child away from my family, and their drug and alcohol-induced violence. To be safe. To start over. It was the naive plan of a young woman suffering from PTSD, not yet aware of her ADHD, her mental and emotional limitations. It didn’t work. Not only did I not escape my own demons, but my family members were inspired by my new life and followed me. Over the course of the next few years they all moved north, too.
We live here now. Now I actually live about 50 miles west of Traverse, near the shore of Lake Michigan. My son grew up here. We have both traveled some; enough to know this is home. But home has come to mean an internal space for me as I age. It’s funny, the name of this blog…a painterly home. I thought it would be about interior design. Little did I know it would be about interior design – as in, my spiritual interior. There are so many more stories to unpack and share. I’m grateful beyond words for this journal and your readership. It continues to save my life on a weekly basis.
Today I am grieving as my sweet familiar, Chewy, is dying. I’m not ready to lose him. Many of you know that I had two elderly dogs I cherished when Chewbacca the cat came to live with us. I was asked if I could please help out a friend and foster him for a couple of months about 8 years ago. What a blessing he has been. He fit right in with the dogs, becoming immediately inseparable from my little beagle, Odie. I’ve written other posts about them, of course (see Sept. 9, 2025, Chew de Monk). I never would have chosen these silly names for these magnificent beings. But they were already displaced and going through enough adjustment to impose any others unnecessarily. For starters, Chewy became known as a catdog. He did not know that he wasn’t a dog. Since we lost Odie in 2020, Chewy has seldom left my side. Like the dogs, he feels it is his duty to be constantly underfoot. He follows me from room to room. He insists on touching while we sleep, just as he did with Odie; he extends one of his back legs and pushes it against my thigh. I will aver that he understands English perfectly. All of it. Only an hour or so ago I mentioned out loud that I would give him a bit more liquid and medicine in the syringe again, hoping he can rally. He begrudgingly pulled himself up and walked the few steps to his water fountain and took the first drink he has had in two or three days.
Yesterday doesn’t count. We spent the day at the emergency clinic while he got IV liquids, a warm enema, pain and diabetes meds, in an attempt to save him. We came home last night exhausted. He has barely moved and still isn’t eating. I haven’t given up. I keep telling him that I won’t ever give up on him, and that if he can pull through this I will do everything in my power to improve the quality of his life. I’ve promised new toys. I also told him that if he is too tired he is free to go. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life, and I will remember daily all the joy he brought. Rejoice at the thought of he and Odie together again. Still in a magnificently beautiful place, with all the loves that I don’t know how to live without.
Oh my goodness, it is the perfect fall morning. The sun is just beginning to dissipate the fog and whiffs of smoke-like dew slide across the valley to my east. Everything glistens. I love this time of year. I’ve taken a little break from writing because I’ve had a friend visiting from out of town. She usually spends much of the summer here, just a mile down the road from me, in her little cottage on the lake. But this year she has not been able to come all summer. Because life has been hard. We are at a certain age. We lose our parents and their siblings, the aunts and uncles of our childhood. We lose siblings. We lose friends. We have health challenges.
I myself am going through another health challenge – physical and mental. As part of a routine check-up my doctor noticed I was a little out of breath. Well, I flunked the pulmonary function test she ordered. Now I will go through pulmonary rehab, which is a good thing. I will gladly work for any improvement in lung capacity I can get.
Louise Hay, who wrote You Can Heal Your Body decades ago and provided a list of all the emotional causes behind common physical symptoms, tells me that lung issues are grief. Yeah yeah yeah…I’ve had asthma and lung problems much of my life, almost as long as I’ve lived with my invisible friend Grief.
And for a combination of reasons, I am conscious of the grief I am feeling now, again. It isn’t new; we’re familiar. We know how to be sad. In fact, I welcome sadness these days. It seems an appropriate response to much of what is going on around and within me. And it means that I am feeling (and not repressing) the truth I am acutely aware of. I don’t want to live with any denial if I can help it; that leads to depression. And depression is harder to manage in winter. The light of summer is fading fast. Hello darkness, my old friend…
…I’ve come to talk with you again. I told my friend that I look forward to winter, and I do, increasingly as I age. I love the quiet. The complete and enveloping quiet you can only know in the middle of a dark, snowy afternoon. With my friend I have talked and cried and laughed and cried some more this week. We have covered a lot of ground. She will leave in a few days. Hopefully life will be a bit kinder to her and we can meet again next summer. It triggers a lot of fear – will life be kinder again? Is that realistic as we get older?
The summer residents and tourists crowd my area – the trails, the beaches, the roads, from May through October. They come from all around the world. We will wait in line at every restaurant and at the post office, the library and the gas station. Life is less convenient six months of the year, but I won’t complain. They’re the reason we have our choice of good restaurants in a rural village. Strangers often share a table in a restaurant during the crowded months, and that is how I met my friend. She and her daughter, visiting from their home in Kansas, were waiting in line in a tiny restaurant.
I was out for breakfast that morning with a family member, and invited the two women to sit with us. We briefly introduced ourselves and slightly scooted away, not wanting to be intrusive. But these friendly people started a conversation. They had flown in the night before and come to the little obscure restaurant for coffee and warmth, as they hadn’t time to grocery shop yet and were quite cold. I asked them if they needed anything (blankets? hats and gloves?) and my new acquaintance, obviously around my age, answered, “just emotional support.” Instant new best friend! Upon leaving I handed her a piece of scrap paper with my phone number, address, and an invitation to lunch at my home the next day, quipping, “and here’s hoping none of us are ax murderers!” Her daughter shot back, “we’re about to find out.” Invitation accepted.
This morning she and I went back to that little restaurant. Meandering across the narrows we saw a pair of great blue herons wading. Two sandhill cranes flew overhead and called out to let us know…to let us know…we are here…we are alive. We see you. I sent them silent prayers for a safe journey . After breakfast we went to a gorgeous show of local art and photographs at Oliver Art Center. I needed that little shot of inspiration to remind me to make some art. Lack of creativity is surely part of why I’m sad….maybe a big part. Could my lack of inspire-ation have something to do with pulmonary stress? Breathe out…breathe in…
“Some people don’t get to live soft lives. We get handed chaos, grief, betrayal, and we have to learn how to bloom anyway. We become the ones who know how to carry others when their world falls apart because we remember what it was like when no one showed up for us. We’re not here because it was easy. We’re here because we didn’t give up.” – unknown
Sound asleep, my sister would rock back and forth on her hands and knees and bang her forehead against the wall. It would wake me, and I would get up and go into her room and softly coax her back to laying down, tuck her in again, and go back to bed. My brother would regularly sleep walk while talking out loud. He would pace through the entire second floor where all of us five kids slept. It would wake me, and I would get up and gently walk him back to his bed and tuck him in. I was scared he would fall down the long staircase some night without my hearing him, but fortunately that never happened.
My parents bedroom was on the first floor at the opposite end of the house. They were either at a party, the bar, or passed out drunk. They never heard a thing. None of my four siblings ever remembered any of these instances that so terrified me. Did they think I made it up?
My brother died two years ago of an apparent heart attack in his sleep, at the age of 62. He had overcome alcoholism, drug addiction, and quit smoking – all cold turkey with no support. He was a remarkable person, but he was never able to quit a gambling addiction. And so he lived in abject poverty, working right up to his death and living in a rented room in the home of a coworker.
My sister knows for certain that his heart attack was caused by the Covid vaccine. She blames those good-for-nothing evil Democrats. Thank god we have RFK now to save us all, and a president who knows what is truly going on here – the spiritual war we are fighting for the redemption of mankind’s soul. In case you don’t know me, yes – I am being irreverently facetious. Also believe me when I say I really don’t get it.
I have three siblings still living. We barely keep in touch; we’re about down to reporting the obituaries of our mutual friends and relatives. We exchange emojis on holidays…you know, Happy 4th of July and all. As if we didn’t share the first 20 years of our daily lives. Suffice it to say we have nothing in common. Oh, we all five grew up in the same house. We all five had the same two parents. We went to the same schools, had many of the same teachers. We shared every holiday, the same music, all the vacations, the same four grandparents, we ate the same food. But we had very different childhoods. How does this happen?
Seriously, can someone please explain this to me?! Gabor Mate can theorize about it and I understand what he is saying, but my own experience just doesn’t jive. Hard as I try, I cannot reconcile our continued disparate realities.
I miss my family. I still miss us. I have no one to share the stories and the memories with. Meanwhile, my cells don’t seem to run dry of the endless tears. I’m old enough now to know they will come forever. And just wise enough to welcome them. Some days my grief will not be consoled, and still I am nothing but grateful for it all.
From their point of view, this separation in our worlds is entirely down to me. I’m the different one; the one who questions everything. The one who needs answers when obviously, there is no problem except my mental illness. This is on me; they do not suffer these imaginary indulgences. They figured it out long ago. They found Jesus. They are healed. How I envy them their conviction.
On the rare occasion when we do talk, I am guarded. If I slip and say the wrong thing I will be corrected, maybe even ghosted for a time. I am too much for them. Given time to reflect on the error of my ways, I realize I am wrong. To them. They love me, but they do not like me. They have no desire to connect, to understand me, to know me. And I have finally given up the need to be understood and accepted by them; I’m sure they’d say the same. That only took way too long.
Of us five children I am the eldest by 3 years. The four of them were born in close succession, four within six years. I was the first child, the first grandchild on both sides, and for over 3 years I enjoyed being the center of their attention and the apple of their eye. My siblings, like my father before them, will tell you that is why I am a narcissist.
Not in any effort to defend myself here (it’s my platform, after all…) I would aver that I prefer an evidence based model of reality. Or as I say to them, I choose my crazy. I value science and therefore neuroscience and psychology; I see no discrepancy between science and religion. My God is a quantum physicist and still, miraculously, maintains a sense of humor. My siblings refer to this rebellious misguidance as my “Jesus is just alright with me” spirituality, referring to the days when we all enjoyed a good spliff and some Doobie Brothers on Dad’s dime.
Here’s the thing, I guess…the evidence says to me that they live in vapid denial. There is no worse thief on the earth plane than denial. It has stolen our lives. It has taken everything from us. Everything except my hard-earned sanity.
Of the 7 of us in my family of origin, I am the only one who has not suffered the ravages of chemical addiction. Since my early 20’s I have not drank or smoked or used drugs. I tried them. You were a square and no fun and a snob in my family if you wouldn’t partake. I’d resist, hence my nickname, Little Goody Two Shoes. I remember a Sunday night during high school when my father ordered me to do a line and fill in at the Euchre table as they were down a player. I protested, explaining that I had a History final the next day, and he gave me his I’ll-knock-you-into-next-week look. “You can make it up!” Yes, sir.
Pardon me if I call that evidence. There are more stories like that than I will ever have time to tell. None of them were living their best life, but not for me to say. They all six struggled with homelessness, depression, addiction, all of their lives. A couple of them were grifters, committing fraud, and somehow narrowly dodging the law. I was called to provide bail and an alibi more than once. I learned to hide my valuable possessions. I wish I’d learned sooner to hide my heart.
The other side of this insane equation is that I also got so so so much from them. Each and every one of them were extraordinary people. They all were born with high IQ’s, enormous creative talent. Funny! Wow, I wish I had the quick wit of my mom, my brother, and my son. How does anyone think that fast?! They’d have gotten on well with Robin Williams! Had they been any less intelligent and charming they might have ended up in prison, but in fact they all had so much going for them. Yet they lived in poverty and pain. Denial does that, theirs or yours. Makes you a refugee in your own life.
My physician asked me to take the A.C.E. test a few years ago. You can take it here and compile your own evidence. I scored an 8.
Okay, I admit, I am easily entertained. Although I’ve become increasingly pickier with age. Want my money, my time, my attention? That bar is high these days; it will remain so. My standards have been raised. Some people have the gall to tell me that my standards are too high. Others might say they had nowhere to go but up. However, I don’t much care what some might say anymore…
My criteria for acceptable entertainment (as well as information) has been refined, taste aside. I expect high quality in everything I take in, whether that be news, movies, television, music…or our relationship. And by quality, I mean on every level. My senses are going to be bombarded with the culture of sensationalism every day, so bring it. If I am going to watch, I want high quality cinematography. Listening? Crisp high quality sound while I’m weeding out the crap. No more perfumey candles to smell or scratchy fabrics against my skin. I’ve had to improve the quality of the food I eat if I want to be healthy – and isn’t that work these days?! Read the labels, research – and then pay more to have them leave the chemicals and the seed oils out. Even my cat deserves nothing less than the best quality food I can possibly afford.
Now in my 70’s, I’ve survived more than most people can imagine. A lifetime of narcissistic abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse. I have walked through hell. I’ve watched – and felt – almost every person I’ve ever loved suffer through cancer and addiction. Now I watch my beloved child struggle from decades of absent adults, never present enough to protect him from the same ravages. My gorgeous, brilliant nieces and nephews – and their children now; living out the 4th generation of trauma. To say I have paid my dues is an understatement. The only thing I’m sorry for are all the years I wasted making compromises. Repeat after me: “All my debts are paid, seen and unseen.” And be absolutely certain of it.
Now – just now!, am I really getting to the good stuff of life. Droppin’ off the shame. I’m not made for that. Neither are you. So, no more apologies. No more begging to belong. We are everything we are meant to be.
“Be kind to me, or treat me mean. I’ll make the most of it; I’m an extraordinary machine.” – Fiona Apple
“People without a sense of humor will never forgive you for being funny.” – Joyce, The Thursday Murder Club
In my fantasy life I host a writer’s group once a month. Or maybe we pretend to be a book group or a writer’s group but we really solve murders. We gather around my gorgeous little antique dining table in the upholstered rattan chairs and talk and ponder all afternoon. We have tea, coffee, perhaps a sip of prosecco. We open little party gifts we’ve made or collected for each other, and we eat cucumber sandwiches and scones with lots of cream…someone falls asleep out on the veranda in the chaise lounge. It’s just a little nap. Some drooling might occur, but no one will hold it against you.
They love coming to my home, because, well, let’s face it – I know how to entertain. And put together a list of suspects. No one leaves hungry, and everyone leaves excited and hopeful and full of new ideas. It will be hard to sleep tonight.
In my actual life, a dear friend is moving into a new apartment in a retirement community, as did another friend not long ago. I’m experiencing pangs of jealousy. First of all, I love being old. Helen Mirren said “the best part of being over 70 is being over 70.” So hanging out with peers is ever so appealing. Young people just don’t get it. I want no-holds-barred brutally honest communication – and I also want to be home in my pajamas by 8.
All of my adult life I’ve wanted for nothing more than a big, raucous house full of family and friends. Kids and grandkids, constant coming and going. Music playing and spontaneous dancing and laughter and laughter and laughter. And a private office off my bedroom with a door that locks when “I vant to be left alone.“
That was my childhood home, and I spent the last 50 years of my life trying to recreate it. But it wasn’t real. It was a sham. My childhood home was also hiding terrible neglect and abuse and dysfunction. The big loud happy home was just for show. My parents wanted the happy home, too; they also didn’t know how to make it happen. They didn’t know how to face the addiction demons. Neither was I going to be able to create the life I wanted; I had not a clue how to go about it. And so shame tends to creep into my dreams and cloud my sleep. When I wake I feel entirely like a failure. Where did I go wrong?
That’s where the deep sense of failure stems from: I’m smart…but not smart enough to have figured this out when I was younger. To have stopped trying to please everyone else and keep everyone else safe; to have known that survival mode will never get you where you want to go. I was slow to understand that love is not transactional, nor negotiable. I wasn’t just quite smart enough to know that we really cannot earn our way to health and happiness…to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I AM already everything I could possibly dream. My loyalty and devotion were misplaced outside myself.
And now I have lived long enough to know the privilege of looking myself in the mirror and asking, “IS that what you really wanted? Or perhaps, is there something far more valuable to be gleaned here?” And now I can let myself fall apart at the seems. I grieve the life I spent trying to fulfill a fantasy that, in fact, I would not choose now. Now that I belong to myself.
“Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it, at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.” – Barbara Kingsolver
“STOP letting your mental health be damaged by systems that were never designed to protect it!” – Sheila Hammond
If someone asks you if you’ve heard the latest news, and you think, “Dear God, please let it be aliens,” you are not broken. Sheila Hammond has made the YouTube channel I wish I’d thought of. She is funny, and she is tellin’ it like it is! She’s done offering her sanity to systems that profit off her exhaustion. Amen, sister. Amen.
You can care about the world and you can set boundaries. You can opt out of chaos without opting out of your values. You can disengage without being in denial. You can scream into the void…and log off for a nap. Personally, I am done with risking participation in anything likely to jerk me around emotionally. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
In recent posts I have written about losing friends and family members because I won’t attend the protest march (what you resist persists) or join the group or contribute to the cause or watch the news. Don’t get me wrong, I respect them immeasurably. Their heart is in the right place. If I feel compelled to do so, I do know how. As far as I know I still have an FBI record from being arrested in the protests in Detroit during the 60’s and 70’s. Meanwhile that isn’t how I’m most effective. That does not mean I am sitting here doing nothing – but it is amazing the changes you can implement silently from your sofa once you get focused.
It’s scary at first to realize your personal power. However, you have to pull your spirit back into your body and listen. In order to overcome the addiction of culture you have learn to stop the performance art you called life for the past decades, otherwise you won’t know your authentic voice when it speaks. And it does. I hope you’ll join the me in the religion of NOPE. Because as Sheila says, sanity is trying to stage a comeback.
“I command my spirit into my body in full at this time.” – Carolyn Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit
Success! My rain spell worked. Which is to say, I left my laundry hanging out on the line all night. Never underestimate me.
A beautiful friend came to visit yesterday afternoon. I was a bit verklempt. I almost cancelled, but I really wanted to see her. It’s been too long. The overwhelm was only because it came at the end of an insanely busy week. By insanely busy I mean 2 things: 1) I had at least one activity scheduled every day, and 2) I never got a nap all week. I usually nap every afternoon.
As it happened this past week I had 2 medical appointments scheduled which had been weeks on the calendar, and I had to cancel them for more pressing medical issues which required immediate attention. I also had to cancel lunch with my friend on Tuesday as I couldn’t drive to meet her. She was concerned about me and drove the hour out to my house on Saturday.
My house is very purposely located on a spit of land that elbows out into Lake Michigan, affectionately referred to by locals as The Land of Oz. I say purposely because I moved here precisely because it is a destination of some determination, ie; not on the way to anywhere. Nobody just drops in. I detest dropper-inners.
When I moved out here on this precipice of life and beauty I had to drive to the post office for my mail. They didn’t deliver mail here just outside the village limits. Yes, that was 2018. I had to join with 3 neighbors and petition the post office for mail delivery, clear and level a path next to the road and install mail boxes. We get mail delivery now, but not necessarily daily. They will deliver your mail when they darn well get around to it. It’s a privilege, and don’t you forget it. I do appreciate it. I know they are short staffed, and I appreciate having a local post office. Many villages around here do not.
Friday I received a new deck of tarot cards in the mail, so I opened them after lunch with my friend. We sat on my very long, deep sofa (a.k.a. Mom’s Cosmic Healing Sofa) and shuffled, talking, laughing and kvetching…and we each drew a card, which took our mundane conversation in a deeper direction.
One of my many withdrawals in recent years has been from the practice of reading and channeling professionally. Because, well, people. Most people don’t really want to be challenged to grow, to face their shadow, to look at the habits no longer serving them. They don’t want to sit in the present moment until the tears come. It isn’t comfortable. It is, however, priceless. The tarot is so beautifully designed for exactly this work, and I cannot use it otherwise. I mean, sure, you can use it to access any information you want to know. I can astral travel anywhere and spy on anyone. I won’t. I can psychically answer all your questions. I won’t. Those are parlor tricks. As Geraldine Jones would say, “that is not my job!”
During her visit, we talked about my friend’s daughter-in-law, who has also been living with chronic Lyme disease. She is much younger than I and has suffered far worse for much longer. We spoke about healing, but my compassionate friend asked about how I deal with pain and not being able to function some days. I told her it has been my greatest teacher. When I am ill (sometimes on the bathroom floor at 3 a.m.) I pray. It’s the only help. I pray with each breath. All I say is: “Thank you.”
Thank you for this body. Thank you for this pain in my liver. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my home, for this bed, for this sweet feline companion, for my beautiful son. Thank you for my big, violent, fu#ked up family – and for the fight in them. Thank you for friends, long-standing and patient, brand new and welcoming. Thank you…for the purpose this illness serves though I do not understand it. Thank you.
Thank you…”so that I can have this one way, along with every other way, to know that I am here.”