A year ago

A year ago I got a voicemail from my brother. I was at work on the phone. He texted. It felt serious and I could feel his shaken energy. I called him right back.

I have been sorting through the details of that day. I cried for him. She had become a stranger to me, or maybe I to her. 

I never thought I would think about that day so much. Or that I would remember her much at all. I watched my brother be tormented by her loss. I felt as though I was betraying him because I didn’t know how to grieve a ghost.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

We didn’t talk and I didn’t help my brother care for her when she fell and then got sick. Not even when he asked me to. He had to move her. He always visited her and got her groceries, took her to eat at Wendy’s, he was there for her. I think he has a tender generous heart and is one of the greatest men in my life. 

I couldn’t grieve a mother who abandoned her child. I did offer forgiveness and told her I love her before saying goodbye. 

Between the time she passed and the time the nurses came back in after we had our moment alone with her. It was a blur. And we were sitting in a hospital cafeteria discussing what needed to happen next. 

I was so detached from her, and fully aware of my brother’s shock and disbelief and overwhelming sadness that crept across his face. I read the paper the nurse handed him. Her body had to be moved within 24 hours. I said are we going to bury her or have her cremated? 

It was the hardest question I had to ask my brother and suddenly the room felt cold and I went stiff. He said we would cremate her. Then he got on his phone to get prices for transport and cremation. 

It was robotic. It made no sense to me. I didn’t feel the loss of her. My brother and I cried a little more. It was hard to see him so sad. It was gut wrenching to hear him cry. I felt like a failure trying to console him. I felt like I had been released, I got to forgive her, I got to say goodbye. I held her hand and I let go. I felt freedom. But I couldn’t embrace it, my brother was deeply saddened and fraught by grief. 

We went back to his apartment. His sponsor came by and a friend. My brother lost his mother and he needed me. 

The next few days were hectic. I was working two jobs and he asked me to help him go through her stuff at her place.

It was a mess. She was a hoarder. She kept a lot of things. I tried to understand her scribbling on envelopes and sometimes triplicate of the same pictures of my brothers and I. It was hard to go through it for my brother. It didn’t feel like we got much done. After a few hours we gave up. We went and had Wendy’s. I didn’t know that he took her there, or that she was one of the few people that he felt accepted by without judgment. He had never told me. 

And I remember all the times he said they had fought, he told me about that. I was surprised to hear him speak of her so lovingly. I didn’t remember her lovingly.

I tried to console him again as he cried.  I hated to see him so sad. It felt like there was a lump in my throat I couldn’t swallow. My mouth felt dry. 

He said he would hire someone to go get the rest. We talked a week later. We made plans. We broke them. He went to group. He was on call. We made plans. We watched movies for his birthday. He didn’t want to do much. He was still mourning. 

I went kayaking without him the following weekend. I found a new place to rent and launch. The place we used to go to, got hit bad by the hurricane five months prior. I needed to get out on the water. I couldn’t breathe. A lot was going on. A lot had happened since I was last in the middle of the water taken by the sheer power of nature. I needed to feel something bigger than my little world. I needed to touch water and feel the sun kiss my skin. I wanted to paddle out into the unknown away from people uncertain of whether the sea wanted to claim me. I had to go. I was being pulled. 

I found this fantastic massive sandbar where the water was crystal clear. I laid back and floated a while. It was too shallow for anything big to bump me. If anything I had to worry about the kayak running ground. I didn’t think about my problems I just drifted and paddled. On the way back the wind had picked up and it was getting choppy, I had to cross back over the channel to get near where I launched from. Three and a half hours of paddling was enough. If I stayed out much longer I would tip the waves were that big. It was a hard paddle back. I moved so effortlessly driven by the fear of a wave knocking me over.pure adrenaline and excitement. I didn’t know this layout or kayak path. It was deep water there were windsurfers and jet skis nearby. I was paddling hard but the wind and current were pushing against me. 

I ended up near the bridge. I sat still for a few minutes. I watched the windsurfers. There were kids on the beach with big kites. An event hall a little off the road. A wedding ceremony was about to start and someone was playing bagpipes. Fucking bagpipes. Dressed in full Scottish kilt. I had the best seat out on the water. The wind and currents still carrying my kayak out to the bridge again. I would have to paddle harder back. But the sound of the bagpipes and the seeing a wedding ceremony all while being tossed about in an open kayak was pretty damned cool. I needed my own way to grieve a mother I barely knew and the only real memories I had, weren’t like my brother’s, though not fair to compare. 

Early one morning my brother calls me. There was a fire. Can he come stay the night at my place. Uhm hell yes, get over here. 

His apartment building caught fire. He lost everything. When his neighbor banged on his door to tell him to get out he was in his underwear and a tshirt. No shoes. He grabbed his wallet phone and keys. He and fellow neighbors watched as nearly half the building burned before being put out finally. A neighbor in another building offered to give him sweatpants. He was coming my way after stopping to buy shoes and a toothbrush and stuff. 

He came with his only items in a walmart bag. He took pictures. His apartment only had a partial frame next to where his front door once was. 

I walked him through how to file a fire claim. I had to order scrubs overnight for him so he would have work clothes. 

He went to stay at a hotel close to his work, two days later. About 5 days later he got a new place at the same apartment complex. Insurance paid for him to replace all his stuff. 

It took him a while to figure out what he wanted. He took his time. He lost everything. 

I think about the last year. I think about it a lot. I think how everything happened and how it all seemed to have to happen. I think about everything my brother endured and how well he handled things when I know inside he was falling apart. I know he’s full of sadness today. I will call him at lunchtime. I just need to know my little brother is okay. 

Besides he got to fly to Seattle to see his daughter and granddaughters. And I can’t wait to see him light up talking about a truly wonderful way to end the year. 

The blade dipped right in and got twisted.

You learn from your mistakes.

You decide.

Nothing to it.

You have unlimited power.

Those days

Some days I am courting insanity

Some days I am courting disaster.

Some days I am laughing 

Those days it is both.

Some days by intention.

Some days by coincidence.

Some days by phenomenon.

Some days by comedy.

Those days I am laughing 

Some days I am beauty.

Some days I am pain.

Some days I am art.

Those days I am laughing 

Some days by poetry.

Some days by peril.

Some days by luck.

Those days I am laughing 

Some days I am fortune.

Some days I am sorrow.

Some days I am passion. 

Those days I am laughing 

Those days I am courting insanity.

Those days I am courting disaster.

Those days I am me.

Too busy to notice

I miss those mornings where the house was loud and alive. The chattering of my children; the arguing, the laughing, the hurriedness of trying to get them all fed and in the car and out the door in time. 

I miss it. I miss it so much that sometimes when I wake and the house is quiet, I cry. Wishing I could hear my kids yelling at each other one more time. Calling for me to break up an argument or help them find a pair of socks. God how I miss those moments. I didn’t realize how much I would miss them. But today, the quiet echoes so loudly, it feels unbearable and empty. I wish they were all little again, needing me, needing their mom. 

Yes I lived it, I loved it and I paid attention to the noise and chaos when it was there. But today my heart aches for the tender moments when children were just children and I was too busy to notice the world around me. 

How’s the weather?

Sometimes I tend to over explain myself to people who too often, just don’t care. Even when they asked me the question. This is terribly frustrating how easily I get manipulated into thinking I owe any response at all.

It’s generally the same handful of people. It’s years of conditioning, from how I was raised or an environment I stayed in too long. Whatever the reason, I still feel compelled to respond this way. 

I have been working on undoing this behavior for years. I practice saying no.. a lot. Though I will still find myself explaining why and then have to stop. I practice not answering at all, but avoidance is just as depleting. I don’t know whether this inclination to over explain will ever go away.

So when I talk to someone that does care, and they acknowledge me, I simply do not know what to do with myself, and can often get quiet. 

I am not a quiet person I like to talk, I like to ask questions. I am naturally curious, but the little voice inside me starts to wonder am I putting this person in a position where they feel the need to explain themselves. Am I perpetuating the same behavior?

I also get quiet because I overthink as I am talking, and that’s when I let the conversation fall flat. I wonder am I too much? Am I making them uncomfortable, am I annoying? Or maybe they made me feel like I have to be in my head to have this conversation and why..?

The reality is, most people won’t know what to do or how to converse with me. Some may say I ask too many questions or that I push back on their answers and ask a dozen more. I was told in the past that talking to me can feel a lot like a cross examination. But that’s because they were lying. I am my father’s daughter. 

Years of self help and reading and comprehension, just scouring for answers or pouring myself into ways meant to dim the behavior. The reality is, I’m so good at over explaining that I will also keep asking questions, usually an attempt to nudge the truth forward. I just want complete logical answers that make sense. Make it make sense!!

So yes I can find the hole in a response and start picking at that scab until it bleeds.

It’s exhausting, but so is realizing someone thinks you’re stupid and lies. I have always been a safe space people for honesty. It’s too easy to needle questions until the truth is exposed.

Breaking the cycle takes work. And I put that heavily on myself to stop over explaining and more importantly stop barraging someone with questions. No matter how you frame something, if someone sets out to lie, they are going to lie. It doesn’t matter if you made it a safe space for transparency or not. 

So yeah, I’m not so good at navigating conversation anymore after that. I just let people say what they’re going to say and make fools of themselves. It’s much easier than trying to wrangle the truth. They think I am stupid, like I haven’t been dealing with liars my whole life.

Being self aware, I can’t avoid when I can see through bullshit, so I just ask yes or no questions and let the conversation painfully fall to small talk. I don’t do small talk, so I will also leave the conversation mid sentence. 

I get to choose who I converse with now, so I don’t have to over explain or try to pry the truth out of anyone anymore. It’s liberating to know I can just be myself and have deep conversations and thoughts that evoke healthy emotions with someone that actually respects me. 

Anyway, how’s the weather?

Breathtaking

It’s not just that the morning air was crisp and cool, and the sun just beginning to beam and shine in the early hours. It was the way the wind chimes would casually move and the air would fill with music. It was the prisms that glittered and glistened and moved quietly over shadows obstructed from the suns view. 

Maybe it was the laziness of two cats basking in the sun and a dog that laid loyally at my feet. I just wanted to lean in to the sun and soak up all the beauty, and delicately hold it in my hands and place it gently in my pocket. I wanted to romanticize and remember every minute detail, so I wouldn’t forget the way it warmed me, the way the soft scent of flowers and coffee floated softly, the way Persephone pounced on Winston and loved on him at the same time begging for his attention, the way Anastasia lay on her side like Bastet on the wrought iron chair, the outreach of her tiny paws. Yes I want to remember the smile I woke with and my tousled hair and all too cozy pjs. I wanted to bookmark this memory because the decadence of a moment was so simply amazing and also how I felt.  

It wasn’t overwhelming beauty, no that was the wrong word to describe it, it was breathtaking. 

… unavailable

They said be gentle, that someone was unnecessarily rough and broke their heart. They said be gentle, that their cheeks still glisten with sorrow and grief. They said be gentle, someone abandoned them.

And so I was. I was soft, and tender, and gentle, and a refuge. I stayed and never judged, holding their heart with tenderness when they became vulnerable. I softened my edges and made myself small so that they could shine and know how it felt for someone to always be there. I bled quietly while tending to their wounds. 

But by protecting other’s hearts, I allowed mine to become an option. By standing by others and helping them to find their own strength within, I became too available. I became a pause between heartbreaks. I was a placeholder, a rehearsal, a sanctuary for the bruised.

I was never chosen, I just filled space. I was a temporary home fostering love and care to those with no intention to remain. I was the one that stayed, but not the one they reached for, I was their warmth when they were lonely and nothing else. I was an afterthought while their eyes wandered. I was kept, but not preferred. Held close, but never claimed.

My gentleness expected, my patience assumed, my devotion a convenience, my silence a permission, my kindness a utility, my heart the collateral. 

I poured myself into people without ever asking for reciprocity. That would’ve made my attention and love feel cheap. I exhausted myself to the point where I gave so many pieces of myself away, that I began to disappear. And still they took. 

And every time I offered devotion and love, it was the same. I wasn’t valued or adored, I was fed crumbs and expected to show gratitude. My gentleness and compassion became a source to be mined. I waited for them to make room for me in their life after healing.

I don’t regret loving anyone, but I miss those parts of me that I can’t get back. I can’t do this self-sacrificing shit anymore, it’s not virtue. I won’t stuff down my own needs and give everything to anyone anymore.

Love should not be transactional. Love is a gift, it should be cherished and treasured.

I choose me now. And sometimes it gets lonely. But I would rather be alone than to ever give away what’s left of my heart to another person that’s still auditioning others for the role. 

I am fire and if there is no reverence in someone’s tone or intention, I am simply… unavailable.