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.

Lately

It’s strange how some days you wake up and feel at peace.

And also strange how some days you wake up and feel you’re on fire.

But lately I wake feeling both at peace while also breathing fire.

I think the dragon inside me has slept in a little too long.

It’s time to take to the skies and set fire to anything that doesn’t bring me peace. 

Like water

They say it is normal to feel torn, when your future is uncertain.

I’ve felt torn apart my whole life. And even that statement is grossly understated. 

I see again with fresh eyes, but also eyes that have seen too much and somehow not enough.

There is a storm brewing inside me. And I ready for whatever awaits me. 

I held myself down, locked away in the blurriness of uncertainty, waiting for the fates to let my life unfold as it will.

It’s been good, it’s been bad, it’s been indifferent, but it is my life. And I don’t want to wait on the fates anymore. I have shown the world, my world, who I am and what I am capable of; amazing and terrible things.

It’s time to carve my way through the rocks like water, and pour myself into my dreams.

The cage is open

I saw a glimpse of myself today. The me, that was excitable and articulate and funny. I felt lighter. My soul was not heavy. 

I remembered the little girl who had big dreams and a sassy attitude and a loving heart. 

I saw the awkward teenager that was unsure of everything but remembered insane details about endless things and could recite entire paragraphs she’d read weeks, months even years before. 

The girl that became a Mom and fell in love for the first time. My son.

Then again. My daughter.

Then the young lady who was fun and full of life, despite the odds she faced. 

I saw the warrior and the goddess, the beautiful woman who could turn every head in a room. 

I saw the woman that fought like hell to keep her head above water and treaded in the deep end for too many years. 

She fell in love a third time. My son.

Those kids are the loves of my life.

Then I saw the woman that faced cruelty and pain and fears ten times her size and stared down the barrel of a shotgun and never flinched. The woman that overcame every challenge she ever faced. 

The woman that cried herself to sleep and still got out of bed when her world was falling apart and she was spiraling, still she steadied herself and stood tall and hustled through it.

I saw a queen heal herself and own her truth and love with all her soul and give and give and give. 

And looking at myself, suddenly I felt divine and awake and beautiful and I felt like me again, but deeper than I had ever felt my true self. I shined, no I beamed. I did what I wanted to do and I was comfortable and grateful in my skin and my soul still feels like it’s glowing from just that one moment. 

I am me. I can finally let go of all this pain and sorrow and grief. 

I can smile again. It’s going to be okay. I am still here, and I am as mad as the madhatter and as unapologetic as a career criminal. There is a power that has been sleeping inside me, and she no longer begs to be free. The cage is open, and so is my heart.