Oh God She Said Inventory Season!

     Inventory, the season of reconciliation. At work in the last six months we have changed procedure and the app we use to do inventory several times which meant count again. Confirm counts. It seemed like every week we were doing the counts again endlessly. Some of the items we had the stock memorized on by the fifth go around. Why is it important: if you don't know what you've got how do you know when you need more or when you've got more than enough and can use your budget for other things? 

    In life it is important to take inventory as well, on your progress toward professional and personal objectives. Where are you at on your path, what tools have you gained or set aside? What changes have you made toward your future plans from the experiences you live every day? A month ago, I looked around and realized I was so busy counting bottles I hadn't checked in on myself in a while.

    I took a step outside of myself, set aside excuses and bullshit; took a good look. How did I feel? What did I want? Who was I choosing to be close to? Who was supportive? Who was detrimental? What barriers to success in my heart, work, and home? 

    I took a good look, my head kept spiking with pain on the left side. I didn't know then I was in need of a root canal and that pain was from a dental procedure that should have been done by the Dentist but he handed his work of to his employees. If you are going to hand off work: make sure the person you are handing it off to addresses it properly and professionally. I hurt most days, and by the end of the day it was rough. I came home compromising with someone who claimed to love me, but not find me attractive or even really want to look at me for conversation. He sought dramas and dumpster fires to inventory every day, throwing other people's lives at me without asking them or me how we felt about such information being shared. I really just wanted to come home and relax but my coffee cup was in the wrong spot (the world is ending!) After coming home from the ER, having gotten a ride from a friend, the comment I got from the peanut gallery was "ran up a big bill for nothing." Not are you okay, not sorry I didn't sober up to pick you up, or sorry I wasn't there for you, not even a hug. 

    It got me taking that inventory on my life. How had I ended up with someone expressing hostility and criticism without even a smile, encouragement or any interest in me? I felt like I was a teenager in my parents house. Nope. Been there, done that, can I pack up your stuff and show you the door? This time I stood up for myself. I claimed my space, my life, my future. Peter Pan is a cool character in a fairy tale, in real life a Peter Pan is not a lover or soul mate, they always put themselves first and love to throw chaos at you to keep you off balance. The warning signs were there at the beginning, every time he told a life story and I went to share one he cut me off with 'we don't need to brag' then back into another story. Funny thing is, after a few years, most folks run out of interesting stories. Mine got bottled up. Tighter and tighter. When a Storyteller goes silent, that is when you should be concerned. Is he a bad guy or terrible person? No, his life and his decisions are his responsibility. Were we a healthy couple? No. I tried communication and compromise. He used ultimatums and all or nothing statements. His way was the only right way. I disagreed. I wish him a fantastic future, good health and success. His path is not mine. I hope we both learned some lessons that make the future easier. I am not perfect by any means. He wasn't the first to complain that I was remote. By that point I was in my mental inventory weighing him against the past lessons and mistakes I made. Unfairly, or fairly; I weighed his emotional lack of attachment versus my friends and peers. How do others treat me? Why such a marked difference: allegedly I am an inconsiderate, demanding, disorganized, unattractive asshole at home: even possibly the ultimate evil in the whole universe (insert maniacal laugh here) but a considerate, outgoing, motivated, connected and somewhat disorganized person at work? I wasn't changing personality or demeanor or language or body language. I was using a flawed mirror. What he saw when I walked in the door was all the traits in himself that made him feel negative.  What I was seeing in the people I interacted with everywhere else: that was a real mirror. Don't fret at the shape you look in a funhouse mirror: it is a funhouse mirror.

    I held the door open for my future, packed his boxes and moved them to the hallway as he picked them up to move on. I am enjoying my time with me. Getting back to just being me. Not coming home to someone trying to convince me I need them when I've handled life on my own all my life. Hell, I started working when I was 12. Reconnecting with the friends and people I really care about, staying connected. Addressing my health, working on my future and taking that long deep look into me and saying 'What am I so afraid of that I'd settle for a bad, loveless relationship instead of facing and stepping forward in my life?' I have reached a point where I love my friends, they've taught me to set a high bar. This time, it was that awareness that made a difference. Funny thing is, a lot of times you know what you want but you don't always have the words to ask but when the time is right, even if it takes twenty years, words won't be needed. 

  I share the big, ugly lessons I face down and wrestle with because I know I am not the only one. I know that sometimes what makes a difference for someone going through a rough time is reading or hearing that they are not alone and it is okay to put yourself, your wellbeing and future first. It doesn't make you broken, bad, stupid to make mistakes. Stupid is when we excuse or avoid them instead of learning from them. Break a glass on the floor, pretend it's not broken: someone will get cut. Avoid that broken glass, again sooner or later it'll be in your path. Get a broom and sweep it up. Takes a few seconds. Solves a lot of problems and prevents unnecessary pain. 

I wish you the best as you work on you, your passions, your future: the things that make your eyes light up. I wish you love and peace as you wrestle with your own inner demons and critics. Your future and your life is what you choose it to be. You choose who gets to be a part of it. Choose wisely. 

    

Fighting Winter Blues

There are people who love winter. They love cold weather, snow, and ice. Wonderful for them. Winter is the time of year when there is less sun, temperatures curb outdoor activities and it gets easy to isolate.
I have never enjoyed winter. Cold. Colds. Being Cooped up. Dangerous driving conditions. Financial stresses. Limited work. I do my best to try to put myself in states that do not get snow (or get very little) this time of year.
People ask often, how do you fight the Winter Blues?

Lists. Lists are important. Lists of favorite mood boosting activities, songs, movies, pictures, places.
Lists of goals and the steps you are taking to reach them. When your mood is at its darkest, its time to use the items on your mood boosting list. Look at your goals: what are you doing to accomplish them? What have you put off? Winter is a good time to accomplish things that you don't have time to sit down and do other times of year. Getting closure on projects is always a satisfying feeling.

Call or write a friend. Long winer no see, drop a line, a Meme, a Gif, a photo to a friend you haven't heard from in a while. Take time to stay connected. Talking and interacting with other people gets us out of our own heads and lifts our mood. The request for friends to share positive pictures or picture number such and such frequently impact you and the people who share positively.

Visit friends! Get out to social events! This winter we've hit $5 movie nights to get out and have fun, we also went to a good friends' birthday party at an Arcade for Adults. We tried out a new virtual reality game (pictured below). Dodging a virtual stone snake to snatch an idol, traveling through virtual temple ruins chases thoughts of snow away with lava pits!

What are you eating? Nutrition directly influences mood. Healthy, balanced diet equals better mood versus empty calories and heavy meals that literally weigh you and your mood down. Watch portion sizes, get fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet every day. Vitamins. Some people love them, others roll their eyes. B 12 is the mood booster. Magnesium supplements other than magnesium oxide (magnesium oxide is not a form of magnesium our bodies can actually use) like SloMag, Calm, Magnesium Maleate also help with lifting the mood, easing anxiety and depression. Sunlight. Get in it as much as you can. Your body needs that sunlight to work properly, let the sun in!

Get out! You don't have to have money to bundle up and go outside, it is cold but can you handle it for a brisk walk? If not, there are many malls and other public indoor places to walk where you might have to ignore advertising and dodge customers but you can get your steps in. If you have the money for it: this is the time of year to use the gym or recreational center near you. This winter I am going to a recreational center once a day, spending a half hour doing laps, then walking a mile on their track. I see people practicing basketball, volleyball, and I can meditate in the dry Sauna.

Pet Snuggles! Curl up with a favorite show and a snuggly pet. Research shows that holding or petting our animals improves our mood.

Picture time! Take pictures of things you find beautiful to share with friends on Facebook or Instagram. Looking for things that make you smile gets your mind focused on positive rather than negative.

Thought stopping. If you catch yourself wearing down the negative mood and thought trail, stop. Do you really want to? What reframing can you do? How can you make your focus and mood turn around? Each of us is different. Some can turn it around with humor, others need a hug or at least acknowledgement of the negative before they can get back to the brighter side.

Little things have a big impact. What can you do to offer people more brightness this winter?

Looking Forward and Back. Truth. Perspective and The Unforseen Costs of Caring

A friend of mine got banished by the powers of Facebook again. I know because he's wise enough to have a back up account. Was it bots mindlessly flagging and checking his posts? Was it a silent troll smiling as they reported memes for whatever small reason? Was it an algorithm, and why do I wish I had paid more attention to algorithms in school now?
Does it actually matter?
I take this small external situation and use as an example. My friend had a back up plan and a good sense of humor. He's already moved on even though it keeps happening. He does sometimes post over the top memes, but the intent is shock comedy.
One of the biggest frustrations I deal with is myself. I give too much, I try too hard. It has happened when I finally can't or choose not to; the individual or individuals I gave so much to and did so much for don't want people to be aware they were abusive or apathetic at best.
There is no good part of a bad relationship and even after it's over you keep paying for it. You pay because even as you work on yourself, even as you grow, even as you take responsibility on your shit- they're still out there like bots on Facebook quietly influencing the perception of others. You wonder sometimes when people you were friendly with become distant, but the minute you say anything it somehow confirms whatever crap they've spread.
No one asks. They believe what they want to believe.  Think about the Facebook banishment. Similar situation a year ago, and a different guy I knew started harassing and threatening legal action at a friend. He was convinced she was stalking him and silently reporting his every post, even though he blocked her. She didn't want to think about him let alone have anything to do with his posts. People who didn't like her and wanted to believe the Bad Stalker Story did, regardless of the truth- that she wanted zero to do with that guy and stalking him was the last thing she'd ever willingly do as it would mean she had to look at what he was posting. Truth didn't matter to the people who wanted to believe the worst.
Back to today:
My biggest frustrations come from trying too hard, helping too much and paying the price as my efforts didn't help me but helped people who were self motivated to use what I offered.
A good friend told me this past summer "You have too many asshole friends." He was right. I've been weeding and paying more attention to who I share time and effort with. Spring cleaning my friends, keeping the real ones who give a shit, ask questions, reciprocate. Letting go of users, manipulators, false friends.
Too many real, shitty memories I don't get to escape from to tolerate having someone claim friendship and in the same breath downplay or excuse abuse.

2017 also taught me the worst liars are quiet. They are opportunists. They pick who they sling their shit to. If you eat it, it's on you. People who don't like the word integrity, often don't possess it.

It's a new year. I am working forward, like my friend who had a back up plan. I've been working on my fiction, making jewelry and learning silk marbling. I'm preparing for a fabulous spring. I have a future to build, a sincere and fantastic guy to build it with, a fictional raccoon, and a growing Kitten. I'm going to be more conscious of who I help and how.

People will believe what they want to, regardless of the truth, regardless of their experience. We get no say in what people believe, but we can keep focused forward and moving forward.

May 2018 be the year you hope it is. May you buy Fuglyware and the excellent coffee partnering with Fuglyware. May you come marble silks with us. Maybe you'll come watch me tell stories on stage. Maybe we'll all find a reason to smile, laugh, and appreciate each day.

#fuglyware #2018goals

What Shadows Hide

When I was young, my Dad's sister got her second divorce. Alcohol and abuse. The family made her, a hard working nurse and mother, the butt of many derogatory comments and jokes. Women were either dominating business owners who were practically sexless or they were talked about like objects.
When I was about twelve, one of my cousins held me down, forced my shirt up and gave me a titty twister. I fought. I called for help. Everyone there laughed. I went to my Dad, he dismissed it. When several other male family members found out they were not amused, and made sure that cousin never had a chance to try again. I felt like a shadow, a lesser human because I was told that I didn't have the right of choice- because of my gender by my own Dad. The other family members who disagreed were the quieter younger men- a great uncle who was younger than my dad, an older male cousin and my youngest uncle who didn't like that cousin's rudeness or behavior. No one spoke out. They quietly menaced him, shadows themselves.
Those guardian angels didn't know about my mother's brother and his secret sleep over seductions. The clues were there. He ended up marrying a fourteen years old girl. Got kicked out by my grandfather for his interest in underage girls. He was never reported - see, the answer when you speak out is "she's crazy, she's exaggerating, she's." Victim blaming, dismissal, excuses. Shadows, more shadows.

I got married in my young twenties. One night I woke up with him forcing penetration. I fought, but it's not easy to break free when someone already has you pinned. He said it was his right. Wrong.
I left. A retired man rented an apartment to me, a safe haven. He had another young lady in the basement apartment and one in the garage. He looked out for us while we healed and got back on our feet. My male co-workers modeled respectful behavior and my cousin Scott, as ever, was there for me as I dealt with the ugly emotions that needed to be done to with. Scott doesn't put up with shitty people. He's always called people out and been one of the bravest role models I've had.
Fast forward, years later I was working at the VA. A client threatened violence toward us, his treatment team. He had tested positive for crack. In the chaos, one of the VA cops grabbed me, walked me to my office to teach me self defense because "these guys can be dangerous and you need to know self defense." I was unsettled and he was an authority figure, someone I trusted. He fingered me to teach me not to freeze and break a hold from behind. My co-workers realized something was going on and kept knocking at the door trying to get in. He put them off.
Afterwards I went to my mentor, a Veteran who worked in Human resources. He asked me questions, got details. I didn't see that cop again. I found out from a good VA cop friend that he was fired for sexually assaulting and harassing female employees. My mentor had represented me, my co-workers too. No one said a word, other than the words that needed saying: that behavior is not tolerated here. No one made me sit through a court case or go through questions, my mentor handled it and stood for me. He, he was the one who counseled me and helped me heal. She did not deserve this, this was not acceptable: his words. Notice: for each instance, one guy acting negatively and more than one guy standing up and demonstrating respect.
Getting grabbed at bars, gas stations; cat called; these things you lose count of. Getting compliments, good Samaritan interventions, respectful intetactions: these are what I appreciate and count.
Regardless of gender, consent is key. There are too many stories like these in the lives of friends and strangers. We can intervene if we see or suspect, we can question and support. Shine light into the shadows, if they are empty great- if something ugly is lurking we can change it.
We can teach the next generation that abuse doesn't have to be part of their life experience. Idolizing abusers and abuse is unhealthy. Minimizing and dismissing is unhealthy. Labeling victims is deplorable. Many abuse victims punish themselves every day, racking their brains to figure out what's wrong with them, why them, what is wrong with them. Some realize it's external, it's the abuser's fault not theirs; they heal but never forget. We watch the shadows, ready to avoid or confront the next attempt- never wanting to feel powerless again.

Weed Your Garden

The people we choose to be around have an impact on our well-being.
Surround yourself with selfish people and you will find yourself getting tired, feeling lonely and constantly giving without reciprocation. These folks only notice you when they want something from you or they want an audience. They've got nothing to give but superficial platitudes and often when they aren't focused on enough- they will create a situation just to get attention. They feel entitled. They use charisma and drama to make their life a stage you get stuck on if you get too close. They take. Leaving your garden full of a stubborn, thorny weed that consumes all the nutrients and pushes out the healthy plants.
There are false friends who seem vibrant but are actually there on an agenda to use you, to amuse themselves or manipulate you to their advantage. They listen to you for ammunition. You trust them and you bleed for it. They skip merrily along uncaring or even delighted by the drama and destruction. These folks are dangerous. I've learned you can recognize them when they boast of how they've screwed people over or how they "love their boyfriend because he's an asshole", and the love seeing the wreckage. These are the poison Ivy vines snaking through, looking healthy as they strangle other plants and smear their irritating oil all over others around them, contaminating relationships for their own advantage. Usually financial, but sometimes just because. These folks usually have sociopathic tendencies. They don't want the people around them healthy. They often talk about wanting to see the world burn or society fall, chaos lovers.
On the other hand:
In your garden seek out and nurture:
Authentic friends. People who reciprocate. People who demonstrate maturity.
Listen to what they say, how they say it, how they treat others. How they regard others. Do they regard others?
Do not excuse or dismiss toxic behaviors. They do not just affect that individual, if that person is close to you- it will impact you and those around you.
I've been quietly weeding my garden, ripping out the narcissists, self absorbed, enablers, toxic, false friends, and unhealthy. I'm not responsible for those folks and having them around detracts from the health that I and the people I care about and am connected to have.
I'm taking time to assess, to nurture that garden in my heart.
It is not my responsibility to help those folks, but it is mine to be the best me I can be and to nurture the healthiest relationships I can with those I feel are worth investing in- those who invest back.

I hope you tend your garden. Be careful what you let grow there.

What's in Your Narrative?

In comics, there is a narrator who communicates the pertinent nonverbal information to the reader. In life, we each have a narrator in our heads.
How we are feeling, what we are perceiving: it changes the narrator's focus. The narrator sticks with what we linger on.
I've been fighting anxiety this spring. Fighting anxiety is like trying to beat up a swimming pool full of water. The water splashes, moves out in waves, gets unbalanced but remains mostly in the pool. In the end, you stand there feeling frustrated and exhausted and still anxious- and those closest to you have retreated out of the splash zone. Looking out and realizing you're making no progress, you try harder. The hard work isn't working. The water remains.
The narrator tries to shift perspective but you don't leave the pool. You've got a fight to win for peace of mind. The narrator becomes negative as that part of you knows you are going about this backward but you know if you just push through...
You're soaked.
Some folks rewrite the narrative here. They can't bear the weight of failing and they decide anxiety will always be a part of them. They come up with justifications and long ways of living that take them around every pool in their path.
I stopped fighting the other day, sitting and watching butterflies with a friend. My narrator had a chance to be heard. My narrator said "Flying not falling."
Swim instead of panic. Float. I went out, found myself a little black kitten, knowing I feel better with a little fuzzy companion.
My narrator backed off. Kitten distracted and mind finally not spinning through the worry hallway of my mind. Anxiety grows when it's fed. Confidence grows when you feed it. You can feed one but not both. Float.
Silly as it seemed, instead of fighting the fear and anxiety, I let go and just focused on the positives around me and the things I can change and address. Feeding confidence instead of uncertainty.
The anxiety lessened. Then it lessened more.
My narrator could have been destructive, admonishing me further into a worse state of mind. My narrator could have swept the anxiety under the rug to try to make me look superhuman.
My narrator prefers to stick the neutrality as much as possible. That person you are frustrated with today may turn into an amazing person over the next five years.
Each of us has our own story, it's as healthy as we make it.
I'm enjoying the relaxed muscles and returning appetite, the refreshed confidence that comes with anxiety release.

How does your narrator talk to you?

Finding Balance Again

Balance, it takes constant work. Walking across a low wire, only a few feet off the ground, you still fall if you get distracted.
You can practice low elements like a low wire with minimal safety gear and logical spotting. Off balance? Step off and start over.
In my youth I spent a lot of time practicing skills on low and high elements. Two line bridges, Cat's cradles, giant ladders, high wires. 
High elements over ten feet up, sometimes over twenty or thirty feet things are different. We did not practice these skills to perform for audiences. We faced them as challenges to overcome trust issues, develop communication and listening skills, to problem solve, develop self esteem, confidence, and teamwork. We all came from broken places, sharp edged children who could cut you with words and who carried emotional wounds that colored our worlds stark.
We learned when you are working with a partner, keep reaching, keep trying to communicate and listen. Instead of taking affront that the anxious person cuts in verbally, understand and sooth. Instead of getting annoyed at the slow speaker, keep catching yourself when you interject. Apologize. Trust. Everyone shares the work. Everyone succeeds together.
We joked, "That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger." The time I shredded my arm catching a fiberglass cargo net, but not quite well enough. The heavy rope I was on pulled me back. Thanks, Physics. The cargo net kept a good chunk of my arm. Bandage on. I went back up.
The last three years, I've spent a lot of time and energy focusing on trying to be healthy in a partnership, trying to encourage my partners to choose to heal as well.
Not everyone wants to heal. Not everyone wants to be what you see they could be, if they were brave enough. Low hanging fruit, habits.
I own that I am working through issues of anxiety, esteem, and that in the two relationships I felt insecure. Why?
Internal? External?
Part of it was knowing my partners weren't interested in anything more than temporary. Sometimes, to feel more secure temporarily, I put that thought on the backburner and kept planning and working forward. The abusive behavior and gaslighting of the first. The second waiting until he was done to communicate issues that we could have addressed months before. We both failed to communicate as well as we should have from the start.
It hurt to realize we had been out of sync for a while. That part of the hurt was not doing the fun things couples do when they love each other, the laughing, flirting, surprise gifts, wanting pictures of each other. We had bypassed that for routine and gradually spent more time in our heads. Resentments build in such a place.
Trying to put pieces back together that were flawed from the start, the pieces seemed to fit better. Hurts were still there.  Feelings of under appreciation, different priorities.
I'm tired. I'm taking time to go back to friends and memories, to look at where old wounds still hide. To address them.
I can trust my friends with the ropes. I've learned that. Giving the ropes back to the people who inspire me, who encourage me.
In turn, there I am, taking the ropes sometimes for them. Because. Trust. Love. We achieve more, we can face daunting tasks easier when we do it together.

Assumptions versus Communication

Many too good to be true sales pitches rely on assumptive logic. The nitty gritty details would get in the way, so only the ones that serve as bait get dangled. You know you should be wary, should ask more questions but you don't.
How often do you count your change when it's handed to you? How often have you been surprised to find out an assumption was wrong? Drive time doubled because of traffic, relationship stressed due to varying assumtions in both parties, faced frustration of trying to undo damage?
When we meet people we make assumptions. We observe and decide how we are going to interact based on appearance and behavior, communication sitting on the sidelines saying "why won't you let me start Coach- seriously?"
In a world as diverse as ours, this can lead to friction and misunderstandings rather than respect and understanding.
What can we learn or grow with if we communicate. Open minded.
Stress drops away. Trust can have a place. Relief and appreciation are revitalize you.
You can't get anywhere in relationships with others if the relationship is based on assumptions. You can start over. You can create a real, healthy relationship if you are willing to participate and heal.

The Danger of Dismissing Warning Signs

Years ago I lived in western New York, renting an apartment from my parents on family land. My great grandmother's house was turned into three apartments. I lived in one. My family's construction company with barns, heavy equipment and a large garage separated me from the Genesee River.
My father and his employees would hang out drinking beer with their friends. Some of those friends were alright folks, others, had issues.
There was a guy who was missing most of his teeth, whose behavior was erratic that would show up. He talked flirtatiously to the under age girls, to the point where I went to them and told the girls to avoid being alone with him. He had tantrums. He did a variety of drugs and boasted of trafficking with bikers.
He was Bipolar and about once or twice a month, the state police got called to his house by his parents who lived on the property with him. He threatened suicide by shotgun. There was ample documentation. He lived in the house between my parents and their business (and by default, the apartment I lived in).
I repeatedly went to my parents and asked them to stop allowing him to hang out on the family land.
I warned them. One day, he will commit suicide and likely, it's going to happen at the garage. He parties there. He does these suicidal gestures for attention. It was a warning I made too often to count. I was worried about who he would hurt or take with him when he finally followed through.
I intervened one time. I had stopped over to visit his kind hearted brother who is now long dead after struggling with a debilitating illness- multiple sclerosis, if memory serves. As we talked Will approached us and said how he was going to shoot himself. His brother cried and begged him not to. He fed on that. I finally put my hand on his brother's hand and shook my head. While Will went for his prop so he could fully enact this torturous play I talked to his brother. Will also met the criteria for borderline personality disorder, my dad's favorite kind of friend. I looked at his brother and said we can't react. We have to tell him, if he's going to do it do it or if he's not go get counseling. He nodded. His attempts at begging and pleading had failed so new tactic.
He came back with his gun. I looked at him.
His brother silent, tears still sliding in the darkness down his face. We said " If you are going to do it, do it. You are hurting your family too much with this. Stop. Get help or get it done and over with." He looked at us. " I will!" Said Will.
I looked at him hard. "Then go get the shells." His brother said "Yes. Get the shells. I will load it for you- if that's what you want."
Will wasn't so willing then. He had no idea how to respond. His brother wasn't hurting. His little drama was not playing out as planned. The audience had become the director and no one had given him the new script. He put the gun away and kept asking us if we really would have loaded the gun.
For over a year he was quieter, better behaved. I still warned and his two wonderful brothers agreed but everyone else thought I crying wolf. Funny how often you point out a real danger and even when it ends up verified you go from an alarmist to a creepy mystical person who predicted the future- even sometimes the superstitious mutter of "witch."
My words were dismissed, like the words of a woman with several psychology degrees are. It's easier to call a woman a witch rather than accept that she is applying an education and years of experience working with severely mentally ill people. Cassandra. Her shoes, having walked in them, are uncomfortable.
The story of Will continued.
He told people I was a witch. He was awed and fearful. He acted better if he thought I was looming. I didn't even have to wear a pointy hat or carry a broom.
He gradually partied more again. One day, my family had a drinking party at the garage. I had gone down to the river to talk with my friend Michael who was visiting. We talked Tool and martial arts as we watched the large carp circle the river bend. Several boys rode around on a four wheeler unsupervised. We happened to be looming back from the river across the field as the garage when the boys cried out. The four wheeler had flipped onto them. We were the sober people. We ran. Adrenaline fueled us as we each grabbed an end of the four wheeler with one hand and flipped it off the two ten year olds.
I had been calling out "Do not move!" As we had approached. If either had a back injury it was crucial.
The four wheeler bounced to the ground. One of the bots was in a pose like a dead bug, look of terror in his eyes. The other got up and said his ankle hurt but otherwise was alright. He had been driving and he was teary. As I focused on the still frozen boy event unfolded around me. The drunk adults came out. Interpretation they made was "kids being reckless" versus reality- they were inexperienced and tried to turn too sharp on sand. The frozen boy had taken my literally. Hus mom and I were relieved he was fine. Then the sound of a loud slap. I turned around. The boy who had been driving was holding the rear frame of the four wheeler. Will was walking around cheerleading the violence. The boy's father, a construction worker with arms like thick trees was beating his son so hard every hit was lifting him off the ground. The boy's mother and the father's best friend were trying to talk him into calming down. They might as well have been soundless. Fury. Adrenaline. Not thought other than the safety of the boy who had done nothing wrong. No one intervened when I was a kid, but here I could do what I had always wished someone had done for me. I grabbed the father and spun him around. Rage stared back at me.
"Stop. You are not hitting him again. You have to go through me. It was an accident." I realized that his wife and friend were now behind me supportive but small and without fire. Full of fear. I knew how much it was going to hurt if he hit me. I braced. "Accident." I tried to speak drunk language. " I need to assess him for injury. I need your help. Step back." Will shouted venom and violence from around the edges. Dad paused trying to logic.
Will stepped up, realizing this fun show was ending too soon for him. He started shouting slurs at me. I had it. Adrenaline. Drunks. Abuse. Fury. I turned and stepped toward him. " You're done." I lunged forward hand solid in a spike for his throat. His kind brother, from behind me realized what I was doing. He dove around me like a hobbit, power tackled his brother. Face first into his stomach. Down they went. Michael stepped in. Took Will be the arm. The other guys followed his lead. In a moment they had thrown him in the bed of a pick up truck to drive off the land and dump somewhere. I picked the hundred pound boy up in my arms. I carried him to my car. Sober, I drove while his mother cried, all the way to the ER. He had a chipped bone and a deep bruise in his foot. He felt safe with me there. His mom got a divorce shortly after this and I never saw him again. Michael looked at me when we got back. "You would have killed him." "I know. Kenny knows. Kenny saved me, not his brother." Kenny came up and talked too. He said words to that effect. His brother frustrated him and poisoned life around him. He couldn't let that be on my hands. I told him I just hoped when he finally imploded that no one else would get hurt.
The rest of the group had their own reality.
Will got quiet for a while. Then it built again.
About a year after I walked away from that life, I learned that late one night Will sat in the garage drinking with one of my father's employees- the father of that boy.
They were drunk. He decided to play Russian Roulette. The friend objected. He clicked anyways but this time it was more than a click. From the other side of a picnic table the friend watched Will's head as the bullet tore in. Gore covered him and everything nearby. The police were called. The grilled the friend as a murder suspect until Will's father, the State Police and my father showed up several hours later going through his well documented suicide threats over the years.
The friend almost committed suicide. He had to step away and start a new life to get away from the toxicity that had become his life with the influence of my family and their friends. My dad instigated a lot of terrible behavior, encouraged it in his workers.

Volatile people do not follow the rules or social considerations of society.
The best I've found you can do: find the people who are healthy, spend time with them. Use social supports. Breathe. Meditate. Do your best to get out of your head. Be prepared and plan ahead to keep yourself safe as best you can- and hope that your fears are unjustified.

The Challenge of Breaking the Silence

I was sixteen. Our school band was doing a concert program with the band from the next town. A boy I had a crush on from the summer program I had been in asked me out. I was excited. It was the first time I had been asked out. I got in the car to go home. I told my mom. Before the words were gone the hitting and screaming started. The next day I told him I couldn't go out with him. He didn't know why and I was the butt of jokes.
Why didn't I tell?
When you live with abuse, abusers do their best to control your life. They manipulate people through how they act. They can act better than a Shakespearean performer. They have an image they carefully construct for the outside world, away from others, the mask comes off. I learned to do my best to tell the truth, and found despite this, friends and peers wanted to believe the sugar coated persona of my mother. There were exceptions. People who knew what abusers and abuse was like, people who spent time with her watching how she interacted with me. In Girl Scouts, one of the other leaders watched as I sat in a corner excluded from activities and snacks, ridiculed and put down by my mother when I tried to join in. She wasn't someone my mom wanted to impress, so she got treated to mild abrasiveness and hostility as well. That woman fed me, included me, encouraged me to visit her family and gave me a place to feel safe and normal.
There is the threat of violence and disbelief. Being told people will not believe you, and when they aren't around getting you back is a top priority.
You get out of an abusive relationship. You work on yourself. You work on yourself. Because you can trust you.
I found myself in an abusive relationship years later. Waking up to be baited into arguments. Being told daily that while I was amazing I was terrible and undesirable. And the threat of if I lose my temper it is your fault that I hurt you. Your fault.

Abusive people work hard to present a persona they want the world to believe. They talk highly of you, they are proud of you, grateful to you. They do this to affect people's perception. Who do you believe, the one shaking and crying and messy crying abuse or the one so eagerly complimenting and seemingly hurt and confused by the allegations? Too often people minimize and doubt. I can't believe he pointed guns at you and dry fired them. Why didn't you tell us? It would have escalated him. I wanted away. I wanted to be safe again. I didn't want to face my friends and peers and see them weighing and deciding whether I was telling the truth. I didn't want to think about it. I wanted it gone. The past. What if I told you and you told him before I was gone? What if I told you and you told him now? He frequently expressed his desire to shoot am ex wife that left and broke the silence. He frequently warned me if I told he would nudge people to believe it was exaggeration. I blogged every few days as I dealt with heavy emotions and situations I could not write about, hinting that there were a thousand things I could not write. I could not express.
Coming from abuse, it takes me time and support to speak. I shut down. I have to evaluate and come to terms with emotions to release them. I am elusive, keeping even the closest friends at a distance like the barn cat that survives. Good friends know, when things get very bad I call, but still have trouble getting the words out. Ironic, being a storyteller and facing the challenge of breaking the silence to find my words broken into nonsense sounds and tears. Thinking of the awkward dance to keep my ex from breaking my fingers at my friend's house as I have another friend say "I don't know who to believe, I hear you but he compliments you- you should talk to him. Its a misunderstanding." Being on trial in life, no representation but the truth and the truth is no showman. The smooth charismatic defense for the Defendant is all Hollywood, that Law and Order Attorney you catch yourself believing even when he tells you it is raining on a sunny day.
Even though the truth is a tired public defender, I stick with it. The truth isn't good at consoling me when I face the anxiety and the emotions from the bad shit again and again as I reach the point where I can process and release it- or have it suddenly thrown back at me. Go ahead, someday you will tell people, you will use this against me and I will tell them you exaggerated. I will compliment you and the seed of disbelief will plant.

When you ask us what happened: it was humiliating, it was depressing, it was stressful- living with a bomb you are constantly trying to keep from exploding. Do not wake the dragon. When you ask us what happened: we have to think about it and how we felt again. When we see the abusers it is the same. I survived by hiding, by running, by isolating. I chose when I left to live. I choose to break the silence, not to allow the isolation but to do my best to avoid for my own safety and peace of mind.
I know it can be frustrating and difficult to deal with abuse survivors. We try to please you. We try to do our best to keep everyone calm and smiling. We are insecure at times. Sometimes we hide and cry because an injury from the past came back and haunted us. We have to fight not only our own demons but the ones abusers add through emotional abuse. Comparing us to others, acidic ridicule, belittling, controlling.
Today, I am in a safe place. I am communicating despite the anxiety that threatens. I am in a healthy relationship. I get up, work on goals and plans, enjoy the day. Little drama, mostly vehicular. Do I know if I will always be safe? No. Will I make choices to stay safe as best I can? Yes. Sometimes it is going to be hard. Very hard. The anxiety is strong and real.
When I face it now though, I am going to face it by communicating with my supports. When someone you care about has survived an abusive relationship, or is in one: give them a safe place, give them trust and consistency, give them time. In their own time the words will come. In their own time they will grasp the support when they feel they can. Give them numbers to hotlines, hotlines are anonymous- it is likely they will feel safe talking to a trained stranger before they feel comfortable unloading on you.
We see the change in your eyes when you see our broken places, and sometimes it hurts that you know we should have left, should have talked but could not. We don't want to be seen as broken, defective. Our abusers already made us feel that way.
We want to feel normal, strong. We want to really smile and just enjoy every normal moment as it comes.

Changing the Colors in Your World

I remember my childhood. Bright red tulips, a black well cap in the back lawn I sat on and cried. I remember being spanked because I picked that tulip one day. I carried it to the neighbor and tried to sell it to buy my mother a gift to make her happy. Red tulips became a symbol for anger. How dare I pick that precious flower! Accusations of doing it to destroy her pretty flower. I was too young to know irony when it fell around me in tears.

Desolation deeper and darker than the well. My mother screaming at no one in the house while I held my only friend, a small struggling confused barn cat seeking solace and love from that little fluffy kitten who really wanted to run off and practice hunting mice. Shuffling between three of my great grandmothers, who did their utmost to buffer me from life at home.
I remember fear. I never knew what would set my mother off. I remember trying so hard to be worth loving. I remember my great grandmother Alice telling me that she loved me and that what was happening at home wasn't my fault.
For many years I struggled with emotional wounds and scars. Sometimes hurting others to try to get approval or out of frustration as I watched my mother lavish love I could not earn on my brother. I remember the one time she was loving and gentle. I had been playing at a neighbor's house. I was about four years old. I made a slide out of a large cardboard box my neighbor and I wrestled onto a chair. I fell off and got hurt. I was bleeding profusely. The neighbor almost took me to the hospital. My mother took me home instead fearing that it would trigger a neglect or abuse investigation, because that's the priority. She held me, rocking me in a chair until the bleeding stopped. I remember the two times my Father held me I was three and then six. Both times were to remove stitches from my face, cheaper than going back to the hospital. Priorities.
My best friends in childhood were books and barn cats. I spent most of my time alone in my head wandering the brighter worlds created by authors, wishing the characters were real. Wishing for friends as my intelligence and slight autistic characteristics isolated me from cruel teasing classmates.
I started working the summer before seventh grade. I worked at a kennel and babysat. I spent hours working a hose to spray dog turds off the outdoor runs, grooming poodles and teaching them to walk on leads. I earned the money to pay for what I wanted rather than get hassled over wanting clothes that weren't always hand me downs or ugly clearance rack leftovers, books, toys, candy.
As I got older I grew into treating others the way I wished I had been treated. A neighbor girl and I were playing. She accidentally dropped and broke a toy I loved. She cried. She tightened up waiting for the storm and fury. I closed my eyes and thought of Alice. Alice with her soft hands, sweet heart and garden full of flowers you could tend and pick and share with smiles. I looked at the younger girl and took her hand. "It was an accident. It isn't worth as much as your friendship is to me." We both cried. It was how I realized she also came from a world with dark places in it. We picked up the pieces and as we did, we colored each other's worlds brighter.
In college, my friend Nathan was always there. Listening. Caring. Fearing he could end up breaking down with schizophrenia like his mother. He could only be a friend in my heart because I was afraid my dark places could hurt him. My past comes out in bursts like little rainstorms. Gentler as years pass, body trembling from emotions I can't always express. Nathan, Francine, and Mary brought their bright hearts full of colors. Their humor, their resiliency, their humanity were the paintbrushes they used on my heart. We did silly things. We walked St. Bonaventure every friday night around midnight as I worked on climbing every tree I could on campus. They and others joined me on this eccentric quest. They begged me not to prank campus security by swinging in the trees by the roads toward the vehicles going by so I did it more. Thankfully, none of the guards had heart attacks when they saw someone apparently flying out of a tree toward their vans only to vanish as I swung back out of the roads and dropped into the woods to melt away into the night. I was a ghost story.
Each year my life expands. The connections with other people grow. The stark colors get tempered with shades and blending. I communicate more, letting others help me see and let go of dangerous fragments still stuck in places my scarred heart cannot always see. I think of Nathan finding me sitting catatonic outside the Science building after my first real love after several intense secret dates told me he could never love me because I was an Atheist. I don't remember walking to my room. Nathan quietly looked out for me, always on alert and always there when the darkness rose. He would just sit with me. The lone soldier without a gun, manning the wall alone. Eventually my words would come back. He would reassure me that everyone wrestles with something. He would nudge my humor until it rose up and became the tool we both used to fight the darkness.
He taught me that I had strength, that the years of fighting myself alone had given me tremendous power. I realized I could use it to help him, and my other friends. My inner demons were relentless and harsh; I could step into other people's hearts and face theirs without breaking a sweat or shedding a tear. I could step between the boogeymen and the people who were teaching me what healthy was. I could keep them safe at cost.
It cost because it pressed on wounds, emotions flowing without healing.
It took years to learn to let go of the armor. To let go of the weapons. To be the gardener nurturing my heart and the hearts around me, discarding dangerous creatures lurking in the garden rather than wrestling with them or trying to bring out the best in them. Put a bow on a copperhead and you still have a dangerous snake.
Regardless of how much you love, you cannot heal everyone. Each of us has choices. We decide what is or isn't in your world. We color them with perspective and emotion. We determine our focus and attitude. Reaching out to healthy friends for perspective is the first step. As the holiday approaches, on the darkest day of the year, my thoughts are of you. I appreciate each of you and how you change the colors in my world bringing vibrance and light with your presence.

Wherever you are today in your world, I offer you my paintbrush. It's a little tattered and beat up. It has been used as a sword more than once. The colors on it are bright. Your world should be full of laughter, appreciation and beauty. So, let's get painting!

Pay Attention to the Fine Print

Excited, he opened the package of theatrical lenses. Pulled out the contacts. The petite folded instructions and warning fell like a discarded dirty napkin on the counter. "So I can just use water to put these in?"
I stared at the fine print trying hard not to be noticed on the counter.
Thirty years of wearing prescription lenses kicked in.
First. You wash your hands. He opened his mouth. My eyebrows went up. The edge of a razor sharp scowl threatened. He scooted. "With soap." He nodded.
He came back and presented hands. His mother never saw hands that clean.
Second. Never water. Saline is not water. Verbally reviewed the fine print. His eyes glazed. Paraphrased. Showed him the bottle of solution I carry and shared because lenses are daily for me.
Taught him how to put them in. Let him know about eye irritation and when you had best take them out. From experience.

Thought about the encounter.
How frequently people offer us the fine print we need to move forward but we glaze or hear the tone instead of the message or a defense mechanism dismisses it.
Fine print should be block capital large print, neon flashing red. Not quiet and tucked on the back page where the lawyer or the car dealer or the loan officer winked as they showed it to you dismissively. That's there for someone else or you know, legal purposes, har har wink wink.
Sadly, those little words could save us a lot of hurt. They could, prevent injury, frustration, misunderstanding. They are there as a shield and a ladder- but go ahead and recklessly race into and up the side of that precarious brick wall without checking to see if the mortar is good. Perhaps the seventh or eighth time look for someone to blame.
The little words in fine print softly say "I tried to tell you." Sadly say, "Will you listen now?"  How many nudges and repeated suggestions do you need from good friends and well meaning strangers? Out of curiosity, have you ever read the fine print on household chemicals?
The next time you step into a mire or an unfamiliar situation check: do you look for fine print or a knowledgeable source or do you wing it- or worse yet turn to the person next to you who also has no experience or clue?

The Always Never Trap

Stress can be good or bad. Eustress is the fancy dress up name for positive stress. Getting a promotion, planning a vacation, versus negative stress which we all know about and occasionally shake our fists and frown at.
Stress adds up. Emotional stress is subtle. It can be corrosive. You are juggling a million things and then someone says something or does something that hits you wrong. You have a day or week where things seem to slip rather than fit.
You find yourself in the all or nothing trap unaware that you've hit the spiky bottom.
Hurting yourself through internal overly critical black and white assessments that inaccurately represent you or how those around you perceive you.
Emotions in the way of neutral accurate perception. Everything is wonderful becomes everything is terrible and why am I alive? I can do anything becomes I am a total failure. Stop. Stop right there.
You are wrong about something. You are not a total failure. You can choose to step back, let go of the pain and self defeating internal dialogue. Reach out and communicate. Get reality checks from healthy supports. Take a walk. Work on a pet project. Do something for someone else. I think of the over 60p.people who participated in the 5K Zombie Run for a local children's charity in Muskogee. Laughing, dressing up as zombies and in fun rainbow ridiculous running tutus and seizing life as they dodged the zombies and helped a charity. Nobody there was always or never, all or nothing. I listened to runners cheer each other on, watched groups encourage and support each other as they aimed to try to 'survive to the finish line.'

Find something that gets you laughing and takes you out of your internal self trap. Put things back in perspective.
Remember your accomplishments, the goals you are working on and what you are working toward. Give yourself a break.
Be aware of your language internal and external. Absolutes are absolutely the last thing that belong in healthy self talk.
Start watching for signs of the sneaky trap. What triggers do you have that set it up? Lack of sleep, anxiety, vitamin or mineral deficiency, social isolation, finances, communication issues, emotional scars that flare up?
When you catch yourself slipping, how can you change how you say? Take ownership and problem solve. When this happens I feel like ---. Communicate with those around you "I am feeling rough today, and ask for help."
Do not assume no one has time for you. Do not assume no one cares. Do not assume you are worthless or a failure. Do not assume!!!
If you aren't communicating clearly- even if all you can manage is to say "I am in a bad head space" or "I am not communicating well" people are wrapped up in their own life juggling and may not catch the silent signs to reach out to you. Whatever has hit the all or nothing switch- although it feels insurmountable, it will pass and eventually it will be small and ridiculous in the rearview mirror of your life.

For today, take care of you. Attend to how you talk to yourself and what words you use in dialogue with yourself and those you love.
Quit beating yourself up over life lessons and focus on the reasons you can choose to smile and grow. 

Finding Your Yellow Rose

There will always be days and events that are hard to weather through. My grandfather always felt when you had a rough time you look for yellow roses and give them away. I will likely do that monday.
My birthday has always been rough. I found my dog lying peacefully on the front porch dead on my sixth birthday. I sat and spent about an hour petting him one last time before anyone else got up. He was unintentionally poisoned.
I was eleven when I came home to a cake mix on the table and a pack of number two pencils with a notebook for school. My birthday was the day I knew my marriage had been a terrible mistake. It was the day two years ago that I lost my best friend and companion, Rumor.
As a child, my friends were animals. My emotional support came from three great grandmothers, a number of barn cats and a few dogs that never lasted long.
Each year my heart sinks and dread rises as the day gets closer. This year I have been fighting it instead of letting sorrow rule my heart. This year I am taking more walks, taking vitamins, focusing on finding the positives and on getting done things I know I need to work on.
Turning it around: this year I turn forty. I am performing on stages and in lanes. Both of my shows are going well. I have a wonderful, considerate significant other. I have many friends I care about spread across the country. I have been to many beautiful places. I have stretched and done things I never thought I would get to do. I value myself. Forward is a beautiful direction to go.

Life as a Human Cartoon

First thought, being a cartoon- even a half cartoon would be great! Cartoons fall from great heights to reappear perfectly fine moments later, they costume change easily and they come with a laugh track.
A half human cartoon, on the other hand lives with the attributes of both worlds. Mundane life complicated by the universe's twisted sense of humor. Walking down the sidewalk and ending up in the right place at the right time to get doused with a huge puddle by a passing car. Finding out the guys in high school avoided you because your  brother sold them dates with you that never happened- keeping their money and telling them to avoid you fury at the "arranged date" by avoiding you. Going on a date only to find out the guy has a girlfriend and has to suddenly leave: and cue the falling off a cliff with funny sound effect and anvil afterwards. Little tasks may become epic through random chance. Laugh tracks, in real life do not always have good timing.
I studied Wiley Coyote as a child; marvelled at his perseverance. Now I use a sense of humor and perseverance to work on moving forward. Emotional reactions and expectations can get in the way of moving forward. Being half cartoon, easily distracted is part of life that you adapt to and accept. Adapt.
Patches. I patch myself up often, with the goal being that each patch offers the chance for healing to take root, offering a buffer until I address the root causes fully. Each patch reduces the weight and severity of what I carry and deal with.
I offer patches out. The idea that other people may have the same or worse battles in their own heads, sometimes burdened by dark emotions that are better tossed into a trash heap than experienced motivates me to share so that we all move forward.
Now, profound expressed I will likely slip on a banana peel or end up chased home by a runaway giant dragonfly or perhaps instead I will just get to enjoy the sound of crickets and the sight of Fox River. Perhaps today, I can just be human and that is enough.

Seeing the Forest and the Trees

Seeing the forest or seeing the trees, can you do both consciously?
It seems like a trite little phrase until you live it. Standing on stage working through material, watching and gauging audience response with mental analyses and adjustments whirling at thought speed it is the trees and not the forest you see. You look out and notice someone looking at their phone instead of watching. Why, you wonder. You see a few people join the crowd or leave. Why, you wonder. What can I change to draw more? I want to see their smiles, faces rapt at the stories or antics.
Then you have a moment where you talk to the proverbial tree. Then that one says they only came to catch Pokemon, they are in your audience inattentive and brazen about it. Not everyone comes to a show to be entertained. Not every audience member is there for the same reason. Some just want a place to sit, others may visit briefly to get a taste of multiple shows rather than just picking one.
When you look at the trees, it may help find areas to work on but it may also be setting you up for a bad head game. If you try to put a reason on another person's choice you may not pick wisely. You cannot assume someone is leaving your show or interaction because they are avoiding tipping or are not entertained. You may not be the right fit for them or they may just have wanted a sample- they may have a dozen reasons to leave that have nothing to do with you.
Look at the forest instead.  The crowd that stays or returns. Why? A friend of mine, Geoff Marsh, asks candidly of patrons. It is a hard set of questions: did you see my show, did you like my show, feedback on my show. Not fishing for compliments but open mindedly tuning in to be able to enhance his performance. He is a top notch entertainer because he sees the forest and the trees.
I am asking those questions now too. I am learning to step back out of my head trip of negative self defeating conjecture and into analysis and problem solving.
When I ask for feedback, I am asking so I can improve perspective and keep growing. Whatever your challenges and goals, are you taking time to see the forest and the trees?

What can you change in your perspective to move forward in the positive direction you seek to grow in?

What Do You Want & The Challenge Of Asking

What would you like? Scary question. Hard question to answer. What do you want?
I used to have a hard time answering these questions. Christmas was a special hell. My mother insisted we make lists. She then made sure to use the list as a mind game: you got maybe one thing from the list and the rest was stuff you couldn't give away and was somehow the opposite of what you figured out you wanted. You wanted a bathing suit? Here's a neon orange jumpsuit. Same thing right? You got in trouble if you cried or looked upset. My brother and I learned to act to deal with Christmas. We learned to be relieved that dad never got us anything. Nothing was better than shit you didn't want. My mother never noticed we gave it away, first to other kids and eventually to thrift stores. Make a list. What do you want? These questions became a Pavlovian trigger. I worked my way around that trigger; finding ways to get what I wanted through work rather than asking. I still struggle with asking, I try to just soldier through with the resources at hand.

A lifetime of adapting and surviving do not lend themselves to frivolity. I started working after sixth grade. I bought my clothes, snacks, books, and anything else I wanted. Ask someone and deal with a guilt trip or just work and have my own choice. Whining or not being responsible with household chores including cooking and cleaning? There was a barn I could live in or face the threat of paying rent to my parents.
I participated in all school activities, worked, and did household chores. I was a social outcast in school: too smart and outspoken to be cool. One day I stopped home to switch out of my soccer uniform to go to work. I was in tenth grade. I was screamed at so often that I do not register the words or sounds. I walked out of my room into my.mother having a screaming fit. I realized it as one of my cleats bounced hard off the wall next to my head. The cleats I had taken off in the mudroom properly. I had done nothing to trigger this. The screaming was shrill. I was exhausted. No tv shows, no fiction depicts this as healthy family reality. Anger welled up. I was next to the ironing board. The iron was sitting there.
I breathed. I quieted my heart and trembling thoughts which were still trying to figure out what I could have done wrong. Stumble. Forgot. Existing was my poor choice. The defiant egg and sperm that joined to create me were not wanted. They didn't care. They multiplied and the many cells of me were standing there facing a sad reality.
I looked at her. She paused to breathe and shriek again. I spoke. I stood.
I picked up the iron. "You will never speak to me in that tone of voice again. You will never raise your voice where I can hear it. My sister will never have to grow up with you being like this because it stops now. I work. I ask you for nothing. I buy what I want. I put up with your petty commands and clean and cook. I do not party. I do not get knocked up. (She opened her mouth and puffed up with a scowl and flushed face). I brandished the iron. There was fifteen feet between us maybe ten. My voice lowered. "I pitch softball. Problem is, when I loathe the batter I hit them in the head every time. Hard. If you came to games you would have seen helmets flipping off heads. You want to try me, go ahead. Scream one more time. I will pitch this fucking iron so fucking hard. See, its your head I have been aiming at. Make my day, otherwise turn around, walk away and pretend from this moment forward that you are normal." I stood. Iron in hand. Muscles tensed. Ready for the pitch. She could see it. She never raised her voice around me again.
That's the one time in life I can think of something I really wanted: to never hear a shrill screaming woman berating me over imagined slights again.

Fast forward to now. What do you want? Love. Kindness. Time to appreciate beauty in the world. Challenges that keep me thinking and growing. Arkham Horror, the board game. A new ebook reader. A wireless microphone set up. Pots and pans. Flooring for our carport tent. A small fridge. Eventually a generator. Finally. I feel comfortable answering the question of what I want. Now to work on asking. It is amazing to be at a point in my life where I feel I can start asking. I look forward to the moment where the fear of being burdensome in asking is a faded afterthought I can leave in a garbage can somewhere.

Secrets You Don't Know You Keep

I was three, maybe four years old. I was sitting in the hay in the barn playing with the barn cat and her kittens. My father walked in. Looked at me and stepped on a kitten. Suddenly and completely. He lifted his foot. It was flattened, it was dead. I was crushed. I cried and yelled at him. His response "It should have been you." I ran to my mother for support. She claimed I made it up. Somehow I made up the kitten. Somehow I fabricated the corpse. She mentally reduced in her reality the number of animals rather than deal with an unpleasant truth.
I remember doing laundry, as a preteen. Hoping no one would catch the stains hidden on dirty white socks. See, I didn't know what sex was, so I did not know the 'fun secret game' played in my teenage uncles' sleeping bag once or twice a year when he came to stay over. I didn't know the slick, sloppy stuff was semen.
The day the issue reared an ugly head in light of day it was dismissed. A made up tale by a crazy child, who was no longer allowed to handle guns. The sleep overs stopped. I found depression, or rather it found me. My eyes stopped seeing the world. My mother had to take me for an eye exam and the verdict was legally blind in second grade. Some days I want to see the world, most days now. Unfortunately, vision doesn't miraculously return.
Each of us has different life experiences, we have different perspectives and stories.
The challenges and hardships we face and surpass give us an appreciation for the gentle, sweet, healthy, beautiful people and world around us.
The last couple of years had ups and downs. I recount these stories not to burden you, but to free you. To free you to let go of secrets you do not know you keep. To heal and release what you are not responsible for.
I have said before not every story is mine to tell, sometimes there are many unspoken truths between lines. You can be drawn to and love someone who is unhealthy for you. You can also realize how unhealthy that is. You can assess the feeling: is it genuine love or just magnetic draw into abuse? Can you choose to heal and let go of the magnet?
I did. Instead of letting things escalate beyond being drawn into emotional pain, mind games, latent potential of physical violence I made a choice. I chose to value myself. I chose the expressions in the eyes and hearts of those who are healthy friends. I chose to set the baggage down and go.
This is the last time I mention them u less it is to talk about breaking cycles of abuse.

The first person who has to break that cycle is you. Facing your inner self and saying I am worth more than this, I deserve better than this, I do not deserve judgement or punishment, this guilt is not mine.
Say it every day. Live it. Let the loving people around you help you flow forward and heal. You deserve to be healthy, loved, respected and empowered. We all do.

Secrets allow abuse to continue. Secrets endorse it. Secrets allow abusers the power to continue, or to move on to an unprepared new target.

You do not always see it coming, it gets blamed on stress, health, finances. It is never acceptable. Never. You are not crazy.

Today I let this all go with a heavy heart. Children and pets. They get caught in the middle. People keep sharing pictures of black cats on my facebook. I love them. I still grieve Rumor. Now I grieve Sadhu as well, Danny has him. I have no idea how Sadhu is. It is the one way he can still affect my emotions. I have reached out for neutral mediation other than that, I have to let it go.
Goodbye sweet Sadhu. I hope life treats you well and I am sorry I didn't force the issue and take you to Scarborough when he insisted you stay with him.

Quit Sugar Coating.

Criticism is a tricky topic. The word itself is critical. Necessary for growth, change, life but not necessarily always wanted or enjoyable. Our perception and behavioral responses can close out helpful social cues and communication. Shut the door, slam the windows, draw the blinds and hide or point at someone else: the "They" that is cast as Villain in your life.
Emotions help us respond to the world and express ourselves. They are a two edged knife capable of energizing and empowering us with passion or paralyzing us with excuses and closing us away from the very feedback we need to grow and change. They daunt us, stress us, drive us, free us, and limit us. They are by nature, contradictory. When faced with a straightforward appraisal of areas we choose to interact with ourselves and others in an unhealthy way, sometimes they keep us from choosing to listen. They like things sugar coated, where one can suck the positive granules away from the constructive feedback and spit out the bitter truth that could have helped us grow. Thanks emotions, real helpful.
A man walked around the outside wall of a city every day. The wall was twelve feet tall. The stone it was hewn from was flat, smooth. There were no hand or footholds for climbing. There was a door, but to open the door one had to listen to the Sage guarding the door. The Sage could see your flaws. The Sage neutrally identified them, as if reading a grocery list. Many grew somber on hearing the recitation, some turning and leaving before the Sage was done with tears streaming down their cheeks like newly formed waterfalls. Others shouted, argued, or tried bribery and misdirection. The Sage was unmoved. Some attacked the Sage, only to find, the wounds they inflicted were to themselves. Some demanded they were perfect and tried brushing past the Sage, only to find themselves further from the city with ever step forward they took.
The man avoided the Sage after he walked away from him the first time they met. He despised the Sage for so casually listing his flaws. He excused his flaws and justified them more with each step he took. The man walked around the city so many times he made a dirt path around the wall. He could define the city. He knew the wall better than he knew the world. Sometimes he talked with people coming and going from the city. They told him to face himself, it would get easier and he would enjoy the sights within the city. The offered him suggestions, he always held steadfast to his excuses and path rather than try new ones.
Years past. One night, the man was cold. The wall was cold. The night was cold. He walked to stay warm. He could see his breath in the moonlight. He saw through the gate behind the Sage the orange flicker of a fire.
He turned, sighed and faced the Sage again. The Sage looked at him, exhaustion in the lines of his face. The man approached again, shoulders low and ego dragging behind him on the ground. The Sage listed his flaws. The man listened. Some were not so bad as he had chosen to see them as being, while others saddened and embarrassed him as they were worse. They talked for several hours in the cold, crisp night.
Finally, the man understood. Burdens released by choice, he stepped into the incredible City. There is a path worn down around the wall. When you walk it, you will run into others there who are stuck as well, circling and circling. Often, the encouragement they offer each other is sugar coated. Easy to digest but of little value for true progress to be made.
The hardest truths to face are the ones within ourselves that impact how we choose to perceive ourselves and shape how we choose to interact with the world. These truths offer us the most daunting but healing changes, sometimes approaching them is like jumping off a cliff; other times it is as terrifying as a walk down a dark city alley. The key seems to be holding onto the truth that in the end, awareness and positive change improve health, decrease depression and anxiety, and we are not alone. The people who care and support us are always just a thought away. Trust yourself, accept yourself, and problem solve. Painting the problem pretty doesn't resolve it, but I suppose it can make it funny if you really want to waste that much time avoiding the actual issue.

Ease Up

A bad mood curls around your neck and shoulders. You become prickly, agitated, and pressured like a summer storm. How did it develop? Gray clouds of overly critical self judgement, frustration at perception of self limitations you feel you should be long past, the internal evaluation where the interactions with others are distorted by past scars.
You catch yourself running tight circles in a ring, snorting like an angry bull tired of being led and used, ready for a tranquil grass carpeted field. Then someone reminds you to breathe. You look around and realize the arena is in your own mind. You are surrounded by love and kindness, people who encourage problem solving, goal setting, positive motivation. The people around you mirror what you feel and how you deal.
Relearning the shape of relaxation, easing up and letting healing and life happen at their pace. Relieved to be in a place where I can Ease up.
No matter how strong you are, if you live constantly tense and exhausting yourself, then you run out of strength and you fall. Pushes forward are frustrating wrestling matches with yourself, even where we blame someone else: it always comes down to us. The choices we make, how we perceive, how we react. Us.
A good friend said recently "You knew your choice in the relationship you were last in was not healthy: it's why you never asked any of us closest to you about it. You dealt with what you needed to, you're talking again, so you are making healthier choices."
Silence means there is a raging inner dialogue, where analysis and emotion are trying to reconcile with perceived reality. Neither one is particularly good at driving, both certain they are, and unfortunately, life tattered their road map. Instead of pushing them to figure it out, I am learning to work on figuring out a better map for them, letting it be easy like a sunny summer day. Blue skies, no rumbles and no unexpected rain.