It's All About the Journey

Recently, I had a bad episode of being an asshole. I was feeling vulnerable and scared and powerless and I was on a cocktail of prescriptions that I sincerely believe triggered a manic episode. Reasons don't matter. I was a total prick.   All of that is getting to that my sister and I have been estranged for a lot of time. Like I haven't seen or spoken to her in three years. She has this amazing capacity to find the soft spots in me and stick hat pins in them. And when I kind of went no contact, it was because my heart couldn't take any more of that than I was already experiencing. I couldn't take the hurt. So I just closed that door. After being an asshole to my friend, and sort of exploring how it happened and why, I wondered if some of that same vulnerability and fear, and hurt, and that feeling that my friend was a safe space to sort of unload is the same way my sister felt about me. I'm not saying it's a healthy thing, I'm just wondering if it's an ...

 It has been a wild 24 hours. Funny how life can rage around you and end off pretty peaceful.  Started off pretty uneventful. Until I got downstairs to see my husband sitting there with the "we need to talk" face. And that face only ever means that he has something I am going to have to tolerate. He'd decided that despite the fact that we have no children and no joint assets beyond a small account that we pay household bills from, he needs to have a lawyer look over the papers. Okay. I kind of get it. But you needed to do this two weeks ago. I've felt like I have been trapped waiting for him to do what he's supposed to do. I mean, that's been the past five years, frankly, so I don't know why I expected anything different. And I literally cannot do this for him like basically everything else, so I just had to wait. Wait until the weekend the first week. Give him another week the second week, and then yesterday, this business with the lawyer. And these past ...

 I'm working so hard to find the good things that are coming from the exhausting, emotional, horrible experience that is a divorce. I think it's one of the healthiest coping mechanisms I've ever had. It such habit now that I barely notice unless I am intentionally being mindful. Which I am also trying to do often just to lift myself a little. I think the biggest good thing is learning forgiveness. I've been working on learning apology for a while. And that one was really hard for me. I guess I didn't realize the two would be so closely connected. About the time I learned how to say I'm sorry and then be sorry and follow up with the labor involved in being sorry and doing better, I started also learning to accept apology. There is always music that brings me peace of all sorts. I think that the forgiving songs are the most powerful. When a song can soften you toward a wrong for which you never got an apology, that's magic. I've had two such songs. One tha...

 I keep having these flashes of real clarity. It's so weird. I'm sure group has a lot to do with it. And my dear friends all flocking around me because apparently I'm unsettling folks. I'm intense. I'm just intense. I don't want to be sorry for that. I'm having all the feelings all at once because I have been not letting myself have them for too long. So they are all coming out in a rush. I think the reason I lost my entire mind and showed my whole ass last night is because I felt like I wasn't in control of the situation. Of my feelings about the situation. And it feels like exploding a good thing is better than having it explode out of my control. That's a big, fat, important one. I found myself acting exactly like my sister. The truly awful mean one. All of this has been insightful to my own life and my feelings and mental health issues, but also those of others. I have found it so hard to feel compassion for her because she's so hurtful. But ...

 Lot of intrusive thoughts rolling around my head lately. One would only expect. My most recent was thinking to put an extra beer in the fridge before I leave for my support group. At the same time, I feel like sorting through the debris is good. Especially in rounds. Not all at once. But the talk about God with a capital "G" doesn't do much for me. The final answer seems to always be God. And me and God aren't the best of friends. It's just always been easier to think he doesn't exist at all than to think he hates me so much. I'm not angry at God. That's what most people expect out of people like me. I'm happy for people with faith. I'm just not one of them. And I know all the folks who have not walked in my shoes, to the good side or the bad, won't like that. I'm tired of not saying what I think because someone won't like it. I've kind of done what I always do at times like this. I just internalize it all and sift through as I...

 I get like this and I'm more than a little crazy. I mean, I wonder if this is what a manic episode feels like. I wonder if this is a manic episode. I feel wild. I feel like unhinging myself. I feel like the only way to live is to explode and then pull me out of the debris. I feel self-destructive.  I haven't done anything dangerous to my body in years. I mean, really dangerous. But I am a master at emotional self-destruction. I can unhinge myself into the best shape of my life if I do it right. I can't sleep. I'm already barely eating and drinking most of my dinner some nights. All three drinks. Even wondering if that's a problem probably means it's a problem. Down a good eleven pounds in three weeks. I look great. I feel like complete shit. And that's the way it is in here, for me, for my Mama. People tell me how great I look. The weight of the years of feeling I avoided all crashing down somehow looks good on us. And it has moments where it feels good. A ...

 There are so many words. I think the closest I ever got was "Southern Gothic DaVinci" and every woman was his Mona Lisa. He had this way of capturing a sideways smile, a dimple, a glint in the eye. Not even just capturing it, but really seeing it in the first place. He was all authentic soul. And it shone through every piece of art. Every Moon Gal and every pointy-chinned pinup half-dressed and unashamed. Teasing. Or not teasing. Just comfortable and content. Every woman he created showed how he loved women. The right way. And we all knew it. And that's why we all loved him back so hard. He showed us what he saw in us and what we all really want to be. What we all want the freedom to be. And I think what some of us have captured the freedom to be partially because of that art. All that from a self-conscious girl who's never really felt seen. Then a comment here about "those eyes" and another about my strong arms and I saw myself a little differently. And it...

 Thinking hard on that tattoo tonight. Something to turn hurt into something beautiful. Thinking hard on that possum tattoo tonight. The one I was told not to get with a wrinkled nose because I guess they're ugly. I can't imagine that's what Daddy was thinking when he called me that. The story goes like this: I was tiny. Apparently just old enough to smile. My Daddy would lay me on his lap, baby feet to his hips. He was that tall. And y'all, I was a nine pound, thirteen ounce baby at birth, so I was not a little thing even then. He would talk to me and I would grin. And I would grin so hard, I'd wrinkle my nose. Like a possum. So that's what I was. I went to a bar on my twenty-first birthday, about the time I was taking myself so seriously I forgot how to laugh. No wonder people thought I was arrogant and stuck up. I think they still do. I hate that. I'm not really either of those. Anyhow, someone yells across a bar with loud music "Possum, is that you?...

I'm trying to remember that writing is always here. When I haven't got a person, I have these words. I have the ability to organize it all in tidy lines with perfect leading. I can edit my thoughts before they collide with the world. And even then, it seems sometimes that I don't quite get it right. I guess that just means I need more practice. But it also means that I can't let people hold every word I write against me. Or every word I say. I'm not a perfect person and I'm definitely not a perfect writer. But god help me, it sure is therapeutic. Jason Isbell recently said something about writing songs because he wants people to feel less alone. I write because I want to feel less alone. Maybe I'll get out of myself one day.  I always worry that  I talk too much. So sometimes I don't talk at all. In my younger years I was described as shy. I figure no one has to read any of this. They aren't captive or forced. Read what you will, go find a different ...