She just resonated BIG time today. All week has been a struggle with one thing or another blog related. Ugh. I think she might have a wee drinking problem lol, but otherwise I love what she’s written in this post.
Last week on The Buddha, I wrote this in a puff of deflated, uninspired breath.
Finding Stella J. McKenna today on Medium was kismet.
It’s a great post!
Reminds me not to take myself so seriously. And we ALL need a reminder of that sometimes.
See ya soon!
I’m battling an anxiety that has me gripped in the steely clutch of entrapment. Every morning it greets me, pulsing deep in my solar plexus. Almost before I wake. A consistent gnawing at the core of my being. A maddening loop of repetition I can’t seem to escape. It is the most diabolical intruder. A ruiner of contentment. A disturber of my peace. And I feel helpless to control its effect on my person.
Some days it frightens me. A lot. Because I can’t believe the power it has over me. How do I fight an adversary I can’t see or touch?
At this very moment I am trying to figure out what is triggering it. It’s been a constant in my body for too long. I can no longer ignore that something BIG is wrong. Somewhere. Inside. I ask myself all the usual questions and come up with all the usual suspects. Calmly. Rationally. Intellectually. Spiritually. I am not in denial of any truth. At least none that I am consciously aware of.
But I must be.
I must be missing something incredibly vital.
Because it simply will NOT go away.
How, after all this time, after all I’ve been thru, does anxiety suddenly rise up to claim victory? Why now? I do what I know to do and after my initial waking moments I am fine. I don’t suffer the debilitating spread 24/7. But it is there the second I become conscious from sleep and it rises thru me like an orchestrated crescendo. A cold, clutching reverberation of strings and woods and horns and drums. Pounding my solar plexus, echoing thru to my fingertips.
I don’t understand this Anxiety.
At all.
I’m trying to.
I just want to STOP.
The fucking loop.
“There’s such unnecessary sorrow
In love unspoken.”
~Me~
I woke up today thinking about mortality.
And the precious time we waste getting this love thing all wrong.
K’s cancer diagnosis and upcoming surgery has given rise to much emotional thinking. Prevalent now, are thoughts of wasted moments ticked by in silence. A silence that should have been filled with love. Love that could have created harmony. Peacefulness. And a beautiful knowing that reaches far beyond the breadth of a relationship. Even beyond the breath of life.
I thought about Khalid.
And how often we said “I love you” to eachother. And to be honest, I don’t remember us being super mushy and full of syrup. We laughed a lot. We loved a lot. We had one of those quiet, deep and passionate loves. The kind that fortifies no matter how stormy the weather. But we didn’t actually say “I love you” a lot. We didn’t have to. It was completely understood. I think… I hope. But we should have. I should have. Every. Single. Day. He meant the world to me. He made me happy. And he gave me his heart so selflessly. So effortlessly. He was Unconditional Love. Personified. I should have been tripping over the words. Shouting it from the roof tops. Daily. But I didn’t. I was too angry. And too scared. His illness terrified me. The tumor in his brain a constant reminder that I was going to lose him. That cancer was killing him. Slowly. Stealing his love from me. And that for every truly happy moment we shared, weeks were being taken away. And though I loved him so intensely, I didn’t tell him I loved him like I was gonna lose him. I left too much silence in the spaces between his seizures, his surgeries and his death. It was only in the darkness of my grieving that I wailed it to the heavens. Often. In desperate hope that he would finally, really hear me. And I am content, in the end, that he did.
And now. It is known. From an unbreachable distance.
Some days. Like today. I can’t help but wonder how different our time together would have been if I had just said the words. More.
And then I thought about P.
We rarely said “I love you” to each other. Not nearly enough for the passion we shared. The obsession. The constant craving. Not nearly enough for the great love I felt. For her. Fear of how easily and carelessly she would hurt me, stopped me. Afraid to expose my heart. I became…careful. Not always saying the words when they wanted so badly to be said. Perhaps, that was my mistake. Hers was not knowing how. Instead, we became ensnared in filling our precious moments with accusations, mistrust and one-up-manship. You hurt me. I hurt you back. So busy proving ourselves right not to trust in the vulnerability of love. We missed the sweetness in the knowing we were already so deep in it. And wasted 5 years engaged in a pointless war. One that would never have started if we’d just been less wounded. Less afraid. Braver. Kinder. And had just said the words we both so desperately needed to hear. Every. Single. Day. Showing and telling eachother just how deeply we loved. Because the sad truth is, we really, truly did. Stalemate offers no comfort.
And now. It is known. From an unbreachable distance.
Some days. Like today. I can’t help but wonder how different our time together would have been if we had just said the words. More.
And now there’s K.
Sweet, loving and loveable K. Who wears her heart emblazoned like the S in the Superman logo. Who knows no fear in love. Who walks into the raging inferno of that uncertainty, vulnerable and with open arms. Never knowing if she’ll be loved back. Or if kryptonite will take her down. Standing strong in the conviction of her belief in Love’s power. I am in awe. And I am blessed. She is that elusive Unconditional Love. Personified. And she tells me she loves me. Every. Single. Day.
I was uncomfortable with all her sweet talk. Her random blurts of love half a dozen times a day. Her “Where did you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe”-ness. Her genuine kindness and giving. The things she did and still does…just to see me happy? Hmm. I haven’t had that kind of love in almost 23 years. Almost half a lifetime. It feels alien now. Unfamiliar. Untrustworthy. What’s the catch? I have reasons not to trust expressions of love. They’ve proven false countless times. Love lies hurt. A lot. And I have never trusted love spoken too soon either. I mean who says “I love you” – and means it – just weeks into a relationship?! Liars and manipulators, that’s who.
And maybe lesbians 😉
But how can those quick, hurried proclamations be trusted? Love is HUGE! Real love, that is. The kind of love that lasts. That’s deep and knowing. That remains steady when the flames have cooled and the love story is not always perfect. It’s not something to be bandied about. Traded back and forth like hockey cards. Or toaster ovens. Or declared in the heat of passion. Or used against someone to move them against their nature…
Love is powerful. Love is gentle. Love is beautiful. And Love is kind. And even though K still says “I Love You” far more then I am completely comfortable with, I get it. There is power in repetition.
This repetition has gained my trust. Encouraged bravery.
This repetition has instilled security. Given haven.
This repetition has proven reliability. Allowed hope.
This repetition has introduced a quiet consistency. A strength. A bond. For moments like this. When the love story isn’t perfect…
Lightbulb moment? Ya…kinda.
I really didn’t know all this was happening while I was dodging K’s love bullets. But I see it now. And I understand the truth in just how important saying the words really is. I have spent a lifetime mistrusting love because the promise of it, and eventual withholding of it, has been far too painful to endure. But I have wanted love. Wanted to be loved. Perhaps more then most. Done “things” in the hope of it. Have compromised myself more then I care to admit because of it. And eventually I learned that it is far easier to scorn it. Belittle it. Challenge it at every turn. Then to give in to the hope and dream of it. And the acceptance that maybe, just maybe, this time might be IT. It’s a difficult, lonely and unnecessarily sad path to follow. And I don’t recommend it.
My daughter once told me that LOVE doesn’t hurt; people hurt. She is right. Love doesn’t hurt. It’s a wonderfully warm and glowing hug that fills you up with the most incredible and fulfilling light. And if you are lucky enough to feel its amazing power, always ALWAYS try and give it back. No matter what. Love deserves that. Don’t compare it. Don’t analyze it. Don’t abuse it. Embrace it. It truly is what life is all about.
And if you feel it. And it scares you. And you want to run as far away from it as you possibly can. DON’T.
Even if you feel like it’s too late to say it. That it doesn’t matter. That it has no power. No value. That nothing will change. DO IT ANYHOW.
Say the words.
I LOVE YOU
I LOVE YOU
I LOVE YOU
Every. Single. Day.
And repeat them. Over and over and over.
They matter.
To someone.
So much more then you realize.
Don’t wait to make it known. From an unbreachable distance.
And have days. Like today. Where you can’t help but wonder how different your time together would have been if you had just said the words. More.
~
I’ve overcome my technical difficulties. I’m managing to fight off a cold, fingers crossed. And my mood has stayed stable for an entire week without meds! This is GOOD news lol! And most importantly, the post that won me my Freshly Pressed award has been found! I thought it lost after I deleted my blog, (the first time), BUT I had the foresight to print it and am soooo glad to have it back! It felt like an important part of me had gone missing when I was unable to find it, and I’m not sure I could have happily begun this intense venture without it. So, yay and thank you Universe!
This piece below was written during a serious purging after my mother had gone missing for a day and my sister called me, very concerned. I was soon thereafter awarded the dubious post of becoming my Mother’s next of kin emergency contact. The reason for this was solely due to proximity, and not familial bonding. As only hinted at here, there was at the beginning and still is, no genuine loving or intimate connection between my adoptive mother and I. It’s not that she was cruel or unkind. She was simply…unaffected. Unaffected and emotionally distant. As a child, I wanted nothing more then to please her. As an adult, I feel like nothing more then a disappointment.
Ya…there will be a lot more of that later.
However.
It was 24 hours after my Mother had been found in her semi-assisted seniors living space, lying on the floor with a fractured hip and then hospitalized, that I tracked her down. Unready to be reinserted into the fold of family after a long absence, and definitely unprepared to deal with the host of ugly feelings that reintroduced themselves due to the forced proximity, I began a 10 day writing spree to try and cope with the wealth of conflicting, often time guilt-ridden, emotions that surged.
Mother.
Not quite the dream I had imagined.
Like I said.
Not cruel. Not unkind. But a scar rendering indifference just the same.
I most definitely have a love-hate-confused set of triggers when it comes to my Mothers.
Yup. I had two of ’em.
Biological was truly, deeply a messed up version of Mommy Dearest. You’ll meet her soon enough.
Non-biological? Cold and indifferent. But she was and still is, the Mommy Nearest.
Hence the title of the post.
So, without further ado…
The prologue to my Auto-Bio Me and the beginning of my Release.
************************************************************************
Back in the days of “free love”, Martin Luther King and JFK, when everyone was fighting for civil rights and the abolishment of racism, prejudice and war, there was an equally innocent and alarmingly growing population of people who were left undefended. Invisible for all intents and purposes. Uncared for, unwanted and unloved. Without a voice and without rights, they were born into this world not by choice, but by the careless whisper of seduction and the accidental meeting of ova and seed.
Orphans. The Forgotten Children.
I know. Because I am one.
We were housed in homes that neglected us, abused us and only took us in for the government cheque issued once a month for our care. And if no home could be found for us, we were placed in government run, impersonal, dehumanizing, inhumane orphanages. I have experienced both and the memories are not kind.
The 60’s were not enlightened, protective times for abandoned children. Like a strange breed of cattle, we were cloistered, tagged, and herded behind dark and angry walls. Dressed in ill fitting clothes, fed three squares of slop a day, and left to sleep on questionably clean, threadbare cots made of metal coils and cold steel frames. Crushed side by side in neat little rows, we led anything but neat little lives.
I think the worst days for me were the ‘begging’ days. The days when a comb was run through our hair; our shirts, pants and skirts straightened; spittle and thumbs used to wipe that smudge of dirt off our cheeks, and then forced to smile as we were put on display. Paraded in front of any and all prospective ‘parents’ who, with a cursory glance, had the power to own us or leave us to our fate; their biological brats sitting pretty and clean and pious, eyeing us and despising us for even thinking we had a right to their life.
On one such occasion, my new family was in attendance. A tall, dark haired man with kind, laughing eyes would soon become my ‘dad’. A small, quiet boy, 3 years younger than I, with a shock of blonde hair and big blue eyes, would soon become my ‘obnoxious little brother’. A plain looking girl, 3 years older than I, with curly brown hair and sly green eyes, would soon become my ‘sister’. I sensed she was going to be trouble. I was right. And the woman I was soon to call ‘mother’, seemed to look right through me. Strange that I have no clearer memory of her in that moment. It’s just sort of…blank.
They had come to take me out for the day and the staff had warned me to be on my “best behavior”. This could lead to me being chosen if I “played my cards right”. They told me to smile. More. I tried. But my face felt stiff and my heart rock heavy. I had been through this all before. Many times.
I smiled anyhow. Big and bright and wide. It never touched my eyes. Once brown and sweet and trusting, they had turned black and cold and angry. I tried not to look bitter.
I always had a hard time smiling on ‘begging’ days. On any day for that matter. I think my smile disappeared just around the time I discovered it. There hadn’t been time to fill the proverbial halls with my innocent laughter. No time to revel in the joys of becoming a carefree child. By the time I was 5 years old, I understood what it felt like to whore myself, and my child withered up and died. ~
