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Why getting dumped on Woman’s Day (weekend), during Women’s Month, honors the Celebration of Women, Woman’s Day, Woman’s Month, Woman’s Life.

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This may seem ironic at first. Getting dumped honors women you say, how’s that? I know, it may be hard to see that as true at first, but the playbill that we have all been watching, was not what I auditioned to be a part of. I think it is safe to say, that a lot of leading women “roles” are actually a monologue of the deflated main character’s hopes and dreams. So what better way to step back into the limelight the woman was destined to play, than by being let go by a director who lost the lines to the script?

Break a leg!!

Oh ouch, I mean that figuratively, because we may need that balance as I explain just how empowering it could be to get ditched by the garbage delivery service. It’s like scoring a vintage Tiffany’s lamp in someone’s “FREE” bin on the curb, that you just got kicked to. Perhaps it can be visualized as a rare recording that just got remastered and goes platinum in a week after being dropped by a “bigtime label.” Actually, if you’re thrifty, it is as invaluable as the Juicy or Coach bag tucked away in the back of a dirty shoe shelf at a Goodwill.

Ok, ok, but why is this such a good deal?

Frankly, because I am, as you are, worth more than the mass produced cheap trash that was being fed into my soul.

The dish that I kept ordering and tasting was delicious though. Like downright made my mouth water. Every single time I sat down back at the table and I waited for my yummies, such a tasty and delectable appetizer. I was hungry though. The chef and I talked and clearly he was still a line prep. I love a man who can cook. So he kept feeding me the little delicious morsels that were filling me up, with an order on the line for the main course. My hopeful chef though, was still picking out other ingredients. He was ordering and eating from other menus as well as cooking really well for personal company. It was as if this prep cook was bringing back some of those leftovers and trying to serve them as fresh and uniquely supplied from his growing garden. I got food poisoning. Every time I bit into the prepared meal, I was dished out more watered down, reused and polished colanders caked of uncooked yolks.

The yolk was on me….

Let me tell you folks, the yolk is runny. Almost as runny-y as I am…..was….back into the shallow end of a pool that I thought kept getting deeper. Deep enough that I seemingly kept drowning in the buoyancy. I like to swim. But here’s the thing. Sometimes my water is really really dark, stagnant and pungent. I think I must be my own pool boy who just came fresh out of the gym, but has no flex. Mostly though, often I am a deep sea scuba diver that cannot navigate the way through a pond of my own wastewater. It is this environment that any sea-goer of my ship must fare at any time the storms roll in. But they are ripples from the rains of tears that were collected from the scorches of the thunderbolts at sea, where my nets have always been cast, since the time I was a Moses in the reeds. A collection of a liquid story.

An open book kind of story.

A story where it can get really difficult to trudge through those rambling rants of agony and loss. A long narrative where the writer has emphasized every letter to its fullest enunciation, giving exclamations to the most grueling grief. I narrated chapter after chapter of disbelief and debilitation followed by triumphs, joys, and reconciliations. But when the readings started reflecting and recording the rips the pages have held since the beginning of the press, the reader suddenly forgot how to read, shut the book. When opened back up to the joy of expression, after spurts of censorship, its an easy read with short stories of love, growth, and excitement. Yet when the next chapter, needs, to have its own title, needs to be enveloped into, co – authored and on the same page about where the rips are from and why they keep ripping, it suddenly becomes a comic book to the reader. Audible laughter became the veto to my voice and the red pen to my memoir.

MY memoir, MY Memories….

Many memories I have that I will hope to wash off the body like a temporary tattoo, where once the image was bright and crisp but the lasting result was a dull residue. Unlike the marring fingerprints from handling a collectible art piece to handily, some of the markings, the scar on my back, will not wash away, scrub away. Thankful I am now aware that I can have something incredibly beautiful braided onto my skin and seek healing in the process. As an artist, what is any better a way to express a scarred and tossed away clay lump of “too much mess,” than to become my own flowing and evolving masterpiece of self allowance and mastery?

A mastery of mind release.

See? It is now to become a release of all that was bound up in reflexes heightened to rubber band reactions. Wound up as tight as it could wind and triggered at its last of elasticity, snapping out of sight, and all that is left is the waves of energy left behind. The reverberations generated have shaken the casing off and created an emergence of what is to come. A flooding of all that has been dammed, from all the damns that were uttered, has come rushing through, ready to cleanse the basin. Gleaming and polished porcelain now, a receptacle of rejoicing once the voice was free to flow.

Flowing freely …

Freestyle forming now. It becomes time to see the freedom in becoming free. Not inundated with the pressures of not being able to withstand the opposition to expression. See now, the hardening chiseled away and reveals the treasure of those pressures. A diamond. Lighting the pathway which has been cleared to lay the new foundation of my Kingdom with the precious gems of the noble build. It becomes time to apply my own masonry of paving the way to a star studded encampment that will encompass all that is glistening in the glory of growth, and no longer held from progress. A lamp unto my pattering feet…

As I finally walk away…

Walk away from the table of poison where I no longer have to wonder who’s garden you pillaged to plate my palette… As I float away from falsity of finding depth in your shallows and shark infested wade pool that just waits for me to emotionally bleed and feast on my fears… As I saunter along into the sunshine and seek out only the growing seedlings found along in salutations of honesty and full hopes… I am upcycled from the bin of bruises you boxed me in and will encase the world in an array of raw and real reverence. I have become the priceless point of existence where all that reflects back to me is an understanding of what I know I am worth. And as far as being discarded in the dump, I realize that you are what you eat. I ate a lot of garbage, I became a lot of garbage. I was fined for wanting to reduce, reuse, and recycle from trash to treasure. So, while the garbage man is still making trips back and forth to the dump, I, a rare and valuable creation of star stuff and bright lights am able to find the value of the depths and rise above the heaps, where there are no more shadows dimming the hope and love I have to shine.

Shine on, me, you, crazy diamonds.

matters of life and ptsd

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Yesterday I received an exchange that I never thought I would hear.


I was in a marriage/relationship that was intense and full of love and very unhealthy. Our unmet childhood needs came out in full force, resulting in lack of acknowledgment, anger, and started the cycles of abuse. Mental, emotional, physical abuse… …. start the ptsd journey in my body, …..in our relationship.


After years of hope, some change, and little soul dirty work, we got “better.” or maybe we just put it away because, Love was on the rise, mandated counseling, and who wants to actually work through the “old” pain when you’re trying to “heal?” We can just get over it, right?


Then, THE worst thing in our lives happen. Our daughter dies. Grief, grief, grief…. and triggers. The ultimate triggers. Everything triggers. Endless ptsd. and the need for needs rose up out of the ashes to burn alongside the fire for peace from the pain….. layered ptsd.


My grief, and my ptsd were scoffed at. My pain and fear of everything that was happening in my life was taken in, never chewed, yet regurgitated with agitation that I could not “get over it,” or whatever was being hoped of me. (just months after our loss).


My grief and my ptsd, turned to resentment against me. The inability to process that I have to process, losing my daughter and all that occurred during this time, created a divide that was digging my grave. I had to start saying goodbye to the idea that I was allowed to feel the Ptsd running through my body as my blood. and when you instantly cut off a blood supply, the result is mortem. so, I was no longer living. At least not the way I needed to in order to actually live. Survival mode kicked in. And within a year, our relationship was kicked out, along with my need to be acknowledged in my ptsd, triggers, and grief.


Grief. triggers. ptsd. and it has been all on me. And I think that at some point you begin to believe that you don’t have the right to hope that another will see it, and you begin to do it on your own. And you don’t stop. And then you do a bit of healing, for yourself. You become “independent.” And sometimes independence turns into…..


Living in this last several years in a place where this has been a priority to me. To heal and work through the triggers. work through ptsd and grief.

It also since has looked like – been living in a relationship of a world that has been incredibly similar to the relationship patterns of before, if not WORSE, in fact. So much intense love…. and so much intense pain,……. and abuse, and ….. triggers. Ptsd. Grief. Unacknowledged. Goodness I am so diligently and fiercely loyal …. patterns.


Why? Because I wanted closure. Closure to the window that let my needs fly right out. and I thought that maybe this time that by shutting the window and staying with it, being with it when it got wild, would help it settle down. But the window was shut from the outside and all that outside observer cared to peek into was the bouncing around of “chaos” on the inside while I sat inside alone with the fluttering failure.


And once again, kicked to find the Independence. One that I was already establishing, still trying to heal, and trying to share the healing. It was one that said again, that my ptsd, my grief, would remain unacknowledged and simmer on top of the burnt ashes to send the message to the gods, that my, our, ptsd, triggers, griefs and traumas that are not worked through, are for the sake of “love.”


this message that has silenced me for years, and a message that has silenced the messenger’s ability to hear their own internal message and acknowledgment, created a platform to continue the cycles of abuse, to themselves and to their, our, partners.


I began to think that this indeed was a silent and unacknowledged journey. But I started to understand that maybe those that refuse to see the course, may never, and I understand that I still have to do my healing with our without acknowledgement. I hoped to be ok with that.


But then something profound happened yesterday, in the midst of all of this.
An acknowledgment. YEARS later.


Patterns and pains realized and processed, or in process, later. Tears in the eyes, understanding now the effects of ptsd are real later. An, I’m so sorry I did that to you…….. 3-5 years of me living out this nightmare on replay, later.
And I realized a few things in that moment.


One, that I was grateful for this moment I had once longed for. Two, that I was so sad for this pain that courses through this man’s being, knowing how hard it is to carry the burden of ptsd. Three, I also felt very stoic. Like I had no emotional reaction at all.


But I felt so proud of manhood at that moment. It was more relieving to me to know that there is maybe some actual hope. Maybe there is an opportunity for more people to learn how to validate, allow healing as strength.
Because as I see it, no we do not have to heal the other person. No that is not our job at all. We can go on life thinking that the person who is open about their issues has issues, and get mad at them for it, only enabling and maintaining a victim mentality. OR..


We can all take a moment to see that not talking about the wounds, makes resentment. The peace in the in between silence is a peace from a graveyard. A cemetery of hopes and dreams. But those hopes and dreams will remain covered until you can unearth the deaths you have hidden within your own tomb, and bury them with blessings and love.


I received an acknowledgment. Finally.


from someone that I once desperately needed it from. From someone that it took years of pain and realization and a loss of all that was precious to him to see.

PTSD is real. Grief is real. It does NOT go away….on it’s own, it sits “silently” while we “live” on in glory. It invites itself to your table and never leaves. Until, an invitation of nonjudgmental exploration with love and empathy is offered and validated through openness and diligence, the pain will always come back and they will always see it as “chaos” served.

I Love deeply. But I am fiercely independent. My dependency lies within the idea that we all feel the same, or should want to feel level and loved.


And while I did receive an apology, and it was real, it was more empowering than I had expected it to be. I only hope that it empowers women and men to sit with themselves, and meet vulnerability now, not 5 years too late.


Blessed be on your journey to healing, loves. We ALL need acknowledgment and validation. Find love in what love actually means. Begin to heal traumas, together, because we indeed, are not alone in this.

Grow or Go

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I KNOW YOU’RE NOT READING THIS. I KNOW YOU DON’T CARE. BUT IF YOU COULD DO THE WORLD A FAVOR AND TRY TO BE FAIR. DELETE ME ENTIRELY OR FACE UP TO OUR TRUTH. BE A BETTER EXAMPLE OF LOVE FOR OUR YOUTH. LET THEM SEE MATURITY. LET THEM SEE GROWTH. LET THEM SEE THAT IN YOU, THERE IS A FUTURE OF HOPE. SHOW THE COMPASSION THAT COMES AS NATURAL AS THE ACT. HAVE COMMUNICATION THAT SHOWS YOU DO IN FACT HAVE TACT. WELCOME GROWTH FOR YOUR SOUL, THE KIND THAT MOVES MOUNTAINS INSIDE. SHOW SOME LOVE AND LET DOWN THE HIGH PRIDE. BE WHO YOUR SOUL CLAIMS AND LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY. SILENT DISREGARD IS A FOOLISH GAME TO PLAY. IT PRESENTS OPPONENTS RATHER THAN TEAMMATES OF THIS EARTH. IT SETS LOVE ASIDE AND LEADS ONLY WITH HURT. YOU GIVE TO THE WORLD BUT REFUSE TO TAKE PART, IN OWNERSHIP OF LOVE OR IN THE HEALING OF WOUNDED HEARTS.

WHEN IT COMES TO ACCOUNTABILITY, ILL TAKE IT OVER AND AGAIN. BECAUSE GROWTH IS THE ONLY GAME WHERE WE SHOULD TRY TO WIN. I HAVE SO MUCH CONCERN FOR THE EXAMPLE YOU ARE GIVING AND MY HEART BREAKS FOR THE CONFUSION IN WHICH WE’VE BEEN LIVING. PERHAPS ONLY I AM THE ONE WHO FEELS THE SADNESS AND LONGING, OR PERHAPS IT IS ONLY LOVE THAT I WISH IN BELONGING.

SUCCESS COMES AFTER MASSIVE FAILURE REARS UP. BUT ONLY IF REFLECTION HAS BEEN OBSERVED THROUGH THE EYES OF AWAKENING LOVE

That Switch

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It must be when the pain reaches an exceedingly high level that the switch is flipped. That nano second of a moment when it no longer matters.

Done.

Gone.

Vanished.

Or maybe vanquished. I am definitely trying to observe myself and what patterns or processing I am making or taking. One thing I am currently noticing is the level of which I should care is as indifferent as the high level of pain.

My switch has been flipped.

I now find myself in a place where I am repulsed by the thoughts that were once my longing and suffering of what I must have pushed myself into believing was love.
Twice my grieving for my daughter has been halted so abruptly to forcibly grieve another twist of fate.

I have spent many days in a state of seeing my grief sitting in a glass shadow box on display. I can see it from all angles and yet I am unable to grasp it. It cannot become my own to encase within my soul. It is the humanity within me and it sits apart from me, and this, is what causes my roboticism. As long as that organ of existential grief is out of its designed receptacle, I suffer from the flipped switch syndrome.

I, am no longer who I was, and yet also coming back to whomever it was I was intended to be and perhaps had a bit of within me so many years ago.

Before.

It has been less than a year. Almost a year. And it was still just yesterday.

I can still feel every ounce of fear, sadness, pain, anger, loss…… everyday. In that less than a year, almost a year, I have also endured a second loss, which is so much like a death, actually twice. And now, having observed my stance on this very shaky and unstable foundation called life, it is bewildering that I am still standing.

Now that I have become the other side of human, I realise that my humanity, the one in a transparent objectification of process, is not grounded to anything. I think that once I can make a human synapse fire in this metal realm I’m in, I can reach to the case and that instant connection will shatter the box and set free, me. My ability to grieve peacefully will return and I will become whole once again, and disconnected from that switch forever more.

Tiny Streams

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The disappointment that continues to ensue is beginning to be irreparable. The damage is settling in and pulling up a chair, asking what’s for dinner, making a bed. It knows that it is on a hot trail to its own success. Of course, in the process, completely obliterating any semblance in that aspect, of that particular sanity . The crushing weight of what was supposed to be and what should have been has begun to really stomp all over my dreams. It has found a path through what was supposed to be happiness and has temporarily hijacked the entrance and exit. Blocking hope.

This barricade started out with just little wash outs in the road. Tiny little streams of disarray just trickling over the way, causing brief pauses and little moments of panic. The attempt to keep the direction open and secure was loosely bound up by grains of sand, lightly kicked off the side to plug up that little stream just enough so that it didn’t appear to cross back into our mission. So of course, the mission continued. We pass on by that little trickle of doubt and push on through.

With a long enough journey, especially one that makes you climb and climb, it will inevitably be filled with these little streams along the way. It is expected, it is exciting to overcome those little obstacles, strengthening the climber, building a bit firmer center of existence.

After time though, getting further along, kicking pebbles and sand to fill the gaps…just hop over it. There isnt enough time in the journey to completely build all the boundaries needed to walk this way. It just becomes an unwanted, yet expected, so familiar…. and a nuisance to progress, forward progress. Jumping over these ditches on the rise to the top has now become the trail guide’s recommendation for recovery and quickest route to comfortability.

Pressure begins its due process. Pushing through all the little cracks of the poorly built barriers, the trickling evidence of entropy plots its course. The shift in energy is in the air, it is felt by the rumble of the core. The path is no longer a terrain of sure footing and sacredness. The wash out rolls effortlessly over and through the depths of the ditches, drowning all attempts and efforts of past crusades.

The landscaping of life is now flooded by the inability to work efficiently and in unison with the instructions. An entirety of land washed away, where the roots and the water are one, and there is no ground to ground to. The failing, the endless flailing, the fragments and fear, whirl around with the tide that is stirred by the forgetting to dam the doubts. Damn the doubts.

Floating.

Lifelessly floating with the waves of woe.

In the distance, on the horizon of hope where one day I will be able to walk a path again. Hike to the harmonious collision of dreams and reality. Hike to the hellacious chasms of reality and dreams. Along the way while smelling the fresh new blossoms of chance not forgetting to bring the gear needed to build the dam before the journey.