so, what’s the score?

Last night, I finished reading the book, The Body Keeps the Score by psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk. If you want to learn about how trauma affects people and how people can overcome their painful wounds, then it’s worth reading (especially if you work closely with people, especially if you’re any type of healer or therapist).

I wanted to read this book because, if you’ve been following this blog for a bit, I’ve chronicled a lot of trauma here. I wanted to make sure that as someone who lives more in her head than in her body, that I was taking care of myself on my healing journey.

Well, the healing journey continues, but not in a way I was expecting.

With van der Kolk, his work impacted and shaped the work I had been supporting in psychology/psychiatry research. This book was published in 2014, the year I graduated from grad school.

And the book was, in part, a continuation of the research work I helped to support.

I’m not sure how I feel about it. I feel a lot of things.

I thought I was done mourning not becoming a child psychiatrist, which had been a dream career I had since I was a teenager. What had stopped me was some chronic anemia that had been plaguing me when I started my final push through pre-med classes.

So if that illness hadn’t happened, I would probably be a full-fledged doctor by now (and definitely not writing a blog about my spiritual journey).

While I was reading this book, it was like reading a career I could have had — or maybe should have had?

But also, it was like meeting the person who shape and inform how I view mental health. That’s because back when I lived in Chicago, our research group was a part of his larger national research group.

One of the goals of that group, along with other clinicians and researchers, was to help create a new diagnosis for trauma that involved children, called Developmental Trauma Disorder. The idea is that a lot of what children with behavior and psychiatric issues are most likely stemming from traumatic events, such as living in an abusive home.

A bit surprisingly but very disappointingly, this diagnosis didn’t make it into the DSM-V, the book that psychiatrists and other mental health professionals use to diagnose psychiatric disorders. It’s an important book to bill insurance for services. This was right around the time I was leaving for Florida.

I had become somewhat endeared to one of the directors of our research group. He was just a good guy and, in retrospect, I should have bent his ear more but I was focused on leaving Chicago. We actually had talked about this DSM-V/trauma issue while leaving the office one afternoon. I had gotten the sense it was a bit political (not like governmental political, like people political), and van der Kolk gives you that same sort of feeling.

Anyway, after one research meeting, because I had been so vocal about something (I can’t remember if it was how clinicians were being trained…?), the director asked me if I was ever interested in applying for the doctoral program at the university I worked at.

I said no.

Like I said, I was looking to leave Chicago. I had wanted a fresh start after so many friends had literally moved on, to Colorado, to Florida, to California.

Also, I had really wanted to be a psychiatrist, not a clinical psychologist. But I’m pretty sure if I had wanted to get in, it would have been pretty easy because I had worked in that group for years, knew a lot of the faculty…and that was my plan to get myself into medical school, not grad school.

So reading this book, it was a very bittersweet read, but it feels like a timely one. I’m just not exactly sure what it means yet.

Being a freelancer going on three years, there have been a lot of highs and lows. Today was definitely a low.

I had reached out to a former client this week and it seemed like we could work together. But for some reason, they didn’t want to sign a contract with me. That’s a dealbreaker, so unfortunately we couldn’t move forward to work together.

So yeah, it’s hard, or sometimes all too easy, to think about what could have been.

If I had decided to pursue clinical psychology, I definitely would have a doctorate by now and I probably would have a great job, helping kids and their families cope and heal.

So when there are hard days like today, or even hard days all strung in a row, it’s easy to ask this question and let it nag you for a while:

Did I take a wrong turn?

And being middle aged now, this is one of the classic mid-life crisis points, looking back at one’s life and wondering if it was all a waste, this whole pursuing your dream thing.

To tag back to the book, van der Kolk repeatedly emphasizes the importance of relationships for healing and for thriving, and how mental illness disrupts those vital connections.

If anything,  I was reminded of an ache inside of me that doesn’t seem to be easily soothed, even by success.

But even success requires connections.

I was reading some short tweet thread last night about how success is really about knowing the right people. And, in this person’s opinion, it’s not just knowing them, but being friends with them.

I think about that idea with pursuing a graduate degree in writing. One main point of grad school is to create those connections, to find that community. It’s taken years for me to let go of the dream of finding my writing community here. It really seems like that wasn’t the point of me being here.

I’ve probably written about this before, here or on my Patreon, but it has been very hard to create long-lasting connections in my life. If they last longer than a year, the intensity wanes into a cool acquaintanceship. And that makes me sad and makes me start to question myself and sometimes my worth as a human being on this planet.

I know the astrological reasons (my 11th house of groups and friendships has this awakening, unstable planet called Uranus). Yet sometimes, that gives me cold comfort. So this is just the way life is for me? Is it truly unchangeable?

Yet I also know that since I turned 30, I’ve gone through some dramatic changes in my life — leaving the Church, moving to Florida, going to grad school, getting involved in the esoteric, many job and home changes. And mostly, it’s been all for the better.

But truly, it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto relationships as you change and as other people change.

The awakenings I’ve gone through with groups of people have been ones which remind me of old truths, such as white supremacy isn’t something to overcome but something to avoid.

van der Kolk reminded me that this need for connection is a primal and valid one. Human beings are social creatures, and that’s how we’ve survived for millennia.

Western society may think we’re all self-made, but that’s a complete lie. We’ve all gotten help from someone, multiple times.

Beyond that reassurance of my need to be connected to others being valid, another reason why I wanted to read this book was due to a nagging feeling of being too much and not enough — still.

I have wondered if all I went through as a child somehow invisibly repelled me from the right people or pushed me towards the wrong people.

Basically, how fucked up am I that I can’t hold onto people?

I believe that in the past, even the recent past, this was definitely true, that my coping mechanisms were acting like pulleys and levers.

But now, I know that it’s not even about being fucked up or not. There are people who have been more traumatized than me who have the proper support, the right connections, people who don’t leave.

I don’t have to be completely healed to get the support I need. In fact, the more broken you are, the more support you should be given.

So for now, this is just not a question I can answer beyond the “it’s capitalism, stupid!” answer which seems so unsatisfying. And that’s especially because even with the existential angst I’ve always carried, it wasn’t always like this.

The only thing that makes sense is also unsatisfying, like some convenient spiritual bypassing, that I’m being shaped by the losses and leavings, that these are just The Lonely Years.

The timing is just not right.

Oh, and a sidenote about timing! So the lovely Stacey B. from Tarot Pugs has been one of my tarot readers for years, and every year for the past few years, I’ve gotten an annual reading from her. This month’s card was the 6 of Swords reversed. Here’s the last part of the reading:

In either way, you’re ready for something new and the energy will shift from the way it has been for the last three months into a new direction. This may be the final month that after you have redone things, revisited relationship or situations, you’re ready to drop it all and move on – but first making sure if there’s anything you need to take with you and then leaving all the rest behind.

Basically the theme of this post, amirite?

When I was reading The Body Keeps the Score, it was so wonderful to read about trauma in a more intellectual way. I remember being so passionate about this stuff. Being trauma-informed about psychology and psychiatry made so much sense, like in a “I’ve found my life’s work” sense.

I still don’t want to become a psychologist, psychiatrist or a therapist. I really do feel like that ship has sailed, and it was a ship I wasn’t meant to be on. I’d prefer to write about this stuff…but it’s been difficult to find a way to market myself in that way. And maybe that’s just something I will have to work on.

In the meantime, this book caught me in a time when writing as a profession is at a low, when everything is at a low. I’ve spent years in this profession and it is just not clicking right now. And a lot of that is the human component that’s missing here. I’m trying to be successful by myself (not by choice) and that’s impossible.

I’m knocking on doors, looking for exits and entries…and I hear voices all around me, but I don’t see anyone.

And that’s so weird for me. One of the things I’ve had to learn to do with having narcissistic parents was be my own advocate. Seeking and obtaining help and support, I’ve become an expert.

I’m a fucking scrapper. But this is just not one of those times.

This is a sentiment I’m pretty sure I repeated in my Patreon, but I feel very close to everything I want and need, but yet at the same time, very far away (that’s also a theme that’s repeated in my annual reading from Stacey, funny enough!).

That book reminded me of a time (which I must have taken for granted) when I was seen and valued (and also of when I wasn’t seen and valued by a terribly racist manager), of when I felt like what I did mattered — even if it was data collection and analysis. I was a part of something much bigger than myself. I was able to advocate for kids in the child welfare system, to help researchers affect state and national policy.

What I do now is intermittent and on a smaller scale. I’m still helping people help others, but it’s not necessarily making my heart go pitter patter. The stuff that makes my heart beat faster isn’t apparently what I should be doing full-time.

And hey — very few of us get that beautiful Venn diagram of a perfect circle of doing what we love for pay. I’m OK with that.

I had been so concerned about being really numbed out from what I gone through as a teenager (it’s still a bit of a concern — is it extreme resilience or extreme numbing?), I wasn’t expecting to get teary about my career trajectory.

Again — I don’t think this was some clarion call to go back into the mental health industry as a mental health professional, even though I know I would be really fucking good at it, just like I know I would have been a fucking great lawyer (another profession that I wanted to pursue when I was a tweener).

Astrologically this month, there’s a lot going on that applies to healing and letting go, including a bit of a releasing the old going on within my 1st house of identity and self. So I feel like this book has asked me to grieve this other life I could have had, a life I wasn’t guaranteed to have.

And here’s the thing: I haven’t gotten any guidance this year that says to switch back. Writing is it (for now), even if it looks like I’ve made a very costly mistake.

What this time in my life reminds me of is when I was 18 and I had to stay at home for a year because my father was suffering from paranoid delusions. And that whole year was a traumatic event.

I’m pretty sure I was depressed, if not just dysthymic. I lost 15 pounds and I wasn’t really that big to begin with. I wrote a little about this time in my latest Patreon post.

It was a very spiritual time, and I’m in a similar one right now.

One thing that I have to remind myself as I try not to beat myself up for being a loner by default is that leaving a religion is not only traumatic, but it also means that you have to learn how to create your own community.

And, welp — I’m not really that great at it! (although, in a sense, all of you reading this are a part of my community) It’s something I have to keep trying to accomplish, even if there’s been a lot of failure — just like with my writing biz.

Another sidenote! This week I learned about this astrological technique called zodiacal releasing, which basically is like an astrological book of major life events with the chapter being certain times in your life.

So, for example, even though for the longest time, I resented not being able to start my college career on time, zodiacal releasing showed within days of the first time I met my best friend for the first couple of years of college, a guy who basically changed my whole worldview.

And maybe if I had gone to college on time, it still would have happened, but not likely because the date was during college orientation, which started a couple of weeks before classes starts.

With zodiacal releasing, I also saw that right now I’m in a career peak and that started right around I was truly a freelancer/right before I left a dream job because of a terrible manager. It’s an eight-year stretch, so even if my career looks like poop right now, I know I’m in the right place at the right time.

If you ever want me do zodiacal releasing for you, make sure you have a great memory of your life and then book a reading with me.

I’m still not 100% sure what I will do with the feelings this book brought up for me, besides blog about it. It really caught me off guard, the work van der Kolk has done and how personal it is to me — yet not really in a clinical sense.

What it has done is helped me to (again) face my frustration and sorrow as someone who has been through a lot and is tired of having that define her while currently going through a lot.

In the beginning, I had wanted this blog to be a chronicle of all the weird things that have happened to me spiritually. But it has been a chronicle of grief and suffering, too.

And sometimes, very frustratingly so, it seems like I’m walking in circles as I grieve not having some basic emotional needs met, and I can see that I really just needed them to be validated.

The Body Keeps the Score finally said the words I needed to hear in the way I needed to hear them.

So. If the support hasn’t yet arrived, all I can do is be compassionate with myself until it does. Worrying and self-abnegation aren’t helpful here.

And one thing I’ve been really loath to do is get into that super spiritual space where I just surrender everything to God/Spirit/the Universe and ask for divine intervention. Why? Because it takes a lot of energy and concentration.

But also? I’m tired of feeling helpless. It’s a very scary, alone feeling which I haven’t felt in decades.

What’s beautiful about now is that when I was 18, I definitely was depressed and now, I’m not. I’m still a fucking scrapper and I have 23 years of life experience and wisdom that I didn’t have back then.

(Somehow, living with squirrels running in the eaves and living with someone with a chronic mental illness are still true, so the Universe has some cruel jokes there.)

But really, in a time of confusion and struggle, there’s nothing wrong with asking for guidance on the guidance I’ve already received. And what I’ve gotten is be patient. Hang in there.

Today for my tarot card of the day, I drew The Star. It’s a symbol of hope after the awakening chaos of The Tower.

I’ll end with this cartoon from Nathan W. Pyle. It’s a very hump day cartoon, and I was feeling like this when I started, but somehow, by reminding myself of how I’ve gotten through tough times, I feel a little more encouraged.

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The End

Today, my tarot card of the day was The World. For you tarot readers and aficionados, you know how fitting it is to have the last card in the Major Arcana at the end of the year. I believe it’s a great sign for me. If you’re not into tarot, it is a card that marks endings and completion.

There are a few ways of viewing this, so I’ll just make this post a reading of sorts.

A Welcomed End

The first thing I thought when I saw this card was that the troubles and challenges that I’ve faced this year are complete. This year was very chaotic for me, but I feel like I squeezed as much knowledge and wisdom and healing and growth as I could. 

As we look at the world, with all the upheaval, strife, the disasters both human-made and natural, there’s still a lot of hard and terrible things that we’re dealing with both individually and collectively.

New challenges are always arising, but I’ve found that being forever a student about life is one way to make sure that you can remain flexible. You can learn how to drop old coping mechanisms that you used in your youth and find better ways to cope and deal.

There are a lot of things I’m still seeking out in the world. But within myself, I am whole and complete–and so are you. That’s what The World card reminds us.

And although we’re all whole and complete by ourselves, we do need each other to unearth all the treasures that we have. We need others to support us on this journey of becoming (or rediscovering) who we are.

An Unwelcome End

It’s strange, too–I’m a little sad that this year is ending the way it is because I feel like I’m in the middle an ellipsis, or like I’m the bouncing ellipsis you see when someone is writing a Twitter DM or text back to you. My “moment of triumph” is still being written–and that’s a good thing. The World card also says to me that it’s not even necessary to put an exclamation point when only a period is necessary.

It’s done. Period. 

But back to The End…this year sucked a lot, and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Even though there are challenges we’ll carry into the New Year, it doesn’t mean that you have to continue to carry the emotional baggage that came with those struggles.

Granted, healing from trauma usually begins when the painful events ends.

For example, it took me many years to emotionally heal from having to take eight years to get through college and how that long circuitous journey of stops and start was one I couldn’t really control. That period of waiting and attending and betrayal and exile and return took up most of my 20s.

The bleeding may have ended when I graduated at age 26, but the pain was still there and I still have a scar. Now I could really deal with the trauma because I had stopped fighting. The war was over and won, but I was still wounded on the inside. 

I had to work through (and sometimes still work through) the shame and disappointment of not being able to graduate with my classmates. Besides the career detours and blocks (which apparently is why I’m a writer and not a doctor (and I don’t regret the path I am now now, by the way)), I lost practically all of those relationships, and part of me will still grieve not having close friends from college anymore.

The expectations of having college being life-changing were met in ways I didn’t really welcome.

Sometimes, things end prematurely–a marriage, a beloved job, a loved one dying. So sometimes, The World card isn’t a welcome sight.

Another Ending, Another Beginning

But things end and start again all the time. If I hadn’t gone through the premature ending of leaving college after my junior year, I would have never met the lovely soul that I was my first boyfriend.

When I was looking at the card, I thought it was an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail. But whatever that is, there’s the representation of a circle, a cycle of life, beginning and ending and beginning again.

Life is always in flux and is cyclical (Sing it, Elton).

Things may be over and complete, but then there’s always a new journey to embark on–one of healing and personal restoration.

So if you’ve have experienced trauma and harm this year, I hope that these events have ended and the healing journey begins, even now. 

Goodbye to another shitastic year

I believe this is a custom to clean a house either on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. It’s not one I grew up with. So symbolically, I cleaned the common areas of the house today.

I mainly focused on the refrigerator and freezer. I cleaned the dusty top, the oil-splattered side, and the filthy interior.

I took out all my food and all the shelves and drawers and cleaned. I am going to be right sore tomorrow–so help me (please), naproxen!

Proud and petty sidenote: I left the shut-in’s door section unclean because that lazy ass fucker doesn’t do anything except take the trash to the roadside when it’s his month. 😏😒 Also, there’s this cream cheese that has been on his shelf that’s been expired for months. 🤢

Anyway, I wanted to be rid of that racist shithole’s energy, Sir Coughs-A-Lot (the renter before the racist lunatic) energy, and even the Russian kid’s energy. Be gone, be gone, be gone!

I also wanted to literally wash away this year. I don’t really have enough cleaning agents for that, but it felt good to take out my frustration, sorrow, disappointment, and shame on a fridge and a house and have it turn into something orderly, clean, and beautiful. The house now has the light scent of lavender–which I hope will usher in even more peace and calm to this place.

The Peace Within and Without

But lavender aside–it’s a peace and calm that started from within–a very hard fought peace in a time of conflict. I mean, sure there was some meditation involved, but a lot of it was making sure that insane in the membrane shitbag hit the bricks and left this house.

The cool thing to me is that preserving the peace within usually will spill without, into other areas of your life, into other people’s lives. It’s difficult and almost impossible to do in our times, but it’s difficult and almost impossible to not pursue inner peace–however you can healthily achieve it… 

 

So. I don’t know what you need 2019 to be for you or what 2018 has been like for you. 

Maybe you don’t feel whole and complete. Maybe you feel like this whole year has been The Tower. Maybe you’ve had a string of years that look like The Tower or Five of Cups. I know what it’s like. I know what it feels like to be proverbially falling out of a burning building, or to have some cups of precious things spilled–and to mourn all of it.

Whatever you’re hoping the New Year brings, even if it’s just relief that it’s not 2018 anymore, I hope that you can find and usher in peace within–the kind of peace that brings personal and collective clarity in an ever-changing and increasingly hostile world.

And, I hope that we will be that kind of peace for each other.

HNY.🥂

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cold mercury nights

Enhanced-color image of Mercury from first MESSENGER flyby

Just spent the past two days learning about the solar system and then writing about it.

One interesting thing I learned about the planet Mercury is that it has no atmosphere. So the temperature fluctuations range 1100 degrees, from 800F during the day to -280F at night. That makes Venus the hottest planet in the solar system.

And maybe this is a metaphor for 2018, that I’ve had a cold Mercury night when I thought day was approaching. Of course, I don’t want a hot Mercury day, either. 

I don’t want extremes. I need atmosphere.

When I lived in Chicago, I remembered learning that the bright sunny days of winter would actually be colder than the more frequent cloudy days.

The clouds kept the heat in.

Having an atmosphere not only keeps temperatures more even, it protects you from cosmic radiation and solar winds. A lot more protects us from that, too–like the magnetosphere, Van Allen radiation belts, and the Sun’s heliosphere.

(Don’t worry, I’m not extending this metaphor any further from the atmosphere.)

This year especially, it seems that I had no atmosphere. It was so extreme. And it’s only been about a month of having life the cover of an atmosphere.

And quicksilver astrological Mercury, with their quick turns of fate…still under that foolywang shadow until Christmas Eve…

A bit of a sidenote, really, but it still relates to not having an atmosphere…just the other day while writing (not here), I really was feeling myself. I felt the muses were having a party and just releasing all these great things for me to say.

And I thought my audience was feeling me, too. This is the good shit.

I’m still not sure if I’m what crickets I’m hearing–of busyness, of embarrassment, or of revulsion.

But boy, are the crickets so fucking loud.

I thought the sun was rising on Mercury, but it was a false alarm. I’m still choking in the airless cold.

And today I had a reading with my favorite intuitive, just to see where I’ve ended up on this craptastic voyage. And it’s as I thought–still a little banged up, still looking back at the past as if those catastrophic fires could bring any warmth to me now.

But, whatever internal shrieks and shouts that were a constant din in the back of my mind have now been quieted. For now, building a new atmosphere has been about creating a place of stability and shutting everything and everyone else out that didn’t contribute to that.

(I had always been focused on the former, but never got to the latter.)

So this is even beyond just creating an atmosphere where I can breathe, where it’s not a hostile or harsh environment for me to live.

It’s about world-building.

So what do I want?

For now, I just want to not feel so deflated. It’s not even about healing up anymore. During that reading today, I released a lot of old shit from this year. I had already energetically released a lot in some other ritual earlier last week.

One thing the reader kept saying, it’s done, it’s over.

Well, that’s the thing about trauma, isn’t it? The events may be over, but now is the time actually start the reckoning, within your body.

I’ve been lucky and fortunate to have that happen already. Now it’s about getting up off the floor, fixing my face, and heading in some sort of direction.

And guess who’s leading the brigade into someplace new? My heart.

Oh, how precious.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next–vocationally, relationally, or in any way. Well, except that I have a lot of work to do this week, of which I am grateful to have.

Beyond that, I’ve figured out what I want generally already. I just haven’t been able to get it yet.

But since my mind can’t be the one leading the Pleasure Parade here, then it’s good that I have a few things in mind that I want to accomplish–just no new plan on how to get them.

Capricorn season starts when the work week ends, on Friday evening, and it’s funny to go into that season sans a plan.

I don’t have a feeling of adventure. But I don’t have a feeling of dread.

I can’t think ahead to anything pleasurable, not even my birthday. Turning 41 feels like another step towards death (because it is, because every waking moment is), but this blog post is not (solely?) about that part of my mid-life angst.

Today I was told that I needed to have more fun and not be so hard on myself–ageless advice for me. And to connect with others–that part I’m working in new ways…but I still feel like the long, cold night is one I should get used to instead of preparing to leave for a more habitable planet.

It’s hard for me not to think–oooh girl, if you try to do anything new, then you’ll get the same disappointing results. 

And it’s not true.

I’m listening to this Elton John vs. Pnau song called “Phoenix” (I can’t believe I didn’t know this album existed until about maybe a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been out for six years).

I’ve definitely died and have been reborn. I have to trust in this regenerative process. I have to trust in the results–the results of me, being a different, wiser person.

It takes bravery to seek a better world, to get up and try again and again and again, to keep seeking, knocking, finding.

And, I know I’ve lost my nerve (which is a new thing for me)…or I’ve had it stripped from me. Hearing how flat my affect was on the phone today, feeling waves of enthusiasm and passion wash over me like lukewarm oatmeal…

*sigh*

But as I told the intuitive, I can only take things day by day.

But sadly, like a true, tortured Capricorn, I’ve felt guilty about any breaks or fun I’ve had. I can’t allow myself to have fun along the way.

So I keep putting it off until I’m done with work…or, I end up revolting and playing around for hours.

It’s like how you can’t really hold your own breath to die because usually your body will just kick in and allow you to breath.

Maybe I should stop holding my breath, though…

And yet somehow, I’m still not as productive as I could be–and that isn’t the workaholic talking, just the realist. All that avoidance and sacrifice, and there’s only misery.

As I preached to the cricket choir a couple of weeks ago–it’s not about ending the misery, per se. It’s about enjoying the good times when they come.

Admittedly (and thankfully), I’ve gotten better at that. But now I have to start being more proactive about creating those times, when possible–and not be afraid to make that an aim.

It makes me meta-sad that having fun frightens me. And it’s not even the “there’s no one to have fun with here” problem–that’s a whole other existential hell. 

Part of it is…wait, how do I do that again? And another part is, well, I want to do something musical…how do I do that? By myself? With whom?

Some of it is the scarier thought that I’ve lost pleasure in most things, which I don’t think is entirely true–I hope not. But that’s one sign of depression, which I wouldn’t blame me for being. 

But it’s more like–everything has changed, including me. So what I found pleasure in has changed. I have to figure some of that out, along with getting reconnected with what still works.

And, now that I’m older, I hear that ticking clock of death more loudly. 

What are you doing with your time? What are you doing that’s worthwhile?

It’s a lot of pressure to live up to, especially with Capricorn fantasies of legacy and longevity. I’m lucky to get out of bed in the morning with such mounting pressures to live up to.

I’ve been grinding at work for a few weeks. It has helped me to eat and keep a roof over my head. It’s helped to quell the pangs of feeling unsafe and uncared for.

But I’ve hit an emotional wall with the “all work, no play”–and thankfully, it’s during a week that should be a lot easier than previous weeks.

Ah, so much babbling, but it all boils down to this–I’ve known what I’ve wanted for years, but I’m not sure if I should keep wanting it or if I need to do something entirely different.

Do all these roadblocks me keep going or find a new path? I sincerely don’t know.

But, I will–I can trust in this eventuality, wholeheartedly.

I just can’t use the ole tinker to do it–have to use the ole ticker instead. 

What’s scary, and at the same time liberating, is that there’s possibly no right answer except for what I prefer.

I’ve known so many lonely, cold Mercury nights and blistering hot Mercury days.

But it’s time for a change.

I need real atmosphere…

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better for now…

Autumn has finally come to Central Florida. And frankly, it’s a little late. Usually by mid-October, the swamplands have finally cooled off to more spring-like temperatures without the oppressive humidity.

I woke up this morning to a low of 56F without the heater on (it’s not consistently cold enough to switch over yet).  The skies are brilliantly clear and the humidity that seems to visibly hang in the air has been swept away.

I haven’t stepped out to enjoy the weather yet. I will tomorrow when I mail my ballot in for the midterm elections.

Currently, I’m happily wearing a sweater.

And I feel…better…?

Just like the skies, whatever haze and doom that has clouded me has cleared up…for now.

And I’m really grateful for this change of seasons and weather…externally and internally.

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There’s something about continually showing up, to your own life.

Even when you want to quit. Even if you have to drag yourself through your day. Even when there’s no one around to encourage you. And that’s what I did this month especially.

And then, a little relief started to trickle in. Relief like work and solid prospective clients. Relief came from within, too. I found some newfound solidity within myself that no one could give me.

It’s a new level of resiliency that I didn’t know I could kick up into.

And I really shouldn’t have to, in theory. And that’s something I’ve talked at length about here–the power and necessity of community and how isolated I feel.

It’s a little strange, to have gone through this phase of being needy and destitute, asking for help and sometimes receiving it, to go back to going it alone…to go back and to go deeper into the journey of solitude.

What I feel was a journey to learn more about interdependence was actually a revelation that the people I chose to depend on weren’t the right fit, to put it mildly. And it came in two different flavors.

There’s the flavor of seeing me as forever needy, which is actually new for me personally. But there’s a power dynamic that develops when you’re sharing your woes with friends, and your woes are really terrible and even terrifying.

I’m a comforting cautionary tale. At least I’m not like her.

But I have to stay in that place. God help me if I decide to become an equal again, whether through circumstances or spiritual growth or both.

Then the power dynamic, along with the relationship, is broken.

The second flavor is being the one who is always there. Here I am with my unflagging support and love and devotion and care.

The reciprocity, though, is never found. So, I leave.

Either way, for all my life, most of my relationships have flavored with one or both of those unpalatable flavors. Sometimes, the flavorings of imbalance are imperceptible. But over time, there’s a cumulative effect. Things go from oh-so-sweet to ruh-roh-sour.

Other times, it’s just obviously wrong, but I’m in a tough place. I just reach out, indiscriminately. And then the relationship is poorly structured from the beginning and it implodes at the first sign of stress.

As much as it’s hurt, taking a timeout from people seems to be necessary. I’m the lowest common denominator here.

I need to use better discernment in choosing my people. And I need to be more whole to do that.

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So I’ve accepted that this is where I’m at–going solo. I’ve been relying on my spiritual teams (guides and angels). But business-wise, I can’t take such a hiatus. I must continue to reach out.

But even with business, these same dynamics are at play. So as I continue to heal, I can choose better clients and partners.

As I take a break from relationshipping, there’s some comfort and ease that comes along with it.

I don’t have to deal with anyone else’s emotional burdens or heartaches. As someone who is deeply empathic, I had no idea how much of a toll it was, to keep the tally of what’s going on with someone else as I know this isn’t being reciprocated neither in quantity nor in quality.

I didn’t realize how other-oriented I was until all the others left or I made them leave. There was a constant background noise of the fluttering of other people’s lives–whether I cared about them or not–that was part of the soundtrack of my life.

Why am I doing all the work here? So I can feel connected? So I can feel needed? What am I getting out of it besides tired?

I could tune out my own deep pains. I could narrowly escape the sneering shame and grief nipping at my heels when I focused on others.

And even if I was candid and long-winded about my own struggles, it took decades to realize that no one was taking up my burdens the way I took up theirs.

And I deeply resented that.

But here’s the thing I have to keep reminding myself of: everyone is not me. Most people are just not bent to be that empathetic.

And that’s OK. It’s just another invitation to create better boundaries for myself.

So now, with all this aloneness, I can fully focus on my own burdens and lightening my load.

And it’s about time.

Oh, this time…this is a sacred time that I’ve resented. I’ve resented because I really didn’t understand what was going on.

But that’s how it usually goes. You figure out the path along the way. You acquire wisdom and hindsight along the way. You find peace within yourself…along the way.

---

As I have about two months left in this year of 40, I can see that this year was going to be big for me–just not in the ways that I thought.

I thought it was all going to come together in this beautiful, easy way, like waking up on Christmas morning and finding the big red bow on top of a new car.

Finally! Here’s my American happy ending to my French tragic movie. I worked so hard to get here–all this inner work, the therapy, the spiritual teachings, the prayers, the spells, the fixed candles, the sigils…

All that fucking work. It wasn’t not in vain, but there were things I explicitly worked on would spectacularly backfire.

Candles for more money? I got poorer. A fixed candle about restoring communication with someone? I’d break off contact never to speak to them again.

I thought I’d have the big love and the big business. Yeah, these are basic ass desires, I know.

Still, I have neither. I have the big clean-up instead.

It’s clean-up that has to happen, and it’s not only because there’s decades of stuff that I haven’t had time to really dig in and sort through. It’s not only making room for the big love and the big business. But it also about the big healing.

It’s like taking that storage room of stuff that you’ve reorganized, labeled and itemized, but you really need to empty the room, as much as you can.

Yet even knowing how important this still time is, it’s still a little hard to let go of the idea that I’m failing (myself).

---

There’s a big disappointment that my adulting looks like…not very much is going on except death, loss, and the subsequent grief that comes with it.

And yes, this is a refrain that I’m tired of, but I have some compassion for the woman with fierce ambitions and dreams…the woman with empty arms, standing still, who keeps singing this same sad song…

The constant drone of this refrain is a part of grieving itself. But it seems like every time I sing this dirge, I’m singing a different verse.

The verses are moving me through the changing landscape of my own heart.

Another thing: I’m still individuating myself from life’s current circumstances. It’s really messy, figuring out who is me and what is just stuff happening, but the dividing line is this:

I am doing the best that I can.

---

Maybe the past few years has been me doggedly and repeatedly trying to move on, but being dragged down by the specters of old hurts and shame.

And then when people stepped back…it wasn’t because I was damaged or unworthy. It was to give me the needed space to conquer the past’s demons, finally.

But it did look and feel like abandonment.

There’s really nothing else here to deal with except me. But that was really overwhelming, especially this month. It felt like I was surrounded by neverending silence and darkness.

I was really concerned that depression had come back. And who would blame me for being depressed if I was? I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Have I mentioned how much this year has sucked? 🙃

I still shake my head and marvel at how bad things have been relationally for me–and how I survived it. 

People let me down. I let people down. Such is life, but this year felt like a hot poker to my heart–so acutely personal and painful.

And one thing that has saved me from depression and despair has been  depersonalization: giving people back their actions and intentions, good or bad; letting them prove their loyalty to me instead of just blithely giving it to them in good faith.

Simply put: if you continue to not show up or to be a selfish asshole, you’re not my people. Expecting otherwise is where suffering comes in. And I’d rather not suffer.

---

Even in the cooling waters of depersonalization, I’m still left with the pain of realization.

You’ve left me. I need you to leave.

Compound that with the struggles of creating a sustainable business for myself, and I’ve got white-hot misery.

But here’s what I keep forgetting. I can choose to try to alleviate my misery, as healthily as I can.

When you’re going through it, then…you need even more support and care, even if you’re the only source of that respite.

I know this, so well. And I can preach this to anyone else, all day, every day.

And yet, I don’t really treat myself as kindly as I treat others–even others who hate and disrespect me.

I don’t think it’s some deep seated self-hatred. I think I’m pretty alright. But I do think it’s a couple of things that are intertwined.

It’s what I’ve said before–I’m not receiving what I’m giving. So that sends a subtle message to me that I don’t need it. I may not even deserve such compassion.

It’s great to talk about self-care and self-love…but the conversation in Western society seems to be in a vacuum.

Who teaches us how to take care of ourselves, to love ourselves? Parents and caregivers are the first teachers. You can’t just know how to love yourself on your own.

With self-love and self-care, I’ve treated myself a little too coolly, like a detached nurse who knows how to do their tasks technically, but without any milk of human kindness flowing through them.

But my parents treated me just as coolly. I’m just doing what I know. And even knowing better…there’s a bridge to cross from knowing better to doing better. And I’m still making my way on the bridge.

Still, I ask myself: don’t I deserve a little loving kindness, some tenderness, some inner respite?

But this never actively comes to mind. It’s a subtle but lethal form of self-abandonment.

I’m withholding the good stuff–the self-nurturing, the self-compassion, the kindness, the respite from shame and sorrow– from my life for a better time.

But the better time is now; it’s always now.

---

I meander and wander in the lonely land of shoulds. The shoulds are so heavy to walk with.

You should be reaching out to more prospective clients.

You should be doing more spiritual work.

You should be reading more.

But none of that was fun.

I wondered: could I find a little space for fun without feeling guilty?

Another thing that has saved me from this terrible month was bringing in a little more fun through something not very complicated.

It wasn’t more outwardly spiritual.

It was pretty simple. I played more.

The last couple of weeks, I played more games–specifically story-based games (and, well, the Candy Crush realm).

Focusing on something else than how miserable I was feeling helped me feel better, even if nothing had changed.

But as I thought, while I kept showing up–doing marketing blitzes, learning more about business, doing the work I was assigned to do, kept waking up every day…

And yeah, that sounds small–waking up…but when despair tries to choke you out every day, waking up is one surefire way to keep despair at bay. Waking up means I’m curious about how this whole life thing will work out for me today.

Maybe today will be different.

And this week especially is different. This week is actually full of tangible promise. Three meetings with people about potential business. That’s unprecedented, and I hope it continues. I’m so grateful.

---

And this was what I was hoping for…could I find some way to find some inner joy and peace that wasn’t centered on making everyone happy or being “perfect” or even “good”?

I’ve talked about this holy grail, of finding internal contentment which isn’t based on external circumstances. And I keep getting closer to finding it. I get glimpses of it…

The reason why I search for this inner stability isn’t just because I don’t want to suffer. The power of that impenetrable internal state is that it starts to change things around you. And yeah, it’s a little about a perspective shift, but it’s also a little alchemical.

I don’t fully understand the relationship I have with my environment, how much I have control over it. Right now, it seems like my magical hands are tied…or they are bringing me things that I need but I definitely don’t want.

And I’m torn here. I am not a cheery person. I don’t think preternaturally happy people should have it all. There’s an obsession with happiness that seems like emotional manipulative and controlling, even if hedonic psychology came from a good place–to counterpoint the obsession with psychopathology.

But I do know that stress makes you stupid. You make poor decisions that don’t really help you out in the long run. So, at the very least, besides not having my physical health tank, I want to be able to look at life with clarity and sobriety, without the stress beer goggles which distort.

And I don’t mean to blame people who are buffeted by their circumstances. Being broke and alone, such as yours truly, is almost impossible to overcome in your feeling state.

Almost impossible.

And of course, I’d want everyone to have enough, to have access to great healthcare, for no one to be marginalized in the world. And that’s something to work towards.

But until that reality comes into being, we have to figure out how to cope.

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You never really know what you identify with until it’s taken away. And my sense of self-reliance was something I really prided myself. My relationships with others was another thing.

And both have been thwarted or taken away or transformed.

So that means I’m being transformed. Duh.

*sigh*

If I could end this with any hope at all is that I know and can feel that I am stronger through all these terrible times. I don’t feel as fragile and broken. I don’t think it can get any worse. I certainly hope it doesn’t.

I do feel wiser in choosing who can share life with me. I don’t feel beholden to just pick anyone who is just around me, assuming that just because they’re around, that means they’re for me.

Even in a restricted, smaller life, I still have agency and choice. It may not be the amount of agency or wealth of choice I desire or am used to, but I still have it.

So I’ll end here with a prayer. That’s as hopeful as I can get.

My prayer for myself is that I treat myself with more grace, more care, more patience, more compassion, and more love, that I remember to treat myself well period.

May I remember that I am being supported and helped, even when I feel like life is too excruciating for words or too painful to bear.

May I be truly grateful for every good thing that comes my way.

May I see this time as sacred and special and continually unburden myself from the shackles of resentment. 

May I take ownership of my life while discerning what I can and cannot control.

May I no longer suffer.

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If you liked what you’ve read, I’d love your support as a patron on Patreon. Tiers starts at just $1/month. I blog about things that I don’t post here.

If you want to give a one-time gift or monthly gift, hit me up on Paypal.

Thanks for your support! 💘

summer’s done, fall’s begun, what’s next?

Well, I had yet another crappy summer. Even as I type, I feel very weary of writing about this topic of loss again…but I always feel like I gain new insights.

Ever since I was about 16 or so, I haven’t really had the best summers. That first bad summer, my mom went to Ghana for the first time since she had immigrated to the States. But that meant my summer trip with my youth group was scuttled–even though I had planned that way before she thought of her trip.

Her trip was about six weeks long. Mine would have been two. I didn’t think my dad and brother would have been helpless without either of us. But I remember the one time I went to the grocery store by myself–that was the only real thing I did to keep the family going, something my father could have easily done.

I basically had fallen into the role of eldest daughter in an African family. I was the de facto matriarch of the family without any of the benefits. I wouldn’t learn of these expectations until last Mother’s Day when someone tweeted Happy Mother’s Day to women like me.

And almost 25 years later, that still stings mainly because I didn’t know of the cultural expectations that had been placed on me. And, well, as much therapy and time have done to heal a lot of the wounds that come with having two narcissistic parents, there are moments when you can see how your trajectory was thwarted–even if it was for some trip so you could spend time with your beloved youth pastor before he moved away to Virginia.

As I grew up, there seemed to be less and less time and space for fun, for just taking an unrestricted breath.

This summer, even though my life has been circumscribed by not having enough to even go to the movies or strike out to meet new friends, I really wanted to have a great summer.

I burned candles during the Summer Solstice and the full moon in Capricorn.

The evil roommate finally left.

I had found a pretty good business coach to barter my writing services for her coaching services.

I had picked up extra work from a client.

A marketing agency found me to do some work at a price that I set.

I met some new interesting people online, including some foreign guy that I had a crackling month with.

I ghostwrote an op-ed and got paid really well for it.

I had started to consistently reach out to businesses and organizations for my work.

And then things started to unravel.

I lost that client I had extra work from.

I had to fire another client because they didn’t respect the value of my work.

That guy and I parted way in a really ugly, dramatic fashion.

Prospecting clients hasn’t netted anything yet.

The marketing agency respected my rate so much, they decided not to give me work this month based on a lower rate. But that also meant no work this month.

Summer is my favorite season, yet it often seems to be tinged with disappointment and loss, to the point I’m just glad it’s all over.

I live in a state where even being out in summer is just too hot. I didn’t really go out and do anything fun–nor did I have the money to do so.

At this point, I’m just fortunate to have a roof over my head, and I am grateful for that.

I am grateful that for most of the summer, it was peaceful living here.

So now, it is autumn, which doesn’t mean much right now in Florida except right now, there are a lot of lovebugs, which means if you have a car, your paint job is being pummeled by this acidic, horny bastards.

They’re all on my window, mostly in their butt-to-butt mating pairs. Or, they’re flying the air in hordes.

I didn’t think asking for a good summer was such a big ask, but apparently it was. The real good that came out of it wasn’t what I asked for–per usual.

What I have wanted more than financial support was consistent emotional support. So when I don’t get that, it makes me wonder, even just for a second, is something wrong with me? Why can’t I have good friends like I’ve had before? Why is addressing my pain seemingly like a bother to other people when I show up and check in on them?

It’s just like that unknown yet demanded expectation of being an eldest daughter in an African family. People rely on you to be there for them–because you’re so good at truly caring for them. But they don’t necessarily care about how you’re doing, or at least in the same capacity and intensity.

It’s a way that The Golden Rule seems to backfire. It’s not done out of anger or malice. It’s an oversight, a backhanded compliment to your resilience.

But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be recognized and appreciated for you who are.

And what looms larger is that was my desire when I came to grad school, a desire unfulfilled and smeared with betrayal. I had wanted to find my people, but I found a long, mostly solitary, spiritual journey of transformation instead.

I keep looking back at my journey, just in Florida, and cringing. Even though I know so much has changed in my character for the better, it’s like being a piece of marble, chipped and chiseled away. I can’t see what’s going on, just pieces of marble flying off and away.

The thing is, I’m not festering in pain right now. I feel rather solid, which is in deep contrast to how I felt just two weeks ago–alone, frightened, and frustrated.

I felt great firing that client, even though it took a big leap of faith to say yes to my work’s value–and my value.

The ache that is here and now is how do I make sense of the past six years? What are the other stories, the redemptive threads, I’m not seeing?

And then even going further back to my 1995–how can I redeem that time, too? What is the bigger story that isn’t marred with hurt, anguish, looming depression, and disappointment?

Sure, there’s some societal pressure to put some big red bow on this harrowing story of mine. But as I’ve been kind of moaning about for the past few weeks and months, I want the story to change, too.

I wish there was comfort knowing that, as much shame and anguish that I feel, I should also be feeling proud of my countless feats of survival. And I do.

Part of that change in my story is continuing to let things hurt so I can heal. I can’t speed past this part–where I have to, primarily alone, deal with and accept all that has happened.

Grief takes as long as it takes.

But just when I think I’m OK, I get pulled back into the past.

Last week, I was talking to an old online friend from my college days about how I was depressed back then, and I thought I was OK about how college turned out. But that still stings, too. It took eight years to finish.

I could focus on the ending, that I finished–as so many people want me to when I tell this story. The story is definitely one of ultimate triumph. But again, like grad school, I was looking for my people–and I had actually found them this time.

But due to nonpayment of my tuition (because my family’s financial and legal upheaval), I wasn’t allowed to return for my senior year and lost pretty much all of my friends. And that’s the part that still hurts–not even the time that it took to finish.

The theme of connection and disconnection is a big one in my life, and I’m just exhausted. It really shouldn’t be this hard to connect to like-minded people, right?

So what’s next? Well, it’s not all doom and gloom. There’s a business opportunity that seems promising, but I don’t want to deal with the roller coaster of my hopes being raised and dashed.

Still, things are turning around? I guess?

Whatever happens, the burdens of misery and dread are now going to be laid down, that I can find some sort of empowerment in how I feel about my life, even if it feels like circumstances have continually clipped my wings.

So ultimately–this isn’t about money, and it never really has been. It’s been about people.

As we’re in Libra season now (Happy Fall or Spring!), I feel that pull to keep calling in my peeps. I have to remind myself that I haven’t changed so much that I don’t deserve real, tangible support.

It’s almost like being gaslit by life’s circumstances–if you don’t receive the things you need for an extended amount of time, you start to think you don’t deserve them.

When I was talking to that old friend about college, I was reminded of how supported I was, even in the darkest moments of my life as I suffered from clinical depression.

I’m sad I don’t have that sort of support now. It was support I took for granted.

Doing life by yourself isn’t how life is supposed to be lived, and yet that’s what’s happened for me for a good while now. And whether that’s made me a stronger person or not, I’ve lived off of veritable scraps and crumbs of human connection.

And that’s not a healthy diet.

So, as heavy as this hope is to find my people, I have to keep carrying it.

I must remind myself that although I’m highly resilient and adaptable, it’s OK to want to be around others even if I’m unable to be right now.

It’s OK to give voice to that grief, even if the grief is persistent, even if the grief rankles myself and anyone who reads this post.

It’s OK to keep trying to bravely and openly make sense of my life.

I have to remain positive that things will eventually work out, especially because the human brain attenuates to things that are bad because that’s a survival mechanism.

So if I have to fight my own biology and societal mores, just so I can find true joy and be at peace, then I will fight on.

I’ll end with this tweet from Dr. Elliot Adam, a tarot reader. It’s his tarot card of the day reading, about the Wheel of Fortune. He talks about how you should be in the inner hub of the wheel, where you are not as affected by the outer rim of life’s circumstances.

My hope is that in every blog post I’ve written here, in every conversation I’ve had, in every prayer I’m whispered or thought, in every meditation I’ve had, this has been a steady progression to the inner hub of life.

And as tired as I am of tending to my wounds, of even discussing my wounds, I am not my wounds. I am the person being healed.

So I had another shitty summer, but I am ready for the harvest and abundance of fall.

—

If you liked what you’ve read, I’d love your support as a patron on Patreon. Tiers starts at just $1/month. I blog about things that I don’t post here.

If you want to give a one-time gift or monthly gift, hit me up on Paypal.

Thanks for your support! 💘