Barn-Burning
And here we are again, a global inferno.
A universal Barn-Burning.
We are, all of us, mourning the loss of what WAS and we are facing what IS without a roof over our heads, without walls to give us location, protection, reassurance, without a front door to welcome people in.
All of us, standing under the same vast sky, surrounded by the smoldering rubble of what was our lives, no longer protected against the unknown night.
Detox the Busy
I am trying to manufacture to-do lists because they make me feel safe and important and in control. And also stressed and martyred and overwhelmed (which some part of me must like as proof of my importance). I am frantically trying to find new projects of the housebound variety like labeling all the bins in my basement storage area.
“Welcome to the Detox of Busy,” I tell myself.
A Letter to my ten-year-old daughter on the equinox
Dear Kyrie,
I have been dying to tell you.
I never wanted to be a mother.
I was so afraid of having a kid and then messing them up, the way I felt messed up.
Tell the shitty truth
There will be shitty days ahead, friends.
This is just the way of it.
Don’t make it shittier by beating yourself up that you feel shitty.
Tell the truth.
Holding my breath
This strategy: holding breath, has been my chosen coping mechanism for lots of things.
Even now, I’m thinking it could be a good idea.
I find myself thinking, “I just did CANCER. Do I really have to do another hard thing? Can I just hold my breath and wait for this to pass?”
It bears mentioning here that another one of my chosen nightmares was the apocalyptic nightmare.
Nothing is no matter what
Nothing is no matter what.
Nothing is no matter what.
Every bit of everything you counted on can fall away.
You are left with a question: what matters?
Our strength is our softness
The architecture of our lives is cards and toothpicks.
And wrapping toilet paper rolls around it doesn’t make it stronger.
We want so desperately to be safe, to believe we have a home, to be able to close our eyes at night with guarantees the sun will rise and all will be well with the world.
Trauma Brain
Trauma brain is like the on ramp on the highway with the stoplight that lets only one or two cars through before it turns red again.
I can hear the blink blink of the red light, protecting me from information and emotional overload. The traffic of my thoughts has to slow down otherwise I will crash. If I think and feel ALL OF IT all at once, I will explode.