This place

 I am not sure, there is everything and nothing on my heart, but probably more of everything. I am more than tired of crying, not knowing how I feel from one minute to the next. There are a few moments that I feel that joy, that I breathe easily, but mostly there is this heavy feeling. I feel like I'm always in trouble and doing things wrong, no matter what the circumstance is. I am a massive screwup, no matter what I do. It's the past, it's the present, it's even things that haven't happened yet. The past is heavy because I am always walking on eggshells at work, wondering if I am going to be the chosen target of my student. There are still wounds that are screaming to be healed, and I am trying so hard and just feel defeated so often. Frustration is a common occurrence at myself at others at everything really. There isn't enough time for anything.  There is never a moment that I can just sit without thinking that I haven't missed something important, or forgotten to do something. Every single day, I want to give up, yet I never do. My alarm goes off, and I think, I just can't today. But I hit my snooze as many times as possible, and I get up and smile and pretend that everything is fine.  There is an ache, a longing for something that I can't quite reach. Maybe a place that doesn't exist, but a place that I believe is out there somewhere. A place where spunky is a part of me and together we conquer the world. I honestly wish that I had better words, a better explanation, some kind of reason for why I want to curl up in a ball and pretend that everything is fine. I want to be okay, but I feel like I am the farthest thing from that. Everything and yet nothing all at once, my heart is exhausted. 

Unrelenting Emptyness

 

There are just some things in life that, when a person doesn't get them, create an unrelenting emptiness that affects absolutely everything. I am going to struggle with that for my entire life. As hard as I work, as much as I fight, there are these pieces that just don't fit.  These are pieces that create an emptiness everywhere in everything that I do. I am different; I don't fit in, and these parts of me just don't go anywhere; they don't fit. 

I am just struggling more lately than I have in a long time, and things are going right in all the best ways. It's a crazy sad that I can't get out of.  And I just don't understand all that I am feeling. There is this emptiness, this feeling of not being enough of being a bother, a pest. I can't get out of my own way, and there isn't enough of me to do all that I need to do. 

I even went to meet with a friend today, and it was not at all what I expected. I was not ok and wanted a connection.  She was on her phone, taking a call, and working on a paper. All things that don't need to get done there in that moment. I have so many things that I could be doing, and I felt like nothing sitting there in front of her. Everything was more important.

Everything is making me angry, and everything is making me sad. What is a person supposed to do with that? I want to scream, hit my head to feel anything other than what I feel right now. I don't want to eat, I don't want anything other than to disappear. Sometimes I just feel more than invisible, and it's such an empty feeling. No matter what I do, there is this incredible longing for something else. This week I am on break, and I can't even relax and do nothing. There is always something to do, always something that needs my time. Even when I just sit, the need to be productive and accomplish something is huge. So much unrest that I can't wrap my brain around. I sit here wanting so badly to type and get it all out in the hopes that the feeling will subside, but there are no right words, there are no right pictures. It's a place that is hollow and lacking in so many things that I don't even have a clue where to start. I am just not ok right now, and I want to be more than anything. SO I am pretending, trying to keep going and do everything that is needed right now, but goodness, I am spent. Absolutely utterly spent. 

Life is a roller coaster

 

So much is in my heart. I am happy, yet I am broken, overwhelmed, and totally burnt out. I was watching Lilith Fair, the documentary, and it was so good, the songs I grew up listening to. All the moments of my life, and the tears started flowing. When all of those artists came onto the scene, those were the words to the story of my life. Those were the songs that played through the tears and the hopes for the future. The life I have lived and the experiences I have had have given me an immense amount of strength, hope, and a longing for things to be different for me. I want freedom, I want the kind of peace that feels complete. I want the kind of rest that makes me feel renewed each day. I am in a difficult place right now, and I understand why, yet at the same time, I don't. I am in a place that I have worked so hard for, and there is a hole. There is this sadness, this intense sense that I am missing out on something. There is a need to belong somewhere, and yet I don't really belong anywhere. I no longer belong in the teaching field; I have yet to belong to the counseling field. And I, in my own skin, have yet to hold spunky and help her heal her heart so much all at once. I just need more of myself, more time, more space, more light to believe that I am truly going to make it. Maybe even that I am worthy of all the things that I long for. 

I recently received my copy of Sara Mclaughlin's new album, and one of the songs, of course, you guessed it, brought me to tears. 

This healing journey is so long, and as I work on these last few pieces, the last few pivotal pieces, it's a lot. Daily, I wonder if I am strong enough and brave enough for these steps. I just want her with me, beside me, a part of who I am in my everyday. Not someone sitting in the past trying to make it right. Because no matter how badly I want to make it something other than what it is, I can't. No matter how long Spunky sits there trying to make sense out of all that happened, there is no making sense. It was just terrible, and it happened it happened to us and we have to face it, and find a way to be ok. The amount of energy everything takes right now is extraordinary. I want to be this bubbly, happy person, but right now I am just not ok. I can't even tell you how hard that is to admit. I am not ok, and I want to be more than anything. I dread waking up every day, going to a job that just isn't the same. I am tired of being hit, and everyone keeps saying 'more data, more data.' How bad does someone have to get hurt before something changes? Goodness, there are good moments. I love the kids, but I just can't anymore. I feel like I am lost in a swamp, trying to stay alive in quicksand. The daily triggers are just too much, and I am not sure what a person is supposed to do with that. I can not be grabbed at my neck, slapped on my chest, bitten on my chest, and pretend that everything is fine.  Maybe someone else can take that and keep going, but I cannot because it affects me so deeply. I am not sure that others can understand the impact that it has on me. In those moments, I am thrown back into the most awful moments of my life. 

I am trying harder than I ever have to heal Spunky, and I feel like I am beating my head against the wall. I want nothing more than for her to be a part of me and join me on this journey. I feel like I need her now more than ever. She is so much a part of everything that I do in my everyday, and yet there is a distance. I don't hate her anymore. I want her with me, and as much as I want her with me, I am terrified. In my bone,s she is all the things that I don't feel like I am. She is me, and I am her, but there is a separation that is more than hard to put into any kind of words. She is everything I am not. I am everything gross and disgusting. 

I am just not ok right now, and I am overwhelmed. There are so many things that I want, and I feel like I am not very good at any one of them. 

I heart your heart 

Backwards before Forwards

 

I heard this the other day, and it sparked a thought that made me smile, going backwards before going forwards. People often look at healing all wrong. There is no switch, and everything is magically better. There is a time to look back, and there is a time to move on; both are necessary.   I smiled to myself because that could not be more true, and I wonder how true that is for many people.  I hear it all the time: you have to look forward, you have to move on from the past, you need to look towards the future. Don't look in the rearview mirror, all those things are gone, there is nothing in the past, just look towards the future, leave the past in the past. All of those things make sense and I understand them, but there is a time to look back, heal the things that hurt, then continue to move on. There is a new song out, and these words I heard so very clearly: "The pain keeps coming till we face it till we heal it". 

So many people run from the things that hurt, the things that are buried in their soul, with the thought that buried things shouldn't bother them, but maybe the matter of fact is that those buried things are the things that bother us the most. Perhaps we need to look back to live fully and be able to move forward. 

In this, maybe I should listen to my own words. I have come to a place where Spunky, that little 13-year-old part of me that still feels like she needs too much and takes up too much space. She feels like a burden and a bother all the time. She needs such a massive amount of reassurance that I often feel more than guilty for it. She doesn't believe she is okay, she doesn't believe she is worthy of common decency, and she doesn't even think she is lovable. Who could love someone who made such terrible choices, who lived through the most unimaginable? So she needs more light and love. I have worked more than hard, trying to heal her, and I often feel like I am running in place, round and round, trying to understand and make some kind of sense out of the trauma that she lived through and the reactions around her.  Her focus is always on those around her who refused to see her hurt heart. Those around her who pointed fingers and made her believe that she was the one who had done something terribly wrong. She struggles to understand how she was left so alone and blamed for something that she never wanted. She wants to understand that more than anything. People have told her all her life that there is nothing that can be done about the past, so she should move on; her own mother refused to take responsibility for anything. So spunky took all the responsibility that wasn't hers and continues to pay the price. 

She is in fight mode most of the time; when not in fight mode, she is frozen, scared of everything and nothing all at the same time. Broken in pieces, trying to put everything back together.

  People tell her that things are over, but for her, they are all there, right below the surface, reminding her of the damage in her nightmares, triggers, and memories.  I spend most of my time trying to get her to another place, anywhere other than where she is, and maybe just maybe, I need to be. Be there with her, just present. Maybe it's time I give her that space to look back, dig in the mud, face it, feel it, then come sit with me in our safe place and move forward together. 

So yes, Backwards before Forwards. 

I heart your heart. 

Drowning

 

Oh, there are so many things, and I can't seem to get out of my own way. The exhaustion is absolute, and there isn't much time for anything. I have little patience. Seemingly small things are getting on every last nerve that I have. I am in a place that I have always wanted to be in, and yet there is that sadness that just won't let go. It's the ever-present heavy kind that I just can't seem to shake. 

I received the evaluation from the conference, and everything was excellent, primarily, but I focused on the ones that weren't. The one who said they could have done without the music, but that music gave an insight that you wouldn't have had. The one who said they left feeling defeated missed the entire point; it was wanting them to be different. I am not even looking at it again. I can't right now. I read some of their comments and think they are not prepared for trauma or its effects, and that makes me sad. I need to learn to focus on the many good things that were said, and right now, that is more challenging than I thought. It was three negatives in a room full of positives, and all I see are the ones who don't understand. I know that there is no way in a presentation to make everyone happy, but goodness, I want everyone to see my heart and where I am coming from. 

Even the other day at work, someone with all good intentions often told me to go home and get some rest. I can usually smile and keep going, but on Friday, I had heard it one too many times. I said no, I don't get rest, I have clients every night, and I have three classes. I usually don't eat dinner, because after going all day, when I get home at 8:30, there is nothing left of me to cook or clean. So, please, for my sanity, could you stop telling me to get some rest?  Then there are those people who come into my classroom, ask how I am, smile, then walk out like they never heard my words ! DO NOT walk in here, see what is going on and then do nothing. Do not smile at me after I have told you the situation and pretend that everything is fnie, I am about as far from fine as a person get right now. I even asked a co-worker today, like I am not making myself clear. what else should I be saying for them to understand the situation ? So over it, and barely keeping my head above water. 

There is this feeling of being on edge all the time, and it's not a fun place to be. At the moment, I don't know how to make it better. I know everything will get done, I always do, but at what cost? It's only the first week of September, and I have nothing. Work isn't at all helping the situation.  It is nothing like last year, and we are barely getting by each day. What they want us to do is simply not sustainable, and I am unsure where that leaves me. 

I hope this is just a phase and that I will soon snap out of it, get into the groove of this new phase of practicum, school, and work.  I need to find a balance, but right now, there isn't one. I even tried to ask for Mondays off, and she said Oh, but you don't want to lose your office space. I have yet to determine when the assignments will be completed. I'm not sure where to fit them in. I just don't even have time to breathe. 

I find myself so looking forward to Wednesday and getting to just be, no pressure, no deadlines, no judgment. There are so many things, and I don't feel like I am doing any of them well.  I just don't understand the sadness, when I am in a place with all that I have ever wanted. 

I heart your heart. 

I was Hurt in Unimaginable ways That Broke Me to Pieces

So hard to remember, impossible to forget 

Struggling to make the unimaginable fit

I go, keep going, and I smile 

Sometimes I am truly doing ok

Some days, the memories are not at the forefront, and I can breathe easy

Then out of nowhere, I am not ok again 

I guess you could say that I am haunted by what happened at 13

Some pictures are so very clear

I can hear them, smell them and even sometimes feel their hands

I see some pictures so vivid, like I saw them yesterday.

All these years later, the pictures are alive

All this work, and in a moment, sometimes I am a wreck

I want to be so strong, I want to be present 

Sometimes the reality hits me, and I wonder how I am still standing

I am helping clients, and yet I have this part of me that feels so weak

and often feels like a fraud

How can I struggle with this piece and be helpful? 

How can I provide hope on the days when I have little

So many things to consider 

I will make it. I keep going, that is what I do

There is just a different kind of realization,

the hate, the evil that that little girl survived

I often wonder how, when today I feel like I could crumble

Sometimes it amazes me how I can counsel

All my stuff is left outside the door, yet I walk out 

And there it all is 

screaming at me, 

the heavy, heavy baggage that keeps me tied to the most awful

I become intentional, working on "it"

The thing that I dread most in life

 And I feel my heart race, my head starts to pound

There is this anxious need to run at any given moment

I can feel the danger with every fiber of my being

The feeling of wanting to crawl into a hole, have someone hold me, and tell me it's all going to be ok

Oh I wish that someone could just take it away, make it less awful

The last big piece of my story that chills me to the bone.

The last big piece that terrifies me, that broke me into millions of pieces

As the scarecrow says: 

There are pieces of me over there and over there and over there  

And I am not sure that I am fixable, not that part. 

Maybe some parts are just too broken

Maybe, just maybe, this is one of those things that will 

forever and always just need Band-Aids

And I just don't know if I am ok with that

I have to keep fighting, I have to win against this piece

It didn't kill me then; it can't kill me now. 

Somewhere, my brain doesn't believe that. 

I heart your heart

 

Running on Adenaline

 

What a first week of the semester! There are so many thoughts, so many emotions, and I am hanging on by a mere single little thread. I started experiencing a sore throat late Monday, and it worsened over time. Fever by the end of Tuesday and finally gone Friday, but still achy. And eating, who has time for that, because there is not just the cooking but the cleaning as well, and who has time for that? Can I survive like this for 16 weeks? I am not sure if I can really, and that worries me. The number of times I have gotten dizzy today is too numerous to count. Today is an extra day, a holiday, and yet I still don't have enough time to accomplish all the things I need to do. I'm not sure exactly where that leaves me or what my next steps are. But tonight I am in tears because there isn't enough, and a list feet long of things that still need attention. 

Work well, it is awful. The year has not started off well, and I am overwhelmed. Nothing is as it was said it would be, and there is nothing they can do. I have already said that they are purposely pushing people out, and it is working. They will not have any staff left to cover the two rooms if they continue at the current rate. I tried to be as positive as possible going back this year, and each day, each hour, there are more and more mountains to climb, with insufficient help and resources. I am tired of staff members coming into my room smiling, as if everything is fine, and as a teacher, I am barely treading water. They are ok with that, and that is the reason I am on the way out. So many appointments for people coming to observe, but we are forgotten. They arrive at times with few students and tell us, 'Wow, look how well you are doing.' No, we are in survival mode, trying to care for our little ones. We are doing what we do, and we are burnt out, and we are four weeks into school. We all look around, asking the question, Can we make it through this year?  Often there are no words, we just look at each other with a knowing, wondering what the day ahead will bring? 

I have started seeing clients, and I am excited; however, I also feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility. That I wasn't sure that I was prepared for.  There is a sadness, a lack of hope that is so heavy. I do love it, this is what I have wanted, but this isn't the place for me. It will be fine. In 16 weeks, a person can accomplish almost anything, right? School is crazy, my practicum teacher gives little information, and I am struggling. There is no syllabus, no direction, and I don't know if we are having class tomorrow on campus or via Zoom, because there is zero communication. I need to know what is expected of me, what needs to be done, and when I need to complete tasks. None of that is being shared. 

Even as I sit here writing, I am more than overwhelmed. I am just going to bed, and let's see what happens tomorrow. A job that I no longer love, where the expectations are just not doable. A class with no communication. I am hungry, but too tired to make anything and then clean all over again, so I am going to read some Yalom, find the why I want to do this, and try to breathe. Tomorrow has got to be a better day. It has too. But I have little hope that it will be, and I am going to do my best not to cry. 

I heart your heart