FAILURE

 

What I really want to do is write this word over and over and over and over until I don't feel that way anymore.  There are no words, but this one and it's all that I can see.  It's been this way for over a week and still it's grip is strong.  It started last week, when there was an issue with my video for my grad class. Because of that issue I was unable to turn in the assignment.  Mind you, that morning, I was able to download the corrected video and was able to get the assignment in that evening.  My professor said that it would still be late, but there really was no other option for me. I think I cried through most of the class, because not turning an assignment in is just unacceptable. I was pretty devasted. On one hand the professor was understanding and at the same time was asking questions well why didn't I realize it sooner, well it isn't that bad, there were many discounting statements that didn't help what I was feeling. Since then the feeling of failure is immense, and I am not sure how to shake it.  Then the following Saturday I am slowly coming back from that sense of failure.  And BAM group project, I froze I was a deer in headlights and no words would even come from my mouth.  I had a partner who did nothing, even when reading the notes, she read it like a script instead of a conversation. Needless to say, it was more than rough.  Then there was the co-facilitator who texted on her phone telling us that we needed to speak more and interact.  I could not, there were no words that were coming out of my mouth.  They asked how I thought it went and said that I felt like a deer in headlights that no words would come.  I said that I didn't drink but if I did I would need a very large drink.  It seemed ok, the professor came back and was talking about group being difficult and it's not as simple as some may think.  For a few minutes I gave myself a break until the professor and co-facilitator were speaking and you know when you can read body language yea that moment and I was flustered the rest of the day.  FAILURE, the only words that seems to keep running around my mind.  And the spiral that comes with that, I am not good enough, I am a letdown, yada yada yada !   All the things you could imagine were leading me down a spiral going nowhere fast.  I know that I am not going to be prefect at everything, but I feel this need to be better than what I am.  I am exhausted and have a few weeks left of classes.  There are a few classmates that are getting on my last nerve.  I just need a breather and a break.  All I know is that I am not a failure, but I sure wish those feelings of failure would soon disappear because they are heavy and exhausting.  I am spent.     

I heart your heart. 

Even from the grave

 It's amazing the things that can bother us even after a person has passed away. Most days I am fine.  But on those days that I am not it feels like there is a lead balloon in my soul.  My mother acted in ways that were not kind and said things that were often not true about me. I don't even want to imagine the things that she said to those that were around her.  I could tell by their silence towards me, that it wasn't good.  Everyone contacted my brother, flooded him with all the praise.  I got nothing, no condolences no nothing.  Since she passed away, the words that she wrote, things that she stated towards me have broken my heart into millions of little pieces.  I find myself every now and then thinking of her wishing for warm thoughts and kind memories, but right now I can't see through the hurt.  That was always the problem when she was alive.  She could never understand how I saw things or where I was coming from. She was never willing to acknowledge her part in the awful things that happened to me. She could never acknowledge the person that I was, and who I was becoming. She could never acknowledge the person that I was because of the things that happened to me.  She wanted me to forget, sweep it all under the carpet and pretend that all was well with the world.  For me, none of those things were an option. 

I was everything the opposite of what she wanted.  So many things I will never understand.  I thought by now some of the things that I have learned she said, would no longer hurt.  But they do, they still are like a knife.  I was even looking back at a memory that came up on my phone, and she said that I had a peace breaking spirit. What? ME?  I have a peace breaking spirit?  I can remember the day that I read those words like it was yesterday and today they hurt just the same. It was an email that she had written, and she left it out on the dining room table.  I hard cried, the kind of cry where your shoulders shake, and you can't catch your breathe. I read it over and over thinking that surely, she wasn't talking about me.  Yes, she was, and I truly believe that she meant those words.  How dare she say that, how dare she send it in an email. How dare she leave it on the table. It's like she meant to leave it on the table as a stake through my heart. There are so many questions that I want to ask, why did she think that what did I do.  But all of those words are useless, there will never be any answers to satisfy the hurt. 

Just so so many hurtful things.  When I clean out the rest of her things, I am just throwing things away no need to find anything else.  It has been made very clear, how little that I meant to her. So many blaring examples, and still they hurt.  Crazy that even though she has passed on, her words cut.  I guess that's the thing, I am not sad that she has passed away.  For me the main emotion is relief.  The sad is because I want to want to miss my mom.   I miss all the things that I didn't get, I miss the mom that I didn't have, that is what I miss.  Just a moment, as time passes, I hope the feelings will become less sharp. I hope that good happy things fill the spaces where there is so much pain and hurt. 

I heart your heart. 

Some days

 

Some days are just hard. Just lonely just all the things that you wish they were not. 

The sky is beautiful, the most amazing hue of blue

The trees are beautiful, moving to the breeze

Butterflies trying to find the perfect spot

Birds finding their song with just the right notes

Then there is me in the middle of it all and the tears flow

I can appreciate each of these things and am grateful

I sit on the deck taking in that beautiful sky, 

feeling the trees and hearing the birds

there is such a peaceful appreciation for these things

at the same time the tears fall

I talk about it all the time this deep sad in my soul

it's there all the time no matter what I do 

it's so heavy and is something that just is

It's so heavy that even in the beauty it steals my breath 

I think that as much as I am able to heal 

there will be these slivers of sadness

sometimes they will come as tears 

Sometimes as that ever present ache 

and then days when its so heavy that you have to remind yourself to breathe

Today was just lonely

And there is a huge guilt that follows

The sky is so pretty and the trees so full and green

The birds so happy, the sun so bright and 

still Callahan is sad,

Maybe there will always be days like this

forever and always

I guess if they have to be, what can I do

I just wish that someday I didn't have to do them alone

I want nothing more than to lose this sadness 

as hard as I work, I fear it's just a part of me

Pieces of me that will forever be tender and fragile

So many bruises, so many marks that still hold the pain

I have come so far and this sadness is so deep

It's always there just some days it becomes to vibrant

begging for attention

I don't have time to sit and wallow

I don't want to sit with this sad 

so many things lost in life, and I think aren't I done with that

My heart hurts and I feel the sad in everything

Just one of those some days

I heart your heart

Holidays

 Holidays, Special days I am not a fan of either of them.  Today is Easter and not one person has reached out.  Not one person has said Happy Easter, I hope you have a great day.  It's just another alone day where things are the same. Everyone with their families and I am alone.  I am trying to find my people, I just don't know how, or even where to look. Most people are with their families doing family things. 

Everything about that makes me more than sad. Usually, I am the one that is reaching making sure that people feel seen, making sure that I acknowledge others.  This year there wasn't enough left of me, there was nothing left for me little lone anyone else. So, it was a quiet sad day, wishing that I had people to call my own. It's like this most holidays really, everyone has their own families and I understand that.  It is just when it's you and you have no family things get complicated and cloudy and sometimes very heavy. So today is just one of those sad days.  I told Mariska no Easter baskets yet that is what she did.  That girl, everything was perfect and brought a smile to my face. She even made one for her brother I made them a small backet, she would say everything was great even if it was not.  Vincent left early this morning saying nothing.  When he got home, I told him he had his baskets and nothing they are still sitting on the table untouched. He brought home beautiful flowers but just laid them on the counter no interaction.  No happy Easter mom.  

Then there is the fact that my birthday is coming up and I hate it.  Mariska is already planning and has mentioned taking the day off.  I just want the day to be normal.  I think it's easier that way and less of a chance of being let down.  I am tired of being disappointed.  Not with Mariska she will decorate and do all the things, and I will try to smile and be so excited.  Inside I will just look forward to it being over. I just am in a place where I really cannot add any more disappointment to my plate. I just can't.  It's just me trying to carry everything and I am barely keeping my head above water. I feel like I am trying so hard to be happy and it's not working.  It does feel like there is something innately wrong with me, and I am trying to fight that but it's difficult.  It's a so sad place that I am trying to maneuver.  

I heart your heart 

No one to Ask

 

I am more than stressed. Like stressed beyond a single tear. Its am empty echo feeling. It is this huge hole that I don't think will ever be filled. And I hate it. People have no clue what it is like to have no family and no one that is close for those unconditional things that people take for granted. Just an example, my mortgage went up almost 400 dollars!   I was in panic mode, as a teacher paycheck to paycheck there is not an extra 400 around.  So, I had to start shopping for new insurance.  That in itself is stressful, but then imagine that you have no clue what you are doing and have to make these big decisions and have no one to ask and make sure that the decision you are making is a good one?  That is daily life, and it is more than hard to navigate.  I did find new house insurance and I hope that it's the same coverages and I hope that I made the right choice.  At the same time, it was the only choice, that would leave my mortgage where I needed the payment to be. There is no dad that I can go to and say is this the right thing to do is this insurance, ok?  There is no one for me to ask there is no shoulder to lean on, I am here it's just me and it all falls on me.  Every single big decision if something isn't right it's my fault. Sometimes it's more than overwhelming. I have to carry so many decisions all on my own. I just wish that there was someone in the everyday, just to guide me, to give advice and to reassure me that I am doing things ok and that I am not failing.  I just wish that there was a person that I could count on unconditionally all the time no matter what.  I have never had that and, sometimes that's what I want most in this world. 

Church

 

Every single Sunday these last few weeks, there is an anger that comes up.  It comes so fierce and then the rage sets in.  You turn the TV on and there are all these pastors and preachers each one telling their own version of things that they want you to believe.  Each one voice louder than the next and I struggle to understand, why would these people be yelling at us about how great the things that they are saying are.  

Religion and church have hurt me more in my lifetime than I even want to acknowledge.  I think that when you pray to die at 5, it really changes a person.  It is something that stays with you forever.  Some of the people that have hurt me the most in my lifetime were people that claimed to love god and built their life around the church.  Those were people that I knew I never wanted to be like. 

The people that have meant the most are the people that have been really genuine and true because of who they are as people not because of a god that they believe in. To me that speaks volumes.  The people that can accept my questions, that still love me even when our views are so very different those are the people that I want to be around. 

For me growing up I was always questioning and wondering.  I was never one to just believe because a person told me too.  I wanted to know more and believe in something with my whole heart, if I couldn't do that then it was not something that I wanted or to be a part of who I am. I am sure that growing up with people who so severely hurt me then went to church the next day talking about how wonderful they were had really affected me.  As a little girl I was surrounded by people in the church, who said one thing then did another. I never found caring and comfort. All I found was violence and disbelief.  There was never an understanding or a sense of family.  I was always the outsider, because as long as I can remember I would question the things they wanted me to believe; and that didn't work in the catholic church.  You don't question you just comply.  I saw evil all around me, that was so inconsistent with all that they were talking about. 

I saw the man who violently rape me, then proceed to kill my tadpoles and tell me that next time I wouldn't fight receive communion the next day staring me down like I had done something terrible. 

As a family we had to carry the communion and wine to the alter then on the way home get screamed at and called horrid names and receive the silent treatment for as long as he thought necessary. 

I was gang raped by men that carried the cross during Sunday's mass. 

I was told that the only way that I was going to heal was through God and the church.  

I was not believed or helped when I was made to tell what happened to me. Instead, I was made the black sheep, called a liar and ignored. 

There was the Christian counseling center who told me I made my bed and had to lie in it. 

Church, Religion and God are not things that hold my heart and make me feel at home.  Those things have hurt me beyond repair.  I do not believe in a god that lets a little girl of 5 pray to die because her father comes in her room every night. I will not believe in something, that tells me all about going to heaven and in the same breath says my father will be there. 

I do not want to believe in something that has damaged my life in ways that I can't fully comprehend. 

I will not believe in something that is more about being the popular person than about who you are in your heart.  I just won't do it. 

There was a woman who was married to a woman and wanted a church family.  I asked the pastor, and he said Well she can come but we don't believe in her life. I was more than shocked.  The judgement. 

There was the pastor when my mother worked at the bank who told her I should have kept my legs closed, which she then told me. 

It was a woman in the church that said to me Well you can't be everyone's friend and that has stuck with me, no.  You are absolutely correct. 

So, no I don't believe in God, or Church or anything that resembles it.  

I have lived this life on my own.  Relying on the things around me, on the birds and the trees and the animals, those are the things that have kept me going and have given me hope. 

I am fine with believers.  If that is you, and it works, wonderful.  But it does not work for me.  I am not less than because I don't believe in the god that you do.  I am not less than because I am a kind human because that is just who I am.  

I remember asking about the Dali Llama once.  I said so, you're telling me that he won't go to heaven because he doesn't believe in god?  The short answer was Yes.  So, if someone that gentle and kind is thought to go to hell, that is not something that I want to subscribe to. So many rules and unkindness's that don't feel right for the person that I am. 

I do not believe in some kind of God that lets children be brutally raped throughout their life.  

A man once said that he thanked God that a light turned green or that there was an upfront parking place.  Wow that seems trivial compared to the rape of a five-year-olds body.  Can you explain that?  He will let a violent attack occur and yet change a light or give you a parking space? I know it isn't that simple but there are things I just don't understand.  I understand choice and free will.  For me there is suffering that destroys and there is no way around that. 

I believe in the goodness of kind good people because that is who they are in their heart, and not for any other reason. 

So yea, Sundays and church and all that includes sometimes makes me sad.  It just isn't all it's said to be. 

I heart your heart. 

I can't breathe

 

When I think about her, when I talk about her, it takes my breath away.  My favorite wants to do a ceremony of sorts to get that little girl in the here and now with me. I feel like there are pieces of me that are still chained to the things that happened when I was 13.  I want her here with me in the present more than anything. The second, I think about closing my eyes and really paying attention to my breathing the panic sets in, it feels terrible. I don't want to be in my own skin. I feel like there were pieces of me that left that day and have never been back.   She can't speak because she doesn't have the words and that has to be ok.  I just want her to find some peace in this world.  I just want us to be on the same page. This is not like I am holding on because I want to.  What is happening is that the things that happened to me are so engrained that they have a hold on me.  I am more than ready to let them go, but as I was once attached to them they have attached themselves to me.  I almost think of it as a haunting.  I have let it go I don't want it there anymore, but there is so much unfinished business that it won't remove it's grasp.  

I am working more than hard doing everything that I know and still it is a huge part of me that makes me want to crawl in a hole and come out when it's all over.  It's hard to work on something when there are no words.  It's hard to figure things out when you don't have any breathe behind the words. And that is where I am and it's a terrifying place.  That so scared thirteen-year-old part of me is stuck in a place of hell trying to figure out the things that are unfigure out able. There is no way to make sense out of something so humiliating and shameful that you wished they just killed you.  I know there are days I truly wished that they just finished me off.  It would be better to be dead than to have to face the things that were done.  I am so afraid that I will never move on from this part of my past.  It's too big, too terrifying and what does a person do with something that there are no words for.  I have come such a long way and works more than hard to heal the things that have hurt my heart, this is just so big and I am still so afraid.  She needs a rescue.  She needs a rescue and time to heal with no words needed.  She needs someone to come to her with every reassurance that things are different now.  I can not give her guarantees.  I can tell her that over my dead body will anyone ever hurt her again. She fears the same thing happening again,  and the chances of that are so slim. But to her in her mind and body the chances of that happening again are great and she knows that she wouldn't make it . 

I am terrified of being back in my own body and I fear that it is going to be necessary in order to heal that so young sweet girl that just wanted to belong somewhere.  I hate her for being 13.  I hate the fact that she was so excited when he showed her attention.  I hate the fact that once he showed me any attention I wanted more.  I never in a million years imagined that when he said he would see me again that he meant, what he did.  When he showed up at my house, those first few seconds there was this excitement, he had come to see me.  In the next breath, I realized he was a very different person, he had no intentions of being the good guy and making me feel special.  In my head I know so many things, I know the right thing to believe, there is a part of me that knows I didn't do anything wrong but the part that believes I did is gigantic. My heart is struggling.  I know the right things to say and think and in the same breath I hate that she was so naive and believed that something was good.  Did she not learn anything from years of rape and abuse by every man that she came in contact with.  Why would she think that this would be any different.  I want to believe good things for her, she deserves so much love and care.  And she doesn't know how to even let that happen. I don't know how to talk about her and keep breathing.  I don't know how to be present as she cuts the chains to experience the good things in this world. I am so afraid maybe it won't happen for her.  Maybe just maybe, she is too afraid, too damaged.  I will never stop fighting for her, but I can tell you it's absolutely exhausting.  this is more than hard to explain and even harder for me to comprehend.  There are still moments I don't know how I am still here standing. I know that surviving was all she knew how to do.  She just kept moving, but there are days I just don't have a clue how she kept going.  

I heart your heart.