letting go

Infuriating

/ christyterese / Leave a comment

In preparation for a short mission to cheer up a niece who needs her auntie, I was crossing tasks off my to do list this morning.  One of the most daunting of the tasks was to retrieve my suitcase from the guest room/office closet. It is daunting because my second bedroom serves as both guest room and office, but also because it serves as art studio, storage, and a dedicated room for my medical supply when I am not actually using crutches or in need of my walker or the air conditioner.  So, the closet–well let’s just say that opening the door can be a harrowing experience.

 

Long ago I learned the concept of “eating the frog” from a friend–doing the hard thing first, so the rest of the tasks seem less challenging and the thing you dread most is done, eliminating the dread.  It’s based on the idea that if you had a bunch of things before you to consume, and one of them was a live frog, while the others were less disgusting choices, you should first eat the frog, and then allow the palate to rejoice in the other, less gross, items consumed after.  So, a little before 9:00 am, I opened the closet door.

 

Thankfully, nothing fell on my head upon opening the door.  And I rather quickly remembered the location of the suitcase and confirmed that it was, indeed, under all of the postal boxes.  I set out to rearrange the items and acquire the suitcase stashed below.

 

Now, it is important to mention at this point that all of the movement, noise, and shuffling happening was due to the shifting of cardboard and foam inside my closet on the second floor of a two-story building.  I will also remind you that it was nearly 9:00 am. And then, the thing happened that made me lose my shit. I heard banging on my floor–the ceiling of James, the downstairs tenant.

 

James has been told, repeatedly, that he is not, under any circumstances to bang on the ceiling.  After I had been living here for about 10 months, he suddenly decided that he would yell obscenities at me whenever seeing me outside, and bang on the ceiling at ANY noise he doesn’t like–including my family sitting down to eat lunch during the holidays. This morning he did not stop banging.  He just kept on doing it for about ten minutes, even after I had retrieved my suitcase and closed the closet door on the remaining mess.

 

I called my landlord.  She said she can’t be a therapist, she is a landlord.  But she did call James and tell him that ANY noise complaint goes to her and he is not allowed to bang on anything under any circumstances.  

 

However, he said that there is constantly yelling at 4 in the morning and 8 in the morning and all sorts of noise.  And that is complete bullshit.

 

This is the thing I am finding so infuriating today–and in the recent weeks, with all that has been going on in my life.  There isn’t a way to effectively tell tellers of truth from tellers of lies if you aren’t in the situation. If you aren’t there to see the events unfold, you can’t necessarily discern what the truth of the matter is, which puts the crazy, insecure, jealous, dishonest, selfish, and self-involved people in the world on the same level as the ones who are truthful and altruistic and compassionate and working to make a better world for all.  And that just doesn’t seem fair.

 

It isn’t enough to be a good person.  Suddenly, you feel like you need to constantly prove that you are a good person.  

 

That infuriates me.  Because we should be able to somehow tell the difference.  We should be able to know truth and see good and not be constantly deceived.  Good people shouldn’t be dragged through the mud by those who have selfish or nefarious motives.  But they are.

 

It didn’t take me long to realize that I don’t actually need to prove anything to anyone.  

 

Truth will out, as they say.  

 

Eventually, the good is recognized and the lies are exposed.  I do believe that, even though I also believe that it could take decades, or generations for that to happen.  It will happen. And a legacy of beauty and good and love and truth will be remembered as such, and the opposite will also be remembered as such.  

 

It isn’t easy to let things unfold, and to let my name be dragged through the mud.  It isn’t easy to live above the fray and to allow others to lie and misrepresent and harm without trying to fight back in some manner.  But attempts to argue with those who don’t tell the truth or use logic or care about the heart of matters always fail. It is futile. The only way to get justice in these matters is to wait for the truth to become known.  

 

It will become known.  

 

So, no matter how infuriating it is to have a guy who is full of crap banging on the ceiling while I try to pack for a mission of love and compassion to cheer up my lovely niece (and cheer up myself, of course, because being with her is such a joy), I will swallow my pride, hope all the things stay behind the closet door, and let things play out in whatever way they will.  Living in light and love will always be my best defense against any odds.

 

Now–to launder the clothing, pack things that don’t freak out the country folk (so basically nothing I own), and get ready for mission Return to NWIA.  (I just freaked out a little. It’s been almost 4 years. I must really love this niece!)

The Way of the Witch

/ christyterese / Leave a comment

This afternoon, I anointed a candle, said a little incantation that I devised on the fly, and lit said candle.  

 

It felt like the thing to do.  

 

The spell is one called “Road Opener”, and it is meant to do just that–open roads, in the proverbial sense. I felt a shift happening, and I feel a shift is needed, so I used the tools around me to ask The Divine for a little boost in that area.  I asked for some opportunities to present themselves, and for the peace I need to close the chapters that aren’t meant for me and to let go of things that I am holding on to without good reason.

 

Last night I felt this rage rising in me.  I was infuriated at wrongs against me, and the ways that people spread lies and misrepresent others and make up stories to fit a narrative they prefer, instead of the way things really are.  The way things are? I’m being slandered by a selfish, insecure, jealous girl who for one reason or another sees me as the enemy that traps her where she doesn’t like being. Whether that is because she admires something in me that she lacks, or she sees something in me that connects with something in her that she dislikes about herself, I cannot begin to guess at or understand correctly.  But the crap thing is that she isn’t being aware enough to see that the thing that bothers her isn’t in me, but in herself, so she is gaslighting and lying and verbally assaulting and slandering in order to make me into the enemy she so desperately needs. And that makes me the enemy of her friends, by some strange loyalty that I have yet to comprehend–because logic has always been somewhat more important to me than loyalty.  

 

But the Universe intervened time and again as that feeling rose in me.  

 

Flex came in and kissed me hello.  Kory forgot that we know one another and introduced himself again.  Mark started yelling my name from the corner in a slightly disturbing manner, but I knew that in his damaged brain it was an endearment and not an offense.  And then I met a wonderful man whom I hope to meet again and again. Chai told me to go after what is good for me and makes me happy, not to wait around for things that won’t likely change for the better.  Raven texted that she will be out tomorrow and can’t wait to chat with me about her week.

 

At one point I ignored all the love that I was being sent and still went back to the other establishment where I had been mistreated and slandered.  I wanted the owner, whom I had always been on good terms with, to know that the situation that had happened with the girl was not one that I meant to impact him, and I hoped to say my goodbyes to him, since he is selling said establishment.  But the girl and her sidekick were present, and the owner treated me just as poorly as they had earlier. Clearly the narrative was spreading, and I was being painted as the enemy of all.

 

I felt that frustration and rage rising again.  I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I went back to the place where the love was being poured out earlier.  And there was more love on tap.

More good conversation, more assurances of my worth, and more positivity swirled around.  I put a few songs on the jukebox and basked in the glow of goodness that I had found.

 

So, today, I knew that what needed to be accepted and anointed and encouraged in my life was this opening up to the places and people who show love and acceptance and encouragement, and a closing of the door on people and places that do not.  The best way to embrace that was with a ritual that I know to express and to empower such a thing.

 

I’ve been one of the many who misunderstood “witchcraft” over the years.  I took it as opening up doors to devils and demons. I took it as power that you couldn’t control or understand.  I took it as one half of a supernatural or spiritual war that had Jesus and an angelic host on the other side of the field of battle.  And I even got sucked into these ways of believing after I had practiced witchcraft of sorts, because I saw and experienced things that I didn’t fully understand or have the rubric for explaining.  I didn’t have the framework in which to hold the powers that be.

 

I’ve been building that framework for about 26 years now, and I have a much broader understanding of these things.  I’m not scared of the devil anymore. Spiritual warfare isn’t really a thing–life is life and it isn’t divided into physical and spiritual bits, whether you are connected to your spirit or totally unaware–and demons aren’t attacking you on the regular.  Spells don’t welcome evil spirits and start horror movies. They are rituals for those who are connected to The Divine. They are kind of like the Eucharist for a Catholic–only less stuck in the age of men who thought the universe revolves around the earth and taking money in exchange for the promise of heaven was ethical.  

 

Honestly, I think it is far less weird to use some herbs and oils and stones to acknowledge my desires and questions and fears and strengths to The Divine than it is to wear a torture/murder device around your neck as a symbol of your adherence to ancient codes of conduct.  And I am an ordained minister with degrees from both Evangelical and Jesuit seminaries–so I’m not really biased toward, but away from, Earth Magick and Celtic practices.

 

Getting in touch with what is going on inside of me–my spirit–and then assessing how that self is interacting with the world around it–the Universe–and connecting with my understanding of deity–The Divine–for guidance and assistance in having better understanding and connection all around, seems like a totally normal, necessary, and sane way of living life.  It doesn’t seem weird to follow this way of being and interacting. It doesn’t seem evil or dangerous. And I am sure that there are many who would quote the few bible verses that say witchcraft and divination are evil and forbidden. But I don’t think that the ancient Hebrews had much contact with the Druids, and I believe that the understanding of witchcraft and divination that would have been expressed in those passages was much different from the using of stones and herbs and oils to affirm and express and seek to align myself with positive and helpful energies.  Context is important.

 

There isn’t any shame in the way I align myself with positive and helpful energies.  And I’m not afraid to have my smudge stick and my tarot deck and my books on herbs and shamanism and spiritual discovery displayed on shelves in my living room.  These are all ways that I seek wisdom, align with positive energy, and keep myself in a healthier space.

 

It might seem strange to some, but there have been threads of witchcraft running through all of my theological study over the years.  I learned to be a witch before I learned to map ancient Israel or translate biblical Greek text. At Fuller Southwest, one of my cohort used to call me Jesus Witch, throughout our Saturday classes, after learning of the ways that Sufi converts keep using their rituals after learning of Jesus.  I would often smudge my apartment and carry crystals even while I studied at Loyola Chicago. There was never really a time when the knowledge of the needs of my spirit left me, even though these practices were not seen as normal or acceptable in mainstream religion. I never stopped needing these things to keep me healthy, in touch, and connected to The Divine.  When I tried to leave these practices behind, I stopped being healthy, in touch, and connected–not just to The Divine, but to myself and to the people around me. They are essential to my wellbeing.

 

The way of the witch is a part of my overall “religion” (a word that I generally reject, because of the way that organized religion has tainted it–I usually claim to be “spiritual but not religious”).  I’m not a Wiccan, in the sense that I have joined that organized group either. I simply find that my connections and my energies and my rituals are essential to my overall health, and that using these forms of witchcraft are one piece of that puzzle.

 

I’m healthier, stronger, more balanced, happier, and less stressed when I use these rituals–whether that be the lighting of the candle and incantation of this afternoon, or cooking with particular herbs, or sage smudging the house, or carrying particular crystals with me during the day, or using more involved spells and incantations, or reading tarot.  Some days that means going out to the beach on the new moon and dancing to the drumbeat and fire. Some days that means setting intentions. Some days that means noticing the rainbows that come from the strategically placed prism in the window. But it always means following the way of the witch.

 

If you want to know more about it, email me or comment and I’ll be happy to share some of my favorite resources for beginning such a journey.  

 

I’m hoping the roads open even more.  I’m hoping that I get to see Raven tonight.  I’m hoping that my new acquaintance becomes more than an acquaintance, because he seems–wow.  I’m hoping that the old things pass away without me concerning myself with the insecurities of others, and that I can move forward and keep being my best self.  I’m hoping I can hold fast to Chai’s advice and do what makes me happy, taking a better road and leaving behind a dead-end sort of situation. And in many ways I don’t have to hope.  Because I have already affirmed it, chosen it, anointed it, and lit it on fire–telling The Divine that I am willing and ready to move and that I am asking for all the helps to do so.  I have yet to be denied those helps.

 

So let it be.

Next

/ christyterese / Leave a comment

I’m not certain if control issues were inherited or ingrained, but my mother was the pinnacle of having things in order, and bits of her need to control all the things all the time were handed down to me, and I handed bits down to my daughter.

It isn’t always a bad thing to want to be prepared.  It isn’t always a bad thing to desire control over a situation.  As a person who felt they didn’t have autonomy and agency at many times in her history—and even in the present moment—I am a big supporter of having some control over what happens in my life.  I like to be prepared.  I like to know what is coming, whenever possible.

But I also know that life isn’t controllable.  Life isn’t boxed up neatly and organized and cleaned up and put into order.  Life is chaos.  Life is dynamic.  Life is unpredictable.  Choose your own adjective—but the point is, you cannot maintain control of all the things all the time.

For almost three years now, I’ve been living in a situation that magnifies a lack of control a thousand times.  It has not been easy for me.

It isn’t that I am just like my mother, and need all the preparations and all the order and seek them in an anxious and worried manner that cannot allow for others to see the internal chaos—the private chaos that all the preparations are meant to hide.  I also have, whether inherited or ingrained, my dad’s propensity for being laid back and letting life happen, while offering peace and calm and love to everyone around you as a counter-measure to life’s chaos.

One of my employers, many years ago, said of my dad, “Dave is the kind of man whose pants you could light on fire and he would say, ‘Hmm. It’s a bit warm in here.’”  And that was one of the best descriptions of my dad’s manner of being that I ever heard.  I’m not that chill and laid back, but I am at least, I believe, half that laid back.

But the other half.  The half from my mom.  The half that wants order and shuns chaos. That half is feeling tortured right now!

The living situation that magnifies my lack of control, and the dependence and humility and trust that not having that control forces me to develop, has, in many ways, helped me become less like my mother and more like my father.  I’ve started letting go of control.  I’ve started asking for help without shame.  I’ve started to trust in divine providence.  But the last few weeks of this living situation have brought out the control freak in the most unflattering ways.

After almost three years of waiting, I am now 25 days from my disability hearing.

25 days.

I’ve waited more than 25 months for this day.

And I am terrified, because I have no fucking clue what happens next.

The other day I emailed the paralegal that is working with my lawyer to prepare my case.  I asked him what my next steps were.  I asked him what I do now—after I dutifully went from doctor to doctor, asking if they agree that I am disabled and getting their detailed documentation on record when they did agree.

The paralegal said I do nothing.

Nothing.

Next I do nothing.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

I am completely incapable of doing nothing with 25 days standing between me and the decision that determines how, or even if, I survive from this point forward.  I can’t do nothing while a stranger—a man I have never met—looks over all of those detailed documents and decides whether I get the assistance I need to live independently, or whether I am forced into some other sort of situation, where I don’t have the right to the freedom and independence that people who are not sick all the time take for granted.

That freedom and independence might not be granted in that courtroom.  Or maybe it will.

Either way, I don’t know what comes next.

This ominous unknown “next” is looming before me, and I am told that my response right now should be to do nothing.

I’m not doing well with that.  All the parts of me that desire control and preparation and order are screaming out in pain.  All the parts that need to know what to do and need to know how to best prepare for what is coming are feeling tortured.  I forget to breathe sometimes.  There is a tightness in my chest, on occasion, that I can’t be sure is from my current respiratory infection, because I have a suspicion that it is a sign of panic instead.

I emailed the paralegal again today.  I asked him what happens after.  What happens after I am awarded benefits?  Do I get them right away?  Do I have to wait even longer?  Does my fundraiser need to sustain me for two more months?  Eight more months?  When do I get the $21,000 that the state wrongfully withheld from me while they argued that I wasn’t “disabled enough” and could do “some unskilled work”, even though my medical records and my work history told a very different story?  On what day do I feel vindication and validation?

And what happens after if I don’t?  What happens if the judge does not offer me vindication and validation and $21,000 in back-payments?  What happens if I can’t work but the judge says I must?  What happens if I can’t hold down a “real” job for any significant length of time?  What happens when my physical and mental state deteriorate as I lose time for self-care and therapies and coping strategies that are essential to my wellbeing?  What happens when I become what I was three years ago—a bed-ridden mess of pain and mental anguish?  What then?

The part of me that needs to prepare and create order and keep things neat feels like she is being drowned.  She is choking on the unknown as she tries to remember how to breathe.  She is suffering and dying.

The part of me that is laid back and offers peace and love seeks to console her.  She is nearly inconsolable.  No amount of meditation and diaphragmatic breathing and coloring mandalas seems to quell the shaking of her frame.  So, the peace-filled part accompanies the out of control part to my desk.  Together they research and add and subtract numbers, experimenting with all the possible sums and trying to find a way through the chaos.  Trying to determine what the next stage might look like—what “next” might be.

The two parts sit together on the yoga mat, trying to clear my head of negativity and fear and shame and confusion and stress.  The two parts sit together and recount all the things for which I am grateful.  The two parts sit together on the sofa, trying to distract from the chaos by watching Netflix and becoming invested in a fiction instead of hyper-focusing on my reality.  The two parts sit together as I attempt to do nothing, and to go about life as usual—therapy, doctor visits, gym, pool, massage, yoga, meditation, food prep, cleaning, baths, walks, updating the fundraiser.  They try to help me live my life as though it were “normal”, and try to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.

But they aren’t succeeding in any significant way.

I am stressed beyond comprehension.  I half expect to have a stroke before my court date arrives.  But then the other half reminds me that I have waited for 30 months, I can wait 25 more days.

And the decision on the 21st isn’t necessarily the thing that I fear the most.  It isn’t the thing that might make or break me.  The thing that might make or break me is whatever comes next.

I don’t know if the making or the breaking comes next.

And I don’t know how to prepare for either.

I don’t know how to do nothing.

I am terrified of what comes next.

I’m not sure how to survive the next.  Because I can’t figure out how to be prepared for next.  And I have no control over what comes next.

There is this strange mixture of hope for the future and dread for the future that is happening within my person.  And while I talk about myself as two halves to make the point that both of those are present, I am only one person, feeling all of those feelings, and being both the hopeful and the dread-filled woman, simultaneously.  It is a strange feeling.  It is terrible in many ways.  I feel at odds with myself.  I feel like I am out of control as I fight with my own psyche.

But today I realized that there is reason for hope.  And that reason is my parents.

I get the worrisome and ordered parts from my mother.  I get the laid back and love-offering parts from my father.  And that combination of traits created a long-lasting marriage.  It wasn’t always the perfect relationship, but it was beautiful even through the difficult times.  And it worked.  It lasted until death parted my parents.  Those two parts made a beautiful whole, that endured all sorts of struggles with strength and grace.

My court date falls on the day after what would be my parent’s 48th wedding anniversary.  It comes just three days after the 2nd anniversary of my mother’s death.  The unpredictable chaos of life, and the melding of personalities into a loving relationship are both represented in this week in June.  The caregiver, my father.  The lost mind of one who never stopped striving for control, my mother.  The ways that they stepped and swayed and moved toward and moved back made a dance of life.  It made a dance of the things for which no one could have been prepared.  It made a dance of the struggles, because the two sat together.

I see that which was passed down by my mother and that which was passed down by my father, the two seemingly competing aspects of my personality, and I know that all is not lost.  I know that these two parts can work together to recreate that dance.  To step, sway, move forward and back, and to find the way through even the most shocking and unexpected moments in life.  They found a way.  And I am a part of each of them, so I can find a way also.

Grief hits harder than you might expect in the second year after losing your parent.  I’ve been avoiding that subject lately, preferring to focus on what I need to be doing to get through the next 25 days regarding my hearing, my livelihood, and my important planning for the future.  But today, knowing that I am instructed to do nothing, and that the disability case is out of my hands now, I sink into the truth that it still hurts a lot to be without her—without them together, and the ways that they interacted.  I still have my dad, of course.  And I am so grateful for him.  He is a rock of support that no other can rival.  But I miss my mom.

That is a thing that I was not prepared for.  It is odd, because we had years to prepare for losing her, but I never expected that the mother whom I argued with and struggled to understand and who I strived to please and never gained approval from would be so missed.  That in the weeks leading up to an important moment in my life, I am looking back to the weeks that lead up to the end of hers.  That I would have to look at her picture to remember all the details of her face.  That I would suddenly be relieved that I have nothing to do, because I think what I should do—what I need to do for myself—is to be sad and grieve, and let this season be about more than the dance I am doing internally as I struggle toward my disability hearing, but allow it to also or instead be about the dance of my parents, and the overwhelming emptiness of the space next to my dad, where my mom used to dance beside him.

I’m so grateful that I am made up of the stuff of both of these amazing individuals.  I’m so lucky to be a part of them, and to be their legacy in the flesh.  (As an aside, I am the only one in the family who has a child that carries on the family name—and we are a little bit too proud to be the ones who bear the name of that legacy.)

I still don’t know what comes next.

And I’m still a bit terrified, to be honest.

But having witnessed lives that pressed on through the good times and the bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death parts them, I feel stronger.  I feel a little less helpless and a little more capable.  Because I am the product of those lives.  I am an embodiment of those promises.  So, if they could make it through whatever unexpected trial or joy might be coming up next, I can also do so.

I’ll meet what comes next.  I’ll lean into whatever comes next.  I will overcome whatever is next. Or be grateful and enjoy what comes next.

I am the dance.  The two parts sit together and create a good life out of whatever comes their way.

The two parts sit together and discover what is next.

Letting Go

/ christyterese / Leave a comment

When you have been hurt by people in the past, it can be really hard to trust people in the now.  And it isn’t the fault of whomever you are with now if someone before hurt you, but it is also not easy to keep the two experiences separate in your mind and heart.  As a result, we often try to control things in new relationship and new situations—to keep things safe and metered and carefully mapped.

But things like love and care don’t flourish in an environment where things are safe and metered and carefully mapped.  Passion can’t exist there.  Trust can’t exist there.  So, by trying to prevent hurt from happening we create a place where the happiest and most healing relating is also prevented.

I’m certainly not proposing that we let any and all experience happen to us, without setting boundaries or ensuring our health and safety.  We definitely need to be safe and have boundaries.  But there is only so far we can take those boundaries and that safety before they transform into something else—something more sinister and potentially damaging.  If we are not cognizant of what we are doing with those boundaries and that safety, they can become control.  They can become an inability to let go.

The other night I had a date.  It was an amazing date.  We had an early dinner and drinks, and there was not a moment of dead air between us.  We talked about all sorts of things, and then we dropped my leftover food off at his apartment on our way to a karaoke bar.  We had tons of fun.  We drank, he sang, we made “friends” with a group of Guns and Roses fans on one side of the bar, and a beautiful mother and her daughters celebrating a milestone birthday on the other.  He held the room captive as he sang, and every single person clapped and sang along with him.  He loved being on that stage, and his excitement was contagious.

Eventually we ate again, because we had been out for so many hours and had so many beers.  We took a cab to another bar, and once more he brought everyone into his state of excitement and his love of song.  And I watched him with pride.  Because between songs he was talking to me.

He was more than talking to me.  He was holding every word, and passionately engaged in conversation, and geeking out on my fandoms as hard as I do—maybe harder.  He was wrapping his arm around me.  He was holding me close.  He was kissing my lips.  And I felt honored to have him there doing so.  I felt blessed by his presence, and I felt privileged to be his chosen companion.  I was certain that he could choose lots of other women, but he was choosing me.

And I still refused to let go.

I didn’t sing on stage.  Which makes no sense, because from childhood I have been desiring the stage, and loving every moment I was allowed and able to sing upon it.  And while I am a bit self-conscious about my voice today, with hoarseness and the breaks of a pubescent boy often plaguing my vocal chords without warning.  But that wasn’t why I didn’t sing.  There were plenty of singers worse than I who took the stage.  And I sang loudly from our little table in the corner, with him at my side.  I didn’t go up because I was pretending I didn’t want to.

I wasn’t pretending for him.  I was pretending for me.

I was pretending I had too much humility or shyness or reservation to perform on stage.  I was making excuses for myself and to myself.  Because being up there meant being vulnerable.  Being up there meant I had no control over the outcome.  Being up there meant opening up and letting loose and letting go.  And I wouldn’t do it.

Later that night, back at his apartment, when I took off my shoes and my sweater and my scarf to be more comfortable and cool, the tattoo on my left arm was in full view.  After having hugged and kissed me a bit, he ran a finger over that tattoo, which boldly declares, “Enough”, and he said, “I assume this is about taking your life back.”  Taking my life back is how I described myself on the media platform where we first came into contact with one another.

He had the right of it.  That tattoo is part of fighting back, and saying I have had enough—that I won’t take any of the bullshit I do not want and that I create my experience from now on.

But that tattoo is also about reminding myself that I am “Enough”, just as I am and without any comment or consideration or care of another.  I am not almost good enough.  I am not lacking.  I am not without value or merit or reasons for pride.  I am, wholly and completely, enough.

And in that moment I started to cry.

I wasn’t entirely sure why at the time.  Further thought on the subject, however, brought me to the place I stand this morning.  I know now that I cried because I wasn’t acting like enough.  I wasn’t letting go and letting my true self shine.  I was controlling and metered and safe the whole night.  I was in the presence of another for only a few short hours.  But in those hours, I wanted to be what he admired, instead of being all that I am and waiting to see if he might admire me.  I wanted to create an ending where I don’t get hurt more than I wanted to create something real and deep and true.  And the moment I felt that was what I was doing, I wept.

Crying on the first date is usually a terrible idea, as a general rule.

But even then he was fabulous, and walked through that moment and moved forward with me to the next.  And a bit later I reluctantly left, wanting to remain curled up in his arms, but knowing that my poor dog needed my attention more than I needed the attention of this man.

The next day, thinking it all through once more, I felt ashamed.  I felt foolish.  I felt the familiar weight of having pretended instead of having let go to be myself.  And last night my text went unanswered, and all I could think was that I hoped that my pretending did not take the opportunity to be with this man again from me.  I hoped so much that my refusal to be vulnerable and true didn’t take away the joy of that night and leave me always wishing for another.

I still wait in hope.  And I hope that this realization will offer me a chance to step up next time, and to boldly belt out songs from that stage.

While I do want to see this man again, there is more to it now than a connection with a potential partner.  There are all these layers of decision that we must navigate in every single moment.  And in the moment, I denied the truth and didn’t let go.  In the moment I played safe and controlled and let the hurts of the past define me, and not the heart and the soul and the spirit of the present.  I sought approval, instead of seeking joy.

Sometimes, when people ask me about my history and what I might regret, I shock them with my answers.  They think that my bad marriage or the night of binge drinking where I was sexually assaulted before morning or my drug use or any number of “bad” or “sad” or “regrettable” decisions should be what leaves my lips.  But it is not those things that haunt me.  Because during that time, when all that chaos was happening around me, I still held fast to me.  I didn’t feel like that woman needed to hide in the shadows.  That woman took the stage.  That woman built her own fucking stage if there wasn’t one to take.  That woman was brave and powerful and wild in ways that her later incarnation has not been.  I regret leaving her behind.  I regret not being her on Friday night.  I regret that I forgot that I am enough.

I believe that this man will offer me another chance.  I believe that he is kind and caring and understanding, alongside being fun and courageous and cuddly and cute.

And when that chance comes, I need to swallow any hint of reservation, of safety, of control.  I need to jump up and sing out and let vulnerability rule the day.

I need to trust that I am still, and always, Enough.

I need to let my heart love.  I need to let my spirit fly free.  I need to find and hold joy.

I need to let go.

 

Birthday

/ christyterese / Leave a comment

I  started bawling while I typed out a text to my daughter.  She turns nineteen today.  I can’t even wrap my head around that.  That tiny seven pound bundle of smiles and tears that was placed in my arms all those years ago changed everything about life and love.  And I know that lots of people will say things like, “I didn’t know what love was until I became a parent”.  I don’t really subscribe to that.  What I will say is that I had never felt love so deep and so full and so beautiful until I held that gorgeous bundle in my arms.

I think this is the worst part about human development—that we forget that moment when our parent first held us and looked into our tiny face and beamed love toward us.  All the late night feedings, and lullabies, and peek-a-boos, and looks of love and joy are left engrained in the mind of a parent, but lost for the child.  And by the time we start remembering our parents’ actions and interactions with us there is discipline and disappointment and distraction between parent and child that wasn’t there in those early days when all we could possibly show our babies was unadulterated and unconditional love.

I realize today, in ways I never have before, that my own mother looked at me that way once.

It was hard, listening to my siblings express their views of my mother and who she was to the funeral director as we sat planning for her funeral.  They knew a different woman than I did.  That was painful, and illuminating.  They received and remembered love and generosity and selflessness.  I remembered a harsh and argumentative history of always feeling not good enough and being a constant disappointment to my mother.  I loved my mother dearly.  I couldn’t figure out how to like her for most of my life, but I loved her.

But once, she looked in my face like I looked into my baby girl’s face and she felt only love and joy and possibility.  I wish I had the ability to remember that moment.  I wish I knew that look and that feeling more fully.

My mother was the first person to hold my daughter at her birth.  I was divorcing by the time I gave birth, so my husband wasn’t present for the birth. (That was probably good, because his attendance might have led to me being charged with murder, or assault at the least.) My mother took his place at my side, and neither of us could have anticipated that she would be at my side for 40 full hours of labor, but she was.  And at the end of the two day ordeal, I was too exhausted to hold my own child.  So, the pictures of my baby meeting her grandma precede the pictures of her meeting me.  I was thinking on that long ordeal yesterday, and what it took to get this beautiful nineteen year old woman into the world, and how my mom was there for every moment.  And I remember, exhausted as I was, seeing my mother look at that baby in that moment, with more love than I knew she was able to give.  With more wonder than I thought possible, and with more grace and generosity and selflessness than I knew she had within her.

I didn’t understand in the moment of preparing for my mother’s funeral that the way my mother looked at her first granddaughter was also the way she viewed me.  But she did.

When I texted my daughter this morning I told her all the things I wish that I had heard my mother say to me when I was nineteen.  And I didn’t do it on purpose.  I simply realized, after offering all the love and encouragement and pride that I could muster in a text message, that I wished my mother had been able to tell me those things when I was that age.  She didn’t, or couldn’t, or didn’t know how.  And that was why I knew a different woman than my siblings—because I couldn’t remember that love from when I was so little that the discipline and disappointment and distraction became primary ways of interacting, and when I was old enough to know my mother well, we were divided by so many differences of opinion and a similar stubborn will that we couldn’t express well the love that had been there at the beginning.

It was there at the end.

The end for me was years before her death, but the first year that she began to forget my face, when she clung to me as we said goodbye after a visit and cried and repeated over and over and over that she loved me.  She was trying to make up for lost time and opportunity, I think.  To say it enough that it would sink in—be remembered.

It is remembered, and so is the moment when they placed my daughter in her arms and I saw my mother’s face turn to pure love and the fullest joy.

My daughter is one of the best people I have ever known.  And she brings me all that love and all that joy every day.  She is intelligent, compassionate, caring, kind, generous, selfless, strong, loving, loyal, talented, and exquisitely beautiful.  She follows her dreams.  She calls out the bad and promotes the good.  She gives her last dollar to someone who asks, just because she can’t bear to see people in need or in pain.  Since her childhood she has offered her all for others, climbing up on the counter to reach foods and bring them outside to passing homeless men and women from the age of seven, at least.

And while I find her utterly fabulous, we also have differences of opinion and similar stubborn wills that make it difficult for us to see eye to eye at times.  But, unlike in my relationship with my mother, I have learned to let go of some of my stubbornness, and to let my daughter hold her own perspective and pursue what matters to her.  My mom couldn’t let go of that control—the desire to shape me into what she believed I ought to be, instead of let me be the person I was.  For my daughter’s sake, I am trying to let go of that control.  Sometimes I fail, but I apologize when I realize I have done so.  I look back to those moments of late night feedings and peek-a-boos and lullabies and I hold onto that picture of love and joy, and at the humility I felt—so undeserving of such a beautiful light in my life, of a being who offered me so much and stole nothing.  And I seek to let her be that light today, without my interventions.

It can be hard to let go, as the birthdays pass by.  It can be hard to remember that moment of love, looking into a newborn face.  But I encourage you to hold onto that moment.  Remember it when your child colors on the walls, or when they pee on the living room floor, or when they break your favorite vase playing a sport indoors, or when they bring home that boyfriend with the crazy hair and the smoking habit, or when they hate piano lessons, or when they want their nose pierced, or when they quit their job, or when they marry an asshole (I mean, some of us do), or when they tell you they hate you and you are stupid and they wish they had some other parent, or when they fail at a subject in school.  Remember the light they were and the love you beamed back at them.  Remember that life is short and goodbyes are difficult and loss is devastating.  Remember that no matter who they become or what they do or how they succeed or fail that they are that bundle, placed in your arms when all there was between the two of you was love.  Hold that love close, and speak of it often, and share it with your child and share it with the world.  Because all of us want to be remembered in the end as the one who is loving and generous and kind.

Let love be the thing that is remembered, from the beginning to the very end.

Edits

/ christyterese / Leave a comment

It is a weird process that I am embarking upon this winter.  I have decided to purge.

I am cleaning out closets, slowly but surely, and getting rid of things that are not used or that don’t fit.  I’m looking through my home and my life and my psyche and trying to let go of whatever doesn’t spark joy.  Frankly, if I don’t love it, it needs to go.

And the hardest part of this process is not letting go of those fabulous quilted boots I have been wearing and wearing out for the past three years, but letting go of my expectations for my life.

You see, the closets aren’t the only project.  I have been cleaning my office in little increments for the past month or so, and much of that work has been centered around clearing out boxes of files.  Once upon a time, we used paper to hand in assignments and take notes.  And that time left me with stack upon stack upon stack of paper.

It is more of an annoying task than a strenuous one.  I just need to pick up the file and flip through the pages and determine whether to keep or toss the papers within.  And the criteria of “love it, use it, or lose it” should help me to easily make such determinations.  I obviously haven’t used this paper in years, and I likely won’t use any of it again.

But I love this paper.

I shudder a bit at even making that statement, but it is an expression that I cannot get around.  I don’t love the actual pieces of paper, of course.  I love some of the ideas on the pages.  But that isn’t why I have kept them.  I have kept them because I thought I would use them in my future.  I believed that these articles and notes on theology and philosophy and psychology would be useful when I became a professor, or a writer of groundbreaking new concepts, or a preacher.  And today I am dealing with the fact that my belief was wrong.  I am not and will not be those things.  Those things take energy and capability and cognition that I do not have.  And sans miracle drugs, I never will.

I am not just throwing away notes and articles.  I am throwing away the goal that ten years of education was meant to bring me toward.  I am throwing away the ideas of my future self that have carried me through the last twenty years.  I am throwing away expectations and dreams and hopes and promises made to myself.  I am throwing away a life.

And I know that I have the opportunity to fashion a new life, based on new dreams and hopes.  But I still have this moment to cope with—this mourning the loss of what I loved and this struggle of having to find myself anew.  Everything I fought to achieve seems lost to me, and that is a difficult realization.

I am keeping some files.  I am holding on to some of my favorite and most transforming and best loved articles and papers.  At some point, maybe I will read them once more, or use them for my current writing projects, or offer them to others who are in need of the knowledge they hold.  Because I am not able to, nor do I wish to, erase the past twenty years of my life.  Those were good years in many ways.  And I don’t think they were wasted.  I learned.  I grew.  I developed my thought.  I opened my mind to new information.  I believed in myself.  I accepted my intelligence.  I embraced diversity.  I became more and better than the person I had been before embarking on years of study.

I have all of that growth and development to hold, even while I let go of the goals I had made during that time.  And that is wonderful.

But today, I am feeling a bit melancholy about the ways that I am having to change my view of myself and my accomplishments and my goals for the future.  It is a loss.  A deep loss. (And I often feel like I have had more than my share of loss already in life.)

It isn’t an easy process, this editing of my life and self.  Edits to my writing seem easy in comparison.  Rearranging my sentence structure is so much less work than rearranging a life.

There is one comfort I have in this process, which is the feng shui principle of making room.  New things can’t enter into your closet, or your office, or your life, if there is not space for them to move into.  So, a minimalist environment opens up all sorts of possibility, where an environment stacked and stuffed with things has no room for more.  I am tossing my past and my previous ideas of myself, but I am opening up room for the new future and the new ideas of myself to come.

And they will come—eventually.

My file boxes are already beginning to fill with clippings and found objects that would go great in an art project.  My bookshelves are filling with coloring books and meditations and fiction.  My blank pages are filling with ideas of who I am and what I might wish to pursue.  My closet is filling with clothes that actually fit over my ass.  My spare room is transforming into a yoga studio.  My mind is becoming a place of peace.  My heart is becoming more open to others.

And I suppose that I can find joy in the fact that I am editing a life—that it is being improved and perfected and changed and made new—and not ending a life.  There is more to this story.  There is more to come.

The Dangers of Being

/ christyterese / Leave a comment

Once in a while I sit and reflect.  Just be.  In the silence, alone, waiting, and living inside my own head. It is a different feeling, this reflection, because usually I am always thinking, in the most deliberate of ways, but without conscious effort.  My mind just doesn’t stop.  I’m constantly assessing—for threats, I assume, because of my PTSD, but also just weighing all the things and investigating all the things and trying to anticipate all the things.

There are times when I question whether this is the sign of a diseased mind, like the doctors who prescribed ADHD in my twenties believed, or like the literature on trauma indicates, or whether it is just a side-effect of being really, incredibly intelligent.  I think my mind is always working for reasons, and I don’t always want to push away all of that thinking to just sit and be.

But I need to just be.

Disease or intelligence aside, I do feel better and gain energy and increase clarity by spending time in reflection and in meditation.  It helps.  It calms and centers me.  I can literally feel myself be more connected to the ground with a strong foundation.  I can literally feel my heart opening to love and my chest lightening with the release of anything I might be struggling with.  It can be a beautiful experience.

The trouble is, that when I start to spend time in this grounded, open, lighter space, I start being more grounded and open and light.

And that might not sound like a problem initially, but let me explain the difficulties of this change.

I do what I love.  I don’t care about the approval of others as much.  I let things happen without interfering or controlling them.  I act on my desires.  I live life to the full.  I enjoy my life.

If you don’t see the problem above, then you must not have grown up under the circumstances I was raised within.  Because where I come from you do what you “should” and you care a LOT about the approval of others, and you interfere and control things all the time, and you don’t act on your desires, and you don’t live life to the full, and most don’t enjoy their lives. Who could enjoy life under such restraints?  (I think a lot of people in that area just feign enjoyment and then go home and drink themselves stupid or cry into their pillows.  I know that is usually my strategy when I even visit for a long time—drinking and crying usually happen.)

Now, I do wish to clarify that there are amazing and beautiful people in this area where I grew up.  Some are even aware and thoughtful.  Others still are loving and compassionate and non-judgmental.  But on the whole, the area is plagued by expectations that are never met, leaving people to judge and be judged continually.  And that isn’t for me.

But being—just being and not trying to meet those constant expectations—causes consequences for me.

It sometimes feels like I am worlds away from those people and that place.  Other times I feel swallowed up by my own expectations, which were adopted and enforced in the stead of the ones who did so in my youth.  But, for the most part, I am shedding the rules and regulations and all of the “shoulds” that were once commonplace.  The struggle that I face, then, is the disconnect between the freedom of my current life and the captivity of my earlier life.

Tonight I ate a cookie baked with cannabutter …the whole cookie, not just my usual few bites per hour to manage pain, but enough to get me feeling a little stoned… and then I considered a booty call, but decided against it.  I figure I will wait things out and see if the guy from the other night decides to come back for more.  Because the other night I had sex for the sake of sex.  And it was fun.  And I really liked it.  And I am absolutely up for more, but I don’t feel like making the ask.  Being pursued seems like it might be fun.  And there is nothing wrong with any of the things I said in this paragraph, but that is not how the people in the place where the expectations and judgments live will see it.  Their perspective allows my situation to be bad or sad or cause for “concern”.  It does not allow them to accept that I like having sex but don’t plan on getting married anytime soon.  It does not allow them to accept that I break the law to feel better and eat my weed cookies anyway.  It does not allow them to enjoy my life.

And their enjoyment of my life is not a thing for which I will argue.  My life isn’t meant for them to enjoy.  It is meant for me to live and enjoy.  But what I am arguing for is to have the freedom to live life from my own perspective, in my own experience, filled with my own truth and understanding, without it being tantamount to murderous crime sprees.

I’m a good person.  And I don’t say that because I do good things, but because I am a person.  I’ve not met a single person who didn’t have some good in them. (And I have met some pretty awful people.  I even married a pretty awful person. It is saying a lot that I can find good in even him.)  And that good doesn’t disappear because I break a conservative evangelical’s rules.  I know that is how many of the people in my history have seen people, however.  There is good and there is bad, in their view.  There isn’t anything in between and one cancels out the other, it would seem.  So, my pot consumption and sex while unmarried would make me bad (or sad, or misguided, or confused).  Really, it just makes me a good person who does what she wants and lives according to her own convictions and not the convictions of others.  I can listen to and understand your convictions, but I don’t need to make them mine.

Sometimes, just being, and doing what I want and what feels right to me, gets me into trouble with these others.  And that is the danger here—finding freedom in your own life only to be chastised by those not even in your life. (Being related to me doesn’t count as “in” my life, per se. You would need to talk to me more than once every five years for that to be the case.)  It is difficult to live between worlds.  Do I pretend?  Do I lie about what I believe and what I do?  Do I tell people only what I believe they want to hear?  Doing so would mean denying myself the freedom I spend the time to achieve, and being locked in a cage of expectations once more.  And pretending for too long leaves you lost—you forget who you are after a while.  But not doing so means having to field angry messages and argue for my freedom a ridiculous amount of time, or restricting people’s access to my writing and my opinions (aka, unfriending half of my Facebook “friends”).

Being is hard work.

And apparently it is also lonely work, as the list of people who accept me as I am grows ever shorter.

Ironic that “Just As I Am” is a hymn that I heard often growing up, now that most who sang along with it don’t follow it at all.  Maybe the divine accepts me as I am, but I haven’t met many evangelical Christians that would do the same.  And with every move I make away from traditional views of scripture and toward a divine concept that offers more hope than criticism and more love than judgment, I lose more friends.

I was recently accused of “just trying to cause fights” by expressing my views.  I don’t need fights caused.  My life has quite enough struggle on its own, and I am not looking to add more.  But I also don’t need to feel shamed and judged and hated for the beliefs I do hold, and the ways that I do live.  I often wonder why those who comment repeatedly on my Facebook posts think I am starting a fight, when they are perpetually commenting.  If they don’t want to argue about a point I have made, then they don’t need to object.  And when I refuse to engage their comments, some people get extremely agitated and accost me.  But I suppose I am considered the one at fault because I have the divergent viewpoint.

That word, “divergent”, just reminded me of the book series of the same title.  It turns out that divergence isn’t really all that terrible, and that the girl who seemed all wrong was actually “right”.  And it is a bit fun to believe that I am the lead character in this story.  It is fun to think about how it will feel to know that I am justified.  And I am justified not by the ones who now judge me, but in a much greater scheme and a much broader sense.  Because right or wrong, we all have the freedom to be.  And that being can look however we might choose for it to look.  I am not afraid of the choices I am making.  I am not ashamed of the choices I am making.  And I am not hiding from the choices I am making.

Trust me, I get the whole fucking consequences concept.  I’ve understood that concept since about age four, but it was beaten into my head (sometimes literally) later in life as well.  If my choices really aren’t the “best” or “smartest” or most “good”?  I don’t really care.  Because they are the ones I have made, and I made them for reasons—often well researched and scientifically proven reasons.

And you have the freedom to make your decisions too.  And you are subject to your own set of consequences.

I would never say that the only people who are right are the people who got pressed up against an appliance the other night with a hand around their throat and liked it and begged for more.  I would never say that the only people who are right are the ones who believe sexual purity is the mark of a good woman. (Actually, I would never believe those people were right in that particular instance, but let’s just imagine for a second that they could be.)  The point is, I get to make my choices, and you get to make yours.  And I rarely attack people for their choices … unless I am super hangry or in a lot of pain.  I might disagree with your ideas, but I don’t use ideas to harm people intentionally.  But I also don’t think my ideas are the measure of my worth.  Because, as I said earlier, I am a person.  And people have value because they are people, not because they hold the right set of beliefs or have the correct courses of action.  People have value because they are people.

I wanted to type that I often question how the world might look if we all let one another be, instead of focusing so much on what one should or should not do, but I don’t actually question that much anymore.  I don’t believe that many of the people I know will ever change the way they now live, and I have stopped expecting the same level of acceptance from others that I offer myself.  It has, after all, taken years and years for me to let go of expectations and accept myself as I am. Some days it is still a struggle for me.  I’m guessing it will be as difficult, or more difficult, for others to do the same.  But I also don’t question my desire to break ties with those who would wish I hate myself more again—and I understand they would be well-meaning and not trying to make me hate myself, but by judging my actions and beliefs constantly, that is exactly what they do.  They make me slip back into the self-hatred of my earlier years.  And I am refusing to go back to that place, if I can help it.

So, being, in my case, might mean being tied to only a handful of loving people who understand and accept who I am.  And it might mean refusing to engage with those who offer me shame and self-loathing in place of the freedom.  Being might be difficult in all these ways.

It is so worth it.

I have never been more satisfied with life, even though much of my life currently sucks.  But I have never let go and let life be mine in this way before.  I wish I would have.  Because being, and being me, are both fabulous.

To close, I suppose I would like to encourage you to be.  Just be.  Free from expectation and letting go of control and allowing your happiness to be of great importance and offering your life what it desires to be, instead of always trying to fit your life into someone else’s desire for what you ought be.  Find yourself, in the quiet meditation space, and leave the space where judgments and disappointments and all those other negative self-images are formed.  Let go and be.

And, if you don’t want to, fine.  It is your choice.  But I think you might enjoy who you are, once you start just being.  I know that I have.

Don’t Struggle, Just Stab

/ christyterese / Leave a comment

There are several ways of being in the world, I suppose.  We all choose in every moment how we will interact with the world around us.

This morning, I emptied a container of one of the two chemical-laden delicacies I allow myself–flavored non-dairy creamer (the other is processed cheese…because it melts so beautifully and reminds me of my grandmother, which is probably another story for another day).  Do not fear!  I was at Costco the other day and have a pack of three more bottles in the back of the fridge.  But the crux of our story is not the creamer itself, but that little foil seal that covers the bottleneck to ensure freshness and no leakage.  That little foil seal can open up worlds of understanding.

You see, in general, I stand for several minutes pulling on the tiny flap of foil that pretends to be the secret to removing the seal.  You are just supposed to pull that flap, and voila, it opens, right?  Wrong. I end up pulling with my right hand, then pulling with my left, then pulling with my right again.  Then I begin what we will call the “pep talk stage”, where I begin to offer myself encouragements:  You can do it!  Just hold tightly and pull steadily.  You’ve got this.

The next stage is called “pep talk two” and shifts my encouragements to self over and begins encouragements of the bottle seal:  C’mon!  You are almost there.  Just peel back a little more.  You can do it!

And then, finally, we reach “frustration”:  Why in the fuck can’t I open this thing?  Is it so hard to make a seal that opens?  We can send people out to live in space, but we can’t invent a seal for the coffee creamer that you can open!  AAAaaahhhhhh!

And there we have it folks.  This is the way I interact with my world, on the regular.  This is how I live.

There are myriad reasons why I turned out to be a person who fights at a thing.  I was sort of born a fighter.  My mother realized this early on, and it plagued her for many years to come.  I needed a “why” to stop my fight—a really good explanation or reason for the end to my search or struggle.  Another person’s word that it was easier to tie with “bunny ears” than in the convoluted way I was approaching tying my shoes was never good enough.  I needed to struggle with those shoes for years to get to the way I discovered was easiest (which turns out to be bunny ears).

I think the two most affecting reasons for my struggling attitude, however, are stubbornness and intellect.  One is usually seen as a positive, and the other as a negative.  But, often in life, I see them conversely to the way many might.  Stubbornness, which is usually considered bad or wrong or unhelpful has gotten me through many a difficult situation.  When you are oppressed or captive or addicted or overwhelmed in any way, stubbornness can be your savior.  Being stronger in will than my opponent got me through not only debate team, but through years of abuses and marginal living.  I kept up the fight some days only because I was too damn stubborn to lose—too damn stubborn to die there in that bad space.  And the other reason, my intellect, is definitely often a positive thing.  I am so glad that I am capable of abstract thought and love to dive deep into research and just tend to be smart (sorry for the horn tooting there, but it is true that I am smart).  But, the desire to know is often the desire that gets me into trouble as well.  I want to know how that feels or see how that works or decide for myself which is the best way to approach an idea … so I have to do all the things and explore all the ways of approaching that idea on my own, which has gotten me in spaces where I would rather not be.  If people could have said to me, “drugs are bad”, and I could have accepted that as true without further investigation, I wouldn’t have found my great joy and deep struggle with cocaine.  But because of my intellect and that desire to explore ideas to their conclusion, I did find that joy and that struggle.  Lucky for me, the stubbornness to not be controlled by a substance has won the day for about 5,500 days in a row now. (One day at a time!)

So, today when I needed to open the coffee creamer, my stubborn and smart started getting together to fight the fight and open the foil, once more—because this is obviously a regular occurrence.

But, something about the way that I have interacted with the creamer for the last 25 years suddenly seemed ridiculous.  Suddenly, I was tired of fighting the foil.  And I said to my self aloud, “Don’t struggle, just stab.”

Don’t struggle, just stab.

Where did that come from?

I’ve spent every foil opening experience in the same way.  I’ve always tried until I succeeded.  I’ve always kept up the fight.  But not today.  Today I chose a different way of interacting with my world.  I chose a different way of being.  I chose a knife to the foil.

Now, this choice might seem insignificant to most.  But it isn’t.  It is significant because this is a core way of being for me.  It is deeply ingrained in my psyche to fight.  A core belief is that fighting is the only way out.  And it is coupled with other core beliefs, like you have to make it on your own because others won’t help, or not engaging shows a weakness, or life is a series of conflicts, or only the strong survive.  All false beliefs, by the way, but core beliefs are not quick to change. And mine were shaped in some terrible circumstances, so rooting them out and finding them so that you can change them takes years of facing those terrible circumstances again.  It pretty much sucks to do that.

I am doing exactly that.  I am facing years of terrible circumstances and trying to find ways to interact with those things differently, and to see myself and my world in a better way.

Stabbing the foil embodies the change that is happening in me.  Don’t struggle, just stab.  Take the easier route to your desire.  Give up the fight.  Yield.  Do the smarter not the harder thing.  Win by letting the foil win.

Learning to engage life and thought and people and things in new ways is really difficult work.  But, the foil is evidence that I am learning to do just that.  I am doing that difficult work, and after years of doing it am seeing results.  I like those results.

I took a knife and stabbed that foil—killed that shit.  And it took mere seconds to accomplish. And I don’t feel like I lost the fight.  I feel like a winner!  I am patting myself on the back (figuratively, not literally, because the neighbors may be watching)!  I am looking at all the ways that offering myself the easy option might change the world for me.  Finding Mr. or Ms. Right Now, rather than keeping up the struggle to find Mr. or Ms. Right, letting Luke lift the groceries when he knows I am exhausted rather than trying to be stronger and less tired, realizing that swimming and bathing and eating and writing a bit can be my weekly activity rather than trying to return to the concept of “better” that causes me to strive for more strength and more strength of will than I am able to obtain in this disabled body.  I choose how to interact with the world, and I am starting to choose letting it all go.  Don’t struggle, just stab.

Unfortunately, this mantra won’t literally work in all situations.  When I am frustrated with my brother, I can’t just stab … at least not in the literal sense.  (No killing relatives, people!  I am in no way promoting actual stabbing in all situations!)  But maybe in the figurative sense, I can just go the direction he wants to, even though I am aware that he is going the wrong way. I don’t have to convince him he is going the wrong way, but can let him figure that out on his own.  I’ll just turn up the radio and enjoy the scenic route. And that way I haven’t lost anything. But I’ve won on the inside, just like I did with the foil, and can figuratively pat myself on the back for not engaging in futility.

Don’t struggle, just stab.

And I know that my stubbornness is still a gift that will get me through the tough times.  And I know that my intellect is still a gift that will bring me joy and difficulty.  But I know that I get to choose when to fight and when to not fight.  And I get to leave behind any of those core beliefs that are false, as soon as I am able.  And I am changing on the inside, and learning to be a better form of me.  I’m letting go of some of the instinct to approach the world with anxious striving, and learning how to approach it with a quiet knowing—seeing the chaos but not being drawn into it.

I don’t need to react in the ways that society expects me to react.  I don’t need to react in the ways I did before, even when before was just yesterday or earlier this morning.  I don’t need to react at all, if I don’t want to.

We choose the way we interact with the world around us.  And I am choosing more wisely and in ways that help instead of harm me.  I am choosing not to struggle and fight and churn and flail through life.  I am choosing to just stab at the foils of life—deleting that Facebook friend, or ignoring that comment, or choosing joy in the moment, or letting my inner child be my outer adult, or sliding down banisters instead of tiring on the stairs, or smiling instead of scowling as I walk through the subway tunnel, or offering peace instead of lecturing when my daughter is having a bad day, or offering myself kindness instead of chastising my lack of productivity.

Don’t struggle, just stab.