how the light gets in

The point of it. She said, a statement.

The point of it? I repeated, a question.

Do you realize that it sounds like you’re asking for permission to speak? She declared with words not coated in barbs yet not exactly covered in sugar either.

I laughed, one of those childish immature giggles that are typically reserved for moments when children see their reflections for the first time. I laughed out of nervousness, vulnerability and pure coincidence – as if there is such a thing.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that… as I began to divulge the most recent occurrence wherein one of my (many) flaws were pointed out.

…and it won’t be the last she declared.

***

I’ve always had a problem articulating; using words to describe my emotions and so on and so forth. I used to describe this as getting jammed up. The words are there in my head but somehow fail to make the transition from brain to mouth.  Jammed. Stuck. Cannot compute.

I cannot begin to recount all of the times I’ve trailed off in the middle of a conversation, mid sentence with my mind full of thoughts but the only ones heard whispered  the loudest.

Shut up, it doesn’t matter. Shut up, you’re not making sense. Shut up, they’ll think you’re crazy. Shut up, you’re doing it wrong.

***

“…shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection: Is there something about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection?”

 

This ignited something in me.  Could it really be this simple? Can something so complex and enveloping be boiled down to three words? Fear. Of. Disconnection.

The short answer in my case is yes. Absolutely yes. Astoundingly yes. The years and years of self-shaming my thoughts and feelings as being inadequate and devalued have programmed me to terminate any and all scenarios and conversations where vulnerability sits at the forefront. 

This is not news to me. But the acceptance of it is.

Acceptance is a small quiet room.*

***

I’ve been thinking…I said shakily, unnerved by the thought of what I was about to say sounding completely idiotic.

There’s this quote I remembered recently, something about light and dark and one not being able to exist without the other…

The silent head nod was all the permission I needed to continue. Access granted.

If light can’t exist without dark, then happiness can’t exist without sadness. A truly fulfilled life must have both of these things, in balance, but sadness is what shapes who we are.  Sadness is the cracks in our foundation because nothing is perfect and nothing can get through this life unscathed…

Another head nod, and smile.

There is a crack in everything…she started.

…that’s how the light gets in, I finished.

*the infallible Dear Sugar aka: Cheryl Strayed

what this isn't and what this is.

You wake up one day and you're not fine anymore.

You're the person that while taking a walk on what could only be described as a perfect autumn day, the sudden thought that you're in inevitable danger and the next person you come across could harm you snakes its way around your throat like an invisible noose that keeps getting tighter. You can't move. You can't think. You can't breathe.

The normal, everyday things cause paralysis of your mind and your body and the things that used to be done without much thought become impossible.  You're the person in the grocery store reduced to tears because you can't find where they moved the sour cream. Because things have changed and your brain can't decipher the what from the how from the why.

I woke up one day and I wasn't fine.

***

Depression

Anxiety

Obsessive

Manic

My eyes flit quickly across the words, still blurred from sleep but I've read the synopsis of each disorder so often I don't even need to enter the entire website into Google. Being woken out of a dead sleep by what Web M.D. is telling me is yet another anxiety attack will turn anyone into a self-diagnosing machine. Or maybe that's just me?

It'll pass... I tell myself over and over again. And it does.

Until one day, it doesn't.

***

"Have you heard of manic depression or bipolar disorder?" he asks.

The words fly out of my mouth at lightening speed: "I'm not crazy!" I say with such enthusiasm it lifts me off the paper covered table I'm sitting on. It crinkles in the most unpleasant sounding way and I hate the way it feels against my palms. I'm not crazy I say again, but in a more age appropriate tone. A declaration because the first time wasn't convincing enough.

"I didn't say you were crazy, but wouldn't you agree that there's something wrong with allowing yourself to walk around like this all the time?"

I'll remember the moment right before I felt my heart break completely and the shaky breath I held in for longer than I wanted to because the thing I said next was going to change everything. It was going to change things forever, even though forever is absolutely relative in situations like these.

I just...I think...I need help dealing with the worse than bad days, you know? I need hope that the rest of my life won't be defined by this feeling and I need to be able to believe that I can get better.

His eyes seemed to soften as he placed a piece of paper on the instrument table directly to my left. "I"ll give you a minute and when I get back, we'll go over this."

There's not much that I know for sure in this world but the one thing I did know in that moment was that this was one test that I didn't want to score high on.

***

I thought that an official diagnosis would help me feel better. And it has, a little bit. It has in the sense that the fear of going to sleep and never waking up doesn't keep me up at night anymore. It's the multitude of other obsessive thoughts running through my brain that stir me from slumber and keep my eyes wide open.

I thought an official diagnosis would give weight and credibility to the reason behind my somewhat erratic tendencies. As if one person's confirmation of everything I've known and tried to keep hidden from the world would somehow give me a pass card.

You know that one time when I disappeared for a week and completely ignored you for no real reason whatsoever? That wasn't exactly my fault...

I didn't think that this was going to be something that I find myself wanting to talk about. But even more so I didn't think that wanting to talk about it would prove to be so difficult. It's painful in the way that once the words are formed and released - that moment right before unleashing them into this world - I know that there's no way of taking it back. There's no excuse of sorry I'm having a bad day because...because my bad days now have a precedence. My bad days are generally now days where nothing actually bad happens at all yet here I am, still left with this feeling.

It's the most vulnerable I've ever felt in my life.

***

I'm reminded of this every single morning when I take the pill that's supposed to be helping me. Not fix me, mind you, but at least make it bearable to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other. I'm reminded of it again later on when I take a different pill because that fear of something potentially bad happening has me frozen to the point of where I can't move even though my body says something different. I think about it when I attempt and fail to describe these feelings to others: the guilt and shame of being weak, the selfishness of wanting someone to just listen and the hopelessness of it all when they can't quite understand why and try to relate it to something that it's not. This isn't just a "personal issue." This isn't sudden self awareness that I am unprepared for. This isn't growing pains.

This is a complete upheaval of everything I've ever thought myself to be. This is finding yourself in the middle of a dark hole so deep, escape is seemingly impossible. This is waking up every day and trying to find the forest through the trees when your head has turned into a battleground against yourself.

This is me, terrified. This is me, currently. And this is me, just trying to get better.

all at sea

I sit down to write, and I can't.  The searing pain of words trapped within are unable to escape in one conducive thought. Words and phrases, things I've seen with my own two eyes are trapped. Thoughts and feelings held for mere moments are neatly ordered and mentally filed away until I see something that someone else has written and I can't help but scream in defeat: "That's what I was TRYING to say..."

It's the nature of the beast I suppose.

The truth is, I'm scared. I'm scared of not being good enough, not eloquent enough. Not able to connect the perfect metaphors and similes with that perfect flourish of irony, sarcasm or comedic relief when need be. I'm terrified of failure and my inability to be vulnerable in that moment. My failure is deeply rooted in the fact that my life experience is stunted - or limited at best. My problems and conundrums are my own, just like those are his or hers and so on and so forth but the general monotony of the day to day doesn't allow for the true inner reflection that I need in order to sift through the epic onslaught of these thoughts. I don't allow myself the time because when I do, they sit and fester until I'm 3/4th's of a bottle of wine in and that one song comes on and suddenly; I'm reduced to nothing but tears under the never ending black sky. Sometimes, it's because that darkness reflects what I feel within. Other times, it's the complete opposite. In the perspective of life - this is me, standing at a Craps table waiting for the inevitable "7 out!" and I'm cleared, debating on whether or not to start all over again.

This has happened more times than I'd actually care to admit over the course of the last week. Night after night as I crawled into a bed that wasn't mine - but not before carefully destroying the evidence in the form of wine bottles and mascara stained cheeks. "Erase yourself from this place, you were never here." I couldn't face it. I couldn't face hat no matter the week, no matter the day,  I am in fact unequivocally broken and adrift.

And that's okay. Or so, I'm told.

But it doesn't FEEL okay, ever, and though I know deep down that we are all broken and fumbling and have that moment at days end where we come face to face with ourselves, it's not comforting. If anything it makes me want to fight back because facing that true weight of who we are, who I AM, is not something that I'm prepared for.

Most days it feels like I'm a ship at sea and floating without an anchor. The anchor that grounds us and steadies everything. Sometimes, I'm still. For hours or days or if I'm lucky, weeks. Those are the best times. But at any given moment, I'm lost and out of control. How do I captain my own ship without an anchor? Or a compass? This life journey that I'm on feels never ending and as I carve out my own path on this map, I wonder how much longer I can maintain this speed before veering off course yet again.

I Don't Know.

“What do you think would’ve happened if you hadn’t left?”

This question (in all of its many variations) is the worst. The absolute, hands down worst and my skin itches in irritation whenever it’s asked. And I get it – a lot.

It takes every fiber of my being to not stand up and shout “I DON’T KNOW!”

Because, when it comes down to it, I think the only true answer is “I don’t know.” No one knows what would’ve happened or where they would’ve ended up if at that one defining moment in your life – you picked left instead of right. Stayed instead of left.

To me, at this moment, life is just many of those “defining” moments strung together into something that we must weave and follow that makes sense to us.  We’re always searching, always scrambling to find meaning in the everyday decisions we all make in order to satiate this deeply dwelling desire to believe that we’ve made the right choice. That we are the dictators of our actions and that we harness the control to our destiny.  

I don’t know if I believe that any more.

I don’t know if I ever really did, but putting a bow on a cute little package sure makes it more appealing, right?

If I sit down and think about it – as I did last night – I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know. Idon’tknow I DON’T KNOW. Why does anyone leave? To get away. For a fresh start. To spread their wings and fly. I would say yes, to all of the above. Because right here and now, 7 years later, I can whole heartedly say that a fresh start was something that I knew I needed – I just didn’t know how badly. I didn’t know that it would probably end up being the one thing that saved my life. It was an opportunity to start over in a place where I was unknown and that feeling, while incredibly terrifying, was also exhilarating.

We all make choices, every day. That is one of the universal truths, without a doubt. We choose what time to get up and what we’ll wear and where we work and how we spend our time. Every. Single. Day. And these are the easy things – the things that we don’t necessarily label as choices but freedoms and that is great and wonderful but those are small-picture things. The big picture things bob and float in the gigantic Sea of Unknown until we are able to capture it and reel them back in and that isn’t dictated by choice, you see. We all know that if we were able to choose, everything wouldn’t be this goddamn messy or difficult. This is luck and circumstance and being in the right place at the right time. This is you, waiting it out until the right moment comes along and propels you forward.

Right now, at this moment, I still don’t know. I can assume and imagine the other potential outcomes that might have been but “I don’t know” fits me best right now. Mostly because at this point, we have to believe that we are more than our past and our pain. We are more than the choices we make that “define” who we are.  I’m okay with that, and I wish other people could be too.

on faith, or lack thereof.

There is an air of mystery to faith...

I started in a note, not too long ago. With a pen cap pursed between my lips and fingers gripping my favorite writing utensil ever so gently.

That fragment of a sentence unearths something within me because faith, and I mean honest to goodness fall to your knees faith, is like jumping into a murky pool of unknown depth. Just the sight of those words makes me involuntarily inhale a deep breath in preparation of breaking the glassy surface. Yet there they were, in my own script and wet ink that would still smudge to the touch.

Since you know, they say the first leap is the hardest, just like the first cut is the deepest and so on and so forth.

faith (n): 1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust

I sit back at a comfortable distance and watch people these days. I watch them succeed and fail and give in to re-establishing their own personal and customized version of faith and realize that there is just so much beauty in the attempt. In the extremely brave choice of the 1,2,3 and let go. I watch them and marvel at it all, and the pride swells within the small space of my chest until it physically hurts.

I think about this notion a lot. Mostly because it breeds this unsettling awareness of myself because I can't, or won't, indulge in that specific territory of the unknown. So on my bad days, the "I'm feeling lost and down and just a little more than blue" days, I think about the people. The ones I know and the ones I don't and all of the unknown forces that are working for or against them. And how it seems so effortless to kneel at the feet and give themselves over to the powers that be. It would make sense that carrying the seemingly crushing weight would allow for an easy submission. That before you know it, your knees bow, the decision has been made, you're still alive and breathing and the sun will in fact rise tomorrow.

If there's one thing I've come to understand, it's that this, is not easy. The journey to faith, having it or lack thereof, is one of the most isolating things I've ever known. There are no words to be spoken or written because sometimes all the words are the wrong words and there is nothing else left to be done. Which then begs the question - what are we, the people who have yet to muster that complete trust in themselves, to do in the time being?

I put my trust in that the journey isn't over just yet. Though it moves in mere inches and time increments that seem like infinities, they will eventually give way to the bigger and better picture. I have to believe that. It's okay to trust the judgement of your elders, for they are more worldly and knowledgeable than you. Allow these lessons to take up a small space inside, carefully. Because while knowledge is by far and away one of the most powerful tools to be given, it isn't allowed to consume you. Not yet.

And, exhale.

thursday tunes

I was introduced to the fantastic Nicki Bluhm (aka: Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers, aka: Tim & Nicki Bluhm, aka: Brokedown in Bakersfield) last year by a dear friend and self-proclaimed all things Nicki Bluhm groupie. And then I caught a Brokedown in Bakersfield show and my life has since been forever changed.



Seriously? SERIOUSLY? That voice is like warm, golden, soulful honey.



...which is only intensified when she (and husband Tim) harmonize in the way that makes me believe in "I do's" and true love and voices that were meant to be together forever and ever. Amen.

Which brings us to The Van Sessions...



Essentially, they cover songs while traveling between shows in their van. May I repeat - IN. THEIR. VAN. I'm telling you, the happiness this brings me is unparalleled. This one is my favorite but all of them are absolutely outstanding. Highly, highly recommended.

an ode to home

I know this place.

I know the smell. The specific combination of lotions and soaps and perfumes. Of cleaners and dryer sheets and dogs. Of wine and wild flowers and freshly cut grass and then it all blends together in a unique way that produces one of the most recognizable scents I’ve ever come to know. Life of the familiar.

I know which doors stay unlocked as a standing invitation to anyone who chooses to just stop by. Which ones squeak when opened late at night and the certain spots on the floor that give and groan when tip-toeing through the darkness from one room to the other. (And don’t even get me started on how many times I’ve almost tripped over the rug that bridges the gap between the linoleum kitchen and carpeted dining area. The number is staggering.)

I know where the dishes go, where the glasses are and which ones will imprint yet another water ring on the already beautifully marred (ahem, distressed) wooden furniture if I’m not careful. I know the permanent stains on the countertops left behind like a trail of memories from years upon years of meals created. I know that as I stood alone and barefoot in the kitchen early Sunday evening chopping lettuce into a million little pieces while simultaneously swaying to the music filtering through the speakers, that a realization crashed down on me in the most powerful of ways: this must be what home feels like. I’ve never been so comfortable in my whole life.

It’s a little unorthodox for me to consider this place my home as I do because in all actuality, it’s just not mine. It's not the apartments with roommates and dirty bathrooms and a perpetually empty refrigerator that has been my definition of home for the past few years. I didn’t grow up here and get to experience the changes and growth as it occurs in both the occupants and the actual place itself. The demolitions and expansions, the subtle changes in colors throughout and the life that was absorbed into those walls and rooms by the people that were. There, I mean.

But now that I am here, I am attached in a way that I can only describe as a strong serum that flows freely through my veins, unraveling everything that I am within. Memories I have bounce and reflect off every wall in every room causing the strings of my heart to tighten yet again in the most painfully obvious way. This corner, that chair, that spot on the floor. That deck, that bed, those steps. It is nothing and everything all at once.

I know this place. Where the peace and stillness mix with the faint, bustling sound of the freeway in a strange cocktail that is equal parts soothing to my ears and my being as it is an annoyance to most others. I’ve always loved the quiet, but the too quiet really gets to me in a not-so-nice way. The too quiet unnerves me, unhinges me and shifts something within. I need the pull of the familiar noise to unclench my fists and loosen the knots and lift the weight. I need it to feel…relief.

When my perspective is off-center and I’m really feeling that push and shove that is life, it is this place that qualms the insistent anxieties plaguing me. It is here where I can sit and realize (for the millionth time) that life is a circle and it’s okay to feel lost sometimes and that growing up is only as scary as you (I) manifest it to be andandandandand....

I need to feel like there is one place in this world that I can go to and be safe. Where I'm not just scrambling to pick up the pieces of myself from the floor only to feel it all just slip through my fingers. And for me that is and always will be here regardless of the circumstances of how it came to be.

Home.