The kids have been home sick for the past couple days. I always enjoy these days. Part of it is laziness. I like sleeping in and relaxing around the house. I like having them around. The chaos of the five of us sharing this small space. The glee on parker's face when he realizes that his best friends are staying home to play all day. Forts are built and destroyed, picnics are made and devoured outside, intricate cities are built in the creek running down the side of the house.
We began planting our vegetable garden and putting perennials and pansies in the flower beds. The promise of spring becoming a reality.
This sense of calm continuing to wash over me. Ground me. Working the soil through my hands, making this house a home.
My future is as uncertain as ever. Yet, somehow, these lazy days surrounded by all the things i love, make that uncertainty fine. Familiar even. Life was never certain. I have always held this naive ideal that things usually work themselves out. As long as i have faith. As long as i have love in my life. Things will be okay. Great sometimes.
We had lovely weather this weekend. I spent a few hours in the sun between hours at the restaurant, watched the sunset as i served customers on the balcony. I had a sense of calm contemplation throughout. I began a new understanding.
An understanding of this new life.
I know i have repeated myself over and over these past months. Constantly shifting and moving my thoughts. Up and down. I know that going off my medication was risky. I know that medicine helps people. But, i needed a clear head. I need to feel the full brunt of emotion as i travel this difficult road from one life to another. I needed clarity in the turmoil.
As i sat by the fire last night i realized that i have been living my life as an onlooker. Watching myself go through the paces. Each day another step in the shadows. The shadow of guilt and despair hanging heavy for me. Wallowing. I understood that the past happened. I cannot change it. I need to forgive myself if i am going to live a life that is more than a blur.
I am a good person. I am surrounded by beauty and generosity and love. I have beautiful children whom i adore and adore me. I have a beautiful home in a wonderful community. My kids and i have the great fortune to be safe and healthy.
I have made mistakes. Mistakes that many people make. To forgive is, truly, divine.
I am ready to begin this new life. I am ready.
and it is true
my hands are covered in blood
the blood is my own
i feel like i have been bleeding for months, for years
all the tears are really just the final pressure points erupting from my heart
and just the other night i sat in front of the fire, completely alone
alone in my home, alone in my world
complete exhaustion takes me frequently now, i fall asleep
the arms of my youngest son wrapped around me
snuggled together in our family bed
and when my children are not here
i fall asleep in my lovers' arms
not much of a mother
or a lover anymore
the toll of working and money and stress
marriage and divorce and reconciliations
children and separation anxiety and homework
and guilt
all taking their course
working their way through my sick and tired body
the skin cancer
the depression
the anxiety
i feel like calling the bluff
on this year that keeps on getting harder
and soon it will stretch into three years
there was depression 2006!
fuck you depression 2007
and now, 2008 you will not get me
and you will not
if only the sun would warm my body
if only i wasn't bone chilled and body fatigued
if only i could find answers
instead of never, ever, ending questions
and i mark on my calendar
all the days that i have been bleeding this year.
I was blown away when i got my photobucket pictures last week and saw this photo in it. All this time i had thought i was in the psych ward last january when it was actually the end of march.
I have wished many times over the pat year to go back to that bed. To change the course of events that followed. I would have stayed in the hospital longer instead of letting the guilt of being away from my children push me to leave too soon.
I would have told the psychiatrists the truth over the depths of despair i was feeling. I would have told them that thoughts of suicide were plaguing me. How i would spend hours planning, feeling the only answer to the pain in my heart and my head was a final escape.
I would have stayed there and worked on getting better. Maybe i could have avoided the mess my life would become in the following year.
I want to say sorry to that woman sitting there and the man with the hand behind her.
My daughter is not lame. She is growing in to something that frightens me a little. Pure and raw beauty.
Not a meme taker or maker i shall concede to gwendomama because i have loved her for a very long time now, plus she constantly reminds me of true loss and true love.
So, Things I Think Are Lame Today
Gossip – it's very hurtful people.
Cheese - i love you but you make me visit the toilet more often than the recommended dosage
post-breastfeeding boobs – where for art though my 20's
big yummy hamburgers = gas
divorce – you suck
being crazy in the head – it's just not something people can relate to
recycling – fast food joints and their heaps of garbage – i call you shit to the environment.