“By the ticking of my gums! Yon convicted speaks in tongues!”
This reads like Shakespeare to me. Just an example of how my brain is functioning these days.
It’s a comprehensive mixed bag, this version of my life. Enormous gifts and luxury garbled with great loss strangled by stress and cracked open by success. I don’t have a map for this place. I don’t know the language. I’ve given up looking too closely at it because it just makes me pukey.
What I’ve decided to do is just stand still. If I’m giddy in the morning and too depressed to move by lunchtime, I try to just be that. If I touch a client in some way or receive a compliment, I try to just feel it. If I get into my mom’s car and weep when I find one of her nail files (she had millions), I sit with myself through the wave of grief. If I try to eat a whole pizza for supper and end up getting sick, I listen for the fear that wants to be buried under food. If I feel a glut of old trauma pushing at me when I work with Ben (because he’s a boy, and I’ve had trouble with boys who “help”), I let it come.
It’s too hard otherwise. Too violent. Too disrespectful.
I’m worthy of kindness and attention. I deserve to be considered. I don’t have to be anything other than me in this moment.
This lesson is not easy to learn.
Which is why I keep getting the chance to try.
Maybe when I get on the other side of this uncharted, alien landscape I’ll have a better idea of what it was.
Or not.
It really doesn’t matter.
This is what matters.
I’m what matters.
SandySue Altered
A Mind Divided 
Aug 19, 2014 @ 19:23:42
Muddle through it Sandy. Muddle through it. Light is around the corner.
Aug 23, 2014 @ 04:50:55
Spoken like a true ray of sunshine.
Aug 19, 2014 @ 19:31:13
Oh my goodness, this is wonderful, Sandy! Yes, you can only be what you are. Let it be. Let YOU be. xx
Aug 23, 2014 @ 04:50:35
Thanks, P. It’s amazing to me how f**king hard this is.
Aug 19, 2014 @ 21:02:50
Damn right
Aug 23, 2014 @ 04:49:47
🙂
Aug 20, 2014 @ 08:05:53
Oh, that line, “I keep getting the chance to try.” really stuck with me. I rail up against so much, yet this little pearl of wisdom says it all… it’s about continual chances to learn life lessons. Thank you for enlightening me…
Aug 23, 2014 @ 04:49:20
I have to keep flipping the negative in my head, Lori. I have to or be stuck in the same place the rest of my life. Ick.
Aug 22, 2014 @ 07:17:29
You are very brave.
Aug 23, 2014 @ 04:48:19
Thanks, Tasha. Want to know a secret? Sometimes I think so, too.
Aug 22, 2014 @ 08:31:02
I’m sorry you’re stressed, but glad that you’re “going with the flow.” Sometimes that’s all you can do, right?
Aug 23, 2014 @ 04:47:29
Actually, this is new for me–to be in this much distress and not RUN!
Aug 26, 2014 @ 13:24:25
I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and I cope with it through writing down my thoughts and emotions. This poem has accurately captured every feeling I’ve experienced on this long unwinding journey. Thank you for your words. They’ve helped me so much.
Aug 27, 2014 @ 04:01:41
Taylor, thank you so much for your kind words, and for visiting, AND for the reblog. I hope we keep in touch.
Aug 26, 2014 @ 13:25:28
Reblogged this on Here goes nothing and commented:
I could not have worded this any better myself. Beautiful.
Aug 26, 2014 @ 23:01:08
“Living in the Moment” is definitely a LEARNED skill–but oh so rewarding! 🙂
Aug 27, 2014 @ 04:00:34
Kana-Girl! Where the heck have you BEEN?
Aug 27, 2014 @ 08:40:07
Letting myself get too caught up in running-a-restaurant to make time for writing… But I’m realizing that’s not good for MY mental health! 🙂