In the Place I Used to Live

Wow...i am farmsitting at my ex-house and if there's one thing it proves...you don't really want to go home again.  Not that anything bad has happened.  Its just that I cannot for the life of me call upon anything resembling creativity here.  It is, for me, a dead zone.  It is not a feeling that i like.  i like to feel my muse sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear...cheering me on.  apparently my muse didn't like this place, and split.  she ran for the hills, or the town, or something....she coulda warned me, you know.
oh well.  i am enjoying the horses and the cats and the dog.  it is nice to be with my babies...the ones i had to leave behind.  i will hate leaving them again.  i don't look forward to that day.  i tried to explain that it would be very hard for me to be here and then leave them again, but those that want to do what they want to do don't really give a damn about my mental or emotional state.  well, karma will take care of things, i'm sure.  i am sure of something else, too.  i was supposed to leave this place...i do not belong here anymore.  i miss my new home and look forward to getting back there, to my new life.  this place is like a void or black hole, like a dead zone, as i said earlier.  at least it is for me.
i have had occasion to talk or try to talk to my mother while i am here.  i think we have cleared a few things up, which is a good thing.  i think she doesn't know what to do with me.  i'm not mad, i'm not upset, i'm just me and trying to live my life.  i hope she will find a way to live hers.  i have watched her hide from her own life for so long.  she is talented and smart and funny and she is so afraid of everything.  I understand this, because the world is pretty fucking scary, just in the day to day.  but this is the only life you get, so you have to choose to live it or let it pass you by.  i hope that she will wake up and see that she is her only obstacle.
i hope she finds some happiness.  i really do.
i realize now just how happy i have become.  and how much more confidence i have in myself.  even as my body feels like it got run over by a big truck, i still feel fairly vital.  that is the best thing about being here, on the farm...i get outside in a different way than in town.  i know i have land surrounding me on all sides.  i like that.  i wish that it felt better to be here.  but i will make the best of it...i think i will go and pull some weeds...maybe a few other things....i will talk more tomorrow...the sunshine is calling and i definitely could use some....hope you find some sunshine today as well. peace to you.

I Am Still Here...

I can't believe it has been almost a whole month since I have been able to write.  I have dealt with many things that I would have preferred not to, but what's new, right?  I feel pretty good, but there have been more than a few dark days.  I have reached out to and retreated from so much.  But, bottom line....I am still here!
Right now, today, I am retreating from the sadness of the tornado damage in Oklahoma...so many human and animal lives have been lost, and so much injury and devastation.  Things like this, I can't watch.  I can only take it in incrementally, because the pain and suffering is beyond me.  So for a few days, I will be filtering all that I see and read and hear about it.  It is simply too much.  If it was close by geographically, well, I think I would be there trying to help the animals, or the children.  Mostly the animals.  It is heartbreaking, no matter how you try to look at it.  And it is not the will of any God of mine.  It is interesting that it killed and injured  many horses, given that Oklahoma has been determined to pass the legislation to open a horse slaughter plant in their state.  It is unusual for horses to be brought to the forefront of such a tragedy, but the sheer numbers of  the lives lost in horrible ways has made it 'newsworthy'.
I could go on, but I won't .  I will try to do a bit of blogging each day so that I can get things back on track here.  My children have been huge players in my emotional mess this past month.  I have finally had to step back from them so that I can continue my own growth and life.  Of course, now I feel alone, and I have to deal with that.  I think there is less stress for me right now in being alone.  I have no lack of things to do, so keeping busy is the key for me right now.
Business has not been very good, a karmic thing, and seems to be getting back on track now that I have done something about the negative vibe invasion.  I can only wait and see how things go..if sales pick up or get worse.  I am feeling very positive about it all, though, so I am going to have a good inventory for people to shop through.
Anyway, I have run out of words for now.  I will be back, though.  I have let me mind get so scattered that I am having trouble reining everything back into order.  It will come...
I wish you a day filled with peace and love....

What Do You Say?

i ask myself why i have not been able to write...or blog...or focus on the thoughts that i need to turn into words.  it is so easy to convey how you feel when you feel good...and certainly not so easy when you feel bad.  probably because feeling bad can lead to suicide, among other things.  sometimes its just a good cry, or a need to apologize, or be apologized to.  sometimes there is no reason, and right now i feel bad.  i have tears right behind my eyes most of the time.  i don't let them out.  not yet.
i think when everything is rosy that we feel like we have at least the appearance of control over things.  really, we don't have any more than any other time.  really, we just need to let go of that thought altogether, because there is no such thing as having control...or being controlled, either.  it is just a dance of thoughts and words going on inside, where we can perceive good and evil, right and wrong, etc., but where it is just a bunch of perceptions - nothing real.  i think the loneliness is for something to be real in a land where nothing real exists.  i feel lonely, but there is no cure for it.  i fill my time and it is there, and i fill my tummy and it is there, and i fill my pockets and it is there....i empty everything....and it is there, just there.  it is one side of an argument waiting for the other side to come and be it's dance partner.  it is crazy.
i can say that there is no way to escape being ill.  i have a mental illness, and i have a physical illness.  i can't escape from them.  they are part of me, just like my skin and my heart.
i wonder if other people feel this way.  i suspect that there are those that do, and there are those that wouldn't ever dig this deep, because they don't want to find what they know is waiting there for them...the parts of themselves that may not fit quite right with the rest.  its okay.  i actually envy those people so much of the time.  i have always been one of the people that feels too much and knows too much and thinks way too much.  its what makes me a good artist....creativity is a positive path for my excesses to flow out of me.
well, maybe i should go and create something and let me tears recede a little more.
that isn't a bad idea...i just have to get past the pain....
remember, its okay to feel bad...its much better than feeling nothing...its just hard to know how to direct such feelings and figure out how to turn the bad into something we can live with, since it is a part of who we are.

Sorry I've Been AWOL....

Man, its just been crazy for me lately.  In a good way, I think, but still sometimes it seems like alot.
I will try to get caught up and then find the time and inspiration to spend some time here.  I am so in awe of my new life.  I think it's probably pretty regular by most people's standards, but it is amazing and beautiful to me.  just joyful.  I feel very blessed right now, and I am  doing my best to enjoy it, embrace it.  It is good for me.
I hope the world is treating you okay.  It can be a hard thing sometimes.
Anyway....just wanted to check in and say hello....I'll be back soon...until then be  filled with quiet and peace and comfort...

Epiphanies While Driving....

Yes, I can write while driving...on real paper...not the same as texting while driving.
Why would someone write while driving?  Well, I used to do it frequently when I was heavily into writing songs.  It seems that driving time is great for creative thinking.  Figuring out what you wrote while driving is another skill...much more difficult, I'm afraid.
But my little road trip to visit friends was full of epiphanies...some small and some not so small...all highly insightful for me.  I have always gotten a lot of peace from visiting my friends.  They live in a tiny house on top of a mountain and they enjoy following their ever-evolving interests.  There is evidence of this all around, from stained glass to gardening to shooting to music.  My friends have been very loving and supportive to me since my suicide....and I have always known that I am always welcome there for as long as I need or want to be there.
My first and most important epiphany this past weekend was that I used to go there knowing that I would be in a much happier state when I left to go back home than when I arrived.  This happiness wasn't 'coming upon me' and I realized that it was the first time in a long time that I arrived there already happy, so I didn't need a 'fill-up' of happiness.  With this feeling I also realized that it is time for me to be there for my friends, that they are struggling with certain things and that it is my turn to be there for them.  I made sure that they knew this while I was there, and reiterated it as I was leaving, too.  A wonderful turnaround for me...
I am coming to understand that I am finally a whole person.  I may not be a finished person, and probably never will, but I am whole.  This is a completely new condition for me.  I have never been a whole grown-up-for-me person EVER!  It is a little scary but so very exciting that I am not scared.  I embrace being grown or getting closer to it, at least.  And I damned sure embrace happiness.  REAL HAPPINESS!!!  The interesting thing...yet another light bulb moment....is that no one can take my real happiness away from me....it is mine!!  They may be able to mess with my day or I may get a flat tire or a headache, but my happiness, this deep-down from-my-soul light, it is mine to keep, to shine, to share....but not something that can be taken from me.
Even as I sit here typing this I feel the power that happiness has given me.  It is quiet, peaceful power.  It took living and dying and being broken and broke and stepping away from my old life to make my new life for me to feel this way.  It is the best gift....and I know that I can go on from here and carry my happiness along with me.  I can tell you that it outshines doubts and worries and lets me know that the universe really does have important things in store for me....I am getting prepared and this happy wholeness is a huge part of that preparation.  I would never have believed it if it hadn't happened....like many strange eventful things...while driving....
may love and peace continue to embrace you, too....

A Life...Worth Living...YEAH!

I tried to write about therapy, or lack thereof, yesterday, but I never could get my words to make enough sense or something, so I didn't post anything.  But that's okay, because it took that and then going to my group therapy, DBT group, to be exact, to help me realize what I was trying to get across to you.
The motto of DBT (dialectical behavior training, or something close to that) is that it will 'give you the tools so that you can build a life worth living.'  While I was there yesterday I realized that I finally do have those tools, that my life is worth living, that I have come very, very far along this path.  I think I may be ready to graduate from my group.  I am so very peaceful about this, it is awesome.  I can remember the first few months, after my suicide and at the beginning of my group therapy experience, when I would be so freaked out by something that happened at home or some feeling that I had or remembered, that I would be speeding down the curvy road, crying and praying and knowing that if I could just make it to therapy and to group therapy, that I would be okay, that my crisis would be averted.  It was a place I could go and count on unconditional understanding.  I would feel enveloped in safety, like I was not alone, and that I was among others like myself, who had been to the darkest places within themselves and found their way back out, too.  
Here I am, two years later.  I want to know how the story, all the stories, will end.  I want to go places I've never been and see things I've never seen and touch other people's lives and have my life touched by other people, people I haven't met yet.  I realize that I have just begun my journey...that all of the things that have come before, good and bad, have been to prepare me for what lies ahead.  This is my do-over, my wonderful chance at life that I had to die for.  I find it all so exciting and I am as wide-eyed as a two year old about it all.  
I would not be here, though, were it not for therapy.  The careful taking apart and reassembling of my innards, this I could not have done alone.  I am so very grateful to the people that helped me become me, become better and whole and genuinely happy and strong...it took a village.  I know that I will continue becoming and growing and that I will take with me each and every lesson, filed away carefully so that I may access them easily when needed.
I guess this is another post about the virtues of therapy.  I meet people that go to therapy but don't get the benefit due to their lack of honesty, trust, or humility.  It takes alot of guts to allow others to view and inspect your open wounds, your scars, your secrets, and those niggling things that you realize have been buried for a lifetime or two, and that will wreak havoc upon unearthing.  I told someone recently that if they were going to get anything out of their expensive therapy, they needed to realize that they would have to be willing to laugh, cry, get angry, tell the truth, hear the truth...yeah, all that!  Otherwise they were just going through the motions and would never really learn anything.
I hope that I can reach someone out there.....and that they will find themselves on the right path, the one that points to 'building a life worth living.'
Now, bask in the light of your peace....it is good.

Living on a Two-Way Street

I want to share with you...my unbelievable luck and joy at finding myself in such a wonderful and reciprocal friendship.  As I wrote in a post last month, I left my husband and my old new life without a clue as to where I might land.  Through true serendipity I found myself living in a dear but-we'd-kinda-lost-touch-over-the-years friend's lower-level apartment.  I have a great place, in a great neighborhood, and I feel safe and loved and free to grow into myself.  It is as near perfect as I could have ever hoped for.
But, of course, I now understand that I am not just here for me; I am here for my friend.  She has a full plate and has been juggling alone for quite some time.  She is finally feeling okay financially, but she is bled dry emotionally on a regular basis by her family situations.  And that is what I am here to help her with...her emotional independence...being here to support her as she looks through her past and deals with her present...and I can do this....I know how to do this really well!!!  So I am happy to have this to offer her, aside from our basic friendship, sista-hood....help shedding the dysfunction imposed and implied by others...letting it end with her.  Letting go of some of the responsibility that she has shouldered willingly but at a high cost to herself, when it isn't all hers to bear and therefore the load needs to be redistributed...easier said than done....will be hard for her to give up....I know how to do this, too!
I am so glad to be here, to share what I can, and listen when I should, and offer help as much as it is wanted.
I am so happy to have something of value to add to our friendship.  It feels good to be able to share the lessons I've been faced with and to have a true friend beside me as we each face whatever lessons are in the offing. Grown-up friends....it is cool...it gives me hope...
Peace to you...peace and plenty...plenty of whatever you need...to smile, to breathe, to take that step....