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I never wanted to conquer the world.

I can barely rule myself.

Constantly flying apart. Shattering.

I know the pieces fit because I watched them fall away. Tool Schism

Implosions where I turn to cocoon goo, other ones where I feel like a decanter of liquid dropped in front of a slow motion camera. Those are the worst, knowing it’s coming and having to watch it all fall.

Sarah, smash.

Either way, what’s left is me picking up the pieces, gluing them back together sometimes in haste sometimes meticulously, but I am not sure they are always my pieces.

I might be an amalgam of splinters of the things that broke me.

I have conquered falling apart, and rebuilding.

To the point I almost crave it now.

Things go too good for too long and I start itching for change.

That is usually when change walks into the bar.

Attica seems to think I will be heading back to Newfoundland after this last (contained) explosion.

I hope she is wrong.

I do tend to go back to the sites of detonation looking for pieces I missed.

As much as I love change, I crave consistency too.

I struggle with feeling disposable and impermanent.

It fucking hurts. But like the aching in my hips, I only really notice when it’s gone.

The excitement and palpable relief that occurred at midnight on New Year’s Eve was, well, palpable. I felt the earth breathe a deep sigh. It was enough to lighten the collective just a bit.

But then the next day or 3 we all had to get back to the business of living and nothing significant changed.

It happens every year.

I think the magic of new years and Christmas is reserved for children.

Tomorrow is Epiphany, and I prefer those and that.

But I already had mine.

2021 is just going to be 2012 over again. Without the added conundrum of Mars retrograde, or the tricksiness of a leap year.

And that is alright.

5 X 5 like Faith says.

The year of the Worst Christmas on record. I almost died.

The last time I went near ex hubby was that Valentine’s. By St. Paddy’s I was half tucked into a lackadaisical relationship. Lost my dog, got her back. Had a great job. Lost it. And in retrospect it was not great so that was okay. Pregnant in Parry Sound, fired and homeless by May.

Didn’t really have anywhere to live until November and man, it was overpriced, it leaked, and it sucked.

I worked a crappy job under the table for less than minimum wage and had to go on welfare to make rent. My jeep died and I ended up having to sell it for scrap.

But that was also the year my kid moved back in with me. I was making jewelry in my spare time just for fun. I launched a lawsuit against my old job and eventually won it. And everything lined up for me to move to Milton with my little fam.

2013 didn’t start out super awesome fantastico either, more of the same, but by July we had the Milton house. I was stripping and pretty happy. Money was coming. I got asked to do a guest spot bartending at one of my old bars, Alice had puppies. And in my son’s 18th year we finally did Florida ‘our’ way, with the help of Dave.

The ice storm was that Christmas and I handled it well, potato boyfriend did not.

I kicked him out in January and sometime in April I believe, I started living again. Authentically this time.

And here I is, in all my messy glory.

Glory, hallelujah.

I have spent the last week conquering fears. I did DMT a week ago today and yesterday my body was put into a sling and launched across a chasm on a cable. Walking up the steps to the platform was hard, I hate grates and open manmade structures where you can see down. On a grade 8 class trip we took the gondola across the Niagara gorge and I had my very first panic attack. I do not like being suspended, I especially do not like being dangled over water. Cable freak me out probably from too many movies and bad dreams. My phobias are very specific as I am also the girl who loves rollercoasters.

I am trying to change.

I spent this past year and a few before it trying to do different things.

I stumbled on something. Years repeat in varying ways and patterns. It’s what we learn from them that changes things. Just like rebuilding after a collapse.

2012 was a 5 numerologically speaking, as is this one, so I kinda know what to expect.

And so far, lost my love, job is maybe gone forever, car won’t start and I will be homeless again.

Check

Check

Check

Check.

But I have it handled in a way that I couldn’t mentally grasp 8 years ago.

Instead of “why is this happening to me?” I am wondering what it is trying to teach me and really looking to see what direction I should be headed in when the 18 months after this tumultuous 18 months is over.

I can create my reality and control at least the direction I am aiming myself in.

Those old shake ups had to happen. That job was toxic, and that dude was a potato.

Pray to god but row for shore.

Every 12 years it’s the return of your Chinese astrology sign. I was happy at 12 years old. 24 was awesome, 36 was a lil sketchy if memory serves but it was also smack dab in my Saturn return so that’s okay.

I have now noticed the unadulterated fuckery that accompanies leap years.

The bliss of the Lion’s Gate Portal and the hazards of eclipses.

From January 14^th to January 30^th, for the first time in 11 months nothing is in retrograde.

Time to breathe and assess.

Kate Bush once said, and Matt Good reiterated “I just know that something good is gonna happen, I don’t know when, but just saying it could even make it happen.” The song is called Cloudbusting and I love it.

It doesn’t matter if any of this is scientifically factual or not, it is my truth and it isn’t hurting anyone. it has given me some much needed strength, resolve and optimism when I really needed it.

I could be doomy gloomy Eeyore, and I am sure I will have my moments where I am. But there will be silver linings too and whatever happens now, whatever crumbles and launches me this way or that is just clearing the way and pushing me into a good year.

There is something really empowering about realizing this is probably gonna suck and I am definitely going to get through it.

There are no absolutes in life. good, bad, better, worse.
Just surviving or thriving.

As long as the good is just a bit more than the bad, or the bad is at least teaching us something then everything is worth it.

I wonder whatever happened to Koala Girl.

A year ago, right around now we had just started to hear about the wildfires in Australia.

A year ago, right around now we started hearing about a new virus in China.

A year ago, right around now we started watching the Witcher.

Just think about that for a minute.

Mind fuck and a half.

I was talking to my son about the passage of time and his touchstone to the past was he remembers things being somewhat normal the first time he ever paid for nudes. He bought the koala girl’s pics. I didn‘t and I wish I had.

10K in the first 24 hours. Bravo.

I have been sitting on this article and not working on it, and today this came up in my memories, so it is time.

She made a million dollars for the koalas and landed in a world of hurt and ostracism. Her boyfriend left her, parents angry, I think she lost her job and apartment too.

I loved the sentiment in this tweet. “We have no choice but love and protect her at all costs”

I wish we felt this way about all women.

I wish we felt this way about all sex workers.

I am getting ready to retire but those women will always be my family and I will defend them to the death.

We did not protect her. The backlash was immediate and intense.

I am realizing a lot of the negative things I feel and have felt about myself are as a result of the stigma around sex and sex workers.

I wouldn’t feel this way about myself if someone/everyone hadn’t told me to. Like fundamentally who is it reeeally hurting that I, Sarah, enjoy sex immensely and feel comfortable being naked in a room full of strangers.

No one.

This constant fight within me wherein I feel disposable. I mean that concept gets reinforced with every relationship gone awry.

It is hard not to internalize not being ‘worth it’, whatever it happens to be.

I understand monogamy and Christian heteronormative ideas, I just don’t see them as ideal.

For me.

I do not judge others. If being married and chaste and faithful floats your boat, float on.

Why does this world have such a huge issue with body autonomy?

Not your body, not your business.

You wanna keep your puss puss just for you, okay, no one is telling you otherwise, so why do you think its is okay to tell others what to do with their bits?

So much anger and venom aimed at women with Onlyfans accounts.

Why?

How is this affecting anyone in any way? How does a paramedic/nurse/lawyer/factory worker any fucking body being sexy and making some extra cash on the side affect her ability to do their jobs?

It fucking doesn’t.

Unless you are a preacher who comes down heavily on the side of celibacy, monogamy, chastity, purity and you go flaunting your va jay jay upon the interwebz, even then, it still doesn’t make you a bad person, it just makes you a hypocrite.

Okay so for creepy dudes it is harder to get free nudes.

It was always a commodity as there was a definite demand for it. You can’t hang out at Costco eating free samples for weeks on end, at some pint you have to buy something and go home.

And I must say I do love a good screenshot of a lurker trying to get something and the only response being a link to a girl’s onlyfans account.

Him: Sup

Her: <Link>

Him: Sup, send pics

Her: <Link>

Him: So you too good to talk to me? You think I want to look at your used pussy online.

Well ya, you do. You just don’t want to pay for it. It is an equalizer. And a damn fine way to shut down incels and creeps.

When other women rail against it all I see is internalized misogyny and misplaced jealousy born of the competition we never entered into but more was programmed into us since birth. Be prettier than her, whoever her is, find a man, trap a man, keep a man and be kept. And by all means fight all other women because if we ever got together and demanded better treatment, the world as we know it would collapse. The amount of money made just from tricking us into thinking we need longer lashes or to keep our boobs unnaturally up near out chins is insane.

Thankfully, the sex ndustry is becoming a little less taboo here and now.

I have been a stripper on and off for 20 some odd years now and I see the stigmas lessening.

But I have changed too.

The girl I was 22 years ago was turned away from renting an apartment because the owner didn’t want ‘my kind’ in her building and AFTER keeping my deposit. I put my head down in shame and walked away. I had no fight in me. No one would care even if I did try to stick up for myself, right?

I don’t feel that way about myself anymore. Thankfully, but it was a long road out of shame, filled with the pitfalls of the judgments of others.

Every new group of people I met, every straight job I got, I had to work harder, be better, be smarter just to prove all strippers weren’t awful people. And I did. One conversation at a time.

It isn’t terribly fair.

There is no one profession where everyone who does that job is some kind of saint.

There are bad doctors, lawyers, even evil priests and nuns and by default they are supposed to be holy and pure. But they ain’t. No one is. And having your kitty up on the internet does not automatically launch you into the category of deviant or evil. It just means you think you have a nice vagina, a vagina worth looking at, a vagina worth being paid for.

Honestly, I had thought about it long and hard. Having an Onlyfans I mean. Especially post pandemic. Stuck in the hose 24/7. I was making videos anyways, just not for public consumption. But I am bad at it. I don’t feel that great about myself. The bulk of the money I made stripping wasn’t because I was this sexy desirable thing, but because I was approachable, human, understanding and I listen. That just doesn’t translate to boomerangs and videos and snapchat filters.

My girl Kittenface approached me with the idea of a patreon account, and I think that suits me. I am still going to keep it sexy, sex sells, we all know this. And honestly, I don’t see the difference. I am still selling myself, my time, my thoughts. Same same.

If you think a stripper sells her body but a coal miner doesn’t, you have a morality problem.

I have no idea where I am gonna land.

I sat last in a circle in the sand. Looked up at the moon and just said thank you.

Felt the tide pull me as I walked through the water.

I am Ricky Fitz

I need structure and discipline.

I need something outside of myself to give me direction.

Have you met me? I am literally, geographically and cosmically all over the place.

There is a center to my universe. My child. And although I fucked up with him royally on several occasions, we made it.

But he doesn’t need me, like really really for reals. He has the permanence and goals that I was always lacking. Still am.

I will never take credit for the man he has become he did this. His accomplishments are his own.

I led only by bad examples. One big lesson on things not to do.

We had a conversation a week ago wherein he laid out how his life is going, and I teared up and thanked him for being my opposite.

Massive justification for my life full of fuck ups, he watched me and learned what not to do.

He has known what he wanted from a young age, something I supported of course, he has set goals and smashed them.

I float. Mostly without focus.

“I was like a lost moon―my planet destroyed in some cataclysmic, disaster-movie scenario of desolation―that continued, nevertheless, to circle in a tight little orbit around the empty space left behind, ignoring the laws of gravity.”

Oh Stephanie Meyers, if you sift through the shit, there are some diamonds in there.

I am currently without orbit.

The last time this happened I ended up in perdition drunk for 2 years.

He said the reason I chose to live without magic would become clear eventually.

I think I figured it out and you aren’t going to like it.

Attica said, ‘you are orbiting him’.

And so it was.

And so I stopped.

And as I drifted further and further into space, I became more and more scared and fucking miserable really.

Why was it bad to give into gravity again? I loved the ebb and flow of the tides. I was tethered sure, but I was also soothed, and happy, and able to make my own decisions within parameters that suited me just fine.

I have been sucked into force fields and tractor beams that were definitely detrimental. Death Stars bent on imprisonment, conquering and eventual destruction. Planet killers.

But let’s back this up a little and ponder grasshopper.

What is Attica (aka Moon Moon) doing right now?

Picking out wall sconces, paint colors and asking me what the best bed sheets are. She is nesting, with her dude, in his house. And while that might not be orbital, it is domestication. And it is okay. He is okay, I quite like him. He is the kind of strong, stoic and in charge she always needed and never had. And he orbits her. And honestly, it’s lovely.

Her and I had a life plan, together. And it’s gone. I was never mad, felt like that thing god does where he closes a door and throws open all the windows.

I had to remember something. I love Attica, I truly do. The two of us were told we probably wouldn’t be friends and became friends anyways, it happened very naturally and almost out of spite towards those who said we wouldn’t be, but it stuck. She is laid back and fun. Brave in ways I am not. I am the mom friend and her personal google.

Seriously, she asks me everything. My name is not Alexa, nor Siri, but she seems to think it is.

When I sent her the article* about my first DMT trip she saw it as scary and terrifying.

For a minute I thought I wrote it wrong. Did I not explain how liberating it was?

I didn’t have to reread it because I realized something, that was made clear to me on my second trip*, my reality is my own. What is good for me might not be good for others.

I realized something else too. More like remembered it. We should never take criticism from someone we wouldn’t go to for advice.
Of course I tell Attica things, we have long amazing talks about everything, but I never ever ask her what to do. She asks me what to do, how to do things, what sheets are good sheets, what day it is half the time. She is just beginning to recognize wording in news articles after hitting the panic button about a hundred times this year.
She is not my oracle, nor my prophet, she is my friend.

I doubt myself, often and sometimes the advice I take is not weighed nor measured properly against what is best for me. I forgot to consider the source.

So why did I get scared and break orbit when she told me to?

And why did it take me so long to recognize the dynamic she has with her dude as the thing she was telling me not to do but then did anyways?

Fear mostly. Insecurity.

Submission, and not the fun kind.

I have orbited lesser planets and stars and at some point my celestial body recognizes their gravity isn’t enough to keep me in place and I break free on my own, or the star collapses and I have to fight from falling into the black hole they leave behind.

But this wasn’t that.

He was the sun, good and warm. He made me glow. Nourished me, gave me light.

What I had was good enough for me, what I was doing is what I wanted to do.

It was enough because I decided this.

It was all my choice.

I have been lost and miserable free floating through space. I don’t like this.

The book I am working on has falling stars coming to earth, they forget who and what they are when dislodged from their home out in the universe. And although I never meant it as a metaphor for what I am feeling now, it is exactly a metaphor for what I am feeling now.

It is okay to have someone as my sun, I am the moon and stars.

Stella Polaris with amnesia.

But I am starting to remember.

(*exclusive patreon content, link will be provided shortly)

I have a few tv shows that are my favorites even though they aren’t overly popular.

Carnivale for one, HBO’s first attempt at a series. 23 episodes.

The Wachowski’s made a show for Netflix called Sense8. I am on my 6^th time watching it now since Mandabear made me watch it last year. 23 episodes

And another one that I gravitate back to called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Aaron Sorkin. Also 23 episodes.

There is an episode where everything goes slippy sideways 3 or 4 times and they have to do a bunch of cut ins and retractions on a live feed broadcast.

That is what this feels like.

This was not what I would have pictured myself writing when I sat in front of my laptop yesterday.

You see dear readers, I did DMT yesterday, after 9 years of want and preparation.

I was gonna have a chat with god.

And I know there are a lot of people clamoring to find out what I found out and I am sorry.

This is not the show we intended to do tonight, but it is what is.

This really is a live feed of my life, parts of it. Edited and rehearsed and presented here.

I am absolutely going to write a post about what happened, several likely and what I learned, but for the patreon platform that is coming in January. I am worth something, even if it is a buck or two a month. This witch is now accepting offerings for my gifts.

But this is something that needs to be said out loud.

This revelation that I had was not directly involved in the ceremony, but a side effect of the soul purge.

I am afraid.

I just am and I didn’t know why.

Fear was dictating a huge portion of my life.

Even here. I couldn’t go into the deep water because I was jumping at shadows.

I stick close to home wherever home is at the moment.

I wrote about meeting Solo and that I used to love to dance at regular bars, and when I thought about it some more, I used to love stage shows too, now they are something to get through and over with.

I took on the protector role with friends, never getting drunk, but being the sober babysitter, even in New Orleans when I should have been able to let loose and have fun. I did have fun and I remember 90% of it.

I look at Attica and Carabear and they seem so fearless and I remember being like that, but I didn’t know how or when I lost it.

Upon ye olde Facebook there is/was a meme that makes the rounds about a tribe somewhere in Africa that treats depression and anger by asking the person ‘when did you stop singing, when did you stop dancing’. Basically they remind the person to find the small joys in life.

I did myself and others a great disservice.

19 years ago I was violently raped, threatened with death and held hostage in my apartment for 8 hours.

The 19^th anniversary of said event is tomorrow, and I have exclaimed and shouted from the rooftops how ‘over it’ I am. I mention it in passing with all the emotion of recanting an old tv show I watched.

That I am not a victim nor a survivor because I don’t acknowledge it. It is something buried so far in my past that it doesn’t affect me. I am a vocal advocate for survivors and women’s rights in general. But I never get triggered nor did I think what happened in my past had any bearing on how I live my life now.

I talk a lot about shadow work and gong back to different versions of myself and treating them with love and compassion. 10 year old me, teenage me, I have worked through my failings as a parent with my son and been forgiven.

Even in regard to me being raped I thought I had that covered. I acknowledged the self-loathing I had for who I was at the time, the job I had (stripper) the drugs I was doing, the life I was living. I was making bad choices, I felt guilty about the money I was making and the parenting I wasn’t doing. I gravitated to a controlling man because I felt out of control instead of getting my shit together myself. I had a nice list of things to never do again. And I haven’t.

Now, I feel compelled to say that no matter what you are doing, no one deserves to go through what I went through with that man. He beat me, he stole from me and after I bailed him out of jail for those charges he broke into my house and was waiting for me when I got off work New Year’s Eve 2001. I knew he was there; he had called me from my landline. And part of me thought I could handle whatever he was going to throw at me. My stuff and my cats were more important than my safety, and calling the police meant losing my $5000 bond.

Still didn’t deserve any of it, but part of me thought I did.

I had to tell the story like I was listening to someone else tell it to me.

I dubbed myself forgiven.

Except I didn’t.

There were good parts to the life I had before him.

I made good money, I lived exuberantly, I loved to dance. My sex drive never really went away after, but I lost my voice as far as being able to acknowledge the quantity and quality. I stopped indulging in any kinks I had while I was with him, and that lasted until very recently.

And, this is the first of a couple hard admissions, I felt damaged. Like I didn’t deserve anything good relationship-wise. Parts of me still feel that way. Gestures broadly at most of my exes. Farm life was a holdover from that, Graham and the potato too. Mediocre long term couplings instead of choosing a good complimentary partner partner. Some of that was stripping, what kind of relationship can I really expect if I am a dancer. But that was the mindset that got me into the relationship with the rapist in the first place.

Sitting at the bar at Sneaky Dee’s talking to Young Un the First, I brought it up casually and his reaction was the first step in healing that part of my trauma that had gone unacknowledged. I knew it in that moment; and I remember it now. He didn’t look at me like I was broken or a pain in the ass that needed to be placated, but like I should be protected. He simply asked what I needed and did the thing, like I was worth compromising for. He never once shut the door when we fucked, that was my thing, I needed to know I could leave the room for years after.

The Hulk came along after and treated me the same. Like something to be treasured, like I was worth something, not just in spite of my past, but almost because I had lived through it.
We had a moment the second or third time we slept together where he pinned me down and said, “You’re trapped”, playfully of course. He is a gargantuan man. I should have been terrified, and I was, for a minute. And then my brain clicked into a deeper understanding of what it meant to live in the moment. I wrote about it here https://www.ourladyoflustandgrace.com/trigger.html

Basically that was 2 paragraphs of me saying, I got the sex stuff figured out.

And I realized a long time ago that if I let the rapist take enjoyment away one of my favorite things then he won. He wanted me to hurt and be scared, so losing something as important as sex to me, would have meant he conquered me in the way he meant to, and I wasn’t having that.

I attained a level of the deepest subspace I have ever been in not too long ago and I think that catapulted me to this. I let go of everything and I came back safe and loved.

Yesterday, sitting on a mat in an open room full of someone else’s magic, my heart beating hard in my chest, after the craziness had passed and I had done a massive purge of primordial tears and angst, I had yet another epiphany.

There was a playlist of what you might expect to hear in a shaman’s house, and this song came on and I realized I hadn’t heard it in 22 years. In the house of my first Leo. And I was catapulted back there for a minute. I remembered the girl I was when I was with him. I remembered being giggly and happy and so brave and tenacious. I walked the streets of Toronto at all hours without fear. I went on grand adventures. So willing to take risks and live life and experiment. And I still danced and felt joy.

For a minute I thought that Leo had worked some dark magic on me that had stolen my life spark for lack of a better term. But that wasn’t it and I had to go forward in my past and see what it was.

It wasn’t him.

I am still living some of the ramifications of being raped.

I am too careful and too cautious.

I tout the benefits of being an introvert and being okay being alone, safe as houses, inside my house.

But I am not living.

Yesterday, consenting to the ceremony I took part in was a huge step in and of itself.

I am in a strange city, I have no data or wifi, I had no idea where I was going, no idea what was going to happen, like not even a little bit. I didn’t even know how much it was going to be or how long it was going to take. It was a trust fall of epic proportions and even the act of getting in the car and walking into the door (black 19 for the record) was monumental for me.

Some old part of me that exists from before took over and I am grateful.

I even sabotaged my first hit of DMT because I was scared I wasn’t going to make it back.

What am I so worried about coming back to?

I have made some leaps as of late.

I moved to perdition, but even that was safe. I knew my way around, I had people there.

And yes, I have been getting on planes, but with an obscene amount of planning but then staying tucked into Airbnbs just waiting.

I am old enough now and have enough self-love to not get into a situation like that again. I have been assaulted since and lived through all of it. Life hurts sometimes and there is no way around it. Hiding away and only coming out when that damaged part of my psyche decides its safe to do so isn’t really living.

My son gave me an amazing piece of advice about a week ago when we talked about how I have been feeling. He said, ‘do something that resembles death so you can remember how to live’. I did. DMT is the chemical your brain releases when you die. I am going to the market this week and ziplining too, going to swim in the ocean away from the safety of the bay.

I accept that I might get hurt.

The last time I was in Mexico I got on the back of a scooter with a ‘strange’ man and we swam on the ocean side of the island, got tossed around in the waves of the Caribbean. I gave a chunk of skin as an offering, sheared of on a hunk of lava rock under the water. But I remember feeling alive and elated.

I’m constantly saying, everything you want is on the other side of fear, because it is.

It’s the last full moon of 2020.

The first one I had just landed stateside and the world was full of possibility.

Nestled into a mediocre Airbnb too far from anywhere to be convenient.

But I learned.

Took a little journey to the unknown, oh I came back changed I can feel it in my bones

Lord Huron, the soundtrack to my first leap of faith.

3 years ago today I got a message from ‘the boy’ that he was going to fly to the far side of the island and drive me the rest of the way home.

I was over the moon, one of Jupiter’s moons.

I have always just wanted to go home. I don’t know where it is, or what it looks like, but I think I will know when I feel it. He was close, I will give him that.

Then I went to Mexico for a week and he got back together with his ex.

My plans were too far put in motion to stop them. And nothing in me wanted to stop, I wanted to go. I think by May I had given up on him, I didn’t stop crying but I stopped trying. The only time we slept together during that first 6 months was the night before I was supposed to leave for good. Minimum effort is the hallmark of a fuckboy.

We all know I went back, shenanigans ensued and a year ago today I booked a ferry ticket away from there. 4 more days and I was never going back again.

I did go back, for my car and some more of my stuff.

Once more, with feeling.

And back to the states, and back to Mexico.

Just booked my flight home. 17 days left and another 14 after that until my fate is decided and I have a tangible date for getting this poison out of me.

There is a Samurai Jack episode wherein he trains with rocks tied to his feet, after a lengthy montage they take the rocks off and he ‘jump good’. If I managed to live my life like this weighed down by sickness, how good can I jump without it.

All things considered, I was a lot of places this year, you now, with earth being closed and all.

I almost wrote some cheeseball line about how the greatest journey was my journey inward.

I did do that. But it wasn’t poetic. It was ugly and messy and I got out of one cocoon just to force myself into another or climb back into the old one. I wept, I mourned. And in the end, I ran away.

I got a handle on a few things just to uncover more shit, patched one rip in my psyche and 3 more appeared.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
Marianne Williamson

Anyone know how to deal with imposter syndrome or hyper independence?

I think they are feeding each other, and I have twin King Kong sized monkeys on my back, holding me back.

I have part of it solved. I honestly don’t care what anyone thinks of me. I can’t, its dangerous and exhausting.

How many girls on that island truly despised me? A lot. I had to live and work with some of them and considering all I really did was sleep and work that took up a lot of my time. I lived. You need to hate someone to add to your own joie de vive? I don’t exactly volunteer as tribute, but whatev’s do you boo.

But imposter syndrome isn’t really about being hated by others so much as it is about hating yourself and the unhealthy coping mechanisms you develop to compensate. Pleasing those who can never truly be pleased, gravitating to them to justify your life. Zero self-care because you are always caring for others, burnout on an Alderan scale.

Procrastination on personal projects because it’s never going to be good enough anyways, why bother?

Because I love the work. This work, this good work that I chose for myself.

At least I can name the monkeys. One step closer to shedding them.

I was offered help, and I said yes.

My kittenface pixie girl came to me yesterday and offered to help put all my burnt offerings to the world into a Patreon format and see where that goes. Esoteric therapy with swearing. I just have to write; she will do the icky stuff I don’t care to learn like price points and marketing.

There is a very good chance after I get these implants removed that I will not be able to dance anymore, she knows I am scared and is gently but firmly nudging me into another direction.

The timing is pretty cosmically perfect if you ask me.

Today, in about 2.5 hours I am going to see some shamans and I am going to do DMT.

The god particle.

The chemical our brain releases when we die.

This is something I have wanted to do for 9 years and it was never the right moment.

I want to talk to god.

I feel like I have come as far as I can on my own and I need a push to level up.

I know I was put on this earth to love (full stop), but after having a taste of what it was like to be loved the way I love, fully and enthusiastically and then to lose it. I want to trade in my life’s purpose for another one. I can’t keep doing this.

I know I can, but maybe I can get some help accepting this. Because right now my heart is an angry toddler throwing a monumental tantrum called ‘its not fair’.

I hate the idea of white people taking shortcuts to enlightenment and bullshit journeys of spiritual tourism without doing the work.

But I feel like I did the work. So much work and there is so much more to go. I’m so tired.

I honestly don’t know what to expect. Anyone I have spoken to about it claims a lightness of being afterwards. Freedom from addictions and the bonds of human bullshit.

I know when I stand before god at the end of my life and he asks me ‘did you love?’ the answer with be and emphatic yes. I know when he asks me if I tried, the answer will be and honest and exhausted ‘yes’.

And today, when we talk, I think I just want to ask for a different perspective. I want to see in myself the potential I see in all the others. I only see the good in the people around me and I only see what need to be worked on when it comes to myself.

A little balance please. Direction, clarity, freedom.

And a lot of love.

Please, I need to be loved.

How long baby have I been away?
Oh, it feels like ages, though you say it’s only days
There ain’t language for the things I’ve seen
And the truth is stranger than my own worst dreams
The truth is stranger than all my dreams
Oh, the darkness got a hold on me

I have seen what the darkness does
Say goodbye to who I was
I ain’t never been away so long
Don’t look back them days are gone
Follow me into the endless night
I can bring your fears to life
Show me yours and I’ll show you mine
Meet me in the woods tonight

Lord Huron, Meet Me in the Woods, Strange Trails.

Hey kids.

Welcome to season 7 of my life.

I really wish this was a better post, but it is what it is.

Today would be a good day to go back through ye olde blog.

It is 6 years old today. And by proxy, so am I.

Good god damn a lot can happen in 6 years.

{gestures broadly at everything}

Like seriously.

I don’t know if I am ahead or behind, but god…I am here*.

700+ posts.

And honestly, I am not in the mood to read any of them.

I have been stuck in the morgue doing back to back autopsies and my nose is full of the smell of formaldehyde, back hurts from bending over the bodies and my fingers ache from holding the scalpel.

I put the very first article I ever published up on my Facebook page this morning. With the disclaimer that the person I spoke about assaulted me a few years back. It has happened twice since.

Season 7 episode 1 is as good a time as any to do a retrospective montage, but you have all been here, you know what happened.

And it’s funny. Out of all the things I could be feeling. I have a pretty hefty amount of remorse for the 2 years in perdition where I let everything slide.

I don’t care about numbers, buuuuuuuutttttt… who knows where I could be if I hadn’t slipped into oblivion for 730 days.

I must remember when I started this I lived in the cabin in the woods.

I was gearing up for my second Christmas completely and utterly alone.

The first one 3 years prior had all but killed me.

That one, 6 years ago was my choice.

I had to prep for a court case. I went up against the top employment lawyer in the country, and I won.

He still pops by and says hi on occasion. I never got paid but I am still proud of myself. I should have been a lawyer. I can argue with the best of them.

I skipped Florida that year. Kidlet was tucked in with his girlfriend’s family.

And I started this blog.

An idea I had had a calendar year prior. But was so insecure about, I couldn’t publish anything unless it was perfect.

Wow am I ever not like that anymore at all.

I dump a box of puzzle pieces out onto a word document and either make a picture or get partway there and walk away from it. Sometimes it looks like I puked on the page. And sometimes I am articulate as fuck.

I know if I publish anything with ‘sex’ or ‘fuck’ in the title I am guaranteed a good traffic day as far as numbers go.

I don’t really care about that. It was fun in the beginning. but ‘likes’ and hearts are not real accomplishments.

Nothing about this is an accomplishment expect the work I have done on myself and the help I have provided for others.

I do have to admit that I have helped some people, by the simple act of living out loud.

And if a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.

I have made some men immortal.

This whole thing is a testament to how hard and thoroughly I love.

And tidbits of loving myself and being loved by others.

Compliments and accolades still fall on deaf ears, I am stuck in Westworld, being shown pieces of reality and all I can say is ‘that doesn’t look like anything to me’.

6 years and I can’t undo my own programming.

Up in smoke and given back to the moon goes my angst, my hope, my doubts, my insecurities, my procrastination, my dependence on my muse to write (always welcome, but I will just put my head down and work whether she shows up or not), my ridiculous notion of romance novel love, what is left of my fear of being alone, my need for safety nets, my need for the approval of others, seeing my super powers as a burden and last but very not least rest in peace to the love I carried around my whole life…losing that sense of belonging actually felt like Sisyphus finally getting the rock to tip over the other side.
Who knew?
So mote it be

Notes I left myself on Facebook 6 years ago.

I did some of these things. I have let some things go.

But not enough.

I am not afraid of being alone. But that was easy. The two Christmases alone. One by force and one by choice. I didn’t die either time.
That next fall I survived pneumonia alone, didn’t die then either.
I even wrote a post about all the times I almost died. Kinda a lot.

Safety nets are overrated.

Probably had 6 panic attacks in 6 years instead of 6 a week. Angst still exists and knocks on the door from time to time. I let her in but don’t let her stay.

I still flirt with the notion of hope, but hope is a fuckboy.

Romance novel love is still out the window, rip out the middle where they fuss and fight. Just go from the love at first sight to the happily ever after please. Love shouldn’t be hard.

And I did disconnect from high school sweetheart and took my life back after 26 years of not belonging to myself.

Maybe I did okay.

Maybe I put too much pressure on myself to do a 180. 6, 7, 9 years ago I was a wreck of a girl.

Hold the vision, trust the process?

Didn’t I used to say that all the time?

Maybe I did need the 2 years of disconnect in Perdition.

When I look back at Newfoundland it feels like an alternate timeline the writers of my life came up with and then explained away as a dream at the beginning of season 5. Sloppy, sloppy writers.

Right now feels like that too. Like I am out of place and out of time.

I know change is coming, I can feel it even if I hadn’t been inundated with proof from the cosmos.

As I sit and write this retrospective of sorts all I can think is that most good shows only go 7 seasons.

Maybe this will be my last year.

I started this blog so I could monetize it with ads and go live somewhere warm with a trickling revenue stream. Never got that far. I just want to write.

Time to go back to the book.

I wish I thought it was good enough.

I wish I could come up with a good earth-shattering plot twist, but right now they are all in the house and I just need to find a way to get them out.

The two main characters are enamored with each other but unable to communicate. And I have to rip them apart before I can put them back together.

Earthquake? Or maybe he just gets frustrated and leaves.

Art imitates life but I really want to write us a better story.

Right now, Tom Waits is crooning in my ear “you gotta hold on girl.”

I am.

I have watched some very satisfying final seasons/episodes in my day.

It is my fervent wish to end this part of my journey exactly this way.

And start a life I don’t have to write about to understand.

*Alice Walker, The Color Purple

buy my book please

“I am not overly enamored with being lumped in with your exes.”

Well, then you haven’t been paying attention.

---

I have this woman on the periphery of my life who is literally everything I am not.

She’s fucking awesome.

She’s also a domme so when she pays attention to me, I squirm a little in submissive wiggly-ness in spite of myself.

It’s really cool to have someone in my life who is my polar opposite yet compatible and accessible.

She posed a question the other day

What would your exes say to or about you?

Tons of feedback. Some negative, some positive.

It’s a good exercise I think, to look back at past reflections of what you were to other people.

It’s grounding and can show you what you need to work on or even just how far you have come.

T’was a wee wake up call for me.

I’ve been feeling unlovable.

I am currently a mess and not my most awesome lovable self.

I remember having conversations with my step-daughter in her teenage years and trying to solve any one of her problems with a straight line.

Somehow, she could take needing new shoes and twist it into the plight of sharks in the wild.

Amazing, yet maddening.

I am doing this thing. I can hear it. I am actually annoyed with myself like I used to be with her and I can’t stop it.

I am in a situation beyond my control and over a month away and I keep throwing around words like ‘mutilation’.

There is no solution. I just have to get to that point in my future and looping unpleasant life altering outcomes in the meantime is not doing me a tiny bit of good.

But, when Bara asked the question above, it gave me pause.

I do not have to wonder what my exes say about me. They tell me. Recently and frequently.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Not all obviously. I am not a saint.

Ex hubby and Potato hate my guts.

Both still blame me for shit in their lives years after I left them.

6 months later, sure, be mad all you want. 7 years? 10 years?
Come on, grow up.

But, both of them blamed other women in their life for the shit that came before me and that isn’t my cycle to break. Their inability to take responsibility for their own lives is beyond my control.

And ex hubby only revised his hatred of me when I didn’t go running back to him at the beginning of this year. Ew no. So there was love there, twisted fucked up love, but his version of it.

I had joked many, many years ago about getting some of the good ones together to make me a resume.

But I already wrote the handbook for handling me.

This blog.

Lists and lists of what went right and what went wrong.
What I need help with and where I shine.

I know I am exhausting, intense, not a lot of fun to be around sometimes. I get it. I never say “I’m fine” when I am not, and I know that is what people are supposed to do.

But I also never say “I’m fine” and expect anyone to read my mind either, nor do I torture them when they can’t because let’s face it, not a lot of mind readers out there.

I don’t lie, even when it would be more convenient to do so.

I have no filter.

All double-edged swords to be sure, but hey, I come with my own swords, so that’s a good thing.

And an instruction manual. Complete with clearly labeled warnings and contingency plans and a full list of consequences faced by the others so they can be avoided. What not to do, a retrospective.

(It’s the fucking fire swamp.)

When I was 14 or 15, I ripped the first page out of a book.

It just says, “do you love”.

I still have it, in a little frame in my attic.

Been asking myself that for 32 years, and the answer is always the same.

I do.

Quite thoroughly really.

Exceptionally unconditionally as of late.

I added to Bara’s query by saying that I do not subscribe to the normal “I have you” or “I hate you” that usually begets the bitterness between exes.

If I had love for you once, I probably still do.

There are some I cannot speak to, but if you asked them about me, they would say I was a good woman, little bit crazy, but I treated them well.
But those are cans of worms I do not wish to open; I am all out of crows.

Sometimes, due to circumstances beyond my control I can only love the version of who they were when we were together, that happens sometimes and when I am confronted with the ugly truth of what they have become, that love turns to nostalgia and hope that they find their way wrapped up with a bow of indifference. I know I see the potential of who people could be. I don’t even get disappointed anymore, just stand back and watch to see what they do, waving pom poms till my arms get tired or I am excused from the playing field.

Even then, I am never really gone.

They come back for council or comfort, and if I can I give it.

Usually by the second or third swoop back into my life I am a little more arm’s length with my affection.

The strength that comes with surviving their absence.

They pushed me away and I stay there. Away.

I have learned the difference between those who value me in my new place in their life and those who just message to see if I will message back.
Their egos get hungry and they remember me feeding them well.

I’ve stopped answering them.

In turn for my support, when my light goes out and that Stella Polaris in my chest goes dim, sometimes, some of them rally.

Like now.

So many ‘I love you’s’ and while I appreciate it, I truly do.
They aren’t coming from the right mouth.

And it is a bit insulting really to hear things like ‘I wish we could have made it work’ when I have vivid memories of showing up and doing the work.

I am not the one who leaves, except with ex hubby and the Potato.

Maybe that is why they hate me. The only two clean breaks on record.

---

There is one sure fire way to avoid getting lumped in with my exes, good or bad.

Don’t fucking leave.

After well over 10 days of deep terrifying darkness, reminiscent of my 7-year depression, I don’t see a light exactly but it is easing off.

That aforementioned cycle of six years of sadness and yuck ended in 2011.

I’m recognizing old patterns at lightening speed, understanding planets and I still don’t have a fucking clue what’s coming. All I can remember is the traumas but it seems like things change every 3 years or so.
Like right now for example.

I do know that the darkness won’t last.

I woke up yesterday and remembered what being happy might feel like.

Its a fucking doozy, this particular black hole I have been in. No doors, no windows, no hope or future that I can see.

Except

Something happened with the Hadron Particle Collider this week.
Not a weasel this time. But equally fucky.
I’ll post the article at the bottom.

The world slipped into the darkest timeline about 6 years back.

I remember when being alive didn’t feel like a low grade panic attack/badly written season 5 all the time; in the time called before. I have tried to pinpoint it. The moment where god threw up his hands and said fuck the world. But really, he left a long time ago. Childhood cancer exists, god cannot, animal abuse exists, god cannot, the Kardashians are a thing, god cannot be.

Shadows settle on the place, that you left
Our minds are troubled by the emptiness

I think I was looking for a singular event, like the toss of a dice, that catapulted us into whatever muck and mire this is. But maybe that isn’t how this works. The 2014 weasel caused a small rip and we, as humans doing shitty shit (Harambi for example) just kept ripping it wider and wider till the world fell in sometime in 2016.

I used to think Bowie was part of the rift, but I think he saw it coming and just went home.

We made it through 2016 with the clowns and the clown in office. And it just kept getting weirder.

And here we are.

Now what?

I cannot see a way forward, I have no choice but to look back.

Spotify gave me my year in review.

Ben Howard, Sigur Ros, Lumineers, Hozier, all good things.

But Youth by Daughter? My most played song?

No, no this will not do.

Destroy the middle, it’s a waste of time, from the perfect start to the finish line.

Well shit.

If the super depressing song fits, lets analyze it shall we? An interpretive dance.

Historically speaking I do a year in review around now anyways.

Why wouldn’t I?

Its over right?

Or close to it.

It looks like I will be leaving the exact same place I left, exactly 3 years to the day, and for as much that has changed in the last 3 years, the next few months are looking eerily similar.

Are we looping?

What did I miss?

I can’t see the future, but I will bet money that Giant and I end up on a couch watching the Illusionist again, hopefully without the Norovirus this time, I think we are still immune. February will be the beginning of a different journey into surgery and recovery instead of driving the unknown. But a trip alone into the abyss with a long recovery period and tumultuous change just the same.

Groundhog day, year 3.

Maybe I can get it right this time.

So what did I miss?

If you’re still breathing, you’re the lucky ones, cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs.

That is a little too true.

So why is a 6 year old song coming back to haunt me at the end of the world?

It really is a beautiful song; painful ones often are.

Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong

When Saturn dances across the sky, depending on where his feet land, we get lessons upon motherfucking lessons or, déjà vu and a whole lot of history repeating.

The last 3 years he has had all the grace of an angry, drunk, white guy on the dance floor at a wedding.

I saw a meme, and I will try to find it and add it here, about what Papa Cronos aka Father Time aka Saturn stole from each of the signs in the last 3 years. Accurate as fuck. All sanity, hope, magic gone. Until it wasn’t, then it was again, then it wasn’t and now it’s really gone. How many times did I almost die in Perdition…too many.  Punch drunk and drunk drunk. Trying to stay out of the path of the inebriated uncle at the wedding and failing miserably. Gemini…shocking situations huh? Shocked I lived.

Well I’ve lost it all, I’m just a silhouette
A lifeless face that you’ll soon forget
My eyes are damp from the words you left
Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest

You win. I give up.

Been broken so many times I’m not even pieces anymore, just a fine powder. Add some water and fire, I can make a whole new vessel just to have some Hulk come along and smash. Is that what is supposed to happen?

I suppose, looping back to the beginning, if it wasn’t just one singular even that launched us into the darkest timeline, it cannot be one singular event to launch us out.

The cranberry juice guy was a good start, doesn’t erase anything but he was a tiny speck of light in the dark. Dolly Parton becoming a saint to take Carrie Fisher’s place. Saturn is leaving the station he has occupied for the last 3 years and moving into the dreamier, less harsh sign of Aquarius and chillin’ in the sky with Jupiter for a lil bit.

I don’t have any answers, I don’t even know what questions to ask anymore.

Wait, maybe I do.

In 2014 I was taught to ask ‘how does it get better than this’ whether things were good or bad.
I have fallen out of that practice and I once found it soothing.
Maybe I will go back to that.
2014 was pretty good. Saturn was just entering Sagittarius, there was some love, some loss, a lot of lessons and the first time I ever heard that song.

2014 was my first year of becoming what I am now, and I could not have made it through the last 3 without the 3 before that. I know this.

3 years from now I will be a slightly different person, maybe still in the same place but I will be far enough removed from now to see what I was supposed to learn.

And if you’re in love, then you are the lucky one
‘Cause most of us are bitter over someone
Setting fire to our insides for fun
To distract our hearts from ever missing them
But I’m forever missing him
And you caused it

Exotic hyperons interact with protons at CERN

I shouldn’t be writing this.

I am way too biased.

Or, maybe I should.

I am super ultra mega qualified.

And I believe it can be justified.

I’ve been to every point of the compass rose when it comes to cheating and the halfway points in between.

Done it to others, had it done to me, cleaned up the messes when it has happened to my friends and I have been the mistress more than once.

R.M. Drake has been on A rotation on my newsfeed lately.

This.

This is important. A justification of sorts.

I refuse to be the bad guy for not living up to the expectations and ideals of someone who cannot be bothered to know me.

That is both lazy and illogical on their part.

Want to dictate someone’s every move? Go get a puppy or a puppet.

I don’t need to be trained, and I am a real girl. No strings needed, no leash required. Treat me right and I will return of my own accord.

Do I think cheating is great?

No.

I don’t.

But also, I think monogamy is toxic as fuck so there is that then.

I also know enough about myself and the world to now that the way I feel about things is not the only way things can be thought of.

Not my body, not my business what you do with it.

Do you boo.

But maybe listen to what I have to say before you right me off as a crazy slut with no boundaries.

Too many people in our lives have these false narratives about what they think we should be doing; what they think we should be. How they want us to fit them and how we should behave.
According to whom?

Am I not the boss of me? You go be the boss of you.

This dictatorship towards others leaves very little room for personal growth, truth and exploration. This constant bending and breaking and getting squished inside boxes that never fit, with labels that don’t match who we are.

It happened to me. More than once.

I couldn’t always find the exit. So sometimes I smashed through walls and made my own door.
Not subtle or graceful by any stretch. But I couldn’t stay where I was.

Especially not the last time.

Yesterday I was hit upside the head with the last time I cheated.

Like he sauntered into my inbox mere hours after I spoke of him.

It was weird, not gonna lie.

Remember that time I had a whole bunch of money and an apartment I really loved? (just testing)

I haven’t spoken to him in years. I cannot recall our last interaction, if it was good bad or indifferent.

I speak of him sometimes. He was my first healthy venture into the world of polyamory.

But not to him. Not until yesterday.

10 years ago this coming Super Bowl Sunday, when I was still trapped on the farm and really thought all hope was lost, he messaged me out of the blue.

If I had to guess, we hadn’t spoken since a really shitty break up a year or 2 prior. That time is very fuzzy for me. I just remember him asking about my tits and football.

He threw me a lifeline and like the drowning girl I was, I took it and didn’t let go. Hauling myself hand over hand to safety and sanity in an ocean of shit.

For he record. I hesitated. I had made vows and agreements and whether they were fair or sane, I made them.

2 months later I was sneaking out to sleep with him at every possible opportunity.

I’m telling all y’all it was a sabotage.

My ex husband had his mistress living in my house. I went back to an ex-boyfriend while still keeping one foot in my marriage.

No further justification needed right?

Technically, no, not really.

Literally no one except ex husband took any issue with what I was doing.

Shoulda coulda woulda left.

But at the time it did not seem possible.

So I did what I had to do to survive.

In an email to a friend I stated, “I was going to die or go insane, so I cheated.”

I was the least loved person in the house. Any dignity or ego I had shredded into nothing.

I really had lost the will to live.

The farm that was once Thunderdome had become a never ending episode of Survivor on a horrific loop. The 3 people I lived with doing their best to torture and banish me.

Good job guys, it worked. I left it to rot and ruin and built myself a new life. Several since really.

I did what I had to do to survive the circumstances I was in until I could change those circumstances.

I will not apologize.

I honestly don’t think I would have survived had it not been for my…mister, is that what we call male mistresses? I don’t fucking know. I think I named him the Ninja before. Ninja it is.

I had actually become completely accustomed to being misused and very misunderstood.
I had begun to think it was normal, that that was how things are.
At least when I was with him, I felt something that wasn’t sadness or rage or uncomfortably numb.

He didn’t promise me the world. I had hurt him too badly in the past for him to write a future with me in it, I don’t blame him for that at all.

He did what I cosmically needed him to do.

Showed me there was a world beyond the one I was trapped in. Reminded me that I existed, and that I was once happy and could be again.

He was a band-aid on a gaping chest wound. I know that now. But he slowed the bleeding just enough that I got my strength back and for that I am grateful.

I had to leave, take the knives out for once and for all so I could heal instead of impaling myself on the same sharp shit over and over. Constantly bleeding out.

And while there are raging narcissists like my ex husband for example who will cheat to fill the giant black holes where their souls ought to be, happy people don’t cheat. But, ultimately, he wasn’t happy, and as much as he tried to blame me for it, it wasn’t my fault. Nor was it his fault I was unhappy.

We just weren’t.

I know this is going to be a huge bone of contention with people who have been cheated on.

Sorry, but I believe this to be true.

I don’t like words like ‘blame’ and ‘fault’. I also don’t like the idea that I might end up in a situation where I am the only source of happiness for someone and that somehow my punishment for NOT being their everything will be their infidelity.

I accept that I can’t be that for someone, furthermore, I don’t want to be.
I have my own shit to do.

A lot of happy people I know are also polyamorous. Some practice it, others just understand it.
These are the ones who have a healthy idea of love and relationships.

They don’t rely on one source or one person for contentment and sustenance.

No one should really, it is a really too big a burden to place on one person.

And that is where I will accept some responsibility for the actions of my ex-husband, and my actions and reactions.

I did put that burden on him.

While simultaneously demanding he adhere to a picture of him I had painted of him in my head. Yes, he handed me the brush and some of the pigments when he lied to me and edited what he really wanted, and who he really was. But I did the same thing. Feigned contentment when I wanted and needed more than he could provide. Hid the pieces of myself that I fly like multi-colored flags now, announcing my presence and place in the world.

We both failed, ourselves and each other.

He tried to hide me away, but I let him.

He tried to amputate pieces of me, but I laid there and handed him the knife while demanding a limb for a limb.

Neither one of us was ultimately happy, or we wouldn’t have done what we did.

We weren’t compatible.

Like not at all.

I see way too many relationships like that and still participate in some personal relationships built solely on convenience and habit instead of symbiosis. Final Boss was that. Someone to scratch an itch I couldn’t reach, and I tried to make something out of it. Whoops.

But I am getting better.

None of my relationships prior to 7 years ago were built on any kind of understanding, because I didn’t understand myself.

Just one recipe for disaster after another and quite a few that I committed to imploding over and over again. Jamming puzzle pieces together instead of looking for ones that fit.

Ex-husband was a different monster in that knew who he was, didn’t like himself at all, and tried to make me responsible for fixing him and filling an ideal that couldn’t possibly exist in one woman.
I had no idea who I was and thought I could adapt and change into what he needed.

Dishonesty. All of it.

An easily toppled house of cards and lies and every time it would come crashing down, we would hastily rebuild it exactly like it was before.

The literal definition of insanity.

It was never going to work, and I cannot get that time back.

But I won’t dwell on my old prison, nor will I apologize for breaking out.

Part of me did die in that house, she had to so the rest of me could live.

I met you and suddenly I find myself needing to know the plural for apocalypse.
Riley Finn, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I didn’t check my memories when I woke up this morning.

I usually do.

Got a notification reminding me, so I looked.

There is a LOT in there.

Yep.

Martyrdom is exhausting at best. All sacrifice, for what?

Saint Sarah, patron saint of gypsies. For reals, look it up.
I look after those who wander, while I myself wander?
Great, thanks.
And here I am 7 months from homelessness without a clue where to go or what to do.
Pray to myself maybe?

And weirdly, or not so weirdly, “Maybe God is Trying to tell you Something” just came on my Spotify playlist.

It’s been dead air and blackness for a couple weeks now.

Go ahead god, I am listening.

I had a vision of the future where I was happy. I sat down and did the actual paperwork and budget for it and realized it was a practical possiblity.

But then it got snatched away and replaced with the nothing I am currently navigating.

It is dark here.

I have stood at the edges of so many abysses and never seen nothing like this. I’ll jump when it’s time, I always do.

A year ago today I was in Erie Pennsylvania, a week before I was supposed to return to Perdition, a week after I realized I was leaving finally, and I had a way out.

We got stuck in Erie. This stretch of impassable highway, going 10 miles an hour not sure where the road was or if we were even on it. It had happened before numerous times. That last bit of meteorological fuckery stretching out the last 4 hours to home into a half a day or more. Why the good people of Pennsylvania built a road that close to the lake where the snow flies sideways for ¼ of the year is beyond me.

Last year we thought we were going to have to stay the night, stopped for gas and snacks and sanity and somehow managed to get into a clear band between the blizzards and chased it all the way home.

In other words, we didn’t think we were gonna make it, but we made it.

And I too will make it even if I have no idea how. I can either wait out the storm or seize an opportunity of clarity and just keep going.

6 years ago it was this…

Life isn’t something I have. It’s not something that happens to me.
It’s something I participate in, wander around with child like wonderment at the beauty of it, and something I create with my thoughts and actions.
On that note, and being single for once, I have given a lot of thought on what kind of love I want to have.
Someone called me and that boy from high school ‘Mickey and Mallory’, but that isn’t it. I don’t want a body count.
For a while I was fixated on the idea of Johnny and June. But I can be more than a pillar and a muse.
I want Ricky Fitz and Jane Burnham, instant and total acceptance of each other’s weird.
I want Tyler Durden and Marla Singer, with the godlike sex, and the open ending, he came around in the end and the world fell apart while they stood together and watched it.
There is no pre-written conclusions here. and I can imagine them happy after the credits roll.

Wow, I am still exactly where I was before I even started this blog. Not okay.

Today was the day 6 years ago that I scheduled my first post for the solstice.

12.13.14 I let go of that boy from high school and the toxicity that came with it. 6 years and 4 days.

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4 men have reached out to me over the last 4 days.

One I have known since grade 7, one since 10^th grade, one was the aforementioned Mr. Solo from my 18^th/19^th year on the planet, and last night Giant checked in.

2/4 did this weird thing (last night, within moments of each other) wherein they used my full name and demanded to know if I was alright and safe.

They all know I would never cry wolf, not even with a wolf at the door.

I am safe, but I’m not alright.
(You knew that or you wouldn’t be here)
And not to be ungrateful, but let’s say I wasn’t safe…whatchoo gonna do about it?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m far from ungrateful. Giant almost always shows up exactly when I need him before I even realize I do need him.

But these problems I have right now are existential.
They don’t have solutions.

Men like to solve things.

I stumbled on this truth a few weeks back, that I don’t need something to do, I just need somewhere to BE.

I have to accept my lot in life or change my life.
Or just my perspective maybe.

It’s all posthumous autopsies over here.

I asked Solo last night, “instead of going over what went wrong with us, maybe we should look at what we did right.”

Him: A lot I think
We did love each other

Me: It was love wasn’t it

That kinda hit me like a train in my chest. We did love each other and it didn’t end up mattering.

He cited me taking care of him. And I did.

That is kinda what I do.

But I was 19 at the time. It wasn’t what I did then. But it might have been the beginning of becoming that girl.

What teenager put the needs of someone else before her own like that?

Me, I guess. Weird that it took 20 years in between being with him and then 7 more of being alone to realize all of this.

And hindsight says ‘yes’.

That was the beginning.

I also exhibited the emotional maturity at the time to accept that something was good without having a label on it.

Been practicing that for years and years now it seems.

He says we were kids experiencing grown up love and had no idea what to do with it.

He isn’t wrong.

I accept the term ‘grown up love’ with quite a bit of bitterness. I have years of anecdotal proof that most grown-ups do not have a fucking clue about love. But, at 19 and 20 respectively, he and I stumbled on it. The comfort we felt around each other allowed us to safely explore the people we were going to become.

3 out of 4 of the men who I spoke to last night have, at times, expressed different levels of regret for treating me the way they did in the time called before. I would have happily dated any of them. Tried to actually.

Giant no.

But that is different. He is the practice test for all the things I have learned… and I’ve passed with flying colors every time, even when the lessons and the questions change.

He says he has questions for me. Things he regrets not asking.
I don’t know what they are.
I don’t mind when he is cryptic.
I promised to answer them when I get back.

I feel bad for him actually. He seems to always find me right after a storm. The levees break and he just stands in the rush of my thoughts and my words getting drowned in my inability to shut the fuck up. I can hear myself talking way too much and I cannot stop myself. It has always been this way now that I think about it, and he is still here.

My tattooer friend from grade 10 sent me a long message asking me to see myself as more than the sum of my physical parts. I am trying.

They are all trying really hard to get me to see what they see, and I am grateful for it. Willfully blind but grateful.

I haven’t felt inclined to lie or sugarcoat how I am feeling and that in itself is a gift from god.

Solo says I am a good woman. They all do.

I needed to hear it.

I am not inclined to argue, but I end up alone regardless of my goodness.

And herein lies the existential dilemma. Do I continue to love the way I do and have that be reward unto itself?

Memories say yes.

Love these kings dressed in rags who have amnesia*, until they remember who they are.

No further instructions.

Just this.

Source*

Why You Should Date A Normal Girl Versus A Wild Mystic.