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I knew today was gonna be a two-fer.

I have been purposefully avoiding my blog and the internet trying to write another book.
But like a siren, she calls to me (U2)

I made it 2 or 3 days.

Flipped from 8 hours scrolling and one writing to 5 writing, 2 tanning and still spent some time upon the interwebz. But less than before.

33 000 words on the new book. Not in 3 days, altogether (6 months now?) But all things considered. Not bad. 3000 in the 3 days I tried.

Zero today but they can’t all be diamonds.

Inspiration exists but it must find you working. Picasso.

For comparison I can churn out a blog post (1000-1500) words before my first cup of coffee is fully consumed. Pour a second, sip, edit and voila. Ta da. Fairly instant gratification. Maybe that is part of the problem.

I have to break so many loops, one of them being beating myself up for the things I didn’t do when I had the time.

I forgive myself for the things I didn’t accomplish during the apocalypse.

Life happens, and rarely goes how we planned it.

I can’t plan now and am anxiously awaiting the transition from that particular fact being a source of terror to liberation.
I remember feeling free once. I know I did.
All this cosmic fuckery and eclipse portal energy that is normally reserved for the summer months is occurring in Sagittarius, the archer, the bowman, the personification of the reconciliation between man and beast. High energy fire sign shenanigans, like the Lion’s Gate portal that opens in the sign of Leo, but the energy here is more mature and refined, less ego and more forethought.

Add to that, the bow and arrow.

That is exactly the sensation I am feeling right now, a rapid pull backwards into things I thought I had conquered and dealt with, but I haven’t.

The tenseness of pulling forced backwards and the need to hold steady from back here and aim properly.

I am getting pulled way way way back.

I am 19.

I wrote earlier today that once upon a time I used to like to dance, in bars, for fun.

I did.

I don’t know what happened to that girl who felt confident enough to do so, but she’s long gone.

I don’t know who said what or what happened that took that away from me. But I am too self-conscious now. Which is super bizarre considering I am a stripper and I dance on stage in front of a crowd for a living. I don’t know how it is different, it just is.

But let’s go back and visit the girl who could dance for fun, shall we?

I am going to age myself here, but I have a very vivid memory of Lenny Kravitz singing ‘are you gonna go my way’ and me smiling in a crowd of people, moving my hips and being happy.

And I have a very vivid memory of walking up to the bar to get a cranberry juice and seeing ‘him’.

I agonized last night about what to nickname him, everyone gets a nickname.

He was just gonna be LLTL, long lean tanned and lovely.

He was.

But he Solo’ed me 3 months prior to that night in the bar.

My girlfriend from public school was getting married and we had these events called ‘Stag and Does’. The couple would sell drink tickets and have raffles for prizes and raise money for the wedding. I am sure they exist outside of the tiny town I grew up in by other names.

And I wasn’t old enough to go as a guest.

I was 18 though, and old enough to tend bar. So I did, and I was good at it.

I served this boy I had never seen before. And I knew almost everybody.

He was beautiful. Lithe, tanned skin, cheekbones for days. And cocky as fuuuuuuuuuck.

And at some point during the night he was climbing up he stairs to the bathroom of the community center rec room as I was climbing down and in a moment of brave I stopped on the last step, spun around and said “hey, you’re gorgeous.” He smiled this megawatt smile and said, “I know.”

I think it was March.

By June I had turned 19, had a new tit and I ran into Mr. Solo at the bar.

I got brave one more time and made sure we went home together.

This went on for a few months at least, throughout that summer into the fall, 27 years ago.

So why bring it up now…

Glad you asked.

Once upon a time, probably 14 years ago when myspace was a thing I got a message from Mr. Solo.

He apologized for what happened at the end of that summer.

And what happened was this.

He looked me in the face and said, “I had fun with you but there’s girls you fuck and there’s girls you take home to mom.”

He started dating a girl he could take home to mom. I can see her face, she actually had really nice hair (don’t they all), but her name escapes me. A year younger than me and one of the popular girls. I was never popular, and I didn’t know if I was good amongst the moms, no one ever took me home to meet one.

I spun around again, probably 9 months to the day we met, and I walked away.

I was pretty upset. It was a shitty thing to do and say.

His roommates didn’t like me.

He rented a house with a bunch of dudes and they all worked shift work at the nuclear power plant.
They would sneer while he and I were snuggled on a scratchy, plaid, hand-me-down couch in the living room and listening to oldies.
He loved Janis Joplin. I loved all of it. The cuddles, the company.
The sneering and shitty commentary not so much.

His house was down the street from mine. And every Friday and Saturday night (prior to the aforementioned conversation) for months on end I would go dance with my friends until he was done drinking with his and we would go home together. In the morning I would walk the short walk home, shower and go about my week. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I was happy.

His bedroom had knock off Holly Hobbie wallpaper and we would giggle about the big headed kids. We fucked of course, a lot, but we talked a lot too. I remember waking up and telling him about a dreams I had while the moon glow came through the window and covered the bed in this beautiful blue light.

He always held me while we were sleeping. He always listened when I spoke.

He was the closest I had ever gotten to having a boyfriend. And even though there was no label on it, it felt good and real.

I didn’t know at the time that he would stay awake and watch me sleep too.

He didn’t just apologize back in the myspace days. He said I was the one who got away.

That he had massive regrets.

I saw him 8 or 9 years ago. I have a weird feeling it was the weekend that I went to another ex’s wedding, the one who kept saying my name instead of his bride to be’s. Whoops. Must have been another vortex of cosmic madness.

After a nice lunch and catch up session at the very bar we used to hook up at, he walked me to my car and stole a kiss. Said something about not wanting to add one more regret about me to his life.

And I talked to him last night.

He was just checking on me. He used to do that a lot.

He disappeared a couple years ago, off my friends list.

I finally asked him why last night.

He said he was jealous, and he didn’t like seeing me get hurt.

I didn’t dig any deeper. I honestly don’t know which part of the parade, in the festival of pain that is my dating life, was the trigger there. I don’t need to know.

My need to archive and be historically accurate all the time is waning these days.
Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future. (Steve Miller Band)
I just know history repeats itself.

Just like I knew Solo’s birthday even before I checked, August 4^th, of course it fucking is.

I asked permission to write this so I could try to sort through everything.
He said okay.

Me: You unfriended me a long while back Can you please tell me why?

Him: Basically, I was an idiot. I think I was jealous.

Me: Okay, I didn’t understand

Him: I didn’t like that you kept getting hurt and knowing you didn’t deserve it

Me: It seems like that’s just my life
Actually 90% of my relationships have been like ours was. Like disturbingly eerily similar

Him: Ya?

Me: Guys get really excited about me and then bolt.
You used to watch me sleep (and you left anyways)

Him: Ya, it was cute.

(it was)

Me:Was that a ‘me’ thing or is that a thing you do with women?

Him: I didn’t do it before you, or since

Me:I was 19 ______. 27 years of living the same relationship
What voodoo did you do?
Maybe you could write a letter on my behalf advising them not to run

(pause)

Me: Do you still have regrets?

Him: With you? Definitely.
I should have listened with my heart instead of my ears.

Me: Your friends were pretty douchey
Or is there more to the story?

Him: No, that’s the story. It never ends with me not being an idiot.

Me: I’m sorry
I wasn’t very brave either

Him: Don’t be sorry. I could have fixed it and I didn’t. That’s on me.

Me: I could’ve said “um no, you’re not dumping me”
I’ve heard that is a thing
Instead of just walking home a crying about it

Him: Ya, but I should have realized what I did to you. Youth is wasted on the young.

It truly is.

But what if we aren’t young anymore and what if there is some cosmic fuckery pulling off old bandages and showing me this is just the same thing that happens to me over and over. I’m finding no comfort here.

I don’t want to be a regret any more than I want regrets of my own.

How do I stop this?

I don’t know what I am supposed to do.

It isn’t even new information.
He was the first to do the thing, and the first to admit regret.

But there have been so many others.

Am I supposed to dig my heels in and refuse to go when I am being exchanged for ‘wifey material’?

Had I found the brave to say “No, this is good and we both know it now shut up and fuck me.” Instead of returning his hoodie when asked to do so, cheeks aflame with shame and cocooning in my room would it have made a difference?

I’ve never actually tried that.

The closest I ever got was asking Giant ‘why’ and continuing to sleep with Final Boss after the fact. I slept with both of them after the fact.

No.

What’s past has passed.

Everything went the way it was supposed to.

I just wish I knew what I was supposed to take from this before I launch into the unknown yet again.

And maybe this is it.

Maybe I never asked them if they were really truly sure that they really truly wanted me to leave was because I didn’t feel worthy of being there in the first place.

And a big part of me still doesn’t.

I just accept what is given instead of asking for what I want.

Cosmic energy like what we just experienced is manic, like the worm at the end of a bottle of tequila. We were already drunk and this took it next level.
Euphoric and intoxicating and absolutely leaves all emotions raw and exposed.
Then there is the hangover.

I have an eclipse hangover.

We were told to dig back through 2017 for lessons between the darkening of the moon and the sun.
But my lessons are always the same.

I do the same shit over and over.

Make someone into something they are not, and I end up like Ke$ha at the beginning of Prayin.

“Am I dead? Or is this one of those dreams? Those horrible dreams that seem like they last forever? If I am alive, why? Why? If there is a God or whatever, something, somewhere, why have I been abandoned by everyone and everything I’ve ever known? I’ve ever loved? Stranded. What is the lesson? What is the point? God, give me a sign, or I have to give up. I can’t do this anymore. Please just let me die. Being alive hurts too much.”

To clarify. I don’t want to die. But I don’t really want to live either.

My life is just a void now. Return of the Haboob.

I get up. I feel like shit. I try to keep going. But going to what? Back to the attic? Then what?

At least my sweatpants are there.

There are so many unknowns. More than those the plague has created, which was already a fucking lot.

At least in 2017 I was brave. Not anymore. Punch drunk and hand shy.

Frozen in fear now.

I wasn’t really dealing with what was vexing me.

I thought I was.

But the other day I had a 2 hour long text conversation with someone I have known since I was 14.
And some extra truth came busting out like the silicone in my tit.

It’s leeching into my body and making me hurt. Bad.

He originally messaged me regarding writing erotica. Then we spoke of his divorce and finally my tits.

I can’t imagine how that one simple seemingly insignificant thing could have such a staggeringly significant effect on a young girl’s psyche, and the ripple effects that could cause.

Ripples became waves and I am drowning here.

That is what is bothering me. And now my good tit hath betrayed me.
Et tu good tit?

Something is wrong with the other one too. Feels like an air bubble trapped behind it.

I have been dealing with this since before he and I met. I started seeing my reconstructive surgeon in the 8^th grade. I met Scott in grade 9 or 10.

My first surgery was a disaster, second also went badly.

3rd was great.

This was the 4th and they’re making me too sick to move.

It doesn’t matter if time has passed or the situation is different. 

I am still that girl.

I’m 15 years old waking up from surgery, in pain, hopes crushed, a more deformed tit than the nothing that I started with, bawling while my mother screams at me. I am giving myself pneumonia at Christmas because I didn’t want to go home and be resented or pitied.

Or I am 18 going through the same shit that happened at 15. With the same ugly results. T’was a blessing when that one broke.

Or I’m 35 sitting in a freezing barn 3 days after surgery. Crying and getting screamed at, then abandoned so my husband could go fuck someone else in my house. An hour later I have a coat full of baby goat. The goat’s foot hooked into the binding holding my boobs into place and pulled it loose. I didn’t care. I got the goat fed and settled in for the night and collapsed into a depression sleep without fixing my bandages and they have been crooked since. Her name is Layla and she still lives.

Or I’m 40 away from the farm, sitting in another surgeon’s office getting poked and prodded while he draws incision lines on my skin. He proposed a lot of incisions. I didn’t go back.

I’m not creating scenarios. I’m remembering what happened. 

The good news is, my friend is an incredible tattooer and if I cannot accept the scars that will come from getting these hideous things out and amended, there is another option.

I had another surgery when I was 19.

It went well. Like super awesome, non traumatic day surgery with really symmetrical results. It was the day before my birthday and I really pissed my parents off by going to the bar the next night.

Honestly? I felt fine. My pocket was well established, I had 3 stitches internal through an old scar. I didn’t drink at the time. I was sober from my 18^th Christmas until I was mid 20’s.

The same Christmas party that I learned I was a really good bartender, I also realized I was a really bad drunk. I threw up a lot, on my boss’s girlfriend’s shoes.

Out of all the things I had done drunk, and there were some stupid, violent, terrible things…that was the thing that stopped me. I loved my job, I needed it to exist. So, I quit doing the thing that might make me lose it.

Didn’t stop me from going to the bar.

I used to love to dance, on dance floors, at bars, sober even. I don’t anymore, the idea terrifies me, and I have no idea why.

Everything is terrifying me lately.

My girlfriend went online for me and looked at some reconstructive surgery results, post mastectomy etc. and said the results looked really promising.

I can’t look.

I have been under the knife and come out disappointed too many times. I can’t see myself in those women.

At least she acknowledged the difference between being excited about elective surgery and what I am going though now. Too many people think I should be happy, and I honestly can’t be.

Yes, there is a chance that everything will be great and obviously better than now.

But…

I am going on well over a year of sickness with no idea of the cause (until recently) and I have a 75% personal failure rate and the absolute bullshit clincher is, I didn’t even need these tits, all I really had to do was leave my shitty husband and put on a bit of weigh.

At least, after talking to Njava and Scott, I feel a little less alone. Mandabear is letting me stay with her while I recover. Giant will come check on me too. I have a contingency plan of sorts.

And the surgery itself and the physical part of the recovery isn’t even what is bothering me so much as who will I be if I can’t dance anymore?

What if I end up too scarred and hideous to work?

How will I get by without the job that has kept me safe and fed for 22 years?
Who will I even be?
Where will I go?

I already feel fundamentally unlovable, 36 years of tit issues and I have never figured it out.

None of this is getting answered any time soon. I won’t know until I know.

And I am guessing everything I ever wanted is on the other side of this fear.

---

Author’s note.
This is not a plastic surgery vanity thing and even if it was, that’s my business.
But, to clarify…
I have a congenital deformity called Poland’s Anomaly and have written several articles about it.
Just use the search bar at the top right of the blog’s main page or Google and type in Poland’s Anomaly.

With Saturn leaving Capricorn and joining up with Jupiter, I have been charged with reconciling and figuring out what lessons we have missed from December 2017 specifically.

Not just me, every fucking body.

Where were you? What were you doing? What have you failed to fix or accept? What did you do wrong?

Good thing I have this blog so I can go back and look and see exactly where I was and what I was doing.

At the beginning of December 2017 I was pontificating about how things weren’t so bad the year prior.

And they weren’t. Looks like I had Big Spoon and Giant keeping me company after the Last One left.

Cruz was the spring/summer, and that was a whole big lesson on not building a relationship on sex alone. And seeing who someone truly was the first time they showed you.

November was setting up the house I didn’t want to be in and soon after left. My first trip to Newfoundland to heal from the Last One in October.

It truly was one of the best spaces I have ever created. And I did it alone.

No regrets or unfinished business there except a dryer full of my favorite linens that disappeared.

New Year’s Eve was spent finishing up the final edit on Half Wild Thing, after 4 or 5 years of not doing that. So that was calm and nice. Cathartic and necessary.

January I went to Mexico, check, here again, likely leaving 3 years to the day I arrived.

But what about that cosmically important part in between when Cronos was handing out life lessons?

I have 21 articles to tell me all about it.

Roy Moore almost got elected, #metoo was happening, I wrote about my desire to have a gangbang or I got banned from Facebook and had to republish the article with a different title and featured image. I think the latter.

I went to the secret wedding.

Ben Howard took his place in the A-rotation on my speakers and the soundtrack to my life, alongside Lord Huron, which is aptly playing right now.

To the ends of the earth would you follow me?

And I think I figured it out. Fuck

December was Florida. The journey through the Sierra Madres this time made me extra reminiscent for those last 7 years of journeys to peace and waves and ocean.

West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home, country roads.

It did look and feel like that, just with unfamiliar palms and cacti and the mountains were higher.
The tunnels and bridges were different but beautiful. But still, take me home.

I don’t know if I had made the decision to move yet. I must have.

The clincher there was the disaster trip with Panda to Florida, after which she told me she had hated me for a while. Even though she spent 10 days being a parasite in my happy place. But I know things weren’t great leading up to that trip, because she apologized when she got there and took it back when we got home. 3 years of friendship gone in an instant.

I also finally acknowledged the existence of twin flames and renounced my interest in participating in such nonsense. I gravitated back to a soulmate instead. Giant and I were going through some shit separately and healing together. A girl, with really good hair, tried to trap him with a baby. Bullet dodged. We held each other a little tighter in the night after that.

But I would never trap or manipulate anyone. And we still love each other. That wasn’t the lesson.

Twin flames do exist and it’s not a choice to be made, just a reality to accept and adapt to or run from.

I think I figured it out.

I made that boy from Newfoundland into something he wasn’t. And I made a big life changing move after he showed me the truth of who he was… and I suffered for it. I held onto what was said at the beginning and ignored the rest.

I think I do that a lot.

I focus so hard on what they were, I can’t see what they are.

It is easy to be excited about me at the beginning, I am shiny and new. I am low maintenance and high sex drive. I am acceptance personified.

Then there is this…

Most men’s predecessors were not leaders. They were men who served under those leaders and as such could only emulate those men in hope of touching to some extent the divine masculine force. Consequently, it’s those impersonations that ended up being passed down, and that’s why there’s no real explanation for any of those behaviors. That’s what begets the innate frustration; a need to tow the party line with no understanding of why and no willingness among any in the party to question it.

Women teach about feminine power all the time, whether they realize it or not, in insults just as well as in instruction imparted as a rite of passage. So whether they use it or not, many are in possession of that power.

And men who lack their own will quickly latch onto women who possess it. Because women can confer power to an extent (consider the effect Erykah Badu is said to have on men) because she can force him to grow into a force to match her own. This is likewise why those same men later cut and run; the Work is too much for them and they couldn’t handle it.

Arias Ethaniel Ri’Chard

I do think there is something about me that forces men to grow or run.

I also think I have tainted the life experiences of a couple young ones wherein they have known me and can no longer settle for less than what I give. Maybe that’s a blessing, they don’t have to go through the mess of lesser love.

I know this endless search and how painful it is though, to be wrong over and over.

I’d spare us all if I could.

But maybe that is part of it.

I think the not knowing is worse than knowing. The atrophy of acceptance without the thrill of trying.

I tried.

12.12 portal is open, inside the eclipse portal that closes in 2 days, with the Great conjunction a week after that. And a new moon close to the new year.

It is a powerful time. The sun is going to go dark and so am I.

I was a-ready to die for you, baby
Doesn’t mean I’m ready to stay
What good is livin’ a life you’ve been given
If all you do is stand in one place

I’m on a river that winds on forever
Follow ’til I get where I’m goin’
Maybe I’m headin’ to die but I’m still gonna try
I guess I’m goin’ alone

Lord Huron, Ends of the Earth

fuck, i wrote this whole thing and forgot to go back far enough.

The Aftermath

My Viking witch from Colorado that reads my cards and holds my hand when I fall apart messaged me at the beginning of 2020 and said,
“Buckle up buttercup the retrogrades this year are overlapping and intense”.

It isn’t like I didn’t believe her, I did, but how could anything go wrong?

I had met the love of my life, I had a grand plan, I had moved away from perdition, I was writing a book, I had a cute little attic space to hold me and my things when I wasn’t visiting here or there, I found a great place to work where I was 2 weeks on 2 weeks off, so I could travel, how amazing is that? The future was laid out before me so beautifully.

It was a leap year, weren’t leap years good?

Well, 2016, but nothing could be quite so bad as that with losing Bowie, and the clowns, and the gorilla, and Prince and the election and and and 2012 wasn’t great either. Still dating the potato and struggling. 2008 I was still stuck in my marriage, okay, leap years are bad, historically they just are. I know this.

But this one felt different. Didn’t it?
My optimism is an idiot of epic proportions. Just clueless really.

But I had good reason at the beginning of the year to think things were going to be…good.

I saw my man in January and again in February, the price of plane tickets dropped dramatically in March, so I got to go to Arizona and then go see him again for 5 days.

I had been sequestered on an island of ‘not quite right’ working every day for 2 years, never really going anywhere but work and home then work and back home. Dating dudes but not really dating, trying to get sober but never really staying that way. Living the same day over and over for 2 years and pretending it was a life.

I escaped, albeit on a whim, with some good luck and help from a dear friend.

It was time for me to fly, right?

I knew about the virus, my roommate owns a business in China, we’d been following the news since December, but I had lived through SARS in Toronto, much ado about very little, surely this would be that. Zika, MERS, Ebola, this is just how the world is now right? Tiny little outbreaks far away and the world spins madly on.

That didn’t happen this time. But we persevered, this is what we do. This is what I do.

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

In the middle I kept getting sicker and sicker and not knowing why. My man and I split briefly after a disaster trip to see him in June (mid retrograde, what was I thinking). Then quickly reconciled. I went back to perdition for 80 days. Collected the rest of my things, fixed my car and made peace with the past and then I drove home in immeasurable pain. I left just in time for my work here to shut down, I could have turned around and gone back but I didn’t, and I am wondering if I made the right decision.
Then I came here just to have all of that fall apart again.

As it stands, when I looked at the previous trips on and off the island, the 3 days in the car, it never hurt like that before. Pulling over every few hours, crying so hard I’d puke. I went to the doctor, and a month later I was diagnosed with Lyme disease, then undiagnosed and they finally found the rupture in my implant that I knew was there. And a not so metaphorical hardening of my heart which is now also metaphorical.

I see clearly that needed to go back, and I needed to leave, and I needed that push to go to the doctor and get this figured out.
Just like I needed to leave in January and be in the safe space of my attic as the world got weird.

My life was getting stolen by the silicone migrating around my body, but because of lockdown I didn’t even realize. Almost a full year lost to sickness, my own and this virus.

But I kept living and trying.

And now we are 25 days to the end.

I thought I was going to get a cosmic do-over. My optimism somehow made it through the worst of all this.
Until now.

All the things I wanted to do at the beginning of 2020, the life I saw for myself not gone, just delayed.

Right?

Universe says no. Tarot cards say no. Eclipses say no. What was the point of surviving all those retrogrades and all this chaos just to get to the end and have that taken away too?

I suppose I will just have to keep going to find out.
My optimism has taken a back seat to stubbornness.

If I don’t know where to go, I’ll get there ~ Reality Bites

That life I thought was just delayed ain’t happening either. Creeping deadlines come and gone, replaced with other (more urgent) deadlines. Surgery, eviction. My hetero life partner in crime tucked into a very good relationship 1000 miles away from where we were going to live. And I am happy for her, I am.

My relationship has dissolved into nothing. My son turned the key on his very first apartment of his very own. He has a union job, and he is happy. I am officially unencumbered, and I am truly alone. I am still adjusting.

25 days to the end. Sitting on my girlfriend’s couch while the rest of the household sleeps off a drunken night at a cowboy bar, drinking mediocre coffee in my bestie’s boyfriend’s sweatpants. Not ideal, but not the worst either. He said I could keep the pants.

I don’t really believe the universe adheres to the Gregorian calendar, but as someone on this earth and stubbornly clinging to this mortal coil, I kinda gotta.

I supposed I should be grateful to be entering the new year free of attachments and obligations.

And I truly am grateful for all the things I have, the things I have lost and the things I have learned.

This was a year of rest and recovery; I have more rest and recovery waiting on the other side of surgery. I will start feeling human again approximately a calendar year from when the world shut down.

And, yes, there are a lot of unknowns.

Where will I live. Where will I work. Will my tits be better or worse. Am I really going to start feeling better after surgery or is this just the one head of the Hydra and two more monsters will grow in it’s stead. What if I do feel better and I am still not capable of accomplishing anything. Then what.

So many then what’s, where’s and what if’s and so few answers.

I think I am going to cocoon for the next little while. I have no ‘have to’s’ until my consultation and subsequent surgery.

I remember one new years when I was hold up at my girlfriend Anna’s house, with intermittent Wi Fi, mid break up with ex hubby. Her house was so full of cat hair and despair. I’d bet money it was a leap year. I cried so hard I puked for 3 days and in between I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and decided to keep living. I know the plural of apocalypse, I have survived many.
That was about my lowest point on this earth.
If I made it through that, this coming one on the ocean should be a cakewalk.

I’ll sit quietly through the eclipse and the great conjunction on the solstice. Welcome 2021 down at the ocean just letting everything go to make room for the new.

I have built myself up from nothing before and I know I can do it again.

Damn, y’all are toxic.

Let me rephrase and qualify that.

Probably not the people on my page who take an active interest and have the wherewithal to actually click on the link to come to the blog instead of just commenting on the meme I use for the featured image.

Most of you are okay, if not amazeballs.

But jesus fucking christ some of these other ones.

Toxic as fuuuuuck.

I guess I am lucky and must exist in a bubble, or I choose to ignore or cut out certain ‘types’ of people in my real life. Whatever it is, I was shocked and appalled at the reactions to this meme I posted.

And this lady.

This is a verbatim comment on my page on this particular post

Sounds like a “sex worker” seeking customers to me. If your definition of pleasure’s got nothing to do with anything sex outside a good & healthy relationship,i’ve got no issue with my lover hanging out with he’s friends. This post kinda sound like a add for sex workers to me,besides, if my man’s happy in our relationship,he ain’t gonna have much time for ppl out there cuz he’ll be too busy having fun with me. Again,am not saying he can’t hang out with he’s buddy’s which includes female friends. There’s no way on earth am gonna be in a relationship that i’ve got to share my man sexually,nope,i don’t want no damn STD’s sister   . LZG

Sis, who hurt you and why can’t you let it go?

And why is sex worker in quotes, are we imaginary?

I feel bad for her man, I truly do. I will bet money she won’t ‘let’ him watch porn.

Out of the 700 posts I have posted on ye olde blog I would hazard a guess that a good portion have contained something about ‘if you really love someone, you let them be themselves’ or ‘relationships are not tantamount to slave ownership.’

We all know I was married, we all know he cheated, we all know that I attained a state of stubbornness and crazy that I allowed the mistress to move in at one point. If memory serves, and sometimes it doesn’t, especially around then, it lasted February to September. I got caught cheating and was forcibly removed.

I started cheating in earnest in May of that year. Kicker was, I wasn’t technically ‘allowed’. There was no goose gander agreement. And while I technically agreed to the fine print, it wasn’t working for me. How could it. There was no room for renegotiation so I cheated.

He had spent years making damn sure I had no meaningful relationships outside of ours. I lost friends like a tree loses leaves in the fall for 7 years. Not entirely his fault, but still.

I was technically dependent, and he liked it that way.

Except it backfired, because I am me and I am likeable.

He still fusses that he can’t go here or there around where we lived because people judge him for how he treated me.

Well ya, what did you think was gonna happen? I am a good person, people like me.

Sounds like a lot of not my problem. I was a good farm neighbor, I helped when helping needed to be done. I was nice to people, I worked at the gas station and was pleasant to my co workers and customers. Not my fault they didn’t see his failed attempt at totalitarian Mormonism the way he wanted them too.

But that is narcissism 101. And has nothing to do with going forward.

From the things I post, and a few pages I share, I have noticed that I have amassed a small following of polyamorous people on my page. And I love them.

“I am too polyamorous for this comment section.” -Amy

Me too sis, me too.

I didn’t start out this way, see above where I was married, and he cheated*. I hated it; I didn’t want to share.

*Cheating is not polyamory. Polyamory is honesty and a custom agreement between the people in the polyamorous relationship.

But as all that water has gone under that bridge that I napalmed into oblivion, one of the first things I realized is that it wasn’t the sex that bothered me, it was the dishonesty and the ensuing, unending drama. So much drama.

The man I cheated on my husband with was polyamorous. The way he explained it and his honesty about his expectations and limitations from the beginning, plus the fact that he held me in the elevated regard and made sure I was emotionally okay all of the time made the whole polyamory thing make sense to me. He was a good partner, his extracurricular activities never affected me, he made sure of it.  He stated he tried being monogamous a few times and he was fundamentally unhappy. I accept this.

Everyone has different needs and if you want a healthy relationship you should probably figure out what those needs are and make sure they are compatible with yours.

It is literally just accepting your partner for who they are.

The end.

He was 6’3”, blond, blue eyes and not monogamous.

He couldn’t change who he was anymore than he could grow or shrink a few inches.

Just is.

I doubt in my lifetime I will ever see the death of this traditional prison everyone calls marriage.

And I am sure I have said this before but literally every other contract has terms and conditions and escape clauses. There should be a renewal clause. Every 5 to 10 years a renegotiation. People change and grow apart. The 7 year itch is real and has merit. The divorce rate is over 50%, normalize not staying somewhere you are unhappy be it a job, a relationship, a city anything. We are not built to live the same year over and over until we die, unless you are and that’s fine too.

If I ever did get married damn skippy I would be checking in every so often to make sure they still wanted to be married to me. Who am I kidding? I’d know if it wasn’t working and I would leave gracefully. I will always leave a party before I am asked to.

It is unrealistic and downright disturbing for an adult to rely on another singular adult for everything until you die. That ain’t love, that’s dependence.

Yes love is grand and wonderful, and even though the term bae bugs me a bit, I do like what it stands for ‘before anyone else’. That doesn’t negate the need for ‘anyone else’ but it denotes respect and a hierarchy of sorts, that to me is perfectly acceptable.

I am taking back bae.

Yep.

Mrs. Klukach grade 7.

It’s not really her fault, not really. I always wanted to be a writer.

I won an award that year for a collection of short stories, horror stories. She was the one who submitted it. It was a really big award. I was an all Canadian finalist, I think. Not bad for a pre-teen kid in a tiny village.
I was a weird kid man, I read It by Stephen King 2 years before (I was 10, bad idea) and although I still have nightmares about it and it brought back my dormant stutter for a while, it changed me. It made me want to write. So really it’s Stephen King’s fault.

I was 12 and I think I came in 3^rd in all of Ontario. My memory is a bit fuzzy, it was 34 years ago after all. I remember the basic layout of the classroom, I remember where I sat, second row from the door, 4 seats back. We could see trees out the window, I had a purple pen that smelled like grape bubblegum and I won a writing award. I don’t think my parents really cared that much, but like I said, those memories are muddy.

I saw Mrs. Klukach the summer after grade 9, she came to see me on purpose to ask me what the fuck happened to me. Second time ever I had heard a teacher swear I think and it jolted me. I was such a good student, I had such potential etc. and I was failing, badly. She was visibly upset, and I didn’t understand why she cared about the nothing that was me. I don’t remember the answers I gave her, but I am still that girl, standing in the driveway of the house my parents rented while our other house was getting built. Feeling intense shame about letting down an adult who believed in me so much that she came to my house to try and stop my self-destruction. I couldn’t figure out why I mattered to her, but it seems as though I did.

That book I wrote got thrown in the fire after we moved, and I didn’t write another word for years. I ran away and dropped out of school shortly thereafter.

So at least this is my excuse for the last 10 months but how about the 396 months between getting that award or the 372 months between her and the driveway and March 13^th 2020 when the world shut down.

In no way in my entire life have I ever lived up to my potential.

Law of averages states I am a little over halfway through this particular lifetime. Maybe another 396 months if I am lucky. Probably less if my heart breaks.

I could run through the gambit of excuses for why I am the way I am. I have a deformity, I left home at a young age, I had a child young, I never really felt supported, had testing been around when I was school aged I might have been diagnosed ADHD or something like it. I struggled financially my whole life really until I turned 39 and dumped the last of the leeching boyfriends. I could lay the blame at the feet of literally all of my exes if I wanted to. From the one who knocked me up, to the ones who took advantage of me stripping and virtually pimped me out and wrung me dry. To the ones who weren’t ‘readers’ and couldn’t figure out why I wanted to spend half my days with my face in a notebook or my laptop and thieved my time making their supper or washing their dirty drawers.

But it’s really no one’s fault.

Lots of people who had it worse than me made something of themselves. And here I sit, on borrowed time in an overpriced Airbnb talking to you fine folks about how I wasted my life. And all of it boils down to my choices.

I wanted to be loved so badly that it encompassed my life, all of it. I searched and settled and searched again, and in between I survived. Never really thriving.

I am writing yet another book, at least I am stubborn about one thing, it’s quite good, little rambling in bits, but considering the state of the world as is, and the post-apocalyptic landscape I created in the fantasy world I am writing about, I just want to make sure everyone is crystal clear on why the world ended, greedy men and the alt right christian patriarchy.

Even then, I started it mid-March 2020 and have had all the time in the pandemic world to work on it and I go weeks and months without looking at it. Even this last little trip when I decided this is it, it’s time, I can do this, I have barely done this. 3 weeks and maybe 6000 words. Not even enough for a novella. I am failing.

I couldn’t sleep the night before last, couldn’t eat either, my stomach in knots and my brain spinning. So I didn’t sleep, and I didn’t eat, I just wrote, a few blog posts that will be posted eventually and a few just to take my pain from out of me and into somewhere where it can’t hurt me. And I made some headway on the book. One of the secondary characters is getting his backstory. I wrote the life he wanted instead of the one he chose. It’s the least I can do.

I find it funny too, for a girl who has always pined for love, I still write these powerful, witchy, sassy awesome female characters, loosely based on me, and they always live alone. 2 published works, and it’s still ‘her’ apartment. At least this book I live with other witches, but it’s still my magical house built into a yew tree.

Maybe I am creating my own destiny, both through crippling fear of failure and the resulting inaction and the inability to fucking focus on one thing and through these fantasy worlds I have the gift of creating in my head and sometimes on paper. Writing my destiny to always want something but never have it.

I am thinking too that I may actually have some kind of chemical imbalance that makes it harder for me to focus than your average Joe, plus a little mystical magical karmic interference. And the irrefutable fact that I have honestly never felt good enough, even when one of my favorite teachers was standing in my driveway (verbally) shaking me and telling me that I was.

Before I really started writing again as an adult and just kept a diary of sorts, and scribbled bits of magnetic poetic genius (they were pretty cool snippets really) I wrote 2 things.

As always, she is a prisoner of her ghosts

And

I’m afraid I am scared of my potential.

I threw those diaries and notebooks and collections of other people’s quotes away 4 or 5 moves ago but I still haven’t fully escaped that girl I was, pining for a love that would transform me, trapped by the negativity of myself and others and scared of my potential.

Those two things are just as true in this moment as they were when they appeared on my refrigerator half my life ago, as they were in the driveway of that rental house and I don’t know how to stop it.

Humans tend to take the easy way out. ~W

It’s not like I am even being easy on myself, just hard on myself in all the wrong ways.

Author’s note, for my own disheveled sense of continuity.

I finished Freak Show this past weekend, didn’t love it for the record, I wanted to, but alas, I sucked.
I hate that I feel compelled to finish things even if I don’t like them.
I only do that with other people’s creative projects, like this thing here, sometimes my own things fall by the wayside.
Anyways, that makes this post a week old at least and I forgot to publish it so it’s going to wreck my timeline.
I complain in the following about not feeling any magic in my life and rationalize this by saying I must be doing something right.

Not exactly.

T’was just the calm before the intense cosmic storm.

And now, for my next trick, I will attempt to write a blog post while finishing the last episode of AHS Coven.

My favorite episode is over, the one where Kyle starts learning how to talk and tells Zoe ‘this road goes two ways’. His broken brain realizing this simple statement means ‘I love you’. Gets me in right smack in the feels every time. I even get excited when I know it’s coming. I do that with shows and movies a lot. The anticipation of the thing that makes me cry, makes me cry.

I’m weird man, I don’t know what to tell you.

It is perfectly normal to re-watch old shows for comfort, this is known. Arrested Development knocks me out in 10 minutes or less, its my sleeping show. No loud bangs, no yelling. Ron Howards voice isn’t as soothing as Morgan Freeman or David Attenborough, but it does the trick for me.

The watching something knowing I am going to cry is a little bizarre, but sometimes what is inside wants out.

I need to remember.

I stopped typing partway through this post and started paying attention to the show. Then I had steak and egg avocado toast for supper and put my laptop away for the night.

For the record, I don’t think I am in the wrong story. Maybe just stuck in one chapter and I want to know what happens next.

I had my cards read yesterday, as a very sweet and unexpected impromptu gift from my Colorado witch.

The first card was Death.

Insert shock, awe and a lot of sarcasm.

We’ve been down this road before. She almost didn’t read the cards because they started out so similar to a previous reading. My opinion was if they were saying the same things, maybe I wasn’t listening before and now the cards were insisting I pay attention. I have been feeling rather stuck. In the immortal words of the Teletubbies, “Again, again.”

Tell me teacher, what’s my lesson?

The only constant is change babe.

The Death card means change and I am definitely shifting, I knew that already.
Everything is. Not rapidly so much as in easily digested metered doses.
I cannot remember the day when I realized my universe was always going to be in flux, but knowing it helped me navigate. The bad times never last, neither do the good ones and every turn I take on this path that I am on leads me somewhere new. I get to decide if I want to stay or not. I rarely do.

The reading she did mirrored things I had been writing and thinking pretty much verbatim, and this show just did it again. In real time, as I sit here typing. Reiterating the cards and her words one more time, just to make sure I took notice.

“You’re scared. No powers, no magic, just a woman facing the inevitable. A divine being having a human experience. No one can help you. You have to do this alone. And the only way out is through. Feel the fear and the pain. Let it all in and then let it all go.”

This is exactly what is happening.

My spirit guides are on a well-deserved break because for once, I am okay on my own.

I miss my magic though.

On the list of ways I start my day and my never ending search for signs and portents, I started following a couple twin flame accounts on Instagram. I usually find these pages and memes irksome. Not the messages themselves, but the comments.

Until you have left the planet at a touch, felt the world melt away at a glance, dreamfasted and also accepted someone for everything they ever were or ever will be, you don’t get it.

I need to level up about this and stop judging others and their path. Just kinda feels like these false prophets are cheapening the thing I searched my whole life for and finally found. But, as I type this, nothing can taint this except me, my thoughts and my actions.

So that’s that then.

The twin flame update today was so accurate it was spooky. Everything I wrote about, all the things haunting me and our current situation within the situation.

Thing is, I wrote the things before the cards spoke and prior to scrolling through Instagram. I was already in it, so the portents weren’t pointing me anywhere or pointing anything out, just a nod of ‘yes, this is what is.’

I am wondering if I am feeling a lack of magic and divine intervention because I am where I am supposed to be and I am ahead of the game. Or at least showing up on time to play.

I trained for this. There is no anxiety here.

I mean I AM scared. But I know these devils.

My fear isn’t in based in the unknown. Not this time.

 It helps that this is not a pass or fail situation, I just have to do or do not, there is no try.

Actually, that is a great explanation for life in general, thanks Yoda.

Same with retrograde. I knew my triggers I knew the rules and I followed them. 22 days of cleaning up old messes and finishing the unfinished. I even preemptively blocked the leaders of the fuckboy army. Not on a whim, nor with malice. I had a moment of clarity. I just knew what was coming and decided not to participate.

Even at the beginning of lockdown. I was where I was, and I was safe. I had to make a few huge decisions in the months prior to get there, it wasn’t where I was ‘supposed’ to be, I didn’t plan any of it. I felt compelled to make a rapid succession of huge lie changes. Turns out it was absolutely for the best and I am grateful.

I think the last decade of my life has had me vibrating in such discord that when everything finally lines up and calms down, I feel empty. Disconnected. No voices telling me where to go because I am where I am supposed to be. It is the absence of chaos.

It is quite lovely to be honest. This quiet calm.

The complete acceptance of what is with no worry for the future.

Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be.

“It’s like every time I sneeze, I am one sneeze away from the hospice.”
Vicki, Reality Bites

Fuck I loved that movie. Still do. It was one of the ones I overwatched in my late teens. Back when we had to rent movies from video stores. My buddy Josh worked at the one movie place in my small town, Superstar Video and I got away with keeping True Romance for way too long. I think I finally just bought it. Maybe I kept it so long so he’d call and remind me to return it. Who knows.

You’re so cool

Funny, the song from the end of the credits just came on my playlist. I downloaded it yesterday and I cried for some reason. It isn’t even shark week and I have been in my fucking feelings. I used to make everyone in the room shut up so I could hear the beginning of the song at the end. Two Hearts by Chris Isaac.

After my miscarriage it was Cold Mountain and Garden State. Both showcased Natalie Portman crying in her brilliant, contagious way and the word conundrum. I love the way she says it. You Will Be My Ain True Love still thunderpunches me in the heart. Found that out yesterday too, Spotify thinks it’s fun to make me cry. I had to wait to the end of Garden State to hear Let Go by Frou Frou. I watched them every day on repeat for 3 months. I had gotten fired so I couldn’t afford to buy them, so I just ran up the late charges instead. Maybe if Josh had worked at the Bloor and Dufferin Blockbuster he could have called me up and pulled me out of my funk, but he didn’t.

A kid named Mike worked there, years before the miscarriage, he chased me in the rain one time to get my phone number after I had rented a movie from him. He said he didn’t want to be creepy and get it from my membership info. It was hella romantic. I was 22.

But that’s not what this is about.

Jumbo Video in Timmins probably got a whole minimum wage 40+ hour a week paycheque so I could listen to Ethan Hawke tell Winona Ryder he had a planet of regret sitting on his chest about how he left her after they fucked. I rented that over and over and brought it back late often.

Oddly, that was a long running reality for me.

Meet a dude, date a lil bit, sleep together for a while and suddenly, without warning they were ‘out the door before the condom came off’. See blockbuster boy above.

Fun times.

And invariably they would show back up all carrying their own planets of regret. A parade of Atlases shrugging. And I would have to decide if I wanted to let them back in the house. I ran into Mike at a bar years later, he apologized profusely. I didn’t take him home.

You get what you ask for and then you realize you have to get better at asking.

Ain’t that the truth. Sure chasing me in the rain was romantic, as was him falling to his knees and begging my forgiveness in a dingy bar. But I don’t want grand romantic gestures with no substance in the middle. I lived 3 years wondering what I did wrong just to find out it wasn’t me. That is movie life, it isn’t real. Montages don’t exist. Just falling and healing and more falling with a few movie moments in between.

That isn’t what this is about either.

Hello time bomb, ready to go off ~ Matt Good Band

During the whole “is it Lyme disease, my tit or bone cancer” debacle of October past, I had to go for an ECG. They found suspicion of left ventricular hypertrophy.

One of the walls of my heart is down with the thickness.

Maybe.

It’s just a maybe based on a quick picture of my heart.

As a result, I am hyper aware of my heartbeat. And the last 24 hours it has been a-beating and a-fluttering something awful. Every other thump freaks me out, “is this it, am I done?”

I am sure I am fine. I have naturally low blood pressure, I eat like a saint, I quit smoking and I have been almost sober for over a year now, hey, 53 weeks. Yay me.

The weird miracle here is that if I hadn’t gotten so insanely sore driving back from SJ and gone to the doc to figure out what was wrong, I never would have been misdiagnosed with one thing and figured out the other things that are wrong.

That rash trip I took this summer to tie up loose ends and move forward with my life got me where I am right now.

It’s my tit by the way. None of the other 6 things they tested me for, and I knew it. As sad as it is, my good tit is The thing that is making me hurt all over. Making me feel 84 years old some mornings getting out of bed. Making my shoulders feel like they are dislocated and my hip feel like it is constantly in the wrong place unless I am face down in an awkward yoga pose. I never had Lyme disease, but I took my meds just in case and my face was pretty for a bit, tetracycline kills Lyme bacteria and acne it seems. I knew that but was still tickled by the results. Medicine done and the bumps are back. I’ll figure out what to do about that later. I have tanning to do and a life to plan.

The heart thing is vexing. It might be the same as the Lyme.
We think you have a thing but we’re gonna run 57 more tests just to tell you you don’t have the thing.

My doctor was funny when he cleared me of Lyme.

“Why did we test you for that again?”

“Because I asked you too. I knew it was my boob, but we had to prove what it wasn’t, remember?”

“Oh ya ya, smart girl. Thank you for telling me.”

He said that a lot. He is an urgent care doc, I had to fill him in on my vast medical history as we went along. He always responded “Okay, thank you for telling me.” And then went back to whatever he was doing or scribbling. And he never once got upset that I did some research on my own. Good dude.

Almost smart.
I didn’t research enough to realize that silicone migration could actually trigger a false positive, just thought the symptoms were identical, and they are.

Yep. Smart-ish girl with a potentially broken heart. And half the answers I need.

I told Attica what was happening, and she said, “oh no, does that mean you could die of a broken heart?”

Technically, yes.

Although if that were an actual threat, I’d be long gone.

I break my heart all the time.

I used to anyways.

I used to carry aspirin in my purse in case someone had a heart attack. I hung out with a lot of drug dealers and cokeheads; the threat was real. Turns out I needed it too. Maybe. Still haven’t gotten the next tests yet. I always worry about other’s hearts before my own.

I think it is high time I worry about mine.

My messy, oversized (now thicc too apparently), pink bubble cloud of an all-encompassing stubborn heart.

The kind of heart the universe falls in love with.

I almost broke my heart today. I had the option of staying safe and just keeping doing what I am doing, or I could let her parade out onto my sleeve and say what was on my mind and take the risk of being rejected.
Clincher is, it wouldn’t have broken my heart had the answer been no.

I’m not that girl anymore.

I spent a couple weeks mentally preparing and truly looking at all the fear factors, the possible outcomes and not only did I learn a lot about myself and my past, but I attained this level of enlightenment where I accepted all of the possible answers to my question.

Things only affect your life if you let them; and any loss you feel that involved another person is just you mourning a future that hadn’t come to fruition yet.

I don’t know what my future is. I have to deal with my tit and my heart before I can make any grand leaps forward. But I have an idea.

If you would like to support me in my folly I get $4 every time someone buys my book.
And you know it’s going to lead to some pretty amazing blog posts if I make a big leap of faith, so win win win.

American Kindle link here

You asking your mother to react to you in certain way is exactly like her expecting certain things from you.

Don’t do it.

Break the cycle

Let her be her.

You aren’t going to change her, don’t try

Do you boo.

Fuck that is all I have been saying lately.

“Same vacation different agendas”. = do you boo

“I understand but I don’t have to agree to abide.” = do you boo

Attica stopped drinking Monster energy drinks and now chugs kombucha instead, I did one good thing.

I have been getting mighty judgey lately though. More often than I am comfortable admitting.

 Quietly though, I am not being a douchebag out loud, but I think if I keep rolling my eyes with this frequency and intensity, they are gonna get stuck back there.

I said yesterday I think I am where I am supposed to be, but now I dunno. I used to be very live and let live, and I still am, but I am kinda sneering and biting my tongue in two.

I think it means that maybe it’s time for me to level up again. I am irritated by my own shortcomings that are mirrored in others.

I’m also tired. I have one child, I cannot mother the world, I have been known to try…and if I could…it might be a better place. I am mostly love light and acceptance over here.

Mostly.

I know the way I interact with everyone is a result of things I have never really received. I definitely do unto others the way I wish they would have done unto me.

I try to.

I have to remember other people are trying too.

Everyone has their own reality.

And the world is a really strange and hostile place right now.

I kinda want my mom.

I can’t remember exactly when I realized my mom is a person.

I know that sounds weird, but its true. I always saw her as MY mom, as in how she related to me and my existence. Not who she is on her own. I think that was terribly unfair. To judge her by the station she claimed by giving birth to me and not as the sum of her experiences and who she really is.

It went on way too long. I left home young and we never really had that opportunity to come to each other as women, I was still a girl when I left. I became a mother 5 years later and I still couldn’t see her as a peer, just as an authority. Someone I had to do right by, but I couldn’t.

I do remember years ago before I started driving so at least 12, maybe more. She fell and scraped her hands, face and knees on the pool deck. I don’t know why I called home that day, probably needed a recipe, or something or maybe she called me because it was the same weekend they had to put their dog down. He was getting old and starting to bite. I think he was deaf and blind and tired and mad about all 3.
So he snapped at my folks and a decision was made.

I heard my mom’s voice sounding uncharacteristically defeated on the other end of the phone and the epiphany started to hit as she listed off the laundry list of shit she was dealing with.

She’s just a woman who gets overwhelmed too.

So, without telling her what I was doing, I booked a bus ticket and took the 3 hour trip home just to be there and cook and help out. I think they had just listed the house for sale too. I know exactly what it is like to have everything happen all at once. My parents moved 4 times after I was born, I’ve moved 48 now, probably 30 then. This is my wheelhouse.

I never really got the luxury of needing my mom, but I took the leap that she needed someone and why not me? I was off work that week, my sisters were away, my dad still working.
We had a nice week and it changed absolutely nothing about our relationship, but it changed me and that is enough.

Our parents are not the gods and monsters we see when we are little. They are their own people with their own reality based on the catalog of experiences they have had throughout their lives. They have baggage and pain and joy that has nothing to do with us, their children.

I didn’t want to be like her.

I decided that she could no sooner change to love me than I could change to be loved by her. Asking either one of us to bend was fundamentally unfair.

I realized early on, even if I couldn’t articulate or accept it, that I either lived a life that made her happy, or I could be happy. Those two things could not coexist. Didn’t stop me from trying to find a balance and being mad at both of us when I inevitably failed.

We would never have been friends in real life. That realization made things easier for a couple decades.

I could never truly please her without denying who I am.

Whether it works out or not, I chose me.

But I have realized recently, that isn’t fair. I never gave her a chance. I never got to know her.

And the cosmic joke here is, I am like her, in a lot of ways. On my best days I am strong, in control, organized, efficient and logical. I nurture as second nature. My house is almost always clean and a source of personal pride. Who knew spending a few Saturdays a year rearranging furniture would give me this gift as an adult? I got my lisztomania from her. There is always music wherever I am. I can cook like a chef and I am a brilliant hostess.

The housework I resented as a child I carried with me into adulthood.

And I am grateful.

If the power threatens to go out, and it has, for 8 days once, 4 one time before, I kept my family safe, clean and fed because of what I learned from her.

And when her sister died in May, we talked.

We talked probably the most we have ever.

And I actually like her, my mother I mean. As a person. She’s very smart. And deeper than I ever imagined.

I remember hearing stories about her holding together the commune her and my dad lived on when he got back from Vietnam, and the fact that she drove across America to go get him when he disappeared for a bit.

How could I not see how amazing she is?

Where did I think I got my brave from if not her.

She’s 75 years old and posted half the BLM memes I shared to my page. She is staunchly equal rights for all, always has been. And loud about it.

My mom is really cool.

We both spent a lot of our conversations when my Aunt was in a coma saying ‘yep, me too’. I realized my core philosophies about life and death are compatible with hers. Identical really. We decided my Aunt had a really wonderful life and we chose to celebrate that and only mourn a little.

And she told me the one thing that made me feel better about losing such a wonderful Aunt.

“She always loved you.”

Its hard for me. I don’t even orbit my family. I am a weird comet that shoots through the night on occasions. Weddings, funerals that’s really it. All my cousins have babies and I have met maybe 6 of them. I missed them growing up, I have no rights to be involved with their children. These are my choices for the most part and I only hold myself responsible. I am lucky in a way. My last memory of my Aunt was her happy, healthy and smiling. I feel selfish about it and I am crying as I write this. But it is what it is. No tears or regret are going to change the last 31 years that I have been gone.

My 31 year old cousin died suddenly 7 weeks later. I’ve written about it. But I haven’t really dealt with it yet.
I was in an antique store in Galveston. And unknown number rang and I picked it up. Didn’t recognize the voice on the other end.

“Sarah, it’s your mother.”

In that moment, I really truly recognized her…hearing her small, sad, scared voice that 12 year old realization that my mother was indeed her own person attained a new level of clarity. She gets hurt and scared and devastated too. Something strange happened as I collapsed into a kitchen chair clutching some pretty pillowcases to my chest. I felt protective of her in that moment and I felt helpless and I realized how she must have felt so many times with me. When your child hurts and you can’t fix it. I am a mother, I know this feeling. But I wanted to fix things for her and I couldn’t. and I am wondering too, if maybe she was confronted with the possibility of losing me or my sisters as my other Aunt had just lost hers.

I don’t know where to go from here. I still haven’t taken those pillowcases out of the bag. That was June.

We joked bitterly that we really need to call each other when things weren’t terrible, and we have a little. Breaking a 30 year habit isn’t easy.

I can’t call her tonight, it’s too late.

I don’t even know if I can post this. i can barely see it, my glasses are fogging up and there are a lot of tears.

I hear a lot about healing the ‘mother wound’. I have been to a ton of therapy and gotten a lot of things off my chest, but I never felt the need for some dramatic confrontation about anything. I remember saying to my therapist years ago, ‘she did her best with the tools she was given, it’s not her fault we aren’t compatible.’ And I left it there. A game of x’s and o’s with no winner.

I know it’s hard for her when people ask after me, I haven’t lived a life she is proud of. Half the time I haven’t been proud either. But I hope she knows I am happy and I hope now that is enough. Maybe I will finally write a book I can put my real name on and she can read.

I know enough about her to understand why things happened the way they did.

I think that is my reason for always trying to glean the reasons behind other people’s actions and this is a gift I have that I could not have come by any other way. It is something I love about myself.

On a completely related note, I spent a lot of time alone in my room as a kid. And as a teenager I found music. One of the first albums I ever bought was the Joshua Tree by U2. I played it til I wore the cassette out and bought another one. To me it was poetry.

Running to Stand Still is playing right now.

And that is kinda how I feel about all of this.

You gotta cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice

I screamed enough when I was younger. I was an angry child.
I talk a lot now.
And I am weeping.

This is just catharsis and epiphanies brought on by someone asking me how to process their mother’s disapproval.

I don’t have the answers.

I am 46 years old, I am scared, I am sad, I am alone and I want my mom.

And now, for my next trick, I will attempt to write a blog post while finishing the last episode of AHS Coven.

My favorite episode is over, the one where Kyle starts learning how to talk and tells Zoe ‘this road goes two ways’. His broken brain realizing this simple statement means ‘I love you’. The road should go two ways, I never knew what that was like. Gets me in right smack in the feels every time. I even get excited when I know it’s coming. I do that with shows and movies a lot. The anticipation of the thing that makes me cry, makes me cry.

I’m weird man, I don’t know what to tell you.

It is perfectly normal to re-watch old shows for comfort, this is known. Arrested Development knocks me out in 10 minutes or less, its my sleeping show. No loud bangs, no yelling. Ron Howards voice isn’t as soothing as Morgan Freeman or David Attenborough, but it does the trick for me.

The watching something knowing I am going to cry is a little bizarre, but sometimes what is inside wants out.

I need to remember.

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The trick didn’t work at all. Stevie Nicks started singing Seven Wonders and I got goosebumps and ya, that was the end of that. I stopped typing a few paragraphs later and started paying attention to the show. Then I had steak and egg avocado toast for supper and put my laptop away for the night.

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I had my cards read yesterday, as a very sweet and unexpected impromptu gift from my Colorado witch.

The first card was Death.

Insert shock, awe and a lot of sarcasm.

We’ve been down this road before. She almost didn’t read the cards because they started out so similar to a previous reading. My opinion was if they were saying the same things, maybe I wasn’t listening before and now the cards were insisting I pay attention. I have been feeling rather stuck. In the immortal words of the Teletubbies, “Again, again.”

Tell me teacher, what’s my lesson?

The only constant is change babe.

The Death card means change and I am definitely shifting, I knew that already.
Everything is. Not rapidly so much as in easily digested metered doses.
I cannot remember the day when I realized my universe was always going to be in flux, but knowing it helped me navigate. The bad times never last, neither do the good ones and every turn I take on this path that I am on leads me somewhere new. I get to decide if I want to stay or not. I rarely do.

The reading she did mirrored things I had been writing and thinking pretty much verbatim, and this show just did it again. In real time, as I sit here typing. Reiterating the cards and her words one more time, just to make sure I took notice.

“You’re scared. No powers, no magic, just a woman facing the inevitable. A divine being having a human experience. No one can help you. You have to do this alone. And the only way out is through. Feel the fear and the pain. Let it all in and then let it all go.”

This is exactly what is happening.

I am scared. And no one can help me.

My spirit guides are on a well-deserved break because for once, I am okay on my own.

I miss my magic though.

On the list of ways I start my day and my never ending search for signs and portents, I started following a couple twin flame accounts on Instagram. I usually find these pages and memes irksome. Not the messages themselves, but the comments.

Until you have left the planet at a touch, felt the world melt away at a glance, dreamfasted and also accepted someone for everything they ever were or ever will be, you don’t get it.

I need to level up about this and stop judging others and their path. Just kinda feels like these false prophets are cheapening the thing I searched my whole life for and finally found. But, as I type this, nothing can taint this except me, my thoughts and my actions.

So that’s that then.

The twin flame update that day was so accurate it was spooky. Everything I wrote about, all the things haunting me and our current situation within the situation.

Thing is, I wrote the things before the cards spoke and prior to scrolling through Instagram. I was already in it, so the portents weren’t pointing me anywhere or pointing anything out, just a nod of ‘yes, this is what is.’

I am wondering if I am feeling a lack of magic and divine intervention because I am where I am supposed to be and I am ahead of the game. Or at least showing up on time to play.

I trained for this. There is no anxiety here.

I mean I AM scared. But I know these devils.

My fear isn’t in based in the unknown. Not this time.

 It helps that this is not a pass or fail situation, I just have to do or do not, there is no try.

Actually, that is a great explanation for life in general, thanks Yoda.

Same with retrograde. I knew my triggers I knew the rules and I followed them. 22 days of cleaning up old messes and finishing the unfinished. I even preemptively blocked the leaders of the fuckboy army. Not on a whim, nor with malice. I had a moment of clarity. I just knew what was coming and decided not to participate.

Even at the beginning of lockdown. I was where I was, and I was safe. I had to make a few huge decisions in the months prior to get there, it wasn’t where I was ‘supposed’ to be, I didn’t plan any of it. I felt compelled to make a rapid succession of huge lie changes. Turns out it was absolutely for the best and I am grateful.

I think the last decade of my life has had me vibrating in such discord that when everything finally lines up and calms down, I feel empty. Disconnected. No voices telling me where to go because I am where I am supposed to be. It is the absence of chaos.

It is quite lovely to be honest. This quiet calm.

The complete acceptance of what is with no worry for the future.

Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be.