Dang, You Guys Are Awesome

My post, What’s in a Name, garnered more appreciation and interaction from all of you than I imagined when I penned it. And I think that’s so stinking cool.

Seriously, thank you.

Like many of you, I have intimate knowledge of depression, hopelessness, loneliness, weariness, and the struggle required to make it through one more day. The thing about social media is that it can be a vehicle for so much deception. We can post photos that we’ve specifically curated to portray a life that seems dazzling, but reality often tells a different story. Because of my struggle with debilitating depression, I love to try and find beauty within the darkness since it’s incredibly difficult to experience true beauty and joy in your spirit when you’re locked in a battle with demons. Often times, I turn to my blog and the community on here to lift my spirits when I’m too tired to continue the fight.

So, again, I just wanted to say you guys are a cool bunch and I appreciate you ♥️

Also, check out this funny video that made me shriek when I saw it 😂 This makes me feel ooollllldddddddd 😂😩 (tell me if you understand what this convo was about.)

A Funeral of Years

I cut my teeth on the gap-toothed effervescent glow of innocence

where weeds and wishes grew in wild abandon

in that back yard that seemed to stretch forever.

With pockets full of daydreams, we exchanged small miracles for shiny nickels,

and braided lilting melodies of joy

into the flower crowns we wore.

Running with wild abandon into the future that shined so startlingly bright,

we never thought to look back at the innocence we shucked with every leap we took.

I lost that little girl somewhere in the sands of time and after many years of searching, I realized I’d attended my own funeral when I abandoned her.

Unworthy

Who will give us permission to ask for the things we believe we are unworthy of?

Happy New Year and all that

It’s been a whirlwind of a new year so far, I feel like I’m caught in a type of tornado and can’t quite catch my breath. But thankfully, it’s a tornado of positive happenings, so I’m both buoyed and exhausted. I don’t know how that even works but it’s really a thing.

I sincerely hope everyone’s year has begun on a positive note, or at least has the potential to become positive. Back when I was taking psychology courses in college, I remember learning about self-fulfilling prophecy and how we can become the authors of our own fate, and I’ve been on a journey of discovering how that works. The pandemic has really made the entire thing play out in a rather dramatic way, at least in my own personal little world. I spent Christmas in Paris on a solo, self enlightenment journey of sorts, and I’m happy to report that faith really does make things possible. I think for the Christian, the psychological phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy is better known as faith, and that all it takes is one tiny little step.

Anyway, I came back home refreshed and with new perspectives and I feel like I’m sprouting new shoots and unfurling new branches that are eagerly stretching towards a life well lived.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Untouchable

I unzipped my skin and tore away
entire parts of me in my desperate attempt
to please you. Staring dispassionately,
your only remark was to note
what a mess I created.

My Grief With My Culture

In this culture there is no room for individuality. There is only one mindset–conformity. Either conform or die.

What they don’t tell you is that to conform is to choose to die also.

Friday the 13th

Before I started working at the hospital, I was convinced that superstitious lore like Friday the 13th was entirely just that—nothing more than superstitious ramblings of overactive imaginations. I chalked full moons into that category as well, because, why not?

Fast forward to when I started working in the Emergency Room admitting patients into the hospital. I started noticing odd things that defied the course of “normal” life that the ER staff treated with a callousness that spoke of being entirely too exposed and desensitized to this sort of phenomenon. Mainly, the weird and creepy things that would go down on Fridays that fell on the 13th, and full moons.

Whenever we were scheduled to work on a Friday the 13th, there was always an electric charge in the air of the Emergency Room. Staff was always on high alert because we would get a heavier-than-normal influx of traumas and car accidents that would occur that day. But the really intense stuff usually started more towards the evening. I remember one evening, a man ran in through the sliding doors carrying his girlfriend in his arms who had a large knife sticking out of her stomach. She had apparently stabbed herself for no reason. Our lobby had already been full to brimming with patients who were unable to keep their hallucinations at bay and people whose suicidal ideations were driving them crazy. The silent man sitting in the corner suffered presences that followed him around that looked like the Dementors from Harry Potter, while the lady sitting next to the fish tank couldn’t stop seeing black cats that ran up the wall and disappeared into the ceiling.

Soon after, a squad of Sherriff’s cars sped into the ambulance bay with their lights flashing and an ambulance hot on their heels. A gang fight had erupted with several members of the opposing gangs being wounded by gunshot wounds. The lobby became a hotbed of tension and hostility by two rival gangs both vying for space while waiting for their respective gang members to be treated behind the closed doors of the ER. Another ambulance brought in a patient with severe drug withdrawals and hallucinations that was strapped to the gurney, bucking ferociously trying to get off, and screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs. Since there were no more available rooms in the ER, she had to wait on the gurney in the hallway.

This is just a small sample of what the ER would look like on a Friday the 13th and a night whereupon a full moon was shining. One evening I had clocked off for the night and happened to be driving out behind a vehicle that had just left the ER. The lady sitting in the passenger seat of the car stuck her head out the window and started screaming obscenities at me and then started throwing glass bottles at my car. Luckily, I stomped on my breaks just in time and the bottles smashed on the road right in front of me. I quickly took a detour to get home.

So wherever you are tonight and if you are preparing to go into work, especially in the service industry, please be careful and remain cautious on this odd night that tends to bring out the stuff that’s not so easily explained.

Curious, has anyone else had any strange experiences that couldn’t be explained?

Memories For a Masterpiece

I never could get past the goodbye
you forced out of me. Moving on looked so
easy on you–
the way you acted as if you were freed from
the obligations of our bond. Perhaps
I kept you back from fully becoming who you
are, but it was never due to a lack of love.
I loved you too much and so I
kept you close; never once realizing that
you were suffocating. I’ve asked your forgiveness
many times in the years that ensued,
but you were never there to hear them,
were you? Piece by piece, I scraped a little more of
you from my soul until the memories were bearable
again. Until I could think of you without wavering
between grief and wounded pride. I rebuilt
myself from scratch, did you know? So how is it
that after all this time, you want a place by my side
again? What am I to do with all the scars
of our last parting? I fear they’ve forever become
a silent companion to fill the spaces between
our words and every breath..
No.
Let our memories be our masterpiece.
Let us walk away from what we once were and content
ourselves in knowing we were glorious once,
when we were at the height of our triumph.

Pain Like a Lover

The abyss calls forth her song
of seduction—luring the wary and unsuspecting
as they fall headlong into her depths. Sweeter
than a siren’s song, the edge beckons softly
with the crook of a finger and a come-hither
smile. Unable to resist, they succumb
one by one. Toy soldiers heading into battle
armed with plastic for bullets. The rare one
makes his way out of the darkness—broken,
bleeding, but with light like fire in his eyes.
Talking about cracks that let the light in and
pain that is healing.

Lonely, Dark Night

And if one day you can’t find
a single star in your black night,
’tis only due to their eclipse
by your own beatific light.
Come one morning upon waking
you’ll find that life’s unsteady shaking
cast up diamonds in its wake;
And ‘twixt their birthing and your death,
when all the world held its breath
the Master quietly brought forth
His own Soul for you to take.

*I generally dislike rhyming poems but for some reason this one was birthed in my mind and I didn’t fight it.