Glass Blasting Memoirs

I write poetry for a UU class now.  And when I write it I find that it annoys me...my tenacity, that is... I don't feel courageous right now.  I don't feel strong.  And my poems don't feel right until I hit that chord.  I feel angry.  I feel lost and scared and as close to hopeless as I have ever felt.  I know that I have over come and amazing amount of things.  I KNOW this.  I have been blessed to have found a therapist who has guided me to places where I can even comfortably banish some of the old bad thoughts that never let me believe before

Regardless.  I'm here.  I am sincerely broken.  John's illness and his death did end up robbing me of my teaching career.  I am not allowed to speak of it...I signed a paper.  Suffice it to say, I accepted the deal and  I don't like it.  I took it because it was the only one I didn't see leading to the hospital.

Why do I let myself feel stupid for reaching for love and for hoping?  I don't really think that is a dumb thing to do.  Not in the big picture, not in the real world...just for me.  Just me.  I'm not made for being loved and being allowed to love...not a man.  I feel like I snuck one past Fate and scored John by accident for a few years.  Now, like my mother and grandmother, I'm meant to be alone and relatively miserable about that.  This makes me think of Holes and Stanley Yelnats.  I family cursed.  I'd carry the pig up the mountain every day for a year.  I would.  And it doesn't matter.  The pigs keep running away or confusing me before I can even get passed a week or two.

Owls and bears and mythical momentary ideals of battles and friendship and things that go bump in the night.

I don't know what I'm doing.  The difference is, I am too old for this shit.  And it makes no difference that I believe in love.  That I will continue to do so.  Because my life does not allow me to connect with others that believe the same, in similar situations, who are happy to connect.  I had an asshole ask me once not to long ago if I had support.  I referred to the amazingly loving online friends who send me digital love.  He said no.  He meant people to come over, have wine, hang out, give me hugs.  Nope.  I don't have that very often at all.  I figure it must be my own fault.  Because if it isn't, I can't d anything to change that.  I'd prefer to have the power.  Even when I have no clue what I am doing right, wrong, or awkward.

That might count as courage, right?