noting beliefs and concerns...this sure is a marathon

such a confusing journey I am on right now.  I know that comparing myself to the "progress" of others has never been a helpful thing to do.  I have known for a long time, in my own small way, that each of us journeys on our own path and rules do not apply.  Now, in grief, I feel for the first time like I should be "keeping up" with certain ideals and people.  But I still acknowledge that I have my own past, my own path, my own journey full of ups and downs, strengths and mistakes.  And by accepting this, how can I assume my path through this particular hell will be like any one else's?

The community I found last week helps more in silent ways that I yet know.  I see my youngest sleeping.  I want, with tenderness and love, to beat the knowledge of his father into his brain.  This is not a thing that can happen

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I don't feel right saying my old desperate shameful mantra "I am nothing, I have nothing".

I don't feel the deep and desperate, breathless connection I had to a past love.

I feel John deeper.

I sense there is strength beneath the surface

I still am encompassed by inaction

My house is a chaotic maelstrom of my desire to pack or clean and inability to decide which comes first...the confusion results in inaction.  which then exacerbates the conundrum.
in other words, it is a colossal mess.  Even for me

At least I am reading a lot.  I wish there was more to it than that.  My load of camp clothes have been washed and dry and remain in the drier because all the laundry baskets are full.  so the load of towels remains in the wash...festering.  I will have to wash them again soon.

Plus there is the summer budget crises, advanced course.  getting through this time has always been hard, even when we had John to run camps and diving stuff.  Last year the only reason we made it through was because of donations from random friends and a cancer support organization.  I tried so desperately to find a home to buy before the end of July so that I wouldn't have to pay rent or mortgage.  That failed.  At least I had been able to save the money to cover rent.  Although not bills.  Or really food.  I have $500 left in my savings.  And that is all we have until the first paycheck of the year in mid August.

We will find a way.  Not because I believe in god.  But because I believe in people.

And because I have no choice but TO believe.

more

I feel caught and tangled in a foolish, human conundrum.  I feel my grief.  I only hide from it in places where I am told I must.  And I do not hide from my desire to find a way forward.  I know, however, that "forward" is a relative term.  It doesn't necessarily mean "ahead".  It refers, more aptly, to movement.  Not for movement's sake, exactly.  But for what the motion brings you...when you remain stagnant, your limbs and joints lock up.  So even if motion is stumbling, awkward, incomplete...it keeps the moving parts nimble.

What do I want?  I want a different place to live.  I mean that on so many levels.  How foolish and self centered is my heart?  I believe, at my core, that if things worked the way I wished, so many of us would be better off.  If we could just leave off judgement, jealousy, fear, hatred, and nastiness.  If we could just, as a PEOPLE and not a culture, embrace caring and helping, loving, connection, touch, tenderness, hope, and comfort...how much better off we would all be.

Why do we need "power over" when we can have connection that means so much more...that gives one a depth of "power", both over self and others...one that is more of a power WITH instead of power "over".

We are one.  ONE.  One soul, one body, one hope, one desire and one need.  Each "one" has so many names and faces that we get confused.  If only we could strip all that, and close our collective eyes and TOUCH each other...with sound and hand and hope and heart.  We could create and do and be so much more.  If only patience were as prolific as pain.  If only hope stronger than hatred...

Instead, we are caught and tangled.  Confused and closed and trying to find a way to "win".  When really, no one can do that..."win".  We are finite.  We are imperfect.  If only we could embrace that, embrace each other...we would be so much more.

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only I can,,,a Journey without a grounded goal

I feel less empty
yet empty still

I feel more connected
yet when I look, there is
no more of a "presence" beside me

here we rest
here we reside
yet "here" is not the only moment of
transcendence, of corporeal connection

there are
questions
a search for something
difficult to define

I have felt the power of people
caring beyond words
well up and spill into the reality of action
based on reaction

A story told
becomes a wish fulfilled

and I wonder how to tell the story
of my deepest need
to my deepest self
to find a way to

wholeness

life and thoughts inspired by words of others

I don't like it.  What John left me with.  I don't like it.  It's too big and too confusing and too fucking hard.  I try to write poetry to understand it.  To hide it.  When I do not drink, the nights are quieter, longer.  When I do drink, I am forced to look at the loss.  I feel like an emotional scientist, carrying an accidental microscope through which I am forced to study this thing called "me".

I know many things about myself, about this life.  I do not know far more things.  Life is a riddle and a mystery.

Mother of god I look to words to save me, and they do not have the arms or laughs or help that I need.

http://breakingfreefromlimits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/connecting_with_my_soul.jpg

What do I want?  Hell knows.  So I keep walking, a step at a time, on and on, hoping to get to some place I recognize, a foothold strong enough.

I hope beyond belief that I am more cool than I am fucked up.  But that is a relative comparison.

I've seen trees as dreams...ice sheathed, crackling.  I've seen sun dreams, cradling my crazy thoughts and shushing them to quiet

I spent my own time in the house of the dead.  I put needles in, gave pills so poisonous you could not touch them.  it was my own new beginning, but not one I can share.  It's like something that happened to someone far away, long ago, something I cannot pull up and something I cannot hide.

How can I face my life's rude slapstick?  The slapstick of the universe?  In some game my dreams made?  But dreams fade as the dark fades...and when the dark is gone, whose game do I play then?

I want to let smoke blur the edges of things...of pain, of love, of hope, and life, even.  With blurred edges, how can you ever find your way??

Worrying, hoping, trying, yearning...all side effects of dying.  But believing in true love...what is that?  Story books.  True love should last as long as your life does...yes.  I gave that to John.  I gave the greatest gift, because that is what he deserved.  But what do I deserve?  Apparently, not that.  Not much.  His love was true, and I cannot be done with my life.  I have too many responsibilities.  Do I have any more adventures?

I'm left on the shore with waves washing up around me, some crashing, some caressing, all passing over me...all leaving me unable to drown.

If it is true that grief does not change you, but reveals you, what does that leave me with?  A longing to be loved, to feel supported, to connect, to hope...to help and be helped.  A tiny little break, but on a regular basis.  Tired.  Scared.  Sad.  Lost.

I miss our future.





**inspired by favorite sections of The Fault In Our Stars, Slapstick, and American God: The Tenth Anniversary Edition.

Inconvenient strengths

I feel beautiful
and less than pretty

I feel strong
and needy beyond belief

I feel old
and so connected to youthful exuberance

I imagine I could not care less what others think
but I am on a search for people who see me

I see power in independence
and in accepting help
equally

I want to suck and suck and suck
the marrow
of not just life but the world
yet
I crumble at the smallest absence

I have everything
in the hearts of three small people
and worry each day
that I not only do not, but cannot
live up to any of it

I am mean
I am judgmental
I am sour-hearted

Yet I am tender
and patient
and willing to believe the best

Irony

How can I search for something forward
when the things behind
were crazy
and bigger, they were
right.

How can I accept such a vast
encompassing
empty
when I am only about half way done?

Pass the carving knife
I need only half of what
I have

The question is, which side
remains
and which goes
in the trash?

odd mind meanderings

I keep looking for places to go...places to hide?
Clouds of smoke
for camouflage
and red cool liquid for comfort
don't do
the things you think they will

give me words
or better
give me touch
connection

syllables and etymology
give me
some sort of
safe guard
a place to hide

But it's effort and, right now,
I don't want effort
Even effort that hides me

I just want comfort.
I don't want to prove myself
I wonder if I want
to find myself
Even though I am not lost

Years of entanglement
-in poorly chosen words
soaked in fire water
-in valleys of dependence searching
the oasis for something stronger
-of a tiny little picture-self
insignificant and too easily stomped

I have had many guides
often in the guise of significant individuals
I still have hands to hold
which is far beyond nothing
yet what I want
is some sort of rock
a stable sanctuary island

It seems this is a job
for me alone
which is an incongruous place to perch
since what I believe
is that "me alone" is
for lack of a better word
wrong

How can you be so deeply alone
surrounded by a loving community

it's the nights
they have this power
to bring together
to separate
to entangle, hide, and show only
soft secrets
deeply scarred

my words are inadequate
my strength seems even more so
and I am overtaken
daily
by the details of which I find myself
in charge

there are no answers
no saving grace
there is just stepping
one foot
another
moving
messing up
reaching out
crying
trying
moving- unhidden,
in a somewhat circular
motion

just sometimes.

Yeah, so I know this wouldn't REALLY work for me, but sometimes I feel like it would be pretty cool if I had some ass-hat running behind me screaming shit at me, like "You can do this, Bitch! Get off your ass!  Stop being  so sorry for yourself!  You think YOU have it bad???!? Puh-leese!!!!  Move!  Move!  Move!"

Of course, then the likelihood of physical damage, to myself as well as to others would probably escalate in exponential proportion to things that got done.

So, for now, maybe it is good that I work at something like a snails pace.  Well, let's be fair.  Maybe it is a snail on meth.  (I had to look that up.  Just call me drug illiterate.  I'm okay with that.)  Alright, alright, let's be honest for real:  a snail who had a bit too much coffee.  And really didn't do much.

Never mind.  I'm going to bed.