Photo by Patricia
Re-reading chapters of my memoir shared as a gift to my readers made me feel weak, powerless, and hurt all over again.
But as the chapters moved from one to next knowledge grew in appreciation of my power, courage, bravery, resilience, persistence, tolerance, empathy, and possessing a character to be proud of.
In hopes of helping others, it came for me.
Worn out from a month of Covid, my fuzzy head that couldn’t think straight is slowly clearing as health and strength also slowly return.
For a person with an already comprised immune system from internally harboring severe trauma since childhood, a protracted illness such as Covid can do much damage.
But when the scent of popcorn was noted, hope too was born. When walking slowly in the meadow and able to smell the last of the tiny sweetheart roses on the climbing vine it felt miraculous.
Nature can be cruel and miraculous. To steal my ability to detect scents if permanent would be harsh, but each day there is improvement.
It isn’t like Tigger, bouncing all over, but all parts begin to heal, especially the worries that implode once my head lay on the pillow in the dark. My ability to cope with run-away thoughts was weakened dramatically and that causes the fear rockets to blast off interfering with existing sleep problems.
But last night I was able to say, “Fuck it, go away.” And a restful sleep came. It isn’t always that easy, or possible, but one night gives hope that as strength returns, so too will other parts of me.
Though unwilling to venture out ever again for an overnight anywhere, my spirit is strong, my soul heard. Sleep does not come any place but home in my own bed. Selling the camper is being done happily, good-bye.
The pleasures and indulgences right here are abundant. Rather than feeling as if courage has left me, I am an explorer with great strength and bravery.
To be still, sit still, to go into the depths of me takes a will unfounded because chaos has driven me, not peace. Peace finds me among the frogs croaking creek-side, the fronds around it waving breezily, the birds swooping down for insects, and mother soothing my ragged interior.
A robin hopped ahead of me as if to say good-bye. Then another. They have not been seen since. My belief is that they know how much I love them, and miss them when they go. But stopped to say, “We’ll be back.”
As winter approaches and my spirit tends to drift downward, it is the beauty of nature which restores and transforms.
Perceiving how others see me, doesn’t mean that’s who resides within. It is my own understanding of myself that matters- that is true and authentic. If others can’t bother to take the time to really know me, it is their loss. And not many do.
But the ones that do? Are close for life no matter how far away in the physical realm, they remain close in soul. Time on the land and with myself has offered a view into how others see me.
The problem that arises from that is taking that perception as the truth. Looking deeper within, the slights they perceive don’t exist. The being internally is far better than that. But the habit for decades is to see the truth how others see it who are not out for my best interests, though say they are.
So easy to believe the worst of myself. Much harder to see the beauty, grace, and honesty. There are true friends who have tried to tell me that, choosing instead not to see it, longing for acceptance in places where it never comes. But the only place that matters is within.
Don’t you see? Look, and you shall see the truth, the beauty, grace, and honesty. A lifetime of living like a dinghy on rough waters, rocking to and fro, seeing myself as others do, others that are looking out for their own needs, not mine.
It is a new adventure to look at the truth like a flower in my hand and inspect the uniqueness in all its flawed splendor.
Tears roll down my cheeks, then continue while watching yesterday’s hearings. Shaye Moss, an election poll worker in Georgia describes her pain after Trump and his snake followers hounded her, her mother, even her grandmother.
The pain was felt deeply; her 60-pound weight gain, leaving a job she loved, not going out anymore due to it feeling unsafe, and on goes the deep pain and loss over Snake Donald’s fat lies.
And there are so many affected by this pig. And it can get worse. There are many of his snakes taking these poll worker positions because so many quit due to the harassment and deadly threats from the snake cult. And they WILL do the evil they falsely accuse her and so many others of.
Remember Hitler?
Without adequate sleep confusion and chaos kicks in along with the habit of eating without being hungry for food, but ravenous for a soft place inside to hold and comfort me.
Going ahead each day when they are easier is enjoyed then bam… my center is not felt, parts float about scattered, pain fills me. The adult voice caves to the petulant demanding child, and all hell breaks loose.
That wise voice centered within the depths of my being needs to be heard and respected. The willful child craving love, gentleness, and kindness, needs guidance not the license to run things.
Work and time require daily attention towards centering my being, going to my core, that place of knowing that during easier days is not investigated or inhabited. But on those days exploration and settling into my depths is as valuable.
My way becomes lost so easily. Tiredness compounds it exponentially. Sunday’s gathering of friends could not be attended due to it, and a pity party of one ensued instead. Stumbling back onto the path of groundedess, grabbing myself back into one being that makes room for all parts is the path to peace. Breathe, be in each moment, don’t run, stay.
That feeling of being different digs in oppressing my ability to enjoy the coming of spring. Spring itself is causing this upheaval, interfering with sleep as a manic brain swirls when hitting the pillow causing leaps of ecstasy but landing hard going under without resurfacing well.
Working daily to keep my hat on, bringing it down a notch, doesn’t always work towards good sleep. Thoughts still sometimes race making me wonder what kind of mental ailment might yet overtake me in this life-time.
The physical deterioration of my body due to age is enough to handle, but PTSD always lived with since age 8 worsened as years went by. An older body cannot take the hits of adrenaline and cortisol that daily occurrences cause- simple surprises like Samuel appearing in the hallway or a leaf blowing by while walking. My body reacts as if in danger though none is there.
It is hard, that feeling of ‘differentness.’ During the pandemic, though scared until the Governor talked daily about what he’d do, then doing it, bringing a new sense of security, the days became the best ever. Now the rest of the world knows what my life has always been like; solitary, lonely, and alone.
Yes, I have a partner, but it doesn’t matter. You can be with people and still be lonely. Because others don’t know unless they have been through something similar.
Waking after a bad night where yet again a sleep aid was needed, my head drops down while explaining to Samuel, or trying to, “You don’t know how hard it is.”
Tears fall. “If something happened to you, I couldn’t stay in this house one night,” I said.
The night before it occurred to me that I could not, nor didn’t have to do what Samuel always said was the wise choice if one of us were to die first. Stay in the house at least a year before deciding what to do with it.
When parents die, in this case both of our mother’s years ago, (our fathers have been out of the picture- mine through death when I was a child- his out of divorce and ambivalence), then you begin to think about dying because you are next in line.
But I’m not Samuel. He does not deal with PTSD, nor does he understand its challenges. Of course he could easily live here alone because he’s not scared. What he said made sense, don’t make any rash decisions. So I believed that’s what I had to do in the case of his dying first. But in the middle of the night when awake every little noise scares me even with him right there next to me. No way could staying here occur without him. Tears fall yet again when explaining this to him.
“I couldn’t stay. The thought of staying terrifies me. And that doesn’t make me weak. Comparing myself to my friends makes me feel weak because several have no problem being alone. But I am not weak. In many ways I’m stronger,” I said.
Bringing these real fears out made me cry, made my feelings real and valid. Making the decision to honor who I really am, what I really deal with, and do what is the safest and most loving for myself is a huge leap of growth quite miraculous. And it helps in those dark scary moments to remember that somewhere deep inside myself is a rock, a strong secure rock to hold on to and guide me.
The fall morning chill calls for wrapping up in a warm quilt when sipping coffee on the porch unwilling to let the summertime routine go. A candle is lit to chase away darkness while waiting impatiently for the sun to rise.
Fall brings a change in mood dropping like a cold stone in water and with it more somber thoughts fraught with dire warnings. Hopeful or fearful? A choice becoming more challenging as the short days bring cold gloom especially with the pandemic striking harder as people gravitate indoors and the flu injects its threatening tragedy compounding the fright.
Shuttering doors and windows feels like shuttering my soul, confined into smaller spaces that suffocate. Combating that effect takes effort and will. Cast light where there is darkness, bring hope where’s there’s despair.
Small things bring pleasure and sparkle; making a card for my grand-daughter’s birthday, an oversized card decorated with shiny embellishments and innovative lettering, chicken soup and home-made bread for Shane’s family sick with colds. (but no Covid as they tested negative, testing required by the school in order to return), and putting together Matilda, the happy faced pumpkin who easily returns every year just by applying buttons with pins and a little rouge.
It’s a historically rough period, adding on to existing stresses. Whatever pleasures sought, albeit how small, help to elevate happiness, peace, and equanimity.
Railing at the changing seasons equates to less joy. Adjustments are required as the days grow shorter wondering- is it imagined? There was hope to avoid it for once, but that’s not happening. It is real, waking in the night more often with dark thoughts about the past, or trying to fall asleep with warning bells going off fearing my entire soul is fraught with maliciousness.
Stop. Breathe, you’re OK. It is just the onset of autumn, and you know what that does to your thinking. Self talk is crucial for my thoughts as dark as the shorter days.Time to double up on the usual work as my mind is as heavy as my leaden feet in the path, dragging them step by step, each lap a struggle through the heaviness.
Welcome fall. Out come pumpkin, cinnamon, and apple scented candles for the warmer, along with creams and essential oils to enjoy which also embrace fall. Apples in the hallway Samuel picked off the tree a week ago are finally dragged into the kitchen to make applesauce.
The bubbly pink sauce is sprinkled with cinnamon, but my blunted senses hardly notice. It is difficult to stay in my body and go deep afraid of the negativity welling up. But go there, then stay, that’s the answer. Do what brings pleasure, just look at the meadow once dancing with buttercups and daisies now yellow with mustard. The changing hues swap color as the seasons change.
Birds chatter en masse in the hickory trees, then a swell suddenly forms in a cloud flying in group formation, dipping like an out of control roller coaster, then gone leaving silence behind. Just be… absorb what’s there, find the light. Pick a bouquet of sunflowers and zinnias. There is beauty, let it in. Breathe deep, relax.
After the socially distant impromptu get-together at Seth’s, the week was difficult. One sister-in-law brought up Tom’s name, and she did so after we’d had friction over her bringing him up to me over a year ago.
It isn’t asking a lot that these people called ‘family’ not discuss him. My attendance is once yearly or less. But she did as if my presence didn’t matter at all. That caused more than a week of feeling pierced in my core away from myself– numb.
Eventually tears came, then came more. Family, real family, would not bring up the name of a person who abused me so horribly then spent the rest of my life making me pay for it with disparaging remarks and put-downs around others. His damaging treatment all the years after his crime caused the greatest harm.
And no one bothers to respect that buddying up with my abuser, acting like nothing ever happened, wounds as much as the original attack.
What at first seemed like a happy gathering for the first time in a long time, caused deep pain. Forgetting how interactions of any kind in the hope for authentic acknowledgment always has painful repercussions. These people called family are dangerous… all of them.
Patricia J Grace 