I am wondering about what exactly we mean with regard to human worth. My chosen faith has a traditional principle that says we affirm “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”. I think we’ve revised that to say “every being”, but no matter – we are in the process of revising those values statements again, and that may result in the Great Schism of Unitarian Universalism 2024. We’ll see, but I digress.

Worth and value are frequently interposed, and often used as synonyms. I’m not sure they truly mean the same thing, however. Worth seems to be slightly harder to objectify than value, at least in a capitalist economy. Value seems to be a bit easier to define in practical terms, since we rely on systems of monetary valuation most commonly in retail terms When the police arrest a shoplifter, the monetary value or cost of the purloined items is used to assign the crime to a specific legal category. Theft of items assigned value less than a certain monetary value constitute a misdemeanor, while theft of items assigned greater value meet the definition of felony. Simple, but not always easy.

Ultimately, I believe we assign worth and value to what is useful. Things we can use to enhance, elevate, enrich ourselves are worth something to us, and we value them. When it comes to pleasure and status, we value them greatly. We value our ability to make choices highly, and we value the freedom to make those choices even higher. We often equate freedom with doing whatever we choose to do, with no encumbrance on our desires. I’m not entirely sure that’s a valid definition of freedom because there are simply too many of us sharing space on this planet to have a life with no limits. That’s not how the universe works.

When it comes to less tangible issues, however, such as life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and non-material items the stakes get muddy. The value and worth assigned for those items is almost entirely subjective; there is no material standard. We are entirely debating those measurements in the realm of morality, and that is an exceptionally contentious arena. The data points on that scale prove to be a never-ending continuum of “what if this” and “what about that” and “but, this doesn’t fit on the scale”. Philosophers have been wrangling with such questions since the beginning of time, or at least the beginning of recorded history, and there may be no definitive answer.

So. The continuum drives us insane, literally and figuratively. We become frustrated with exceptions to the rules we have defined, and then become frustrated with the inadequacy of the rules. The frustration drives us closer and closer to authoritarianism – do as I say, because I have a higher value than you. And we are back at the same point again: how do you value a human? Do you assign a valuation based on tangible expenditure, based on how much effort is required to maintain a life? Does a sick person incur more effort within the economy than a healthier person, and thus equates to less value in the collective? Lately, it seems that is exactly how we’re looking at things like health care. If we have to spend more money on Person A than on Person B, then Person B would be an asset according to a one-size-fits-all actuarial table and Person A becomes a liability. It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.

Can we escape this downward spiral of moral ineptitude that capitalism has become? The Benjamins are, in reality, pieces of paper. We have assigned the value and the worth to scraps of paper, and in many cases we fight and kill for those. I don’t know if it’s possible to undo that house of cards, because it is now the repository of all our faith, our hopes, our dreams, our identity. We don’t have anything better to establish value, or worth. At one time we believed merit could be the measure of both, but not so much today. Lately even merit has been tied to economic valuation. The Benjamins speak loudly if you bring in money for investors, share holders, owners.

Perhaps Ben Franklin, the original Benjamin, was on to something when he lobbied for the turkey to become our national bird. Obviously his proposal was shot down, but when I think about having the turkey as a national bird, I wonder if that would have been more in keeping with the identity we claimed. The turkey is not the brightest bird, but it’s a hearty bird, and not a mean bird. It’s not a predator. It is nutritionally quite useful, and doesn’t really take a lot of resources to survive. Eagles? Not so much. They are beautiful and powerful apex predators, and have exceptional vision, but aren’t terribly useful to us. So, we chose the predator for a national bird. That may say more about us than anything.

Today I floundered just a bit…not too badly, but slightly off balance. The housekeepers visited, and they did a mediocre job. I’ve switched from a service provider to an independent lady. She’s a bit cheaper than the provider, and I enjoy paying her directly rather than the company that only gives her a fraction of my payment. It will be fine, although I may have to ask directly for certain things. They took care of the big stuff, like bathroom and kitchen, so all was not lost. I had a headache after they left, however, because the dog felt compelled to bark and wrestle with me the entire time they were here. She then went to sleep, but my head kept throbbing.

I guess the reason I was so off kilter today had to do with this dental saga. Just as I was about to plunk all my chips down on the last dentist I saw, I suddenly had the bright idea to get one more opinion. The big hesitancy is the cost, so I’d like to feel as though I’ve done my due diligence about that. I contacted another provider for a 3rd opinion, so I will see if they can see me for a consultation and then I will make a final decision. I need to get on with this.

Beyond the dental mess and the housekeeping issues, I was just out of synch and off my game. I had no real clarity of thought, about much of anything. Nothing particularly bothering me but I felt rather flat. Fortunately, that feeling dissipated a little while ago when I heard the speaker at last night’s 10pm meeting. She was fantastic, and I related to her in a huge way. She could be one of my cousins, judging by her appearance, and for the first time on a meeting anywhere anytime there was talk about race because she identifies as Black, like me. I shared that I have not heard race discussed outright at a meeting in many, many years if ever. Race is not what caused my addiction, but my experience with it certainly contributed to the feeling of not fitting in anywhere, not being able to relate to people, feeling as though I had to be someone else to be accepted and to succeed, not knowing exactly who I was. Making those connections was huge, and I am still learning how to be comfortable in my own skin and not wasting time attempting to be someone else.

How race is handled in this country is truly phenomenal. Racial inequity has been a part of us since the very first day, and though we’ve done better at acknowledging that it’s still a divisive issue. White, or European, supremacy came to the New World on the first ship that landed here. All these years later, how I walk through the world is vastly different from how white people walk through the world. When it comes to things like addiction, however, substance abuse knows no race, creed, color, or ethnicity. It does, however, add another layer to issues of needing to self-medicate, anesthetize, and heal. But when Alcoholics Anonymous began, Blacks and Native Americans were not welcome at meetings, and neither were women. It took a minute for all that to settle out, and sometimes non-white people find themselves buried in crowds of dominant culture participants. It ultimately doesn’t matter to the issue of recovery, but it’s another layer to connect in becoming who you’re meant to be Finding others who share your particular experience enhances the process.

I’m still looking in all kinds of places for where I can find people to whom I can relate, don’t have to explain or justify my experience. Having the people of color group at the Fellowship is serving that purpose for me these days. The social cues are different between cultures, I find. Often the humor is different. The references and their significance are different. It’s little things, like having a discussion about Ruby Bridges desegregating a public school in New Orleans at the age of 6 – people of all races knew the historical reference, but many white people said they did not know protesting white parents pulled their children out of the school after the federal authorities escorted Ruby inside. She was literally the only student in the school after the news cameras had vacated the scene. We all knew that in New Orleans, but most white people in other parts of the country did not have any idea about that part of the story.

The other thing I found incredible was that a white woman from New Orleans, who I met here in NC, was present at that chaotic and hateful demonstration at the elementary school. She is the same age as Ruby Bridges, and was a student at the school. As she told the story, the adults around here were screaming horrible things – “2,4,6,8 we don’t want to integrate! 8,6,4,2 we don’t want no jigaboo!” I know the the word jigaboo. The story-teller knew the word jigaboo. People here in NC and from other parts of the country had never heard the word. That was sobering, because we were living that history as children, but others were seeing it on television, with selective media coverage, and were totally detached many of the more unpleasant details.

I suppose that’s how it is with things going on in other parts of the world now – I’m watching the war in Gaza on television and live cam, reading coverage and opinions, but I’m not living with drones flying overhead in real time, or bombs exploding nearby, or not having clean water or food. Mass media is a great and wonderful thing, enabling us to have images from thousands of miles away nearly immediately, but still we miss so much due to selective reporting or the inability of the medium to transfer the authentic experience. We have no frame of reference for war on our soil in my lifetime. The attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, horrifying though it was, was just that – an attack. It was not active combat; there was no fighting or foreign combatants on the streets of American cities. Active retaliation took place in the Middle East, not here.

We are hard-wired for competition and control, and consequently for war. Humans have always fought, usually for resources. In more contemporary times, however, the battle is not for resources but for power. Power enables us to amass capital, and that gives us the ability to control and live life on our own terms. Or so we think. Most people can describe a time in their lives where they felt unfulfilled, unsatisfied, and believed the remedy for their dis-ease was to acquire more control, evidence by acquisition of a desired material thing. A new car, the dream house, once in a lifetime job opportunity, vacation to die for, etc. Unfortunately, once those immediate goals were fulfilled, the satisfaction was short-lived. It was only a matter of time before the malaise returned and a new target was generated. Ultimately we are never satisfied by acquisition of circumstantial control or material gain.

It would be easy to say that only spiritual development will ultimately satisfy us. I believe that’s what so many are searching for in houses of worship, adventure, and mind-altering substances. But we are not finding that expansion in religion or control of others or anywhere else. I wonder if we are simply too far removed from spirituality, if we have lost contact with our spiritual selves in favor of promoting our self-will and our self-aggrandizement. The vehicle for that is usually the mind, and it’s as simple as “I want what I want”, and then we’re back to the competition bias. In our current time, what we want is usually what someone else has – oil, money, power, control. If you have it, I want it, and I’m going to figure out a way to get it. I deserve it more than you do, because I’m better than you are.

That’s how this country started – Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, and when he got here to North America he claimed land that was already occupied for “God and the Queen”. Because he could, and because he was instructed to do so, and because it was deserved. To dispel any doubt about the deservedness, God spoke through agents of the deserving. Just to set the record straight, God was on the side of the colonists.

The New World had many highly desirable commodities, and certain people deserved to have benefit of them. People who were already here disagreed, and it’s went downhill from there. Ill gotten gains rarely prove to be of perpetual benefit without a fight, and that’s about where we are. We’ve upped our game, though, and taken the colonial show on the road to other lands and there’s even talk of intergalactic exploration for further expansion of our deservedness. If God is still on our side, I hope there is help coming forthwith.

My therapist turned me on to a book – The Body Is Not An Apology. I just ordered it online, and it should be here in a few days. The title resonates because I have been doing exactly that – apologizing for this body for so very long. Sorry I don’t fit, sorry it’s too big, sorry it’s in the way, sorry I’m such a klutz, sorry, sorry, sorry. At least people no longer say things like “but you have such a pretty face” or “but you’re so intelligent”. Fuck all y’all. I will be interested to see what insights and maybe tools the book has to offer. I’m at that point where I’m not apologizing for much of anything any longer.

I remember when…and the latest writing prompt: what if my body WASN’T an apology? What if it’s NOT too late? Then what?

What if my body is NOT an apology? If not, then what am I apologizing for? Whether my body isn’t an apology, I’m living as thought it is one long transgression on my part. Sorry I ate that cookie for breakfast, I will never lose weight that way. Sorry I’m too big to fit through here. Sorry I can’t sit on the floor and get up easily. Sorry I’m enjoying these sweets so much. Sorry I haven’t lost any weight. Sorry I wear only sweat pants and oversized shirts these days. Sorry I can’t go on that march for voting rights with everyone else. Sorry I can’t look presentable in dress clothes. Sorry I have to shop in the big men’s section. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Who am I apologizing to? The rest of the world, or my mother, or myself? Do I believe there are some people who genuinely love me and don’t care how fat I am? I do. Do I believe they don’t notice that I’m unhealthy? I do. Do I believe that makes no difference to them? Not sure about that. I’m never sure that anything less than a bell-curve existence ensures belonging and acceptance. Where the hell did THAT come from?

I was reflecting earlier on anger, and I acknowledge that I still have plenty. It’s not elevated to rage as easily as in the past, but it’s there. I was musing on where in my body that anger resides, and I would have to say that it’s mostly in my stomach, in my gut. It’s physically reflected there, and that’s where I have always felt the most discomfort, the feeling that it’s some glued on artificial part of my body. An afterthought. That’s how I’ve always felt in times of crisis, like an afterthought, and obligatory detail that follows the more important considerations of a plan, or an endeavor. Like making sure you’ve fed the dog or filled the empty water bowl. Details that must be attended to, because those are the rules and not because your first thought is the love or comfort of the beast.

Living as an obligatory detail in the lives of others doesn’t exactly give you a warm and fuzzy feeling. It is no wonder I am somewhat disconnected from what I feel, and more importantly, from what I believe others feel. When people say they love me, I see a blank sheet of paper. I believe they mean that, but I wait for evidence. So many have said that while twisting a knife in my back that I allow myself the distrust. It occurs to me that I don’t really know what love is. There always seems to be a line between my own self-preservation and that of others. It was certainly true when it came time for taking care of my mother – there was a line I was not willing to cross, and certainly not alone.

My life has been a series of waypoints and milestones that I’ve crossed on my own. My own birth was that way – mommy told them “knock me out” and they did. I fought my way down the birth canal mostly on my own, only to be yanked out unceremoniously by clacking forceps and deposited on not-so-swaddling accoutrements. I suspect there are some of my issues that can be explained by insufficient bonding with my mother, who wasn’t in terribly good health when the blessed event occurred. I thought my grandmother was my mother until I was nearly 3 because dear old mom was out of commission with gall bladder surgery and then a hysterectomy. On some levels, I was on my own. I bottle fed until I was about 3, and even though many people said it should be taken away my mother refused. She told me, much later, that one day I waddled over to the trashcan and just threw the bottle in, and that was the end of it.

I am still meandering through my life’s events mostly on my own. When I have been hurt, and grossly betrayed, I have been an afterthought in that tableau. Don’t talk about it, don’t share the story with anyone outside of the house. Your little needs are not important right now, i was told. There are bigger issues to be dealt with. Here’s some food, and there are drinks in the refrigerator, so you’re fine. You have a scholarship to college, so don’t call here to ask your father for money again – you’re fine. Keep a smile on your face – you’re fine. There’s nothing you need, you’re fine.

I wasn’t fine. There was plenty that I needed. I needed to know that I was going to be OK, that it wasn’t my fault. I needed to know that my feelings were important enough to be dealt with and not just some pain in everyone’s arse. I needed to be an intention and not an obligation, not something that would work itself out. So often I was left to my own devices, and thought of whenever I might open my mouth and embarrass other people by telling the real story behind the polite smiles and social graces. I held that in my gut, because that was the only place that was my own. I slept on my stomach, hunched over when I sat, protecting what I felt was the most precious part of me.

When I had my uterus removed a few years ago, I initially felt as though I had failed. Failed as a woman, failed to curate the mysterious feminine orifice that I never made use of. Failed to provide grandchildren, although I was 8 when I said I would never have children. I wasn’t kidding then, and there are no regrets (at least on my part). I do not believe I would have made a good mother, because all I had to offer was the dysfunction of my own childhood and that of my parents. As an adult of childbearing age, I strongly felt there were enough screwed up kids in the world, like myself, and I didn’t need to contribute more. That seemed like sound thinking, and it still does.

My mother could be very cruel, particularly when it came to my body. In many ways, I consider some of her treatment to be covert sexual abuse, and I had no real defense. Constantly telling me that I was sloppy, and to close my legs because nobody wanted to see “that” if I was sitting cross-legged. She constantly referred to that part of my body as ugly, stinky, and disgusting. Compared me to skinny girls and wondered why I couldn’t stop eating so much and look like them. I was fat, and was never going to attract anyone looking that way. If she saw a particularly repulsive looking man on the street, she would turn to me and say, “There goes your last chance.” I believed her, plus…I knew somehow that I was different regardless. Boys weren’t particularly interesting to me, but I didn’t quite understand why. All I knew was that nobody was going to be interested in me that way because my mother said so. And that was all there was to it.

Writing this, and looking at how anger lives in my body, I feel as though I should be angry about that abusive messaging, but right now I’m not so much angry as hurt and confused. Why did she do that? Where did she learn that? Did my grandmother do that to her? I loved my grandmother so much, and she never said those things to me. It pains me even now to believe that she could have modeled any of that for my mother. Why DID I turn out to be a compulsive eater, why was I so weak that I couldn’t stop eating too much? I must have just been defective, a failure from an early age. That is the answer I have accepted for a very long time.

So, perhaps it’s time for me to stop apologizing. In recovery, I always tell people that merely saying you’re sorry doesn’t resolve old behavior if you’re still doing the same thing and expecting different results. If you step on my foot and say you’re sorry, that’s fine. If you step on my foot again and again and again, and say you’re sorry each time, how sorry are you if you keep doing it? If you don’t modify your behavior to avoid hurting me, are you really sorry? Forgive me if I don’t believe you at that point.

In that vein, who am I apologizing to? Maybe it’s me. Maybe I am making apologies to myself, for the failure to control my appetite and failure to provide a functional vessel to house my dysfunctional brain? This is getting too complicated, but suffice it to say that I’m just not happy with things as they are. I’m not sorry to say that, either.

That’s reality, and that brings up the question of where do I go from here? When my uterus malfunctioned, I had it removed. I am about to have malfunctioning teeth removed and replaced with implants. I cannot have my appetite, or that part of my brain that prompts me to use food as comfort, removed. There’s not a pill or a shot that will fix this, no surgical procedure that I can trust, and I’m not going to become anorexic by Sunday. I can survive without ever consuming alcohol again, but I cannot survive without consuming food and moderation is generally not in my vocabulary. What does recovery from this even look like?

So, I suppose that if I’m angry at this point, it’s with having been wired this way. My cousins do not have obesity in their repertoire. Where did this come from, and can I give it back? Why can’t I be mediocre about THIS part of my journey?

I wrote this a while back, so just wanted to get it out of drdaft status. Ihave no idea why it stayed a draft, but whatever. I need to start downloading stuff from this site so that I don’t lose things.

I guess believing is about faith, because you have no tangible proof of what you accept as reality. I was having a converation with someone about violence once, and she said, “I don’t believe in guns.” This puzzled me, because guns are a tangible reality, so there is not really a choice to believe or not believe in them. They exist, they are here. You can believe or not believe in them as a solution to conflict, or as an intimidating force in that conflict, but the gun is a reality.

Then again, the corona virus that causes COVID-19 is a reality, and some claim they don’t believe in it. Ultimately, what they are really saying is they have no faith in the sources of information regarding the virus, and choose to disavow any of the guidance or advice from those sources regarding the virus.

If this sounds like semantics, I suppose it is. Unfortunately, semantics has replaced logic in much of our common public dialogue these days, so that’s the reality of the current time. It’s very sad to accept that for many people today, it is worth their lives to deny culpability, or error. They would rather die than admit they were wrong about this virus, or the science that explains it. Pride, I suppose, but I must admit it does prove incredibly traumatic to admit that you have been betrayed by someone or something you once believed unconditionally. If you were wrong about them, what else might you be wrong about? If they betrayed you, who else might betray you? Sometimes it’s too frightening of a proposition to contemplate so better to stay in the middle of the non-reality.

While I understand the emotional and even spiritual implications of conditional reality, it frustrates me no end to deal with the illogic and the cavalier denial of collateral damage. When you live with several billion other humans on a big rock hurtling through space, there is collateral damage for just about anything we do individually. Before admitting problem drinking, alcoholics are known to say, “Don’t bother me about my drinking. I am not hurting anyone but myself, so get off my back.” This is proved to be incorrect 100% of the times, because alcoholic behavior impacts everyone around the alcoholic whether by poor job performance, costly mistakes, emotional fallout from the lying and the self-absorption, financial consequences resulting from lost jobs and extreme risk-taking, or any number of other things.

So, if I want to live in the real world I have to make a conscious choice in favor of reality. Reality in this context is life on life’s terms ultimately involves acceptance of what I can engage with my sense, or that which I have enough evidence to prove. I don’t quite comprehend how a person can maintain and opinion or position when all the evidence proves them incorrect. Simply repeating a denial of some circumstance or fact does not change reality.

I must admit that reality comes to call at the most inconvenient of times. Within the past thirty days I’ve had to spend $1850 on my truck, had to acknowledge that I’ve done nothing I said I was going to do toward getting a job and leveling off my weight, broke a front tooth, and coughed up $200 on my dog who has a bladder infection and can’t pee. Nobody asked my opinion about any of that, or gave me a choice about having to deal with those situations. Continuing to say that none of it happened really doesn’t get me anywhere except into collections with the respective service providers, and probaby an exploding dog. I suspect evidence will yield that it’s cheaper to accept reality and respond accordingly.

Today, I watched the eaglet in Juneau fledge and fly from its nest. It was an amazing sight to see – the adult-looking bird was quite obviously a bit taken by the prospect of leaving the nest and the only habitat it has known since birth. It jumped and hopped a bit, and flapped its massive wings, but you could almost feel the hesitancy and uncertainty as it contemplated flying free of the small area it has called home for the past 60+ days. When the moment was right, the juvenile eagle – really no longer an eaglet – surged forward and lifted from the nest hesitantly. But lift off it did, and then it was flying free and out of view for the first time. The world had suddenly gotten exponentially larger for the young bird.

Neither parent was present for the fledge, but were more than likely very nearby. They’ve been within earshot, if not eyesight, since the little one hatched. I asked the moderators of the live camera site whether the parents would be alarmed when they returned to the nest and found it empty. They said the parents more than likely already know their youngster has fledged, and once it begins calling out when on its own, they will be able to find it. The nest site does not band its eagles, so at some point we’ll lose track of the fledgling relatively soon. It will probably return to the nest sporadically for a month or so, then it will disconnect and start a new life on its own. Goodbyes are hard, even with an eagle.

I don’t do goodbyes well. I don’t separate from even old and unused belongings, let alone people. I’m not entirely sure what that’s about, but it is what it is. I don’t know if I have not accepted that something is over and done with, or am still in the bargaining stage of grief over the loss. When I have tangible evidence of something that once existed, I usually believe that as long as I have that ticket stub, or that piece of broken jewelry, or that picture the event is not really over. Sometimes I fear that if I don’t have that tangible evidence that something happened, I will lose the memories as well. Or that somehow the reality will be erased.

I don’t consider myself a hoarder, but I save things. I don’t buy new things to proliferate fantasy, but I save relics of the past. Sometimes it’s a favorite jacket, or t-shirt. These are usually out of style and probably worn and no longer my size, but…I remember when and where they came from. I’m not quite sure what the memory is supposed to do for me, or why the relic causes me to feel closer to the memory. For the most part, the relics connect me with good memories of some event, even if it was a bad time in my life.

One of the relics I came across the other day was a ticket stub to an Indigo Girls concert from 1996 or so. I enjoyed that concert, because I do truly enjoy the Indigo Girls and more so in concert. Who I was with wasn’t all that special, but she had gotten the tickets from a perk offered to her father, who worked for Sony Records I believe. So we got free tickets and they were great seats and it was an awesome concert. I still don’t quite understand what that ticket stub does for me except maybe to be a place holder for that memory. So what if I forgot about that event? It wasn’t life changing, it was just an enjoyable evening. If it’s not in the forefront of my memory bank, the pleasure of the event is not diminished, nor erased. So what gives?

I keep saying that I want to fly, but I can’t fly with all of this baggage. Maybe what’s in the baggage isn’t the memories themselves, but what was going on at that time in my life. When I went to that Indigo Girls concert, I was doing OK, but I was becoming more and more despondent about not having a romantic partner. I was lonely and feeling ugly and undesirable and totally useless. I went to that concert with a friend, who was in a relationship with someone else, so it wasn’t anything like a date. I was not interested in her that way, so I had no issues about being there as her guest. However, I am pretty sure I had at least some disappointment over not being able to find a companion of my own for the evening.

So, ‘m not sure if retaining relics of something like this is more about recalling a pleasant event or about remaining tied to disappointment. Maybe I’m overthinking this (my inner voice is shrieking “YA THINK???”).

Whatever the case may be about my seeming inability to let go of things and carry baggage, I accept that this is the way things are now. I accept that such a pattern doesn’t really work in my best interest, or at least it doesn’t get me any closer to things I want. It doesn’t make me light enough to get off the ground and fly.

Dear me,

Remember being able to walk long distances without thinking about it, without running out of energy after only a few minutes?  Remember when you could walk home from more than 2 miles away without having to plan it, and without having to practically go comatose when you arrived?  When you weren’t so fat that you didn’t have to scope out a restaurant to make sure the tables weren’t so close together that you wouldn’t be able to walk between them?  When every joint didn’t creak and scream bloody murder if you sat in the same position for too long?  Remember when you felt like you had some control over your body?  

I remember that, even though it seems like you never felt like you had control over this thing called your body, other people were always talking about how you looked, how fat you were, how you shouldn’t wear certain things like horizontal stripes because they make you look fatter.  I remember your mother and grandmother and the aunts talking about when you were going to lose that baby fat, like you weren’t even there.  That hurt, as though you were invisible but according to them you were so huge that you would soon be unlovable.  You wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with you, and knew that you were a disappointment.  You didn’t know what to do to fix any of it, but knew that you were not enough to satisfy anyone.  

Then in the 70s, after grandmother died and after the divorce, you were absolutely sure that nobody stuck around and that you would probably always be left behind.  That kind of sucked, and you didn’t know how to be anybody else but who you were.  There was no other body to step into, you couldn’t fit into the clothes you wanted to wear, couldn’t fit your legs into those boots you wanted so badly.  You just didn’t fit. In so many ways, you didn’t fit.  

But so now what?  You still don’t quite feel as though you fit, and now you’re fatter than you ever thought you were at 13 and you’re still not quite sure of how to fix that.  So now, you’ve got a fatty liver and gall stones and saggy tits and a gut that will not be restrained by any garment except sweat pants.  You’re old and more tired than someone twice your age, if people can even live that long.  

I want to breathe life back into you, but you have to inhale.  I want to let you know there was nothing inherently wrong with you, then or now.  I want you to breathe, and not hold your breath as you’ve been doing since childhood, waiting for the insult or the physical blow and knowing that you can’t do anything to stop it.  Take heart, and know they were fucked up and that hurt people hurt people.  Know that what doesn’t fit is your heart, because it is too large for this container that is too small.  Having an oversized heart is not a function of your being wrong, and too big. It’s a function of the world being too inadequate for a heart so big.

I wrote this in 2021, and it’s been a draft since then. I found it interesting to reflect on that time, when I was still getting used to being unemployed and deeply into unacknowledged grief. I was living as though I was in a crack house, with junk and clutter everywhere, moldy cops of coffee dregs, and couldn’t find my own ass with both hands and a flashlight. Things are decidedly better at the moment, although I still experience depression “spikes” and down periods. I believe what I described here in 2021 was a far lower bottom than anything I have experienced since then, but it’s worthy of note.

I am depressed at the moment, in what I call a depression “spike”. It seems that I always rotate a little under the level of normal/well-adjusted/cheery, but every once in a while it’s palpably worse. This is one of those times.

When this happens, I check to make sure I’m current with my meds, and I am. I’m so tired of having to keep track of that sort of thing, however. I got rejected for another job online, which isn’t all that big of a thing, but yes it is all that big of a thing right now. I can’t say I’ve been applying for armloads of jobs, but every rejections seems to be a big deal. A bigger deal than it’s worth.

There is a small gathering tonight for my Artist’s Way group, to remember one of our members who passed away recently. She was a retired art teacher, a very simple and gentle soul I will miss her, and I will remember her in my own way. I just can’t do a gathering tonight. I just can’t.

Since the sleep study was a big goose egg, I was offered a CPAP if I just wanted one, and I don’t just want one. If I had been diagnosed with apnea and it was prescribed, I would gladly have followed my doctor’s orders about using it, but that’s not the case. She left it up to me, because there’s no indication that I have apnea – the study report said that I didn’t sleep long enough to diagnose that.

For me to keep waking up throughout the night is kind of odd for me, so I am thinking something else is going on that might not be physical. Everything is just really making me want to throw up my hands and say “whateer”. There’s a little part of me that says that no matter what I do the results will be the same, and I will not succeed at what I am trying to do.

I hate these kinds of moods. The recovery side of me says get out of the self-pity, do something for someone else, be grateful for what you have. Yeah, I will get right on that.

The second drone I bought was delivered the other day, and it seems to fly just fine. However, the camera doesn’t seem to work. Damn. I am thinking that if I really want to start flying a drone, I will just need to save up and buy a full-priced one. Sometimes you get what you pay for, and since I didn’t pay very much for this one, I’m not getting very much. This one is still classified as a toy, so whatever.

I’m tired. Tired in more ways than just not getting enough sleep. I’m tired of feeling as though everybody else is getting more of life than I am. Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant, but it’s how I feel at this moment. That’s not a new sentiment, and is usually a function of something chemically off in my brain. Lucky me.

Depression is one of those conditions that is generally invisible to everyone outside of your body. It’s different for everyone, but I know that I’m not a depressive who is prone to action. That means I’m not going to be beating people up or kicking the dog, I’m not going to be attempting suicide every night. It does mean, however, that I feel absolutely and unabashedly lousy.

When I am feeling this way, it’s kind of risky to be out amongst folks, because the first person who points out to me that I have nothing to be “sad” about and that I am thought of so highly by other people is gonna get a harangue that cannot be repeated in polite company. After which I will probably curl up into a fetal position and sob.

Depression is an odd thing. Brain chemistry is an odd thing all on its own, and the more science knows about it, the more they know they don’t know. When my mother was demonstrating some aberrant behavior and way of thinking, there wasn’t any Prozac or anything like that. There were only narcotic “tranquilizers” with addictive potential, stuff that could make you drool on yourself in high doses. My mother refused to take medication like that, and I kind of understand her posture on that. Of course, when there were better non-narcotic medications on the market, she refused to even try them, forcing everyone else to deal with what may well have been bipolar disorder.

Since I’m supposedly in the charmed circle of modern psychiatry, I take what I need to take in order to survive. On days like this, I am grateful for that because I might be prone to doing something that cannot be reversed, a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I am not so much wanting to kill myself, but wanting to not be here just the same. Those are two entirely different things.

For quite a long time, suicide has no appeal to me. First of all, I could be wrong about whatever the causal factors are. Second, I could be entirely wrong about the afterlife and what it does or does not hold, or if there really is an afterlife. Finally, I am somewhat convinced that I would be attempting to punish those remaining here, in this life. I don’t believe that’s true of every suicide, and they are all different. But for me, I really do have the inkling that I might be wanting to sentence people who have disappointed and betrayed me to years of wondering if they had anything to do with it, or could have done something to stop it. That’s overwhelmingly self-absorbed, which somewhat disgusts me. So, at this point, I’m not willing to entertain suicide as an option.

Depression can make the world seem bleak and gray on the sunniest of days, can make life seem pointless at the pinnacle of your success. Or the depths of your greatest failure, it doesn’t matter. Something in the brain is out of balance, and distorts what you see and hear. Medication can help to alleviate that in many cases, but not all. Sometimes it’s just a constant battle to maintain some kind of equilibrium.

The most important point of any conversation I have with people who do not experience depression is that nobody is qualified to judge a person who does experience that, so shut up. The judgments can amplify the feelings of worthlessness and uselessness and sadness that a depressed person is feeling. For me, the judgments cause a great deal of anger in me, and then I’m feeling as though I have failed yet again to not care about what other people think.

It is what it is. And it’s sometimes what it’s not. I suppose my only goal is to deal in absolute reality. Just the facts, ma’am. What am I seeing, what am I hearing, what am I feeling without any shading or assumptions I may want to add. If I see the dog has pooped on the floor (which she did earlier, the little shit), that is all it is. The reality is there is dog shit on the floor. It’s not reality to presume that I am being intentionally attacked or challenger for dominance. I get into trouble is attributing that behavior to intention on her part, and failure to train her on my part. If I truly believe that she intended to piss me off, and truly planned to hold her poop when she was outside in order to piss me off by doing it inside, I will eventually resent her so badly that I might treat her less optimally than usual. She’s a small dog with a brain the size of a plum; she doesn’t have the mental capacity to be planning how she is going to irritate me. She has a bad habit, probably from her puppyhood in another household (or on the street) and circumstances in which I had no part. It is what it is.

Because I am leaving this as a draft, I will say that I have no fucking idea what the hell I am doing at this point. I do not want to be here. The only problem with that is there is no other place to go. This is par for the course, because I never have any other place to go. I thought I did, when I came here, but that’s all just a puff of smoke fast dissipating in the breeze.

Every damned thing is going wrong – all of the warnings I was given, advice, suggestions, recommendations of my youth have now come back to slap me in the face and kick me in the ass. Go to grad school soon after undergraduate school – you wont want to go later. I didn’t do that, and I didn’t want to go later, but now really wish I had. Get hold of your weight issues while you’re still young enough to adapt, it will be harder if not impossible when you are older. Well, now I’m older and it is impossible.

I am not going to find a job, unless I do something totally ridiculous like customer service for some capitalist fascist pig company. That is probably what I will do, because I need the money and the benefits. The pathetic part about that is that everything I worked for, every word that I bit off, all the times I held my tongue and settled for inept bosses who couldn’t write a complete sentence – all of that has been a total waste of time. I have nothing to show for it now.

Some of us are not meant to get satisfaction, to get what we want. The unpretty ones, the fat ones, the ones of us who march to a different beat and sometimes need to rest in between…we don’t get what we want. Ever. Maybe for little things, but not for that which feeds our souls. If this sentiment is expressed, it will be decried by caring people who assure us that it’s not what we think, it’s not what we are seeing, things aren’t the way we see them. Bleh. Keep your platitudes.

This is over with. There isn’t anything more, just the conformity and the not rocking the boat and the settling for less. Settling for SO much less. I’m tired of that, but there isn’t anything else. I don’t have the energy any more to have expectations, or dreams, or hope. I am done. This is going to be a solo act until the end, whenever that comes.

I am not particularly in the stance of making the end come any sooner that it’s going to come without my intervention. Suicide is a big fuck you to everybody who’s left, and I really don’t want to be remembered for that. It would be far better to be forgotten.

Nobody should extoll my alleged talent for anything because I am simply too mediocre to be a total failure. I am dangerously mediocre. I can fake enough of the opening lines of things and the familiar beginning of a riff to get people excited, but it’s a house of cards. I am never going to live up to the first blush of real talent.

I asked the new psychiatrist – which she is not a psychiatrist, she is a P.A. – if she thought I was nuts. She said things about oh, we don’t use those words any more, but no she didn’t think I was nuts. Well, I don’t care what she thinks, but I think I’m nuts. That’s a term I would assign to people who find it impossible to fit in anywhere, and that is exactly where I am. I simply cannot comply, cannot act “as if”, cannot even make sense from time to time. I belong literally nowhere, and that is exactly where I feel that I am. Nowhere.

So be it. Welcome to nowhere. Make yourself at home, put your feet up, get comfortable. This is the final destination. In a way I suppose that’s really just fine, because now I don’t have to make the effort to conform or fit in. I don’t have to watch my tongue or not rock the boat. It doesn’t matter. It never mattered. I just bought into the lie that said I would be rewarded for driving myself into the ground for the comfort of others. I am not going to do that any longer.

To keep down the resistance – and there will be resistance – I will just keep to myself. If I can get back at least some of my bodily function, I will wander the trails and the paths alone. It is better that way, because even though people say they care about me – and they may truly believe that – it’s not like I’m part of their family or anything so there’s always a line drawn. A line that I can never cross. So bet it. They’ll never cross my line, either. The line that keeps my true self from everything and everyone else. No more showing myself, no more exposing my soft underbelly. No. More.

I have to resign myself to the fact that I’m never going to get what I want out of this incarnation. There will be no love interest, there will be no one who accepts me for me, warts and all. There will be no book that I write or song that I compose, no saving grace. People want pretty things, and there’s not enough plastic surgery in the world to make me pretty. The truly unfair part of that, however, is that people with far less skill than I, who are not pretty either manage to get what they want. Just not me. Fine. So be it.

I have got to get about the business of accepting this condition, this position, whatever the fuck it is. I always have this annoying bit of hope that always peeks out and wonders is this the one? Is this the group? Is the the time you get to be accepted and fit in like people do with a family? But it never is, and I need to stop hoping for that. The hope is killing me, or at least the repetitive dashing of the hope is.

Another fucking night of being nowhere, with nobody, and nothing. I have nothing. I am nothing. I suppose I’ll just go to sleep, if that’s even possible. I will probably wake up multiple times with these thoughts on my head and start this shit all over again. Whatever. What the fuck ever.



I am depressed at the moment, in what I call a depression “spike”. It seems that I always rotate a little under the level of normal/well-adjusted/cheery, but every once in a while it’s palpably worse. This is one of those times.

When this happens, I check to make sure I’m current with my meds, and I am. I’m so tired of having to keep track of that sort of thing, however. I got rejected for another job online, which isn’t all that big of a thing, but yes it is all that big of a thing right now. I can’t say I’ve been applying for armloads of jobs, but every rejections seems to be a big deal. A bigger deal than it’s worth.

There is a small gathering tonight for my Artist’s Way group, to remember one of our members who passed away recently. She was a retired art teacher, a very simple and gentle soul I will miss her, and I will remember her in my own way. I just can’t do a gathering tonight. I just can’t.

Since the sleep study was a big goose egg, I was offered a CPAP if I just wanted one, and I don’t just want one. If I had been diagnosed with apnea and it was prescribed, I would gladly have followed my doctor’s orders about using it, but that’s not the case. She left it up to me, because there’s no indication that I have apnea – the study report said that I didn’t sleep long enough to diagnose that.

For me to keep waking up throughout the night is kind of odd for me, so I am thinking something else is going on that might not be physical. Everything is just really making me want to throw up my hands and say “whateer”. There’s a little part of me that says that no matter what I do the results will be the same, and I will not succeed at what I am trying to do.

I hate these kinds of moods. The recovery side of me says get out of the self-pity, do something for someone else, be grateful for what you have. Yeah, I will get right on that.

The second drone I bought was delivered the other day, and it seems to fly just fine. However, the camera doesn’t seem to work. Damn. I am thinking that if I really want to start flying a drone, I will just need to save up and buy a full-priced one. Sometimes you get what you pay for, and since I didn’t pay very much for this one, I’m not getting very much. This one is still classified as a toy, so whatever.

I’m tired. Tired in more ways than just not getting enough sleep. I’m tired of feeling as though everybody else is getting more of life than I am. Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant, but it’s how I feel at this moment. That’s not a new sentiment, and is usually a function of something chemically off in my brain. Lucky me.

Depression is one of those conditions that is generally invisible to everyone outside of your body. It’s different for everyone, but I know that I’m not a depressive who is prone to action. That means I’m not going to be beating people up or kicking the dog, I’m not going to be attempting suicide every night. It does mean, however, that I feel absolutely and unabashedly lousy.

When I am feeling this way, it’s kind of risky to be out amongst folks, because the first person who points out to me that I have nothing to be “sad” about and that I am thought of so highly by other people is gonna get a harangue that cannot be repeated in polite company. After which I will probably curl up into a fetal position and sob.

Depression is an odd thing. Brain chemistry is an odd thing all on its own, and the more science knows about it, the more they know they don’t know. When my mother was demonstrating some aberrant behavior and way of thinking, there wasn’t any Prozac or anything like that. There were only narcotic “tranquilizers” with addictive potential, stuff that could make you drool on yourself in high doses. My mother refused to take medication like that, and I kind of understand her posture on that. Of course, when there were better non-narcotic medications on the market, she refused to even try them, forcing everyone else to deal with what may well have been bipolar disorder.

Since I’m supposedly in the charmed circle of modern psychiatry, I take what I need to take in order to survive. On days like this, I am grateful for that because I might be prone to doing something that cannot be reversed, a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I am not so much wanting to kill myself, but wanting to not be here just the same. Those are two entirely different things.

For quite a long time, suicide has no appeal to me. First of all, I could be wrong about whatever the causal factors are. Second, I could be entirely wrong about the afterlife and what it does or does not hold, or if there really is an afterlife. Finally, I am somewhat convinced that I would be attempting to punish those remaining here, in this life. I don’t believe that’s true of every suicide, and they are all different. But for me, I really do have the inkling that I might be wanting to sentence people who have disappointed and betrayed me to years of wondering if they had anything to do with it, or could have done something to stop it. That’s overwhelmingly self-absorbed, which somewhat disgusts me. So, at this point, I’m not willing to entertain suicide as an option.

Depression can make the world seem bleak and gray on the sunniest of days, can make life seem pointless at the pinnacle of your success. Or the depths of your greatest failure, it doesn’t matter. Something in the brain is out of balance, and distorts what you see and hear. Medication can help to alleviate that in many cases, but not all. Sometimes it’s just a constant battle to maintain some kind of equilibrium.

The most important point of any conversation I have with people who do not experience depression is that nobody is qualified to judge a person who does experience that, so shut up. The judgments can amplify the feelings of worthlessness and uselessness and sadness that a depressed person is feeling. For me, the judgments cause a great deal of anger in me, and then I’m feeling as though I have failed yet again to not care about what other people think.

It is what it is. And it’s sometimes what it’s not. I suppose my only goal is to deal in absolute reality. Just the facts, ma’am. What am I seeing, what am I hearing, what am I feeling without any shading or assumptions I may want to add. If I see the dog has pooped on the floor (which she did earlier, the little shit), that is all it is. The reality is there is dog shit on the floor. It’s not reality to presume that I am being intentionally attacked or challenger for dominance. I get into trouble is attributing that behavior to intention on her part, and failure to train her on my part. If I truly believe that she intended to piss me off, and truly planned to hold her poop when she was outside in order to piss me off by doing it inside, I will eventually resent her so badly that I might treat her less optimally than usual. She’s a small dog with a brain the size of a plum; she doesn’t have the mental capacity to be planning how she is going to irritate me. She has a bad habit, probably from her puppyhood in another household (or on the street) and circumstances in which I had no part. It is what it is.

Because I am leaving this as a draft, I will say that I have no fucking idea what the hell I am doing at this point. I do not want to be here. The only problem with that is there is no other place to go. This is par for the course, because I never have any other place to go. I thought I did, when I came here, but that’s all just a puff of smoke fast dissipating in the breeze.

Every damned thing is going wrong – all of the warnings I was given, advice, suggestions, recommendations of my youth have now come back to slap me in the face and kick me in the ass. Go to grad school soon after undergraduate school – you wont want to go later. I didn’t do that, and I didn’t want to go later, but now really wish I had. Get hold of your weight issues while you’re still young enough to adapt, it will be harder if not impossible when you are older. Well, now I’m older and it is impossible.

I am not going to find a job, unless I do something totally ridiculous like customer service for some capitalist fascist pig company. That is probably what I will do, because I need the money and the benefits. The pathetic part about that is that everything I worked for, every word that I bit off, all the times I held my tongue and settled for inept bosses who couldn’t write a complete sentence – all of that has been a total waste of time. I have nothing to show for it now.

Some of us are not meant to get satisfaction, to get what we want. The unpretty ones, the fat ones, the ones of us who march to a different beat and sometimes need to rest in between…we don’t get what we want. Ever. Maybe for little things, but not for that which feeds our souls. If this sentiment is expressed, it will be decried by caring people who assure us that it’s not what we think, it’s not what we are seeing, things aren’t the way we see them. Bleh. Keep your platitudes.

This is over with. There isn’t anything more, just the conformity and the not rocking the boat and the settling for less. Settling for SO much less. I’m tired of that, but there isn’t anything else. I don’t have the energy any more to have expectations, or dreams, or hope. I am done. This is going to be a solo act until the end, whenever that comes.

I am not particularly in the stance of making the end come any sooner that it’s going to come without my intervention. Suicide is a big fuck you to everybody who’s left, and I really don’t want to be remembered for that. It would be far better to be forgotten.

Nobody should extoll my alleged talent for anything because I am simply too mediocre to be a total failure. I am dangerously mediocre. I can fake enough of the opening lines of things and the familiar beginning of a riff to get people excited, but it’s a house of cards. I am never going to live up to the first blush of real talent.

I asked the new psychiatrist – which she is not a psychiatrist, she is a P.A. – if she thought I was nuts. She said things about oh, we don’t use those words any more, but no she didn’t think I was nuts. Well, I don’t care what she thinks, but I think I’m nuts. That’s a term I would assign to people who find it impossible to fit in anywhere, and that is exactly where I am. I simply cannot comply, cannot act “as if”, cannot even make sense from time to time. I belong literally nowhere, and that is exactly where I feel that I am. Nowhere.

So be it. Welcome to nowhere. Make yourself at home, put your feet up, get comfortable. This is the final destination. In a way I suppose that’s really just fine, because now I don’t have to make the effort to conform or fit in. I don’t have to watch my tongue or not rock the boat. It doesn’t matter. It never mattered. I just bought into the lie that said I would be rewarded for driving myself into the ground for the comfort of others. I am not going to do that any longer.

To keep down the resistance – and there will be resistance – I will just keep to myself. If I can get back at least some of my bodily function, I will wander the trails and the paths alone. It is better that way, because even though people say they care about me – and they may truly believe that – it’s not like I’m part of their family or anything so there’s always a line drawn. A line that I can never cross. So bet it. They’ll never cross my line, either. The line that keeps my true self from everything and everyone else. No more showing myself, no more exposing my soft underbelly. No. More.

I have to resign myself to the fact that I’m never going to get what I want out of this incarnation. There will be no love interest, there will be no one who accepts me for me, warts and all. There will be no book that I write or song that I compose, no saving grace. People want pretty things, and there’s not enough plastic surgery in the world to make me pretty. The truly unfair part of that, however, is that people with far less skill than I, who are not pretty either manage to get what they want. Just not me. Fine. So be it.

I have got to get about the business of accepting this condition, this position, whatever the fuck it is. I always have this annoying bit of hope that always peeks out and wonders is this the one? Is this the group? Is the the time you get to be accepted and fit in like people do with a family? But it never is, and I need to stop hoping for that. The hope is killing me, or at least the repetitive dashing of the hope is.

Another fucking night of being nowhere, with nobody, and nothing. I have nothing. I am nothing. I suppose I’ll just go to sleep, if that’s even possible. I will probably wake up multiple times with these thoughts on my head and start this shit all over again. Whatever. What the fuck ever.

This is a weird thing I wrote a while back, from out of nowhere.

Talking To Myself

I can’t pretend that I am not here, but I want to.  There’s evidence to prove that I’m here, and sometimes that’s all I have to convince myself – the dog gets fed, the bills get paid, food disappears and is replenished.  Somebody must be doing that.  And I don’t see anyone else here.

So I must be here.  It’s just that I don’t see me.  It enrages me when other people don’t see me, so what am I supposed to do with being invisible to myself?

I try hard not to look into mirrors.  Always have.  I am afraid of what I will see.  I know that I won’t like what I see. It is painful to look at my face, and I avert my eyes as much as I can. It is painful to see.

To see the rest of my overweight and bloated body is agonizing, like when I saw old pictures of the Elephant Man, so grossly misshapen and disfigured.  It was too hard to see that.  It is too hard to see me, and I want to smash all the mirrors into dust so there is nothing left that can reflect my image.

These days, in this age of Zoom and video meetings, I cannot escape seeing my face coming back at me from the postage stamp thumbnail on the screen. I don’t much like that, but rarely participate in online meetings without my video on because meeting hosts usually require it.  But if I’m there for an hour, it’s an hour of scrutinizing my face when I speak, noting every blemish and the sagging jowls and vague double chin.  I silently criticize my reactions to other people speaking – I look stupid, I look pissed. Smile you fool or you’ll look like a third-rate action figure.  What does your hair seem to be doing?  Your teeth are a mess, especially since you lost that tooth on your bridge.  Nobody wants to see that.

Oh, for the love of…hellooooo? It’s me.  Well, it’s you but it’s me in you.  Whatever but let me jump in here for a minute to ask…what the hell, Ann?  You have always hated the sound of your voice and the image of your face.  What the hell?  Where did that come from?  When did that start?

I remember when it started, and it has to do with my mother, and I don’t want to go there right now.  It’s not safe to go there right now.  I have been there far too often in the past few weeks, so…no. 

So what the hell are you going to do about it, huh? 

I don’t know. 

You had better know, because that’s what she told you, remember?  That you were always going to screw up and never amount to anything.  Don’t you remember?

Of course, I remember.  I always remember that, and I always knew she would win.  Always.

So, that’s it then?  That’s the best you can do?  Hmm.  Maybe she was right.

I don’t know.  Maybe.  But maybe not.  I sometimes think I can do something, and sometimes not.  It goes back and forth in my head, and it makes me so tired.  Why can’t I just…be?

Silly girl.  You CAN just be, but you know you are not satisfied with just being.  A rock is just being.  You want to be doing something, something big, something noticeable.  You want to be visible.  That’s why you’re always mouthing off about SOMETHING.

Well, I guess.  But I’m so tired, and this is very hard, and now I’m here all by myself.  She’s gone, he’s gone, they’re all gone and it’s just me now.  Left holding the bag.  I’m lonely and scared, and I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know if I can do this.

You do know what to do, you’ve just forgotten.  I know you can’t see well because of the pain. But I’m here to tell you that you have everything you need, so use what you have.  Take your best shot, girl – how does that old saying go…shoot for the moon and you’ll land amongst the stars?  Don’t you remember?

I think so.  I guess so.

Listen, and I’m serious here…nobody gives a shit what you look like.  They give a shit about the inside part they can’t even see, the part that says you want to do something, the part that makes them feel like they can do something.  The part that is the cockroach of love!  Nobody worth anything wants perfection from you.  Got it?  Don’t forget it this time.  Your life is depending on it, you know?

Oh, my god – I remember the cockroach of love!   You can’t kill a damned cockroach – you think you smashed them into oblivion, and they just get up and walk away with half their legs.  But, yeah, I know.  I sometimes don’t want to have a life.  Sometimes I want to not wake up in the morning and just be what I feel like most of the time, like nothing.

OK, now you’re pissing me off a little.  If that was an option you wouldn’t be talking with me right now.  So I would advise you to get that out of your head, because you and I both know you don’t want to do that. 

I guess.  But when does the pain go away?  It never stops, and I don’t even know where it comes from, but it’s like that volcano eruption in Iceland…tons and tons and tons of lava pouring out of it.  Coming up from way down deep and just gushing out, rushing out, going who knows where.  It’s boiling, red and hot and angry, somehow looking the way I feel when the bad stuff is coming out of me. 

When the volcano is done, it will be done.  When you’re done, you will be done, but you know you’re not done.  You’ll know when.  There’s no rhyme or reason to it, so just relax and enjoy the ride.

I guess. 

You say I guess a lot.

Yeah, I do, when I don’t know what else to say.

Well, listen I’m pretty tired now, so why don’t you relax and take it easy for a bit.  Then sleep.  Sleep a good sleep and know that you are safe and everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be right now, even if it seems like it’s all screwed up.  Trust me on this?

Well, I guess. *snicker*

Lord.  You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?

Yeah, I do know that.  Sorry.

Don’t ever apologize to me.  Ever.  Just do what you do, be who you be, and don’t bend over.

Don’t bend over?  I’m not in prison or nothin’…what is that supposed to mean?

When you bend, the people who don’t want you to win see it as a sign of weakness or submission, and they will ride your back and hurt you even more.  See?

Hmm.  Got it, I think.  I might need a refresher pep talk another day, though….

That’s fine.  Trust me to be here, and I’ll be here. 

OK.  I guess.

THAT does it!  Good night!!!

Good night.  Sleep tight.

** ** **
I do need to sleep.  I do need to talk to myself more.  It will be OK, I just don’t know what OK looks like. 

I wonder if we have truly accepted the reality of all our circumstances, or become convinced that if we simply disbelieve what is visible it will change things. That is bargaining, one of the stages of grief. If we just have this, or if we just do that, things will be as they were back when all was well. Before COVID, before war in Gaza or the Ukraine, before the job was lost, before life fell apart. Bargaining comes after anger on the Kubler-Ross scale of grief and loss, and anger comes after denial. Bargaining is a between space, where one must admit the loss is real, and is trying to prevent anger from becoming all consuming. If only it could be undone. If only someone would save us from the pain of losing something precious.

This day is beautiful, and I have not heard a cross word or seen an unpleasant thing since I came to consciousness a few hours ago. But I know that somewhere, probably very close, someone is suffering. Someone is having a hard time, someone is dying. A mother is straining through a painful birth, while another wails over the death of her child. Someone is hungry, someone is binging, someone is sinking beneath the tidal wave of addiction. A fire is destroying someone’s belongings, a disease is whittling away the very existence of someone who is loved by many others. Somewhere there is grief, and mourning, and sadness. Everywhere there is fatigue and confusion, wondering about the why and the how of walking through our world.

Fortunately, there is also joy somewhere. There is music, there is dance, there is happiness. There is wonder, there is awe, there is beauty. There are infinite numbers of things that rob us of breath for an instant, causing us to stop and breathe deliberately. Somewhere there is someone learning how to make a difference to others, there is someone learning how not to hurt someone else. There is a seed bursting open and there is a sprout emerging, somewhere there is a heart beating for the first time. Somewhere there is something pure and good and very far removed from evil.

In which world do I walk? Do I walk on the shady side of the path, or the sunny side? I suppose there is a choice, but in my experience both worlds exist simultaneously. There is sunshine and there is darkness, there is good and there is evil, there is joy and there is grief. Unless I do not move, I will experience all of it as I move forward. Unless I do not move, light and darkness will move around me all the days of my life. There’s nothing I can do about that, nor do I want it to be different. It’s the heartbeat of the Universe, the walk of Life, the Reality of All That Is. Universal law that binds us all, whether we accept it or not.

We are all on this same rock, spinning uncontrollably through space at the behest of forces we cannot understand. It doesn’t matter if we agree with that or not, it’s happening. We don’t know why it’s happening, but that’s largely irrelevant. The larger parts of our existence are totally out of our control. We can manipulate circumstances, the Matrix if you will, but all the rest of it is going to happen whether we behave well or not. What we believe gives us power is so very small and short-sighted. Perhaps we’ll learn, perhaps not.

I was talking with a close friend yesterday, and she was having a hard time about many things. Most of her immediate turmoil was due to a work situation, but I so clearly saw other less tangible issues beneath that. Her heart was tender and she was hurting. When I have been in that position, I have found myself seeking solace, warmth, understanding. Frequently, I have looked in ALL the wrong places and found no balm for the ache deep in my spirit.

When I do not find what I need in the places I search, I hope for a guide, for someone to take may hand and point me toward a more promising locale. That’s what I hope I did for my friend yesterday, and that is what I always hope for when I’m the one hurting and flailing around and in despair. That’s what I hope we can all do for each other, just take a hand and point. That’s not controlling, or dictating, just lending an eye or an ear when possible. That is gentleness of spirit, and I believe that’s our salvation.

If my spirit is not engaged, I am a human doing and not a human being. I am not existing, I am merely an organic module that is surviving for no other purpose but to continue. Not for purposes of growth or learning or change, but merely to survive in the involuntary sense. Until the lungs can hold no more breath we struggle to survive. Until the spirit can hold no more love we die bit by bit without realizing our death is looming. I can realize that right this minute, but in the next moment I’m not so sure.

Maybe that’s the essence of my walk through life, to maintain the sense – the literal sense – of my spirit. To not allow my spirit to die, to always remember what makes me who I am and to always move in alignment with that essence. To always want to be who I am, and not want to be someone else in the deepest parts of my self. Maybe that’s why I’m here, to learn how to do that, to not be constantly wanting to be someone else, someplace else. Accepting the here and the now, and recognizing my part in its construction.

We have all created this reality. We are not victims of the other inhabitants on this planet. If not us, then who? How we got here is irrelevant, but how we experience being here is all about us collectively. We have to accept responsibility for manipulating the circumstances and resources that we all share. That is actually the Great Divide – we make our own paradise and our own hell and we are responsible for both. The great equalizer is change. Things will change no matter what we do, so perhaps it is best not to hold on to anything too tightly.

I’m in that “I need to run” place. Move back home, or move to some place other than here. Lonely, out of sorts, eating way too much, thinking strange what-if kinds of things. Like what if I have cancer, or what if they kill me doing this dental implant procedure, or what if I run out of money and have to live under the bridge when I’m 75? Or next year. Or tomorrow.

It’s a pain in the ass when my brain gets all revved up with no track to run, and I’m just spinning my wheels but making no progress in any direction. We’re all a little lost sometime. (thank you, Nightbyrde). My brain is a strange and terrible thing, although I would imagine it offers unending amusement to others. Sometimes even to myself. It’s like living in that Hamilton moment, “Oh, am I talking too loud? Sometimes I get overexcited and shoot off at the mouth…but I promise that I’ll make y’all proud…I’m not throwing away my shot.”

What is my shot? A shot at what, exactly? Maybe I’ve been sitting here waiting for something to descend upon me, like rain or a pile of dung, but that’s not how it works. Maybe I’m supposed to go out and get it, whatever “it” is. And therein lies the rub – I don’t quite know what “it” is, but I know I haven’t got it. I don’t have the innate talent of a Virginia Wolf or Alice Walker, and I’m not going to wake up tomorrow morning with those stellar attributes. There was once a song that asked “what becomes of the broken hearted”; i want to know what becomes of the mediocre. What becomes of the C students, the people under the dome of the bell curve. What becomes of the average amongst us – do we succumb to mundance existance, with nonvariance day after day, unnoticed and unvalued?

People want the exceptions, they want the extremes. That’s more exciting, it seems. These days neurodivergence is a buzz word, and when we come across someone who doesn’t exactly fit the mold, who doesn’t get all of the social cues quite right, who doesn’t seem to function well by conventional norms we are beginning to label them neurodivergent. What the eff does that actually mean, anyway? Johnny’s not weird, he’s neurodivergent. Susie isn’t oppositionally defiant, she’s neurodivergent.

I have begun to wonder if I’m neurodivergent. I don’t get social cues quite right, and I don’t see the world in the way most people see the world. My triggers are numerous and very sensitive. I feel as though I have had several lifetimes from the moment I was born until now – the good girl, the scapegoat, the bad girl, the drunk, the disappointment, the befuddled and inept donkey who doesn’t know when to stop. My first thought is to question which one is really me, and my first answer is all of them. I’m just not sure I’m supposed to wear all of those costumes at the same time.

Several of the self-improvement modalities I’ve explored in the past have asked what you would be without the trait or habit you’re trying to change. That’s an excellent question, and I know what I imagine I would be without some of the more annoying hindrances, like social anxiety. How would I function with anxiety, or without obsessive thinking? I would love to say that I’ve gone past some of those, but all I can honestly say is that I’ve beaten them down to a dull roar. I still find myself enraged at times, but the instances of that are a mere fraction of past times. For a while, I lived in rage, without a trigger. It was my natural state, my baseline, a given. I’m surprised I didn’t have a heart attack or kill someone. Maybe I did kill someone, someone inside me who held dreams and innocence and trust but proved to be a liabiliity. I wonder if she’s really gone or just hiding. One day, I’ll go looking but probably not today.

Regardless, I supposed I can say there have been some improvements along the way, but I’m not where I would like to be just yet. There is still far too much hesitancy, too much doubt of the Universe. I still feel as though I can depend on no one or no thing, and if I want it done I’ll have to do it myself. That’s very non-productive, and tiring, but it’s also a mechanism of isolation, which tickles me because periodically I wonder how and why I am sitting here alone with nothing much to do outside of my own space.

On many levels, I am making a conscious choice to be alone. Too many bad experiences with people who proved not to be who they said they were, or who had unfounded expectations of me. I suppose that is the way of the world, but I’m just not well for it. After being hurt and abandoned so many times, on large and small scales, I have chosen not to keep trying for companionship, for partnership, for love with a capital L. There’s still a romantic who lives in me, holding out for a miracle, but I keep her pretty well in check. I know she’s in there, but I’m not giving her a long leash. But, as usual, I digress.

The point is that if I have a shot, I want to take it squarely in the face of judgement and injustice. The injustice of people who have great ideas and viable solutions that aren’t heard because they aren’t the right look, the right gender, the right color, don’t speak the right language, don’t wear the right clothes. There’s always an “in” crowd, and very often members of that crowd are the ones with money and connections. If that was only about social invitations, it wouldn’t be so bad, but so often the “in” crowd is endowed with benefits – greater opportunities for advancement, enhanced social acceptability, higher income ceiling, generational wealth. In short, they have power, and the ability to get things done. That is not justice.

We judge each other by artificial standards of value. For example, if your IQ is a certain numerical value, you are judged to be worthy of a level of trust based on your presumed intelligence. There is no corresponding character assessment, or evaluation of morality, loyalty, or basic common sense. I am not sure my chances of survival in a cataclysm are better with someone who possesses an IQ of 160 but cannot start a fire. Some of the smartest people I know are fools, not because they are deficient in some area of mental capacity but because they arrogantly believe their intellect makes them superior to everyone else.

I have great respect for people who are smarter than me, and who use their powers for good. There is little patience for those who ultimately have no opinion or feelings of their own unless they can be validated by an established body of factual information. I know brilliant musicians, self-taught and without ever having the benefit of classical training but inherent talent expresses itself regardless. Street musicians and some gospel organists may have never heard of Chopin, but Chopin is irrelevant in their context. They bring joy and jubilance to the listener, and there was never any greater purpose in playing music than that.

I still want to run. I am still not comfortable where I am these days. Fear is wreaking havoc with my so-called sacred center, and I can feel the root and sacral chakras are far out of balance. I believe they have always been so. Fear was given to me, and once I received that gift I learned how to manufacture it in more efficient fashion. I have to be one step ahead of the unknown, always waiting or the inevitable catastrophe, never sure of my well being. My body actually reflects that, with a bizarre and disproportionate distribution of fat and bulge in the lower abdomen, just above the pubic bone. I believed the uterus had been the cause of all my issues, but it’s been absent for many years and still the mistrust of the body remains.

In all honesty, i do not feel significantly safe just about anywhere. Safety, for me, involves my physical wellbeing and my emotional wellbeing. I am more often able to convince myself of physical safety than emotional. People are mean, or at best clueless when it comes to how brutal they can be. More often than not, interactions have to follow some archaic sense of respectability and propriety at the cost of authenticity. Superficiality generally drives me crazy, but society appears to demand it in the name of politeness.

It remains a mystery to me how we can dismantle systems that oppress people intentionally. The system’s job is to protect itself, and our systems of capitalism and supremacy are performing as designed. Those are not broken systems, despite their negative toll on billions of lives worldwide. Why they exist and why they were designed requires only discernment of who benefits from them. At the very least, we know who does not benefit from them.

Unblocking my sacred center will take persistent effort – changes in eating habits, more water, intentionality, meditation, etc. It will also require admitting that my way has not worked to produce optimal health, happiness, or purpose. Unblocking the sacred center of the country will take similar efforts, but we cannot seem to admit that we may be wrong about how we’ve built this reality. That’s Step Zero, and we can’t get there. We’re still in the land of blame and discontent but not willing to take responsibility for any of it. So, here we are, and here we’ll stay until we lose something precious, something we feel we cannot live without. We’ll be at the bottom of our addiction then, and I hope we have the courage to recover. It’s entirely possible, entirely do-able, but it’s going to take a heap of lumber, nails, and paint to rebuild this ark. We should hurry, too, because there’s another flood coming. If we’re not ready, we’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves.

‘Tis said beware the ides of March. Caesar may have done well to take heed, but perhaps not. It’s only the 15th of the month by our calendar, and since time is but a human construct the date probably has no more significance than any other. It’s only a measure of how far our planet has traveled around its sun. We commemorate many days along that orbit, but maybe the days we should mark are the ones during which we diverged from groupthink and made our own decisions, or stood alone against the opposite tide of common opinion. The days we took a stand, no matter how unpopular. The days we did the right thing, even when ridiculed and scorned by family and friends. The days we stepped over an insect rather than crushing it to death, the days we reserved judgment of the less fortunate, the days when we risked our comfort to change the course of the status quo. We should beware the days we could not make such marks, the days we did not follow our conscience, the days we preferred to wait for perfection rather than make small changes. We should beware the days we could not admit we may be wrong, because those are the days that we are so rigid the dream of something better is shattered. Beware the ides of our own arrogance and rigidity, because that is what will surely kill us.