Tag: family

Even you

I miss the days when “breaking news” preceded something other than just the daily drip of a devolving human race. The baseline of what’s accepted and supported in this current version of society has me wishing they’d at least bring back the lobotomies, too. (maybe they did already. maybe that’s how we got here in the first place.) It makes being grateful very, very easy. Grateful for this life I built. Grateful for a home filled with love and laughter. A partner who loves me at all my variations of sugar & spice and encourages all of my pipe dreams (!!!) Delicious food and treats always in the oven or in the fridge. A few dozen noses and beaks to remind me THIS is the whole point: Nurturing the land, and each other, and letting ourselves be nurtured in return.

I’m thankful to finally have the agency of choice, which allows me to choose a whimsy life of passion instead of purely existential necessity. I’m endlessly thankful I chose to survive the times I didn’t want to.

I used to believe that opposition was beautiful. I used to believe it meant growth; I used to believe opposition meant the opportunity to stand firmly in my beliefs. That it meant considering a perspective other than my own. I’m learning now that existence does not need to be an argument. Existence was not intended to be a struggle. Existence in society was meant to build tolerance and community of those around us.

Hard and uncomfortable conversations will only be successful with emotionally intelligent people.

While shedding light, love and acceptance onto the past versions of myself that got me here today- I often find myself wondering how, at one time, I’d become so lowly that I allowed so many shallow minded individuals into my heart and home. Oblivious, conceited, needful, helpless, individuals.

I remember hollering often that I must have done something really terrible in a past life to have to pay the penance of having a myriad of these folks around me all at once.

The pain that you’ve been feeling, can’t compare to the joy that’s coming.

I know that I never would have ran this far if the devil hadn’t been chasing me.

I wouldn’t have found this forest. I wouldn’t have found my husband. I wouldn’t have found my home, or my peace, or over half my animals. I wouldn’t have found a set of parents. I wouldn’t have found my purpose or path or career. I wouldn’t be living the life I’d always dreamed of.

It scares me to think I almost wouldn’t have known this timeline at all. It’s not hard at all to be grateful,

even for you.

we are here to love

“My only baggage,” he drunkenly slurred, “is that my mom lives with me… That’s it!” He swayed towards her as he raised the eyebrows above his blood-shot blue eyes. He reeked of Coors light and tobacco, and his stained and broken teeth proved they’d both been tough habits to kick.

I wish I could shake her. I wish I could jump in front of her and tell her to close out and go home.

But I know who she was in that moment. I understand how all her previous life experiences leading up to this moment assured her that this was fine. She was still in control. Nothing could happen to her that was any worse than what she’d just survived.

I think back to the girl who stayed awake all night in the guest room in a stranger’s house. Tucked into a bed that wasn’t hers, a house that wasn’t hers, a life that wasn’t hers. He was drunk again and reckless enough for everyone to hear. His mom was quiet in the room next to her, and I knew she knew. I knew she knew I didn’t belong here.

“I love the sound of your laughter in this house,” she’d say under her breath as we put groceries away in the kitchen, “but you deserve peace.”

I remember the night he stormed out of the house while I was making dinner. I ended up sitting at the dining room table with his mom instead, discussing the new recipe I’d tried, and talking about the things she used to make for dinner. It reminded me of the social worker who comes in to talk to a kid whose just been through something traumatic. The entire time, I was nervous that the garage door would roll up any minute, and a drunken slurry would pour into the house. All I could do was keep forking at my dinner and imagining her 1990 sloppy joe dinners instead. I remember so often, hiding in bed, laying there just playing dead. Thinking that if I tried hard enough, maybe I really would just die.

One night after the bar, he’d been working on breaking into the room I was in by taking the door off its hinges entirely. His mom had gotten out of bed as he pulled the door away, and she stood between him and my hideaway.

“Congrats!” He hissed at me over her shoulder, “you finally have the mom you’ve always wanted.”