Tag: Growing Up

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the greatest

We used to listen to a Cat Power’s album over and over in bed

We started making love to it and then eventually we would fall asleep to it

Lately I’ve been skipping over this one song when I hear it

Not wanting to face what feelings I might encounter

But the other day it came on and I let it play

And it occurred to me I never listened to the words before

Once I wanted to be the greatest, she says

The greatest of what I wondered

The greatest of all time

The greatest to conquer

The greatest singer

The greatest writer

Once I thought you were my greatest lover

I thought you were the love to end all loves

You brought me to my knees

You ended me with one look

I surrendered to you

No wind or waterfall could stall me, she says

And I thought, I would have given anything for you

I was the greatest fighter for you

I gave up many things

I thought I was fighting for something

I thought I was doing what anyone would do for love

And then came the rush of the flood, she says

And then came the surrender, I thought

But I was not a failure, no

I gave up on something that wasn’t working

But I fought for what I thought was right

And if it were right

I would have kept fighting

Now I’m fighting for myself 

Stars at night turned deep to dust, she says

I could follow the glimmering night sky until it lead me nowhere

You were no North Star

No galaxy of wonder

You were a blinding dust bowl 

A mirage of sparkles

That would only swallow anyone who dared to come too close

Melt me down, she says

I slowly became a puddle of myself

A shallow pool of has-been strength and tenacity

I no longer knew my mind or my soul

Into big black armour, she says

How long before you showed your true colors

I rose my white flag proudly 

And then I ran with it

Whipping in the wind like a sail

Leave no trace of grace, she says

And you didn’t

Just in your honor, she sings

In your honor, I thought

There is no honor in deceit

There is no honor in your actions

There is nothing honorable about that

About you

But this?

The ending of something that was not meant to be

That is honorable

That is brave

That is the greatest 

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All the Days

Today I am happy

Today you have not crossed my mind hardly once

I say hardly because you are still embedded in the back of my subconscious 

Only a little though

I think about you hardly at all

Except for the days that I wake up thinking about you

Which aren’t many

But some

And I am at peace

Aside from the days that I am burning with hurt

Those are the days that I hate you

But then there are days that I think of you fondly

And I am grateful for you

But that is only on the days that I do not feel used

And taken advantage of

I am good

On the days that I’m not bad

And I only miss you on the days that I don’t not miss you

And I only crave your attention on days when I’m feeling insecure

But I only feel insecure on the days that I don’t feel lucky that I only wasted 6 years on you and not 20

And on the days I don’t fantasize about the life I want to live and smile to nobody but myself

Those are the only days I feel low

Because on other days I am so lifted I could fly

Because there were days you weighed me down

I might even say most days

So now-a-days I am light as a feather

And people tell me I don’t have the look of someone going through a hard time

And I say that is because sometimes the hard time is what makes everything better

And the other day someone told me I looked great

And I said I guess divorce looks good on me

Because some days I can feel sad about what happened

But I am not sad

There are days that I feel angry

But I am not angry

There are times that I feel devastated

But I try to keep those to just moments

And those moments are becoming far and few between

Because between the days that I might feel like I can’t process the way my life has changed

Are days that I breathe a sigh of relief 

And that breath gets me through the day

And on to the next day

And on to the next

I remember the day we met

And I remember the day I thought this was it

And then there’s the day I knew this was ending

And somewhere in between were days of amazing and days of misery

Days where I thought you were crazy

And some days I thought I was delusional 

And I can’t forget about the days we talked about a family

There were so many days I thought you made me a better person

But on other days we brought out the worst in each other

And yesterday I thought about you every time I was in the car

And today I did the same

But tomorrow I might forget I ever loved you at all

Because there was a day you made a decision that changed our trajectory 

And that day was a terrible day

But it wasn’t the worst day of my life 

I’ve had many days that were worse than that

I wonder what that day was like for you

There are days I think, you weren’t the worst thing that happened to me

But as the days go on I’m realizing you weren’t the best either

And in 100 days from now I bet I will feel less bitter

And 200 days from now I might feel less pain

And in 365 days this is going to feel more like a memory 

And less like it feels on this day

Which is like I’m on a carousel 

Slowly spinning around with every emotion moving up and down in a consistent flow 

Today you told me you still think of me

And it made me cry

Because it’s easy to assume that on the day to day, you don’t think of me at all

But you said you think of me all the time

That’s pretty frequently

Is it safe to say I probably cross your mind everyday 

There are days that I think about myself more than I think I about you

And those are joyful thoughts

And they get me through the day

And on to the next day

And every day is a new day

And that gets me through the day too

And on to the next day

And on to the next 

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A Dangerous Current

You are a dangerously tempting current 

Swimming with you pulls me too far out

Swimming against you is impossible 

And the moon will only light the way 

Until the clouds roll in

And they will roll in

I believed in you until I didn’t

Trust was unwavering until it wasn’t

You were a soft place to land

Until you turned to stone

Cracks in your pavement should have been a warning

There’s been trouble here before

But I had a steady place to plant my feet

And your eyes were kind

I remember when you asked me

Will you do whatever it takes

You asked me

My response was my punishment

I let go of the wind 

And held onto your coattails

You sang songs to lure me in

And then scolded me for singing along

You stand next to me now

There’s a lot behind your eyes

That I can’t see anymore

I hear words in a language I can’t speak

You’re at a distance I will never reach

I wouldn’t dare take the chance

You’re in a world that does not look safe to me

Dark shadows fly around you

And I pray they don’t get too close

But I fear they have already gotten what they came for

You were the sunshine

You were warm and all encompassing 

But you were broken in a way I couldn’t understand

Your bits and pieces too heavy for me to lift

Your cracks so big I fell in

Landed in the middle of the ocean

And when I finally got sight of the shore

The current kept pushing me back out

And back out

And back out

You knew I would tire out

You knew I wasn’t strong enough to keep going

So I let my flailing arms and legs rest

And I laid on my back

Felt the water tickle my ears and sides of my face 

As I rose and sank with the motion of the water

And just as I gave in

I was set free 

You say my poetry is too depressing

Here is a happy ending for you

I am more in love with myself than

I ever was with you

I met someone so trustworthy

So loyal

So uplifting

So passionate

She isn’t condescending

Or judgmental

She is a much better lover than you

And she will never abandon me for someone else

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The Liberating Divorce

You know what’s amazing and liberating about getting a divorce? Realizing you just spent the last 6 years trying to be loved by someone and now the only person that you want to love you is YOU. It is the most free I have ever felt. And honestly, the most loved.  I believe it is something that goes for the most part unnoticed, the losing of yourself for a relationship. It’s not entirely conscious. But there were definitely moments I had throughout my marriage where I thought, this isn’t what I want to do, this doesn’t feel right, I’m not speaking up, am I sacrificing too much? am I giving too much away? am I losing myself? I battled a little over how I let that happen. How did I, a woman who has always been independent and strong willed, let herself go like that? How did I give myself up so easily?

I started to believe I needed my marriage. I needed it more than I needed myself. And that is bullshit. Nobody needs anybody. What I needed was to re-center myself or maybe I was never that centered to begin with. I struggled my whole life with depression. I grew up in a violent, abusive home. My parents both dealt with drug addictions. I watched my father abuse my mother and my sisters and I watched my mother take it and allow it in silence. I was never shown the love I needed from either of my parents. So it has taken me a while to truly gather myself into what I would consider the best version of who I could be. I haven’t had the best examples. I never would have guessed it would take the end of what I thought was my most significant relationship in order for me to find that. But when you really give something your all, and I truly and literally gave it my all, only to watch it dissolve right in front of your face, it wakes you the fuck up. 

For the first time in my life I am adventurous and I’m adventurous on my own. For the first time in my life I am truly confident and I’m confident on my own. For the first time I am happy, content, grounded, centered and fulfilled. I feel less alone than I ever have and more connected than I ever have. I am paying attention to my body and listening to what it needs, and how it feels. I am honoring my emotions. I am nurturing friendships that have been neglected. I am so present, and aware. When my marriage ended I felt like something had been taken away from me, but now I realize I have received more than I lost. The end of my marriage was hard and it was difficult but it would be a shame to focus on that and miss out on all the beauty that is around me and within me. 

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Falling in love with Mountain Biking

People who have known me most of my life would agree that I have not always been the most athletic person. Actually, that statement makes it seem as though occasionally I was athletic, but lets’ face it, I was not. I played basketball in elementary school on a team consisting of five girls, plus a sub, until eventually the sub quit. We had to beg the coach to let us play without her. I rode my bike around the block I lived on, in the parking lot next door to my house and under the overpass down the street.

When my family moved to a new town and I entered middle school, I became paralyzed with shyness. I literally got D’s and  F’s in P.E. because I wouldn’t participate in playing any games that required me to run, hit, or throw. In highschool I toyed with the idea of joining track because it appeared to be what most of my friends were doing but I never followed through. After highschool I joined a gym and while I was running on a treadmill one day, and a guy I graduated with came up to me and said he couldn’t believe I was running.  So, it was clear, I wasn’t the sporty type.

About a month into the road trip that my wife and I took, we realized we were in major need of bikes. Hiking and biking seemed like the things to do when you are exploring cool, popular hiking and biking destinations. Duh! So we went to a bike shop in Helena, Montana. I was excited to own a bike, I just wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with it. I had not ridden a bike since I was about ten years old. Unless you count the brief encounter I had in my late teens/early twenties. I rode a friends bike around the parking lot of the condo he lived in. I was embarrassed by how clumsy I felt. I was unbalanced, awkward and afraid I was going to fall. Turns didn’t come naturally, I felt too high off the ground and once I picked up speed, I was done! So when we walked out of that store with our mountain bikes you can imagine my apprehension. I hadn’t even admitted to my wife how long it had been and how bad my last experience was.

We took the bikes back to our campground and went for a ride. It is hard to describe the feeling I felt riding that bike around. I was not the same fearful, timid person I was before. Hell, I just quit my old life and was living on the road, traveling the country. I was in friggin Montana and now, riding a bike.  It was the most fun I had had since I could remember. Sure, I was a little rusty and shaky at times but my prominent feeling wasn’t fear, it was absolute delight. Any trepidation I had, I rode through and it went away. I didn’t want to get off my new bike. It was like I was a little kid again but it was better. I felt free, happy, and excited, but this time I had something to compare it to.

I love when the mundane things, the things that get easily taken for granted become extraordinary moments in life. Riding a bike is something we all learn to do as kids. And then there’s that saying about learning to ride a bike; once you learn, you never forget. They don’t say, you’ll never forget but if you wait too long you might be so scared that you vow to never get on one again. You just assume it will be easy. You assume you can do it. I spent life NOT assuming I could do anything. In fact, I assumed I couldn’t do most things. I let the unknown become the un-do-able. Clearly and thankfully, that’s changed. Throwing yourself in the deep end can do that to you.

Moab, Utah is one of the best places to mountain bike in the country. There are hundreds of trails from beginner to advanced. We were not advanced riders at the time; we didn’t even have the right kind of mountain bikes for the trails we decided to ride. We had “hardtails,” meaning there was no rear suspension. So when you ride over a rock or land a jump, you land hard. Your ass comes down on the seat like a ton of bricks and if you are lucky it will stay on the seat. If you aren’t lucky you sort of bounce off of it and the nose of the seat jams into your inner thigh or more sensitive areas I need not mention. I had no shin pads or any pads for that matter and I was wearing running sneakers.

We were wise to upgrade our pedals, which provided better grip from the little metal pegs that stick to the bottom of your shoes, except not so wise to not upgrade our footwear as running sneakers have nothing to grip so my feet kept slipping off and I would get a flying pedal to my shin. This left me with lovely little puncture wounds where the pegs dug in. It also left me with marks on the back of my calves from when my foot would slip off the front of the pedal causing the pedal to rip up the back of my calve. Keep in mind I was wearing pants, the damn pegs went right through my pants!

 

While my ability improved the more we rode, I still managed to fall or slam into things frequently. But we were riding on harder trails and I was getting better and better. Even though I was bruised and scraped up, I never wanted to stop riding. I just got right back on and kept pedaling. Me, the girl who got scared of falling in a flat, paved parking lot was zooming through single track trails (it was more of a slow zoom, I won’t get ahead of myself), climbing up and gliding down slick rock. Every decent feels three times as steep when you’re looking at it from atop a bike. Scraping knuckles and elbows on trees and falling into thorn bushes. I didn’t give a shit. I loved what I was putting my body through.  Physically, it was the hardest thing I had ever done.

We would ride for hours. There were definitely things that scared me or made me nervous. There were times I had to get off and walk my bike. Sometimes, when I couldn’t make it up something, I would get off and go back and try again. It might have taken five attempts, but eventually I would make it up.  My thighs burned like never before and it would feel impossible to push through but I would. At the end of every ride my legs would be wobbling. My palms would ache from gripping the handles. And I don’t have to tell you how my ass felt. Devastatingly, our bikes were stolen in California but after mourning their loss we got ourselves new ones, with dual suspension.

Despite my fear and lack of athletic ability I became a mountain bike rider and I loved it. My family could hardly believe their eyes when we would send them pictures.  I don’t think anyone would believe it. I could hardly believe it myself.

For the first time in my life I felt powerful and strong and I felt fearless. Being fearless for me didn’t mean not having fear, it meant having it but pushing through it. It meant having fear and using that fear as fuel for determination. It meant being afraid to do something and doing it anyway. For the first time in my life I felt fearless, like I could do anything and like I was free to have fun while I was doing it!

 

 

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Rewind, this was NOT the plan.

What happens when you’re an adult and you still have no clue what you are doing with your life? You are at a standstill. You have no vision, no goal, no clear path. All you know is that you are not happy and you want to be fullfilled. How do you avoid feeling like up until this point you have wasted your time? And not just time or even valuable time but your LIFE. How do you avoid feeling like you have wasted your life?

You look at people you know who are happy and content. For some people it’s genuine. I think for many, it is content with being unhappy. There is a difference between being truly happy and having happy moments. Can you ever be truly happy with every aspect of your life? Can you love your downtime, work, family, friends, and social life? Can you be satisfied with your physical appearance and be mentally stable? And on top of that be overall healthy? Do all of these things have to be top notch in order for someone to truly, really, genuinely be 100% happy? You could argue that it isn’t possible for all of that. Something inevitably goes wrong or falls short. So, the answer is, you need to be happy despite what isn’t perfect. It is no easy feat, but it is possible. Anything is possible.

Decisions are mandatory in life. You are making them everyday, all day. You decide to wake up, you decide to have coffee over tea, you decide to put gel in your hair, shave your legs(or not). You decide what to take for lunch, to order out for dinner, to finally get in bed before ten o’clock.  You make decisions that consistently impact your day, your general mood, and your life. And you make them without actually knowing what the outcome will be, without even necessarily thinking of what it will be. However, you probably know what you want it to be.  You have coffee, because it will help keep you more alert on your drive into work. But you get to work only to find you are jittery, and your heart is racing. Oh well! What are you going to do? Regret that you decided to have coffee? Beat yourself up over the fact that you didn’t think about the potential to feel over caffeinated?  Question, why did I do that? Why didn’t I just have the tea? What was I thinking? This was such a horrible decision, no good has come out of it at all!  No, chances are you don’t do any of those things. You don’t go back and try to analyze precisely what went into your decision of having coffee and what you thought would happen verses what did happen. There is a chance you don’t even associate your jitters with the coffee. You could go all day thinking you just felt weird. Either way, you go about your day, maybe drink a few extra glasses of water.

Yet, when you make more serious decisions in life and the outcome is not what you hoped for, you do exactly that. You dwell, you regret, you question. Nobody makes a decision because they think something bad might come of it. You are always making them because you think it is right, better, smarter. It might be the harder way but you still make the decision. You decide, in hopes that it was the right choice. You decide to move across the country for school or a new job. You might get there, not get into the school, or lose the job after a month. You might get there and realize the dream job isn’t so dreamy after all. In addition, you have a falling out with family, and get into a car accident. It would feel as though as soon as you got there, everything went wrong. And you would feel like you made the wrong decision. You would be right about one thing, and that would be that things turned out differently. But that doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. The jitters are from the coffee, but not from your decision to have the coffee.

When you make a decision, you make it with intention. When you make a decision, you have to commit. You commit to it, you stand behind it, you have faith in it. You have faith in yourself. It’s not a game show, you didn’t choose door number three and get slimed. But if it were, and you did, you would go home and wash it off. When things do not go the way you thought, you go with it. You change with it, you adjust. You make it what you want it. You don’t sulk over how everything sucks, this isn’t what you wanted, and now what are you going to do? Nothing is ever certain, we don’t have a way to see into the future or to know how things are going to turn out. But we make decisions despite that. We have to. We don’t avoid, we can’t go back and change anything. We have to look forward. Always look forward. And tomorrow you have half-caff.

 

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The Real World

When I told my family that I had decided to quit my job, sell my condo, buy a motorhome, and travel around the country for as long as my savings account would allow, they were surprised to say the least. There was excitement and disbelief. It was all very positive. This is so exciting! I can’t believe you’re doing this! How long will you be gone? Where are you going? Can we visit you along the way? They knew my wife and I might come back or we might have found someplace we wanted to live. My father lacked a little of the excitement. He was perhaps more…skeptical? He’s old school and traditional. Extremely old school and traditional. You might ask how old school and traditional can he be with a gay daughter? And you would be right to question that but that’s for a whole other post. His mentality was kind of like, Okay, go for it, have fun, be careful, and when you decide to come back to the real world we will be here and hopefully your jobs will too. He didn’t really get it.

What the hell is the real world anyway? And why isn’t what I was planning on doing a part of it? Why has life been summed up to work, owning a home, starting a family, student loans, retirement accounts, and having “fun” on the weekends? I don’t get it. And I don’t like it. Actually, I loathe it. That is not a life to me and I refuse to make it MY real world. After traveling and living on the road I knew that despite where we needed up, we were not going to fall victim to ordinary life again. In my soul and gut I knew I could not possibly accept it, not after being exposed to the beauty of freedom and the joy of living a life I never imagined was possible. But how?

There is just no getting around it, you need money. At least I believe you do anyway. Because I don’t want to live on the streets or eat food out of dumpsters. That’s not exactly the alternative lifestyle I’m imagining. But I believe you can live a life where you get to do the things that give you the most joy. I believe you should make money specifically to do those things. I spent all of my twenties making and saving money for things that gave me no joy. I bought a condo that stressed me out, I bought a brand new car that got me to and from work every damn day. And I was saving money because I thought that I should. I was saving it for the future but for what in the future? A nicer, bigger condo? A newer, more expensive car? A retirement account to be thankful for in 40 years? Those things might give some people joy, and if they do then great! By all means, save away. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it, but I was doing those things and I was miserable. I never did anything I wanted to. I never went back to trapeze class because it was too expensive even though I thought about it all the time. I never took days off of work to go for hikes, or go to museums or to the beach. I never enjoyed nature even though I felt it pulling at my heart strings.

You know, it’s funny. People always say, Wow, what a dream! I wish I could do that! And my response is, YOU CAN! People said to me, How could you have left your family? I could never leave my family! And my response is, YES YOU COULD! I truly believe the thing that made me leave and pursue my ideal world was passion. If anyone isn’t doing it, they don’t want it bad enough. I had such passion and fire inside of me, if I didn’t leave I felt I literally would have died. Of course I knew I would miss my family if I left, but the alternative was a much darker outcome for me. And what I discovered was so profound. It was something I was never going to get by staying put just so that I could make it to Sunday dinner at my parents.

I discovered MY real world. And it did not involve living in a house with a massive mortgage, owning a nice car, having twenty pairs of jeans, new bathing suits every summer, working like a slave, stressing over bills, or waiting until the friggin weekend to do what I wanted to do. I discovered simplicity and minimalism. I listen to my friends talk about selling their starter homes for something bigger, and I cannot wrap my head around 1500 sq. feet of space not being enough. Nothing is ever enough. Everyone strives for the same things and they are never happy enough. They say they wish they could do this or that, but they are never driven enough to do it. So they settle and go through life being complacent . Complacency does not lead to happiness or fulfillment.

So how do you do it? How do avoid falling into the rat race? How do you prevent yourself from living just to work and working just to pay for your mortgage, loans, car payment, childcare, etc.? There isn’t one answer. Everyones quest for their real world will be different because everyones ideal real world is different. Something that helps is knowing what you don’t want, what you do want and what you are willing to do for it. I can’t say never, but for now I know that my wife and I refuse to be slaves to a mortgage or to jobs that leave us no time to do what makes us feel alive. We don’t need much. We don’t find value in “things”. And when you can let go of all the materialistic shit and focus on the experiences that truly fulfill you, you can stop living for a paycheck. After all, nature is always there, right outside your window, free of charge.

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The Trouble with my Hair

 My hair, it is the vein of my existence. For my entire life I have received comments on my hair. Most of them compliments, some of them backhanded, and some it is hard to tell. It has been both flattering and embarrassing. I have been interrupted during dates and flagged down in departments stores. I have been told it is a blessing and a curse leaving me to ponder, a curse for me or for you? I have had strangers ask if they can touch it, and I’ve had strangers not ask and touch it anyway. Women have glared at me in restrooms while others gush about how they envy it. I’ve been asked if it is hard work which I coyly respond, “No, it’s actually pretty low maintenance.” People want to know which products I use and how much, how often I shampoo and condition. I have written step by step instructions for waitresses while I am out to breakfast. They want to know how I brush it (I don’t own a brush), if I blow dry it (I don’t own one of those either), and how much I hated it when I was little (not at all).

Many are shocked to hear that I grew up liking my hair. Actually, until I hit middle school I never paid much attention to it. My mother combed it out for me when I got out of the shower, and I wore it in a braid most of the time. Occasionally it would be worn half up/half down for the school play or picture day. My mother never put products in it, and she would brush it out so it looked like a frizzy, puffy, triangle behind my head. In spite of that, I never hated it, but should I have? Was I supposed to hate my curly hair? And what does it say about me that I didn’t? Was I conceited or full of myself? Did it seem as though I was bragging? Should I lie and go along with it saying, “Of course I hated it!”

Kids sitting behind me in class would stick pencils in it to see if I could feel it and how long they could get them to stay in before slipping out. One woman asked if I ever considered relaxing it, just a little of course, to give it more length. Once, I was told it made me look hard, angry, unapproachable, and intimidating. My hair can do all that?! The rare moments I would straighten it out were always interesting. The reactions were off the charts. I was almost unrecognizable with straight hair. People couldn’t believe how straight it was, how long it was, even how the color changed. They would ask, why would you ever want to get rid of those beautiful curls? Some thought it was permanent, getting judgmental and saying in a snarky tone, I can’t believe you would do that. Then there were the other comments, the ones that stung a little- that looks great, you should wear it like that more often, don’t ever wash it, I like it better this way, you look younger, you look prettier etc. These comments left me perplexed. This wasn’t how I looked naturally. It was like someone saying that I looked better with makeup on. Like, what did you think of me before? Straightening my hair gave me complicated feelings. In a way I felt more confident, partly because I got less attention and didn’t have the looming insecurity of my big curly hair. I looked more normal, like most other girls. I blended in.

Once, on a date someone told me “I love your hair, I think it’s your best feature”. At first I took it like any compliment, I blushed and said thank you with a smile. But, then it sunk in. If my hair is my best feature, what does that say about the rest of me? An old friend of mine told me that her boyfriend said I grabbed the attention of all his friends because of my hair, it made me look exotic, and without it I would be just like any girl- regular, average, nothing special. The first thing I should have done was get rid of the friend (who tells someone that unless they are trying to hurt their feelings). Instead, I chuckled, and silently my insecurity grew. Is that true? Is my hair the best thing about me? Is it all that matters? What if I lost my curl? What would I be then? Bland? Boring? Useless? Unattractive? Just plain Ugly? What if I got cancer and all my hair fell out and grew back in straight? What would I do? Would I ever be found intriguing to anyone ever again if I didn’t have this hair? Would no one ever compliment my smile or my eyes? Does that even matter? Because it doesn’t appear they are noticed now anyway. What about, gasp, my personality?! Am I not funny enough, do I have no sense of humor? Am I not interesting enough? No wit? Nothing? Am I nothing without my hair?

My hair and I went through many phases together. There was the phase of being too insecure about it’s bigness to wear it down. I felt like there was too much of it, drawing too much attention and not in a good way. Like I was walking around with a giant clown wig on, its course wiry curls getting in the faces of people walking by. There was the phase of always wearing it down because I felt like I had to. Like people expected it. Like it was a shame not to. I felt like without it framing my face I was not much to look at. There was too much face for my comfort level. It brought unwanted attention to my nose which was slightly off centered from a break when I was little and my tiny brown eyes. I never felt I was pretty enough. I couldn’t put my best face forward, my hair was the best thing I had. Nobody will ever compliment me if they don’t see my hair, I will be exactly what people have said, boring and unnoticeable.

There were times when the compliments were too much and I wanted to hide my hair and then there were moments when I felt incredibly dependent on those compliments. Without them my self esteem plummeted. I was starting to develop a bit of a complex- a love/hate relationship with my hair. The hair that, for the most part, I always loved. And, not because other people loved it, but because I genuinely loved it. It was a part of me, like a limb. My hair fit me, it fit my personality. I wanted to love my hair but I didn’t want to depend on it to feel better about myself.

The older I get, the less entangled I get with my hair. It has taken on a more fitting, proper role. It is just my hair. I wear it up in a big puff ball on top of my head, tendrils falling down on my forehead like bangs. I play around with it more, brushing out the curls in a deliberate frizzy mane. I manipulate the curls into more of a wave for a nice change. I part it down the middle flattening out the top and drawing more attention to my prominent nose for a different silhouette. I let it get really big, the bigger the better, without worrying It will get in someone’s way or block their view at the movie theatre. I coil it up into a tight bun, I braid it. I cover it up entirely with a scarf. I do whatever I am in the mood to do on that particular day and I let it have no lengthy effect on me. It makes me no prettier and no uglier. It makes me no more confident or insecure. It makes me no less approachable or intimidating. I am not funnier with it or more serious. It does not make me sexy or plain. It makes me no more or less worthy of your attention. It makes me no more of myself or less of myself.


Once in a while

Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To shave my head
They say it’s my face
My hair makes it look angry
Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To be hard, to be edgy
I want scars on this skin
I want ink on my body
Someone said it was my best feature
Someone said I should smooth it out
Be careful what you ask for, it is longer than yours
Is it too big for you
Is it too frizzy for you
Does it scare you
That I am not like you
Is it too chaotic around my small, almond eyes
They see you
You see me coming from a mile away

Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To stop trying to be pretty
I am too clean
To small
I need meat on these bones
This body is getting smaller
Edges where curves should be
Am I waisting away
I have to let out my desires
Set them free from these cages
Set them free
I have this urge to be ugly
Because that’s what I am
When I am not trying to be beautiful
What is beauty anyway
This hair is my perfect
This hair is my flaw
This hair is my child
I am tending to it all the time

I am not my hair
I am the knot at the nape of my neck
Do I have a face
Is there someone awake inside me
Every once in awhile
I have the urge to be ugly
To check the “other” box
I am female
I am sexy
I am beautiful
I am hard
I am too thin
I am too independent
I am too inward
I am not poetic enough
I need more
Education
I need more
Words
I need more
Tools
I need more
Metaphors
I need more

I am my hair
I am wild
I am messy
I am going In different directions
I am loud like the volume
As singular as the tightly wound curl
I am stretching
When you pull me
I bounce back
Cut me
I will grow
Wash me
I am clean
Try to tame me
I will fight it

I am not commanding your attention
I am demanding, look away
I am not my hair
Picture me
Bald
Every once in a while

 

Posted on

The girl who….

In my last post I mentioned how I had shed some skin while I was traveling, A.K.A. my past. Now I want to shed some light on what I meant. Living in the same place your whole life, while having many advantages, has many disadvantages. Friends I had growing up LOVED the idea of staying put. They wanted to be “townies” like their parents were. To be honest the thought made me throw up in my mouth a little. That was the last thing I wanted. Also the last thing I wanted- to be labeled. I felt like I was walking around with a bunch of labels stuck all over me. Everyone knew too much about me. Everything from my past felt so present.  No matter what changes I made, I was always going to be the girl who…

I was the girl from Chelsea. The girl who lost her belief in God or any higher being for that matter when she lost her grandmother. I was the girl who failed gym because she was too shy to run.

I was the girl who got shoved in the locker room in seventh grade by a beastly eighth grader. She had heard I called her a bitch (I hadn’t). For one, I was the new girl in school and didn’t really know who she was and second, I was the new girl in school and wouldn’t call anyone of that size anything for fear of exactly what was happening. I was saved by an equally massive eighth grader just in the nick of time who I believe was friendly with my sister.

I was the girl they called anorexic.

I was the girl who got shunned and bullied in eigth grade by a group of kids. Led by two girls I once was friends with, I was tormented through the halls, called vicious names and was afraid to leave my classrooms. All because I was liked by a boy. I cried every day until I refused to go to school and my parents had to talk to the principle.

I was the girl they thought was a snob.

I was the girl who finally got taken in by a new group of friends in highschool only to end up losing them after highschool. What made this loss so devastating was that after my terrible experience in middle school I lost a lot of confidence and self esteem. This group of friends gave a lot of that back to me, I felt accepted, liked and important. They gave me a sense of worth that I was lacking. It appeared as though the friendships I built with these three girls would last our whole lives. When I started losing those relationships I realized they weren’t  just taking their friendship away, they took all I got from it with them. I lost friends physically but mentally I lost much more. They signified so much to me and that loss was so traumatic that till this day I struggle with it at times.

I was the girl who cut herself.

I was the girl who went crazy my senior year over a breakup. I flipped out at parties, screamed and cried. I called my ex’s new girlfriend and begged her to leave him unless she truly loved him which I knew she couldn’t possibly. I left all our prom pictures in his mailbox, I sat around the corner from his house crying hysterically in my car. I threw out everything and anything that had to do with him. I sent him the poems I wrote about him. I wrote him letters. Years later I still wrote him letters. Years later I still could not move on. I went to therapy specifically to help me get over it.

These trajedies and losses were hanging over me like a storm cloud, they followed me everywhere. When I wasn’t thinking about them I was dreaming about them. Everywhere I looked I was reminded of them between houses I drove passed and people I bumped into. While in reality those people probably weren’t thinking about it ever, I felt every time they saw me, they were remembering-that’s the sad girl, the depressed girl, the crazy girl. Deep down I knew it was my own perception of myself that had to change. Nevertheless, I couldn’t escape it here. This was where it all happened. This was where those memories lived. Now, I should say that it isn’t as if all these years later I am still walking around with anger built up inside me. I am not holding grudges against an ex from when I was 17 or mean girls in middle school or old friends in highschool. I am not thinking about this daily, weekly or even monthly. I worked hard to be a successful adult who isn’t seeking revenge on a 12 year old brat. But in the rare moments when I am reminded of them there are still small pangs of hurt.  I surprise myself sometimes with the feelings that bubble up after over a decade has passed but then I remind myself I suffered through these events and their aftermaths for well over that.

As a 32 year old I feel a little embarrassed to admit that these things that happened to me so long ago still effect me. I should be able to let them go, they should be old news- silly, insignificant, typical school drama.  Like, grow up already! But it took me years to be able to talk about these events without crying not to mention a ton of therapy. They will always be old scars however shrinking and faded.

Living back here I am reunited with the person who endured those hardships. When I was on the road I felt weightless without the heaviness of those labels. I felt like I finally had a chance to be myself, the me I was without all the clutter of being something I didn’t want to be. I wasn’t the pathetic girl who lost all her friends. Twice. I wasn’t the girl who couldn’t get over her heartbreak for years. I wasn’t someone ‘s old best friend, or an easy target. I wasn’t the underdog or athletically challenged. I wasn’t tragically damaged. I wasn’t the hairdresser or the wanna be writer. On the road I wasn’t depressed, I was happy. I wasn’t crazy, I was calm, I wasn’t timid, I was bold. On the road I could be known for being fearless, adventurous, and brave. I was a mountain biker, a camper, and a hiker. I was a minimalist and free spirited. I was optimistic and funny. I was undaunted, uninhibited, and liberated. That’s who I was. It is who I am.

 

Leaving the hurt behind

Grey skies turned blue
Small skies turned big
Dark skies turned starry
Straight roads began to curve
Highways gained elevation
I got further and further away from you
Mean words taunting
Calling me out
Calling me names
A child in a mean girls world
You didn’t follow me there
Green turned brown
Brown turned red
Sun got stronger
Nights grew quieter
The air was cleaner
You didn’t follow me there
Best friends turned enemies
You made me feel accepted
Then you left me out
I left you back there along with my lack of worth
States grew fewer but larger
Rivers and lakes were clearer
Mountains were taller
I achieved new heights
You didn’t follow me there
First love
Worst love
Heartbreak is too tender a word
Heartbreak does not last eight years
That’s depletion
I didn’t need therapy, I needed saving
Too stubborn to leave me
I left you

You didn’t follow me out there
You wouldn’t have lasted a minute
In the bare bones of solitude and minimalism
You require too much
I was reborn
I left you where you were conceived
And you didn’t know any routes out
You couldn’t read the maps
You needed protection
There wasn’t any of that out there
The wide open scared you
Mountains made you feel small
Uninterrupted skies made you feel insignificant
Made you feel less than
The journey made you feel weak
The journey made me strong
I traveled further and further away from you
I climbed higher and higher away from you
I drove faster and faster away from you
I set my eyes on a new horizon
I found peace away from you
I grew taller and taller away from you
I stood on solid ground away from you
I was fearless away from you
I found myself more and more away from you
I was myself
Away from you

Posted on

New poem-New life in my old home state.

I am still sifting through this new life in my old home state. I miss being on the road so much. I miss everything about it. I miss living in the small quarters of my motorhome. I miss opening the door and overlooking the La Sal Mountains in Moab, Flathead Lake in Montana or the waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.  I miss the simplicity of it all. I felt I had shed all that made me who I was and suddenly I was nothing more than  girl in a motorhome. I could have been anyone, from anywhere. Finally, I was not the life I had lived. I was just me.

Living back here I am reminded of the many struggles I have faced and how far I have come. I am constantly reminded with flashbacks of my childhood and of the depression I endured as a teenager that lingered into adulthood. I find I am still battling these monsters as a grown woman even though I have done everything in my power not to be a victim of my circumstances. I expected to write everyday on the road but I was surprised to find it difficult. I was not inspired to write, I was inspired to do.  Now that I am back from my travels I am overflowing with words. I think sometimes being in something can be blinding and it isn’t until you are out of it that you can truly see. I can see now and I am writing it all down.

Here Is one of my latest poems. Hope you like it!

 

Rabbit hole

I had to come back to feel it
Had to retrace my steps
Close my eyes
Arms reaching out in front
Hands spread
Fingers feeling
For something I recognized
Would it be everything
Or nothing
Time away can change a person
Sending her into a galaxy of unknown stars
Circling in beautiful confusion
Swirling around in the brightest darkness
A miraculous discovery
New vision
Is this a new me
Has my heart grown bigger
Or are the beats just getting stronger
The pounding making my chest feel smaller
My whole body in a subtle tremor
I am light as a feather
I am blowing around amongst the telephone wires
My face damp with the mist of cumulus clouds
An overcast of reflection
Old meets new
How do you do      It
You are too big for these shoes
Bulbous knuckles turning white with grip
You cannot hold on to these pieces of you
They are cracking, slowly chipping away
You will fall with them
Keep falling
Rabbit holes
Infinite space
Infinite release
Keep falling
Screaming
No one will hear you
Voice swallowed by depth
Let it out and it is gone
No echo
Keep falling
Where are you going
Will you ever get to the you you are running to
Is she down there
Arms reaching out in front
Hands spread
Fingers feeling
I know this person
I know this smell
It fills me with remembrance
She is a child
She is pretending in a world of ambivalence
She is growing up
She is getting angry
She is looking for words angrier then angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole
She is a teenager
She is easing her pain with sharp objects
She is losing her belief in a greater being
She is growing up
She is getting angry
She is looking for words angrier then angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole
She is a woman
She is running away from the life that was created
She wants to know who is responsible for this
She wants to know how to fix it
She is growing up
She is showing her age
She is looking for words angrier than angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole