Tag: Personal Growth

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hunted

we walked around mountain tops

we stood at the edge of the world

i didn’t hold your hand

i grasped at the life I could see but never feel

i was tasting it

you were there

maybe you were somewhere else

it didn’t matter to me after a while

i was a hunter

i was hungry

i had my bow and arrow

i had aim

i walked on mountain tops

i stood at the edge of the world

i was scared

i was hopeful

i couldn’t go back

one giant leap in front of the other

limbs scared stiff

we smelled of red dirt

and hot sun

we wore the earth on our faces

and heaviness in our hearts

narcissism doesn’t have tact

doesn’t pay attention to social cues

there’s never a good time to be emotionally unstable 

empty canyons

filed up with overlapping disappointment 

wiser now

you don’t offer up how you’ve been

you don’t ask about me

still walking through ice cold rivers

unmarked trails

i still have too much compassion for you

couldn’t get out of our own way

better at mapping out the roads we never should have traveled

masters of web making

technicians of blame

our fingers always pointing in the wrong direction

we knew where we were going 

we never had the courage to say it out loud

can we say it now

i was always up there

looking down

watching like a hawk

i was a hunter

you, an impersonator 

both of us screaming for silence

i was waiting

for peace

for defeat

a discoverer 

i had it in me

i just didn’t want to use it

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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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Cold Coffee

Just after sunrise

Cold morning filling the small space 

A sweatshirt for you

I like the chill in my bones

Hot coffee

Favorite cups

Mine was a gift from you

Just an arms length away

I felt you like you were up against me

My favorite time

Sleepy eyes for you

Sometimes we talked

I liked the in between spaces better

No noise, just knowing

I knew

I always knew

I thought I knew

I didn’t know

I didn’t know I didn’t know

I did

Coffees gone cold

You thought I should have dealt with losing you better

My favorite mornings I share with my thoughts only

I don’t want to do it over

I wouldn’t change what you did

I would change what I did

Can you trust someone too much

Can you miss them and know that they don’t belong in your better world

It wasn’t better 

It wasn’t the best

It’s for the best now

Do you remember me

I made you a book of poetry

I did whatever it took

I made love to you like I was making it for the first time

I thought you opened my world up

You were blowing it apart

Bit by bit

Small parts at a time

I didn’t notice

You wouldn’t do that to me

If you remembered me

You must think I’m someone else

If I can have the same from you…

That was what we vowed

You don’t remember

You’re not holding up your part

Your words are no good here anymore

Cold coffee

I stare at an empty space across from me

No one took your seat

I’m still waiting for the person that was honest

Taking me a while to admit

She never existed

Afraid it says more about me than you

Afraid I ran into raging waters without a life vest

Knowing I couldn’t swim that well

Thinking I could learn along the way

I thought I could learn along the way

Perhaps I thought you would teach me

Perhaps I thought you brought a raft big enough for two

Take me back

To before the mornings were my favorite part

So I can choose a different time of day

When the light isn’t so beautiful

When the world isn’t so quiet

So bare

So showing

When thoughts and faces are less exposed

When they are pure and clean before they are tarnished by the day ahead 

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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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New Eyes

It’s a new start

You’ve had them before

You’re okay at them

You can look with new eyes

Try them on

See how they fit

A little snug at first

But you will break them in

Things will look brighter

You will see more clearly

You will see details you never noticed

Colors you didn’t know where there

People you never saw before

Voices you never heard

Sounds, even the quiet ones,

Will be crisper, louder, less staticky

Maybe you might find you can breathe easier over time

Your lungs will expand more

Breathe in more on the inhales

Breathe out more on the exhales

It’s a new start 

But you have old friends with you

Faces you will recognize

There in the mirror, there’s one

Say hello again

Reintroduce yourself 

Be kind to her 

Make her feel welcome

Show her around

Give her comfortable clothes

Maker her a cup of tea

Talk to her, like old times

Like you did when it was just the two of you

Hold her hand 

Tell her she is beautiful 

Tell her she is not alone despite being left

Tell her everything around her is safe

When you build a wall

You build it brick by brick

It’s sturdy but it isn’t permanent 

You can take one brick away at a time

Leaving just a small square to look through

And through that square, everything will look closer

Even the far away things

Things like happiness

Things like strength

Things like the future

Things like forgiveness

Things like healing

Speak loud if she can’t hear you

Or softly if she cowers away

Look straight at her

Make eye contact

She can see you but she needs to be guided

These are new eyes

And she hasn’t been down this road for a while

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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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The Love of a Motorhome

This afternoon we drove the motorhome around for a little while. It had been sitting all winter at the next door neighbors (they were gone for the winter and let us store it in their driveway). It was time to move it to its new spot and make sure it still had some life in it. It has been empty for months, alone, bare but not forgotten. It could be seen from our yard and every time I left the house I looked over at it and said hello. I wanted to make sure it knew we were coming back for it.

We drove it only 30 minutes or so, sitting in the passenger seat, as I usually did, brought many feelings with it. I could barely get myself to look over my shoulder, not wanting to acknowledge its emptiness. I miss this home. That is what it was, a home for over a year. Our first home we bought together. But it was much more than just that. It provided more than shelter, more than a way of getting around. It even smelled of emptiness. It smelled cold, damp, and musty. It smelled like a camper, like when we first bought it. Its walls were stripped of magnets, no cork boards pinned with pictures and notes. No keys dangling from hooks. No pots banging around in cabinets. No colorful pillows on the couch. A naked mattress on the bed. Our clothes were not in the closets and drawers. It was hollow. And it felt hollow. I started to feel as though I could cry. I missed it so much.

It is hard for me describe what living in that tiny space did for me. It gave me so much, I feel grateful to it. There is a connection like I have with no other space I’ve known. Initially, I admit I was a little afraid of it. I had rarely ever been in one except for checking out my father-in-law’s when he would come to visit. So owning one and living in one was somewhat scary. It was unfamiliar. There was a lot to learn and we didn’t exactly give ourselves a ton of time to do that. So, at first there were many holy shit moments. Like, holy shit I just bought an RV and holy shit this thing is huge.

The first weekend we ever spent in it was a test run. We spent two nights at an RV park on the Cape. We had no clue how anything worked, what anything should look like/sound like/smell like. And in just a month or so we would be living in it full time. It was also a way of testing the water as far as space went. Meaning, the lack of it. What would it be like physically living in this tiny rectangle for an extended period of time. Would I hate it? Feel claustrophobic? Keep bumping into things? Would it literally feel like I was living in a shoe box? After we hooked up the water hose, sewer hose and power cord we had some time to just chill out, have a beer and eat some snacks.

There is one moment that stands out to me. I remember as if it happened yesterday. There I was, sitting on the toilet (whose pedal flushing system I was leery of) going pee in the bathroom which was also the bedroom (unless you closed the accordian-like partition door). I was looking around, at the cabinet door which would serve as our closet, the little sink across from me, the bed which was bigger than the one we slept in at our condo, the fridge which could be seen through the doorway to the left. I was so happy I could have cried. I believe I said to myself out loud, this is your new home, you’re gonna live in this. I could not wait to have all our stuff in there and live in it for good. I absolutely, without a doubt, loved it.

I continued to love it. And it continued to kind of scare the shit out of me, because we were learning as we went. Every time we set off to a new destination I was nervous. Checking the side mirrors to make sure nothing was flapping around or little doors were swinging open. Turning the rear camera on to double check the Jeep was still attached and the tires were rolling. Trying to decipher between a tire about to blow or a bumpy road (harder than you would imagine). Hoping a pebble wouldn’t hit the propane tank and cause an explosion. Every little thing was nerve racking, because we were driving around a friggin house! With a Jeep towed behind it! We were in charge of 50 feet of moving vehicles. It might as well have been a tractor trailer truck. It was insane and amazing.

We could go wherever we wanted to and be home when we got there. We had our own bed to sleep in whether we were in a campground, RV park, truck stop, rest stop or Walmart parking lot. I felt so safe inside that shoebox. It sheltered me through my fears and nerves, rain and lightening.  It was my cocoon. It was there when I stared in awe at the Teton mountain range, when I cleaned up bloody legs from a day of mountain biking. It was there when I could barely move after a full day of hiking and then missing the shuttle bus in Zion National Park; we had to walk an additional 8 miles in pitch dark back to the visitor center. It was my house and my car all in one. It kept me in place and on the move. It was like magic. Like a best friend that you have no matter what, a pet that’s always happy to see you. It was everything for me and it did it all so well. Never complained, never rebelled. The peace I felt sitting at the kitchen table (which was also in the living room) drinking a cup of tea after dinner or having coffee in the morning was unbeatable. I wanted for nothing.

We left behind so much and found that we still brought too much with us. Most of the clothing we brought we didn’t even touch, the extra “just in case” stuff sat unused in bins. What was unexpected to me and what felt so incredible was realizing how much I didn’t need. Things that I held on to for years. Things I thought I cared about and loved. Things I thought I would miss. I needed none of it, wanted none of it, I didn’t even think about any of it. Clothes, shoes, knickknacks, coffee mugs, makeup, hair products, fancy kitchen gadgets. None of it fit, none of it had a place and none of it mattered. I was the happiest I had ever been. In that small shoebox of a house on wheels, I was the happiest I had ever been.

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Fluid

I am moving through objects
Objects are moving through me
I am in constant motion
Always alive
Breathing
Beating
Blinking
Flowing
Arteries of expectation luring me
Passageways of chance and potential
Nothing is truly as it seams
Figures shifting
I am open
Like flood gates
The rush of possibility surging like
a river into the ocean
Something brought me here
To this intersection of past, present, future and wanting
But the reason hides like a coward under
disguises made of familiar faces
Beasts of burden
I flow through you like a stream of consciousness
There is no ending here
Only seamless continuity
And if I close my eyes
I can give in
Loosen my muscles
Limp limbs
And let myself be taken
Swept up in the flood
I am floating
I am fluid
I remind myself, I am included in this transient world
There is nothing to be afraid of here
These walls are transparent
I was not pushed here
I was not dragged by own misgivings
I remind myself
I am floating
I am fluid
This is my estuary