A Few Thoughts On Dating

I’m a 46 year old single woman. I had recently ended a two year long-distance relationship because it was not good for me. I wasn’t going to date. I was just going to be single. I would come home nightly and sit on the couch with my dogs and I was content. Until I wasn’t.

As I sat there night after night, I realized that I never really just dated much. I always had relationships and did not stay single long. I had my first serious boyfriend at 15 and the longest I was single (as in no relationship) was 3 yrs while I was divorcing my first husband (it took years for the divorce to be final). I did not date, I was alone but I was also working three part time jobs, going to college full time and I had a young child.

We need connection. I have struggled since the pandemic and my second divorce with connection. I found myself more distant from the groups and people that I had surrounded myself with before 2020. I met my last boyfriend online and we jumped into a relationship very shortly after meeting. It was long distance but we tried to see each other and talk as much as we could. It felt good not to be alone. Until it didn’t.

So I find myself single and wanting connection. I decided to go on FaceBook dating because you can see if the person is connected to people you know and it felt safer than other sites. Ya’ll it has been a journey. I had a few days off of work because I was sick and I made a bunch of connections on the site. I was typing and talking and I had like fifteen conversations going on. I was enjoying most of them and some were like pulling teeth but when I went back to work and did not have all day to be keeping up with messages, I realized I had over connected (see pic above).

I have ADHD and I can get very excited about something that is new and novel. I will pour all my effort into it and then when it loses it’s shine and becomes a lot of work, I am done with it. So here I am with all these people wanting my time and conversation and I don’t know how to choose who to focus on.

I decided to say yes to a few dates to see if I connected in person with anyone. My first date was after work one day. We met for a drink (I don’t drink) at a local restaurant. The man was nice, good looking, successful, and we had good conversation. He seemed surprised that I was funny and witty and attractive. I was home by 5:30 and counted it as a success. He sent me a text later that said it was a pleasure to meet me. That was nice. We were both busy for the weekend so we did not talk much.

Later the next week he starts texting me and it is a lot of celebrating job successes and talking about connecting with our daughters who are away at college. Then he asks me how I feel about sharing affection. I say that I love affection with the right person when I feel safe. From there he starts asking to see me again. We make a plan to cook a pizza together at another time. That sounded sweet and fun.

His texts start being erratic and sounded like he was forgetting things or just repeating the same thing over and over. He gets a little playful on the phone messages, and I’m not afraid to be playful so I responded. He then calls me, masturbates while on the phone and hangs up when he is done. No text after, no response to a wtf text, nothing. Then sends me something hours later asking if I want to have sex. I cannot explain how yucky that experience was. I’m a grown up and I can handle sexual situations but that was so weird. I think he thinks we have a date tonight even though I told his to go “F” himself because real me do not do things like that. I’m not even opposed to phone sex, if it is mutual and discussed but this was not what happened. I do not want to be seen as a body with no feelings, a blow up doll on the end of your phone line who takes whatever you do or say with no feelings. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

I had another date with a gentleman who is older than me by about 13 years. He sounded very sweet and was a gentleman on the phone. We met at a bar for dinner. We had connected on FaceBook as friends so I had low expectations for romance, I wasn’t expecting any. When we met, he was very talkative and funny. We sat for hours eating and talking. He was very open about his life and his children and marriage. He was in therapy and glad to hear I was also. We had a good time. We have kept in touch by text and I think he would be a great friend to have. I’m being honest with him that I am dating and not only talking to him. We have not met up again, I have been busy and also sick, but he asks to meet up and do normal things like take dogs for a walk. I don’t think I am attracted to him but he has the qualities I would hope for in a man I was attracted to.

The last date I went on was me in the picture at the beginning of the blog post. I met up with a guy that I had connected with from another town near mine. He drove here to take me to dinner. The whole date was a comedy of errors. He got lost and his phone died. The restaurant we planned to eat at had over an hour wait. We ended up eating somewhere neither of us really wanted because we were hungry. He had not planned anything after dinner and I didn’t know what to do either. During dinner he told me that he dropped out of school but was a laborer. He asked me if I liked phone games or gambling and I do not. We were like perfect opposites. I have a master’s degree in education and he hated school, ran the streets. I asked about his friends and he told me they were criminals. I laughed at first but he wasn’t kidding. The red flags were flying but I was more attracted to him as the night went on (see pic above). We ended up kissing for a bit and I had to tell whatever part of me that was attracted to this man, that we had to stop and go home. I cried on the way home because this man was so not meeting the list of qualities I would like in a partner but here I was totally attracted and drawn to him. We have texted a few times since but I know that I should not see him again.

In the meantime, I have had a man call me a player and block me because I told him that I was dating several people at one time (isn’t that what dating is??). I have had men text me like crazy for one day like I’m the most important person in the world to them, and then disappear the next day with no follow up ever. I have been asked for money many times. I have had people not be who they say they are and get caught in the lie. I have met men who just want me to come to their house and cuddle with them (they don’t even know me) and women who want me be friends with them and think about if I’m really attracted to men or if I might want to hook up with them instead.

This is exhausting. I don’t think it is supposed to be like this. I have been out there for less than a month. I cannot keep adding to my collective trauma by letting these strangers into my life, even just a little bit, and having them dump all their weird shit at my feet. I want connection. I want fun. I want to know if this is normal or if dating in middle age is just a shit show for everyone. I want off the bus and I just got on, but if I get off the bus I won’t meet anyone.

I’m keeping a list of qualities I am looking for in a partner. I am writing down lessons I’m learning. I’m trying to keep my heart open and my mind open in spite of having every reason to close up shop at the moment. I find myself thinking about it logically and I cannot understand why I even want to date men. I have had a 0% success rate at having a long term relationship that met my needs and was good and healthy for both people. I think about my history in interacting with men and I have to be honest, it has not been positive. I have been hurt, traumatized, abused, deceived, used, and taken advantage of by so many men in my life, not all men, but the majority. If I had that kind of record with say cats, I would not get another cat. I would just live a cat free life.

My question to myself that I need to get curious about and find the answer to is why? Why do I want a relationship with a man? What am I willing to put myself through to get it? Is it worth it?

If you are in the forty-something dating pool and have any advise, I’ll take it. Please know that you have my deepest empathy for the journey you are on. If you are happily married, tell me why it is worth it? If you are happily single and have no desire for a partner, tell me how you arrived there. I’d love to hear how it is going out there for everyone in middle age, not just the singles. Is anyone having the time of their life?

Entering the Darkness

Winter Of The Heart

These pages have been frozen and this site unopened since June. I was hiding, hibernating, wintering, healing, surviving. Call it what you want but I am out of sync with the world. It was a strange feeling to be wintering in the summer, to be wintering for longer than the season, but no matter the season, this is where I have been residing.

It has taken all of my energy to just live. I know that most people feel that way because our society has created an unsustainable grind culture, and I feel that as well. My experience is deeper, though, and if you have ever done personal healing work, you will know the exhaustion of wintering as few others do.

Some, including me, have wondered if I’m just depressed. The answer is yes, I am depressed, and I am in treatment for that, but this is different. This is surgery. This is cutting down deep to the hidden things while you are awake and living and breathing. It is opening your chest cavity up and leaving it open for an extended period of time to extract the black cancer of trauma and pain that has lived and entangled itself in you for all of your life.

You show up at work with a heavy coat of armor covering your big open wound. You arrive to soccer practice and cheer even though every breath hurts. You cook the dinners, buy the things, smile, laugh, and love with your chest wide open. No one knows that just living and breathing takes great effort. It is a hidden wound.

The truth is, you don’t want people to know. What a tender, tender wound. How could you risk anyone knowing and taking advantage of your wide openness? Those who know have to be trusted with your very life. There are a few and what a relief to take off your armor and have someone gently embrace you knowing how to tenderly hold you, wounds and all.

I’m caring for myself, loving myself, learning myself. I’m navigating my way through this extraction of darkness as best I can. I’ve not been shy or quiet about my troubles and pain and my healing on here. Writing is a therapy for me and sharing is a hope for me. I hope that sharing brings light into the dark places that we are afraid to talk about. I certainly do not like when near or total strangers know my deep, dark, personal thoughts but I heard in recovery that secrets and sickness grow in dark places and that they heal in the light. My hope is that someone reading this will see light where before there was only darkness. My hope is also that you never feel sorry for me and this struggle or treat me with fragility because I shared. If you are not the one that sees me in person without my armor on, then we carry on as usual because I have a life to live.

I struggle so much with that paradox of sharing my heart and then protecting it at all costs. It is a strange place to be, but I also learned in recovery that it is possible to let down your walls and share your story in a safe place, then put on your armor to go out into the wild, terrible world. So while I sit in this chair, in front of this screen, I imagine a sacred space between me and you, were it is safe to share and believe that my sharing my experience may help you in this intimate energy I’m creating. I’m happy to talk about what I write in a planned intimate setting with someone, but it is hard when I am spilling my coffee carrying 7 bags into work and someone says they read my post. I feel exposed. I feel vulnerable. I feel like I did something wrong. I don’t know how to do both, share and then accept feedback in person, but I’ll continue because discomfort is part of vulnerability.

So I’m in eternal winter, and I’m resisting the urge to label it as wrong or unhealthy or something that needs to be fixed. I’m in the middle of transitioning therapists and it has been such a positive experience. I am reaching so far into the darkness and exposing it to the light. It is the deepest work I have done to date and I’m incredibly emotional about it. I am healing my heart. I am healing my inner child. I am healing my past. I am changing who I get to be. I know that my healing will send ripples out into the universe. It will change my children. It will change my family. It will change my friends and my sweet love. It will change my co-workers and students. It will change everything.

I’m eternally grateful for the fire keepers who have kept me warm in this harsh winter. I’m grateful for my Al-Anon program that feeds my soul and feeds my bravery, and is always a safe place to land. I am grateful for grace, forgiveness, grocery pick up and robot vacuums. I am beyond grateful for professional therapists who do no harm and guide me through this. And I’m grateful for an understanding partner who listens with an open heart full of love for me.

If this post has touched your heart and you want to talk to me about it, send me a message or a comment, and we can set up a time to connect. You can leave a heart in the comment section to let me know that the light is being shone in the the darkness. If you see me with 7 bags and spilling coffee or pulling in hot at the soccer game, keep it to yourself. I’m not bearing my soul in the wild world-no way-it’s not safe out there.

Thoughts on Teaching

I hit a wall this week. I was exhausted, burned out, and thinking that I chose the wrong profession. I started thinking that there must be a job out there that is easier, softer, less intense. I was so drained of energy that all I could think to do was sit in my meditation chair and stare off into space. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed ease in my life. I craved something easier, gentler than teaching. So I texted someone that I know has been stressed at work also and posed the question, do you ever think that there is an easier way? Did we choose something too difficult to do with our lives? Are we making life harder than it has to be?

I sent this person an example of an email that I had gotten that had referred to me as a saint for dealing with the things I was dealing with in my job. I had taken this email to mean that I was doing more than most people would tolerate and that I was being taken advantage of. I saw it as a red flag.

The person I had sent this to wrote back with a different perspective, that yes it could mean that I’m taking more crap than most people would and that that would be a bad thing, but that it could also mean that I’m patient and good at managing the things I choose to tolerate and that would be a good thing. Those words were powerful to me and immediately changed my attitude.

What I realized is that I could find an easier, softer way in life, but that it would not align with my values. I am just not an easier, softer way person when it comes to certain things. One of those things is teaching. It is my chosen career and I am good at it. I am passionate about helping children learn how to do life. I am passionate and enthusiastic about helping children learn how to think and learn, and how to do life. I have a master’s degree in early childhood education. I have been trained to see the whole child in the context of their mind, body, soul, their family system, and their community. I have the belief that children are capable, intelligent, creative, strong, feeling, sensitive, and autonomous souls.

My view from the beginning of my education career was to just support children. I never thought that my job was to impart great wisdom upon them or to indoctrinate them into thinking or behaving in certain ways. I always thought my role was to be the guide. I was the one with the flashlight shining away at things and letting them decide what they saw, what was important to them and what they wanted to look at closer. I never believed that children needed to be broken and led, saved and delivered, or recreated into something better. It is not easy to be in the profession of teaching when you are an idealist and not a realist. It is beyond easy to get caught in the spiral of overwhelm when dealing with children and families in the real world.

Don’t get me wrong, I see reality. I see it every day and some of it breaks my heart. I know that students as young as kindergarteners are facing poverty, addiction issues, abuse, neglect, crushing parent expectations, racism, classism, food insecurity, housing difficulties, transportation issues, isolation, societal pressure, and this year, fears about the health and safety of themselves and their loved ones. I see it, believe me, I see it. I feel it and it is crushing at times. It can make a grown adult want to throw up their hands in defeat and say it is too much, let alone five year old children.

What I have learned in my 10 plus years of teaching is that it is not my place to judge or save anyone. Not my students, not their parents or families, not other teachers and especially not myself. Not judging helps me to stay out of the savior space and helps me stay in the space of teacher. What that means to me is that I have a job to do. The job is to teach children. Not just letters and the sounds they make (but that is sooooo important too) but to teach them how to be themselves. Their beautiful, whole, lovely, powerful, intelligent, weird, difficult and amazing selves.

The easier and softer way would be to see all children as needy and to see myself as the giver of information. I would walk in daily with an agenda to teach content and stand and deliver. If something would arise that is not related to my information delivery or the meeting of my daily schedule, I would quickly extinguish it, punish it away, or ignore it and move on with my agenda. I would have a “not my problem” attitude or a judgmental attitude that allows me to feel superior and believe that these children are just bad and their situations are hopeless. That would allow me to come in daily, impart my content knowledge, file my papers and call it a day. I might say that those that want to learn will learn and those that don’t, it’s their choice. Every person has had an experience with this teacher, we usually don’t connect with this teacher and often comment that they should just retire and do something else.

Another easier, softer way would be to just stop teaching. I’ve done this. I stopped teaching for 8 years in a public school setting. I did this for a variety of reasons but the biggest reason was because my husband had a demanding job, I had a demanding job, and we had a demanding family life. Something had to give. What I realized during my time off from teaching in a public school setting is that I am a teacher. It is in my heart and soul. I cannot escape it and having a classroom with four walls and a sign on the door declaring it mine, is not what makes me a teacher.

I found that what makes me a teacher is my desire to grow. My desire to wonder. My desire to explore and experiment and to try and fail. My creativity, my organization, my connectedness with people and nature and animals. I am always learning and sharing my experiences. I want to be a part of someone else’s wonderings, their questions, their experiments, their tries and failures, their struggles and growth, their creativity and their making connections. It is exhilarating to be along side someone as they explore the world and test their limits. It is uplifting to share an energy space with someone who is finding out their capabilities, their limits and their innate goodness and connectedness. I found myself learning along side grocery store clerks, people in recovery, people in the library, people in my home and family. I found places to work where I got to help people connect to the natural world and I never felt more alive or inspired than watching that happen as I provided the guidance or the opportunity. As it happened over and over again, I realized that learning isn’t up to me, but providing the safe space for it to happen is.

This is not the easier, softer way. This requires me to be the safe space. I provide energy and opportunity for learning and growth to happen. I get to have plans and goals but I do not get to control how others grow and how they trust or don’t trust me. I get immediate feedback from the children in my room if they don’t feel safe and if they can sense that I am not accepting of their reality. It would be easy for me to demand that a child be ready to write a three letter word and to punish them for screaming at the child next them for taking the seat they wanted. It would be considered by some to be soft to allow that tantrum to happen and to not demand that that child straighten up, act right and get to work. I have my moments when I do not have the ability to allow the tantrum and I am not resourced enough to deal with it when it comes up, that is the human in me. I cannot give from an empty cup. Maybe I didn’t get a good night’s sleep or get a good breakfast. Maybe I heard someone comment about how loud my classroom was and question my ability to control my students. Maybe I’ve got a lot on my own mind with my own personal struggles and I cannot make the time to explore one more thing. When this happens, I give myself grace, do the best I can, and try again the next day.

My goal though, as a teacher, is to be the person who has time for the meltdown. To be the person who honors that part of the child who needs to be heard when their seat is taken. I want to be the teacher that knows that there is a lesson in it for the children and for me. There are lessons everywhere and if this is what arises in the moment, there is a lesson that is important, maybe more important that CVC words. On my best days, I let the child scream it out, stomp their feet and say that it isn’t fair and that they wanted that seat so bad. Why? Because I never allowed myself to yell and scream and say I wanted and needed something as a child. It wasn’t safe. I wasn’t safe because the adults in my life at home and at school did not have the time or space to honor my needs, to see me and my wants and needs as important, and they needed me to shut up and do what I was told. I never allowed myself to trust another human being with my upset, my rage, my fear, my frustration, or my neediness. Guess who has had a difficult time living life as a whole, real, imperfect person? Guess who disappoints herself over and over again in life because she doesn’t want to be seen as a pain in the butt or intrude on anyone else’s plans? Guess who plays small because she was never allowed to be big and whole and full and messy? Guess who swallows her wants, needs, insecurities, and passions because she thinks there isn’t room in her life, in her relationships, and in her career for them?

ME-it’s me! Me! Me! And it was killing me.

So to be the teacher I want to be, the one that aligns with my values and my deep knowing, I don’t get to take the easier, softer way most of the time. I sit with children on the floor as they scream, thrash, cry and kick in their ugly, big feelings. I let them know that their big feelings are real, allowed, and don’t scare me. I let them know that I am not too big to remember what it feels like when someone steals your chair or your spot in line. I also let them know that there are lessons to be learned when someone steals our chair or our spot in line and that I am willing to take the time to explore their big feelings about it without shaming them for having those big feelings. It takes so much time and effort. It is loud and messy and hard to handle, but that we can handle it.

My job is to be the adult in the room. The one that creates the safe space. In order to do that, I have had to do a lot of work myself. I have had to work with therapists who could help me grow up that little girl inside me that never got to be herself. I had to trust them in order to allow her to be reached, heard, and healed. I had to learn how to see her and what she had gone through as a child who was not allowed to be herself, feel and have her feelings and opinions, her creativity nurtured, her inconvenient truths, needs and desires heard and met. I meet her there now. I give her what she needs if I can and I allow her to scream and yell and learn in her own way. It is loud and messy and certainly not convenient. It has allowed me to see how damaging it is to children when we force them to sit down, shut up, obey and be good. How damaging it was to me.

So on days when I come home exhausted from breakdown after breakdown in my classroom, from interruption after interruption, from near constant needs being brought to my attention, it is easy for me to feel like I am doing something wrong, that my room is run amok with unruly children with crippling neediness and uncontrolled behavior problems. It is important for me to remember that this is the path I chose, not because it was the easy path, but because it was the path that would allow me to do what I do best. Teach. To create spaces where children get to feel safe enough to be fully themselves and to know that the adult in the classroom can handle how complicated, messy, ugly, beautiful, and difficult it is to meet them where they are in the moment. It is a huge responsibility and I have to have done my work in order to handle it. I have to take good loving care of myself. I have to get sleep, move my body, and eat good food. I have to take care of myself spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally. I have to seek help and support on my healing journey and surround myself with like-minded people who may not be doing life the easy way, but are doing life according to their personal values, so they can remind me that some things are worth the work, the effort, and the patience required to do it. I am hopefully teaching a new generation of children that they are worth it. That there is no thing in their world too small or big for me to care about and give attention to. That they matter, all of them matters, even the hard and inconvenient stuff.

I hope that I never stop teaching and that I never stop learning. I hope that this story inspires you, like it did me, to look at your life and see what aligns with your values and what you are willing to give your efforts to for the good of the world and others. I hope that you can see that some things are hard, and they will always be hard, but that they are worth the effort. I hope that you know that there will be days when you feel like you made a wrong choice and that it is too hard. That doesn’t mean you are doing it wrong. It is just a struggle that day. Take that day and rest, reach out to a friend who will support you, eat, listen to a meditation on self-compassion, and fill up your cup. Start again in the morning, knowing that life isn’t easy and following your path isn’t easy, but you can do it.

I Made A Trip To The Hardware Store For Bread

In my defense, I thought I was going to the bakery. I was wrong.

I recently wrote about capacity. Capacity is someone’s ability to do anything really, but the focus of my writing was someone’s capacity to give and receive love. There are people in this world that have a 10 gallon hats worth of capacity for love, empathy, understanding, and comfort. There are people in this world with a 1 gallon hat capacity for love, empathy, understanding, and comfort. Neither is wrong or bad but it is good to know your own capacity and that of others. This can help you set your expectations of the other person correctly. You cannot know that a person is a one gallon person and expect 10 gallon love from them, it isn’t fair to either of you..

Tonight I got a lesson, a hard lesson, in capacity. It hurt. Ouch. Because even if you understand capacity and what your capacity is, you can be mistaken about someone else’s capacity and it can hurt. I’m an optimistic person and I think positively about most people unless I have a good reason not to. Many times I just assume someone is a ten gallon person unless they have shown me they are not. I trust people until I have reason not to. It really hurts me sometimes but I cannot imagine going through life the opposite way. Especially as a teacher, mother, friend, it serves me well to believe that anyone could be anything they want to be. I may have been born a one gallon capacity person but life has worn me by experiences that have carved me ten gallons deep. I believe that anyone can be worn deeper and deeper by life or by willingness. Sometimes I confuse comfort with capacity. Just because I’m comfortable with you doesn’t mean you have the capacity I might expect.

When I turned to a friend tonight, I was very specific about what I needed. I explained it clearly and asked if they could meet me in the space I needed to be met in. I needed to let my guard down, be irrational, be vulnerable and have them feed me certain words I knew I needed to hear. It was a weird but simple request. They accepted. I picked up the phone and let myself go to a place I only show to a very select few people in my life. They are my bakeries that I know will always have fresh bread for me. They can meet me in the ten gallon depths. I wasn’t positive that this person was a ten gallon friend and I didn’t know if they were a bakery, but I had basically written a script for them to follow so that they could bake the bread even if they weren’t sure how. I literally gave them the words that I needed to hear back and told them when to say them to me.

Painfully, there was no bread. No bakery. No ten gallon depths. Instead of a warm bakery I suddenly found myself in a cold hardware store full of hammers, saws, and sharp, hard objects. Opinions I didn’t ask for were given. Harsh words about getting over it and moving on and being happy were said. Judgement of my state of vulnerability, grief, and emotional state followed. The listening I had asked for was cut short with questioning and the words of comfort I had requested were never said. Ouch.

My first reaction was to sit in shock, but then for some strange reason, I started to try to explain myself. I would not recommend taking this path if you should ever find yourself in the hardware store when you thought you were entering a bakery. Hardware store people do not understand bread, they just don’t. Next time, I hope that I will simply say “Oopsie, I suddenly find myself in a hardware store and I was looking for bread, I have to leave now.” Learn from my pain. Sitting on the phone trying to explain your heart to someone who can’t hear you is abusive to yourself. I forgive myself for participating longer than I should have, I was just very surprised. I don’t open myself to many people and my very small group has some ten gallon people in it. I guess I didn’t realize that this person was not capable. I’m sure I hurt both of us with the assumption that they were.

I can see how difficult it would be to find yourself in a situation where someone you know and care about is crying and hurting and needing something from you and you don’t know how to fix it. I had not asked to be fixed, to be clear, I had asked to be listened to and to be given words that I provided, but that isn’t what was interpreted by this person. They felt like they needed to fix it, to make it better, and to offer advice and opinion that wasn’t needed. Wires were crossed and it was very uncomfortable, yucky, and it hurt. We won’t continue to be friends after this. Not out of anger or revenge or anything other than self-preservation. I cannot be in relationship with people who cannot see me, hear me, or meet me in the ten gallon depths. We can say hello at the grocery store, we can like each other’s dog pics on Facebook, and we can wish each other well in the future, but we cannot be friends.

It is a privilege and an honor to be invited into someone’s inner world, into their depths. It is a sacred space where people are allowed to be vulnerable, irrational, deeply hurt, contradictory, and to be given space to be perfectly imperfect and human. It is a space where grief lives alongside love, where reality gets mixed up with the ghosts of the past and you need someone on the outside to just pull you back with a kind word. Shame is not allowed in this sacred space. Judgement is not allowed in this sacred space. Advise is not needed in this sacred space. What is needed is love, understanding, and presence. Sometimes you just have to let someone fall apart and lay next to them and say nothing except “I’m here. I don’t understand it, it scares me, I don’t have any answers, but I’m not going anywhere.”

I must confess that I got the hardware store/bread example from Al-Anon recovery groups. There is a reading or a saying that says going to an alcoholic and expecting them to meet your needs is like going to the hardware store for bread. You aren’t going to get what you need, they aren’t capable. So we can punish the alcoholic for not being able to meet our needs and shame them for their lack of capacity, or we can move on and find the people out there that can meet our needs. It is mean to stay in a relationship with someone and expect them to give you things that they cannot.

The journey to find out who is capable is hard. Sometimes you are pleasantly surprised by someone’s capacity and depth and sometimes you find yourself in the hardware store with no bread to be found. There is grief in going home empty handed and there is hurt if you found yourself on the receiving end of opinion, judgment, and harshness when you bear your soul to someone. Walk away, have a good cry, say ouch, call a ten gallon person and have a good laugh about your surprise hardware store visit. The one thing my ten gallon friend reminded me of tonight is that just because someone is incapable of giving us what we want, it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with us. I shouldn’t feel bad for baring my soul and allowing someone in, I should not feel bad that I needed something or that I needed to fall apart.

Some people want you to be different because you make them uncomfortable. They would prefer you to suck it up, get over it, be happy so that they can be more comfortable around you. Do not listen to that bullshit. That is what people who don’t ever go below the surface say to people who frequently swim in the depths. I used to be scared of deep water too, of life and it’s pain and depths, contradictions and unfathomable complications. I’ve done my work. I’ve put on my oxygen tanks and I’ve trusted myself enough to dive deep into all of my pain and hurt and trauma and heartbreak. I’ve watched things coming in the distance that looked like sharks and I wanted to swim as fast as I could to the surface and never look back, but I didn’t. I stayed and sometimes it was a shark, with big fucking teeth that scared the hell out of me, but I stood there and faced it. I stayed down there long enough to learn what is a shark and what is just a parrotfish that looks like a shark in the distance but up close is just a big beautiful fish. It is frighteningly beautiful in the depths and there is nothing down there that is going to make you comfortable, you just get used to the uncertainty and realize that that is what makes life beautiful.

So if you find yourself in a hardware store when you really needed bread, leave. You do not have to spend long time comforting the hardware store person for not having what you need or shame them or convince them that they should look into stocking bread. Just leave that store, it is not your store. Get your butt back in your car and drive to the bakery. The place that you know will have bread. Go there.

If you think you might be a hardware store and you think you would rather be in the bread business, do your work. You can start with these little gems of advice:

When someone is crying in your presence, shut up. Do not talk. If you cannot bring yourself to comfort them with a hug or if you cannot just say that you don’t know what to do but that you are there for them, then at least just shut up and don’t try to stop the crying just so you can feel comfortable.

When someone warns you that they are going to show you something difficult, personal, and painful take a deep breath or two, shut your mouth, and practice saying these words in your head “I am here. This sounds painful and difficult and personal, thank you for sharing that with me. I don’t know what to do or say but I’m here.” If you can’t say those things, let them know that you don’t have the capacity right now and that maybe they should not share.

When someone is grieving, you do not get to tell them how to do that. Yes, I can post a montage of pictures of myself with my ex-husband on social media and say that I miss him on the day that he died. I can choose to remember the part of him that loved me deeply, just like I loved him deeply. That does not mean that I forgot all of the pain, the hurt, the traumatic experiences that I had with him. It means that grief, divorce, addiction, abuse, love and loss are fucking messy and complicated. You do not have to understand my journey to honor that I’m on it. You can be confused by it but understand that I am not. I’ve done my work.

Never tell someone to get over it, move on, and just be happy. Not when it comes to their life experiences. You tell someone to get over it, move on, and just be happy when they ordered no onions on their burger and the cook gets it wrong and they have to pick the onions off the burger. If you have not experienced the deeply personal, tragic, painful life experience that this person who is confiding in you has, do not ask them to kindly get over it so that you can feel better around them. If you cannot handle them, they kindly exit their life and do both of you a favor. Insisting that a person get over something and assuming that there is something wrong with them if they cannot is mean. Expecting someone to be happy all the time is denying that person their full humanity.

When someone isn’t handling something the way that you would, again, close your mouth. You need to sit back and let that person have the dignity to make their own mistakes, their own choices, and go through their own pain. Do you really think you know what is best for someone else? Do you really understand the complexity of their life? Do you really not trust them to do what is best for themselves? If you have not been asked specifically for advice do not give it. If you have been asked specifically for advise you can practice saying “I’m not you and I don’t know what I would do in that situation, but I know you will figure it out.” The only exception I have for this is if someone’s life is in danger. Feel free to tell them to get out and offer to help.

Last, if you find yourself face to face with someone who came to you thinking you were a bakery and you realize that you are a hardware store with no bread, do not be personally offended when that person has to leave because you don’t have what they need. There are plenty of people in the world that need hammers and saws and the things you have to offer. It doesn’t mean that you should change what you have to offer (though my local hardware store does have bread and donuts) but don’t chase after someone trying to sell them a hammer, trying to convince them to stay in your store and get what they don’t need and didn’t ask for. Point them in the direction of a bakery and let them go.

I’m physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. I’m a person with a large capacity to hold others and their truth, pain, and sorrow. I was looking for someone to show my own depths to, only wanting a few comforting words to tell me that the shadows I was seeing in the depths weren’t sharks, just parrotfish that wouldn’t hurt me. I picked the wrong person tonight. It hurt. I won’t do that again with that person but I won’t let it change me and desire to be met in the depths. I will let them go in love and I will remember that all is not lost. Just a couple of humans being human and hurting each other, it’s what we do. My reminder to myself is that I can meet myself in the depths. I can go there with my Higher Power and my wise self and tell myself those words I had so wanted to hear. So I’m off to have my own back, to comfort myself, and to tell myself that I was brave for trying.

Take good care out there.

A Letter to Myself During This Time of Change

Above all else guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. -Proverbs 4:23

Dear Self,

Life has changed rapidly in just a few months and it is okay to feel unsettled. Feeling unsettled doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong or that things are not exactly how they need to be. It just means that you are feeling the reality of life, the growing pains of change.

Your oldest child left for college, you went back to teaching full time, your twins are in different classes at school for the first time, you rescued a cat and lost a dog traumatically. You went from seeing a counselor twice a week to asking that same counselor to leave your life in a pretty traumatic turn of events. You went from spending almost every day outside in nature to spending days at a time not being outdoors more that just walking to and from your car.

I know that you do not understand the purpose of all of this change yet. The water is still settling and you cannot see the bottom. I know that it drives you crazy to feel so unsettled and so uncomfortable but you are making your way through. I also know that you have been too busy with work to process some of this stuff. Maybe that is also as it should be? I do not know.

It is really hard in uncertain times to trust your heart and to trust that you will make it through all of the changes and be okay. That your heart won’t always be broken, that you won’t always feel so lost and sad, and that it wont always be this hard. It is hard to believe that these growing pains are leading you to a better place, or maybe just a different place where you will have a new normal. It is hard to feel uncertain and uncomfortable and to struggle with your confidence in yourself, but it is a normal feeling when experiencing dramatic changes in your life.

So trust your heart to the voice that told you to follow that path. It never said that it would be an easy path. Trust your heart to heal after loss and trauma as it has done so many times before. Trust that though your child is out of your home and on her own path, that you will continue to roll with the evolution of her life and remain a touchstone for her. Trust that you had the counselor you needed when you needed him and that others will come when they are needed also. Trust that what other people are going through in their own lives doesn’t have to involve you and that you can be as involved as you choose to be, for your own health and sanity.

Most of all trust your heart to lead you through the murky water until it settles and things become more clear. Be grateful for the chance to grow again and to embrace change (even if it is soooooo beyond uncomfortable). But also trust yourself to protect your heart from negativity, from abuse and pain, and from those who don’t see your worth and your value. Trust that you will know what to do and when to do it and that you can face great pain without shutting down your heart of compassion for others.

Go outside everyday. Pet every dog you see. Show up every day, be present, and do your best. Be grateful for phone calls and Snapchats when they come. Love on your family. Let people help you. Allow yourself to feel your feelings and to process the changes and the losses. They are real and they are affecting you. Lean into your HIgher Power for strength when you don’t have any, love when you feel alone, guidance when you feel lost, and for comfort when none of it makes sense.

Love,

Me

The Gift of Beans

How one little dog changed my life forever.

March 3, 2018 we were supposed to go skiing. The weather turned warm and our trip was cancelled. I suggested we take a trip to Grand Rapids to PetSmart where a cute dog I had seen online was supposed to be ready to be adopted. My husband and kids agreed to my surprise and off we went.

The whole way there we talked about how we might not get the dog. He might not be right for us, they might not pick us for his owners, etc. We were all cautious. We had not had a dog in three years. Our last dog had passed away from illness and we were in no hurry to own another with our busy lives.

Well we got to PetSmart and they told us that Beans wouldn’t be coming to the event. I was heartbroken. I told them how far we drove and wondered if we could meet up with the owner while we were there? They told us the owner was way back up in Newaygo Michigan but would meet us at the rescue if we were willing to drive. For some reason, I was willing to do whatever it took to meet Beans.

When Beans arrived he bolted out of the truck and took off to smell all the smells with vigor. He was a brownish orange fluffy fox of a dog. His owner was blunt about his quirks and his needs. We loved him immediately but wanted to be sure. We took him home with the stipulation that we could bring him back if it didn’t work out at home.

The minute we brought Beans into our home, life changed forever. He was a force of energy. He was high strung, always wanted to play, destroyed balls, gutted stuffed animals, ate squeakers, and barked his fool head off at anything and everything.

We had to hide our shoes, toys, food, anything that he could chew and eat he would. We had to put up a gate to keep him downstairs so we could watch him at all times. We would attack your feet if they were under a blanket and you moved them while he was sleeping on them. He could and would jump from the ground up to your face out of excitement and use your belly as a spring board on the way up. He had nervous stomach days where he would just barf all day. We hated these days for the clean up but loved these days because it slowed him down a little and he wanted to cuddle because he didn’t feel well.

Beans could eat a raw hide bone in an hour. He would get the zoomies and run around the house growling and sliding. This would almost always end in some turds on the carpet before you could catch him, his excitement stirring up everything. We hung a bell from our sliding door for him to ring when he needed to go outside. He soon figured out that this was a way to get all needs met and rang it incessantly. So much so that the kids started tying it up so he couldn’t ring it-but he showed us by then peeing on our blankets.

We could not take Beans to crowded places because he would bark and lunge at everyone and everything. On walks he pulled and pulled the entire time, never letting up. He would lunge and bark at any passing car, kid on a bike, or squirrel. He would lose his mind barking if we encountered another dog and did not really ever get the hang of sniffing butts and greeting like a normal dog. He was the boss, but he was also terrified.

He was the best snuggle buddy. He insisted on being on me if I sat or laid down. He would push his way in between me and a good book, a computer, or even sometimes my dinner. Beans was pushy. Demanding.

So if this little brownish orange fluffy fox of dog sounds like a royal pain in the butt to you, you would be correct. And he was the best thing that ever happened to me. When I went to tell our oldest, who is away at college, that Beans had died, she said these words…”Mom, Beans breathed life into our family. He made our life fun and interesting. We were in a rut as a family and didn’t even know it until we got Beans.” Truer words could not have been spoken.

After his passing, I started thinking about what he meant to me. Here is what I’ve learned. When you love someone (dog or human or whatever) you love all of them. You love and accept the amazing parts that make you feel good like good snuggles and belly laughs and you love the pain in the butt parts of them like zoomie poops and torn up shoes. Seems like an obvious thing but it was something I needed to relearn.

Beans came from a not so great environment. The woman we got him from had rescued him for a less than ideal situation. He had trauma and therefore had quirks and needs that a normal dog might not have. He needed to be contained and leashed at all times. He was nervous, he was needy, he had stomach issues, he was not trusting and he was scared a lot. He was aggressive with his love and attention. He was too much for some people. We got a letter from the city that he was too loud and couldn’t be left in the backyard unattended because he was bothering the neighbors with his loud barking. He had a hard time relaxing.

Turns out I’m a lot like Beans. My traumas make me quirky. I can’t be in just any old home. I require things like an alcohol free home, quiet time to myself to feel and process, reminders that my needs are important and that it is okay to say no. I am not for everyone and I require patience and safety to relax and love.

I used to try to hide who I was and deny what my trauma had inflicted upon me. I didn’t want to be weird or have weird needs. I just did without, tried to fit into any situation that would have me so that I could just appear normal and hope that I wasn’t too much trouble for anyone. It was exhausting and inauthentic. No one really knew me and love was surface level because I was hiding my unique, weird needs caused by trauma.

Beans helped me to have the experience of loving a wildly quirky traumatized dog with my whole heart. To do whatever it takes to adapt and adjust to their needs not out of obligation but out of pure love. And it was hard work. He took a lot of energy, attention, and care. In return he loved us wildly. He kissed faces, presented toys, begged for treats, became uncontrollably excited at the prospect of a walk, and let me know he felt safe with my by relaxing, snuggling, and sleeping on me without a care in the world. The reward outweighed the cost all day long. Was it easy? No.

When you agree to love someone with trauma, your life will not be easy. You commit to doing whatever it takes to keep them safe and to care for them and their unique needs. You agree to sometimes be in the foxhole of their pain with them and to alter your life to accommodate their sensitivities. And they are 100% worth it. Family means that you have each other’s back no matter what. That you will take care of each other even when it is a pain in the butt. You know each other intimately and will do things for each other that no one else would do, because of love and commitment. You are willing to be inconvenienced, to accommodate, and to adjust. Yesterday I had to take the cat in to the ER vet and sit in the same room that I had to say goodbye to Beans in. It was hard, but she is my family and I can do hard things for her. She is okay, just an eye infection. I’ll pay the emergency bill, I let her scratch and bite me while I try to put drops in her eyes. She is a little wild rescued barn cat that also has my whole heart. It is as it should be.

I am 100% worth it whatever it takes. Now I know that to love me is a privilege even with my quirks. The pay off is my love. If you aren’t getting the pay off, you aren’t loving me. Thanks Beans. Now I know.

Rest in peace you beautiful boy!

The Test

My last post was about being willing to go to any length for myself, my growth, my recovery, my health. I should have known that throwing that out into the universe would bring forth The Test but I always forget that that is how it works. So now I’m in it. The test of my word. Did I mean what I promised to myself? Can I stay strong when it all falls apart? Will I abandon myself and all that I’ve learned and experienced?

The answer is I don’t know. But I’m sure as hell going to fight and try. Here is a letter to myself that you may need to hear also:

Dear Carie,

We are doing some hard things. We are facing some dark challenges and a lot of change. I know that it seems scary and I know that you are absolutely terrified at times. But I’m here. I’m not leaving. I’m here to comfort you, protect you and love you.

We can do hard things together. We have done them before and we will do them again. We will be hand in hand, together, forever facing whatever we need to face to heal and grow.

We have done everything we can for others and now is the time to do for us. We will create safety, we will create healthy connection, we will do whatever it takes to take good loving care of Carie.

Love,

Yourself

For anyone reading this and wondering, what is going on in her life? What is she facing? What is happening? It’s okay to wonder but the truth is it doesn’t matter. The challenges we face internally may not be relevant to your outside life. Most people are fighting battles in their life that you will never know about. They are private. They are sacred. They are vulnerable spaces of internal healing. What matters is not the details but the fact that we share how we cope. That we share our hurt, pain, and healing. Some things are too close to be public, because not everyone in the public is safe with our hurt and pain.

Stay safe out there people. Find someone to hold you when it all falls apart, even if it is just a stronger version of you.

Be well

Carie

Willing To Go To Any Length?

“If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it-then you are ready to take certain steps.” -The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous pg 58

I am on a journey. I’m not sure where I am going but I know the direction is forward. My journey started 16 years ago when I entered the rooms of Al-Anon. Al-Anon is group for families and friends of alcoholics. At the time I was living with someone who was drinking too much and it was having a detrimental effect on me and my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. Joining Al-Anon gave me support, knowledge, compassion, and strength. It gave me a relationship with a Higher Power that I had long lost and it gave me a place in a community with no other agenda other than supporting one another through life. All of our lives had been affected by someone else’s drinking or addiction. We knew what it was like. There was safety in it, there was comfort in it, there was anonymity in it and I needed all of those things.

Through my years in Al-Anon I have realized that what brought me there was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the affects of alcoholism on my life as a whole. It was a thread of my life since I was born and long before as I suspect that it has run in my family lines for generations. I don’t have proof of this and am not pointing fingers at anyone down the line, but there are behaviors present in families affected by addiction and boy do we have them.

My suspicion is that I marinated in a good stew of drama in my mama’s belly. Not to blame my mother, she had no more control over her life circumstances than I did when I was growing my own child in me surrounded by dysfunction and not even knowing life could be different. I don’t have blame in my heart, but compassion for all of us affected by generations of living with the affects of addiction, alcoholism, or patterns of behavior shaped by them.

So I’ve been chipping away slowly at this mountain of pain, some mine, some left over from previous generations, and some dumped on me by a society that promotes drinking and vice and shames those living out the effects of it all. When I arrived at Al-Anon I was just willing to show up. I wanted to feel better, but honestly, just tell me how to get someone to quit drinking so I could get on with my happily ever after dream. I was exhausted and not really in the mood for working on me. I didn’t know at the time that me was the only person I was allowed to work on. My plan was to work on everyone who was upsetting me.

So controlling, manipulating, stonewalling, withholding, punishing, and/or being a complete pushover were the only skills I had. I thought they would deliver results if I just kept at them with great gusto. As it turns out, none of these work (if you already knew this then thanks for not letting me in on this info 16 years ago). What they will do for you is destroy relationships, chop away at dignity and respect, and leave you exhausted and mentally, emotionally, and spiritually bankrupt.

Al-anon led me to a community that did not scold me for using these old trick in my bag, for as long as I needed to. They used them too and when we got together, we talked about how much it hurt and how could we learn to do it differently. There was no judgement because we all knew how hard it was to learn a new way of life in the midst of great chaos and generations of learned behaviors. It was my safe haven.

I used to go to AA meetings to learn more about the disease of alcoholism. AA meetings start with a reading of How It Works from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is where the quote above came from “willing to go to any lengths…” and when I first heard it, it struck me hard. I knew hearing it that we were all in the fight for our lives and that we were going to have to battle for it. I’m so glad I learned this early on and that I heard it with the severity that I believe the founders meant for it to have. This was life or death.

I have chosen life. At all cost, and believe me the costs have been great. I am willing, at all times, to do whatever it takes. I’m fighting for me. ME! ME! I’m worth losing everything else for. I will go to any length for myself.

Do I sound selfish? I don’t care. The most loving thing I can do for myself and anyone I love is to take the best care of myself as humanly possible. When I am my best self, I can show up for you as a big giant ball of love and goodness ready to scoop you up and spill my goodness over onto you. When I am practicing self care and healthy boundaries, and self-love I am unstoppable. Who wouldn’t want that for me? I’ll tell you who, those who do not wish to be awakened from their sleep that keeps them in the unconscious behavior patterns they survive on. That’s okay. Just know that I won’t be stopping for you and your comfort, I cannot. I have seen what others in recovery and in healing have and I want it for myself. I am willing to go to any length.

I attended a retreat this weekend that took great bravery to get to. I showed up not knowing what to expect, who would be there, or how it would impact me. I trusted the facilitator. I knew what this person had awareness, love, peace, connection with God, healing and the ability to feel and connect in a deep way with others, and I was willing to go to any length to have those things for myself. I know that great change takes big brave acts of faith. I went and I participated to the full extent of my abilities. I pushed through fear, pain, tears, anxiety, upset, trauma wounds, and on the other side was love, community, connection, acceptance, healing and self-awareness. I’m so glad I went. My life will not be the same.

The picture above is me on the deck the first night before dinner. I’m a mess on the inside wondering if I made the right decision, if I had what it takes to do the work, and doubting my faith in myself and the people I was there with. But I could also hear the words in my head that I heard 16 years ago that struck me right in the heart…willing to do whatever it takes…and I stayed. In return, I reached a new level of healing in my life and found a new layer of myself that had been hidden away and pushed aside by the affects of addiction and trauma on me. Every bit of it was worth it and I look forward to more, hopefully this fall, on this lake, in this house, where I found more of me and people to support me in my search.

Release

On the 8th anniversary of your death, I want to honor us both by doing it differently.

Our first vacation together to Busch Gardens Florida

January 30 is not my favorite day. For the last 8 years it has been a day of loss, mourning, grieving, and memories. It is usually preceded by a week or more of nightmares, lack of sleep and deep depression. My ex-husband died on this day and I had to tell my daughter her father was gone. It was horrible. It has continued to be horrible but I have learned so much, grown so much, and healed so much in the past few years. This year I am doing it differently.

I have a friend who has suffered a deep loss as well and she refers to the anniversary day of her loss as a “spirit release day”. I always thought that was a beautiful way to say it but I couldn’t bring myself to say that about Ryan. There was nothing beautiful about that day. I couldn’t see it if there was. Every year on this date I would spend my day broken down by memories and conflicting emotions. I felt anger, hurt, deep sadness and victim-hood, for myself and for my daughter. We were victims of our life with him and victims in his death. That was what I felt, saw, experienced, and I didn’t feel a release of his spirit or of ours.

This year, and for the last few years, I have been working with a guide to change. I wanted to get through and process the traumas of my life and to find myself again. I wanted to be free, to find release. Sometimes you need to be careful what you ask for because there is no easy way to do this. The body needs to process the feelings that were too difficult to feel at the time of the trauma. The body needs to experience it and then experience something new in the face of that old wound. I feel extremely lucky to have a guide who can be a safe person for me to relive, re-feel, and who provides me with a safe, loving space to experience it differently. So instead of feeling like I am drowning in grief and pain, I can feel the comfort of being completely broken before another human being and not having to be different, or just being witnessed in my brokenness and it not making them uncomfortable or making them feel like they have to make it better. The truth is that there is no making things better. Just sitting with someone in their deepest pain without judging it is enough, it is powerful. I learned that I wouldn’t die if I felt the pain to its depths. I had always thought it was too much so I wouldn’t let myself go that deep.

Over the last 8 years I have built a village. The village knows my story; they know the pain, the trauma, and the details. This has been a great comfort to me and has helped me get this far. This year, however, I longed for something more. I wanted release, I wanted freedom. So I asked for help in that. I asked to be shown a way and I have received it. It is a work in progress but I have started and I will continue.

About four nights ago I had a dream about Ryan and his family. It was familiar. The details aren’t important but what I was left with when I woke up was hurt, pain, upset, sadness, fear, and anger. There was one little thing that was different though, I also had a feeling like I could say no, I could do it differently. So I reached out for some support and made this the intention of my next session with my guide. I wanted to say no, I wanted to do it differently.

What I learned is that in order to do it differently I had to let a part of me die. I had to say good bye to the part of me that is the victim, not just in this circumstance but in all the circumstances of my life. REALLY???? But I was a victim. This was so loudly shouting in my soul that I couldn’t ignore it. And it was true. Terrible things had happened in my relationship with Ryan, in the divorce, in the years after, and in his death, to me. Those things made me build up an armor that I had so badly needed at the time. It was a shield of hurt and anger that protected me and my heart for years. It gave me the strength to go through with a divorce I didn’t want, court dates I didn’t want to have, confrontations I would have been too scared to have and to see truths that were being swept under the rug by so many. The strength to get through those dark days with my daughter and the pain that would continue. I loved that shield. I honestly feel that that shield saved my life and gave me superhuman strength sometimes. I knew that it saved my life and I felt stronger with it in my hands. I had needed that shield to protect me and my child and I don’t for one second regret picking up that shield.

Except now the shield has to go. It has to die. The anger, the upset, the hurt and pain that caused me to pick it up-it has been 8 years that I’ve kept it alive-even in the truth that Ryan was gone and the hurt (well his part in it) was done. How could I continue to be a victim of someone from the grave? Turns out quite successfully if I continued to raise my shield and carry around my victim story and the anger, fear, and upset that came with it. This year I realized that I don’t need the story or the shield anymore and I’m here to lay it down.

Ryan, I release your soul.

I release with it my victim story (as much as I can right now, but I will continue releasing).

What happened hurt so much because I loved you so.

I release my anger, my hurt, my rage toward you and those who hurt me in protection of you.

I release the chains that tied me to your disease (addiction) and that kept me from remembering us both as beautiful people before it grabbed us.

I release the fear that has kept a shield around my heart and prevented me from being loving, powerful, and free.

I release my story of being of victim even though it makes me feel naked and vulnerable and scared. I have relied on it for so long to protect me and I’m terrified to be without it. Yet I am also filled with a hope that I cannot express at the thought of a life free of that heavy, angry shield.

I know in my heart that you always loved me and our daughter and that putting down this shield, letting this part of me die will free your spirit as well as mine. It will make things possible for our daughter that wouldn’t happen if I kept it alive forever. I know you would want me to be free, to put that shield down so that love can enter, so that I can be more open to real connection with those that I love without them having to try to pierce my shield just to get to my heart. I know you would want my heart to be open and free. My husband and my children deserve my whole heart.  

Victim me, I release you.

I thank you for saving my life and for protecting me during a traumatic time in my life.

Thank you for the strength you gave me and the power you afforded me in times of fear.

Your services are no longer needed.

I release you in love and gratitude.

Powerful me, I embrace you.

I see you, I feel you, and I love you.

I believe in your strength and I look forward to living a life of vulnerability, free of being a victim.

I look forward to taking responsibility for myself and embodying the powerful woman that I have learned to be. I choose my life. I write this story. I stand in truth and power.

If you are on this journey, if you suspect that your victim shield is becoming too heavy to carry around anymore and you need someone to sit with you in your terrible truth and not judge you, I am here. I have no qualification except that I have had it done for me and want you to experience the same. I can sit in love, as it was done for me, and let you find the truth, that your are powerful enough on your own to change your life. To let that shit go, and to choose another way of being. I know the fear of letting a part of you that has protected you for so long die. I just know. And I know that you will live without it, and that you will thrive.

Happy spirit release day Ryan. I release you in love.

Today I will honor myself with rest, comfort, love, and naps because this is exhausting!

I Thought I Deserved It

And no one ever told me I didn't. 

A few days ago I was busy getting dinner cleaned up so that I could get to a meet up with some friends. I took a minute as a was getting ready to go and I saw this Facebook post from my cousin, Maddy Mueller, that stopped me in my trackshttps://www.facebook.com/maddy.p.mueller/posts/168.... I responded first as a Mama Bear, because it is who I am. I let her know that I was there for her, she is family to me and even if she wasn't, Mama Bears protect the cubs. Then I thought of my own child heading off to college soon and I felt fear and anger. Then came the memories.

This post, this one little post, broke my heart in all the good and bad ways possible. "Not her!" was a thought I had over and over. It was her first semester of college at most people's dream school. "Not her family!" was another thought. I imagine her mother and father and want to scream "No! Not your precious baby!" They had cared for and protected her so well for all those years, and some guy comes around and just takes it all. I felt a rage I cannot explain. What on Earth makes anyone think that they have a right to just come in and take what they want without asking? To harm, violate, traumatize another human for what? The audacity to think that you can and that you won't be punished. Boiling anger is what I felt.

My next thoughts were that I had no words to offer my own daughter that will be heading off to college in a few years. I couldn't tell her the things that were commonly said to girls when I was growing up. Cover your drink, don't get too drunk, don't go places alone, dress modestly, don't flirt too much, don't leave your friends. What I know is that she could do all of these things and still fall victim to sexual assault. The message I should have been hearing my whole childhood is that my body belongs to me and no one gets to do anything to it without permission. Another message I could have heard and been more clear about is that both people need to give CLEAR consent and that if one or both of you has been drinking, is sleeping, or even if one of you forgot to cover your drink, went somewhere alone, wore a revealing, sexy dress and acted flirtatious, unless you clearly discussed whether or not sex or touching would be okay with both of you, it shouldn't be happening. Not only shouldn't it be happening but if it is or it did and you never gave explicit permission, it is a crime. I failed to get that message growing up.

I had no idea when I was at a gathering of friends the summer between eighth and ninth grade that I would have my first encounter with a sexual predator. It was the most innocent of gatherings with people that I often hung around with. We had had several gatherings of friends over the summer, boys and girls, and we did things like play games, tell jokes, and just hang out. This particular party there were a few boys there that hadn't been before but I knew them from school and liked them. It started as all the others had, junk food, games, giggling, teasing,and just having fun. I found myself in the basement with a few people sitting on the couch. Two people got up to go to another room and it left me there with one of the boys new to the party. He grabbed me, pinned me down, grabbed at my genitals and looked right at me and said "You like it don't you?". I said "No!" and tried to get away but he held me there a minute longer and said "Yes you do." People started coming back into the room and he let me go. I was in shock. I said nothing. I stayed there at the party and acted as if nothing happened. How could I tell my innocent, carefree friends what our other friend just did to me? They all really liked him. I had liked him too before that day. He spend the rest of the party acting like nothing happened until he could glare at me when no one else was looking, almost threatening me. I never told a soul. I went to a small school with him for the next four years and always acted like it never happened.

What I remember most about that day, was as soon as it happened, being angry at him for touching me without permission and holding me so I couldn't get away, but also that as soon as he let go I started asking myself, "What did I do to deserve that?". "Was I flirting?" "Were my shorts too short?" And never once did I think to tell the adults in that house or to tell my friends or to tell my parents when I got home. I thought I would get in trouble and not be allowed to hang out with my friends anymore. I had no idea that what he did to me was a crime. That he could get in trouble for what he did to me. I thought I deserved it. I have carried that around with me, never saying his name to anyone, never asking him to pay any of the consequences for what he did to me, just holding the shame every time I saw his face in the halls, in class, at the lunch table, at the football games.

Reading Maddy's post, I became so upset thinking about how we women carry the shame, we women spend the hours in hospitals, in courtrooms, crying on bathroom floors. We worry about pregnancy, disease, reputation, and if we will ever, ever feel safe when a man, even a man we love, touches us? For the man who touched me without my permission at 12, he is off living his life without ever having faced one single consequence, I can't even bring myself to write his name here, even though part of me really wants too. Why did I think I deserved it?

My heart broke in a good way two times the night I read this post. First it broke open with joy to read that Maddy was strong enough to post her experience for others to learn from. Standing there in her hospital gown, at her most vulnerable, yet knowing that she didn't deserve it. Knowing that it was a crime and knowing that she could do all she could to bring him to justice. My heart radiated pride and happiness knowing that she would not live the shame the way I did. She would not swallow and carry the blame her whole life, she would put it back where it belongs, on the predator. I offered to be by her side through any of it because I've done some hard things in courtrooms and it helps to have many bodies by your side.

My heart broke open again later that night when I realized how sad I was for the little girl, and even the big girl inside me that never knew she hadn't deserved it. Not at 12, not at 15, not at 18, not at 22, or 25. She never deserved any of it. She just didn't know. She thought something was wrong with her, no one ever told her there wasn't. Not one of these men has ever had their name on a police report with me listed as victim and most are off living their merry life as husbands, fathers, workers and being thought of as "good guys". I guess in the end, I don't care about them at all. I care about me. I care that my heart was buried in shame, hurt, trauma, violation, denial, anger all these years and the saddest part of all, that I really thought I did something to deserve that. The good pouring through my soul right now is the knowledge that I didn't do anything, not one single thing wrong. I was betrayed. I was hurt. I was not to blame. It is a deep and beautiful salve for a long aching soul. 

Maddy, thank you. You sharing your story, that beautiful act of bravery, triggered a healing in me. I know you will understand me when I say, I know this is just the beginning and that I will work on this forever, but letting the shame out into the light, I know it cannot survive for long. I used to think that someone taking your body, using it for their own without any regard for you, was the ultimate betrayal. It is. But so is the voice in your own head that questions what you did to deserve it. That is the one that hurts the most, because society taught us to do that to ourselves, and THAT is the wound that never gets to heal because it is in your own mind, it goes with you wherever you are. There is no safe space from it. And society reinforces it time and time again. Thank you for the reminder that wounds heal when they are exposed to air and light and the truth.

"Give what you have. To someone it may be better than you dare to think." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Author: Carie Ann Terrill