A Sacred Letter To Myself

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver

I wrote a while ago about a trip I took to Malibu and how it was a spiritual awakening for me. I would love to update the story and say that everything since then has been just as magical and that I am on the path being skyrocketed into a new life. It is not so. I am on a path, but it is covered with long overgrown weeds, rough terrain, and sometimes reluctant travel partners. It rains and snows on this path and sometimes I'm not really traveling at all. 

This weekend there was a crazy ice/snow storm that hit my town. Travel was not advised. I took this mostly to heart and haven't been out much over the last few days. I've spent my time watching television with my family, sharing meals, relaxing, journaling, and reading. I continued deeper into a book I started reading by Dr. Tererai Trent called "The Awakened Woman". Dr. Trent writes about sacred dreams, sacred writing, and sacred community among women. She encourages you to do an exercise at the end of each chapter with a ritual. I wrote my sacred dream last night. I will do the ritual later and I also have a feeling it won't be the last or only time I write a sacred dream. Part of the book that hits me the most is how she talks about sharing our story. It is how we grow and how we help others to think about their sacred dreams. 

I found myself sitting in my chair, writing in my journal and reading my books this morning and I felt the pull between my sacred dream and my fear. I decided to write myself a letter. I'm sharing it here so that you can use it if you need it. Take what you like and leave the rest. 

April 16, 2018

Girl, 

What are you waiting for? Life is not guaranteed and time is always passing! Get in there-make the life you want. Create it! Demand it! Know that it is achievable. No more sadness, you have spent too many years in sadness. No more depression and feeling stuck, down, and defeated. You have experienced a different way and you can have it again. 

Know your power. Feel that deep divine feminine energy within you and demand that it be recognized. Demand that it be seen, heard, and honored. 

No, you don't know everything, but you for damn sure know a lot. You have experienced so much and you have so much to give to the world. Believe in yourself. Look at what you have already done in your forty short years on this Earth. 

Malibu was your life. It happened. You felt it. You lived it. You experienced it and you helped create it. Do it here. Do it now in your life. No one is going to do it for you. If your fellow travelers do not want to travel with you than you must be willing to go it alone. There is not a way for you to live in the old space, you have already left it. Don't leave anyone behind in anger or resentment, just know that not traveling this road is not an option for you. Go forward knowing you are moving toward the life you are meant to live. The one that felt so good to be in. 

Go girl! Stop thinking and start doing. Yes there are hurts and feelings and ties to the old road that pull you constantly. Yes you are scared. Yes this road is new and unfamiliar and you aren't sure you know where you are going or where it will take you. DO IT ANYWAY! 

Sleep. Rest. Eat well. Take good care of your body. Move and build strength. Pray. Ask for help and support. Do not leave your backpack of tools, you will need them on this journey, take them with you. Be willing to fight for the life you need. The life you know you can have because you felt it, you experienced it. Be willing to do whatever it takes because there is no other choice. 

You weren't meant to stay in place. You were meant to change and travel new places. You lived the lives you had up to this point well. You did the best you could and look at the places you went that you never even dreamed of. You let them all go when it was time and it is time again. Where to? Who knows? 

Take a deep breath. Line up your village. Hold on to the strong hands of those who have traveled this road and who know the way. I know you are scared but you have to trust. The train has left the station and you are tired from running alongside it trying to decide if you should get on or not, if it was even the right train. Honey, it is your train, it has left the station, get on. You cannot push it back to the station and ask it to wait till you are ready. Get on the train. Enjoy the trip. Let yourself dream about the destination. Invite others on the journey. 

You have what it takes. You are a big, powerful, beautiful, strong woman. Go make your life what you want it to be! 

I Love The Mountains

Every time I go there I feel closer to something bigger. 

I don't live in or near the mountains. In fact, I live in a valley, surrounded by flatland as far as the eye can see. It is beautiful with trees and flowers and water, etc. It is home and familiar. But when I go to the mountains, I feel something different. I think the word is awe. 

The very first time I went to the mountains was when I was in high school. I think I was on the verge of turning 14 or 15 and I went on a road trip out west with my friend and her family. We saw the Rocky Mountains, the Tetons, and Yellowstone. Before that we saw Mt. Rushmore. I could not believe my eyes. I felt like it was some sort of magic in the mountains. I felt awe. My very favorite spot was Artist's Point where the mountains are different colors like an artist painted them. I didn't have the words for the beauty I saw. I tried to capture it with my cheap film camera, but the pictures do not do it justice. 

The hiking, the forest, the waterfalls, the wildlife, the danger and beauty of the mountains was so exciting. I could not wait to go back someday. And while I haven't made it back out west, I have seen many mountains in my life since then. The Smokey Mountains, Mt. Vesuvius, the cliffs of Amalfi, Italy, Malibu, St. Lucia, Jamaica, I just feel called to them. When I am in them I feel myself connected to something bigger than me. I call that Spirit or Higher Power, or Goddess, etc. Whatever I call it, I experience it in the mountains. The views too pretty to think we could have thought of them. The waterfalls to wild to come from us. The trees too stubborn to follow our rules, growing out of sheer rock and standing straight against all odds. 

When I'm standing on the top of the world and I can see three states away, I feel small and humble, yet also powerful and inspired. Sometimes I wonder why I don't just go live in the mountains because I would love to feel that more often in my life. Maybe some day I will. But I also feel that way standing ankle deep in Lake Superior, or the ocean, or even a stream. I feel that way watching the birds and chipmunks out my kitchen window but it is less dramatic. 

The drama and intensity of driving in a car along the edge of a mountain face, or hiking on a small trail so close to the edge of the Earth with nothing to see but vastness, makes it impossible to ignore your limits and God's lack of them. My carsickness reminds me that I'm human and my body is limiting. The feeling I get watching the sun rise and set over those giant, vast, mountains reminds me that something out there created that and I don't have to understand it, tame it, conquer it or own it, I can just enjoy it while I can. 

I'm sitting back in Michigan today. It is flat, it is snowing, and it is cold. I'm struggling to remember that the same awe I felt in the mountains in available to me here. I feel a little lost without the big, beautiful things, the sunshine, and the fresh mountain air. But I'm going to keep looking. Maybe in the giant snowflakes falling outside my window. The cardinal in my cedar trees. The chickadee at my feeder. The fact that I wake up every day and that I'm able to do good things. All more proof that there is something bigger than me out there. Creating mountains, allowing me to get two six year olds back to school after a long break without losing my cool, even though we couldn't find folders, glasses, or computers, and reminding me to get back to writing because it brings me joy. 

I hope you find your mountain moment today. The one that makes you stop for just a moment today and realize that you are not all alone here and that there is so much to wonder at, to be in awe of. I'm trying my best today, it is not easy but I'm looking anyway. 

I Believe In Destiny

I can't say I understand it, but I believe

About 6 or more years ago I made a vision board. I had heard about vision boards on television and in magazines. I decided what the heck. I think I had just read "The Secret" and I wanted to create my own reality. I wanted and needed to have dreams. 

I gathered all my Oprah and AAA magazines and made my board. I had a variety of things on there like cute shoes, home decor color schemes, quotes that rang true to me and a few travel destinations. I also had a picture of what I imagined my inner child to be. She wore a swim suit, a swim floatie around her waist, had on rain boots, sunglasses and wild hair. I felt her in my soul but I didn't really know her yet. She was on my board. Some of the things I put on were just because they appealed to me visually. A guy riding a low tricycle with a fish kite on top?? I don't know. I liked the fun lunacy of it. Elephants were on my board, I love them. I love their maternal instincts, that the females stick together and that they mourn their dead.

My vision board has been hanging in my bedroom for a good long time. Every now and again I look to see if I've accomplished anything. I've started to search for and honor my inner child, and yes she is a beautiful, wild, fun mess. I've been looking for my strong tribe of women, like the elephants have, and I'm in the process of redecorating/remodeling my house. So yeah, I was getting some things done. The board was a good reminder of some of the goals I had. 

Last week though, I experienced destiny. To me destiny is when against all logic, you are exactly where you are supposed to be, when you are supposed to be there, with no control over it on your part. I went to Malibu California.  I did not pick this destination. It was picked for me. I was looking for some healing. By events outside my control, the person I was reaching out to for help and healing, moved to Los Angeles, California. We had agreed to meet in Malibu for the work. 

Having never been to Malibu or Los Angeles, I went online to get my bearing about where I would be staying and what was in the area. I was looking at beaches near the rental homes I was looking at and kept coming across the same picture. It was a white sign for the Paradise Cove beach in Malibu. I kept thinking that this sign looked familiar to me, I had seen it before. Weird, I thought. 

When I went up to my bedroom later that night, I saw it. It was on my vision board. That same sign that I kept seeing online was right there where it had been for the last six years. DESTINY! All of the universe conspired to get me to Malibu! Up until this point I had my doubts about traveling for this healing work. I was scared, I knew it would be expensive, I was in the middle of a house remodel and an extremely busy life. Was I ready? Was it the right time? Was it the right place with the right people? 

All of those questions and fears were answered when I saw that picture waiting there for me. It was a reassurance to me that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, who I was supposed to be, getting the help I needed to get with the people where were meant to help me. I believed in it and I believed in me. It was so exciting and comforting to feel this confirmation. 

Getting myself to California and doing the work that I wanted and needed to do was not easy. I wanted to run, quit, turn back, and doubt. In the back of my mind though was this picture. Of my vision board, in my bedroom in Michigan, made by my 6 or more years ago self. She didn't know this would happen, but she was courageous enough to believe it might. If she could believe back then, I could believe now and I would. 

To say that going to Malibu was life changing for me would be an understatement. It was one of the best things I've ever done and some of the hardest healing work I've ever done. The words "spiritual awakening" come to mind when I go back there in my mind. A coming home to me, to my life, to my true self, and to faith is what I gained. I'm so grateful for taking the risk, for following the signs along the way and for trusting myself, my path, and those set forth on it to guide me.

Like I said above, I believe in destiny. I don't understand it, I don't know how it all works, but I have experienced it, over and over in my life, in more powerful ways each time. Seeing the sign in real life, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, feet in the sand, gathering rocks and shells, eating a very overpriced but gigantic fish and chips with my person, I was home. I've already started a new board, this one is online and it is big. I'm excited to see where I go from here. Happy travels friends! 

Warrior Work Is Hard

Sometimes I have to go right back to the source

You might not know it if you just met me on the street, but I am a warrior woman. Most people who see me out and about in my town might say soccer mom, yes, frazzled grocery shopper, sure, warrior? Probably not. The thing about warrior women is that they are just normal women, fighting battles inside that they may never tell you about, but they are battles none the less. 

Being a warrior woman, to me, means that I'm a fighter. Not in a puff out my chest and blare my voice at you every chance I get way, but in a deep, strong, personal survival way. It is usually quiet, inside work that most people don't notice. It is one of the most difficult jobs on earth, for me, to fight for myself. 

I had learned over the years to let people have their way, to give of myself, to not rock the boat. It seemed easier than always fighting out loud, and honestly, most of it took place when I wasn't paying attention. When you are distracted by a job that drains the life out of you, you don't always have the energy to fight for your right to pizza over hot dogs. When you are going on two hours of sleep with newborn babies, you give up the fight about laundry, you don't have it in you to care. Then you start thinking that you'll just go along with whatever plans are made because you have too much to worry about as a wife, mother, and worker to think about what you really want. 

All of this sounds silly and I'm sure every wife and mother out there can relate on some level. But what happens while you are tired and distracted and exhausted, is that you can lose you. You can lose your voice, your power, and your sense of self. No one took it from you, you just let it slip away. This is where I found myself, and this is also where I became a warrior. 

I decided I was worth fighting for and that not knowing where my voice was was killing me. Every time I did something that I didn't want to do to please someone else, I sank further away from me. Every time I didn't share my feelings so that I didn't make someone else uncomfortable, I suffocated. 

Deciding that I was not going to do that anymore was a process. In fact I didn't realize that I was doing this warrior work until someone close to me pointed it out to me. I just thought I was having some confrontations, some upsets in my life, some changes. I thought that I was having problems honestly. I kept having people upset with me. I kept losing things that I thought were important and serving me but no longer seemed to be working out. 

The truth was that I was actively seeking out myself. I wanted to know what I wanted, what I felt, what mattered to me, and what my voice sounded like. I fought for the right to have a say. I fought for my best interests and the interests of my kids. I fought to be heard and seen in places where I had been silent and invisible. I started to see that some people only liked me if I did and said what they wanted but that my true voice was not welcome. 

I realized that I was not taking good care of myself and making sure that I was in relationship with people who would want me to be well. I needed people around me who would play nice, see me, and I was willing to fight for them. If you are not on my team, I don't think we can play. Sounds silly I know, but have you ever sat back and evaluated the people around you and if they are healthy and good for you? There were some surprises in that for me. I don't have to kick those people out of my life, but I do need to adjust my expectations of them and my interactions with them. 

Warrior work is hard. Like exhausting. Overwhelming. Walking upstream on slippery moss covered rocks kind of work. Fall asleep whenever you relax kind of work. Why? Because you are engaging your whole body system. In order to know who you are and what you need and want, you have to pay attention to yourself and your interactions with others. How do I feel? What is happening in my thoughts? What is happening in my body? Do I have words for this? Do I want something? Do I need something? Does this feel good, sound right, sit well with me? What does my head say? What about my gut? Am I well? Did I get enough sleep? How about the food I put in my body? Did I move around enough today to keep the energy flowing in my body? Is this person safe? How do they make me feel? What is our dynamic? Does it serve me? 

To be awake in your life, is exhausting at times. The only way I know to handle this is to connect to a source. It can be through prayer, it can be through music, nature sounds, or watching a sunset. Last week for me it meant laying down on the snow covered earth under the trees. I needed to feel something solid and real. I needed to know that something more powerful than me was in charge of the world. I needed to feel the cold, hear the wind, and watch the birds. 

Warrior work cannot be done alone. It is too much. You have to have a way to fill up and get some power or energy from the outside. No one can do warrior work alone. I am grateful to nature and its wonders that remind me in a way that I can see and hear and feel, that there is a source of energy that creates beauty daily without any help from me. I need that in my life. I'm still tired but I know that sometimes you have to put a lot of work in when something in new and that it won't always be this hard. 

The next time you see a frazzled looking soccer mom laying under the trees, leave her alone. She is filling up. She is all done and admitting defeat to mother nature, who has the ability to fill her back up with hope of beauty. She might be crying or yelling or dancing and hugging trees. Do not be alarmed, it is part of the process. She is fighting for herself in a world that would prefer her to forget. 

Seven Year Anniversary Of Your Death

There is no escaping grief

In Memory of Ryan Peter Jezak

This picture of a bird was taken by our daughter just about a month after you passed away. I found it today on our computer. I never realized I had it. I don't look at pictures from that time often. It's too hard. 

Seven years have passed. Is it easier? I don't know. It is always just different. The cells of my body remember this day and no matter what I do to prepare or ignore or forget, they jump up and down and demand my attention. It is less raw, time has passed. I've learned some tools to deal with these feelings and it helps. 

What I cannot figure out what to do with is the flashbacks to this day. The phone call, telling our child, the wailing, the drive home because I was at my mother's when I got the call, the next few days consoling our devastated child. I felt utterly inadequate as a mother because there was no taking the pain away for her. Just the sitting in it. The daily showing up and consoling.  I was not afforded grief in those early days, I was in all out mama bear mode. Not only did I have our child to comfort but I was growing two babies in my body. Giving up and giving into grief was not an option. Maybe it will fade in time, maybe there is a tool I've yet to learn. 

The grief has been spread out over these past seven years. It is probably for the best, honestly. We couldn't all fall apart at once. We talk about you, she knows so many things about you, about us, about how much she was loved and the challenges we went through. The years since you have gone have been filled with some things I don't like, relationships I would change if I could, situations I wish were different, misunderstandings, and complicated grief by all touched by your life and death. But so much good has happened too. 

Our child is amazing. She is funny, smart, beautiful, has nice toes (inside joke), is creative, a great friend, and a profound thinker. She has an empathy in her that is only gained by tragedy. She still loves Chinese food, how could she not, hitting up the Mandarin House with us since she was a baby. She looks like me but she has your eyes and dance moves. 

If I could go back in time, I would change how I handled things-I'm sure you would too. But it isn't an option. I have folders in my brain like always, the bad, the ugly, the angry, the regret, but my beautiful and good folders grow every year as I am able to separate from my hurt and pain and remember the beautiful person you were and the beautiful love we shared that led to our baby girl being born. Yes we were young, yes we had some really bad and immature ideas about what love and marriage looked like, yes addiction derailed our lives. We did the best we could. I don't regret it. I've learned so much from the adventure of having you in my life. 

Rest in peace. Be with us in spirit as we continue on. Watch over our baby girl. 

Yes, I Marched On the Anniversary of the Women's March

No, I don't need to explain to you why. 

On the anniversary of the Women's March, I was not in my home town. I was not able to march with my people and I was a little bummed about it. I happened to be in another state, and a relative reached out and asked me if I wanted to march at their state capitol. I wasn't sure if I would make it because I was unsure of my schedule, but it worked out that I was free. I packed up the kids and went. 

I haven't had a chance to post about it but I have been reading the online comments left by people responding to news articles in my hometown about our local march. Here is what I noticed...people are demanding to know why we are marching. They are demanding that we explain ourselves. They are attacking women for their language choices, their outfit choices, and for bringing their husbands or children along. And I also notice that people seem to think that their opinions and judgments matter to the women who marched. 

Here's the thing...we aren't asking for permission to march. We aren't asking for your approval, your opinion or your thoughts. I personally don't care what you think of my marching. I could care less if you like the words I choose or the sign I hold. I don't need your permission to have an opinion and I don't need your agreement with my views. 

Last year, I felt differently. It was my first march, my first protest or demonstration as an adult woman and I was nervous. I wan't so sure of myself. I wanted everyone to know why and I wanted their approval. I had just started letting some of my opinions be known. I had just started writing online. I had just started to wonder what it was I did and didn't agree with instead of just going with the flow to keep the peace all the time. 

A lot has happened in a year. I've come to realize that I don't have to please anyone but me. I don't have to explain my thoughts, feelings, or actions to anyone. The only person that I had to please and explain myself to was myself. So no, dude on twitter, I don't need your opinion on my views. You can give them, it is public, but I'm not going to take them to heart. You see, what I've learned this year is that I'm pretty good at judging what is good for me, what I need to do, when I need to fight, what I will allow, and what I will speak out against. And the kicker, I don't have to ask ANYONE else what they think of that. 

Now, some of you, especially the men reading this, will probably say "DUH!" of course you don't need permission from anyone. This is not the experience I have had growing up as a woman in my world. Everyone thought they could exert control over me, my thoughts, my decisions, my time, my beliefs, etc. That has been my experience. I was taught by experience to sacrifice what I wanted and needed to please others. I was taught to be small and quiet and agreeable to be liked and loved and accepted. Was it right? No. But it was my experience. 

So doing it differently is an act of courage and bravery for me. I am breaking an old pattern, I am forging a new path, and it feels amazing and freeing to say, "I don't care one bit what you think of my decisions, beliefs, and choices." and to mean it. I didn't ask and I don't need to know. As always, you can share, after all, this is public. Just know that I am a whole, strong, confident woman who decides for herself what is right for her. 

Driving myself, and my children downtown to a capitol of an unfamiliar city and joining a march for something I believe in was an act of bravery. I did share my beliefs and thoughts with my children in the most truthful way that they could understand. And truth be told, I didn't even have to do that. Because I know that what my children and I experienced that day was an act of love. It was an act of community and an act of bravery that one can feel without explanation. Walking peacefully among so many different types of people, singing, yelling words of love, compassion, acceptance, and empathy was an experience of relationship with others, strangers in fact. But it was intimate. It was powerful. It was truthful. My children saw so many different people, dressed differently or hardly dressed at all, different colors, religions, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, native American women in traditional dress, burning sage, singing, and banging a drum, and not once were they scared. Not once did they feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Bored, maybe (they wanted ice cream-they are six) but never uncomfortable. Accepted. Strangers in a strange town, marching among strangers and we felt loved. 

I am beyond grateful for the experience and for the woman who reached out to welcome me into this experience. I am beyond grateful that I don't need to justify my reasons or my beliefs or my opinions so that people will find me acceptable to them. I'm beyond grateful for my children to have experienced such an uplifting, brave, community event. I feel empowered and I feel powerful. If you have had a similar experience of community, or bravery, or self-empowerment, tell me about it in the comments, I'd love to know about it.  

Making Space For Sadness

Healing through feeling.

This is a picture of me. It is not my favorite picture but it is a picture of real life. I sent this picture to my friend Cathy last January asking if it was normal to be crying while waiting for your take out order at Noodles and Co. She of course told me that it was not normal but that she was sorry I was sad. She is a good friend. She lets me be sad. This sadness however. had gone on for far too long and I was crying at the most inappropriate times. I had been talking to my friends and family a lot about my symptoms and I decided to see a doctor for depression. The truth was that I couldn't stop crying. 

I was diagnosed with depression and put on a mood stabilizer. Whoo hoo no more sadness and inappropriate crying right? Well, sort of. I believe that unexpressed emotions can lead to a depression. The feelings don't go away, they just fester and build. In my case resulting in a lack of wanting to get out of pajamas, do anything I used to like doing, and crying all the time. Taking a pill to stabilize my mood is good for helping me to be able to get up and function daily, but it in no way takes away my feelings. 

My challenge this year was to learn to let feelings flow through me and to feel them without getting trapped in them. Seriously SO HARD! I was used to shutting down the feelings when they got intense because I was afraid that I wouldn't survive the pain. So short term gain, long term loss. I was building a 40 year volcano of sadness, upset, fear, loss that erupted without me being able to stop it or control it or handle it. 

With some help and guidance I am learning to let what I feel in the moment be. I am learning to make space for my feelings. Today it was sadness. Today it enveloped me like a cloud. Why? Many reasons but it doesn't matter. I don't have to know why for it to show up. It was here whether or not I could figure out why. So first I wanted to run and deny it. I thought about taking the kids somewhere fun for the day, but when I went to go offer it, I saw how content they all were just playing around the house and I let that idea go. It is not fair for me to force my family to outrun my emotions with me. 

So then I decided that I could get busy with some sort of work. I have been putting off sanding and painting my kitchen cabinets, perfect. I got out my sandpaper and started in to work. I actually did feel good about this work I got done today but it did not take the sadness away. I decided that I had to accept that the sadness was here to stay for today. I had to face it, accept it, make space to feel it, to be with it. This is not an easy thing to do when you are a mom. It is hard to get the space to cry without having your children worry about you. So I let myself be sad around my kids without crying. This just looked like me being quiet. Telling them I wasn't in the mood to do certain things or just saying I was feeling kind of down or sad but not sure why. 

I met up with some friends tonight and one of them shared about the sadness they were feeling around the holidays, missing a loved one who was no longer with them. That was all it took for my sadness flood gates to open. I cried for about an hour and a half. In the safety of trusted, loving friends. No one needed to know why I was feeling so sad and could not stop crying, for they were feeling the sadness too. There was no need to explain. Sometimes you just need to know you are not alone. So we all held space for our collective sadness. Each of us having different sources of sadness, but still accepting it all without judgement or competition. 

On my way home, I cried more and more. I could not stop. I'm crying as I write this now. Is there something wrong with me? I'll admit sometimes I wonder. Is this normal? I don't know. Do I enjoy sitting in sadness and crying, not even sure of the reasons for it? No. Nor do I like stuffing, pretending, and putting off the inevitable explosion of emotion that will come if I do. I used to think self-care was finding a quick way to cheer myself up. I no longer think that at all. Now I think that good self care is to love myself through the sadness. To not force myself to know all the reasons why. To be okay just letting it flow out of me, knowing that I am accepting reality, dealing with and feeling my feelings. 

Other people who do not practice the feeling of feelings, will not like this. You will make them uncomfortable. They will say things like "smile, things can't be that bad" , "hey let's go get a drink and cheer you up, let loose" or "look at all you have to be happy about, how can you be sad when you have all of this". Ignore that crap. It is just a way of getting you to stop a behavior that makes them uncomfortable. They are not your concern, you are. Feel whatever you need to feel and maybe wait until you are in the company of safe people, who can handle your emotions, do you let loose completely. Or in the company of yourself, who can let you cry or feel without being critical and making you think things like you are wrong or selfish or dramatic. 

This won't last forever. I won't die in my feelings. I just need to be sad today. I might need to be sad tomorrow. I don't know. I just know that denying it will just postpone and intensify it. It might turn into anger toward someone or something if I try to stuff it down, and I don't want that. So tonight, I'm letting it out here on the page. I'm letting it run down my cheeks. I'm going to let it wrap itself around me and make space for it to go to bed with me tonight. It will have it's time, it's space, it's acknowledgement and then it will move on when it is done with me. And I will be okay afterword. In fact I will be better than okay, I will be free of that emotion until the next one because I let it flow through me without trying to control it, stop it. or stuff it for later. And every time I can let this sadness flow through me, it heals me from all the years I didn't know how to do it. All the more reason to make the space and invite the sadness in. 

Be well. 

Planting My Flag

Sometimes you have to declare something, put your faith in it and just go with it. That is what happened with 2017 for me. I had declared "The Year Of Carie" at some point when my picture was published in a city calendar. I decided that this was the year that I was going to do things differently. I was going to say yes to writing, I was going to say yes to photo contests, new opportunities at work, and anything that felt right for me. 

2017 was filled with major ups and downs for me. I started the year in January with a major depression that left me unable to function properly. I had to get help for that. I had started with a new therapist, trying to heal my traumas, and learn somatic experiencing. It has changed my life. I learned to feel, to heal, to experience all feelings and sensations and emotions and to not shut down, but stay open. I have come further in one year of that therapy than in ten plus years of talk therapy. I am thankful, so grateful.  

I opened myself up to new opportunities at work. It has been rewarding. I get to do work with young children and their parents, school aged children learning new things in nature, and now I have the opportunity to bring nature into a classroom setting. For the first time in my life I feel like I have a job that takes a lot, but also gives me a lot. I get to learn new things, be around people excited to be working there, and see nature's beauty while I'm working. I feel very supported in trying new things and I know I'm never alone, I always have support. 

I've learned to say no to things that don't feel good in my life and that don't serve me. It has been a tough muscle to flex. I was a yes person. I hate to disappoint others or not meet their expectations. To say no to something that I know is going to upset someone else is so hard for me to do. But this year I decided that I could no longer sacrifice my own self, my own time, my own feelings, my own needs in order to meet someone else's. I'm learning that the best thing I can do for myself is to meet my needs fully before taking on any other demands on me. Otherwise I resent the expectations and stress on me. I don't want to be that person anymore. 

With the election of our president in 2017, I discovered that I am an activist at heart. He awoke in me a fighter. I could no longer sit by and say that I didn't want to discuss politics. From the minute he became a serious candidate, I could not even watch him on television. I would have a physical reaction. He as all too familiar to me. A bully. A liar. A master manipulator. I felt it down to my toes and do to this day. I could not hold in my feelings, my comments, my opinions, my knowledge of interaction with similar men in my own life. It wasn't even a choice for me to "give him a chance", it felt too dangerous to me and for once I decided to listen. His policies don't generally stand to hurt me as a white woman who is not poor (aside from the fact that he attacks women and likes to tell them what they can do with their bodies). His tax policy will probably benefit me. I don't use Obamacare. I'm not an immigrant or black. I don't care one damn bit about tax breaks, more choices for healthcare, or borders if it means that my gain will come from pushing down others. I don't want a single thing from him except for him to leave so I don't have to look at him or listen to him and be exposed to his disturbing energy anymore. I cannot imagine how it feels to be an immigrant in this country, or a black man, a poor man, a disabled person, a parent with a sick child, or a woman of color in this country. I'm trying to learn as much as I can about all of their experiences because they are the ones being dismissed, disregarded, or discriminated against. Until they are free, none of us is free. If there is anything for me to be grateful for this year it is that Donald Trump's behavior and words stirred up my trauma and I've been able to channel it to be more compassionate, more understanding, more accepting, and more willing to fight for what I know is right in my heart. 

2017 will be a touchstone year for me, I can tell. I know I am different and will never be the same. So what on Earth could 2018 hold for me? I have no idea. No one ever knows what the future holds, but here is what I do know:

I'm planting my flag. The flag on the mountain of me. Big, giant, full me. All of me. The year of Carie was about figuring out who the heck I even was. This year I know a little bit and I intend to know a lot more as I go on in life. I intend to continue to open myself, to feel my feelings, to meet my needs, to say yes to what feels good and right for me and no to what doesn't. I intend to heal, to feel, and to grow. I no longer want to hide parts of me that you might not like, that isn't how it works. I am complex, I am large, I am full of passion and creativity, needs and wants. I have big, fat, hard won opinions and feelings on things that have come with my own experiences and from listening to the experiences of others. I am beautiful and precious, and full of joy and love. I share myself with people who can see me, hear me, know me, accept me and be safe for me. In the words of a friend, only good will come from this. 

I don't have a title for this coming year. I don't feel the need to call it anything except my life. My life from here on out. Flag planted on top of the complex woman I now claim as myself. Not hiding. Not shape shifting. Just doing her best every dang day to show up fully herself, for herself and no one else. I'm beyond grateful for the Year Of Carie, I had no idea when I declared it how it would come to pass. I had no idea the people and opportunities and challenges that would come to help reveal her to me. I could NOT have done this year without help and support and challenges to help test me. I'll end with a quote I found for a friend when her first born son arrived almost 13 years ago and she gave him the middle name "Whitman" when I had no idea how much I would need these words in my own life ...

"I am larger, better than I thought. I did not know I held so much goodness." Walt Whitman

I'm Starting A Blog

Seriously, I'm a blogger now!

Image credit: Google Images

The year 2017 was declared, by me, The Year of Carie. I didn't know what it would mean but I declared it. A lot of things have happened but one of the coolest and most exciting for me was that I became a published writer. It actually started in September of 2016 when I joined the Self Love Beauty arm of Odyssey online. I wrote a weekly article and loved it. In January of 2017, Lisa Thompson asked all of the writers to come up with goals. One of my goals was to have my own website or blog. I started building it in the summer. I got overwhelmed and stopped. 

Last week I decided it was time. The year was almost over and how could it really be The Year Of Carie if I didn't have a website or blog? I built my page. I don't know if I understand it all. I don't know how to do a lot of things yet, but isn't that how everything great in life starts? I'm going to put it out there un-perfected, because not perfect is better than not at all. 

I write. It has always been that way. I have stacks and stacks of journals from every stage of my life since at least high school (though I'm not sure where some ended up). It is how I process my feelings. I write until it makes sense. It is a release. I write until I am drained of all that I have. It is a joy. I use it to lift myself and others. It is healing. I can see how I grow and change over time when I look back at it. 

So I'm taking this show on it's own road here. I will be writing here when writing needs to be done for me. I will be writing here about my life, my thoughts, my questions, my doubts, my observations, my convictions, my wonder, and my experiences. Take what you like and leave the rest. I will be posting pictures of parking lot sunsets, animals and things that bring me joy. 

This will be a work in progress just like me. I'm excited to start. I'm excited to learn. I'm proud of myself for trying something new and fulfilling a promise I made to myself almost a year ago.

Cat-writer (Carie Ann Terrill-writer)

I Am Not In Charge

But maybe something bigger than me is. 

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm just not in charge. If I was we would probably be in trouble. I really, really like to imagine that I do have some control over my life and the life of those I love. Like if I do the right things, good things will happen, if I take the right path, it will lead me to where I want to be, etc. I have hopes, dreams, wishes for myself and other people and I start to think that I can make them all come true, because sometimes I get lucky and things go the way I want.

The truth is that I'm just not that powerful. This has been a hard truth for me to accept. I was in major denial. I think the reason it has taken me so long to accept this is because it has taken me a long time to realize that I wasn't as humble as I thought. It took me a long time to realize that I didn't trust anyone but me. This included my idea of God.

I was raised as a Catholic. I went to a Catholic school for thirteen years of my life. We went to church all the time as part of our school, we went on Sundays, we learned about our faith in our school classes. I wanted to believe in what I was told about God and Jesus but it just didn't ever sink to a level of trust for me. I liked the idea of someone or something being good and loving and in charge of my life, but I didn't really believe that. I used to see the little old ladies in the front row of our church praying their rosaries before Sunday service and think, maybe it happens when you are their age. Until then, I was on my own.

In my mid-twenties I was faced with a situation that tested my limits as a person. I did not know how to handle the situation and no one around me knew what to do either. I was introduced to a program of recovery where I was offered a spiritual solution to my problems. Oh boy, here we go again I thought, the God stuff. I entered the skeptic I had always been and I got a lot of what I had always gotten, drama, pain, frustration, fear, exhaustion.

One day I was at my absolute end. I knew I was either going to wind up in jail or a mental institution if I didn't find a new way to deal with an old problem. Someone I loved wasn't doing what I wanted them to do, what I knew was best for them. I sat there thinking of my options. I couldn't do what I had been doing. I couldn't do what I wanted to do. I was stuck. It was then that I remembered what everyone had been talking about all that time in my childhood and in my program, God could do things for me that I couldn't do for myself.

I got out some paper, I write, it is who I am. I wrote a letter to God (I didn't even really know what that meant to me on that day). In the letter I let God know all of the things that I had been trying to control and fix and force and be in charge of. I let God know that I was just letting it all go. I was giving up. Not in an I Quit way, but in an I'm going to trust that You have a better answer way. I cried, I felt guilty for letting go, but I let it go.

Things worked out that day and in the coming days in ways I would not have thought. Change was brought about by people I would not have trusted to help. It did not go the way I wanted for the other person, but I had peace of mind for the first time maybe ever. That was about 15 years ago. I take a long time to really learn things.

In the last 15 years, my ideas of God have changed often. I am on a spiritual path to find a personal relationship with something bigger than me. At the present moment I call her Goddess. I still struggle to believe and trust that I don't have to be in full control every minute of my life and that I can trust that I will be led to good things and so will the people I love. I've learned that life is so big and wonderous that I cannot even imagine certain things that come to be in my life. My mind was limited but if I could let go and trust, limits disappeared and amazing paths were revealed to me.

Recently my trust has been tested. I have been reminded that I've only scratched the surface of the goodness that is available to me with a trust in something bigger than me. I was ill, very ill, and unable to be in charge or control of much of anything. I made a decision on the first day of illness to give in to it. To trust that I could handle it. To trust that my body was made for this and let it work, without over burdening it. This meant that I had to rest. I had to let others care for me and care for themselves. During this time, I was reminded that people that I love face challenges too. I received news that people that I loved were struggling and having challenges, some exciting, some scary. I was reminded that if I could relax and rest and trust a Higher Power to lead me to health and wellness, that I could also relax and let go of my worry about others. They had something in charge of them too. All would work out without my intervention. I can still hope and dream, but most important is to trust.

It is not easy. I struggle, I forget, I fear, I fail. This week I shared my fear and struggle with someone I trust and they helped me to imagine myself sitting with my fears in one hand and my love and trust in another hand and just letting them be. Then imagining the most beautiful rain falling on me filled with unconditional love from something that was bigger, more powerful, and more loving than I could imagine. At first I was just going through the motions, doing what I was told, but then I felt this warmth wash over me. I cannot describe it, because I have never felt it before. It was a feeling I have no words for but hope to feel again often. I imagine it is the feeling that we had as newborns when all of our needs were met and we were being held in the most loving arms of our mothers. All is well. We can relax and be taken care of. Someone else is in charge and all is well.

So I don't have any answers. I'm not miraculously cured of my illness. The people I love are still struggling. What is gone is my frantic need to figure it all out, fix it all, and have the solutions. It is replaced by a trust, a knowing. Knowing that if I take good loving care of me, I'm doing all I can. That if I love my people well, there are no regrets ever. That if I don't see the answer now, it doesn't me there isn't one, and when it is time, it will be revealed to me. It's actually a huge relief to let go, not in the I give up way, but in the I trust You way. I always thought faith was something I had to work on, not an experience I could have anytime I allow it. The relationship with Goddess, I'm discovering, is perfect and there waiting for me, I just have to trust, let go, and experience it.

Cover Image Credit: Carie Terrill Photos

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