So hey. I’m back. I never expected almost six months to pass before I’d feel ready to step inside of this story again. You know how it is when you’re so invested in a movie, you think you’re one of the characters? I remember the first time I saw Pretty Woman. I spent the rest of the day trying to fling my gorgeous mane of auburn curls back and forth over my shoulder. Never mind that the hair I actually owned was a double processed mass of shellac covered straw that spent the late 80’s and early 90’s being completely un-flingable. That’s kind of how it feels to step in and out of my own story. In a way I am that character, but I don’t always feel like that character, because even though the experiences I had were real, they changed me into someone else after the fact. Remembering the past is more than just telling what happened. It’s taking the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and beliefs that made me who I was, and weaving them together with the ones that make me who I am now, and then getting acquainted with the new person who inevitably shows up after that. Which leaves me feeling like a carton of Fruity Pebbles after a toddler gets a hold of the box. Dumped upside down and emptied out, with not much left besides some crunchy bits and pieces of myself scattered across the floor. Continue reading “Lost and Found: Meet Virginia Part 2”
Lost and Found: Meet Virginia-Part 1
You know what I’ve found? Writing from the cheap seats of unfiltered bitterness and rage is easy. Give me Racism, or Narcissistic Abuse or Spiritual Abuse, or Sexual Abuse and the volcano will flow. Novelist James Baldwin said that clinging to our anger and hatred is easy because once it’s gone, we’re left to deal with the pain. I think that must be true, because as I write, and the laws of energy (Can’t be created. Can’t be destroyed) turn the anger into something else—hello pain. Which makes it all that much harder to sit down and write again. It’s an unexpected cycle that I didn’t see coming: the closer I get to those coveted front row seats of letting What Is and What Was, live as a mostly peaceful whole, the words and emotions get stuck. Because that’s what pain does. Gets stuck in our minds and bodies like gum in the sole of a waffle bottom shoe, picking up so much lint and dirt along the way that we can barely tell what it is. At times like this, I sort of miss that ratty old low end seat with it’s peeling upholstery and half chewed taffy stuck all up underneath, because the story I’m about to tell is still riddled with scabby sores and bruises. It’s also full of indescribably joy—but to feel it, to own it, to make it mine and mine alone—I’ve learned that pain has to take the first swing if I want peace to be the last batter up. Continue reading “Lost and Found: Meet Virginia-Part 1”
The Itty Bitty, Big Things.
If a page in Open Office could be ripped out of my computer and tossed in the corner, you wouldn’t be able to see my floor right now. That’s how many times I’ve started this post.
And stopped.
And started again.
This is what happens when an agoraphobic story, desperately wants to be heard, but still isn’t convinced that it’s safe to walk out into the world. No matter how times you dress it up pretty and have it almost coaxed to the door, it may just as easily turn back around, and spend the evening on the couch, with a stale bag of Fritos instead. Continue reading “The Itty Bitty, Big Things.”
Teeth Cleaning. Truth Telling. And a Bowl of Cold Gray Mush.
“I’m so sorry” yawned the super sweet hygienist who was digging on my teeth. “I just didn’t get much sleep last night. I have a dear, DEAR friend who insists on keeping me up. I mean, I LOVE HER TO DEATH, but she knocks on my door at almost midnight, several times a week, even though she knows I get up early for work.” Continue reading “Teeth Cleaning. Truth Telling. And a Bowl of Cold Gray Mush.”
It’s More Than Just the Poopy Revenge.
The first time I saw The Help, I fell in love with Minny. She was a Truth Telling Nightmare, who fought back, regardless of the risks; and shined a light so bright, that the Doers of Darkness, had nowhere left to hide. And while tale after tale of bravery and heroism had me cheering the whole way through, nothing compared to Bad Ass Minny, taking a dump in a Narcissist’s pie.
Continue reading “It’s More Than Just the Poopy Revenge.”
Dear WordPress. You’re the only one who truly understands me.
Dear WordPress,
So here we are again.
You: still waiting patiently.
Me: cursing and crying and digging a hole in the wall in front of my desk with an anxious big toe, as I Write. Erase. Repeat. And then press my fingers into my eyeballs as far as I can without causing permanent blindness, and think “Who even does this?”
Like really. What kind of person feels the burning need to vomit words into space where anyone.
Or no one.
But mostly anyone.
Can read them?
For the last month. Every time I’ve tried to write this post, that’s the only thing that comes out. Continue reading “Dear WordPress. You’re the only one who truly understands me.”