I'm proud of who I am No more monsters, I can breathe again

 Anger…. I’ve always felt it was a useless emotion.  I admit to being very angry in the past.  Anger was my go to emotion for a very long time.  I figured that out less than 10 years ago- far too late, but better late than never I suppose.  I realized that somehow anger felt more powerful than the feelings it was masking (sadness, despair, being hurt, treated unfairly).  When I showed the underlying emotions I was labeled weak or those emotions were used against me.  Anger was safe. Trust me- I may only be 5’2” tall but when I was angry -look out!  My tongue was sharp and cruel and you can ask the many hairbrushes I smashed and my sons’ lightsabers that I broke over my leg what that fury was.  It seems like another lifetime ago and I hate looking back at her.  Ugly. Just ugly.  But what was underneath that anger was so much pent up hurt and disappointment and trying to hold it all together alone so that no one would see how broken I truly was.  And guilt.  Oh the guilt for being unhappy.  So it came out as anger.  I thought I had healed it all.  Purged it all out.  Apparently not.  This week’s full moon brought these buried emotions up and it shocked me for sure!  It came out of no where and took hold of me in a way I barely remember.  And I do NOT like feeling angry, but you have to feel it to heal it.  So I did some more soul searching and realized apparently I’ve been holding on to a lot of old emotions.  I had to figure out what and why and who was causing this.  Not pleasant.  I think I’ve spent the last 3 days crying and writing and crying some more.  I would like to think it’s all out but who knows 🤷🏻‍♀️. I decided to write letters to the people that I feel the most hurt by.  The list was longer than I expected.  I will never send them, obviously!  In fact I need to burn them because if anyone got a hold of them 😳.  But now I can let all that go.  I need to accept the fact that I’ll never receive an apology or closure or anything that ties it up in a nice pink bow.  So I need to give that to  myself.  I need to forgive myself for taking blame that didn’t belong to me. For carrying the burden of others actions thinking somehow it was my fault when it wasn’t. I have accepted responsibility for my mistakes but I will no longer make excuses or take the blame for other people’s actions.  

I’m getting ready for a whole new chapter in my life and there’s no room for these situations in the future.  I realize releasing it was my way of closing the book on those situations. You can’t write a new chapter if you keep rereading the old ones.  What are you carrying with you that would make your life so much lighter if you just set it down.  Is it even yours to carry?  Do yourself a favor and take a look and see if you have emotions to need to release—-make it a better day in the life. 

Your mother warned you there'd be days like these

 

This week it came out that the death of Matthew Perry was negligence on the part of his doctors and his assistant.  Last year on that fateful day I began a month or so of obsessive reading, researching, rereading his book, relistening to his book and grieving someone I had never met.  When Friends was airing in the 90's I was obsessed with Matthew Perry.  He was most definitely my celebrity crush, and I could not get enough of his onscreen presence.  Friends was my comfort show.  Whenever I couldn't sleep, I would put Friends on in the background.  I haven't really watched an episode in almost a year.  I was just now starting to be able to watch an episode if it happened to come on after my TiVo show ended.  This week's news brought it all back again.  The visions of the ambulance leaving his home, his parents pulling into the driveway past the yellow police tape, his last haunting Instagram posts that made people wonder if Mattman was secretly begging for help.  It seems that perhaps he was.  It made me wonder again what exactly were the last days of his life like?  It breaks my heart that he suffered his whole life with this addiction and depression and the fact that medical professionals took advantage of that for profit turns my stomach. It got me thinking about his assistant, who administered that fatal dose of ketamine, and when is enough enough.

In a world of celebrity worship, the new era of influencers and the social media frenzy and cell phone obsessions when is enough enough?  Everywhere you turn people are suffering from anxiety, ADHD, depression and the list goes on.  When I was growing up (in the stone ages 😜) this was not a thing.  Did we suffer from them and just not know?  Most likely yes.  I remember a few boys in my elementary school who one thousand percent suffered from ADHD - and they were labeled as a problem or dumb.  Do I think that was fair?  No.  But I do feel like the labels of anxiety, depression and ADHD and the like are now thrown around like confetti.  When I was younger, we called it being nervous.  I was nervous about my upcoming exams, nervous about starting a new job - you get the idea.  Nowadays everyone has anxiety - somehow there has to be a difference.  Anyway, I digress.  This week also the whole drama with the "It ends with us" movie is all over social media.  Domestic Violence victims/survivors are speaking out and it makes me wonder.  How many people that we talk to daily are suffering from something that the world never sees?  Have masks become so easy to put on to cover people's pain that no one sees the real struggle people are living with?  I am someone who has always taken people at their word.  But I am also very intuitive and if I spend any amount of time with you, I will feel if something is off.  But if I ask you and you deny it - I will take you at your word.  But I strive to get people to face their inner demons.  I don't feel like people should suffer in silence - I want everyone to take a good hard look at themselves and be honest - at least with themselves - about whether or not they are really ok.  I wonder what would have happened if Matthew Perry had gotten the help he needed dealing with all of his inner turmoil rather than been given drugs to stop his drug addiction (make that make sense please!)  Mental illness is so complex and so misunderstood it baffles me.  Everyone, it seems, is dealing with depression.  And I know some people need the medication prescribed to them.  I am not against that at all, do not get me wrong.  However, I feel like sometimes medication is given and it is truly just a Band-Aid for an underlying issue that is masked.  Meditation, yoga, journaling and even prayer are all ways people can get in touch with the inner feelings/circumstances that are causing the anxiety and depression.  My son and daughter thankfully, are very in tune with the why.  Why am I feeling this way?  Why did that situation make me feel a certain way? And they then figure out the best way to heal that part of themselves that is triggered with a certain situation.  I am so grateful that they learned it from a very young age.  When I was growing up it didn't matter why I felt a certain way I was just taught to deal with it and most likely it was my fault (most everything was apparently).  I was never one to wear a mask and was always upfront with my feelings.  This made people very uncomfortable and often led to people using my weaknesses against me.  So - instead of putting on a mask I simply chose to be selective with whom I showed my true self to.  It brings me back to Matthew Perry and what actually went on that week before his passing.

Did he try to send out "bat signals" saying he needed help?  Were the people he trusted (his assistant, his doctors) basically just putting a band-aid on the underlying issues of why he used and was depressed?  When is it your job or your duty to dig deeper and refuse to offer the band-aid to someone? Personally, I am not a band-aid offeror.  I am blunt and straight forward and it has cost me relationships in the past.  I am the hold the mirror up kind of friend.  Not because I want to hurt people - but because I was once someone who needed that mirror held up to my face to fix/repair/heal those inner demons. Now, I often hold that mirror up to myself because Lord knows I am still a work in progress.  Did people get tired of holding a mirror to Matthew Perry's face?  Did they just turn away because it triggered their own issues?  The world will never know.  But I think in this day in the life we all need to say "I'll be there for you" - and mean it.  Because life is too short to be anything but kind and honest with ourselves and others.

I think you should know what you've done, you get what you deserve

 

Just when I think I have healed my inner self something else pops up and here we go again!  This week was a tough one - a lot of astrological things, new moon - I felt it all.  But that's ok.  I am used to it by now and I was actually anticipating it.  By this time I sometimes look forward to the deep diving into my soul and what still needs to be addressed.  This was one of those times.  Let's see what I discovered and maybe.....it can help you ask yourself the same questions?

First of all - I realized that I am brave and my faith is truly not something everyone else has.  I am getting ready to move again and God has put a new place on my heart - one I never would have ever imagined.  Another place I have never visited -  every day there are more signs and more conviction on my heart.  Does that mean I am not scared?  No, it definitely doesn't.  Truth be told I am terrified.  Will that stop me?  Never.  When I know that something is sent to me by the divine and I wait until I am sure I am not misunderstanding - nothing can stop me.  I have realized that most people don't understand this AT ALL.  They pretend to, they try to be supportive but inside they are thinking "She is out of her mind!"  That's ok.  It is not for anyone else to understand.  This is why I keep things quiet at this point of my life.  I used to be an open book.  I would tell anyone everything that I thought, what went on in my head and my life.  I mistakenly thought people were honest and transparent.  If I say something - I mean it.  I realize now----that is rare.  Most people just talk to hear themselves and to make themselves look a certain way to the outside world.  That is just not something I can do.  So, my life has changed drastically.  The amount of people I have in my life that I share my inner thoughts and feelings with are close to none.  And I am okay with that.  I don't get my feelings hurt that way.  Which brings me to yesterday's epiphany.

I haven't journaled lately.  I would sit down to write and nothing would come out, I could not get my thoughts to process.  It happens every once in a while.  Yesterday, I was hurt and angry and the words spilled out.  Now that I know my worth - I will except nothing less than what I deserve from people and situations.  I am tired of being someone's convenience - to being forgotten about unless they need someone to talk to who actually gives a shit about them.  This is why my phone is silent.  Why I can go days without a call or text message unless it's work related.  There are certain people that I have given my all to for 30 some years or more and they have dismissed me like I never existed.  It makes me angry.  Why do people not appreciate my presence in their life?  The sacrifices I have made?  The love I have given unconditionally?  Then I realized....am I angry at them or myself?  I was raised to "do the right thing".  I still hear by parents voices sometimes - you HAVE to do that - it's the RIGHT thing to do.  Really?  Is it?  Then why don't people do the same for me?  "It doesn't matter, you have to be the bigger person" - do I ?  Yea not so much anymore.  I struggle as a parent to not drill that into my kids now that they are adults.  I do my best to allow them to decide for themselves how much bullshit they take in a situation.  Even if I don't agree with them because that inner child inside of me gets a knot in my stomach because that is not how I was raised and how I raised them.  But now?  No.  I want them to choose themselves over people that don't value them or treat them the way they deserve to be treated.  I still struggle with it, but luckily I have a younger, stronger version of me in my daughter who gives it to me straight.

I am at a point right now that I am not going to give 100 percent of myself to anything in my life that does not appreciate it.  I do not expect 100 percent of anyone, I have learned that the hard way.  Most people don't love the way I do and that's okay.  They have their own reasons and ways of dealing with life.  However, for the first time in my life I will draw the line in the sand and not allow repeat offenders to step over it.  Even if they are sorry - that doesn't mean they can continuously hurt me and have me be okay with it.  And (I am sorry Pop) blood doesn't make that any different.  Just because I share DNA with someone does not mean they get to shit on me over and over again.  I feel peace in that statement .  

Oops text from my son asking for the spaghetti and meatball receipe - this - this is what brings me joy!!!!  Ok, back to choosing yourself.

I was truly upset yesterday because I realized that people take me for granted in their life.  And I realize I am the only person that can change that.  There was a storm here in Florida - did anyone check to see if I was ok?  No.  But I am used that.  My daughter and I were joking yesterday and she said "two women found surrounded by donuts and coffee weeks later - not sure when they expired". and we then thought about it - how long would it take for someone to check on us?  Our boss would probably get suspicious after a day but he would have no idea how to check on us - I said no next of kin.  But it is true! My son would get suspicious but we don't talk every day - so I don't know when he'd get nervous.  I remember calling the police when my siblings and I hadn't heard from my parents for 2 days.  We did a wellness check - they were so mad!  They went away for the weekend and didn't tell us.  Maybe times have changed.  But I need to change with the times.  I am not going to give all of myself anymore to people just because it's "the right thing to do".  Does this sound bitter and nasty?  Maybe.  Maybe it is.  Maybe I will feel differently tomorrow.  But today....this is the day in my life....