I Don’t Want To Know You; Let Me Go!

We must make a deal; a truce, a contract, whatever you want to call it. Pain, we are one unwillingly.

You came to me in subtle ways, from the heart of a small child to a broken teenage girl you’ve followed me. You stole my youth with untrue love, my trust was left in your dusty tracks. When I ran from you, you pursued and I tried to cast you away in young adulthood by avoiding my inner truths. Eventually my emotions brewed into a bubblingly froth and spilled over into every damn day, always soiling my hopes without LittleMe on my tail. Souring every chance I took for love and acceptance I grew cold, angry and put my tender heart into a well of dried up tears, abandoning my truest self.

I was not broken entirely for I always had dreams of love, being seen and kept. I lost my father to his ego, my mother to her internal pain, my trust to the unfaithful that’s true, yet I always kept a secret sense of divine Love that is, the belief that there was more than I could see unfolding. I would not say God as many people do, but sure, maybe that is an alright use of true love. I began my adult path of pain feeling breathless and broken without a child. Without guidance from my elders blood, I sought out mentors, always watching carefully the ways of other familial tribes. Jealousy overcame me as I too wanted the sense of togetherness, the traditions, the “every year we go to the coast of Maine”, or the Hamptons or in my case I would have settled for a motel 8 in Panama City. So, boohoo. I didn’t get that. People are dying from hunger and draught, floods and war so who cares. I got over it….kind of. I did have my baby, a failed marriage that should have never been in the first place and tried to recreate a sense of family with other loves. I never have and never will give up. The big slice taken out of me isn’t from any of my emotional grievances. It comes from my body in constant pain; never ever do I have freedom from physical pain. If it were not for my thwarted past of thorns, I couldn’t handle my life now. I have a young adult I longed for still not on their feet for a variety of reasons; I live in a perpetual state of home sickness for my friends back home and have never felt whole in my second country of residence. Without my young adult around me I truly feel incomplete and waves of fear roll over me tossing me into walls of sorrow when I think of her away from me. After years and decades of bereavement over my broken family the divine love gave me more. I sincerely want to believe there is a reason (it better be good) that your divine being put all of this on me. I factually can’t remember what a painfree day is. I continue to be mindful, aware that it all could be even worse, but I am allowed bad days; I can’t always keep everything together, much less keep anyone else together. Today was one of those days when I just felt broken. Done. Overbaked and raw simultaneously. If there is a divine being, karma or whatever, what the hell did I do in my last life to be given this trial. Oh, and my toe hurts. Signed Grumpy, Lumpy and Dumpy.

Renewing The Circle; A Lost Mother’s Daughter

Nurture, Nature, and Embracing Womanhood                                                                 Painting, Oil and mixed media by Andrea Polla In her own light she was conceived again and again as she grew into her truest self, following her own oath and quest to live life in tune with her deepest heart. She began with no knowledge of who she…

Vermont to Sweden; How I feel about cold weather.

Cold weather factually is weather that just appears to not be warm. It can be quite cosy in fact. The judgement ensued upon it’s character in my history book began with the Donner party who stupidly thought they could cross the Rocky Mountains in wobbly wagons with a few snacks. Cold weather did not cause…

Go Fissure; A Leap of Grace

Have you ever broken a bone? For some unreasonable reason I continue to believe I am graceful; I was an awesome dancer and prancer in the not seemingly so long ago days. With my variety of ailments and chronic pain issues, including osteoporosis one would think I’d be crumbled up in a fragile porceline glop.…

Not EVEN Close!

Rock watches from the corner of his eye as Lm takes a long inhale of a pretend cigarette. She is satisfied she is back in her dank quarters, just the two of them without disturbance. Rock has told her she is far from healed and that acceptance of her past eases her presence and will lead to a healthier future. ” Oh yay”, Lm replied, ” a healthy future is so enticing!”. Lm is not believing in Rock or the future full of smiles, love and peace anymore. She is overcooked, baked to a crisp and hard. Rock assures her that if she continues to tell her TRUTH, her story, that she will overcome all of her pain. Lm knows that even if one person saw beyond her soft blue eyes she’d be leary. Everyone, every single person in her world is backing away, and she knows that she has only her pain mentally, physically and emotionally to count on waking her at three a.m. She pulls out a drawer full of photos and sees herself at seven with BadDad and the nice girlfriend at a protest. She’s sad, looking down and he is oblivious. The word of the day, her life and relationships, with her mother and father is oblivious. Obviously oblivious.

1

You’re Back!

“I really thought I’d lost my grip on you Lm!” Rock doesn’t sweat; he has kept a solid eye on Lm. “You’ve been out cold; this was your first setback in years.” Lm scoots close to Rock, leaning her weak frame against his rawness, his realness and stares blankly. Lm was triggered by chronic pain, severe non-stop agony, her attempts to keep herself together crumbled. She ran away from herself which is when the hauntings of BaDDaD and a feeling of distrust take control of her persona. She is edgy, frightened by her own meltdown. Rock pulls her up the dank stairwell and let’s fresh air in through the doorway to her soul. She inhales and shivers with small tears of disappointment. “I’ve been doing so well Rock, you are supposed to keep me safe! It’s your fault you asshole. You are an ugly piece of old cement, all dried up into the most pathetic piece of whatever. Who cares? Not me. Why do you scowl at me? Why can’t I lose you or better yet throw you into the sea where you belong. Stupid Rock! “I am part of you Lm, in fact I am you.” “Holy crap, now I’ve heard everything, you are me?” Rock is still and listens as Lm curses, throws handfuls of small pebbles at him and she pushes him down the stairwell. Rock is not hurt. He lies there in the dark while she rants and raves about what a fool he is. Finally she slams the door shut and bolts it herself then one step at a time she carefully goes to the dark, sad place where Rock is lying patiently. She lifts him up and stares at him. It’s a lonely place without him, the all knowing piece of her, the one that takes over the helm when she is wrought with pain, physical, mental or emotional. She wants to thank him but chews on her fingers instead. Her hair is a tangled mess, just like her heart. Under her breath she whispers, “I love you Rock.”

Let’s Catch Up!

As many older readers know this blog is mainly a reflection of LittleMe’s aka “Lm’s” real past where she identifies truthful occuranses which have caused her much anguish from childhood. She has a professional diagnosis of cptsd, a severe anxiety disorder which can be triggered easily (including panic attacks, nightmares, and low self esteem); she bounces back and forth with her better self and iconic protector, ROCK. Rock is ever present and takes care of her when she is having setbacks. He also pushes her to do the work to heal. Lm is also a writer who posts fairly regular short stories, poetry, prose and other forms of artistic expression. She also lives in a state of severe chronic pain and was diagnosed with CPS, or chronic pain syndrome. She loves life, animals, nature and especially forests; she is extremely protective of her family and the few very close real friends she clings to. She sets the bar very high to develop trust in others, even questioning her deepest sense of self frequently. Lm dodges people who she finds detrimental to her continual quest to clean up her mental and emotional health. I appreciate all of her readers who keep giving her support and encourage her healing process. Be Well. Be You.

GARBAGE; Uncluttering Lm’s Mind

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

ROCK wants to help Lm clean out her mind, release her memories into the sea like ashes of another self. He wants to help her create a beautiful new sense of self. It’s a job that no one can truly help her with as she is full of fire. He is not phased by her pissy shouting, her spit fire retorts nor when she knocks him over if he tries to lend advice. Truth has only one meaning, “cut the crap” and say what you mean. She has been foul lately. She has begun to speak to new people, coming out of hiding about her childhood, her shame, her sense of failing brought on by two gnarly parents, abusers she kept in her life because she was desperate for love. She wants to hear the words spoken outloud to her; she wants her mother to say, “I was physically abusive; I crossed a line and you didn’t deserve it”. She wants her mother to say, “I regret not allowing you to develop your sense of autonomy in a healthy way; I prevented you from following your dreams”. Lm wants her to say it, not think it. She knows her mother is fully aware of her behaviour that drove Lm to live with her beautiful other mother, Elle, her baby sister D and BaDDaD. Even though BaDDaD was risky to be around she knew Elle would not hurt her and she would have her precious D to hold onto, care for and love. When she initially got to her new town she was given freedom she’d never felt; she could walk out the door and go to get a slice of pizza and sit at the city docks watching sailboats out in the Chesapeake Bay; this alone was all she wanted. The sun sprinkling down and bouncing off the soft waves made her calm. She would get ice cream with D and watch as she licked the wooden spoon, careful that her baby sister would not get her first “brain freeze”. She started a new school and then she began to lose her way inside. In psychiatric terms it’s called “transferance”. Despite choosing to leave her mother, she also needed her; the cookie making, funny stories and playing scrabble and their shared love of beauty. Lm began to unconsciously try to become more like Elle. She wore Elle’s clothes without permission, she tried to behave like Elle in the mirror and no one understood her perserverance to create a bond that was like the one that she would truly hold onto throughout her life with her own mother. Her mother was not a horrible human being, in fact she was quite self sacrificing and had been through a very rough childhood. Often Lm would see in her mother’s enchanting brown eyes a hint of sorrow and try and cheer her up. The mother and child bond is complex, never perfect yet nevertheless necessary to evaluate and often, despite the obstacles, worth the effort to understand. Then she hit a big snag, one that she has to expunge from her own self-loathing NOW. She met her first big love who would later leave her with a sense of dirtyness, worthlessness and scarred. She would grow to hate all men, never sure how to please anyone and her family never intervened. BaDDaD didn’t care enough to stop it. Her mother had no idea what she was living through when she fell into the hands of this nice Catholic boy with bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD behaviours. He was in some ways, a replica of her father’s hidden side, full of lies and deceit; she continued to go back to him for she had no true persona, no guidance, just a broken sense of identity. Her only interests were finding love, being loved and clinging to the wrong people for it. His name was Tom. Since there are thousands and billions of Tom’s she doesn’t care to give him a break and a hidden name. He deserves to be outed for what he was, likely still is and how he used and abused her. Tom treated her like a doll and knew he was treating her poorly; he often would sleep with all her friends and other girls when she was at home with D and family; he introduced her to drugs and alcohol and soon, nothing mattered but him. She would pursue him, often waiting in his shared living quarters with his best friend K while he was having sex with another girl in his room. K would hold her while she cried and say, “I don’t know why he is like this”, drying her tears with empathy. This would go on for several years until Tom’s father sent him away to study. They met when he was twenty-one and she sixteen. Throughout her twenties she would suffer inner crisis struggling to know who she was, why she wasn’t happy or good enough. She did not know how to be herself and was lost in her own garbage of memories. Rock has led her to the point where she is tossing memories into boxes and trash bags, loading her past up and readying her for the dump. Lm is not garbage, in fact far from it. She is stronger and stronger each and every day and her slip-ups still arise now and then, yet she is prepared to let go, to savor her life and with her sword in hand, she is determined to battle her inner warriors. No one, no woman, no girl, no person should feel weighed down by their TRUTH. The car is ready, the engine started and all the rubbish that has held her back for so many years is being tossed memory by memory into a gargantuan hole. Lm is learning to save herself, not wait for someone else to save her. Rock is proud and will always be on stand-by; they are merging, if a stone could weep Rock’s tears would break the dam that has held back Lm’s growth. Thank you Rock for believing in Lm’s goodness.

ROCK’s Weary

For as long as Lm struggled ROCK had her back; the question is how long will Rock continue. Smooth yet petrified, ROCK has covered for Lm for soon sixty years. How does ROCK move on and integrate Lm’s trauma into one neat little package? Gazing into the future, releasing Lm’s agony has to begin. He has to hand over her pain and get her ready for the new and beyond. Lm’s so broken that he is ashamed to admit he too, is weary. The late nights at free falling into frail memories is getting very difficult to control. Is Lm going to become stronger, ready to fly on her own or will she continue to fear each day and ask more questions,? How will she learn to forget? The work to merge the two personas into one is constant, like tiny Santa’s helpers preparing toys for Christmas. They are diligent, undermined and need to be celebrated for their behind the scenes duties. ROCK needs as much as she needs him. A dubious path, fraught with periods of silence together they must meld into a better version of each other. Dry tears form stones into artifacts; artifacts are rediscovered and pulled into the light to be examined. It’s a hot bed of pain and Lm is not moving forward, rather than accepting the two, three or four and more sides, Lm is clinging to ROCK’s bravery and what she knows as Love unconditionally and vows not to hang up her coat or hat just yet.

Barely; Just Enough

A Trickle A Tad A Smidgen A Sliver A Pinch A Drop A Bit, Not More. ROCK is slaying the morning with a scathe, a sharp cut through Lm’s fog of anxiety. “Why did you open that can of worms?”. ROCK is now covering my tracks, pushing me down into the stairwell for letting wild ramblings outside of the confines of my safe place. “You will get in trouble again with that caustic spewing, you dig?” Rock is locking up my mind without worries and vows to shield Lm from the light under the door. He is watching for the footmen, the cowards and protests that will brew from Lm diving into the deep end of the pool. The stream of words that made tremors and cracks in the middle of nowhere are still felt. Lm crosses her fingers behind her back and rests against the cold cement walls. She is not afraid now. She is determined.

Unlock My Sanctuary

It’s key is hidden, I misplaced it among my own feelings again. I am alone inside a body that lets me down, hurts me and I can’t get out. I see me walking like Jesus across the sea and then sink without a fight, drowning in my mysterious mind. I am so grateful yet undeserving of salvation. Sanctuaries for Love should be everywhere, not just for those seeking redemption from our earthly delights that were indulgent or a sinful play that some grand Creator would frown upon. The gates are always open to love more, release ourselves from our own arrogant beliefs. I am burdened by carrying me through life; how then can I carry some one else? I see a white wooden columned southern USA colonial home with a long drive and weeping willows, a big porch and spinning ceiling fans. I am the youngest broken one there and I try to cheer my southern company with kind regards and smiles. I am in a sanctuary where I no longer feel like a worthless woman. I make a difference because I am not in the agony that I rise and face each morning. I can quit because I will no longer ruin other’s good times or my own. I can be quiet. I can be kept and have tea and maybe sometimes I will wonder about Jesus and God and bad and good but I will be my own judge as my heart is pure.

Photo by Maria Orlova on Pexels.com

Romancing Pain

Dancing with Eyes Closed; Accepting Pain as Part of Me.

In the morning there are yellow dandelions surrounding me, lifting me up with a wash of spring hope. I am rinsed in the sun’s warm rays and feel determined. I always think I will feel better than I actually do. Is that my own stupidity or perpetual stubbornness? I dress and make it to the rich Italian red wine sofa and prop my legs up on a stack of pillows. The pain starts just after I proclaim, “I am better!” and I succumb to my surroundings. The walls are a light gray panel of wood, the ceiling white, the old barn’s tin roof I can see from the sofa is a rusty burnt red with brown dried clumps of moss separating it into unsightly squares. My pain I feel is visualized as an electric zap of steel, sharp silver, shooting up my legs and my silent scream is a maze of terrestrial hues. Pain shares with me every drop of it’s colour, of it’s beauty and it’s sorrow; like the northern lights and milky way it is so breath taking and hard to believe that it is real. Living in a state of chronic pain is anxiety provoking. My mind is a puree of sounds and I am often perplexed. Why can’t I be fixed? Why must my colours be so rare and overworked? My self portrait is black and white as I spilt any hope of beauty out onto the porous surface beneath me. “My pain”, I said to the chronic pain psychologist, “I’ve accepted.” My mind lied that day. I hate it, I hate my body and my bruises both superficial and within. No amount of prayer or drugs give me peace and like the wild scribbling made by a toddler with crayons I lay in a chaos of colour; I am a bottle with layers of dripping wax from many different tints of candles. I am beneath the surface, beneath the beauty, buried in a colour of pain. My eyes close and I stare at the daylight as if my eyelids were window shades. I don’t see why I should open my eyes except to write this pathetic complaint that haunts me. I want to be a happy rainbow one more time. One more moment of brilliance is all I ask. Like any desperate lover, Pain beckons me back, takes hold of me and says, ” I will never leave you alone again.”