In This Moment

I drove down the road in the early morning traffic, headed to get the new windshield for the van.  I turned up Florence and laughed.  It started as a slow warming glow in my heart and then spread outward until I was smiling and then giggling and then laughing outright.  I finally fit in the skin I'm in.  I know who I am, what I want, what I can achieve, how strong I am, what I'm made of and how I indelibly impact people's lives with the simplest touch.  I will let nothing stand in my way.  If it is meant to be, it WILL be.  I laughed until Florence was done singing "The Drumming Song" then smiled all the way to the auto glass repair shop.  A warm glow emanating outwardly the way a slow-burning lavender incense will permeate a room. I held onto that peace for nearly the entire day.

Since November, when Sissy was hospitalized for attempting suicide, I haven't gone past six days without tears.  This has been the most trying time of my life, far and away.  I still have no clue where the twists and turns of tomorrow will take me but I'm slowly emerging from this transformational experience as a strong, vibrant, amazing woman that I enjoy greeting in the morning mirror while I brush my teeth.  I finally see myself as the person I was born to be.  I have harnessed the power of my inner tigress Chinese zodiac and tied it to the balance of my Libra sign.  This has been no small feat.  I have often felt at odds with myself.  Now I see the potential of both to catapult me toward what the circumstances and abuses of my life have abated.

For the past several months I have prayed, "let what wants to come, come.  Let what wants to go, go.  If it is mine it will stay, if not, something better will replace it."  Last week I added to my daily prayer, "I call upon your Divine Will to guide me.  Give me a clear sign of the direction I am to go in and if I set my foot to the wrong path, stop me."  These prayers bring so much peace and power.  Am I seeing things coming and going?  Yes and no.  Am I getting clear signs?  Yes and no.  When it's a "no" I breathe.  Long, slow, deep cleansing breaths.  When it is a Yes or some semblance of a yes, I breathe.  Long, slow, deep cleansing breaths.  This is how I am, in this moment, here, now, today.  I am light, I am love, I am healed, I am whole.  I am as I should be.

What should I be, you ask? 

As I am, right here, right now, in this moment.

Yes.  It's incredibly vague.  Yes, it's obnoxiously inefficient as an answer. It is what it is.  If I think past this, I shut down.  So I breathe.  Long, slow, deep cleansing breaths.  Then I accept it.  I am here, right now, in this moment.  What will be, will be.

There is another intense lesson I have learned in my life odyssey, including the years of my abusive marriage and even long before that.  As much as the pain and heartache of life has been unbearable at times and has laid me bare, I can stand firm on the truth that without these passages of time and suffering, I would not be who I am, I would not love as I do.  I would not have the peace and patience I have today.  I would not understand the grace that has been given to me that I can freely give to others.  I would not know how to forgive myself let alone others.  I would not have embraced the need for transformation or the ability to accept that many others do not choose to take this high road toward self-actualization.  This path has made parenting challenging children, easier to emotionally process.  The intensity of the burden is not less, the feelings of it being unfair and overwhelming are not less.  But the acceptance that because of this journey and my willingness to change as I was meant to change, has allowed me to see the good despite the bad.  I have much to give as a result.

The night alarm is back on.  Sissy is back to her old tricks.  AB has had to learn some adolescent lessons himself today.  WG is on restriction until Tuesday for behavior issues.  I had a relaxing weekend despite being away from home and though I cried today, I made it three days without a drop.  I'll get there.  Or not.  Maybe this weeping thing is also part of my transformed self.  So I am as I am, right here, right now, in this moment.  Not knowing if I am moving anytime soon.  Unsure if I will have a job and where exactly this journey will take me.  I know not if I will continue to be alone or if I will cross paths with a future partner in this process.  I know only that if something wants to come, it will.  If it is meant to go, it will.  I release the desire to control it and I breathe while I wait.

Written last Sunday and posted on my FB wall:

Trying trying every day
Try to push the blues away.
Try to make the smile show
To make my lovely face aglow.
Try to be in this moment now
trying trying, I know how!
Feel the warmth upon my face
Know the love of good and grace.
Soon will be the change I seek
so please stop those eyes that leak.
Give yourself a warm embrace
seek today, it's not a race.
You will find the good will come
hear it thrumming, hear it hum.
One more day now, yes you can
tomorrow? Today! that's the plan.

(original poetry copyrights apply. thanks ~Jennie)

This is the tattoo my youngest sister drew for me embracing my tiger Libra zodiacs.  I will one day get it done, when I have the money to spend on frivolities.  Until then, I have gratefully begun using some of the GoFundMe dollars toward the much needed and long overdue expenses I have not been able to attend to.  Thank you SO much.  Please continue to link, share, pin, tweet, etc.  There are still several unmet needs that desperately need attention.  I concentrated on the vehicle repairs and my medical health first.

GoFundMe

 

Fly Away With You

I've cried myself to sleep the past two nights so I thought tonight I would try something different.  I watched a movie with the kids while I gave myself a mani/pedi.  I put on my nightie and went to the bed and...right.  Three loads of unfolded laundry on top of a stripped bed, chores I intended to get to earlier today but which were, as with any other day, forgotten in the melee and craziness of a day with challenged kids and leaving my home every Monday and Wednesday evening while the children visit with their father.  So, seeing the bed piled high with untended responsibilities I did what any sensible 39 year old single mom does.  I popped the top of a hard cider, turned on the latest ColdP1ay CD, a gift from a long time reader and FB friend and decided I needed to blog.

I mean, I COULD be lying on top of the bare bed and the clean laundry to cry myself to sleep again but there is the conundrum of having to rewash three loads because of the snot and tear riddled mess I would make.  And let's be honest, who wants to do THAT?  *holds up cider* Cheers.

Mondays and Wednesdays I usually spend with my friend, Cinch (here in the blogosphere) and her hubby , eating and dashing home.  Tonight she was teaching and C~, her German exchange student, returned home last Tuesday so I cooked for family friends who have endured their own ridiculous heart ache the past few months.  I liked the change of atmosphere.  I like cooking for other people and filling tummies with yumminess.  It's a simple thing but it has always felt like love to me.  Eating together, talking, laughing, drinking, smacking lips, washing dishes.  So much happens in the kitchen of a home, it is where families are made or broken. The kitchen of a home tells the most about what really happens behind closed doors.  As much as my life has bent and twisted and landed me on my ass time and time again, whatever home I have occupied as an adult has been where my heart and soul is.  I like my kitchen, my table, my home.  I haven't always been able to say that. 

As I drove home this evening, I reflected on how much this life has changed me.  Some for good, some for bad.  Do I like who I am now?  Yes.  I love myself very much.  I love how strong I have become, I love my power and my smile, my laugh and my tears.  I love my confidence and my wisdom, my wit and my humor.  I am one cool broad.  Do others think that?  Some would say yes, indubitably.  Others, who knew me before this painful life odyssey morphed me into a sometimes caustic, often foul-mouthed, always sarcastic, occasionally bitter, seemingly aloof, red wine savoring, dance-in-the-moonlight, incense-burning, trampoline jumping, horse-loving, fire-poi spinning, hippie zen goddess of love and light would shake their heads in bewilderment.  What on earth happened to Jennie? 

Old Jennie wasn't the real one, as it turns out.  This me?  The me sitting here, fighting tears, wearing a neglige for no one but myself because I like to look pretty, blogging the truth of my life in its rare, untethered ugliness is the real me.  I slowed to a stop at a traffic light, my new brakes stopping the van gently after so many months of grinding halts, I harrumphed and nodded my head.  Av1cii sang to me.  I rolled down the windows, cut the AC and turned it up.  The light changed and I made a left turn, my left hand hanging out the window, waving gently to the rhythm of the song, I sang along.  Then hit repeat when the song ended because, like all songs, if you let them be, it was an oracle, singing the thoughts of my head and heart. 

Where does the body hurt?  What does it tell me needs to heal?  Yesterday it felt like I was wearing a metal brace around my entire abdomen, chest and back; a metal casing preventing deep breaths and fullness, relaxation and acceptance.  Several weeks ago Sissy made a claim to the bus aide on the way to school that I was abusive.  As a result, on Monday, the county social services sent out a case worker to do an investigation.  Now, in my head, I know that I won't be charged with anything but oh, what a bitter pill to swallow.  After all the abuse and heartache, pain, the hearing loss I now have, the anxiety that has me taking a daily pill for the rest of my life, the incompetence of Sissy's current agent working her case, the lack of resources for my family, my inability to be in public for long periods of time, the toll on my body and mind 24/7 and I am the one being investigated for abuse.  It hurts.  All over my body.  You could have cut off my limbs and I wouldn't have known it.  The burden weighing on my shoulders, metaphorically crushing my spine so that my body metaphysically created a brace support system that felt like it was suffocating me, that pain doesn't just go away.

My friends, so lovingly helping with the gofundme campaign.  I am speechlessly overwhelmed but I can't bring myself to emote.  I'm not ungrateful, it's just that the money raised is already spent and there will always be more need.  Yesterday, AB's psychiatrist said, "They will both always be in your care, you know this, right?"  I nodded my head.  "Sissy.  She is your biggest burden.  I'm really worried about you dealing with her. How is it going selling the house and finding a job?"  I held back tears and bit my lip.  Because it's not going.  I'm not going.  My life isn't changing, moving, morphing with me.  It's not.

A gofundme campaign is so amazing.  I should be bouncing off the walls in joy and laughter but not five hours after the campaign went live, I was getting the call from social services about the investigation.  So that's why.  That's why I can't trust, I can't be happy, I can't dance or sing or be amazed.  There will always be sorrow and pain chasing away the love and light.  There will always be me, by myself, struggling to make it all work, putting on a cheerful face, laughing through the pain, staying positive despite it all, serving others because it's what makes ME happy, cooking, cleaning, riding horses, burning incense, blogging, texting friends when i fall apart, wiping my tears on my pillow every night while I wear lovely nighties - wishing, hoping, but no.  Not dreaming anymore.  What's the point? 

Sissy and AB will always need care.  No one will join this burden with me.  Hell, I don't want it.  I will be alone with them.  Stuck.  Wishing I could fly away but being too stubborn to shake it off.  Watching others move on to their happiness and doing everything in my power to be really happy for them because i don't want others to hurt or carry burdens too.  But what about me?  Flocks of birds fly away with the wind as they choose.  They pair up, some for life, no struggles, no worries. Eat a worm or drink some nectar.  Snuggle in a nest of straw and hair, sing lovely songs.  I get to watch.  That is all.  That is all it will ever be. 

So...I will finish my hard cider, fold three loads of laundry, put clean sheets on my bed, get into it alone, cry until the tears run out and do it all again tomorrow.  By myself.  With all the temerity and strength, love and light I put into it today.  All day.  Every day.  And once in a while, I will imagine what it would be like to fly away with you.

I know I posted it already, but will you please consider helping, donating, passing it on, sharing the link, pin it, tweet it, whatever suits your fancy.  Thanks.

GoFundMe

HOLY WOW!

My friends from my support group, BeTA, have put this together for me.  Feeling so blessed and loved.  Will you consider helping?  If not, will you consider passing the link on?

GO FUND ME CAMPAIGN

How are things in general?  Well, life is crazy hectic but the more I talk to people, the more they all say the same.  It seems the cosmos are slicing up a bit of mayhem for everyone.  Anger still lurks in my waking life.  I'm not sure if I like this emotion better than all the crying and grief?  Although that one still likes to come around from time to time.  Right now, in this exact moment, I'm overwhelmed by the support from my BeTA friends.  I've been crying out for help for months, well, mostly since November when Sissy was placed on suicide watch on the crisis stabilization unit.  That's about when the alarms started ringing that I was in over my head, barely swimming, desperately needing something, someone, anything, anyone, HELP.

I'll write more in a day or two, for now, please help if you can or pass the link along, post it on your facebook page or twitter or pin it or... anything!  This girl is sinking fast and unless you want me to send Sissy, AB and WG to your house with notes pinned to their shirts that they need a good home while their mom recovers from her OWN trauma, throw me a lifeline in any form or fashion you can muster.  

All kidding aside, it is dire.  I'm sinking.  I need HELP.  Have needed help for a long, long time.  I'm tired of asking and getting chirping birds.  I'm tired of crying by myself and wiping my own tears and hugging myself.  I'm tired of going to bed at night alone with this burden on my head and waking to it alone with the burden no lighter than the day before.  Pockets full of stones.  Until my house sells, I get hired and can relocate the children and I to a place where life will change for the better, I need HELP. 

Thanks! and Namaste!

Muse Forevermore

Gonna try.

Don't really want to, but going to try anyway. I WANT to create.  It's in my frontal lobe, this - you should create, get that moving again, it will help - but it's not happening.  So I sit in a coffee house while the children visit with their father in my home.  I bring my pens and paper and the HP mini and I ...see a former student that makes my drink for me on the house.  Chai Tea Latte.  yum.  Then I pay it forward when a soldier walks in and I give him the remainder of my gift card, something a student gave me at the end of the school year.  And I sit.  Listening to LORD.E and brain thinks and thinks and stays in Beta and all frontal lobe and I imagine what my brain scan would look like right now.  All lit up in the prefrontal cortex, red, left hemisphere.

I close my eyes.  Breathe.  Mentally push the brain activity back to the parietal and temporal lobes so I can take it in, maybe reach that creative energy and I type.  I sit and type, free association, I have no idea where this post is going I know only that I'm going insane, like a snake  blinded by his shedding skin.  Yes. That image.  Exactly.

Breathe.  Sip Chai.  Listen to the music.  Hope that the cutie pie soldier sitting next to me, typing on his macbook and enjoying the drink my gift card purchased for him will tell me something more than his name.

Skip that.

Smile at my former student that walks in talking on her cell, she must be on break.  Look at the woman sitting in the corner studying something huge, maybe a nursing exam text?  Or she could be a med student.  Older gentleman across from her on his tablet, portly man, sipping an enormous chocolate confection.  Man in the back also studying some large text.  Woman on the other side of soldier typing on her macbook (am I the only one that comes to this particular coffee establishment with something other than an apple device?).

Music changes to some weird techno thing.  I like it.

Breathe.

Muse muse, where's my muse?

In walks a mismatched couple.  sometimes you have to wonder how people meet up?  *i just want to write a song about a boy and a girl..*  This song,  Michael Franti, Say Hey.  *nodding head*  good muse.  But... wrong one.  that's not the mood I'm in.

Maybe it should be?

Soldier wants to know if I have head phones he can borrow.  Um...no.  Mismatched couple is fixing their drinks and leaving.  Really, they are weird.  She looks like a witchy diva goddess and he looks like a conservative nerd.  Another couple walks in.  See now, they are a better match.  He is all jock and she is pto mom.  yep.  That makes sense.

music changed again.  Breathe.

Still in prefrontal cortex.  I think I might need to draw.  Sissy is driving me nuts.  Is there anything new?  AB is... eh.  He's AB.  What else can I say about him?  WG is stressed already.  Duh.  So am I. She reflects my mood.

Breathe.  Inhale.  Exhale.  I have 50 minutes before I have to go home.  Will the ex have gotten them all wound up?  He showed up with "dessert"  (his words) and handed them each a packet of airheads.  Not one airhead, one of the blister packs that has 10 airheads, flavor assortments.  Yeah.

Former student now restocking while still on iphone.

Ah, I think I've got it.

Music is the sounds of day,
The faces and the colors, the elements.
Around me circles the energy of pain and joy,
The music of all creation.
Carbon, the covalent bonds with Hydrogen,
Taking forms of many sounds and living things.
It ends and moves to other shapes.
A wooden table, a paper cup,
A plastic lid, a fiber glass hood of a Mercedes.
The lenses of the Oakley sunglasses
The waterproof phone protector, the hemp rope basket
Displaying coffee beans.
All music.
All life.
All soul.
These are the colors of life
The sounds of day
The cadence and rhythm of what was
What is,
What will be.
And I am here, in it, carbon, hydrogen, taking form
Making music
Breathing soul.  I am whole.
I am light, I am love, I am.
I was.
I will be.
Forever more.

original work of blog author, copyright laws apply

Set Me on FIRE!

I enjoy spinning fire poi, a new past time I have picked up.  It is cathartic.  It makes an incredible sound when they are lit and spinning.  WHOOOOSH   WHOOOSH
It is mesmerizing, actually.

Of course, fire is mesmerizing so being able to wield it as an art form is spectacularly freeing. Then moving in tandem to a song that speaks my soul for me so I don't have to come up with the words on my own?  --> -->

Even better.







I'd like to tell you that my soul is as free as WG and the seagulls are in these photos.  I'd like to tell you that I was able to hang onto that happiness from last week.  I'd like to tell you that it hasn't turned into liquid rage flowing through my veins.  I'd like to tell you that I don't want any bridges to burn.  I'd like to...but I can't.

(photos taken in March during our annual It's Finally Spring! beach trip)

I'll tell you that this past weekend I had fun.  Friday night I took C~ and another exchange student from Brazil to their first drive-in movie experience.  Saturday I slept ALL DAY (seriously.  all day.  until 5:30?!?) then I picked up C~ and we had ice cream and walked with Carbon around the park.  Sunday we went to the lakehouse (kids' biofamily has an annual memorial day event) and it didn't take a whole lot of bidding to get me to jump off the top deck fully clothed.  SO MUCH FUN.  Then whipping about the lake dragging people behind body boarding and of course, the ubiquitous laughter when they wiped out.

Then home to my kids and my friend S~ telling me her horse died unexpectedly then reality.  School is out, the kids are home all summer, I have no job, my house hasn't sold and a few days of reprieve from the fun simply isn't enough to fill my cup to overflowing again.

It's too much.  It has been too much for me and I've been saying so for a long time.  Someone recently told me that I am one of God's special creations.  Oh...I really don't want to hear that.  I really just want to be plain old me and to have fun and be carefree and to have my troubles and my worries be dialed back to "normal life crud" status.  I'd like Sissy to have appropriate resources and help.  I'd like to not be alone at the end of a every day, knowing I will wake up in the morning and it will all be the same as the day before and always be me, only me, nothing but me, all.the.time. With a few rare breaks every now and then.

My sister texted me a meme: Worrying is like praying for exactly what you don't want

I made it my cellphone wallpaper.

I read an anecdote from"Outrageous Openness" by Tosha Silver.  She addresses the idea of speaking what will be.  Therefore I should be positive and try to transform my energy to be directed only on the things I want to be so those will manifest.  She suggested making a "God Box" and putting any worries I have on a paper and into the box so that whenever I worry I should declare, "it's in the box, it is already taken care of"

I listened to Ju'Light who told her listeners that what we speak will be.
Ok then.  Fine.

My House is Sold.

I am Hired for a New Teaching Job.

My New Life has Already Begun.

I am Not Alone.

I have Hope.

I have a Life Partner.

Sissy and AB have Sufficient Resources.

I Am Happy.

Except all of this sounds like rubbish and nonsense and more feel good rhetoric. Pick a religion, a paradigm, a creed, an ideology, a philosophy, all of it is feel good nonsense that we are told to recite to lift our mood and encourage us.  True, there is some scientific evidence that this alters brain chemistry by increasing seratonin levels and it shifts where the thoughts are occurring in the brain.  Does it actually make the changes happen?  NO.  There is no magic trick for that.  What wants to come will come, what wants to go will go.  Period.  And I have modified my wants and needs many, many times the past few months. 

I'm not supposed to say the negative things, apparently, so I won't tell you that I have no creative drive, that I haven't quilted in eons because I can't find the desire. I'm not supposed to say that I'm angry so i won't tell you that I would like to kick, hit, scream, punch, yell and break things.  I'm not supposed to say that I am stuck, withering, fading and disintegrating before my very eyes so I won't tell you that dried worms on hot concrete after a hard rain have more vitality than I do.  I'm not supposed to say that I am empty so I won't tell you that all the beautiful, lazy, crazy fun I had this weekend was barely a drop in my empty bucket and no where near enough to sustain me or get me over the hump.  I'm not supposed to say these worrisome, troubling thoughts that wander through my head like a mentally ill homeless person that speaks to people that aren't there so I didn't.  I haven't.  I won't.  

I think I'm supposed to be learning something?  yeah.  I have one choice phrase for the sentiment.  It's not polite.

I think I'm supposed to let Universe, Source, Creator, God take control, trust that it will be OK and let it go.  I have another choice phrase for that sentiment.  Also, not polite.

A year ago I was picking up the pieces after a brutal divorce proceeding that left me holding the bag with little recourse.  A year ago I had climbed my way out of suicidal thoughts, remodeled my bedroom and bathroom and breathed my way through a long summer alone with the kids.  A year ago I was planning on getting my degree to get certified and get out of Georgia.  A year ago...

I'm exactly where I was a year ago.  And it pisses me off.  No.  I'm where I was a year ago but with another year of battle scars to heal from.  A year later and the only thing different is my clothing size.[1]

Let it go, trust, let it be, relax, breathe, be patient, grow, change, modify, hang on, hope, have faith, it is already in motion....

These thoughts and so many others echo in my head, chasing that mentally ill homeless man in my brain.  He bats them away with vehemence and impatience because their voice interrupts the voices of the imaginary people he is listening too, the voices that tell him all the worrisome, troubling thoughts. I don't want to hear it!  I don't believe any of it.  I don't want to be some amazing person or strong or what EVER!  I don't.  I just DON'T.

I want to burn it down.  Burn it all down.  Set it on fire.  

Set ME on fire.

None of this makes any sense and I'm tired of waiting for it to change.

What do you need in this moment?  (This is what my sister asked me)

Does it even matter? Ok, for the sake of argument, and assuming that THIS time what I need will actually happen, I need my life to change.  I have done all of the steps to put it in motion and...*crickets chirping*

Yeah.  exactly.  One more lie?  One more and I will do it.  I will...

BURN IT DOWN!

Maybe anger will go further than tears
Maybe rage will buy my freedom
Maybe fire will assuage haunting fears
Maybe ashes give me reason.
Maybe burning will light the glowing flame
That scorches the simmering pain
Maybe coals ignite the end of this game
That soothes the soul like gentle rain.
Maybe fire, maybe flame, burn it down!
Rise from ashes and be made new
Emerging in flashes of white, a gown,
Drapes my form from pain now made true.
Burn it down, Set me on fire.
(poetry is original work, copyright laws apply)




[1] but hey, if I burn it down, at least there will be less to burn.  Since last august I have lost 50 pounds. 

I think I found it?

Packing up my classroom last Friday was definitely hard.  A little panicky moment there and some tears and then I went home and sobbed.  Such a huge leap of faith, this moving-but-i-don't-know-where-or-when-yet thing.  So I blogged the Bridges post, journaled (there is SO much in the private journal that will never be bloggable but that is as it should be), talked to friends and family, had a glass of wine and called it a night.

Saturday I woke up and said Ok self.  Let's do this.  I took the kids to the barn for riding and surprise!  I got to ride!  I didn't have trouble remembering my posting but my 2-point?  Eh.  Not so much.  I had so much fun!  Then off to feed Jack, my buddy.  He's a retired quarter horse and he gives the most awesome hugs.  Then home to the housework to show the house to a potential buyer, lunch at McDonald's then just me and the kids again.  I started to panic.  crap.  alone.  again.  Picked up the phone and started texting.  *cue tentative smile*  C~ was going to her first ball game.  Minor leagues.  "Can we go too?"

Then home to work in the garage and chatting on the phone with my big sister and neighbors playing in the yard and off to the baseball game, listening to One Republ!c on the way, singing along and... I think I found it?

After the 11 inning Game, our team won! 

 Nicest family photo since my birthday in October!

 Selfies with C~ and me!

Yep, that's right.  I am SMILING.

Sunday, packing, cleaning, hard work in the garage.  I just keep believing this house is going to sell and I can be on my way finally.  Lots of researching a different location, jobs, resources, exhausting!  Monday.  Busy busy busy.  No time to stop.

Tuesday?  KAPOW!  A jolt of adrenaline filled with love and amazingness.

1.  AB had to have a fasting blood analysis done to check his liver function with one of his medications.  On the drive to the lab, AB told me about a dream he had the night before.  In his dream he went down into hell, through black roots.  When he got there, he pushed the devil away.  Then he went to heaven and met my father, who has been deceased since 1986.  According to AB, my father told him to tell me that I was doing a good job raising my son.  *smile*

2.  I took him to class, still beaming and drove straight to the grade school. WG was getting an award.  The Presidential oustanding academic achievement for straight A's the entire school year.  *smile*  ok... and some tears of pride.

WG all dressed up for the ceremony.

This is a BIG deal because 90% of her clothes are boys items!

3.  Then home again to get the mail.  The letter from AB's psychiatrist arrived.  She has requested that our new puppy, Hydrocarbon, be registered as an Emotional Support Dog. This means, no matter where we move to, no landlord can deny Carbon, regardless of their personal pet policy.  Emotional Support Dogs are covered under the American Disability Act/Fair Housing.  *smile*  ok... and some jumping up and down and squeals of happiness.

4.  Then a bit of a rest and, off to graduation ceremonies.  Well, I think the pictures tell the story.

Group photo with some of the faculty and administration

(L to R)  English, Math, Science, Art

 Faculty, staff, Director

 Director, Principal, ME!  

I have worked for the Director since February 1997!!!

 G~ and Me!!!

(she's from Pennsylvania so of course, I love her!!!)

 Me, 2030 Presidential Candidate [1], English Teacher

 Smiles, Smiles, Smiles

OK... so after graduation I went home and was tearful.  It was my last commencement with my school after all.

But, there it is.  In color.  A smile.  On MY face.  After so many months, so much personal struggle, so much learning, leaning on others, trusting, crying, processing, sorting, thinking, feeling, grieving, worrying... a smile.  MY smile.

I don't have answers today.  In fact, after so much yesterday, my head isn't in the game to find answers right now.  I can't do a dang thing until the house sells anyway.

Who will buy it? *shoulder shrug*
Who will hire me?  *shoulder shrug*
Where will we move to?  *shoulder shrug*
What will our new life look like?  *shoulder shrug*

I know only ONE thing.  Moving out of this state is imperative.  AB and Sissy have new therapists (again) and once again, the care they are getting is WORSE than before.  A Nigerian immigrant with a strong accent working with a predominantly autistic client base?  Right.  How many autistic teens are going to talk to her?  AB has a hard enough time articulating as it is.  A B.A. Social Work with only two other RAD cases under her belt and NO clients with crises, she didn't know what triangulation was, and she thought Sissy would learn to shower appropriately if I bribed her with cookies.  Uh...I don't think so.  My RAD daughter is 49/50 on the RADQ.  She needs Master's level therapists on her case at the very least.  And she needs to see her psychiatrist more often than once every three months!  *shaking my head*

So, with no answers and nothing but a smile on my face at the moment (well... at this EXACT moment it's a bit of a smirk because the mosquitoes are eating me while I type this on my back porch), I will leave you with a long overdue AB story [2]

I was in the garage, packing and rearranging and gathering things for a yard sale.  AB came up to me, pacing and scratching the back of his neck (his stims.)  "Mom? Mom."

"Yes son?"

"How will it work?"  He was eyeing the growing mountain of stacked boxes.

"How does what work?"

"My stuff.  In the boxes.  How will I get it in my room?"  Then a look of panic on his face before I could answer.  "Are you going to sell it?"

"No AB, I will not sell your things.  They are in the boxes, just like we put them there.  They will stay in the boxes until we move."

"Then what?"

"What is the question you need answered?"  He often has a hard time phrasing his thoughts so I wsa unsure what he wanted to know.

"Then what happens to my things.  In the boxes?"

"Ah.  Ok.  So... we will put the boxes on the moving truck or in the van and drive them to our new house."

*interrupting*  "Where will that be again?"

"We still don't know."

"Oh.  right.  Maybe Pennsylvania."

"that's right.  so we will move the boxes to our new house."

"And then?"

"We will put them in your room."

"But is that the best way?"

"The best way for what?"

"Getting my things into my room."

"We will carry the boxes off the truck and put them into your room."

"We won't take the things out of the box and carry the things?"

"nope.  Just the boxes."

"But... is that the best way?  How will I know it is my things in the box?"

"The boxes are labeled."

"Oh yeah.  I forgot."

"So we will open the boxes in your room and take your things out and put them all away again.  It will be like we moved your whole room to another house.  Ok?"

"Ok."  Then he hugged me and walked away.

and this is how EVERY conversation with AB goes.  He paces the entire time, scratches his head or his neck and rarely makes eye contact.  If he is satisfied, I get a hug.  If he is not satisfied he will persist.  Sometimes he walks off angry.  So it is.

[1]Another Chemistry student, we had a running joke all year that he would be the president.  In fact, every student in chemistry class was assigned a role in his administration.  We did the math and figured the earliest he could run is 2030.  So keep your eyes and ears open.  This student will go far.  No lie.

[2]for Aunt J~ who has been missing the ABisms i would tell on my old blog.  xxoo to my BFF!!

Bridges

Endings and Beginnings

poetry is original work of blog author copyright laws apply 

The school year draws to a close, 

My classroom packed away. 

I wish my students, books and faculty 

Hope for a bright, new day.

For learning things and making friends, 

For laughs and tears alike. 

For songs and tests and merry ways, 

To inspire soaring heights.

Since mid January, the 2.5 miles I have driven to class every day has been delayed, detoured or hindered by the widening of the bridge.  Built in 2008, the road was altered and the new bridge created because there had been so many deaths from collisions or from vehicles going over the narrow, old bridge.  In 2008, I was married, Sissy and AB were attending a grade school that was not serving their IEPs (which later necessitated a waiver to a different school), WG was only 4 and came to class with me to be babysat by students in a work/study program and I was driving through that construction daily.  Now, just six years later, the traffic has increased exponentially, rendering the new bridge obsolete and in true deja'vu fashion, I am traversing the construction zone again.

Construction has been swift.  It has been fun to watch the metamorphosis of the landscape a second time; the giant trucks in action and the colossal cranes in motion.  Some days, when it has been single lane traffic guided by flag men and pilot cars, I have opted to take the detour through the meandering subdivision roads.  Today, as I packed up and drove home from school for the last time, believing in faith that I would find the bridge I will traverse to my next job, home, state, and new life, traffic was halted again.  This time, for the installment of the enormous concrete girders for the new bridge. Two over-sized loads cautiously navigated the intersection, driving past me.  I took a moment to ponder the connection and to receive the blessing - girders are on their way, for the literal bridge and for my figurative life bridge.  There will be safe passage for all, once more.

I have traveled this road indefinitely over the years.  I have laughed, daydreamed, hollered and cried as I've driven it from home to wherever and back again.  I've cranked up the jamming tunes to sing along and I've turned off the sad ones that have made the tears fall, blinding my vision.  Our subdivision is right at the intersection so when we are outside, we can hear the traffic at all hours.  Once, when driving home, I pulled into the turning lane to catch my dog Gracie, who just happened to have escaped our yard and was running into oncoming traffic at the moment I was driving by!  A road named for our county, a bridge too narrow for the traffic, a life traveled on the rubber that meets them, it has been my connection to hopes and dreams, to laughter and pain, to home and love, to work and play, to everything.  If the bridge is getting it's girders, so will I.  



My road hasn't been easy, or fun, to travel.  The daily crying has slowed some, in part because I intentionally took all of last week to process, feel, acknowledge and allow the hurts.  Speaking to my wounded soul, I stopped fighting and let myself feel the hurt.  I concluded the week with a fire, writing all of my anger, bitterness, resentment and pain, then burning the missives.  This week I have felt some emotional relief but I know I will likely do this process a few more times.  The hurt is that deep.  I didn't know.  I didn't see it.  I just kept burying it and assumed it was inconsequential.  My soul has literally begged me to stop and feel.  So I have, I am, I will.

Last Saturday's "Freedom Fire"

I recited the following as I watched the letters burn:

I give the relationships with the people who have hurt me to Divine Order.  it's in God's hands to sort it out.  I give the last 18 years of life in Georgia to Divine Order.  It's in God's hands to sort it out.  I need not fear in letting them all go because my needs have always been met.  I send blessings of peace to all who have hurt me and over the last 18 years while I have lived in Georgia.  I receive blessings of peace for myself. I receive the inconceivable things Universe has planned for me because they are all good.

The next morning, I woke up and I was still sad.  So I wrote again...

Dear Jennie's hurting Soul:
I know it hurts you.  So much.  I know you wanted happiness and love and I agree, it sure did look and feel like that's what you were getting.  And maybe some of it really was real. But I think you have to let that go too.  It wasn't the kind you seek or need because so much pain came with it.  Real love, the kind that is safe, whole and beautiful doesn't hurt like this too.  OK?  Concentrate on the love and light you get from people that don't hurt you shortly afterward.  You will find it.  And it will be more amazing and wonderful than you can imagine.  But you can't find it if you cling to this false love.  It wasn't real.  I know you wanted it to be real.  I know it felt real.  I know.  But so much more waits for you.  It can't come if you can't release this.  So practice.  Release with your left hand, receive with your right.  I love you.  I love that you care and love this much.  I love that you are so precious and giving and kind and all of the beautiful things you strive to be every day for everyone.  Now can you do me one thing?  Be all of that wonderful goodness for yourself.  you are light, you are love, you are healed, you are whole.  The inconceivable plan is already in motion.  Let."

What I haven't shared on my blog, is that this past fall I was in a sort of relationship with a friend from my childhood.  It was fast, it was beautiful, i was so happy and we discussed so many plans.  There was hope, there was light and I thought, love.  He came to visit in November.  Then at the beginning of January, the kids and I visited him and his son.  After many months of sharing so much of our lives, all-day texting, fb msgs, phone calls, emails, skype, visits, he dialed it back to friendship immediately after my return to Georgia.  At the beginning of this whirlwind romance, I had promised that no matter what, I would be a friend because at his admission, he was worried that if we pursued something else, it would ruin our friendship, that it was what always happened with his previous romances and he didn't understand why.  Fear of losing a friendship is the reason we didn't try dating as teenagers.  But that's not the kind of person i am.  I am loyal.  I have always cherished him and his friendship, even in the times of our lives that we lost touch. 

I am still uncertain of what happened, to be honest.   I know only that he has been cruel, cold, angry and lied about many things.  I am saddest of all that we are no longer friends, that by his words, he wishes me well, "the same as he would for any random person he meets on the street."  I am heartbroken.  I have so much love and light, so many people tell me I'm so amazing but all I can hear in my head is the hurtful words, that I'm a "bastet" to him but that I should "stay out", or his text "to be blunt, you can't be on the side" which is a reference to me not being the f!ck buddy type.   To him, I'm a plague.  I think?  At the very least, a nuisance that should be made to go away at all cost because "he tried silence but that didn't work so he tried to be blunt but that didn't work either."  And to that, I am still so confused.  I thought his self-imposed silence was so he could think, process and sort his life, not so that I would take a hint and go the f!ck away.  I thought he was hurting and needed the type of friend that would stick by him.  I was trying to do that all while trying to understand and deal with my own pain of instantly going from his girlfriend that he told everything to, to being...nothing at all.  Overnight, the flirtations and kisses and hugs and poetry and kindness evaporated. In 24 hours time I was getting texts of how I was missed already as i drove 950 miles home with three children by myself to an angry "we're just friends!"

Which was quickly followed by another angry text from someone else telling me how upset I'd made him and that I should back off.  O.o

yes, I know.  I fell for another abusive relationship again.  And that is the other sad part, that I still have not learned what is healthy in love and what is dangerous.  I haven't mentioned it on my blog because I was tracking his IP address on my sitemeter.  I wanted to be sure he wasn't still reading.  In the end, it was my cousin that defended me, intercepting his email of how he no longer wanted to know what was happening in my life.  Her response was unkind but deserved.  I had endured enough heartache at his hand.  It was time he understood how unjust he had been.  That was five weeks ago.  It still hurts.  I still cry.  I had to stop playing the RPG he introduced me too because he said "if i see you on the game, I will be neutral."  Neutral?  wow.  25 years, a romance, sharing our children and our lives...and he could only muster the ability to be neutral toward me on a role playing game should we be logged in at the same time?  WOW.

The struggle has also been in recognizing how abusive my marriage was.  For all of the pain and heartache I have had, discovering that my childhood friend is no friend at all, and perhaps, that not only is my love for him unwanted, neither is ANY of anything I have to offer, in the beginning, he still offered so much more love, light and joy than my ex ever did.  OMG. OMG!  Can you imagine...  that by comparison to THIS recent deluge of pain, it was still better than the abuse of my marriage.  SHOT TO THE HEART.  Thus the intense grief and mourning.  Even as I type this, tears streaming down my face, if he emailed me today and apologized, I would forgive and accept his friendship.  That's all I really wanted in the end - was to be friends no matter what, to go through life's ups and downs together the same as I do with any of my other friends.  My ex?  well.  he can bite me.  In the end, I mailed all of the beautiful things he made and gave to me, to his sister who says she is my friend regardless of her brother's actions.  I couldn't destroy the things he made, the energy and light he put into them, but neither could I have them in my home anymore.  I cried every time I looked at them. I also sent her the necklace he gave me for graduation when we were 17.  17, when we promised that if we were both single at 40, we would get together...now the bridge is burning and I didn't light the match.



(sent this poem to a friend i met on the RPG who has stayed in touch even though I can no longer play) 
Falling Rain
poetry is original work of blog author copyright laws apply 
Pop! Snap! The droplets fall
Making music of it all.
Rain is falling from the sky
Falling, falling, me, oh my!
The sound it soothes my jagged edges;
Keeps me from the heights and ledges
So I don't fall in like kind
And leave the pain of Earth behind. 

 My new nook where I process and journal

It was my quilt corner - now packed up

Journal entry from 5/10: why do I run toward relationship with men that will hurt me when I am so loved, cherished and respected by nearly everyone else?  Why does continued abuse feel like "love" to me?  How do I break this cycle so I can be free?

So much soul searching.  So much pain.  So much loss.  

Journal entry from 5/7:  Dear Jennie's Soul, I am sorry for your suffering.  I am sorry I threw you in the trash believing that's what you were.  I'm sorry I let others treat you like trash.  I'm sorry I rejected your love and light. I'm sorry that I spat on you and told you you had no worth.  I'm sorry I didn't believe that Universe would have an inconceivable plan for me.  I'm sorry I didn't believe I was sacred or worthy of aid.  I'm sorry that I caused you to suffer.  I want to recover.  i want to receive.  I want the fullness of life and love you have been striving for all this time - the same life and love I have subconsciously squelched because i didn't believe you were worthy of it.

An example of pictures I draw when I'm too hurting to journal

I pack up a house that hasn't sold and a classroom I won't teach in again.  I take it one moment at a time.  I breathe.  I try to let go and not control (that's another big lesson for me!)  I look forward and I hold on to hope that what I need, what I want, what i dream for will come in the right time.  I try to trust (sigh...lots and lots of life lessons going on here).  I stay in touch with friends and family and reach out when I hit lows which thankfully, come fewer and farther between.  I'm always afraid that I'll be a pest and annoying when I tell friends and family ONE.MORE.TIME. that I need them, if even to rant or blow off steam because my history with abusive relationships is that eventually I will be annoying and a pain in the ass and someone that just needs to go the f!ck away already.  I push my fears away (yep.  learning learning learning)

My classroom, packed up

A bridge burned - I lit this match

There is a bridge that keeps me tethered, the kids, the new puppy, my friend's German exchange student.  

Hydrocarbon, 8 weeks old, the day we got her

 10 weeks

 HOLY COW!  14.2 lbs and growing - 14 weeks

 AB and carbon when she was 12 weeks

 AB at the barn with his favorite horse, Mia

 WG's silly face 

(i was talking on the phone with a friend and used foul language)

 WG doing her science using Mom's science book

 WG upset that she can't go swimming

 Sissy on a rock at a gas station some where in Virginia

C~ - she's going home to Berlin in a few weeks!  :(

yesterday she told me that I'm one of the most amazing people she's ever met :) 

LOVE U C~!!!

I've promised I will go visit her next year so I can see her and because I have dual citizenship in Germany