Some big emotional/triggery stuff in this one.

Spoken Word Version of the post here.

For the first time in life I’ve been seeing a therapist to help sort out my brain. They gave me homework, to write what success looks like to me. I’ll get to that, but first, all this.

Today is a very big day for my family. There is a 50/50 chance on a life saving surgery. Success is surviving, simple as that.

I have always had problems with sadness, like a persistent raincloud over my life. Not just my brain reacting to trauma but an ambient sadness. Some say it’s a chemical imbalance, genetic or environmental, the why doesn’t matter to me. I’m learning it’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to cry.

Goldfish says to the another Goldfish, “How’s the water today?”, the other Goldfish thinks… “What the heck is water?”

Do you ever watch squirrels? How you rarely see one in repose? That’s been my life, under constant distress from predators. Forced to be dynamic, constantly moving with mysterious purpose. Occasionally losing their nuts. I think it’s the exhaustion that most often metastasizes into sadness. I just get so tired of feeling, so tired of the pain, the fear. My little rabbit heart beats too fast and I get scared. My life has been a series of panic attacks briefly interrupted by meals and flights.

Riley Ellisons: “I took speech therapy as a kid but I must scream”.

I used to take speech therapy as a kid because I would just scream and scream, especially at night. I would just wake up screaming, nightmares and stuff. I would get so scared or angry or sad… I was a really quiet kid otherwise, but I had this deep upset inside me. I had to learn to not scream, and to this day raising my voice is EXTREMELY rare.

I hate being a WASP. If you’re younger and reading this, WASP (or White Anglo-Saxxon Protestant) basically means you’re in a repressive/oppressive suburban person. My Fathers pictures of success is not bothering anyone. My Mom’s picture is grandkids and a Platinum TopGolf membership and by god has she made it. There’s one more thing she wants, but more on that later.

I learn what i’m taught, especially as a child, I was a sponge for the world. I was taught to be meek, kind, that good news red letter liberal Christianity. It’s a pure good thing those teachings, but it’s the people who spoil them, I feel fortunate to have grown up with a solid bedrock of empathy, it’s guided me and kept me good through all this bad.

But that all changed, as my family shattered and the safety & security of private school transformed to the apathy, fear and violence of public school in the trap. Going from a kind but milquetoast father to a drunken, gun-toting sadist of a man, the veil was pulled back, the harsh radiation of day overwhelming me. I was veal. And out came the wolves. But thankfully, after I graduated my family started to heal. I have forgiven my Mom, and we are close. Never let a moment dictate a life.

My stepdad disappeared at 17 and a new man came into our lives. He wasn’t white or anglo-saxxon or protestant. Him and I never connected over the first 20 or so years but we always were respectful for my Moms sake, he’s a good man despite us having political differences, to say it simply. We have gotten closer lately. This is going somewhere… I promise.

The last time I was visiting Luna, I got the phone call that the big C had shown it’s face once again in my life, this time on my Mom’s partner. And sidenote, that last week with Luna, I still remember every moment of it. Like how people say time slows down during intense moments, it’s still so vivid that week. There was so much, my rental car caught fire, I had the police show up to my house for a de*th threat and hearing of his illness, it was all so overwhelming. And yet I still took great care of her because this world has made me fucking unstoppable.

Today he will survive, like my Mom has survived her Cancer and MS, like I survived all my health issues, my botched orchi, my addictions, we are fighters. My Mom is tough as hell and will make it through this, positive or negative. I wrote her this in her Mothers day card, knowing the trials she has faced and the ones on the horizon.

“One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. One never gets the total impact of what we call ‘the thing itself’. But we call it wrongly. The thing itself is simply all these ups and downs: the rest is a name or an idea.”

I don’t believe in God, but I still pray now and then. And around 1 PM est today i’m going to pray, maybe you’ll join me. Pray for peace.

HyperBallad: Or All We Need Is Imagination

Peace, that’s all I really want. I want nice things of course, I want a beast of a computer to make better art, I want more vacations in fancier places, but it all really comes down to is space for my friends, good food and a safe home. I want enough money to overcome any health issues I may have, which is the American Dream. My highest aspiration is to survive and be there for others. I’ve learned no gift is more important than being present. A hug, a conversation, a quiet moment. That’s what we can give.

I talk about this all the time, but my picture of success is being an old woman walking around barefoot in a farmers market. I’m wearing a little yellow sundress & a hat with a sunflower in it, i’m gathering food for my friends and know everyone at the market. There’s a folk band playing and the singers eyes light up when they see me. I’m invisible to the unkind men (I broke down crying after writing this line, surprised myself).

I’m 80 and generations have been inspired by my life. My life has been a hyperballad, an epic poem, an everlasting piece of art, the world was a garden and I planted my seeds and those seeds were good. They made the world more kind. They taught people that’s all you need.

HOMER – Oh. My dreams will go unfulfilled? Oh, no! I don’t like the sound of that one bit. That means I have nothing to hope for. Marge, make it better please, can’t you make it better, huh?

MARGE – Homer, when a man’s biggest dreams include seconds on dessert, occasional snuggling and sleeping in til noon on weekends, no one man can destroy them.

HOMER – Hey, you did it!

When a girls greatest aspiration is to have her hair petted while she snuggles her bear, to be told things are gonna be ok… no one person can keep her from that.

There’s this Björk song about waking up every morning and throwing trinkets off Icelandic cliffs and listening to the sounds they make and then imagining yourself falling off the cliff. And then going home and feeling safe and OK in your life. This song always spoke to me because I think we need to be ok with ourselves and our own strange meditations. We need to be ok with morbidity, we need to allow our imagination to goto dark places. We need to interact with nature as well as fantasy, the two categories dividing everything. Trees & Foxes on one side, Hope and Love on the other. I miss Luna so much, I wish I believed.

So that’s what we’re left with, a big pile of poetry, venting verse and alliterative aspirations. Finding sense in the chaos by writing it all down. The thing to take away from all this is, success may that big job, that new car, paying off debts, getting the girl, sure. But success to me, it’s surviving and holding the hands of survivors.

There’s a difference between living and surviving. When we make love, when we hold our bears at night, when we wake up feeling new, that’s living. Every other moment is survival, and I just want to make more moments of living for myself and other fellow travelers.

And I was thinkin’ ’bout how everyone is dying
And maybe it’s time to live

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Thanks for listening friends. More stuff soon. I went to a wolf sanctuary yesterday. It was really nice. Hope you like the pics, be well and love yourself and the rest will follow.