Broken

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

Ernest Hemingway


I believe in that quote. I am stronger today in my broken places but it took 7 years and a two year stint in prison to heal that brokenness but it certainly did. I think. I was married 16 years and had three beautiful children. My marriage was a happy one until one day it wasn’t. I sank into a depression.Actually I have struggled with severe depression all my life.

Let me backtrack a little. When I say I sank one day, I think that is not quite true. I was a lonely little girl that grew up with horses and alcoholic father. After fourth grade I was home schooled. I grew up often times scared of the outbursts of a dry drunk father. That is what my mother called him. To this day I don’t totally understand the meaning. I just know I was alone and scared and as I understand the meaning, broken.

I will post this and update it as I can. I brings up a lot of pain and I have begun to see perhaps my brokenness is has not healed and mended as much as I thought.

update: I think this will be as broken piece of written material as I have ever written. Bare with me please. I must sort through my broken thoughts, delicately, to reach my broken heart and then I can brokenly talk, or write about it.

So I was homeschooled at fifth grade and let loose into the countryside astride a horse. I had the grandest time riding. I let my imagination fly as fast as I let my horse gallop. I was anybody and anyone I wanted. I learned to do tricks, riding backwards, spinning in my saddle at a gallop. I had read that Native American riders would tie a knot into their horses manes and then loop their arms through it to appear as if the horse had no rider and then attack the settlers from under the horses neck. So I attempted the same. Horses became my friends. At one time I had four of my own. I can’t say I did any schooling. I did however have a very quick memory recall so once I read something I retained it so it looked like I was doing my work but my math was terrible. You can say I have fourth grade education. Because that was the last full year of school I ever did.

The other side of my growing up was my father was abusive towards my mother. I was the youngest of five kids. At the age of thirteen or fourteen my dad began introducing me as his girlfriend. I was shocked and felt utterly disgusting when I noticed the leers of the men he had introduced me. It wasn’t until I was divorced and in therapy I understood why I felt so gross and throughout my teens and young adulthood I would shave my head and do anything to NOT have my father call me beautiful.

Fast forward….why digress and talk about what fucked me up. Let me finish with the fact that I choose to forgive my abusers. I am not ready to talk about it. I am however ready to move on and sometimes that means you stop thinking about it. You focus on here and now, the present. I survived, I am overcoming and I am not being hurt anymore, in fact the only time I hurt now, is when I let them, in my memories. We can choose our thoughts. We can stop thinking about one thing and rethink upon positive. Stay positive. I am broken. In places. I am healed and healing some of my broken places and in those places I am stronger, wiser and that is what I will end this on.

Love

Loneliness can be so quiet, at the same time be loud and crashing
Being alone can be refreshing, or sad, still and depressing
Fear can be exciting, or just a touch of it can make you feel like dying
Loss can set you on your knees, ripped apart and crying
Love can be any one of these or something that will grow forever
And take you to a higher place where you’ll always have a cover
Love is somewhere to go when things go wrong
Spoken in gestures, kisses or song
love can be quiet and gentle and love can be loud and crashing
being in love can be hard and lasting or sadly just in passing

Hello Grief

you are not alone
#thestruggleisreal#grief

Hello Grief. I was wondering when I’d see your face today. I’d say it was nice to see you but it would be nice to see you forget me. Oh! I see you brought your friends along. Hello Guilt, hello Shame. Well come on in, make yourself comfortable. I know your agenda, so let’s not pretend this is social. Take a seat. Roll the film, it’s show time! There’s my Shame! There you are Guilt! You two  never leave my side. Oh and look! You both know that perfect pitch to synchronize yourselves with Grief, so that you all three are felt as one, bitter sweet memory. One never ending slow progression to this one exact precise moment. My awakening. Indeed, my reckoning, I have this moment every day. Sometimes once, sometimes many times a day. Well, today I’m gonna seize the moment and momentarily I’m allowing myself to accept what I find truly unacceptable. That hard task, the challenge of being me 

Mad

I am not mad. I will not get mad. Bothered? Yes, you could say I am bothered. Momentarily. Skipped a beat is all in the grander scheme of things. Even so, it was a much needed step I had to take, miss step though it was in order to get back to doing and being me. Indeed! Mad? Me? No, not mad at all.

My Abyss

Me during my addiction

I gave it all away, just to take it all back. I have once again reached into that great lonely abyss, my addiction and claimed it as my own, knowing that it takes all that I have, knowing it is all freely given. I remember walking away but I’m unclear why or what had me look back but I do know that I did. We all have afflictions. I myself have had quite a few. By far the most challenging would be my heroin addiction. My drug addiction is my most painful affliction. How could I have come so far to digress even farther? How could I take ten steps forward and a hundred back? I shake my head, then lower my head, in shame. I can’t answer that, not for you. Certainly not for me. I just know that right now, I am not really living anymore, barely existing in a valley of pain. Sorrow is all around me. Now, when I saw that abyss, it wasn’t sad, it was beautiful and perfect, like it always is, for the first time. Like every other time, I left everything I love for that deep dark lonely painful abyss that is my addiction Once again, It’s sad. Their sad and most of the time I’m sad. I don’t have to ask myself . I already know the answer. I’m not at all who I used to be. I’m not at all who I could be. My personal abyss, my chosen fissure of affliction, slowly over time did bring me down in the chains I myself had offered. It took everything I had and then it did take my life

My Practiced Smile, My Lie In Practice

Written 2010

so here i am, in my private place
i will put my smile, my practiced smile
in a neat little box, next to me..for a little while
in this place, my secret place i will not wear my lie
such a little thing, this little brave face, this prefect
peaceful pensive smile
like a habit worn in faith…it brings such comfort
to everyone around, yet the price, the saintly sacrifice
brings to me no such peace,
i conceal my pain, i bury my shame, in a pretty lie
my lovely lie, and before i fall
to restless slumber…..place it there to rest
no one wants to see my truth, no one else can bear my pain
so i mold it, i create something beautiful
that all can see and not worry or think too much about
But i dance with it tonight, my truth
to which, in the darkness i let my partner lead,
……sweeping me up into despair
whirling thru the night, spinning me leaving me breathless
then…
alone again i will turn…and gently open my box
There it is, my smile, my practiced smile my lie in practice…