Empath not stupid

               

             One of the things I struggle with the most is allowing myself to feel my feelings. I usually tend to look at the person/s involved in whatever situation and kind of dilute my feelings out as to ignore them. Watching other peoples videos on things they are learning in therapy because you know therapy is much expensive I have learned that difficulty setting boundaries can be due to trauma as well as being an empath. Last night as I lay in my bed with a raging headache and my stomach upside down I kept repeating to myself that just because I understand the other persons reasons for their actions it actually does not excuse them. Then as I continued to repeat that to myself and wrestle with not diluting my feelings I realized something. That particular affirmation was not reaching me as profoundly as I would like it to because I would go back to the thought "Well, duh I know it doesn't excuse their actions. I know understanding their reasoning behind  it doesn't make it okay!" I just kept going in circles and thinking about how I am empath but I am not stupid. I can put myself in their shoes and not ignore my morals at the same time. Then, then it slid into my brain. Their experience doesn't invalidate yours. There is no hierarchy with our feelings. Their experience and my understanding of their perspective does NOT invalidate my own. My experience matters just as much if not more. I heard something else recently too thats been rattling in my brain that if you had a choice of disappointing another person or disappointing yourself the duty should always be to disappointing the other person. In the book The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown she writes, "When we consistently betray ourselves, we can expect to do the same to the people we love." How am I supposed to honor other peoples experiences if I can't even begin to hold space to honor my own? It has to start with me. 

                I also have to repeat to myself that setting boundaries, saying no, not feeling like I owe explanations does NOT mean I care about the other person/s any less. Rather how I am loving myself enough. Its setting a precedent of how to love me and what cannot be compromised. I am not asking for too much when I ask for respect because that is just the bare minimum.

              Their experience doesn't invalidate yours. 

That for some reason is a little more helpful for me. Gonna keep trying. Hope you do too.

'Til next time.

Your Mental Illness Is Showing. Its Called Depression, Becky.

 Dear Spirit Guides,

Sometimes I don't wanna exist. Sometimes more than others. Some days with my depression are better than others and then other times existing anywhere other than my bed or alone in my car I almost feel like I could slip right into a panic attack. 

I'm dreading going to work tomorrow. My insides are kicking and screaming and throwing a tantrum because I'd much rather stay in bed or stare at the sky for 5 hours. The fact that I am expected to go to work and talk to my coworkers and demanding clients. I don't want to talk to anybody... but can I talk to you?

Last night I drove around my neighborhood and sobbed. Like the loud kind. I was talking to you. Were you listening? Percy was there. He always is. I was a bit glad it happened though because I haven't been able to cry for a really long time. I just got so numb I didn't even think I could when it came to my feelings. Then I went home and lied about it.

I sent a message to a friend today. "I don't wanna be here." it said. But it wasn't just here as in work but here in general. I would like to request a sabbatical from responsibilities and functioning and being a human for a bit, please. I'm quite tired and would appreciate a break. My soul would just like to float for a bit. Maybe people watch or better dog watch or both. That works too.

You know sometimes I feel so excruciatingly alone? Sometimes I just wanna look to someone who could relate to my story, my feelings but then I retract feeling rare and out of place. I swallow it and keep to myself. Chin up, girl. 

Its been getting a bit cold here now. The change is nice. Baggy sweatshirts and high socks. Hiding under blankets and Percy in his little hoodies. Sometimes being a woman in this world is way too much and hiding it under all this is almost like a jab back. 

Being perceived? Hah sometimes I get nauseated at the thought. At times it gets so bad inside this head of mine that thinking about myself is unbearable and then the thought of others thinking of me triggers the nausea. 

Sometimes the nausea is just from everything I hold in that 2nd brain we call a stomach. Sometimes too many unresolved traumas and thoughts and feelings scream to be dealt with. It will hit me in the mornings or when it comes time to eat. 

I know. I'm trying. 

Sometimes I put on mascara and tell it to hold me together for the day. I imagine it understands and in its magical cosmetic glory it does as its told. It sounds silly doesn't it? But we must find creative ways to move along the days my mind convinces my spine it can't hold us up. The days my arms hug my body trying to hold it all in because somehow I'll burst. The numbness wittingly engulfing at the same time. 

I can't miss work tomorrow or the next day or the next day. I am overwhelmed. 

Chin up, girl.

Sincerely, Me

Todays song: No Ones In The Room by Jessie Reyez

These 3 things

Shes healing and peace building and thriving

Healing is not the easy way out

Its the poking and prodding at the holes I've patched over to ignore their existence

Its the opening up the locked doors to rooms I've since forgotten

Its the sitting in the unkempt

The peace building is the cultivating of grace

Its the lessening of judgement to others and mostly myself

Its the realization the more gentle I approach my darkness the less harsh i become when confronted

With the darkness of others

Its the learning i don't have to carry the responsibility of someone elses healing journey

Its the learning that i can observe not absorb everything

The boundary setting and keeping

Thriving is a word I can feel overwhelmed by

Almost as if its out taunting me

Ready with its stoic stance to discredit me

To mock me

Its the giggles in the background

The scoff

So I cower and ignore its existence

Thriving scares me because I fear I'm not it

I fear its report card as if it has one

I'm weary at the thought of not making its final cut

Thriving may be many things

But it is not the taunting villain

Its more of the supportive audience

The getting of your jokes

The wooing and clapping

The hyping you up

Thriving is stoic in its stance

But only to assure you that your trying is not in vain

You are healing and peace building and thriving

Kindness for Me Too, Please

Mi abuelita, que dios la cuida, siempre decia que necesitabamos perdornar las personas que nos hace mal, las personas que nos hace dano. Ella era una guerrera. Paso por tanto en su vida. Tenia tantas historias que debian estar en un libro. Tantas veces que estabamos sentadas y me contaba momentos de su vida. Si, una guerrera. Una luchadora. 

De ella agarro el esfuerzo para continuar cuando pienso que ya no puedo. Recuerdo que tengo la sangre de ella corriendo en mis venas. Recuerdo por lo tanto que ella sufrio y todavia segilla. Segilla y segilla adelante aunque estuviera pesada con tristeza y dolor. Ella empujaba y trataba para un dia llegar a dias mas comodos, mas relajados y llenos con paz. 

Maybe the perfect life doesn't exist. Life is way to unpredictable for that but I can get to easier days. I can get to much more comfortable days. Glass half full of peace. Traumas barely occupying space kinda days.

I can build up and out instead of hole up in whatever shit lifes thrown at me. We don't have to live that way. We can move on. We are allowed that.

A friend messaged me tonight needing some support and I realized once I pressed send and read it back to myself that I needed it too. Thought I'd share:

Quarantine & Chill? CHILL?!?!

The corona virus has disrupted the worlds rhythms. Most people are in quarantine now if not out working. I am still going out and working but when I am not there I am home, in quarantine. There are memes everywhere making fun of how some people haven't had to change much of their lives with the quarantine order in effect and let me tell you that is me. Other than the fact I can't go to Target just to walk around or to the swap meet/flea market on weekends, concerts, driving somewhere; my life now in quarantine and out aren't too different. Isolation is kinda my thing apparently.

I mean not that I wasn't aware but also I didn't realize how intense it was. HAH. Let a pandemic make you ask yourself some important questions. Also, I spend way too much time on my phone and it pains me to say but watching Netflix too. I wanna finish all the books I have just waiting for me on my shelves. I want to spend more time outside even if its just spent staring at my plants, reading, or listening to music. I bet my mental health would appreciate that much more than switching between the same 3 social media apps until it gets dark while also watching shows on Netflix. I also obsessively watch the videos of past concerts I've been to. Its weird kinda but also not? Listen I have clinical depression and motivation runs away from me. I have the intent but the actual scene of how it plays out usually looks like me laying on my bed staring at the ceiling thinking how much I want to or should be doing this or that. I was exercising at home once before bed too. Nothing extravagant but through an app on my phone I would do a set for like 15-20 minutes. That was stooopid but it was also good? Piece of advice, living upstairs isn't great for at home exercising. If I wasn't so anxiety ridden and self conscious about people looking at me then I could maybe try the gym again or even just out in my patio area.  Also, the app kept a calender and marked each time I'd exercise and sadly looks like I had a pattern of once every 2-3 weeks. I WAS TRYING OKAY?! I don't know if its my over critical part of myself or what but I always feel like I am always landing short of my potential. I'm always just missing the mark.

I'm always thinking of how I use my blog as an outlet. I say how I love writing and how it feels like an itch I can't scratch until I do it again. I've been wondering though if maybe I could start going to therapy and how that could possibly change things. What if the only reason I've felt so passionately about writing is because its my only safe outlet? What if what I thought was a passion of mine turns out not to be? Then what? Also, what is the use of being passionate about something if you are the only one who benefits from it? My writing is more self serving than anything whether I do it or not won't ripple effect anything. What the fuck am I good at then? What am I supposed to be doing?

Whats my purpose here? Everyone else seems to have their shit together (wrong) and I don't. Everyone else seems to be working towards something and what the fuck am I doing?

“My vulnerability is natural and permissible and beautiful to me, and it should remind you of your responsibility to behave like a friend to me and the world.”  -Jenny Slate

Maybe the capitalist mindset has brainwashed me too much because my productivity level dictates how I weigh my worth and purpose. I don't think that's right. Right?

I may not be in college working to get a degree or rising up in the ranks of my job but I am working on things inside. There's a construction site of healing and recovery happening somewhere people can't see. Isn't that okay?

"Being vulnerable is clumsy but it is the only thing worth anything. "

I think thats it for me this time around. hey, I should write on here more now that its not my choice to self isolate and everyone else is doing (or supposed to) doing it too. Yeah? Yeah, Ima do it. 

Whats Happened With You

Isn't it interesting to think about how quickly things change? How from one moment to another things can become so different?

How the world can be kinda ok one moment then within a couple weeks completely change??

People are like that too but somehow decades feel like days. We can hold onto how a person was and continue to compare them. They were okay then so then what happened?

How did they go from point a to point b? The reality? They already went through the whole alphabet 3x over but times distorted and point A felt like last month. We missed it but yet we were a witness?

Ive been thinking about how there are so many people out there who are struggling with broken family members. Ive noticed a pattern we either completely cut ourselves off from them or continue to drown ourselves in the belief they are so close to being saved even though its keeping us from moving forward. Theres the guilt for both situations. Theres the confusion of how someone you love can be so fucked up and how you simultaneously hate them AND care for them. You repeat the excuses you've compiled together of their lives to create the conclusion of who they are now. You think if only-if only.

I am stuck in limbo. I have a foot out the door to move forward and a hand keeping my family afloat. I've thunk myself cold. I've disassociated so hard I'm unsure how to come back from it without professional help.

Is it normal to consider everyones life story when thinking of the hurt and wrong they've done to you? I guess thinking of their perspective to try and justify the pain caused is the purpose for this but then it leaves me heavy feeling with everyones' life along with my own.

I don't know how to make everyone's pain stop bleeding on me.

How do I learn to ignore the red, the stain, the stench?

Or do I not but then how do I move forward knowing they don't have a chance?

How do I move forward knowing they are going to stay behind? 

That the idea of them eventually moving on to healing is only but a daydream? 

What if their damage is much too much? I move on anyway? Just like that?

How do I bare that kind of everyday reminder that my happiness and my peace serves as the reminder of the complete lacking of theirs. That you know deep in your bones they lack love and how you wish it was enough to help them.

Then how do you not let it fuck up everything you've ever worked for?

 How do you not let it fuck your heart and head up?

Where does the line get drawn from self preservation to selffishness? I would sure like to know.

Take The Compliment

You've worked hard to be where you are. You've worked hard to create the self love you have. You've been combatting the negative voices in your head so you no longer go spiraling into a self hatred trip every time you interact with people. You worked really hard to stop the over analyzing of your every move because everything you did was just wrong and stupid. The war with yourself had to end. 

The positive has to show up more than the negative for this to work. The discipline has to be consistent. The negativity doesn't go away; you just stop listening to its rant. You make up a new hymn; of anything else, then you let the kindness and the self love bleed in. You turn the tables and taint the negativity with love until it becomes the outcast.

Yet, somehow its still easier for you to reassure yourself than to accept positivity from anyone else. Somehow I can't swallow it when it comes from someone else. The positive feedback has a buoyancy that will create the illusion of acceptance but it bounces off of me and disintegrates instantaneously. Shouldn't a compliment trickle down and melt into your soul? Shouldn't it land and taste sweet? 

You wish you could respond with something other than silence. That the minions in your brain would somehow help you find a way not to freeze up and emit awkward facial reactions. If only you could help yourself figure out a way not to scream UNTRUE when the positive comes for you. If only there was a way to get out of your own way and genuinely breathe in the fact that maybe you could be good at something. That maybe you aren't just a walking meat stick that can't do anything right. Perhaps, you could find a way to reprogram and not reject it. 

Just take it. Just accept it. If only it manifested as easy as it was said. 

Just like everything else in life there is not one or the other. Its not black and white. There is no exclusivity with self love. You can want the best for yourself and not know what that is or how to accept/take it. You can long to move up and still reach below you for broken pieces. You can crave the light of the sun and love the warmth of the dark. You can be trying for love with yourself and still be weary of love from someone else. The undoing of traumas, coping mechanisms, internalized dialogue, whatever it may be isn't a straight line its scribbly scrabbly but we try regardless. I think as long as we continue trying we are going to be okay...right?

Theme songs of the week: 

Ashley by Halsey

Let You Love Me by Rita Ora 

You Don't Deserve Good Things//No Mereces Cosas Buenas

In September of last year my beautiful beloved car rolled down a hill and was totaled. It was a major shock and threw my life in disarray. My mom forgot to put the parking brake and when you drive a stick shift that is a critical part of the parking process. After some hard work and good luck I was able to get another car in October. A new car with like automatic rolling windows and the clicker boop-boop thing. For the first few days I was numb to the feeling of joy I should have been having for having a working car. It almost felt like my joy was being shushed telling itself to keep quiet and try not to get noticed because someone might notice that it didn't belong here.

The joy shushed itself 

Stay quiet someone might hear you

They will notice we don't belong

The joy shushed itself

We musn't call attention to ourselves

Hide under this fear I think we'll be safe

I have been so used to struggle, to difficulty that when my hard work of rebuilding and healing I have been doing actually come through I am unsure what to do with the peace. Like where do I put it? Doesn't go with the depressing décor. Lets put it in the closet for now, Hah!

I have a trip planned for the upcoming month and as I was sitting at work today I found myself being scared of going. I've been anxious because I know that I will have lots of fun and I am absolutely unsure on how to deal with that.

Who are you to deserve good things?

Shut up. Shut up. 

Quien eres tu para merecer cosas buenas? 

Callate. Callate. 

Theres a battle in my head that goes on. It ebbs and flows from insecurity and fear to self love and peace.From trauma to healing. The staus quo of being unhappy must be kept OR ELSE. OR ELSE. Do I know what the or else is? Nope, but the taunting feeling is there.

The admittance of having felt joy or being happy is something I struggle with greatly. I can't admit to it its too scary. I can't admit to it because then it feels like my brain has to come up with every possible reason why its not true. My brains in a heated debate with no one trying to win a made up argument its taken too seriously. Almost as if I have to be cruel to myself to deter the admittance that happiness can be mine.

The cruelty plays coy

hiding under a cloak of honesty

playing into fears hands

its easygoing nature creating an illusion of choice

Why are you lying?

You can't be happy

Sadness is your favorite 'member?

Peace is fake

you've been lied to

listen to me

You weren't happy

You should just stop trying

The cruelty plays coy

plays a charming role

diminishes you swiftly

You can't be happy

You should just stop trying.

I don't want to be unhappy. I don't want to feel undeserving of good things. I just don't know how to shake the guilty feeling that gets to me when I start thinking about my happiness. Its a "oh you think you're special that you of all people get to have good things? That you get to be happy?" voice. Maybe its the years of suffering. Maybe its the traumas of seeing others suffer and being unable to help. Maybe its my depression and anxiety. Maybe its my ridiculous fear of not admitting happiness was mine because of the possibility something horrible happening right after just to spite me. I don't know much of the divine or the universe but I think its safe to believe its not out to spite me or you, right? I think so. My mind can be cruel and I am my very own bully but I have built reinforcements to uplift myself. I have had to learn to combat the voices in my head telling me that I should just stop trying that I should conform to misery. Obviously, having depression isn't something that can be cured with positive mantras but with some medication and helpful mind reinforcements I think we can really do something good for ourselves. 

Who are you to deserve good things?

Who are you to get to be happy?

Who am I?

I am the bundle of resilience

of spirit and grit

I am the giggles and harmonies

cravings and complaints

An ocean deep and wide

raging and free

 rains of sadness and peace

vines of stories

cold and deep pain

Who aren't we to deserve good things?

Who aren't we to get to be happy?

¿Quién eres tú para merecer cosas buenas?
¿Quién eres tú para ser feliz?

Quien soy yo?

Soy un bulto de resiliencia
 espíritu y valor 
Soy las risas y armonías
antojos y quejas
Un océano profundo y amplio
furioso y libre
lluvias de tristeza y paz
vides de historias
dolor frío y profundo

La pregunta no es quien soy yo para merecer cosas buenas

Pero quien soy yo para no merecer cosas buenas

Para no merecer felicidad

Until next time. 

Theme song of the week: Won't Stop Running by A Great Big World

The Side Chick

The majority of my life I have struggled with the unsettling idea that I am but a secondary character in my family storyline. Always the one effected but never the one affecting. The sum of my life centered around everyone else's actions or worse the consequences that resulted because of those actions. While most people grow up navigating the discovery of themselves and what everything means I was busy reacting to other peoples stories and other people meaning my family. I was the secondary character in my own show. I was the friend of the main characters who only got enough scenes to be recognized but never enough to have a concrete story line. So I grew up reacting, listening, observing. 

         I think about that often when I am confronted in messy situations that center around my brothers. I think about the disruption in their lives. I empathetically think of their pain in the experiences I witnessed. I create a logical domino effect of how one experience altered their sense of self which then diminished their chance to have made alternate better decisions. I think of the emotional blockade they have. How society, machismo, economic status, my father and even mother deeply influenced how they deal with their emotions or don't. How they had to build coping mechanisms from scratch or sadly learned the unhealthy ones they witnessed. I think about how studies have shown how kids who come from single family homes, divorced homes, below the poverty line, immigrated parent homes can have a harder time adjusting into a "normal" stable adult. I remember trauma lives and breathes in them too.

      The 25 year old me, the worked her ass off to heal, grow and expand me then tries to gently scoop me up off the floor because my heart usually ends up on its knees battered and bruised at this point. I remember all of my disruptions; all of my experiences. I remember how economic status, society, my family all deeply influenced my young girl self. I think of issues I have and how they came to be.  I try to validate myself my experiences and feelings because that's where I've learned my healing can begin. 

     I can't help but think of my family members disruptions but then I think of mine and I become incredibly conflicted. Its easy for me to think empathetically towards them and their experiences but when I'm faced with them in person and they begin to speak to me about anything really I am completely bottled with rage. I feel my upper lip start to curl and I always-always have to remind myself to bring it down and reflect. 

Its hard when you have to push your family away because they bring destruction to your world that you put so much effort into creating. The world you are so desperately trying to build for yourself. 

Si no estan aqui para ayudar me flotar no necesito que me ayudan ahogar

      I am so conflicted. It takes up so much of me to think about it so I try not to. I understand that we are all building from scratch and some people handle things better than others but as my friend Lyz told me "You were not made to hold everyone up." It is not my job to keep or to save. It is

not my responsibility to caress their wounds and hand them solutions. I know all this but it doesn't take away from the pain knowing that my 2 of my brothers are still sleeping in their cars and one has a broken toe disabled in the room next to mine. It doesn't take away from the fact that I recognize patterns and trauma that my mom has had but that I can't trust her to set any type of boundaries. I look at the whole picture but it doesn't take away the pain or the hard decisions I have to make. No amount of empathy will be the solution. That's what breaks my heart I think the most that no amount of my understanding can excuse the pain caused. It doesn't count if I recognize the patterns but they remain unaware. 

      The hard work, the healing, the demolition, the recreating has to be done by each individual and it can't be done near each other because we will come unravel and come undone. I cannot help them and help myself in the same proximity. I built up muscle to help myself stay afloat and no matter how tough no matter how bitter or cold I may seem I have to put myself first. 

Oh, but the guilt doesn't leave me alone.

I am continually faced with decisions everyday to enforce boundaries. I don't know how it looks like from their point of view. Does it look easy? Do they think that its easy for me? 'Cause its not. I don't know if they think I've had it easy. I don't know if they think I'm being selfish or just plain cruel. I don't know if they will ever come to understand how much I want to be okay. How I have come to learn that they unravel the healing, the recovery.

How much it hurts that I have to move forward even if it means leaving them behind.

This weeks song is Heavy by Kiana Lede. Hits the spot. 

What Are Boundaries Even

Okay, so I guess by now we know that I am not good at writing consistently. As I sat on my couch Wednesday afternoon I remembered and told myself I should probably go do that but did I actually turn Hulu off and go do it? Hah nope! Instead I binge watched Veronica Marz some more. Good show by the way, its fun to see all the spots in town I can call out and recognize while watching.

Some part of me really want to feel a bit more relaxed in my posts because of the lack of following but another part of me really wants to um you know... NOT half ass it. They fight. At least now, I don't have to worry about where I am going to plug the computer into or how much daylight I have left in order to see the keyboard. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to write on a laptop while sitting in the drivers seat? My neck and back were both screaming at me by the end of it.

Now I just have to remind myself that self care is also disciplinary care. That taking care of myself is making habits that will create momentum for my inner peace to prosper. Self care can't always look like binge watching and eating cereal on the couch after dinner. Although, it is quite a beautiful experience. I have to make myself do more to cultivate my creativity. I have to incorporate scrapbooking, journaling, coloring, painting, writing into my days so I can help the nagging, dragging demons from making me feel like shit. I can't just continue to jump from one social media app to another hoping to cover up how uncomfortable I feel.

Uncomfortable is how I've been describing how I feel lately. Just unsettled. Unable to find a place I can sit still. I don't want to be at work and I don't
want to be at home yet I do? I feel dead inside or is that just adulthood? Nope, nope its poor people adulthood because you know very well rich people sleep well at night knowing they have an excess of money after bills. Way off topic, one of my triggers apparently?

Anyway,  I think for so long this was the pivotal step. Getting a home and a stable job that can pay for my bills; being able to pay rent on my own. For the longest time that was the goal, for years. If only I can just get there I'd repeat to myself. Once I reach that step then the rest will work itself out. Pfffft, HAH oh innocent one. You all would be surprised to know that managing my money, the calculations and getting creative with allocating the money to last enough to get me through until payday is not the problem for me. Its actually a strong suit for me. The hardest part is setting up boundaries between my family and I.

Enforcing those boundaries while also not allowing them to rip away at me; to completely destabilize my entire being. Finding the strength to not allow guilt to somehow trick its way inside and ruin all the healing I've made. Detaching myself from unhealthy default settings and creating a new rhythm for ones that allow healing and create peace. I don't have any of that down so I keep my mind moving not allowing it to settle down so I don't freak out because I have no idea how to handle any of it. I watch tv while looking through my phone. My job is fast paced but still when I get unraveled by what happens at home then somehow my disposition for getting things done gets scrambled and I have to work twice as hard to actually do my job. My patience at work is whittled down to almost nothing and I'm not sure if that's because customer service does that to a person or if its because of build up from everything else...or both???

I'm unsure of how to navigate all of this but I am trying. I am the first in my family for all these things so the moves I make will greatly impact the domino effect on everyone else lives. I don't have anyone to learn from. I don't have someone elses story to take notes from. I am trying to keep an open mind as well as think things through thoroughly without coming undone.

I'm managing.

There are somedays that are actually quite nice. The rest, well I try to let them go. There'd be too many to keep; I mean where would one store all of those bad days? You shove them deep down inside??? Oh right, crap. Somedays I can feel the shittyness bubbling and I just say nope to the day then strut my grumpy pants all through town. It be like that sometimes.

Have you ever had to put up a boundary or several towards people you are close to and it got complicated? How?

Any thing you've learned from a personal experience or someone else's that you think would be helpful?

Are grumpy pants appropriate work attire?? Explain.

1 Year Off The Streets

Hi again,
Feels nice to back here again so I'm just going to jump straight into it. To sum up some of the reason why I haven't followed up on last my series on no longer being homeless...my sweet grandma died and not in the most peaceful way. Then I lost my lovely little firecracker and best friend of 8 years "Penny" my dog, soon after. 2018 was a year of loss and grieving for me more than it was a year of celebration. How is one supposed to feel happy you have a home when the very souls you want to have in your home aren't here? What is a house if its empty of the company you want? I imagined when we got a home I would create a get together so everyone I know could come celebrate with us but instead all I felt was aching and in no mood for having a party or to even think of a celebration.

Moving on felt dirty. It felt feels wrong.

My heart was broken by the loss of 2 souls. They were stripped from this world in painful ways and I felt feel robbed not just for me but for them. I guess thats how the loss of loved ones goes for anyone though. You stand back aghast with the breath taken out of you, suffocated. Then no one lets you know about that terrible feeling you get every time you remember that time forgets everything as soon as it happens and so you feel like you have to scurry and huddle and gather every memory and any sense of proof that they were once here in order to keep the pain from crippling you over because you have to be alive still even though they aren't.

Did that make any sense? Did you get any of that?

I guess I knew I should try writing again when I would look towards my desk and the computer everyday briefly for a couple seconds. Its felt like something you forgot but knew you needed to remember.

When you begin to realize you are suffocating yourself in order to stay in the same mental/emotional state thats when you know you are no longer meant to be there. Thats when you realize its not the pain holding you back anymore...its you. I guess what it means is feel what you need to feel until you don't anymore, right? I couldn't not (the biggest lump in my throat formed as I typed this) allow myself to celebrate the place that we are in our lives rightnow. The growth. The stability. The handling and navigation of new terrain. I couldn't deny myself that forever. I am now able to side with the belief I've held onto forever that you can grieve and celebrate, you can be sad and happy disturbingly and magically all at once. I scorned at celebration or anything similar to it when it was fresh and wasn't able to see anything other than that until magically one day I could again.

I would like to point out that telling someone who has recently suffered a loss to celebrate is NOT helpful. We must allow anyone going through a loss to progress there naturally. No one wants to hear positive, cliché things when you are fresh in the midst of feeling shitty. It can make the person in pain feel distant towards you and alone.

August 1st will be a year since we've moved in and I feel like that absolutely must be wrong. How can this be? WHAT?? And not because I don't remember paying rent Oh I remember THAT part its the everything else part thats a little fuzzy. Having to make a house a home while grieving can blurr out a lot of memory. I haven't invited anyone over that I would have liked but maybe that's to come. I plan to upload a video of tidbits put together of the moving in process to help me better enunciate all of the feelings that came with this experience.

I feel really vulnerable uploading this. For a second, I actually was trying to figure out a way to make this post without it but then I thought about how I recorded all these things in hopes that I could see them, remember and really appreciate how far we'd come. This time I'm just sharing it with you too.

Home is still being put together day by day. I am still shocked when I sit back to think of it all or when I make a purchase specifically for it. Like buying house plants and patio furniture. I have my own place to put them in?? Crazy. I get to create my home. Control my environment and the ambiance it has. I get to burn sage and I get to shower when I want. I can read books in bed. 

I am still navigating what it means to be the boss of my home and setting boundaries with family in regards to it. I am trying to learn in which areas the boundary lines should be just lightly outlined and which ones should be bolded. I'm learning and healing and its tough work but good tough work. I always said that getting my own home was the next step and now that we're here I'm terribly anxious but grateful. 

I've felt quite lost to be honest with you and I thought I was even done with writing but I am actually feeling a little bit more centered since writing this. 

Next week, for sure.

Okay I'm going to try really hard.

I am.

I will.

Okay, Bye.