Tag: frustration

Dear AB residents who did not want this. The election in Alberta

We can take today to be confused, angry and disappointed. We can wonder how people worry more about money but not about the most vulnerable in their communities. We can be wounded that it feels like people’s basic needs are not as important as ravaging the earth for commerce. We can, for a moment take this personally.

What we CAN NOT do is give up. We can dream that ‘elsewhere’ will be better. But it’s not. This ideology is seeded everywhere.

What we must do…. Fight, education and appeal. The majority was NOT a landslide, that means, there are many of us who feel the community and working to the greater good is important. We must come together and use our voices ( it still is a democracy) and our actions to keep this government in check. Educate those around us about the cost of doing business with the UCP. Appeal to the basic humanity of those supporters when it comes to marginalized people.

It feels exhausting, it feels easier to pack up and go, but what we are saying then, is that we are only willing to care for each other when the majority makes it easier, not when times are tough and the vulnerable need it more, not to be abandoned.

Take the time to find balance, it’s out there, there are people and programs doing great things. Find them, amplify and support them. Yes we need to point out the ick and gross treatment/ideals and methods of the far R, but make the community minded people heard as well.

For every ‘can you believe this 💩’ angry post you do, I challenge you to amplify 1 or 2 ‘look at the amazing things people are doing’ posts. We can do this.

Yesterday was 50- How the rest of the ‘big’ day went

Yesterday I left my story unfinished about crossing the threshold to my 50s. I was feeling conflicted. I had not asked for fireworks or a big band. But I think part of me wanted that.

I had not yet passed noon of the day and conveyed that my feeling about the whole thing was deflated. I should have labeled that part one….

As the day progressed it was filled with sweet messages and unexpected gifts.

After putting the pity party to paper ( or screen if you will) the day began in earnest. A friend knowing I was chilling at home, whisked me away for a decadent cupcake ( for those of you near where I live Crave bakery are the cupcakes you need). A lovely bit of time spent in the cool sun with tea, conversation and cake!!

The best part of it, the part of my brain that was feigning dramatic disappointment in the first part of the day got to eat a little crow later.

My husband let slip there is a date awaiting Saturday night….. but no further details. I would love a clue about how I should dress and how far I need to dig into my closet.

Then we then went to dinner as our little family of three. I did choose the restaurant, a simple one, where we can count on the food being tasty and the three of us ate heartily. It was the laughter of my family filled me most. It seemed like a while since that had happened, but there was much wit and giggles. Back home to more magical treats of another deck of Tarot based on a family favourite movie ( Nightmare Before Christmas for the win), a beautiful dish for treasures duly guarded by a dragon and a cake, while not from my childhood favourite bakery, a wonderfully rich chocolate confection. After the wish candles were all blown out we dug in and filled the sweet tooth craving.

I went to bed loved and content. Relishing the moment where my brain was quiet, the monsters had nothing to chew on. This was the best way to enter 50.

Containment Disaster

I search for stillness

There is fire burning with in

But the noise keeps the heat contained

It’s burning like a fever

To fuck

To create

To run screaming searching for an entry to the Ether

I search for stillness

The fire threatens an explosion but the noise and distractions don’t stop

Embers become white hot

Being dissolved from the inside

So much to get out

Words, feelings, colour

Need to touch, speak, release

This is not living when the spirit is contained ignited and starving for space and oxygen

Rage -venting the feelings (pt 1)

Rage

Don’t pay me lip service

If you ask me what I need

That is not enough – not without action

If I ask you to come to my playground because I’m always at yours

Don’t decline because it ‘doesn’t suit you’

Raging about my gender will upset me

Raging with out room for learning and compassion will shut me down

Making it know that parts of me, things I care for and hold dear are ‘not your cup of tea’ so

you ignore them completely, shows me you do not accept me for who I am

Your rage breaks me apart. My shame can bury me. This time my rage will help me rise

Here we are again

You only listen when you like what I have to say

you only look when it suits you

you will talk and talk and talk and talk

and it doesn’t seem to matter

the parts of me that make you uncomfortable

the parts of me that frustrate you

the parts of me that are trying to grow and express

Are time and time again

told

too much

too much

too much

there are times I can carry this

use it to fuel me to keep growing

there are times when it guts me

and leaves me bleeding on the floor

unseen unheard unalive

Quiet quitting isn’t just for work

Do you know what the true quiet quitting is?

When you want the time, attention, effort and energy you put out to be appreciated and in some form returned and you come to the realization it is not.

When you yearn so much to be validated, seen, and heard, and when you recognize it doesn’t materialize and you just give up.

Quietly of course, your opinions get quieter and smaller, you begin to ask less, you begin to do less and you feel the shrinking taking place.

It happens in small ways at first, and not in every place in your life at the same time. It’s barely even noticeable because nothing was noticeable to begin with in that space.

Until finally the space that you took up is all but folded it on itself and winked out like a little fairy light.

That my friends is a quiet quitting,

everyone trying so hard to be heard and very few taking the time to listen. We eventually stop putting in the extra time and attention in the places we feel undervalued.

This happens in every place we inhibit, work, school, friend relationships, family relationships- our daily lives.

Nothing is ever truly balanced, that is one of life’s hard truths. Another, is that no one ( not even ourselves) can live up to the expectations we create. Compassion and understanding are needed for moments of unbalance, but should not have to be the space you always operate from.

Perhaps this is the truest form of self love? To often this disconnect is unnoticed, or blame shifted to the person receding. A reaction of fear that the person/place being receded from may need to be accountable.

What are/have you quietly quit? What was the outcome? Who has quietly quit from a work or personal relationship with you? Do you understand, will you admit your role in the dissolution? Have you ever noticed the places you quietly quit on yourself?

Not an Inconsequential Slip (ATFS)

Learning  how to work with my nervous system is not an easy journey. Just when I think I might have the hang of understanding my triggers and feeling pretty secure in knowing what throws me and the tools I have to undo an anxiety attack I get reminders I don’t know shit and the damage I believed was scarred over enough to be considered healed is not. 

This past weekend we had a random act of violence directed at our home. The place where I should feel safest. 1:30 in the morning and some shit head decided kicking our front door and screaming fuck you before squealing off in their car was a good (fun) idea. 

The police, in-between informing us how weird it was, felt it was random or a case or a wrong address. Not that, that made me feel any better- my heart paused for the intended victim. For anyone this would be a nerve wracking experience, but my family seems relatively calm and went back to feeling pretty secure with in a day. It has almost been five days and I am feeling like I am on fire.

Let me tell you, that hard crack of the door frame breaking, woke up a long sleeping panic twitch in my head. 

I grew up in a house that was fraught with subtle and not so subtle violence, cycles that continually repeated in my early relationships. As a child/ young woman I was often in hiding or on the run until the dangerous moment passed. I spent almost a decade of my young life being stalked and ambushed. There were many times when that same door breaking crunch was followed by threats, screams and violations of my safety. 

It has been almost 30 years since I had to worry about being followed, watched and in danger. Have I  become complacent? In a way I suppose. I felt it was what normal is supposed to be. We lock our doors at night and when we aren’t home. We have taught our daughter to be vigilant about her safety. I have worked very hard to not ‘go overboard’ or be paranoid given the history I grew up with. There is always a shadow that follows me.

I have CPTSD and anxiety. I have managed reasonable well. I succeed and fail epically with equal measure. Understanding that most of my ‘triggers’ are modes of (lack of) communication, lack of sleep, burnout and financial triggers. My daily mental health struggles cause body pain, brain fog and lack of concentration, but for the most part I am managing. It is not perfect but it is a far cry from what it was years ago. I don’t mask anymore, I give myself grace on bad days and make use of the tools I have created.

CRACK- FUCK YOU

And I have done just that. 

Sleep has been tricky, falling asleep and staying there, not twitching at every noise, not dreaming about the past darkness that created this. Trying to keep my thoughts from running away. Not wanting to lock my daughter in her room and lay off my (over blown) fears on to her. Holding back tidal waves of tears that just come on. Feeling the phantom pain from every injury I sustained in that time of my life. I thought the pain I felt these last few years when ‘triggered’ was bad, but it ain’t nothing compared to the last few days. 

Every ancient bruise, cut, break is screaming at me in the moments I try to find quiet. 

I was doing so well working with silent moments in my head, a relief that I had started to become accustom to. But right now I have music screaming into my headphones (Thank the Gods for Dave Grohl howling the pain I am feeling for me) to counter the screaming monsters.

I am bouncing from project to project. Probably annoying the eff out of people with bombing them with memes or random bits of conversation, keeping myself distracted from the old fear sitting in my stomach.

Along with this horrible feeling of not having control I am so angry. I fight so hard to be well, to not let these things drag me to the pit of self destruction. One stupid prank or ‘wrong house’ and I am on an exceptionally slippery slope. I can’t explain the depths this has pierced. Fuck you, you asshole who thought this was relatively harmless, or funny even. At other points in my life this could have taken me to a much darker place that I am currently fighting my way out of. But this is bad enough.

I will do my best in the coming days to reset my system, to have grace with myself. I will keep expressing my needs. I will keep trying for positive distractions. I will just keep trying.

New beginnings old ghosts

Lately the anxiety is bubbling just under the surface. I have had a wild month. Slings, arrows, bricks, mortar, silence and a deafening cacophony.

I had a big slip- with some help I fought back most of the way.

I have been fighting hard to breath life into the amazing opportunities in front of me.

To not be crushed by feelings of doubt and inadequacies. To not rely on ample input from the outside. To believe the reasons I’ve been given about why I’m the one who can accomplish these tasks. To trust I’m making the right choices. To not build my hopes of success by the involvement or encouragement of others. To choose carefully how I build, what I build and with who.

Trust trust trust myself

Today is shaky. Today is overwhelming. Today is very isolating. I know this place. And today, in this glorious Solstice, I cant seem to find it in me to get the monsters to be quiet, I cant seem to shake the dark. I cant seem to find my way. I am tired. I am sore. I have no voice but the inside screaming isn’t stopping.

Yet…. I have to, and I will do what needs to be done today. Measured breath, clenched jaw, head down and do what I can. Ride it out.

So tonight when I am finished doing what I must, I’m going to go to my favourite places amongst the trees, maybe find a Fae door or two. Breathe, ground, and let this finally wash through me. To let the God(dess) hold me steady, this too shall pass.

Motherless Grief and Wound Healing

Today would have been your 81st birthday. 37 years since you were on this side of the veil. In years past I often would feel a sadness or longing on this day.

But this year feels different. There has been much mental health and trauma work done this year. Uncovering some wounds that had scarred over, the scars had created a choking trap, I’ve finally found the courage to start undoing, breaking patterns, healing.

This year feels different. Longing and sadness are marred by hurt and frustration. I still miss you, I will always love you and I’m trying to find some compassion and grace for the choices you made. The choices that had consequences for so many.

A moment of quiet, a breath, remembrance, questioning and love. Happy Birthday Mom.