of death and shame

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i write about my mother a lot here.  i suppose it's one of the only places where i feel i can.  i don't feel guilty for bringing it up here, the subject of her death and death in general.  i don't feel ashamed of my big emotions here.  i can have them, loud and unruly behind the ineffectual whiteness of the screen.  no one knows if i am crying or not.  everyone can imagine whatever face they prefer for me to wear.  or they can look away.  many people have and i don't begrudge them for that.  it's been 4 years. eventually, people want to hear about something else. 

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i just re-read that paragraph and feel that it is a half-truth.  i often feel guilty about how much i write about my mother's death.  the last several posts here are specifically about that and i'm sure the majority of posts i've made during the last 4 years since her death are about it too or at least reference it in someway.  i look at my blog sometimes and back away from it because i don't want to be that girl who's droning on and on about her dead mama, about her broken heart, about the tragic twists of her life.  but why not?  why am i ashamed?  this shame is, perhaps, the thing that has made blogging so hard in recent years.  for awhile there i seemed to only manage the courage for it when i was drunk and disgusted with the world, drunk and disgusted with myself.  and for a moment, even i was afraid of those outbursts.  i started wondering if i'd fallen it to that weird literary alcoholism where one believes they can only write if they've had a few drinks.  i'd read back over my posts the next afternoon and feel the knife of shame in my gut but i wouldn't erase any of it.  i wanted to let it stand.  i wanted to be brave enough to endure my shame.  also (dangerously), i was attracted to being a bit of a mess, repulsive.  i was at odds with so many things and i wanted to force the issue of my pain, my disappointment, my revulsion.  i also thought the writing was simply that damn good.  i was willing to scare relatives and friends and the mothers of friends that i was in the midst of a total breakdown.  it wasn't the intention of the writing.  not at all.  but if it was the result, so be it.  i was trying to say something true.

and maybe i was unravelling a bit too.

of course i was.


2008, graduated from college.
2008, decided to end my relationship with my father.
2008, moved to Calistoga and absolutely hated it.
2008 - 2009, explored the possibility that maybe i was bipolar simply due to the fact that i could not get along in my new surroundings. this was encouraged by my partner at the time.
2009, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
2010, her cancer metastasized.
2011, my mother died.  i was 30 years old.
2011, left Calistoga and moved back to Oakland.
2012, left a 7 year relationship that had been sexless for the last 3.



there's a lot in there to fall apart about.  of all those things, my mother's death is the only thing i've really written about.  at first, her death just made everything else seem so small and irrelevant.  it was the biggest, most obvious horror.  maybe it was also the most acceptable thing to write about, despite the overwhelming public discomfort surrounding death.  no one really writes about the trauma of sexual neglect.  at least not in the first person.  not that i've seen.  and not from the female perspective of being denied touch and how wounding that is.  i'd be very interested in reading a text about that if anyone knows of something.  and i'm still afraid to write about certain things, despite just sharing that secret.  i'm afraid i'm going to make some sort of horrible, unforgivable transgression if i write about a past relationship, if i write about my father, if i tell the truth of what really happened, if i tell the whole truth about my mother, her marriages, our family, our undoing, our pain.  despite my bravery, i still sometimes feel stopped.  i censor myself.  i don't want to dump lemon juice on the wounds of others.  one of my biggest fears is hurting other people- a fear that has derailed the lives and selves of so many people.

thankfully, the only member of my family that reads here with any regularity is my sister.  at least that i'm aware of.  all my relatives on my mother's side, curious about my life as an artist, stopped reading here once the drunken 3am posts took over as the norm.  long gone are the days of beautiful paragraphs about running with my dog down highway 128, through orange and red leaves, squirrels lobbing acorns at us from the tall trees, the scent of the vineyard crush filling the air.  so idyllic.  at least if that's all anyone knows, and that was all anyone knew for a very long time about my daily life in calistoga.  i never let on about what a tortured, ignored, untouched "housewife" i'd become.  i was so ashamed of myself and the deterioration i'd allowed to happen to my own life, my own dreams.  i was ashamed of finding myself in a scenario that so horribly resembled my mother's 2nd marriage: man on the couch watching tv, woman reading a book in the other room.  i remember so clearly the night i drunkenly confessed the sin of my sexlessness to my friend, Anne, while puking in the toilet at a mutual friend's house after having gone out and had one too many greyhounds.  at that point, i'd been single about 7 months and no longer felt a responsibility to shield my ex from judgement.  the reality of what my previous life and relationship had been burned within me, an awful dirty secret.  in that moment, my shame burst forth along with all the booze i'd consumed and whatever i'd eaten that day.  unstoppable.  the next afternoon, hungover and dazed by the night's events, i felt embarrassed but also free.  someone knew.  someone knew my dirty secret and they didn't sneer at me.  she sympathized and rubbed my back.  i looked at the crust of vomit on my sequin jacket, called myself "a mess", and went home and wrote about it in my diary.

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there were more deaths than just my mother's.



there are more deaths than just the physical.


perhaps i did "act out".
perhaps i still act out.
i won't allow another death to occur where there should be only one.
i won't be another girl burning her papers on the back porch, afraid of their power to incriminate.


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the box in the back of the closet (archive of a day)

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reverie and residue.

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i was feeling all GUNG-HO industrious and shit, pulled out the boxes from the back of the closet, fully intending to throw away whatever was inside in order to make way for a new life, in order to lighten my load and get myself in a new york state of mind.  i pulled back the cardboard covers and found a huge artwork i'd made for my mother-  a deadbed/rosebed i made in the weeks after her death; a huge collection of crocheted roses in varying sizes and shades of red, displayed on a piece of dark red felt on the floor which was cut to the exact dimensions of the bed she died in, a bed which i layed down next to her in and crocheted red roses and lay them on her thin chest the last day she was alive.

there's no fucking way i can get rid of something like that!  there's just no way!  it's impossible!  i texted my sister in a panic because there's also really no way to bring my entire art collection to the east coast (at least not initially) and asked her if she had any space at all in the back of a closet in her house where i could store some art for a time.  sweetheart that she is, she said yes immediately and told me not to get stressed out about this stuff; "i'll make room for whatever you want to keep, sweet sister" she wrote.  i breathed a deep sigh of relief but still this strange anxiety.  it takes a lot out of me to go through these boxes, these memories, these secrets, the evidence of a life...  of lives.

i went through the red suitcase that houses tons of saved photographs and postcards.  there were some old scraps of paper with messy notes to self scrawled across them that i easily tossed in to the recycle bin, and a few books given to me by a long-forgotten acquaintance that i never got around to reading due to sheer lack of interest which are now sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house. then, i came across my 23 page poem-thing/manuscript that i haven't worked on since i left my last relationship.  i shoved it into this suitcase and then the suitcase was shoved into a tiny storage unit where it sat silently for close to a year.  i couldn't bare to read it once i brought it home.  i sifted through the pages tonight, skipping the intensely sad parts, but thinking that i really should go back to it, dive in, see if i can finish the thing...

going through all this...  it's an entire life!  it's who i've been and where i've come from.  it's the residue and evidence of my growth, of my Becoming.  it's the maps i've used.  it's the maps i made for myself with words and images and the sweet postcards that came to me from friends. how do i get rid of these things?  and should i even be trying to do such a thing???  they are not trinkets and baubles, they are meaningful objects.  objects which contain the spirit of a Past, a Family, a Mother, a Daughter, and the puzzle of love and loss. it's a diary.

and then there's THAT.  my diary!  it's humongous!  i've been keeping a daily diary for more than 6 years. i don't even dream of parting with these volumes of scribbles and rants.  not for a second.  but they definitely pose a bit of a predicament for someone who was hoping to move by airplane with two bags of luggage.  hahaha!  that's certainly beginning to seem a bit unrealistic. i'm feeling a bit like Anais Nin right now wondering what the fuck to do with a diary that needs a suitcase all to itself.  :)  i'm glad i still have almost 6 weeks to figure it out but that's not really much time at all.  6 weeks is nothing.

sigh...

and i'm not even complaining.  not at all.  i'm looking forward to this change so much!   i am exhilarated!  i'm ecstatic!  i've been wanting to do this for so long and i am overjoyed that the day when i can hop on a plane with a one-way ticket to new york in my hand is almost here.  and the fact that brian and i are doing this together makes it even better.  i'm so glad that i'm doing this with my best-friend.  now, if i could only find a way to shrink all these things down and make them miniature-sized!   i truly do want to make room for a new life, a new world.

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strange and beautiful

i rescued all of my books from my storage unit today.  10 boxes.  i have not yet unpacked them.  i need to by a bookcase.  i open each one and peer in.  a time-capsule, each and every one.  i open the cardboard flaps and read the titles: my loves! here is "A Lover's Discourse", here is "Ariel", here is "With Deer".  i paw through and find the black ceramic cups i made 2 years ago in Santa Rosa.  odd to hold them... an artifact.  in some ways, it is like holding a different person's objects...  or how one feels when one picks up a relic from one's childhood.  Childhood!!!  i have the entire collection of The Munch Bunch books!  here!  now! they are currently in my kitchen!  does anyone else have these????  these books and my white teddy bear are the only relics of my childhood i have left.  it is strange to see them.. strange to hold them...  to hold them and wonder what might have been.  what might have been if our parents were ready to be parents...  what might have been if we'd ever really been considered...

but i am not sad and don't mean to usher in a somber tone.  not at all.  i am more in a state of Wonder than anything else.  days come and go.  i look at the sky.  i write.  i take pictures.  i look at my hands.  and now, i can turn books over in my hands, smell their spines and leaf through them as if each second were an hour, as if each second were a lifetime.  bibles, all of them. 

looking at these boxes i know that i can't cart all of this into my future.  i'll have to make the hard decision (soon) to sell most of these volumes.  there's simply to way to transport such a mass in to my next phase of life.  it's a LIBRARY!  and i have no clue where to begin. 

i left picture frames on the side of the road today and they were gone within the hour.

and then dinner with my beautiful friend Trish this evening.  when she dropped me back off at my house i told her that not a single member of my mother's family called me over the holidays.  not one.  this may or may not have something to do with the fact that i swear.  rumour has it that my dropping of an F-Bomb on my sister's Facebook page caused quite an upset.  and so:  silence.  me.  my mother's eldest and without any other parent.  orphan.  and despite all that, a grown ass woman. 

well now...

guess whose religion is glaring?  not mine. 

Trish hugged me and reminded me that we can make new families.  everywhere we go.  it comforted me to know that maybe the disappointment i've known is not the entire story.  maybe there are people in the world who are capable of a deeper love than what i've experienced.  maybe there are people who mean what they say.

in 2 1/2 weeks i'll be back in my beloved New York.  i'll bring a backpack and nothing else.  a change of jeans, two t shirts, socks.  i'll have 5 days to explore the museums and galleries i've yet to enter.  i'll have 5 days to eat at good restaurants and drink in wild bars.  i'll have 5 days reprieve from giving a fuck if anyone understands me or loves me.  i'll write and walk the High Line and meander through the beautiful Bowery.  and until then, i have my wealth of books to keep me company, the greatest of which being 4 years of volumes of my diary.  geez.  what a world made entirely of ink and commitment. 

girl, your voice breaks my heart...

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the desperation is overwhelming.  i know it inside and out.  how many years?  even as a young girl?  how many silly evenings did i spend wishing on the first star for a way out?  and now, with no parents to run from, i still identify with this eagerness.  i spent too many years inside such hunger.

but now i live in a city. i know how to wait tables. there's nothing to run from these days.  i can write poems in the evenings and dream in my lonely hours of hands in my hair, a man that might understand me or, at least, a song like this.  i can read whatever terrible philosophy finds me.  i can curl up beneath a blanket i made with my own two hands.  just me and my crochet hook and a bit of yarn, just like my mama, just like my daddy.  where the fuck did those two go?  oh yeah, one died and the other decided it wasn't worth the trouble.  life.  and so i listen to this song and ache.  people i haven't seen in a decade leave messages on my phone and my eyes sting with tears.  but that was a different life.  i'm not that little girl anymore.  i'm not a little girl at all.  i'm 32 years old.  i'm grown.  i've been thrown against the wall and come face to face with some shit that was way before its' due.  and i'm not mad about it, just please attempt some understanding...  i can't be younger than i am.  i can't be 32 in certain ways.  in certain ways, i'm so much older than that.  how old were you when your mother died?   did you have a stable job?  did you have a spouse?  did you lose a spouse? did you have children?  were they grown?  were they in college?  see, when i was in college i was taking care of my dad.  he's a quadriplegic.  i would go to class and then race home to cook dinner, do the laundry and be a confidant.  on the weekends, sometimes, i'd paint pictures that were sold in a gallery in san francisco.  people only saw the paintings.  they didn't see what went on behind them.  i wasn't a good enough artist at that point.  i didn't know how to make it apparent.  i didn't want to.  i've spent alot of years feeling very alone and very ashamed.

but not anymore.  and no matter.  it's just that i love this song.  and while it plays i crave the same shit she sings of...  that goddamn ache, that reprieve.  just put your hands in my hair, kiss me hard and make me feel like none of this matters, that i am somewhere else...


....


at intervals, i feel like one big gaping wound....  

or one big block of ice. 

does it matter which?  i still need your mouth.  i still need your hands.  i am still a human being, equipped with all the tawdry longings and secrets that most possess, and i still want a strong arm around my shoulder.


i play the old tunes that our parents put on the stereo when we were children.  my heart aches something awful.  not for what might have been but for what is.  and in spite of how i feel tonight, i love us kids with such ferocity.  they don't see it but we have been made so much more beautiful because of what we've come through, dear brother and sister.  the task is for us to see it.  and then, to believe it. 

;)


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confession

it's 4 am and here i am in front of the computer with my mug of irish breakfast tea...

i couldn't sleep.

i've been having trouble staying asleep all week but tonight i couldn't fall back to sleep for the life of me. the reason is that i quit smoking. yep. the entire time you've been reading this blog, you've been reading the innermost thoughts and aspirations of a damn dirty smoker. ;) until the beginning of this week anyway.

it's something i kept quiet about here because i didn't want to inadvertently encourage someone else to take up the habit or somehow praise the addiction itself, romanticize it. and then there's the fact that smokers are subjected to some pretty crass and ruthless judgment from the general public too. strangers feel completely okay about marching right up to some random smoker on the street and alerting that person to how "disgusting" they are. it's insanely rude. insanely. i've always been blown away by the fact people think it's totally alright to behave like that and i really didn't want any of that rage and weirdness happening here on my blog. and also, to be totally honest, it's something i'd become increasingly ashamed of. i was not proud to be a smoker. not in the least. i felt pretty stupid about it actually. i started smoking as a very young teenager. 14 years old. and a dumb decision i made in my adolescence was ruling my adult life. it made me feel like a pathetic asshole, to put it bluntly. and i'm afraid of chemo. i'm afraid of what this could lead to. i feel bad about how negligent i've been in terms of caring for my own life. i feel bad i let so many things get in the way. i feel bad that i willingly traded my opportunities to lead a positive and healthy life to sit down in the muck and bullshit with other people.

i'm amazed at how quickly time has passed and how distracted i've been...

and there are all the reasons, all the events, stacked one on top of the other. the long line of trauma and tragedy and every single hurdle that gets nailed down in front of you. time moves so damn fast when there is always a crisis to attend to.

and then a member of my family gets cancer. and i turn 30. and i realize how damn sad all this is... that i've spent more than half my life (16 years) living under the weight of an addiction, and that i developed an addiction of this magnitude as a child. it made me so profoundly sad. so sad i felt ill. and all i could see was wreckage. the wreckage of a family. everywhere, everywhere. i think i've been trying to grieve us... what has happened, what was lost, who we've become... for a very long time. and maybe that ball is finally starting to roll? all i know is that a year ago, on my 29th birthday, i decided i'd had enough. i decided to take the time NOW to clean up the mess, clear it off my path so that i could at least see where i was standing. i decided it was time to start building a life that felt right for me... no matter how long it might take to build. i decided it was time to take Time for myself.

that's where The Almighty Jog originated. and no alcohol. and then about a year later, The Almighty Jog graduates to The Mighty Run. No Alcohol turns into No Refined Sugar. and since that habit was way easier to kick than i thought it'd be, i thought: fuck it, girl. do it now. right now. it's time. and so i quit smoking.

and this is not my first attempt, but this is the first time i've ever lived a healthy life. between running and drinking tea and not eating sugary foods, it's a lot easier than i remember it being- quitting. A LOT easier. in fact, every day i feel better and better. i guess i was just completely ready to give it up... a horribly stupid and malicious thread of my childhood.

i need it to be GONE.

all this to say: sleep disturbances are a very common withdrawal symptom. :)

good morning!!!!

we were all once Holden Caulfield.

i finished reading The Catcher in the Rye last night. the last 60 or so pages is when Holden Caulfield really starts flashing crazy but, honestly, i remember feeling that way a lot when i was a teenager- that the world was phony and mean. it is an exceptional work of art that has really stood the test of time. in spite of the dated slang and euphemisms contained within the language of the book, i think the story itself is sort of timeless... effective regardless of what era it is read in. i'm so glad i decided to go back to it. and it led to a very beneficial, forgiving, necessary walk down memory lane of my own. simply reading it created a warm space where dealing with my own memories and family history led to a soft reconciliation of certain events. it helped me cast a more understanding, gentle eye on the trials we are all faced with throughout our lifetimes. what a cool blessing. and that's ART for ya! :)

my Letter of Intent has morphed in to a huge personal art manifesto. ha! and that is NOT what a Letter of Intent is supposed to be. i suppose i have a lot to say (and get out of the way) before i can get whittle my ideas down to a more manageble bite in terms of a residency. i'm moving from the general to the specific, and it is actually really wonderful to be writing all my ideas down in essay format. hopefully, i can get it all out and then go back in and find a way to condense my aims for the purpose of this letter and get it finished in time. whether or not i am able, it's still a good practice. i haven't had to write a formal essay in 2 years. i guess i'm a bit out of practice.

but today i am painting painting painting. i need a break from all the intellectualism. my mind is tired from all that particular breed of fun. ha! but while we're on the subject of intent and art and The Catcher in the Rye, take a look at page 189. Mr. Antolini makes a very good point. ;)

i am growing up.

this morning everything is blue and grey and sometimes green. a new storm is either rolling in or rolling out. it is too early to tell. and yesterday it rained almost all day long. not that it mattered much, me locked up in my oils. i broke away from the canvas during a break in the weather so inga and i could obey The Almighty Jog and half way through it started raining again. not just a sprinkling, a hard rain, and we got pretty soaked. but there was delight even in that. and inga goes all frenzied and undone when her face gets wet, running and bouncing and jumping in all directions at once, a spilling frothing joy.

i hope today is along the same lines.

there is coffee in the pot and hazelnut cream and the scent of oil and rain clung up on all the windows. inga is sleeping next to me. the heater is on. it is a cold morning.

lately i've been feeling a strong need for detachment, for quiet, for distance. and it is not of the tranquil variety. not totally angry either. it is an odd ambivalence that seems to crave a great and impenetrable distance and lots of time spent in thought or allowing distraction to sweep my mind back up in to a pile that can function without becoming clogged with resentment. i am working my way back to the things that i believe in, the things that i think are relevant and important and necessary. i am mapping and collecting and investigating my attractions, my past, my loves, my hates... the card i've been dealt and the avenues i've wandered down and i've returned to a more fiery way of thinking... a rebelliousness of philosophy that does not allow me to let the circumstances of my life or birth dictate my present tense or my goals or accomplishments or dreams. i will not be the person sitting at the kitchen table, bitter beyond belief by way of absolute resignation, offering nothing but the excuse of suffering, nothing but the "it's not my fault" refrain, nothing but the callous insensitivity that seethes out of The Know-It-Alls of the world. i will not be that.

and of course i have compassion for those tortured, bitter souls. but i accept that i have no control over the beliefs and behaviors of others. i accept that i am incapable of becoming a savior. i have tried repeatedly to save people, to give them what they cry out for, what they need need need... and i have failed. failed each and every time and then woke up to see my life in shambles, the things i've undone, unknowingly, all along the way, all in the name of Help and Love and Service. i never stopped to make the judgement of whether or not the person on the other end of this was capable of respecting the sacrifice, of receiving love and help.

and so i am in a private war to not allow myself to become a cynic. it is not the only option. i could instead become a better judge of character. i could instead become more accepting of myself- my own limitations and responsibilities and proclivities and interests. i could instead take a good look in the mirror and ask that face "why are you such a push over?"

i've been asking myself that question for years, actually, but lately i've come across a couple answers. i see what my role in certain situations have been... and i know that i am not blameless. naive maybe, but not blameless.

and this naivety of mine is sly. i don't notice it the majority of the time and it has compromised things that i have worked HARD for. i can't allow it to continue. not now that i see it. and so, for the last several months, i've become more and more my true self, less and less obliged to work toward becoming "acceptable" to others, and the backlash is not fun but it is a necessary part of this particular journey. self-acceptance and self-investigation, evaluation, the private wrestling of belief systems, childhood craziness, desire, the root of desire, wrestling with the deep demons, the shape-shifters, the shadows that turn to monsters... it is hard work but it must be done. and i've been caught in this investigation for the better part of a year now and things are falling in to place, becoming clear, becoming obvious, thrown out in to a harsh, bright, unforgiving light. i see my flaws and faults so clearly. but i also see that not EVERYTHING is my fault. not everything is my responsibility. not everything is mine to fix or apologize for.

these lessons wear a person out. but not down. i have not been worn down. in fact, i feel gratitude for all this wrestling and writhing and strangeness. i think there comes a point in everyone's life, eventually, where this particular struggle becomes paramount. it extends to every area of a person's life. and it improves all those areas too.

i am on fire lately inside all of my interests. it's amazing. it really is. everyday i get up, pour myself a mug of coffee and go scribbling in my notebook for as long as i need to. this morning practice, this "waking ritual" of mine, writing while my brain is still too sleepy to censor, has led me to such a wonderful place of acceptance and honesty. and at the beginning of the year i made the decision to follow my heart, to trust the work completely, to only paint images that i was truly captivated by, and to surround myself with people who understand that, who know how important it is to go your own way, and this decision has made all the difference. i'm no longer afraid of anything. i can't begin to express what a relief that is. and how freeing.

images and words are searing out of me now and it is such a wonderful, painful, ecstatic, elating thing. i'm myself again. i'm happy with who i am and how i've decided to live. i'm not afraid to accept the consequences or responsibility of it. i like my work. i like my paintings. i like my drawings. i like my way.

go watch! it will make you feel better! elated even!

super timely, i'd say. especially based on the post below. isn't this what it comes down to?

this is your poem for the day.


(i HATE it that people are sticking advertisements in front of videos!)

good

the rain flew sideways last night and hit the windows so hard that i woke up and couldn't fall asleep again until the wind finally blew in the opposite direction. spooky and magical and not at all unwelcome.

my small drawings have become a haven. new languages float and dive through the grey. i make myself a little nest in the big chair by the big window and listen to the storm and the wealth of birds fighting for the washed up worms. i curl in and get warm.

more and more, i am becoming myself.

more and more, i am letting go of the old hurts and horrors of the past. they suddenly seem so dated, so out of place. i nod at the old ghosts and move on, acknowledging their presence but turning off the haunt.

:)

i haven't seen my lady bug again. he probably found an escape route back to the grey forest outside. but on my jog today 3 deer ran with me for a short, startling moment. their white tails up, scared and searching for safe ground. scared of whom? of little ol' me?

i've never been that close to deer before, springing wildly and unsure of direction. for a second i was afraid i was gonna get my ass kicked just like that guy on youtube who tried to box a deer but then they ducked down in to the thick trees and were gone just as quickly as they came.

not quite full disclosure...

sigh.

the past couple days have been alternately great and gruesome, fueled by live music and gin and wine and food and rain. i am worn out, not sad, but have been feeling a bit anxious for the last 3 or 4 days. i've been having strange, sad dreams that leave me feeling guilty and full of regret when i wake up. i've even been feeling the urge to pray lately (which is something exceedingly rare for me). and then i realized that i'm right smack dab in the middle of a very strange anniversary of mine- my college graduation. it is the day i became disowned.

i'd made a statement once that if anybody ever tried to get in the way of my art practice, i'd cut them out of my life quick and sure and without any regret...
and i found myself in a situation where i had to do just that.

i'd need to write a memoir in order to explain what happened... suffice to say that my resolve to become an artist had been tested in the most extreme and unbelievable ways that, at that point, all i wanted was to graduate. i no longer cared about grades or honors or anything other than getting the damn piece of paper. i was hanging on by a very thin string and was living in constant fear that a complete mental break would seize me at any moment. i'd begun having panic attacks... something i was not at all familiar with and it took me awhile to identify that that's what was going on. they'd hit, one right after the other, as i sat quietly on the BART train on my way to campus each morning. it felt like i was about to have a heart attack. the uphill walk from the BART station to campus would work to calm me down but the panic would find me in short order once i was sitting in class. i couldn't even keep track of how many bouts of this crap i'd suffer in a single day.

12 hours later, i'd fall asleep on the train on my way back home and, surprisingly, i never missed my stop.

i was preparing myself to become homeless. i actually wanted to be homeless because it meant i'd be out of the situation i was in. walking in the door to death threats and hunger strikes isn't a happy experience.

so i walked across the stage and got my little scroll and was almost immediately carted off 500 miles away to my mother's house. it was hard to be without jared but i didn't want him to see me lose my mind. he was in a very painful, angry place as well. the situation had re-opened so many things and ghosts and traumas for the both of us... so i made sure he and inga had a new place to live and then i left. they were safe and knowing they were safe was such a huge comfort. and i felt safely hidden from anything and everything that could hurt me at my mother's house. i slept and slept and slept and cried and cried and cried. i woke up to fresh coffee and i'd sit out on the back porch with my mom and we'd talk for as long as it took. my brother and sister stayed by my side and the full weight of the family history was dealt with... together.

all that talking and crying kept my mental slip at bay and i've been working ever since to bring normalcy and regularity and truth in to my life. it has definitely been a hard, confusing year but at least there's been no yelling, no death threats, no hunger strikes, and no deception. there's been lots of writing, lots of walking the dog, lots of painting and drawing and crocheting and reading and talking and (lately) wine with the neighbor.

and so i've been feeling a bit wild, a bit out of sorts, but also extremely thankful for the fact that my life today is nothing like what it was on this day a year ago. i'm in a much better place. i'm safe and healthy and generally happy. i no longer fear for my sanity and i feel optimistic and strong and capable. jared and i are happy and in love. both our careers are moving forward and our home is warm and safe and full of art and honesty.