large life lesson

Friday, November 02, 2007

large life lesson

i learned a large life lesson today, one i hope that i will never forget.

there was a woman who used to live in the basement bachelor apartment in the same building as i live in. she had a lot of cats, and used to feed all the birds and squirrels. she used to watch what everyone did, and talked to anyone who would listen. a number of things happened, she drove me nuts, and i called her the mad cat woman. i consciously chose not to pay her any attention, nor to be her friend.

i received a call today from a mutual friend who had stayed in touch with her after she moved into a house. my friend had not heard from the mad cat woman in over a week and, knowing she was sick, went to her house and broke in through the bathroom window. she found her upstairs in her bed, she had been dead for a week.

i think it is so sad that she died alone, and that it took a week for it to be noticed that she was gone. i had the power to have been her friend, to be someone in her network, and to watch out for her. i was given the opportunity to do good in this world, and i chose not to. i was wrong, and i should have given a damn, and should have contributed good rather than turning my back on someone who was lonely, and who could have done with my friendship.

i preach so much about being good to other people, about being there for them, and about how we are all in this world together so have to help one another. yet i was a hypocrite with this, and i turned my back on someone. that was wrong of me to have done that.

so today, i learned a large life lesson. when the opportunity is presented to me to do some good in this world, i am not going to turn it down. i will contribute what i can, where i can, and when i am able to instead of choosing to turn my back.

in this case, it is too late for me to say i am sorry to her, and it is too late to be her friend...but it is not too late for me to learn from my mistake.

lou

And so it is...

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

And so it is...

And so it is...

i feel peace inside in regards to my past. finally. i can understand why i spent so many years feeling fragmented. i had to fragment myself in order to survive everything i went through. i never split up, and i never became a multiple personality...i simply fragmented instead putting parts of me away and into boxes so i wouldnt fall apart. those pieces are together now, and the story has a linear motion to it instead of being spread around all over my being. i can think back, and know what happened and in which order, something i couldnt do before. i was not able to think of my teenage years in totality. every time i tried to, i would overload and the emotions would be too much to go through.

i do not want to discuss what happened in each event that took place, i just want to look at it as a whole. the individual occurrences dont matter so much to me, it is the resulting damage i have dealt with that matters. it is like "yes, that happened, i acknowledge it, it was awful, and it is over. i have been hurt, and i have survived. i am a good person today, and today is what matters most. those things are in the past, and are done."

i lost my childhood fast, and in a tragic way. yes, that is true. my mother was awful, that too is true. the adults around at that time chose not to see what was going on, and i met a lot of real bad men. this doesnt mean that all men are bad, nor are all mothers. this simply means that the people around me at that time were not very good nor observant. i wasnt taken care of properly when i needed to be. there are no excuses for what happened, and nothing to say that any of it was okay. it was wrong, it was bad, but it happened and is over now.

i still have not cried much beyond a dozen tears for what happened to me. i dont feel as though i need to. i think i have spent countless years being depressed, sad and frustrated over this, without knowing why i felt so much unrest in my soul. now i know the cause of the unrest. and am feeling more settled. i think peace is what is important to me now. i have already cried enough.

and so this is what has happened. i am a good person today. i am not promiscuous, and i am not usually mean hearted. i work hard to stay a good person and to keep my belief in humanity. i work hard not to become bitter inside. it would be so easy to hate the world, and to bear a grudge against everyone and everything that this happened to me. its not worth it though, being angry doesnt bring me peace, and i need peace.

i know that everything that is given out in life comes back, so it is not of my concern as to what happens/happened to those men. they have to live with what they have done, and it will come back to haunt them. it is seldom that we deeply hurt another being and not have it come back to haunt us. justice will prevail in time, i know that it will. i only have to think of the life my mother leads now to know that everything we put out comes back to us threefold.

i know that some day i will meet someone, i have no doubt about that. i am in no rush either. overall, i have a pretty good life alone and dont need someone to complete me. i dont feel so complicated anymore. i also do not relish the idea of ever having to tell someone all this mess either though, it is a lot to tell someone who doesnt really know me. the real life guy knew almost nothing of any of my history, the online guy knew just a bit more. neither of them ever knew the full story, and i dont know if i ever would have told them.

i know that if i am to ever have a deep and meaningful relationship with someone, that i will have to face telling them the truth. **sighs** maybe that will be a sign that it is okay, i will be able to tell my story to the man i am to love. i used to talk more to my boyfriends when i was younger, today i keep more inside. funny how i can type it all out for anyone to read, yet i cant talk to a man one on one about it. i am sure that that will change some day. i know that i will have to talk openly to a man about it, and am sure i will when the time is right. maybe i will just send them to my blog instead.

i understand more how it is that i came to care for the online guy. it is still hard for me to let go of him, and i still miss him after it being more than three months that we talked last. i still miss the real life guy too, more than i care to admit, and it has been eight months. i actually miss him more than the online guy as he was in the real world with me and the other guy has always been somewhat removed. both of these were safe men for me as neither was capable of giving himself to me. it doesnt mean that i loved them any less though. i fell for the real life guy the first time i met him, it hit me hard, and makes me believe that there is love at first sight. i fell in love with the online guy slowly over time, always yearning for what i could not have. i know that, in time, i will stop thinking of either one of these men, and will let go. it is actually pretty positive that i am able to love at all, given what i have gone through in life.

i finally cried over the online guy tonight, and am starting to let him go. i have to. it is time. i am feeling like the connection is severed now anyhow, and has been for some time. he is gone, and isnt coming back. i need to accept this.

i still feel like the real life guy is around some place in the background. i dont feel like our time together is done. this is my gut feeling, not my logic. logic says he is long gone, instinct tells me he isnt and there is still a connection of sorts. my connection with the online guy is broken, the real life guy remains.

i am cold. the summer heat left a couple of days ago, and the house is cold. i am going to go put some warm clothes on, and make hot chocolate. i have worked piling up around me, and should tackle a few more hours before sleep.

hot chocolate and warm clothes, that is what will make me happy tonight. it is the small things in life that are important.

and so it is...



*****
jan 16, 2010

as a later note to this posting...

i wound up seeing the real life guy again after 9 months of not dating, and we were involved for almost another year. i finally told him i loved him after 2.5 years of knowing him, it literally took that long for me to feel "safe" with him, only to have the relationship end after doing this. i still don't understand why we didn't have a full relationship as we had almost everything in common beside his gross materialism and wealth and my lack of social status - we laughed, talked, hung out, etc and even our last time together was great with oodles of chemistry and interaction. since everything ended, even though i still feel he is in the background somewhere, i have emotionally let him go and just simply hope he is happy, and am content knowing that the time we shared was good. as well, we have zero communication these days, which is for the best at this time.

untold stories

 Wednesday, August 01, 2007

untold stories 

07/31/07 

When I was a little girl

I used to dance

I played with my friends

After school

When I was a little girl

I used to dance

I read lots of books

In a cherry tree

When I was a little girl

I used to dance

I spoke to the trees

And to the plants

When I was a little girl

I used to dance

Then one 

Day

It.

All.

Changed.

We left my step-dad.

And my life became worse than it had ever been.

I came home from school

One afternoon

Found my mother upstairs

Almost dead

I was frightened and scared

And no adult was there

I called to the bar

For my step-dad

I loved him, and he was good to me.

I missed him, I never wanted to leave him, and my mother made me leave with her.

He came big and strong

To help with my mom

An ambulance came

She was gone

My world it turned black

No light entered in

I started to forget how to

Dance with my friends

The memories are gone

No reminder remaining

But a hole in my heart

Was unfilled

My life was unsure

And safety was none

And so came the start of

My song

A man she met

And moved us in

Four weeks later his wrath

We endured

I think I was outside

Watching from inside

He smashed on the walls

Of our home

Frightened and scared

With no place to run

My new home life

Had begun

He had a big dog

Black, with trusting brown eyes

Two feet tall

With long ears

He fed him a beer

Held his head to pour it in

The big beautiful dog

Fell down

The man laughed so hard

Thought it humour and fun

My heart broke inside

For the dog

A few weeks later

I was sleeping on the floor

My mom and that man

Down the hall

Tiger was his name

And sex was his game

He found me sleeping

There

I was very young

And he was twice my age

Fifteen feet away

No one cared

I learned to drink

And to do drugs at home

Believing they were the right

Things to do

Violence was normal

Safety was none

And no one watched out

For me

I cut my hand open

Blood running down

Went into the house

For some help

Company was over

The party going strong

And nobody noticed

Me bleed

One night he was angry

And smashed a car window with wood

Trying to attack my

Mom

I tried to defend her and was

Dragged back in the house and was

Beaten with a coat hanger in a closet by

Their friend

I slept on the floor

With the dirt and the dust

An old blanket was

My bed

He came home one night

And stood over me

Took out his penis

And “peed”

And nobody knew

And nobody cared

For the little girl

Who was me

We found a new town

And an old dirty house

The ceiling was falling

Down

My life it grew worse

And violence was a curse

I was rolled in a ball and

Was thrown

One day he was sweeping

All through the room

I said something rude and

Wore the broom

The fights were so bad

And home was unsafe

I ran in the snow with

No shoes

A man found me cold

And offered a ride

The local drug dealer

He was tough

He got me safe and warm

And wiped away my tears

And was the kindest man who

I met

A fight on the stairs

Lighting was dim

My mother was yelling

At me

I left.

But my body remained.

Three.

Feet.

Away.

And I watched.

And stopped feeling any pain.

After school one day

The man came onto me

Stuck his tongue down my throat

And I don’t know anymore

The time is black

No reminders remain

The story locked deep

Inside me

I cut a hole in my leg with a razor blade to see if I could feel.

I stopped eating my food

And became really thin

Thinking to vanish

Away

I spent days in my bed

Alone with no food

And death entered in and 

Spoke to me

I became unafraid to die.

A drive down the road

I was taken in

But the doctor he never

Rescued me

I stood on the steps

In the falling snow

Watched the man beat his dog

With his boots

Smeared with food on my neck

From a very bad fight

I ran to my friends to

Get away

I saw my friends homes

Peaceful and warm

With no holes in the floor

Underneath

No bruises and blood

No beer and no pot

No cigarettes

No sex

They seemed so safe.

And I knew that there was more

And a better life for me

So I asked to be taken

Away

And they took me.

My foster home was okay

In the country I lived

Thinking all was safe for

Awhile

The third time was there

He was twice my age

And nobody rescued

Me

People all around

Yet no one heard

No one came into

The room

And I tried to kill myself.

And was moved to a different house.

Holy Jesus Christ, our Savior he

Will come and he will rescue you

Repent

Repent

Repent

And the lord will come and take you

On judgment day

Repent

Repent.

And they sent me away to

A new place

To make me

“better”

And I grew worse.

And I forgot about dancing

Sex and smoking and

“Jeanie is Crying”

And I built my land of

Cherries

I ran away and wound up with bikers

I ran away and lived on the street

And in the train station

In Toronto

And they locked me up and

Shot me full of sedatives and

They took my clothes 

Away

And left me

Naked

On the

Floor

With a plastic covered

Mattress in a

Cold room with

Steel bars

And steel mesh and

They

Observed

Me

As I ripped the 

Flesh

From my hands

Trying to

Punch.

My.

Way.

Out.

They left me in

The dark

Alone

Terrified

The scars on my hands fade with time.

And this

Was to make

Me

“Better”

Man number four got me there

no one was looking no one watched

And no one knew

At all

He had bright blue eyes

I stopped crying

I hypnotized away the pain

Left my body and went

Far away

And I knew in my heart

I really was

Really and truly was

Alone

And nobody heard and nobody came and nobody rescued me

I learned not to love, not to remember, that nowhere was safe, and 

That sex could buy me a bed so I could sleep in the warmth off the street

Fifteen to eighteen months later

I didn’t go to school

And I didn’t dance with my friends

Anymore

I lost my tree 

I lost the books

I lost the plants

I lost me

I was not a little girl 

Anymore

I was thirteen

Maybe fourteen

My innocence and childhood were gone.

I will wrap my poppet warm tonight. She represents myself, my lost self, my lost dance. She has eyes of lapis lazuli to see the truth, to speak from within. Her mouth is red and she smiles. She is me.

I have candles burning. Blood red for life; blue for the west, for water, for emotion, for healing. Perfumed smoke fills the air to purify and cleanse.

I am whole.

I am here.

I am alive.

I am not afraid to live.

And I am not afraid to die.

My life is a gift and

I am a lucky woman

To be here

At all

I still cannot cry but the story is out now.

By the age of fifteen, I was sexually assaulted three more times by three other men. Of the seven men, only two were my own age. The other five men were two to four times older than me. My mothers boyfriend most likely sexually assaulted me, he definitely sexually assaulted my sister. He probably masturbated rather than peed on me when I lay curled up on the floor in a blanket. I don’t know how many more sexual assaults there may have been, or how many men gave me a place to sleep in exchange for sex. Because of trading sex, I never had to sleep on the streets although I ran away a lot. The same men also fed me. I think most of those men were in their late teens or early twenties. There are black holes in my memory from thirteen until fifteen, maybe sixteen. I think I lost most of that time.

Late in that time period, my boyfriend’s family reached out for me and I grasped on tight. That is why I am here today. They taught me “home,” they taught me “me.” I will always be thankful more than anyone could ever know. They did not then, and even now, know all these stories. At the time, my boyfriend did not know some of what happened because I could not tell him even though some of that took place when I was with him.

The stories have not been told together until today. I am forty one years old. It has taken me about twenty five years to tell the unspoken complete story of my early teenage years. The stories started with leaving my step-dad, and ended when I was around thirteen to fourteen years old. I don’t remember much violence after that time period. By the age of sixteen, I had my own apartment and there were no more sexual assaults in my life. For the first time in years, I was finally safe.

lou

a love from the past

Thursday, June 21, 2007

a love from the past

i logged into a chat the other day and poof! he was there. we have not talked in so long. the old emotions hit me fast and rapid, making my heart beat a tad quicker, making my breath catch in my throat. i still love him.

i had to let him go. i know now, and i knew then, that it was the best thing to do. didnt mean that i didnt love him. it simply meant that it was the best thing to do. i cried for weeks, every night, heart broken, mourning him, and missing him so very much. and yet we spent such a short time together. it felt like it had been years. we loved intensely, passionately, deeply, and fast. and, in too short of time, it was over. just like that.

he moved eight hours away, too far for me to keep up the relationship. it was like someone bit a great big hole out of me when he left, and it took a long time for me to stop crying over him. such a gentle person was he. and i think he may be one of the few men who understood that i can love more than one man at a time, that i can see more than one as special. he is someone who could have shared me if that is what would have happened, he would have been okay with that. He encouraged me to continue on the fling i was having when we met, and he knew about jeff, and used to tease me that i would run away to virginia. when jeff found out about him, he refused to talk to me for weeks and weeks, and he never did tell me what was wrong. he didnt want me for himself, and encouraged me to meet someone else. yet, when i did, he got upset. said i hid mark from him, but i never did. i just didnt know how to tell him that mark was here. jeff and i never did resolve what happened over mark, it always remained unspoken and hidden just below the surface of everything we did.

so. we have chatted online. it has been rapid, two nights worth. and old emotions are rising in me. it is like no time has passed. i cannot fall in love all over again with this man, it is not right. he is far away, and i dont live there. this cannot be. i have to keep it at arms length, and enjoy him as a friend. no deep loving allowed.

i met him through a friend. i had gone with her to a local bar, and he was there. he kept coming over and sitting by me, yet not saying much. he just smiled a lot at me. i didnt quite know what to say. so i just smiled a lot back. i gave him my phone number when he asked, and a week or so later heard from him.

he took me on the best first date ever. we met every night before the first date to have mini pre dates where we drank milkshakes and talked until it was late in the evening. for our first official date, we rode bicycles down to the park to watch a midsummer's night dream, my favourite shakespearian play. we ate smoked salmon, vegetables and crackers, sharing food with the folks around us as we had so much to eat. later, we went to a friends place where we sat around a bonfire, played guitars and sang. we drank some wine, and enjoyed ourselves so very much, so very much. he made me feel so very special. it was a special night indeed. we wound up spending eight or ten weeks together, and bonded so tightly in that time. then he had to go.

we cried together when he was leaving. every night he wrapped himself around me and held me tight, and i never felt squashed, i always felt safe. he was so tall and so slim. he fit around me like a cloak. i have never been held like that night after night. he was so gentle with me.

i am glad that the relationship ended in the midst of passion and love. it leaves me with good memories. i still know that it was the right thing to do, and feel no regrets. i just know that once upon a time i loved a man. and i love him still.

xxoo

cherry trees

 Sunday, June 17, 2007

cherry trees 

i went and sat in the backyard of my employer after work tonight with her, her friend, and her daughter.  she has a delightful backyard.  plants, flowers, high fence which makes it private.  the jasmine is in blossom, and the cherry tree is full of dangling cherries, yellow english cherries with a blush of red.  the music was playing softly, and conversation moving around.

cherry trees.  we were eating fruit salad, and cherries from the tree, and the conversation shifted around to childhood places.  i wound up talking quite a bit about where i come from, what my background is.  it is so rare that i talk that much to people all in one sitting, so very rare.  i am okay tonight, not triggered like i thought i may have become by telling so much information.  instead, i just feel as though i shared a part of my story, i shared a part of me.

cherry trees.  when i was a little girl around seven we lived in a house in a small village in a valley.  a river flowed through across the road, and the house was set halfway up a hill covered in a bush.  behind the bush, where the hill leveled out, there were farmers fields that stretched for miles and miles.  there was one house built up there which looked out across the valley.  it was an idyllic spot for childhood.

cherry trees.  i read a lot of books as a child, i constantly had my nose buried in one, and one of my most favourite spots to read was in the cherry tree in the front yard.  i read my way through the Katy Did books, through the Little Women series, through Around the World in 180 Days, Enid Blyton by the bushel full, Alice was a favourite friend, Jane Eyre, Daddy Long Legs, and Narnia.  All were my friends, and more.  Reading was such a good escape for me, and the tree brought me peace.

cherry trees.  i would sit in that tree all day.  i ate cherries, i read books, and i felt safe.  later when i was a teenager, i learned to separate myself from reality, a form of self hypnosis, and i recreated my cherry tree.  i lived in a horrible place that i hated, and cherry hill became a sanctuary of sorts.

cherry trees.  i had an entire world in my mind that i would go to, and all of it involved cherries.  i called it cherry hill.  and when things were looking bleak, i would rock myself there.  i climbed up a hill, and went to visit the cherry people who lived in little cherry houses with tiny windows with cherry curtains, and tiny cherry doors.  inside we drank cherry juice and we ate cherry pie and fresh cherries.  little cherry chairs, and little cherry tables.  and the cherry people didnt feel anything, they didnt cry, they didnt laugh, they just survived until the purple monster came and got them.  the purple monster was at the bottom of the hill, and it would come up with the cherry merry go round and would get all the cherry people.  sometimes the cherry people got away.  and so it was in my imaginary world.

cherry trees.  and it kept me safe.

cherry hill did not last for a very long time, by the time i was twenty i think it was all gone.  it was just a place i had inside my head for a few years, a place i could go to when i got overwhelmed in the real world.  cherry hill does not exist at all anymore in any place apart from my memory.  it was a very special place for me.

cherry trees.  and so tonight i sat underneath a cherry tree, and i told a lot of my story.  and it was okay.  that is the first english cherry tree i have seen, that i remember, since childhood.

cherry trees.

:)

lou

East Street

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

east street 

i used to live in a house on east street.  it wasnt quite a real house, just sort of a house.  it had a backyard, yet the front door opened right on the sidewalk in the middle of the little town i was living in.  it was an odd location.  big place, 3 bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry.  the bathroom was one of the sunniest bathrooms i ever remember seeing, and i really liked it.

my mom had just left my step dad, and i was in grade 7.  we had hardly any furniture at that time, but it was a vast improvement over the motel we had been staying in.  it got cold in that house, and water froze in the glass in my bedroom.  sometimes we didnt have any electricity either as my mom didnt always pay the bill.  still, it was our home at that time.

sometimes my friends would come over after school, and we would dance to the sound track from grease, and dream that we were sandy.  i liked sandy so much that i even wore my hair up in barrettes just to be like her.  we used to dance to disco too.

i actually dont have many memories in that house.  there is a picture some place of my mom looking scared and serious holding up some toy she made in front of a christmas tree, and a picture of my stepdad holding me by the scruff of my neck while i am laughing in my bedroom.  i had stuck photos all over the wall with tape, and had some old blue flowered sheer curtains tied up with string.  an afghan and a doll are on my bed, and the room is a putrid peach colour.  i dont think there are any other pictures from that house.  and i cant remember much that happened there.

i came home from school one day, and heard a crashing on the ceiling as i sat on the couch.  there were thumping sounds coming down.  i went up and found my mom in bed.  she could hardly speak but told me to go call my step dad at the legion where he was drinking with his friends.  i called him and told him to come over, which he did.  the legion was only a block away so he got there fast.  he called an ambulance, and the last thing i remember seeing was my mom on a stretcher being wheeled out of the house.  she didnt come back.  i dont know how long she was gone, and i dont know who looked after us.  i dont know if we went some place.  i have no memories of this time.  i know that she would have been gone for at least a month.  she had been sent to the local psych hospital as she had attempted suicide, and they kept her there for awhile.  after she had left the house, i went and looked around in her bedroom.  i remember finding pills and alcohol beside the bed, and a joint in the ashtray.  i dont remember feeling any emotions.  it is like that memory is just simply a tape that doesnt elicit any emotion, and i am missing most of the tape.  i just have this one scene of my mom trying to kill herself, a vague memory of dancing with my friends, and the layout of the house.

when my mom got out of the psych hospital, she had a boyfriend she had met there.  we moved in with him really fast, my sister and i being put in this tiny room in a mobile home.  the place was filthy.  i dont know how long it was before he became violent.  i dont remember any happy times at the mobile.  it was all dirty, unhappy, lots of drinking, people around, fish, and fighting.  the quality of my life went down so fast there.  i had little attention from my mom before.  in that house, i had none.  i was still in grade 7.

i cut my thumb real bad while filleting fish in the driveway.  i went in the house to get some help from someone.  everyone was so drunk, that no one helped me.  i had blood pouring down my hand.  i still have a scar from it.  i finally went to my friends house just down the road.  her mom cleaned my thumb up.  how could all those adults have ignored a kid with a bleeding thumb? i still dont understand.

i only hate one person in this entire world, and that is the man who my mom moved us in with when she got out of the psych hospital.  in all the years she lived with him, over ten, she never knew why he had been interred at the hospital.  turned out that he had sat in front of his ex-wife's house with a loaded shot gun pointed at her door.  he had sat there for ages before they took him away.  he was banned from owning guns because of that, and had to spend time in the psych hospital.  she never knew this until i was in my twenties.  and this is the man she trusted with herself and with her children.

my mom stood up for this man the entire time she was with him.  she always said i was lying when i tried to tell her what happened with him when she wasnt at home.  she said that i instigated everything, and that it was my fault that he was violent with her.  everything was blamed on me.  i was a kid, maybe 12 years old.  how could i instigate so much damage? i used to protest my innocence with her, but she never believed me.  by grade 8 we were living in a new city, in another house.  

that house was so run down.  there were holes in the floor in the kitchen so you had to be careful stuff didnt go into the basement.  the living room ceiling partly fell down from under the tub, and i dont think anyone ever fixed it.  there was just this huge spot with wood showing through.  that house was real dirty too.  everything was dirty when i was a kid.  my mom never really cleaned anything, nor did laundry.  she told me to go do it on my own once when i said about washing clothes.  how she expected me to go do it is beyond my thinking.

anyhow, i am not writing about that house.  i was writing about east street.  it is easy to get pulled down the road along to the different houses at times.  i just want to focus in on east street.

i liked my friends there.  i dont remember exactly who i hung out with, or what we did, i just have a great sense of happiness when i think of them.  and i remember dancing.  and i remember sunshine in the bathroom.  those are the good things, and what i choose to remember the most.  

looking back, it was a pretty big time of transitions for me.  we left the man who i loved dearly, my step father.  i didnt want to leave him.  i remember my mom screaming at me in the driveway that i had to go with her, and i didnt want to leave.  i loved him a lot.  my mom said later how he would come to east street and bring food.  he would eat and put the leftovers in the fridge, but we were not allowed to eat them.  i dont remember this at all.  that is just one of my moms stories.  i had to change schools when we moved and, at that age, i am sure that i must have been going through physical changes as well.

anyhow, i better get moving on with the day.  i am in a good mood today, feeling happy.  the sun is out, and it is a good day to be alive.  i am thankful that i dont live on east street and am thankful i dont live in that town.

i am wandering back to the sunshine of today...

:)

lou

 

"Tamburitza Lingua"

Monday, May 28, 2007

"Tamburitza Lingua" (ani difranco)

a cold and porcelain lonely
in an old new york hotel
a stranger to a city
that she used to know so well
bathing in a bathroom
that is bathed in the first blue light
of the beginning of a century
at the end of an endless night

then she is wet behind the ears and wafting down the avenue
pre-rush hour
post-rain shower
stillness seeping upwards like steam
from another molten sewer
summer in new york

they've been spraying us with chemicals in our sleep
us / they
something about the mosquitoes having some kind of disease
them / me
CIA foul play
if you ask the guy selling hair dryers out of a gym bag
chemical warfare
"i'm telling you, lab rat to lab rat," he says, "that's where the truth is at"
that's where the truth is at
that's where the truth is at

and everything seems to have gone terribly wrong that can
but one breath at a time is an acceptable plan
she tells herself
and the air is still there
and this morning it's even breathable
and for a second the relief is unbelievable
and she's a heavy sack of flour sifted
her burden lifted
she's full of clean wind for one lean moment
and then she's trapped again
reverted
caged and contorted
with no way to get free
and she's getting plenty of little kisses
but nobody's slippin' her the key

her whole life is a long list of what ifs
and she doesn't even know where to begin
and the pageantry of suffering therein
rivals television
tv is, after all, the modern day roman coliseum
human devastation as mass entertainment
and now millions sit jeering
collectively cheering
the bloodthirsty hierarchy of the patriarchal arrangement

she is hailing a cab
she is sailing down the avenue
she's 19 going on 30
or maybe she's really 30 now ...
it's hard to say
it's hard to keep up with time once it's on its way

and, you know, she never had much of a chance
born into a family built like an avalanche
and somewhere in the 80s between the oat bran and the ozone
she started to figure out things like why
one eye pointed upwards looking for the holes in the sky
one eye on the little flashing red light
a picasso face twisted and listing down the canvas
of the end of an endless night

10 9 8 seven six 5 4 three 2 one
and kerplooey
you're done.
you're done for.
you're done for good.
so tell me
did you?
did you do
did you do all you could ?

 

Saturday, May 12, 2007

emotional junk dumping, 3am, saturday

mothers day flower for me as i have been a great mom to myself
(taken by myself on campus in april 2007)

okokokok :)

i am going to write.  something.  yup, its time.

april was nuts, and was pretty intense for the most part.  i was in school full time, and working full time between three positions.  i did very well, holding in there until about halfway through the second last week, when i snapped.  yup, i crashed.  big time.  right back into the throes of what i went through after the zyban reaction...frozen in one spot, sleeping heaps, not really getting much done beyond the basics, and spending ages wandering in circles starting stuff but not finishing anything.  thankfully, it passed after about ten or twelve days, and i managed not to lose any of my jobs.  mind you, my final exams took a huge blow....a massive one.

i have been working on coming to terms with the fact that what i go through quite probably will never fully go away.  it will abate as long as i do not get too stressed, but it quite probably will never go away.  this comes as no real surprise as it seems no matter what i do or change, it still seems to lurk in the background sometimes stronger sometimes weaker.  at least i know what i am dealing with.

see, i have led a colourful life, one in which a lot has happened.  i have had complex trauma happen in my life, which leaves me dealing with complex ptsd.  i have known that i deal with ptsd at times since my late twenties.  it is only recently i talked to my therapist about it more, and asked if that is what i am dealing with.  she said that she thinks so, that its complex, and when i asked if it will be here for life, she said she thinks so to that too....none of this surprises me.  i think i always knew, just wasnt quite ready to face that i may have something for the rest of my life.  now, mind you, i can learn to live with this, and to modulate it as best as possible.  its not like being handed a sentence for me, it is more liberating.  it is like yes! i finally have something i can work with! something that makes sense, and gives me a frame work, and that i can actually target.  :) so in that regard i am happy...happy to finally understand what goes on with me when i get too stressed and shut down.

i have been reading a fair amount about this the last few weeks.  there has been ever so much more research done on this than what was done ten years ago.  ten years ago, most folks i spoke to did not know what ptsd was, and complex ptsd didnt even exist.  complex ptsd is a newer catagory, and one that is up for consideration for inclusion in the next copy of the dsm.  it helps to explain so many things to me.

see, before i would read all kinds of stuff, and try to figure out if that is what was wrong with me.  i have known that something has been going on, especially the last six years or so, i just didnt know exactly what.  i had figured that much of my ptsd was under control as i had done therapy for it in my late twenties.  little did i know...

the more stressed i get, the worse i get.  i feel things more strongly than most folks do, my emotions are intense.  anyone who knows me can vouch for me being on the hyper side, and that i get passionate about things.  i can tend towards being a drama queen as well at times, to be honest.

i think that the zyban reaction was a real smack on the head for me.  i was already dealing with a lot from my past, and the zyban was kind of the straw that broke the camels back.  the longer i have remained low stress, the better i have been getting.  i have learned this winter that the more stress i undergo, the more i start to return to the state i was in directly after the zyban episode.  for the most part, i do well as long as i remain calm.  it is like my nerves are healing, and i just keep getting better and better...being able to deal with more and more, and a wider range of emotions.  i am not a basket case all the time btw, it is just that sometimes i feel overwhelmed emotionally.

i sometimes get upset that i have to go through this.  i never asked for the life that was dealt to me.  i didnt ask for an abusive neglectful mom, for my dad to get killed, for my mom to have a violent abusive boyfriend who tried to hit on me sexually and who gave me drugs and alcohol.  i didnt ask to have a violent boyfriend in my twenties, nor to have one who scammed me for thousands of dollars and who stole my stuff.  i didnt ask to be hit by a car, nor for the two accidents my boyfriend got me into.  i didnt ask for my stepfather to be killed in a motorcycle accident.  and i tried to do something good for me when i took zyban to quit smoking.  i tried to do something good in some of the situations, to get myself out of them.  when i was thirteen, i went to childrens aid and asked them to take me away as i knew that my family life was not normal.  my mom didnt take care of me at all at that time, and her boyfriend was horrific.  i became a foster kid to get away from home.  the violent relationship only lasted around two years, with me ending it.  the scamming relationship only lasted about the same amount of time, again with me ending it.  i dont think that i asked for any of those things.  that is just the life that i have led.  and yes, i could have left both of those men earlier but i didnt.  i left when i felt strong enough, and when i had had enough and wanted something better.

i have striven to be a better person.  i was terrified of having kids in my twenties for fear that i would be an abusive mother like my mom had been towards me.  i realize now that i would make a great mom, but at the time i didnt know that.  it wasnt until i talked with a therapist in my mid twenties did i realize that i would have been okay as a parent.  needless to say, i still dont have kids and quite probably never will at this age.  and i am okay with that.

i cant blame my entire life on my mom, just parts of it.  i have made choices in there too as i have grown up.  its just that she gave me a shitty start in life.  i think she knew that she would be a bad parent and maybe that is partly why she left my sister and i and went to canada when we were so small.  perhaps she knew that she would never be able to look after us.  i think that may be, in part, why she left us with my dad.  most moms would never leave their kids and move to another country...that just isnt done all that often.  if my dad hadnt of died...

i used to think about that when i was younger an awful lot, about what my life would have been like if my dad had of lived.  my first dad was killed in a car accident when i was five, and i came to live in canada when i was six.  my life sure would have been different if he had of lived.  he was killed in the middle of the night with his brother.  i think that must have been so hard on his family.  they lost two boys at once in a brutal accident.  how do you cope with that? i am forty years old, it happened thirty five years ago, and i am still learning to cope with the aftermath of that accident.

i travelled home to england once to meet all my family.  my blood family that is.  when i met my dads family, each brother told me about his version of the night my dad was killed.  it was almost like they felt that they had to atone to me or something.  maybe in doing so, it brought them closure.  i am sure that the accident had as much of an impact on them as it did on me.

you know that if you beat someone long enough, and hard enough, that eventually they stop fighting back, and finally will agree that they are wrong regardless of whether or not they did anything.  that is what i felt like when i was a teenager, like i was beaten too long and too hard.  i felt like i was the worst person ever, like i didnt even deserve to eat or to live.  it is a good thing though, that i have a strong part in me, deep inside, that stood up and fought back.  i think it is the strong part of me that pulled me through a lot of the crap that i went through.  it is like parts of my ego got broken, bruised...but a part of me knew that i was worth fighting for, that i was worthy.  it is the strong part that kept me sane.  i think that my intelligence has been my saving grace, and has been the foundation of the strong part of me.  i always knew in my heart that there was more to life than what i was living as a teenager, that there was more than what my mom was showing me.  i am so thankful that i met my family folks at that time, and that they showed me how a real family can love and support each other through everything.  i knew that there had to be more.

i have done some thinking on my family background as well, on what may have made my mom be the way she is.  she says that my grandfather never loved her, that he didnt want her.  yet my grandmother has told me how he overstayed his leave from the army just to be there when she was born.  if he didnt want her, why did he stay past his time? to me that shows caring, desire, and eagerness for her to be born.

my grandfather was in the military.  he was a parachuter.  when he came home from fighting, my grandmother told me how he developed what she called the "blue devils." he would wake up yelling and screaming, sometimes would go right back to the battle scenes when he was wide awake, and that is when he became violent with her.  i now know that what he would have been going through was shell shock, ptsd.  they never knew what it was then.  all my nan knew is that he came home a changed man, one who could not always be trusted.  he drank a lot.  he was okay most times if he was sober, but got nasty if he drank.  i dont remember him being nasty, he was always good around us kids.  mind you, we got taken away at times, and were told to behave around him.  i think my grandmother protected us from him.  he must have been awful to my mom when she was small.  it would have been right around that time that he developed the blue devils.  she told me how when she was small he would throw knives at her.  he systematically smashed all of my grandmothers crystal.  it is so sad that at that time there was no knowledge about what he was going through, and no help for him.  i feel torn at times.  there is a part of me who gets angry at my grandfather for the destruction he caused to my family, and there is also a very very very deep compassion for the horror he must have lived not knowing what was taking place inside of himself, and no help available.  i dont get angry at him very often....i usually just feel more compassion than anything, and sadness for him.  he was a good man to many people, someone to be respected, he just wasnt always very good at home.  my grandmother is a strong woman.  so my mom didnt have a very good start in life either.  she paid for the damage that war caused to my grandfather.  she also learned to drink, even worse than he ever did.

my grandfather drank once in a while.  it wasnt very often from what i remember, not often at all.  my mom drank every day.  she was always drinking.  it didnt really matter if she drank or not, she was nasty regardless.

its kind of funny.  one of the best things that anyone ever did for me was done by my orthodontist, and i bet he never even had any idea what he was erasing.  he filed my front teeth straight...smoothing out a couple of chips.  they were fairly tiny chips, not ones that anyone would readily notice, but they were so big and huge and glaring to me.  they are gone now, and i dont have the horrible reminder every time i look into the mirror of my mom smacking me in the mouth and chipping my teeth.  how the hell does an adult do that to a child? i cant fathom it, and i dont understand.  yes, intellectually i can understand how she had a crappy start etc etc...but i also know about rational choice, and she is an intelligent woman.  how could she bring herself to hit a kid? i was three feet tall! and she hit me with her fist.  how can an adult do that? my teeth are straight now, and the chips have been erased.  the memory becomes easier and easier to live with as well as i grow older, and admit more to myself that she is a terrible person.  i was only a child, and did not deserve to be hit.

it is mothers day tomorrow.  maybe that is why i am rambling on so much about my family history.  i dont like mothers day.  why should i be forced to celebrate the very person who created the foundation i struggle against in my life? i dont respect her, and she contributed very little that is good to my being.  she doesnt deserve flowers and a card.  many people have said to me that it would be so nice if i could have a relationship with my mother.  they do not understand that to have a relationship with her is toxic and poisonous to me, that my mother does not like me and does not contribute anything positive to my life.  she will only cost me thousands more dollars, and a lot of heartache.  i deserve better in this life.

i would rather have a special persons day, where we are to celebrate the people who are important to us.  my grandmother is important to me.  my heartmom is important to me.  my friends are important too.  i would rather celebrate those people instead of some evil woman who hates me.  i dont like mothers day.  i dont like fathers day either.  i would rather celebrate special people for both days.  and i hated being made to make things as a kid for those days.  that is just plain sadistic and cruel to make kids make things for parents who cant even treat them good.  mind you, i didnt know she was treating me bad until much later.

i saw my old childhood neighbour a few days ago.  i think i am going to phone her and ask her to meet up to talk to me of my childhood.  there are so many holes in it.  she was saying how her mom still talks about how badly my mom treated us kids.  i know that childrens aid had a file on us when we were small, i just dont know what was in it, nor if we were ever investigated.  i wish someone could have intervened when i was small, that someone could have taken me away from my mom.

i said to my therapist the other week how my stepfather treated us well when we were kids.  and yes, overall, he did.  he fought with my mom, not us kids.  he was kind to us, and made sure we had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.  he tried to teach me things to give me a good start in life, and some of those things i still cherish.  he taught me to love books, and to be myself.  he taught me that i can do things, and that doing them is a choice.  i choose to do things, the word cannot does not exist.  the word would be i wont, not i cant.  but when i was sitting there telling her that, i also knew that he wasnt all that good in some regards either.  he never stopped my mom, and he never protected us.  he fought with her, and made it so she would have to come wake us up in the middle of the night, put us in the car, and drive around the town for hours until he was asleep from drinking and it was safe to come home.  he made it so my mom would come crawl into my bed in the middle of the night as it was safer for her that way.  and he told me that i didnt exist, that this entire world was a figment of my imagination, and i believed him.  he wasnt always good either.  he was never violent or nasty to me, but indirectly he wasnt always good.  i loved him a lot, and i still do.  i respected him.  and it is hard to admit that he wasnt always good, but it is the truth.  he should have protected me, and he chose to do nothing.

when i was about 8 or 9 years old, i tried to run away from home.  i packed all my library books up into a plastic bag, and went and sat down on the side of the highway for my stepdad to come home to take me to my friends place.  i guess i threw stones at my mom before i left, telling her i was going to leave and go to my friends place.  she got in a lot of trouble for that one.  maybe he did try to protect me in some ways.  maybe...  she used to tell me not to tell him what she did to me.  i dont know how she hid my chipped teeth from him, if she ever did.  maybe he didnt notice.

the last while, i keep getting smacked in the chest with heavy emotions when i see yellow school buses.  not all the times, just sometimes.  it is like tears just come welling out of my chest, and want to pour down my face, and my throat closes up and its hard to breath.  if i am alone, i let myself cry.  if i am around other people i try to control my face so no one can see what i am going through.  they are simple school buses, but trigger such deep emotions in me.

i was driving one day, and i got stuck behind a school bus.  i figured okay, i am here alone, good time to explore this and try to figure out what is behind it, what is causing the bus to be an emotional trigger.  all that i could come up with was potential.  those buses contain little kids who are full of potential.  they have so much ahead of them and they are so fragile, and vulnerable.  they are kids who can grow up to be valued people in our society, they are our future.  i had my potential taken away from me when i was a kid.  i was tainted before i even had time to grow up.  yes, i am a valued member of society, but it is by my own doing, and by the doing of my family folks, not the doing of the people who were supposed to raise me up to be someone.  i lost my potential in childhood, i lost my innocence.  and that wasnt fair.  i didnt do anything nor ask for that to be taken away.  that is about the only thing i can come up with as to why school buses make me cry.  i liked school then, and i enjoyed learning.  all the trips to school were good ones.  i dont remember anything bad on the bus.  all i can think of is the symbolic meaning, the potential of the kids inside the bus.

gosh i am really on a downer tonight.  i havent written for awhile, and this is the kind of stuff that gets built up inside of my head.  this is what i ponder over, and try to understand.  when i get deeper and deeper understanding of what happened, then it becomes easier to deal with emotionally, and i can overcome what i go through.  the more i talk about it, or write about it, the easier it is to work with.  if i were to never talk or write, i would never get anywhere with it.  i find it good to write here in my blog as i can let things go here.  i know that maybe someone will read something.  maybe it will let them know that they are not alone, and that all this crap that other people can do to us can be overcome.  we are more than what we are given as kids, way more.  i know i am a good person, and i know i have a right to be here.  i know that people care about me, and i care about them.  my mom never succeeded in taking that away from me.  it took me a long time to get to the point where i knew and understood that i am a good person.

i still dont feel much anger towards her.  i question so much, and i get disgusted with her, but i dont often feel much anger.  i feel pity more than anything i think, and a huge lack of respect.  she is paying for what she did to me as a kid.  i know she has to be.  she is not a happy person, and lives a reclusive life.  she has almost no friends, and people dont turn to her for anything.  she is totally unreliable.  well...i should say all of this in past tense as its been over six years since i had anything to do with her.  the last thing i did for her was to pay out three thousand dollars in her back bills, and deposit a bit into her bank account.  she never even called me to say thank you, or that the money was in her account.  the last time i ran into her, she covered her mouth horrified that it was me, backed up, and walked rapidly away.  she never spoke to me at all, just ran away.  she didnt even recognize me until i spoke to her.  she is not a good mother.

and so, i dont wish to celebrate mothers day.  mothers day is tomorrow, and i have to go to work at the restaurant.  i will be working a ten hour shift, looking after loads of people who will be celebrating mothers day.  i will have to smile a lot, and pretend to be happy.  tomorrow may be a bit rough but i will get through.  i have done that job so many times that it is easy for me to be a happy friendly person.  most likely, i will genuinely end up happy anyhow as i enjoy people so very much.

it is late here, and i have eight hours to get some sleep in before heading off to work.  i am going to trundle off to my bed and put star wars in the player to fall asleep too.  i have dumped another load of my emotional junk into my blog, and so my head grows ever so slightly clearer.

good night.

lou