My Tree

My tree is majestic and beautiful;
her leaves blow gracefully,
whispering a song with the wind.
A sound as light as air-
if you want to hear you have to listen.
My tree is wise and knows the secret of life.
Do not fight the wind, let it blow around you.
She is pregnant with fruit,
orbs ripe, bursting with juice. 
A feast for the birds, the bugs and the human.
Rooted to the Earth she stands tall,
her trunk never sways-
not even for the strongest storm.

Hurt

The first time that I remember being aware of what it meant to get hurt I was under five years old. I was at my cousins house and we were playing in the grass in the back yard. We decided to play with the sprinkler, which was stored in a shed, on the uppermost shelf. The Rainbow sprinkler was metal and when you turned it on, it made a rainbow in the spray.
I climbed up on top of something and reached for it (I can see this memory clearly in my mind, as if it was yesterday). I grasped the sprinkler and pulled it towards myself--right towards my face. The next thing I knew I had a gash in my forehead and my Aunt Faith was doctoring the wound.
Prior to this incident, I had been hurt but I had not become aware of what "getting hurt" meant or even was. So, when I reached for the sprinkler I had one thought. To get it down, and play with it. There was no fear that I would become injured, because that concept did not exist to me yet.
To me, this incident was significant. I remember being conscience of what it means to feel pain.
I feel like most of my life I have spent being very self aware. Even as a child I worried about getting hurt. This is burdensome to me sometimes.Other times I think that it helps me to be more careful with other people's feeling and beings. I don't want anyone to feel pain, emotional or physical.
Fear causes me irrational anxiety. I fear getting hurt and I fear someone I love being hurt. I tend to spend a lot of time in solitude thinking and then worrying and then praying. I pray for people I love, and I pray for people that I hate. I have spent many hours fearing imminent death, even when I am just sitting or showering.  I have allowed the fear of being hurt stop me from giving my whole heart to another person; and I pray that these walls around my heart will fully come down again some day so that I can live without irrational fear.

Salty Plums

I grew up in a very religious household. Several times each week my Mom would sit with me and my sisters and study the Bible. When we were very little, it would be more picture drawing and more stories about Jesus. As we got older the messages would be more adult.
Our Bible studies would include stories that included the messages like masturbation was wrong in God's eyes and that we should be ready for the day when God would bring about a new Earth, in the form of Armageddon.  They also included attending meetings three times a week, for hours. The fellowship was what I always enjoyed the most. I fit in and made friends; but gradually my rebellion, will and guiding forces that put those feelings into me pulled my mind in other directions. By the time I was twelve I told my Mom that I did not want to attend. It has and continues to be a goal of my Moms to encourage me to attend since this time when I was twelve to now.

When I was eleven I was molested. When I finally disclosed this to my Mother a year later I was told that it was a "dream," and sent out of the room while my parents discussed it with members of our religion. It took me until I was twenty years old to forgive my parents for this incident. It changed who I was at that time. I was a teenage girl who did not know how to change the way that I felt or even recognize it. Needless to say, I was very wild and sexually promiscuous at a young age. Ditching school was a daily event--to hang out with friends.  This was at fourteen and fifteen years old. While I thought nothing of using drugs or sneaking alcohol I was still very bright. I excelled at school-making honor roll and participating in my schools journalism program.
When I got suspended from school in eighth grade for selling drugs at school the Principal told my Mom that I should be a lawyer and that I had saved myself from expulsion. I was also suspended for fighting.
When I was put on prescriptions(Zoloft, Trazadone and eventually Paxil) for my behaviour they made me even more carefree. I was eventually removed from school and home schooled. I know now at this time that my Mom did not know what to do with me, and in her mind she was doing what she thought was best for me the entire time. I did end up graduating with my class.

When I was twenty I forgave my parents for doing this to me. I decided that I wanted to have a relationship with them, and that I did indeed love them. From that point on, I knew that the decisions that I were making where mine and mine alone to make. I did not have the incident from my childhood to blame any more. I could not bring myself to forgive the religious organization, yet. I had no interest in the teachings, or the people.
I always felt guilty. I always felt like I was apologizing to God, no matter what I was doing. It was wrong, because I wasn't doing what I was "supposed to be doing". I was also very young, so at the time, I was not even able to process the feelings of guilt as being just that. It truly was guilt, and I was sure that I was sinning every moment that I was living just by leading the lifestyle that I was living.
The result of these feelings was that I had very low self esteem. Like I said, I see that now. I often wish that the me that I am now could go shake the me that I was in my twenties. It's funny, because life doesn't work like that. It happened and it can't unhappen.
I have my own relationship with God now. I realized that I had all along, and all along he was with me. Keeping me safe in situations that were not safe. I don't feel guilty for what I am not doing any longer, I feel free. 


This is part of my story.

04-02-14

I like to take the time to listen to the wind in the trees for a moment. To look at the world around me and really see it, really be in it.
It seems like when I am in the moment, just being, I notice so much more going on around me.  This morning I was sitting on the back porch. Just thinking and listening to the wind blow through the trees.
I am always trying to be in the moment, but sometimes all of the other crap in my head starts going off and before I know it I am not paying attention to the moment I am in, but thinking of this and that and the other thing.
The voices in my head judge-they tell me to judge myself and to judge others. The voice tells me what I am doing is wrong or right. I try not to spend too much time with this person in my head, this voice.
While I was sitting on the porch this morning, I noticed that our lemon tree was growing some new branches, about half way down the trunk. The new buds were bright green, a lot brighter than the rest of the tree. For some reason they made me think of new babies. Is all life the same? What if we all treated trees with the same reverence as any other life? If you think about it, they bring us life, they are the air we breath. Yet, we cut them down to make more things that we don't really need.
The wind blowing through the trees sounded like whispers, whispers that only I could hear-because I was the only one listening to them. Everything around me was alive, and meaningful to my existence. Everything came to life for me in the most beautiful way this morning in the moment.

Inner child

Do you remember when you were a child? The world is an unknown place. A child does not fear what they don't know. They look to the world with a sense of curiosity and wonderment instead.
What we are is what we have been made. Children are being made into adults. Young men are becoming men and young women are becoming women.
We are all scarred and wounded, somehow. As adults we realize this.
We must revisit the place within ourself, our inner child, to heal the wounds that found us when we were young. We must face that child within ourself, hug them and tell them that everything is going to be okay. They will be okay.

Just my thoughts

So, iv'e been trying to give myself some psychotherapy. I have confidence in the fact that I am capable of healing my inner wounds myself. I know myself better than anyone. The girl that got fucked over needs to get over it. I'm sick of holding back from trusting when trust is warranted. I have probably lost a friendship from this stain. I hold back from trusting my husband. As a happily married newly wed I have NO reason not to trust Andy. He has never done anything but try and show me how much he loves me, and the thought of him straying is a laugh to anyone else. But the fucked up girl inside of me takes over, and keeps me from having friendships with girls, because they are pretty. She sits inside of me, stewing about whether or not Andy is cheating or thinking about cheating. He really does not deserve this. He is the most loyal person I have ever met! We have a beautiful love, and a beautiful relationship. There is no reason for me to still feel this way. My wounds should have healed long ago, but I guess some are deeper than we realize. In my psychotherapy session today, I realized this. Just touching a feeling sometimes still hurts, it might take me a lifetime to stop feeling like this. But I am sick and tired of feeling like this. A long time ago, I realized that I am beautiful. I am me. No matter what happens, I love myself. That will not leave me. But now I want to let all the bitter feelings of jealousy and hurt that happened to leave my soul. I deserve to give myself the gift of happiness. I am only going to be a newly wed once, and I want to enjoy if fully- not worrying about losing it, or fearing that someone else if going to swoop in and take it away. I learned last week that life is unpredictable and precious, when I lost a childhood friend. Someone who I ran with in track. He was fast and the last person I would have expected to take his own life and that of another. R.I.P. Patrick. I hope all of his hurt has gone away. I have a beautiful life and love, I cannot comprehend how much hurt he must have been feeling, even at my worst. I hope that I am able to continue working on my own demons on my own. For myself and for Andy. He deserves to have me one hundred percent. I deserve it.

In Memory of Patrick

I didn't know you well,
but I will never forget your face.

Time took it's toll on you too young,
what you were born, and who you were-
was too much for you, and the pain took it's toll.

Darkness came into your life and took too much.
It came and stole your sunshine, and you couldn't
find your way off of the shadowed path.

You will be missed, you were loved.
Now you can heal, in the light up above.