Jesus, etc.

A photo of one of said holidays - dang my Grandpa was sad!

I've always wished I was one of those people for whom holidays were joyous occasions to get together with loving relatives who bring out the best in each other. I try not to wish things had been different, but sometimes I'm guilty of doing just that. I think we all are.

Luckily, I have managed to create a peaceful loving home with my little family of four.


But growing up, holidays were confusing. They were a time when the stark contrast between how I felt on the inside and how things looked on the outside was greatest, making them extremely difficult for me.

We now know, as I've written about before, that the body holds on to feelings that it wasn't able to feel at the time. We don't get to control when they come out. There are some very effective means of keeping them in -- drinking alcohol is one that my family seems to prefer most -- but the problem with that method is the old feelings then continue to get held in the body, weighing everything down.

I've been working hard over the last decade or so - so very hard - to understand, to release, to accept, to forgive, to witness, to share - my own experience, and this has meant making the decision to feel.

The cousin joy I desperately want to facilitate

On Friday, December 21, a few days before Christmas, I went to see one of my bodyworkers. I have been working with him for close to 10 years - -he has been helping my skeleton find its way back to it's natural, more mobile state. For the first time, he worked extensively with my pubic bone and pelvis, a place where I've stored a lot of trauma. I recount this because I think it's related to the events of December 23.

I made a plan for the four of us to go skiing at Cascade and stay overnight at an Air Bnb in Montello with my sister and her family. I love my sister and her children, and a big part of me wanted to go.

Another part started to make her needs known the day before: I started feeling triggered. By now I know the signs that I'm under the spell of my PTSD: I was hypervigilant, I was nervous, I was irritable, I was angry, I couldn't sleep, I wanted to drink to forget. But I didn't listen. I overrode those feelings, and I pressed on with the plan.

I will never ignore them again.

Because what transpired on Sunday, December 23, on the way to skiing with my sister's family, was so awful, so beyond my control, and so traumatizing for my own children that I never, ever want to go there again.

I can recount what happened, but I'm not sure it will help anyone understand it. I was stopped at a point in the journey where I wasn't sure which way to go. I consulted Google Maps, and it failed to help me determine which way to turn.

And then I lost it. Like, lost it like I never have before. I screamed. My son tried to tell me I could go either way. I screamed louder. Everything that either of my children said made it worse. I continued to drive while both children were in tears, begging me to let my daughter drive instead. I simply could not cede the little bit of control I had left. In those moments, my children did not feel like my children, and I did not feel like myself. I was not in my body.

Such a strong, resilient kid I've got, and a ski lover to boot

I feel so much regret that they had to see me that way. I wish it hadn't happened like that. But now they know why I'm still in therapy. And now when I say to them, as I have, "I never wanted you to experience having an out-of-control parent the way I did as a child," they know more about what my experience was like. Maybe they needed to know more? I don't know. God knows I wish I could have spared them. I certainly understand more about what those moments were like for my parents, especially my mother, and I'm grateful for that too.

Most of all, I'm profoundly grateful that no one was physically injured. I'm also grateful for my therapist, who said to me "Yes, you went off the rails, and you needed to get off those rails." Another of my healers - a neurovascular therapist described that my insides after that event were "a whole new landscape" - that before, everything I felt was tamped down, and then the gasket blew. My yoga teacher asked me what I needed in that moment in the car, and when I said I didn't know, she said she thought I needed help. I began to sob. Yes, that makes sense. It makes perfect sense that the help I couldn't ask for and never received as a child was the need I so desperately felt and was finally able to express, albeit more crudely than I would have liked.

Phew. So what does this song have to do with all of this? A couple of things. One, I know that my children and I are protected by forces beyond anything we can understand rationally, by Jesus, Etc., and for this I am incredibly grateful.

Two, there are parts of me that are similar to my parents that I haven't felt the need to fight against in the same way. One of these is my love for TV. One of my new shows is Billions. It's sooooo good.

And on a recent episode, two of my favorite characters were discussing this song:

My treasured musicians, the day after

Jesus, don't cry
You can rely on me honey
You can combine anything you want
I'll be around
You were right about the stars
Each one is a setting sun

Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around

Don't cry
You can rely on me honey
You can come by any time you want
I'll be around
You were right about the stars
Each one is a setting sun

Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around

It does't exactly retell the story of December 23, but it kinda does...

Ceiling Gazing

Here's a holiday tradition I love: the menorah

My first love (who lives in England) sent me the link to this song yesterday. He's been going through some rough stuff with the possible end of his marriage, and I have to admit that when I first heard that I thought, maybe he can come visit and I won't be sleeping alone during the holidays after all!

Ah yes, the holidays. Even the most enlightened among us can long for everything to be picture perfect this time of year, and let's face it, at least in my book, sleeping alone ain't picture perfect.

But that's ok. Because it's not really about being picture perfect, it's about being perfectly present, and I'm doing better at that than ever before.

One of the things I'm realizing, with this greater degree of presence, is how much darkness the men I've loved in the past carry with them. Which is no accident: A wise woman I spoke to last week told me that when I fell for men with gaping wounds, I did it so that it would be ok for me to have a gaping wound. Which makes a ton of sense.

Now that I'm further along in my own healing, I'm ready for a man with more light. But until I'm lying next to him, I'll be just fine doing some ceiling gazing on my own:

Laying in my bed, ceiling gazing
Wide awake with jet-lag from Australia
Got a stack of mail, and a wedding invitation
From a new, young relative I never even knew

Got me thinking about my grandpa for some reason
Met him half a dozen times in a nursing home
The last time I saw him, he was in a box
And they were lowering him into the ground

St. Mary's Church stood so high
It was the first and the last time I saw my dad cry
The ground had a thin coat of snow,
And we wondered off in the cold.

It's 3:47 AM June 13th
It's my sister's birthday today, I think
Gonna give her a call, and see how she's doing
She had a rough divorce, I hope she's improved

I wanna reach out, and give her my love
Put a smile on her face, like when we were young
Listening to records from the library
Hermit of Mink Hollow and Dreamboat Annie

She lives with her daughters, all alone
Across the street from a cornfield in Ohio
One's four, one's seven, and I love them so,
I wanna live a long time, and see them grow.

...with no love beside me, and no dog asleep at my feet:

Outside my window tonight
Sausalito's twinkling lights
My love's beside me, deep asleep
Dog is laying between my feet

... and yet with so much to write in the gratitude journal that I keep next to my bed:

Outside my window tonight
A cargo ship's cruising by
And I'm so happy to be alive
To have these people in my life

Revelate

Merry Christmas to me -- a Guinness at lunch!

Today I got to meet my old boss and coworker for a Holiday lunch at Brocach. It was so nice to see them both and catch up, plus the food was great and I got to have my favorite (well, at least one of my favorite), Irish beverages, Guinness, with my lunch. What a treat!

Speaking of treats, these irish dudes are definitely one:

My simple slant
This broken chant
My humble fate
My revelate
Are you so far from me this day
That you can't say my revelate

My open arms
My lucky charms
My number eight
My revelate
I fucked it up
I rest my case
Cause it's all to grey
My revelate

Sometimes I need a revelation
Sometimes it's all too hard to take
Sometimes I need a revelation
This time I'm making my own now
Does this mean we're through
Does this mean it's gone
I spent a day just to ponder the words
That I would write to you this day
But it's all too great, my revelate

Sometimes I need a revelation
Sometimes it's all too hard to take
Sometimes I need a revelation
This time it's up in arms

This time I need you revelation
Sometimes it's all too much to take
This time I need you revelation
Sometimes it's easy just to hate you
Sometimes I need a revelation
Sometimes I,sometimes I,

Redeem yourself
Redeem yourself
Redeem yourself