Ramblings of an Inquisitive Mind

Today I celebrate 35 years of recovery. The journey has been filled with 12,784 days. Some of those days have been broken down into trying to make it to the next second. I am grateful for this journey and know I have been carried through numerous days by the love, support, and guidance of many of you. 

It is hard for me to understand why even on a day like today, I feel like a failure. I know it is because I carry around this deep darkness that dwells in the pit of my heart and soul. It tries to block the light and the joy, and sometimes it succeeds. It lurks in my brain and rushes in with thoughts that are hard to escape. 

I hear it whisper in my ear: Look at you—what have you done with your life? No children, no grandchildren. No great works of art or literature. No relationship—in debt—nothing to offer. 

These are the things my darkness tells me, determined to drag me to the bottom again. Some days my self-loathing is so great I cannot escape my own wishes to die. On these days I battle just to stay here to face the next day, hoping for some glimmer of light to break open the darkness. To invite me to stay—to wait—to see—to survive. Until the darkness shrinks away again and I am blessed with a little quiet in my brain. 

On these days it actually feels like cogs are turning in my brain, as though areas of my brain are connected by cogs, and I feel them. They are not spinning, because that would be too fast. But my thoughts, my demons, are slowly grinding through grit and sand. 

I don’t tell you these things to ask for your sympathy or for you to pray for me. I tell you because your knowing helps splinter the darkness, allowing some light to begin to trickle back in. The darkness likes secrets. It likes hiding things, tormenting my brain with the fear that if you know you will not like me or, worse yet, you’ll start to feel about me the way I feel about myself. It makes me fear that you will discover the truth and understand that I am nothing but a fake, a loser, a fraud. 

These are my darkest thoughts, my unlovable thoughts, my feelings of separation and despair. These are my feelings of just wanting the noise, hurt, and pain to stop. So I write. I write to stay here. I write as my way of battling the darkness. I write to set myself free.

My writing is my armor. It allows me to face the darkness, self-loathing, and self-hatred. It gives me hope—that I can survive, that I can live to battle another day. Hope that I can find love and light. Hope that I will remember what freedom from fear feels like, and what joy feels like. 

I struggle—I do. But I battle each and every day to stay here. That battle sometimes includes sharing my darkness with you. Not to drag you down with me, but because your listening helps crack open the darkness and in doing so, helps me to survive. 

So thank you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for helping me want to stay here. I love you.

This week we lost Loretta Lynn and my heart broke. Her music filled my childhood. She was my daddy’s favorite and therefore she was also mine. I loved listening to her with my dad as we did our chores at the horse barn. Her music filled me with confidence and character, and I loved singing along. When I heard the news Tuesday morning, I closed my eyes and said, Tell Daddy I said hello.

Each time one of these childhood heroes passes away I feel more distance from that time in my life when things seemed so easy. When I actually felt like I knew who I was, and I felt grounded and whole. A time when the love I had for my parents was so real and I could reach out and touch them—hug their neck, sit in their lap, or just sit at the dinner table with them. We lived in the country and a lot of evenings were passed watching TV, playing cards, or just listening to them talk. Things seemed so simple and carefree. I miss them so much and I miss my childhood. 

My heart aches for those simpler times. I want them to be here with me and I want to be a child again. I long to be riding my horse Rio across the fields with nothing but the feel of the wind blowing through my hair and the beauty of our time together. The time, the distance, and the loss make it hard to even remember that young girl, the one full of hopes and dreams. The timid child hiding behind my mom. What happened to her? Where did she go? I am missing something deeply and I think it might be her. I would love to find her again. Maybe she could help the world make sense again.

I don’t want to deal with paying bills and struggling with issues that will not matter tomorrow but seem overwhelming today. I am tired of the struggles and strife that fill the world. I want to go back to when I felt safe and loved. Life is a struggle and sometimes I get so tired that I want to stop struggling and give up. Most of the time I just don’t see the point. I mean, What the hell is it all about? Do you know? I sure as hell don’t. 

We are here on this tiny little planet soaring through the universe and it just doesn’t make any sense. Just a grain of sand—just the blink of an eye. If that is what we are and how long we are here, then what the hell is it for and what the hell does it all mean? And does it even matter? 

Walk outside and look up at the night sky. Don’t you feel so tiny, so insignificant? And in the big scheme of things, aren’t we? All those stars off in the distance—what are they? What are we? We are made of the same molecules and chemicals as all the stars. Are we just parts of stars that have fallen to earth, and we are just trying to get back home? My mind thinks of all these crazy things when I am alone here late at night. 

If we are just bits of stars, and we join back up with other bits and pieces of stars when we leave this earth, I hope that means Loretta and Daddy are having a conversation right now. Talking about coal mining and music.

Words are so empty. Just black print on a white background, devoid of feeling, emotionless. How are we supposed to use them to covey what is tattooed on our hearts and souls? They seem useless—powerless—worthless when these emotions cannot be etched into them.

Saying “I love you” to someone who has shaped and formed the person you are seems useless. I want to share my heart, my emotions, my true feelings. But these words are like plastic. I need words that are made of blood, heart, soul—the very fibers of my being. Words seem one-dimensional, when what I need are three-dimensional words—words that when spoken or written will jump right out to hug and comfort you.

I think this is what music does; it adds to words the dimension and emotion they’re missing. I am not a singer, songwriter, or musician, so I am not blessed with the ability to give words the depth and emotion I want to express.

I wish I could find a way to allow you to see, feel, and understand the depth these emotions have in my soul. I feel so unheard, so misunderstood, because of my inability to express what I mean. I’ve tried to allow these words to fall from my mouth with all the rawness and all the realness I feel inside, but I’m never really satisfied with my attempts.

I wish I could pull my heart out through my chest and let you read all the words that have been tattooed on it. Maybe then those words could speak to you in all their depth and all their truth, allowing you to see what I wish you saw, to know what I wish you knew.

I have tried so hard not to write—not to put my feelings on paper. Not to offend or to hurt; not to add to the ever-growing conflict. But my heart is broken.

I am so fucking sick of hate I cannot even speak without anger flowing from my breath. I want to yell and scream, but all I seem to be able to do is whimper and cry. I cry for us all—we have all lost so much. We have lost our kindness, our compassion, our humanity, and our souls. Every single one of us is only out for what is best for each of us, and we’ll be damned about what is good for all of us.

I don’t care if you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, Christian, atheist, agnostic, or anything else. First and foremost we are all human beings. We are all the same, whether we like it or not—that’s just the way it is. We need to stop looking for differences. We need to stop looking for reasons to hate our neighbors, and stop hating others before we know even one damn thing about them.

I have many friends on Facebook, all spewing their views of the world, never thinking that one of their “friends” might have a different view of the world. And who cares anyway, because if that “friend” does not agree with their views, who needs them? Right? Wrong. That is not how this world, and especially this country, should work. We should be able to disagree without hating the person who disagrees with us.

My heart just cannot not handle this hate. I wish I could turn my feelings off—go run and hide my heart in a shell and not take it out again until it is safe, when it cannot be hurt by this hatred any longer. But that is not who I am. My life has been blessed with the ability to feel everything deeply. That is why I’m having such a hard time with this hatred.

There was a point in my life when I was early in recovery and another woman in the program really did not care for me. I wanted to resent her and hate her, but then it dawned on me: That very same woman helped multiple other women get sober and stay sober. She might not have been my biggest fan, but she did a lot of good for a lot of people. Just knowing that changed my view and my feelings towards her. I was not the center of the universe. Other people needed what she had to offer to be able to move forward in their own lives.

There are still times when I feel angry after reading someone’s post or hearing some comment that sets me off. But then I remember that that very same person lost their mom or dad and grieved and hurt just the way I did when I lost mine. Or their beloved pet died and now they feel so lost when they go home and their buddy is no longer there to greet them.

I am trying my very best to remember and embrace the things that connect us, instead of the things that pull us apart and tear an ever-widening gap between us. I try to remember that we all experience the joys of a well-earned accomplishment. We all love that new car smell and puppy dog breath. We look at the same sun and moon. We breathe the same air and we all embrace our loved ones and want to keep them safe. Please. Please. More embracing and less hate.

I am a 59-year-old Southern White woman. Born and raised in the South; educated at a private school for most of my elementary, middle, and high school years. And I am so ashamed that nothing seems to have changed over the course of my lifetime.

During a brief period when I attended public school in Burke County, Georgia, I remember being on the playground when a march on our school took place. People were marching to demand the desegregation of the school system. I was in second grade, unaware of the unrest sweeping the country at that time. I was just a kid on a playground, enjoying being outside in the sun.

Shortly after that march, our school began the process of desegregation. Until that point the public school system was divided into two different elementary schools. I remember starting classes with my new classmates. I sat in front of the only Black student in my class. I liked him; he helped me cheat in math. I would slip him my test and he would finish the questions I needed help completing.

I can’t say that I did not see color; I knew he was Black, but I also knew he was kind, caring, and beautiful. I made friends with him and with a Black girl in another class. We would hold hands and walk around the playground. One day when my mother came to pick me up from school, she saw my new friends and me together. She quickly informed me that holding hands and playing together were things that should not be done. What would other people think if they saw me?

Even at the time, despite being so young, I already knew I really didn’t care. The woman who took care of me at home—the woman who loved me, held me, and looked after me—was a Black woman named Daisy. For most of my young life, Daisy was my world. She was the person who comforted me when I was afraid of a storm. She was the person who taught me how to tie my shoes. To be honest, she was the person who taught me how to love.

Daisy always counted me as one of her own. Years later, when I visited her in a nursing home, I asked how many children she had taken in and raised. She said, “Six, including you.”

I loved Daisy. I still love her.

How can we still be right where we were all those years ago? How can there still be so much hate? So much disparity? So much inequality?

This month, I have run/walked over 100 miles with my friend Sue. For over a week this month, we started our runs by running 2.23 miles, then stopping for a few moments to talk about Ahmaud Arbery. We talked about our privilege and that of our white male friends. We realized that we and our white male running friends have never even considered the possibility of being shot while we jogged through a neighborhood. It made me realize I had no idea how dangerous the sport I love could be for my Black friends.

How can it be that in this world you can get shot just because you go for a run? Yet as a woman, I know it can be dangerous for me to go running alone. Shouldn’t we all have the right to go running and not fear for our safety or our lives? We have to do better. We have to be better.

And now we are here, with George Floyd killed—lynched—in front of our eyes. I am so angry I can’t breathe. My soul is choked by the tears that will not come because the boiling anger seems to make them evaporate.

Years ago, when I first went to college, I played basketball for a small Baptist college. Because I had gone to a private school this was my first time playing on a team with Black women. It was an amazing experience; my teammates and I bonded, and I loved every minute of it.

One weekend when I was home—I remember this as if it were yesterday—my mother and I were in the car; she was driving and I was in the passenger seat. I was talking about my new friend Nona. My mother stopped me and said, “You are going to have to choose between your family and your new friends.”

I looked dead at her and said, “I am not choosing. My generation did not start this problem and I will not choose.” She replied, “Your Pa Scott is turning over in his grave.” We rode home in silence, but in my mind, I said, “Let him turn.”

Last night I talked to a friend who was active in the protests of the 60s. I asked her how and why are we still at this place. How can it be that nothing has really changed?

Her perspective helped me see things through a different lens. Maybe things haven’t changed because the people with money and power want the rest of us to fight against each other. They keep pitting people against each other to preserve their own power. They don’t care about people; they only care about power. We are just human capital to them. They strategically keep us fighting, keep us taking sides, while they walk away with the money. They don’t care if we live or die; there will always be more of us to control and manipulate.

So I ask, what can I do? Other than voting, how can I make a difference? How can I help stop this madness? How can I keep breathing in this world, knowing what I know and seeing what I see?

I am a 59-year-old White woman. If you have a soul, I think you are asking the same questions as I am.

Note: This is an update to previous posts on the Dance of a Warrior blog.

Hanging out at Cancer Care this Christmas Eve, waiting on my check-up appointment with Dr. Nick. No matter how much they try with the Christmas tree, Christmas music, and holiday cheer, this is not the place anyone should be spending their Christmas Eve. Cancer sucks!

It is funny how my view of this place has changed over the years. When I was first diagnosed and came here for treatment it was my place of hope. But today this place feels full of sadness. So much sickness—so much loneliness. I just say a silent prayer for everyone here and everyone suffering.

Life has a way of humbling us and continually showing us what is important. In this room, age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and political affiliation all fall by the wayside. Cancer strips all that away, bringing us to our knees and opening us up to our most vulnerable selves. Cancer and death do not care about any of the above.

I must admit that I still get nervous coming here; just like every year with my mammogram, I fear hearing bad news again. I am so grateful for these last six years. I was diagnosed in March 2013; the treatment and recovery were hell, but so worth the battle.

Results are good—another check-up in a year!

This Warrior would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe and healthy New Year. I love you.

There are days when the air I breathe feels too thick and too heavy to move through my lungs. Engulfed by my sorrow, it gets captured and forced in the opposite direction before I get the much-needed benefits of a cleansing breath. Those are the same days when eating—just the act of chewing and swallowing—seems impossible. The food seems to expand in my mouth, and when it hits my stomach it feels like a rock colliding with a brick wall. Getting anything down seems like a major accomplishment.

Today is one of those days. Four years ago today my sister Martha Gail and I sat on the bed that held the shell of what once was our mother. We held her hands and kissed her cheeks and told her we loved her. Then we watched her breathe her last breath and slip peacefully into the unknown.

As I prepared to make all the calls that needed to be made, before I could make the first call all of my dogs, who were in crates in the outside carport, began to howl. My dogs never howl. I truly believe they felt my mother’s spirit as it left the confines of her body. It was one of the weirdest, yet most perfect, experiences of my life.

I made my calls: to hospice, her caregiver, her best friend, one of her brothers. As people came in and out of the house that night the whole experience seemed like déjà vu, since we had lost our father just three weeks before.

I miss them more than I can put into words. So many days I think of picking up the phone to call them, and every time I am jolted back to reality: That is not possible anymore. I often feel like an orphaned child, which I’m sure most of us feel when we lose our parents.

So today is one of those days. I just need to soak in the sunshine, feel the warmth of it on my skin. Feel the breeze through my hair and listen to the birds and to nature. Allow the earth to fill my soul with life, when inside I feel so dead and so alone.

I miss you, Mom.

Am I living or just existing?

That is the question that has been weighing on my mind of late. Most days I am just existing, and that is not enough for me. I need more than just breathing in and exhaling. I need to make a difference somewhere, somehow.

I saw this quote today and it jerked my soul, so that I knew I had to write—had to question—had to start clawing my way back into this world.

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, tasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” ~Louise Erdrich

A few months ago I bought a bracelet that I loved when I first saw it. It is a band that looks like a tattoo; on it is the word Unbroken. I was so excited when I got it. I put it on—then I realized how untrue it was.

Unbroken. That is so untrue. I have been broken, over and over again. And I feel that with each episode of brokenness I try to glue myself back together, stand up straight, walk tall—but then I realize there is a piece missing. Over and over again, putting myself back together with the pieces and parts I can grab and fit back together. Some parts are not even in the right place anymore. Some are upside down and backwards. But still I figure out a way to make them fit—make them function—make them me.

I don’t wear the bracelet anymore because I know I am broken. Not beyond repair. But broken.

But aren’t we all broken? Life is hard. Life is unfair. We lose those we love. We watch our loved ones suffer and die. We watch the world we live in decaying around us. If you are like me, feelings of helplessness can become overwhelming. You want to make a change—make a difference. But not knowing how becomes just another depressing admission of my inadequacy.

I seem to be living my life in a hollow shell, aware of the world around me but never feeling whole enough or together enough to step out of this shell. Never well enough to really let anyone know me. I told my therapist I think life just sucks the joy out of you. She dropped her head into the palm of her hand and as she was shaking her head no, she said, No, that is not what life does. I bet she was thinking, All these years of therapy and this is where you are? We laughed and I said, Where is the joy?

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013. Since that time I have lost both my parents, had two friends diagnosed with cancer, and lost some of my special animals. It seems like as soon as I am almost over one crisis, another one is waiting just around the bend.

Grief is not pretty. It changes you. For me, it is always just below the surface. I miss my mom and dad. I want to talk to them, hug them, see them and hear their voices again. I am angry that they are not here. I am angry that my joy has escaped me. I am angry that I have to continually put these damn pieces back together every goddamn day.

You know how, as you grow older, you look at yourself in the mirror and say, Who the hell is that? Well, that is the way I feel about my whole life—my whole body and soul. Who the hell am I? Why am I here? How do I get a little, if not all, of that joy—that soul—that person I once was, back? I miss laughing. I miss loving. I miss feeling alive.

I miss my joy.

So how do I start living again? How do I stop just existing, just taking up space? I am not sure, but I think this is a beginning. A willingness to be open, vulnerable, and truthful. There are days when I don’t want to be here anymore. Days when life seems too overwhelming. Days when I just don’t see the point.

I think maybe instead of thinking about life needing me, I should think about how much I need life. That may sound crazy to some of you, but it makes sense to me. I need life to show me how to live. To teach me how to put the pieces of me back together each time I fall. To teach me that every experience is precious—even those that are the most painful.

But to allow life to teach me, I must be open and willing to learn. I have let the difficulties I have been through hang a “Closed” sign on my heart. Feeling and loving deeply have taken an enormous toll on my being.

I can remain closed to the world around me—or I can decide to let life lead me back to the beauty and the joy of feeling. I can stop trying to change the world, and maybe allow the world to show me the beauty it holds.

As the quote says, Life will break you. Yes, it will. It has brought me to my knees, but this time while I am there I will try to listen for the apples falling and taste their sweetness. Because only by living with attention to each moment will I find the secrets that life has to teach me.

Joy is there. I am sure of it.

I hear it calling – I feel the pulling. Darkness is calling me again. It seems that no matter how much I scream, claw, hide, or run, it always seems to find me. There have been times when I thought I had finally escaped its grasp. But no – it always finds me.

I used to be so afraid, fearing I would never be able to survive the clutches of this darkness. But over the years, I have learned not only to survive, but also to learn and to grow from and through these periods. Paul Simon’s lyrics ring so true for me: “Hello darkness, my old friend.” Over the years I have learned that my darkness is an old friend.

My darkness allows me to take a step back from my crazy life so I can focus on my next stage of being – my next soul state. It helps me learn what is important for my growth and essential to my evolution into a better human being. It isn’t like I go out and look for this to happen; it just does. It creeps up and wraps itself around my heart and I feel it. It is just here.

I often try to ignore the darkness by filling it up with various things. In the past I used alcohol and drugs, but now I look for other substitutes. I think, “If I just had this (fill in the blank), I am sure this feeling would go away.”

But I have learned that no amount of money, alcohol, drugs, chocolate, ice cream, home improvements, new cars, new dogs, or even new goats will make this go away. The only way to get there is to walk forward, feeling my way through the darkness. As I have learned over the years, I must let go and walk through this darkness alone, knowing that when I finally reach the other side I will be grateful for the lessons I’ve learned.

Now, for all of you who are asking: Yes, I am taking my meds. Yes, I am going to therapy. And yes, I am talking to friends and family. What I think I have learned in life is that this darkness is not about a chemical imbalance in my body as much as it is about a misalignment in my soul. That my life involves searching over and over again for a meaning and an answer.

So this is who I am: a spiritual gypsy with a hobo heart and a soul searching for answers, for love, and for meaning. In a world that is filled with so much hatred, hurt, pain, and suffering, my darkness really does not seem like such a scary place. It feels more like a homecoming – a friend’s couch where I can take a brief nap and replenish my soul.

I love each of you. Please don’t be afraid for me. Instead, rejoice with me as I walk through another dark night on my soul’s journey.

There are days when the sadness is so overwhelming, I have a difficult time even breathing. I don’t mean depression; I mean sadness and grief. I miss my mom! I miss my dad! I miss my family!

I want things to be the way they once were. I want to be that kid waking up at 5 in the morning to see what Santa left. He always knew just what I wanted: cowboys and Indians with a fort, a GI Joe, Johnny West and his horse, a saddle for my pony, Little Bit. Those awesome cowboy boots that no one could get me to take off. The bicycle, the ping pong table, those Carolina blue converse tennis shoes, my horse Buck. The Christmas stockings with apples, oranges, nuts, and those Life Savers enclosed in a book. The memories just seem to flow today.

My Santa was never a slacker, either. On Christmas morning, walking downstairs and into the living room, I found a Christmas wonderland. All the toys were set up and ready to play with, like maybe Santa and his elves had already been playing with the new stuff. I never understood why Mom and Dad looked so tired on Christmas morning; I guessed Santa must have been really noisy and kept them awake.

We always headed to my Nannie’s on Christmas morning, the car packed with presents. We’d spend the day at her house, packed full of aunts, uncles, and cousins. As a kid I felt so protected and so loved. It was okay being me, the little girl who loved all the wrong things—all the things most little boys wanted. I never had an adult in my family say, You really should play with dolls, or wear dresses, or anything of that nature. I was me, and free to be the me who was in my skin.

Oh, how I long for those days. I think if I could go back and freeze myself at one point in my life, I would choose this part of my childhood.

Growing up, and growing old, are sure not for the weak of heart. Life throws lots of curve balls your way. Sometimes you don’t read the pitch just right and the curve ball hits you right in the gut. Sometimes right in the heart, even. You begin to doubt yourself: doubt who you are and doubt that life is fair. Little secret, just between us: Life isn’t fair.

You deal with the curve balls as they come your way. For me, someone who spent my childhood and young adulthood being the apple of my parents’ eyes, I was devastated, overcome with self-doubt, and filled with a lot of self-hatred after coming out to my parents. All of a sudden, I was not okay being in my skin.

I came out to my parents when I was 19. That year for Christmas, Santa brought me a dress and a skirt. It was not okay to be who I was anymore because my parents did not approve and did not accept me. I have spent all these years, from then to now, really not loving and not accepting myself. Seeing myself as a second-class citizen.

But not anymore.

From today forward: I am me. I will fit into this skin again and be the me I am meant to be. If you have a problem with it, the problem is yours and you will have to deal with it. I am done contorting my life to help you feel comfortable.

I realize this whole mind trip has been of my own creation, the product of my need to feel loved. I guess that love needs to come from within first. And though I long for that childhood of carefree living, the curvy road of life keeps bringing me back to the need to fix the things within myself that have manifested from those days.

I miss my mom! I miss my dad! I miss my family!