If we take the stance that nothing is a coincidence, then we must accept that things happen as they should...ultimately.

I suppose, then, that my purpose in a few places is ended. I must have done what was needed and now...well, now my part is done.

So. Just moving on.
Just living a life.

Well, a good solid whine last night helped me get it out of my system. In the light of day, though, i could see what needed done and why it needed me to be the one to do it...so it served it's purpose.
One thing I know about this life and living,  no matter how things feel or look tonight, it will be better tomorrow.

and life, it goes on and on and on

When I started this blog, a million years ago it seems, I titled it Simply Living a Life, because that's what I was doing. It was a good life, a busy life. I had a few home based businesses, had 2 girls at home, was married, busy with a church job, a theatre group, a 4H leader, busy at farming/gardening/sewing/, etc. It wasn't a complicated life, but it was very full. 
Times...yes, they change. 
Sometimes for good, sometimes for not. 
It's still a busy life, just in different ways. I've grown in many ways, changed, but at the base of it all...I'm the same woman.
There's nothing profound going on, and I'm definitely not thinking that anything posted here is that in any way. 
These are just my thoughts, things happening in my daily life, observations about myself. Nothing more. Just simply a life.
All I really have to add tonight is...
Younger daughter is set to go to a therapist to help her find tools for her anxiety and depression. Her dad is worried about her, they've had a few verbal runs lately. He asked me tonight if she was ok. I replied that overall, yes. That she is angry at life right now. 
He asks, without asking, about what...
No. 
It's not fair. I can't do it. Don't make me, plz. Please please please don't ask me to explain why she is angry...and why she is angry at him.
He knows. 
It doesn't need verbalized by me. It isn't my job anymore, to care, to protect, to...whatever. 
But protect is what I am doing. 
I do believe in what is commonly called "karma". "what goes around comes around", "you get what you give", etc etc etc. It happens all the time. It sometimes takes a special eye to see it, but it happens. Natural consequence, be it good or bad. And it's not always in like form, especially when it's good karma. 
Yet, being that I believe in it, I take no pleasure, ever, in seeing it happen when it's "bad" coming back around. 
It just hurts to see. It hurts to watch the realization, to see what you knew would be the reaction be reacted to. It hurts me, at any rate. 
And I cannot...will not...inflict pain. I will not point out the obvious. 
In this case, I just won't do it. I refuse. I don't have to make sense, I just can't do it. 
As I sat tonight, carefully choosing my words when explaining the basic bits to him and the tears came. Tears, surprising myself at the depth of them, feeling his sadness and concern as he reached out to me for reassurance and connection...and answers...
Is it wrong for me to feel weary of being the responsible one all the time? The one who has to be the grownup, the one who has to...I don't even know what. 
sigh.
Mum, send your cosmic self to sit with me and let me rest my head in your lap, rub my hair and sing me a soft song. Just give me a little extra oomph to just keep rolling. 
I know I will. I just want, really want, comfort tonight. 
So, that's me right at the moment. Glad that daughter is ready to take a step forward and face her frustration over things in life, grateful that we have the opportunity...grateful that while he left the family, her dad continues to care for her in the ways that will really help her. 
So sleep comes. I'll close my eyes and picture mum here, taking care of me for a moment, giving me a chance to be vulnerable and a little less strong, just for a tiny bit.
Morning will come and I'll be up and at it again. Doing my best. Living a life.

Barrel of a Gun ~ Depeche Mode - updated post

Not a single statement behind this song that I'm applying to anything here...the song, and video, are about Depeche Mode's frontman, Dave Gahan, and his stint in rehab. The vid is intense. But that's not what has it here for me...

I'm just really digging the groove.  

Alot.

Clarity and definition

I want to be very, very clear here, no misunderstandings of any kind...
I love life.
I believe in every good thing, and I believe that very few things do not have good in them.
I believe in hope.
I believe in change.
I believe in kindness.
I believe in love.
I believe in friendship, in forgiveness...
I believe in eternity.
I believe in the moon and stars, in nature, in the animals.
I believe in the magic around us.
I believe in truth.
I believe in true love.
Life, this crazy messy beautiful thing we are all in, is simply wonderful. Even in its sadnesses, it is so amazing.
I believe, quite simply, in living this life of mine, and sharing every wonderful thing I find.
This blog is just about those simple daily struggles and victories that we all face.
I wish for you all a lovely night ~
Be well.

morning is always bettee

So much better after some rest...it always is. Even waking up this morning I'm a bit sore, but saturdays are tough ones, they do take it out of me.
Small fibro fit wanting to build, I can feel it but I'll caffiene, iboprofen, protein and move it out of me.
That explains last night's deep discomfort.
Writing that helped me purge it some and I fell back to sleep easily.
Have a very nice Sunday.

Tonight...i am tired.
The peace of the past morning is remembered...
Inside, I am the same ~
But
Tonight I am soul weary
Heart worn
Bone tired and body beaten.

Tonight I am spent
All through
No hope
No joy
Only work seen as far as an eye can see.

Creating happiness is too much
Tonight.

Curled on my bed
Listening to the night sounds that bring solace...
The owls, bullfrogs...nothing.
Discomfort, bruised, aching body tonight,
Scars pulling, stretching, burning.

Pain, tonight.
I can't beat it tonight.
Too tired to get ahead of it tonight.
Drowning in it. Tonight.

I know that morning comes soon, and with it the light and hope will return.
I live in hope, always...it's a choice and it's lovely.
There,
I remember why I do what I do
I see how far I've come
I encourage
Support
Love
I understand
I forgive
I accept.

Just not tonight.

A beautiful morning.
I took the time last night to just sit and talk, and listen, with a dear friend...probably my bestffriend, about stuff and life. She is standing half through a door that I've spent time in before, and I see much of her path ahead. I know that,  like a child, there isn't the belief that anyoneelse can know...I remember that feeling as well. I gave my perspective, regrets, and tried to describe what a few of the roadmarks ahead will look like.  I made no judgements, no warnings, no advice. Life journeys like this must be traveled to be learned.I can see ahead for her, I always can when I care, and that's all I tried to show.
It unsettles people sometimes, to be spoken to from the heart without the expected turns ofaadvice or parameters. She kept waiting for the conversation shoe to drop, kept challenging me to debate the moralities, even knowing me as well as she does. I think that perhaps she was seeking comfort in that. Truth is, in this, there is no comfort. No easy way of choice. It's all big, and it's the biggest one of her life. She's ok right now. I won't let her fall off the cliff. But knowing her as I do, she will insist on dangling as close off the ledge as she can.
Why bring it up...
She asked me if I knew what I was looking for, in life, in love. And with one lovely drink in me, a quiet night around me, and my room full of memories, I was able to answer her quite simply and clearly.
And in that quiet moment I quit fighting the past that reared up in me this week. I accepted the apology just as it is. I felt the fire sear through the wound and I know it is sealed. I'm glad for that.
Onward. Always onward.
Life is good.

Would if I could...but I can't make myself assume that it's wanted.
Damn.

Honestly, though...who can blame me, given my track record in this situation? I just need it in bold black/white, says the woman who lives and preaches on existing in the shades of grey.

Guess I'm just a walking conundrum like everyone else.

Fuck.

layers * edits at end *

Pain lives in layers. Cut by a blade slicing through the skin of a soul into depths unseen, the injury begins to fight simultaneously for recognition and anonymity. That first cut shocks the system, stuns the mind, stalls the beat of a heart...for just a moment. In that numbness the wound swells to hide itself from sight, to block the absorbing of any further pain...all it really does is drive the agony in deeper, the easy escape now blocked,  no longer diving through the sharp, clean openness but tearing as it pushes itself further in to escape being touched any further. The mind wants to believe that if conscious thought doesn't touch a thing then that thing will someone cease to exist, to be, and will diminish and disappear. 

There are times, even total days, when that numbness is hated but begged for. To not feel completely is a terror to me, I dig to the surface to feel the sharpness, the clean burn...for me, this is where truth of what happened lives and I want that. I need it. I trust that feeling. Not the grey, enclosing numbness.

But when something is too much to absorb, to comprehend, to control...then I will beg whatever powers there are for the blessing of that numbing, blinding cushion of darkest grey. Just to stop the soul scream and give my spirit a moment of peace from the endless pacing and searching for the way out of the maze of confusion and...everything.

Healing, eventually, happens...in layers. If you want it, if you're willing to open up that wound and let it heal from the deepest places. That hurts. It's necessary, if you want to go ahead and move forward in life, but it hurts. Nobody can do it for you, Nobody else can make it better. They can be there with you, hear you, encourage you, kick your ass, forgive you when you go off on them, dry your eyes...they can hold you. Those all help, to have a person, maybe 2, who know you well enough to sit beside you while you travel through hell. But it's all on you to actually get there.

I learned alot during the years of forgiving my father and becoming whole again. I learned more when my mother died. I learned so much when my older girl disappeared and in that year after...all those lessons helped me when my marriage ended.

If you've been here before, then you know what that was like for me. Well, you have an idea. That numbness saved me, while it cursed and tormented me, for that first year. Letting go of needing an apology was a pretty big step for me as well. And it's important for everyone to get to. 

Feeling healed and at peace, to the point of being able to accept him telling me that he still considers me a best friend, was a real triumph for me. To openly accept these things, arms/head/heart wide open, took a lot of work.I even survived a deeply sad heartbreak last year, largely using lessons learned from my divorce. So why am I here with this?

Two days ago I received the apology that I never expected, never asked for, had learned to not need, or even want.

It hurts. I can't get my head around it. 

God, it hurts.

It's the last cleansing of such a deep sadness. The final reopen and scraping of the wound. How do I know that it's the final? I know. I can see the thing. The numbness, it wants to flood the area, desperately, to shut it down, to stop it from being touched...but I won't let it this time. This time, no begging for it. I have to get this finished, to put it past, to move ahead. There are lovely things ahead of me, I can't have this on me right now. It's taken so much from me, while giving so much to me, that I just can't...

A flame coming toward you, nearer to your body, to a channel opened and running the length of your self...the flame must come. It will run the wound, cleansing with it's fire, sharp, searing...searching.

And you let it come. Hold your arm to it, welcome it. Feel the pain burning through, but relax your body and soul into it, let it sweep you into the current and through the parts of you it needs to reach. Find someone to let you experience it, but to be there with you. Please, find someone.

Who would have thought that an admittance of a terrible mistake and an apology would cause pain?

My father apologized, many times over. When it was clear that mum and I were moving he broke his promise to never try and force me to spend time alone with him, pleading and cajoling me to go with him for a ride, giving his word that I would be okay. I remember that part of that day so clearly, sitting on the edge of the truck seat, holding the unlocked door handle in one hand, ready to leave no matter where we were, sitting on the other hand, holding it tightly against my body so that he couldn't grab my arm...i remember shaking and counting slowly to stay calm, focusing on the shoulder of the road, watching what was passing by, but one eye on him peripherally always. It made him angry if I acted scared. I understand that, it made him feel bad about things going on. Anyway, I wasn't going to go into this. I'll leave it here, though. My reason for saying anything was that he started to talk to me. 
He apologized. He told me how sorry he was, he told me that he knew that he had been awful, caused me pain, made me afraid of someone who was supposed to protect me. I remember that I was becoming angry as he talked. Angry. I was so angry that I remember shaking with the emotion. 

He knew. That damn bastard knew all that shit was wrong and he did it anyway.

I know that it was more complicated than that, we're talking about a badly damaged person here, but at the time, my immediate reaction was not compassion...it was anger. He talked some more, things that I don't remember, and then he reached towards me. We were on a freeway, downhill into the Palo Alto area, having made a massive looping run from where I lived with mum. I don't know how long we had been gone, time diminishes in those situations. I jerked away from him, and he jumped backwards and stared at me. I had no idea what was going to happen next...I knew that look. It was always there, before another took over, the moment when you could see a small child in his eyes. Sometimes, in the car, he'd threaten to run into a retaining wall, off a ledge, etc. Sometimes he'd pull over. Sometimes he'd just throw a few hits sideways, and that was my preference of the choices. I remember wondering, for a moment, if I should jump out, wishing I could see what was out the door at the moment,but I didn't dare take my eyes off of him, or if I should provoke the punches and get it done, when he did something I'd only seen one other time, when his father died(let me say here, my grandfather had his stuff and his odd ways, but he was a kind and gentle man who married someone who was not)...
he began to cry. 
He sobbed. He kept driving, and after a bit he started to talk again. I can hear it still...
"Teresa, I want for you know that not all men are like me. There are men who are good, who won't hurt you. I know you hate me. You should. I hate myself. But please don't hate all men because of me. Please tell me that you will let someone be kind to you some day."   
My father apologized a few more times in his life. He begged me for absolution, which I couldn't give him. I was able, over the years, to tell him that I'd forgiven what I was able to, at that point, and each time it was a deeper point of ability. It took years. When he was dying, in the delerium of his condition, he flipped rapidly between verbal rape and begging for forgiveness. At that point I could ignore his words, that's all they were. He was so lost to himself, so afraid of death and judgement. And I felt a great flood of compassion for this man. Even more so when I had to give the directive to let him be removed from the life support he demanded be kept at all cost for as long as life on earth continued. The doctor was kind, he understood. We talked for a moment, and then I gave the word. He said, "Mark this as time of death". 
Someday I'll deal with the emotions surrounding that one.
I kept his ashes for a year, slowly becoming comfortable in his presence, of a sort, relaxing in my home and in my skin with him around. That year marking I got up early, not intending to do what the day brought, but as I walked past "him" to start breakfast for the family and tend the farm and gardens, a feeling came over me and I stopped. Throwing feed at the animals, leaving a note, I took his rosewood box in a deep blue velvet bag and drove to the beach, to a favorite secluded spot among the rocks. The tide was in mid drop and I thought it'd be safe enough at that point to not have a boat. I waded out as far as I could, holding the box above the water and then I let him go. 

Why bring it up? 
Those apologies were easier to take. 

I'm not certain why. I'm sure not going to find the answer in my head, I know that. It's in my body somewhere, I can feel it moving, rolling to the surface. I want to talk with someone about it, someone strong with a different perspective. I don't want someone to ask me how I feel. I want someone to let me rail if I need to, who won't be afraid of what they see. Is there anyone in this world who would go there, who would be willing to not leave me in the moment if it gets ugly...I don't feel anger, that's all gone. Deep sorrow. And there are elements of my dad's thing in there, but only as a back tone. I don't want someone to tell me how to look at it, to analyze. I know how to look at it, once I can. I'm not unhealthy in this, my learned lessons haven't left me. I guess I'm doing an ok job of holding it away from sight, so that's a good thing.

That's my week. 

Moving onward ~ I'll figure it out. 
*and for the record, I've never had a problem seperating my father's stuff from other men in my life...it's never taken the joy and enjoyment from lovely parts of life away, not in the least. I only mention that because I hear so often that it ruins things for women in their relationships, but I have always maintained that choices to forgive, heal and move beyond can be made. I just can't subscribe to a victim's state...that gives away my power over myself and...no.*

How you been?

Oasis

Wonderwall

clean

Depeche Mode

Clean     

   Clean

The cleanest I've been

An end to the tears

And the in-between years

And the troubles I've seen 

Now that I'm clean

You know what I mean

I've broken my fall

Put an end to it all

I've changed my routine

Now I'm clean 

I don't understand

What destiny's planned

I'm starting to grasp

What is in my own hands 

I don't claim to know

Where my holiness goes

I just know that I like

What is starting to show 

Sometimes 

Clean

The cleanest I've been

An end to the tears

And the in-between years

And the troubles I've seen 

Now that I'm clean

You know what I mean

I've broken my fall

Put an end to it all

I've changed my routine

Now I'm clean 

As years go by

All the feelings inside

Twist and they turn

As they ride with the tide

I don't advise

And I don't criticise

I just know what I like

With my own eyes 

Sometimes 

Clean

The cleanest I've been

An end to the tears

And the in-between years

And the troubles I've seen 

Now that I'm clean

You know what I mean

I've broken my fall

Put an end to it all

I've changed my routine

Now I'm clean 

Sometimes