Broke

How many times can something break, before it's broken?

Damaged

Totalled

Irreparable

Beyond Repair

Can broken be beautiful?

There is a Japanese tradition called 'kintsugi' in which broken items are repaired with either gold or silver plating making the object more beautiful and the brokenness becomes part of the object's story and beauty.  Without the brokenness, it wouldn't be beautiful.

While I continue to break, stuff around me breaks and I stay broke, I'm learning to repair the brokenness with something more beautiful. Making my brokenness part of my beauty.  Filling in the cracks with kindness, respect, perspective, gentleness, forgiveness and compassion...for myself and those around me.

Life is amazing and beautiful and hard and joyful and sad and perfect - in equal measure.  There are moments where I feel pure perfection and those moments allow me to escape...to stop thinking...to just be in this moment at this time.  While I'm so incredibly thankful for those moments, I know they are temporary and cannot sustain me.  Conversation, connectedness, compassion...those are the things that are the gold to fill in my cracks.

Collage is an amazing art form that takes pieces of things that seemingly don't belong together and creates something beautiful of the pieces.  My life is much like a collage...a collage of moves, and love and success and failure and passion and humor and people who seemingly don't belong together and yet have helped to form the collage of me.

I'm thankful for the perfect escapes. I'm thankful for the friend who seems to text - out of the blue at the most amazing moments - to say 'you're a beautiful and amazing woman and I love you'.   I'm thankful for the friend who I call to say 'I was thinking about something you said the other day.....' and he says "No one has ever thought of me that way before".  I'm thankful for my family who continues to love in such an unconditional manner that it amazes me.  I'm thankful for my friend who calls me just to tell me she loves me...after more than twenty years, she still loves me.  Those the kinds of connection, compassion and conversation that are the gold in the cracks of my heart.

So I may be broke, but I'm not beyond repair.  My repairs are making me more beautiful as I learn to embrace broken and create a life-collage out of the pieces.

Am I Safe Enough To Say No?

Many times in relationship my insecurities have dictated my behavior rather than my security.  One key question when asked a favor I now ask myself:

Do I feel safe enough to say no?

Am I saying yes to this because I fear your rejection? Am I saying yes just so I feel necessary?  It's not important to me what the intention of the person asking the favor is.  It took me decades to figure out that your intention is not my business. I don't need to analyze, second guess, ask why you're asking, or wonder what your next move will be.

The question is: 

Why am I saying yes? 

I was asked a favor today...an incredibly difficult favor that created a sense of vulnerability and exposure in me.  The second the question was asked, my heart raced, my throat caught, my arms got tense, my eyes teared up.  Why, oh why, with this person standing right next to me...within inches of me...did I pray a full moon prayer to practice vulnerability this month?  

Why, last week, when sitting next to him did he say a jackass thing that made my heart race, my throat catch, my eyes tear up?  Why is the Universe pushing so hard to answer my prayer this month?

Because I trust myself.  I trusted my Self enough to ask him why he said what he said and be prepared for whatever the answer was.  I learned a long time ago to not ask a question if I wasn't completely prepared to hear the answer.  It took me a while, I had to contemplate whether to ask and create understanding, or sit in silence and create distance.  I had to decide whether I was strong enough to make whatever decision would honor my Self the most after hearing the answer.  I asked the question, listened to the answer and sat in silence again for a while.  Learning to trust my self and taking chances with vulnerability, connection and truth is risky business.   

I trusted my Self enough to say yes to the favor - unconditionally - without a single question.  I feel safe enough to say no, which allows me to say yes.  Yes, because I care about you.  Yes, because you matter to me.  Yes, because I'm willing to take a risk.  Safe enough to say no, allows the openness and vulnerability required to be me, to grow beyond my own limitations. 

So, while my heart races, my throat catches, my eyes tear up...I practice vulnerability and say yes because I feel safe enough to say no.  

Behind These Walls

My walls are made of punches that left dents in my face, slaps that busted ear drums, empty bank accounts, rejection, denial, exhaustion, hard work, sacrifice, investing in the wrong people, more men's voices when asked 'who's that' answering: no one, my own self limiting beliefs, losing my sister to her love of alcohol...a myriad of bricks packed with the mortar of blood and tears.

Still, I reach over the walls now and again. You need a ride, I'll be there. You need lunch...what is it you want me to bring? You need to borrow something I have, here you go.  It's not that anyone has taken the time to look over the walls I've built, I've just been courageous enough to reach outside of them and be vulnerable, honest and open.

I've spent the last nine months building walls,  tearing them down, reaching over them, adding a few bricks, filling in the mortar with more tears and fears, struggling to not believe the answer: no one.

If there was someone strong enough, tall enough, courageous enough to look over the walls I've built, they'd see compassion, commitment, love, humor, hard work, vulnerability, honesty, willingness, generosity, intellect and dichotomy.

This week has been spent - with trepidation - coming out from behind these walls.  There's rubble, busted bricks, messy mortar, material no longer necessary that needs to be hauled off but the walls are no longer hiding who I am.  The answer to 'who is that' is NOT no one.

I may be your friend, your lover, your co-worker, your sister, your mom, your ex...but the answer is not no one.  In order to be seen, I have to be able to be seen.  It was too easy for others to keep me hidden behind those walls. It was too easy to allow myself to be unseen from behind those walls.

I am either someone in your life, or you are no where in my life.  I haven't made it easy for people to see me or know me.  The walls create a facade that hides the tenderness in my soul. The walls were grand at protecting me from hurt, but they were also grand at keeping me from living and loving fully.

From behind those walls, I've felt 'perfection'. For that I'm eternally grateful.  From behind those walls, I've felt joy.  From behind those walls, I've felt fear.  From behind those walls I've maintained hope. From behind those walls, I've worked hard to grow beyond the need for the walls.

As scary as it may be, here I am...exposed with no walls.  I'm someone to be reckoned with.

I Know What We Are

I know...I know...and still...

Pernicious...Pests...Pain...Progress

Thistles are considered 'pernicious' weeds and the only way to get rid of them is to dig deep, pull the entire root and fill the hole created with something else.

There's a thistle in my heart...it's pernicious, painful and needs to be pulled from the root.  I've let thistles grow in the garden of my heart for much too long and avoided the dirty work of getting on my knees, putting my hands in the dirt and pulling it out by the root.  The garden of my heart is beautiful...I love passionately, I give generously, I'm forgiving, funny, kind, intelligent and curious in astounding ways.  Yet, in this glorious garden of my heart there are thistles strewn throughout.  They poke me, catch me unawares and it's time to get rid of them.

I'm down on my knees, ready to dig in the dirt and pull them from my garden.  As I understand it, thistles, just like heartache, will reoccur over and over until you get to the very root of them and remove them completely, replacing them with 'competing ground cover'.  In this case, competing ground cover might look something like art, a good book, walks on the beach, amazing sex, good food, laughter, sleeping in a tent, cooking fish I caught, yoga...a myriad of things to fill in the holes being created by my digging.

Yes, it's a dirty job.  There are thistles that poke, dirt gets moved around, my shoulders are sore from the tension, my eyes are tired from the tears, but the garden of my Soul is worth the work.

Maybe, at the end of all this, I'll invite someone special into my garden to plant some seeds!

Anniversary Reflections

Thirty three years ago today I got married.  At ages 18 and 21, we were naive, uninformed and ill prepared to deal with buying a home, paying bills and handling the emotions that type of commitment took.  I, particularly, was ill prepared.

We are no longer married and not even friends.  Friendship with him would be so fun. He's intelligent, talented, hard working, super funny and the father of four of my children.  He'd be somebody I'd pick for a friend now.  I would love to call him and chat about our crazy kids, our super cute grand kids, the stupid shit we've done over 33 years of knowing one another...but we're not friends...we're ex somethings...ex spouses...ex parenting partners...ex friends...ex lovers.  We share four kids and memories of fishing and four-wheeling and fun and work and remodels and learning to be grown ups.  We share hurt and growth and somewhere deep down in the depths of our souls, when we look at our kids who look so much like 'us', we share love. For me, it's impossible to love so deeply the humans we created who look like such a reflection of him and not feel love for him as well.  Something in me believes I know him well enough to know he feels the same.

Thirty three years ago today I changed my name and lost my Self.  My life became about being what others expected of me.  I've done things I didn't really want to do, didn't do things I did want to do, in order to be pleasing or right to someone outside of me.  I've done some interesting things, had astounding accomplishments whilst raising five kids, have failed miserably at relationships, kept trying when the odds were against me and struggled to get back the name, the voice, the path I veered off of 33 years ago.

Today, I take back my name.  The name the original man in my life gave me.  The man who from the day I was born until now has been consistent, constant and never changing.  My father remains the most steadfast, predictable, habitual and committed man I've ever known.  I am emotional, outrageous, out spoken, curious, and loud like my mother.  Yet it is my father's influence that constantly shows me the path to take, the way to live a solid life and the character to be who you are all the time, no matter what.  My father is unwavering in his commitment to be him and live his beliefs.

The day I got married, my dad held my hand, said 'Shorty, you don't have to do this' and I wish I had been courageous enough to say no...to find my voice...to say 'I'm scared Daddy and I don't think this is right'...but I didn't.  At that moment, my voice, my Self, was lost and has struggled to re surface for years.  That voice, that Self, appears randomly and then gets silenced by rejection, fear, need for acceptance, self doubt and recrimination.

As I take back my - his - name, I pray that the character he's shown me becomes more prevalent.  I vow to myself - on this day of remembering vows - to be Me.  To recognize the sound of my own voice.  To say no when I mean no. Say yes when I mean yes. To make some amazing art like I did when I was a kid.  To listen to the sound of my soul rather than the voices in my head put there by others who want to judge without knowledge.  To run on the beach. Have fires. Light candles. Read books.  Have amazing sex.  Eat good food.  Laugh with my kids and grand kids.  To be passionately, habitually, committed to Me.

Scars Of The Heart

"Scars show us where we have been, they do not dictate where we're going." - David Rossi

They say scar tissue is harder to pierce than unscarred places.  Scar tissue replaces 'normal' skin after a wound.  Physicians say that every wound results in some degree of scarring and thus scarring is part of the normal healing process.  Yet the new material formed by the scar is 'usually of inferior quality'.  If a wound takes more than two to four weeks to heal, a permanent scar will be formed.

So what about the unseen wounds? The wounds on my heart and my psyche?  What about the wounds that leave me fearful of strong emotions and create chaos in my life and those around me?  What about that scar tissue? Is it of 'inferior quality' leaving me incapable of allowing something good to happen to my heart?

If I could love the wrong person that much, shouldn't I be able to love the right person so much more?

Today I was told to not the let the wounds of the past ruin today or undermine what may come in the future.  The truth is, I don't know how. I don't know how to not look for the fake, the game being played...rather than seek the truth I look for the lie.  Rather than trust the feelings, I look for the hurt.  Maybe if I'm prepared for the hurt, the shock of it will be reduced and the impact less.  They say scar tissue is stronger than 'normal' tissue.  My heart disagrees...my heart is not strong enough to endure another break.  Henry David Thoreau says the only remedy for love is to love more...scary prospect...to love even more than I have loved before.

My response was: I'm trying.  I'm really trying.

"A final comfort that is small, but not cold: The heart is the only broken instrument that works."
-- T.E. Kalem