Mommie Dearest

#LentUnEdited This is NOT a cry for help, I'm so good, I'm just sharing something that took maybe THREE SECONDS this morning, but it happens every couple of years and I thought I'd SHARE it. LOVE you !

Mommy was a "manic depressive," which we now know as bi-polar disorder, but we wouldn't have known that then either, because thinking was on her side, you don't GO to a doctor, 'cause when you GO to a doctor they find CANCER, then they cut you open, and it spreads all over, and "next thing you know, you come home dead."

Praise God I've managed all these years to keep fortified my barbican, but sometimes I can see shadows of the cousins of the spirits who tortured my mother all those years, I feel them trying to creep up in underneath my lungs, cloud my head, rob me of a morning's pleasure, like Dementors, I guess, and I've got some quick seconds to "chase all the clouds away ..."

There are some mornings I'll do some little thing, one of the repetitive tasks to keep the balls in the air, keep people alive, keep the train on the track ... this morning it was after I'd fed the kitties, reaching for a bowl to do the next thing, and then it sorta hit the front part of my brain and curled me over for a second ... thinking how this day was no better than the last, and what's the point of it all, and i'm never gonna be able to dragazz through the same old tired routine that takes over every morning after I'd fed the kitties, reaching for a bowl ... doesn't matter anyway, the day's just gonna fly by with nothing to show for it, just like the last one, and can't I get a moment's peace just to sit down and breathe?

and I thought,
you dirty thankless bastards, chalky, tacky, dull thieves of light,
you desperate spirits of ill will, you're not gonna feed on MY soul and steal MY joy,
be gone ! you have no power here !

and I picked up that bowl like it was a priceless work of art given me by god's own hand,
and I called BACK to mind every. single. one. of the MULTITUDE of blessings i've been given in this incarnation,
and remembered the responsibility i've been given to tend to my corner of god's magnificent garden
and here we are to sing and dance and make Merry like Christmas, mereh.

I found this poem a decade ago by Vicky Richards, and it's one of those things you think, "OH ! I'll cut this out and send it to Mommy, I wonder if it would give her release, if it would help soothe her troubled spirit," and then you realise Mommy's been dead for many years, and you wipe your eyes and move on. I thought that too about NEXT2NORMAL and the truth of I MISS THE MOUNTAINS, 'cause I really think it addresses how exciting and comforting feeling manic is versus feeling nothing at all ...

I've never wanted to go back and be young, relive my past, it was too painful trying to get here where I am today,
and I've never wanted to go back with the knowledge I have now because I know you can't teach nothin' to nobody nohow,
but my heart will always go out to the old gal who used to sing, "You're gonna miss your big fat mama one of these days," just after she'd say, "don't you worry about that, kid, I'll be dead and rotten by the time that happens ..." xoxo

---> Sometimes, you’d rather sit there and sob into eternity
Than feel a joyful ecstasy.
Your body wracked, your wit’s end is endless and you stay there indefinitely.

Looking over into the gorge, all you want is to throw yourself over, to give in to the pain and live out your days a hollow, hurting skeleton.

But you love the view too much to do it,
So you stand and you stare
Into the seabed of your tears
All the reasons why
And why not
And the could haves and should haves and days you hated yourself
The things you could not do, the times you were not perfect.

It is an ocean of self loathing full of salty, unrealistic expectation.

But in this sad desert, this raging storm, this churning sea – that is where you find it.
That is where it finds you.
Lying helpless on the ground,
spent and shaking,
eyes shut so tight they may never open again.

All I can feel is the rhythm of my tears pounding out the beat of my life force,
I want it to end,
I never want it to end.

And then one moment you’ve hit a wall
And the world falls away
And then I can feel it.
This tableau still laid out all around me, my hands touch earth and I find a plateau
And above me I can see it.

Myself.

The part of me that is most me, standing there waiting, strong and stoic and full of grace.
A weeping willow with arms outstretched, leaves twining together to lift me, safe, out of the storm.
Waiting to embrace this shivering mess of humanity it says,

“Come here, now, little one. All is not lost. Stay a while with me, you’ll see.”

It is in these moments where I find my strength.
When I hate it all so much that the clouds roll in and the air supply runs out,
When my constant, blessèd life turns into a string of cursed regrets
And good runs away
This is where it runs to.

If you wait long enough, it finds you on the edge

If you listen well enough, it will call you back from the places you wish didn’t exist

If you want it bad enough, you’ll never lose it

So long as you live, it will find you.

But you must live.

To live is more than to just exist.
Pursue. <--