A Grey Start To Spring

It is still grey here in Detroit, although spring has arrived.  The weather has gotten to me, there are sunny days that pop up in between that seem to promise change, sadly they quickly disappear and the gloomy grey returns. 

Each day brings a new struggle, especially when there is no sun. I almost prefer the snow on the ground, at least the white coat gleams something beautiful, it makes sense in the context of winter. All this grey sky, grey concrete along with the bare trees are a constant reminder of how I feel inside, a dead feeling, or the sad feelings, I only wish the feelings were actually dead, at least with death there is an ending. 

I realize I spend much of my time thinking about someone who isn't thinking about me. How many of my hours wasted, even when I'm out doing things, there is an empty space within me that constantly hurts, nothing can fill it.  There are the moments of reprieve, they are few and far between, I am grateful for when they arrive, my head is somewhere else, then it returns and the hole is back.

There is a lot of learning when a relationship ends, I can say I've taken in a lot.  I am slowly understanding my part of its demise, things I should have done from the start that I knew where not the best ideas, I also knew I went into the relationship with a heart full of love and the best intentions, knowing somewhere in my gut that this person probably wasn't in the same place at the time, although they told me they were and they made me feel that things were going to be ok.  I trusted, I believed and I brought my faith in.

At the end of it all I feel used, judged, mistreated, misunderstood and easily discarded. Thrown away like old packaging, how wonderful it must be to be so free you can throw people away without a care and rebound so quickly. 

Although the hole within me is large and seems to be getting worse instead of healing, I have to constantly remind myself that I did my best to keep my part of the street clean, most of the issues were theirs.  This person was incapable of accepting me for who I was, which is ironic since it seemed that my free spirit is what drew me to them in the first place, eventually they constantly judged me and hurt my feelings, they made me feel as if they were embarrassed of me, towards the end they couldn't look me in the eye, be honest, hold my hand or sit with me.  These are not my issues, these solely belong to them. 

These things don't make this person a bad person, I have to understand that, it makes them a person who truly doesn't know themselves and if you aren't happy with yourself you will take that out on someone else, even if you say I love you a hundred times, it is meaningless.

When you love someone you love all of them, even their "flaws", acceptance, compassion, understanding, empathy, these are characteristics that make someone worth loving.

The worst part is I still love them, but I cannot remember why.

In ______ We Trust?

I've been in contemplation over what to write about next for a few days now. On several occasions I've started posts on various topics and have abandoned ship, it wasn't that the topics weren't good, it might have been my mood, not being ready to go in that direction or sometimes just plan bad/scary/awful material. Hey we aren't perfect, and if you were one of the lucky few to read "I Never Said I Was A Lady," before it came down you know I have never claimed to be either perfect nor a lady.

Today I'm finally ready to talk about trust, this goes deep for me.  I have trust issues, and I believe many of us do.  It really starts with childhood, feeling safe and taken care of by our family/parents will develop wonderful trust in a person.  Sadly for many of us that isn't the case and we never quite move past that even with a lot of work.  I'm one of the many.

If you know me I don't often talk about my childhood.  For the most part I can't remember a lot of it, which I believe is a  safety mechanism the brain activates to help us forget extremely painful situations.  I'm writing about this not for sympathy or to place blame but for others to learn and hopeful grow.  As a very young child my Mother left my Father and our entire family in a suburb outside of Michigan in which I have very fond memories to move to Los Angeles, California.  My Mother is a sick and suffering alcoholic with many many issues and I will leave it at that, I no longer choose to have her in my life.  As a child she put me in many situations where my life was endangered, from being kidnapped to being sexually, mentally and physically abused.  Now you many understand where I am getting to with the trust issues.  She also worked very hard on brain washing me into thinking my Father was a horrible person, it's so deep and sick I can't even begin to scratch the surface.  Writing about my Mother could take up many blog entries so I won't go too far down that road.  

Clearly being in that type of environment sears mistrust into you deeply. Oddly enough I found the good in people over the bad in almost every situation.  As I got older people would pop up in my life and show me small sparks of goodness that helped me build trust.  I did have faith I just didn't really understand it yet. I also had a very deep case of daddy issues, trying to find the love I was denied by my Mother in a Father Daughter relationship in men I dated.  It was really quite confusing.   

Having a surprisingly open heart I trusted men in my relationships, and often was severally disappointed when they could not deliver what I wanted, looking back, I had no idea what I wanted, but whatever it was it wasn't happening. 

Being an active alcoholic for many years did not help this situation, it numbed the anger toward my Mother but left me very vulnerable in romantic relationships and friendships.  

Because of the work I used to do, I also realized that at times people dated me to be apart of an exciting life, which hurt like hell.  Yes they liked me, but they REALLY liked my extra ordinary life and celebrity friends.  Add that on to the trust issues, gross right?  I'm living a pretty regular life now I try to keep that part of my past quiet until I feel secure enough to let someone in, seriously, some of it is pretty wild even I think, "did that really happen?"  Tonight I was listening to the radio and Bill Wither's, "Lean On Me" came on, I started singing and remembered I didn't know who he was when he came to look at guitars in my office during the Song Writers Hall Of Fame rehearsals and he was kind enough to school me by playing "Ain't No Sunshine" for me privately in a room so small you could call it a coat closet.  Kinda cool.  But things like that happened to me every day for many many years, how to do just drop that on someone and expect them to be like, "yeah, I get it." 

After 5 1/2 years of sobriety, several years of therapy I am still working on trust only trying to approach with different understandings.  Knowing how I wanted to be treated in relationships romantic or friendly, understanding who I am as a person, how I treat and handle all relationships myself, understanding mine and their limitations, being accepting of them and really down deep knowing that I can't change anyone except myself and that the only thing I can truly trust is a power higher greater than myself, that power isn't human, it's bigger, no human can relieve my suffering, my issues, my pain, only god and I can work together on that one.

Manic Panic: Let It Go

Woo woo is how I describe the manic panic that comes over me when I start over thinking any situation.  For the first week or two after my recent breakup the woo woo was a heavy battle, my head was spinning in that stressful area that I can only assume everyone goes to after major life changes.  Plus I was living out of a suitcase at my parents house while they were out of town until I could move into my new apartment.  My version of homeless.  It knocks you out of wack. 

Feeling bad about yourself, unworthy, confused, defeated, pretty much run the course of post breakup feelings then throw homelessness on top of it in the middle of an endless snowstorm and tada! 

Only a few days ago I found myself sitting in my car smoking (after 18 months of non-smoking), freaking out in a panic about what exactly I wasn't quite sure, but it was enough to give me a restless night sleep in which I wrote to my best man friend of many years, "what's wrong with me?  why can't I find someone to love?"  He sweetly wrote back about the human condition and everyones need to be love, I'm pretty sure he said there was nothing wrong with me either, but I can't remember because I feel like I've been on a bender for the past month and my brain is filled with holes.  And at the end of the day, there really is nothing wrong with me. 

The next day, I felt different, it was like I crossed over in to OKville.  Maybe it was the latest episode of GIRLS where Hannah returns to NYC to find Adam is in a new relationship, after she freaks out, they have a heart to heart and she realizes as much as it hurts he needed to move on.  Something about that episode clicked so much for me. Yes television, smart television, plus the episode when Marni gets her ass eaten out by Desi is hysterical, whoa, I wonder what Brian Williams thought of that action. 

I digress, something clicked for me this week.  I'm lighter, I'm getting it and I'm healing nicely.  I missed myself, she's pretty frickin awesome, every few years she gets into a relationship, takes a mini vacation and gets lost.  I'm happy she is back, I'm going to work on taking good care of her this time, keeping her front and center. 

And here is Marni and Desi from GIRLS incase you're not avid watcher

Saying Goodbye

About 3 years ago I was living in Brooklyn and my grandmother had recently moved back to West Bloomfield from years in Ft Lauderdale after her long time companion Bill had gotten ill.

She seemed very sad depressed.

On a telephone call she said to me, “I wish you lived here so we could be closer.”  A light went off in my head after we hung up, “I could move to Detroit, couldn’t I?  Be closer to my grandmother and help take care of her.”  Three months later I found myself packed up and on my way to live in Detroit.

It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.  It has been an honor to help take care of my Nana for the past 2 years and 9 months.

We had a very special relationship, it was more than just grandmother and granddaughter, we became friends.  We talked about things in deep confidence.  She trusted me and I was honored.

Family had always been the most important thing to my grandmother and there were many things that took place in our family that had caused our family to grow apart.  This was something that shook her core.

When we were told that Dorothy was in the last hours of her life, she defied the medical experts and stayed with us for several more days.  Family gathered at her bedside to love her and say goodbye, she stayed with us.  We worried she was struggling and were perplexed with what it could be about; I had my personal thoughts on her fears and faith although Tyra one of her caregivers told me recently her faith seemed restored.

On Thursday a caring social working suggested that maybe she needed to hear goodbye from people who hadn’t been near all week, we jumped on the phone with every family and friend we could think of to help her on her journey.

After we were done, several cousins and I sat feeling good about the work we had finished.  We also realized that we had not been this close since we were children and through Dorothy our love and connection had been rekindled.  We promised to honor her, our family and ourselves by staying in each others lives.

45 mins after our realization my grandmother passed peacefully as I held her hand along with my father, my cousins Bradley and Jennifer and Teresa her incredible caregiver.

After she passed we realized she hadn’t been struggling with her own issues, she needed us to do our work before she could leave. She needed us to be ok, she needed her family to come together and be a family again.

Je n'aime pas le compost

urgh, compost.  i don't like.


part of being a member of the community garden here in park slope is working two open hour shifts, lovely, you kick back for 2 hours at a time and chill while children and adults enjoy the garden....


and for me a non-gardener, two shifts of composting.


gross, i just shoveled compost from bin to bin for several hours.  one bin was really smelly, there are a ton of bugs and worms.  


decomposition is interesting, don't get me wrong and i appreciate people doing this composting work, doing it myself, i don't like so much.


if anyone I knew saw me they would die laughing, i was wearing new nikes, current elliot jeans, a hype top and a button down plaid cowboy shirt, covered in dirt.


and to top it all off someone locked me in the garden, hello, do you not see me shoveling here dude?


thank gawd i'm in decent shape because i really only took a few little water breaks to catch my breath


i'll be in the garden again saturday morning if the hurricane allows moving rotting food from one bin to another, feel free to come on down and poke fun at me

Moving compost into wheel barrows, actually looks nice in this photo, lucky for you it's not scratch and sniff

In other news.....

i'm addicted to twitter, feel free to following me chaiks on twitter.  i tweet all day long about really stupid stuff, even less interesting and more bubble headed than many of my blogs

i had a good book project meeting today, that's all i'll say because i have a shit ton amount of work to get moving on 

also a banner therapy day w hazel, who've i decided to name the female in my new book project that my friend tad and i are working on, i have no idea what he's naming his male character, but mine is hazel after my kick ass therapist

we took a look at my goals when i went into therapy shortly after getting sober (maybe 2 weeks?) and where i was at now...surprise, i've accomplished them.  man, i never in a million years would have believed the change the last two years has brought, lots of work, this isn't easy stuff.  the work is hard but so rewarding and actually fun cos who doesn't want to sit around and talk about themselves for two years to anyone who will listen?

which leads me back to the narcissist topic from the other night.  i re-read the narcissist article from Psychology Today, i even loaned my copy to hazel which i think tickled her. 

first and foremost, i dated and lived with a narcissist, a perfect text book example.  wholly crap, when i read the article the only human i could see was this person. i kind of want to send them this article, but as i learned live in person and in the article narcissist don't like it when you tell them they are less than handsome and smart, etc.  I once told this person they only had what they had because they were handsome & lived in that good looking person bubble and they were pissed!  but i told them they were an asshole a million times and it rolled off them, text book case 

what i did realize is that i totally have a narcissistic streak.  it's mellowed out, but when i was actively drinking it was full tilt boogie.  most of the people i've surrounded myself with my entire life are also narcissist, performers, front people, musicians, actors, etc.  creative people tend to like and dislike themselves.

i just thought the whole thing was really interesting, the article is brilliant, i can't suggest reading it enough, august 2011 issue

next....

oh, therapy.

so i set my next goals.  very different.  one thing i'm going to work on is a healthy romantic relationship, cos i'm messed up in this department.

i need to figure out what i want so that i can ask for it, how can i be a good partner when i'm so confused?

most women know what they want, kids, husband, blah, blah.  it's never been my thing.  there are moments that it sounds good and i'll do a little day dreaming but when i did have the husband and the potential to have the kids i was miserable, now that could be because i had the wrong husband, who knows

but figuring out what i want in a relationship is a big goal of mine moving forward

i'm tired of being the person that starts sweating, having mini-panic attacks and needs to get out of said man-friends apartment asap when we are done in bed

not cool

yes, i am a work in progress, that is cool and i accept that, a day at a time

have a killer night

shan

ps- did i mention this cake i saw today? i so wished i was hungry when it appeared to me at the bean in the east village, wow....dream cake