Tag: anger

Time has a way…

holding hands blog pic

Change. I hear it is inevitable. Another inevitability is the passing of time. This post addresses how some things change, while others stay the same, and how time has a way of passing, making the sting of life sometimes so potent, so painful, but also how time changes that pain to something beautiful.

In the above photo, I have edited the photo to emphasize my hand clasping my oldest son’s. This photo was taken a week ago Friday. A night that was meant to be poignant and beautiful, but was turned ugly. It was “Senior night” in my small hometown, a night to celebrate our senior football players, marching band students, and cheerleaders. Moms and dads got to walk across the field with their senior child, years of practices and sporting events and raucous band practice behind them, celebrating the young adult that has emerged. A bittersweet time. A time of acceptance of what has been and what is coming.

I strangled his hand out of pride, out of fear of the future, from a place a pure love. I did this while feeling the poison of anger and resentment resonating out of every fiber of who I am. This was due to the presence of his smug father (whose presence was only the second time he had ever shown at his child’s sporting event) and father’s first baby-momma girlfriend whatever the hell she is piece of human garbage.  I angrily appealed that she not attend, then at the plea of my son, I acquiesced. It’s about the child, after all…that’s what all these people keep saying.

I smiled, I walked, I posed for pics. The adoration I have for this child is endless. He is a wonderful human being. I hope, for the purpose of the pictures and the marking of a milestone, my charade was believable. I sat at the game alone, sometimes crying, hoping to pass it off as tears marking special time in my child’s life, but they were mostly tears of pain mingled with fury. My youngest chose to sit with them, they are much more fun than Mom, after all. I watched as he was honored as a senior football player and as a senior trumpet player in the marching band. The performance was beautiful, but was overshadowed from the pain I felt knowing that all of my deliberate, attentive, careful parenting meant little in comparison to his father being there, entourage in tow.

I called up a dear friend, a sister in arms, and made plans to vent after the game. I went home, drank enough vodka to take the edge off, and told her of my pain and anger and frustration and fucking outrage. I cried, I exhaled profanity and ugliness, I swore to find my revenge. She assured me the best response was no response at all. It’s funny because I am usually the voice of reason to my friends, and she gave me that gift on that painful night.

I rose the next morning, tired, emotionally hung over, and like a good mom does, I went and baked pumpkin rolls with the band parents for fundraising. I left, found my son, and told him exactly why I was so upset about the night before. I went home. I cried all day. Depression has a way of blinding me, turning off my brain, making my heart feel brittle, acutely fragile, and exposing all of my weaknesses. I felt like I had been turned inside out. I cried some more, slept, and awoke the next day vowing to make at least that one day a beautiful one for my youngest son. I apologized for my anger and sadness and assured him that none of it was his fault. We played at the park and played board games and went for a walk. The weather was perfect. He went to his father’s house that night, and I was left alone to perform an autopsy on the days prior. I felt as if I had been left to find my way out of the tundra of my mind without a way to navigate home. I was lost.

I reached out to someone whose wisdom has never steered me wrong. That person responded, “You are doing an awesome job with this whole mess. Don’t let him control you. You don’t need him or his approval” and also praised me because I didn’t let my temper get the best of me, landing me in jail or in the papers. It meant a lot because I felt as though I had botched the whole thing terribly.

Flash forward a week. The sting is still there, but the brain has reengaged. I am thankful for my decisions that led to me the divorce, as I am better able to see the person I loved is no longer that person, and has in fact, not been that person for a very long time. I am able to see that the ex baby-momma girlfriend waste of skin is not worth one iota of my energy or regard.

I am able to see that my love for my children and the ferocity in which I live that love, is evident in what I do each day. I do the messy parenting work. The emotional labor is mine alone. I do the things for my children that their father had never considered doing. I show up. I try. I am honest. I am a woman with faults, but I am brilliantly human. I am both soft and strong.

I also do things I feel will change the world: I help animals. I recycle, reuse, and re-purpose items. I work in a social justice type field. I pick up litter. I love a person for who is he is and how he reciprocates that love. Above the things and the acts, I love so fiercely that it often hurts me more than it heals or helps others. That very vulnerability makes me who I am, and that part of me, that tender and aching facet of who I was meant to be, it causes the grief and the pain and the turmoil I feel but it makes me a human worthy of love and loving others. I will not forfeit that for anyone. That is my strength and my downfall. Without that, I would not be the fucking fabulous ferocious being that is this human called Sarah.

I still hurt. I will hurt for awhile. Not because of them, those bastards, but because of my willingness to let them damage me. I see now that I have power over how I cope with that shit.

Change happens. Time helps. Damn, it helps a LOT.  Friends help mend a broken heart. Love for my children, that shit makes me crazy. It is the best love I have ever experienced. I wouldn’t trade a single tear shed for my pain and discomfort and the JOURNEY. It is who I am, who I am becoming, and that fire is how I will be remembered by the people who truly know and love me.

Those clasped hands, that fierce love…that is my victory. I am more than the ugly in this world. I choose to love even when it is killing me. I am a fucking warrior.

If you are reading this, I want you to keep marching. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

 

 

 

The monarch

animal beautiful biology bloom
Photo by Cindy Gustafson on Pexels.com

Hello, back from a brief down period. I had surgery two weeks ago Tuesday and I must say, anesthesia is hell on the brain. Surgery is no fun for the body. The incision, an inch and a half long puckered intrusion into my spine, into my very vertebra, was definitely a violation my body raged against. However, healing has come and I am getting stronger each day. The good news is, the symptoms for which the surgery was addressing are absent. I call this a blessing.

This week I suffered an acute bout of depression coupled with desperation. I wanted to go back to work. I wanted to contribute to my Team and be part of something. My brain and body was not ready. I complained, via private message, to my very best friend. To which she responded something along the lines of, “Maybe G*d is trying to show you something.” I rolled my eyes and mentally agreed to listen and watch. If a Higher Power wants me to know something, by golly, I’m ready.

Enter the Kavanaugh hearing the next day. I watched the 7+ hours. I listened to Dr. Blasey Ford share her story, I listened to Kavanaugh share his. I cried through her testimony. I cringed through his. I fielded phone calls and messages from friends that were on edge, hurting, fearful, confused, saddened, enraged through all of this. That night, I went to bed with some hope that perhaps, just maybe, my country still might have some good in it.

I watched the vote the next day. I realized I was wrong. There is no good left here, apart from the love of my own people, the support of a very appreciated support system, and the light that lives in my own soul.

Since then, the bouts of tears and sadness are prone to show up almost without provocation. I feel raw. I feel naked. I feel like a cornered beast, fearfully lashing out even when some seek to console.

I’ve been working diligently on self-care since those days. I took care of some shopping I had postponed. I started walking the best I can in my current condition. I washed my hair. I painted my toes the violent crimson red that corresponds with my own traumas. I reached out to friends that have been suffering. I looked inside to the little girl who lives within. The little girl that learned, much too young, that the world is not safe. The world is scary. The world is dark. Trust no one. Tell no one. The secret is mine and mine alone. The frightened child, for whom I sunk to my knees, opened my arms, embraced and cried, she is still in there. She is still frightened. She is still vulnerable. I held her, rocked her, soothed her. I told her, swore to her, that I would not let her be hurt again. That is a steep promise. I plea to myself, don’t let me fail her.

Flash forward a day or so. I am walking again, this time with my youngest son. I am pointing out plants and other interesting things as we stroll together. He reaches his hand to mine, twines our fingers together. In that same moment, a monarch flies by. The monarch, buffered by the wind, flew on bravely and valiantly. “Oh, look at the Monarch,” I say, and then follow with, “I’ve read they are going extinct. What do you think of that, kiddo?” The boy looks at me and says, “Some people hurt butterflies on purpose. Those people are bad people.”

My son, my beautiful son, he gets it.

God help us all.