I’ll be back a little later.
(NOTE: I’m perfectly okay. I’m trying something new.)

Yesterday, I was psychotically happy. So much so that I kept remarking to friends, “I feel like someone spiked my morning doughnut with ecstasy.” Everything was THE BEST THING EVER (my fajita at lunch? Best one I’ve ever eaten. My look? Best hair day I’d ever had, my outfit was adorable, my makeup was flawless, my skin looked amazing, and I was having a skinny daylikewhoa. All the songs on the radio? My favorite. My kitties? Best behaved they’d ever been and softest fur ever. Etc.) to an extent in which I legitimately started worrying that I might be mistaking a manic episode with “birthday euphoria”.

And then, in the afternoon, when I was cuddling with my husband, (who took the afternoon off so we could go to lunch JUST THE TWO OF US!! and cuddle IN THE DAYLIGHT HOURS!!), I realized that I was so happy because I was living in a life I am ecstatic to have an excuse to publicly/outwardly celebrate... And, while I’ve had that for a few years, it kind of took me a while to “get” it (as most things tend to, you may have noticed.) Because, admittedly, it’s hard to really be genuinely happy on your birthday when your birthday is the only day of the year you can force yourself to smile or when you accept love from anybody. I was weirdly/bothersomely elated the minute my birthday started, because I’ve been so happy and because I’ve been given so many awesome gifts (not necessarily tangible…duh) and so much love by so [SO! EFFING!!] many awesome people, I was just elated to be celebrating my life. Finally!

As I was pulling into my driveway last night (at a lame 11 p.m. because I was exhausted) after a full day of love and celebration, I felt this overwhelming urge to go running through the streets cackling like a crazy person and screaming, “I MADE IT, EVERYBODY!!!!! WOOOOO!!!! I’M HERE!!! I MADE IT!!!” (NOTE I did not do this a- because, as aforementioned, I was exhausted and b- because I didn’t feel like getting arrested.)

Instead, I sat in my car, in my garage for a minute and cried, praying to God/Spirit/The Universe with soul-shaking gratitude, “Thank you. I made it through that shitstorm back there! All of it! That storm when I tried to kill me and others tried to kill me (inadvertently) and I was full of hate and anger and rage and everything I’m not anymore! I woke up these mornings with a world full of gifts I’m not sure how I procured, that are more wonderful than I ever envisioned for myself. I woke up in a steady, solid state of mental clarity and joy that I, for many years, had decided was impossible. I am surrounded by love. I am healthy. I am sane. I am at peace. All of this is more than I ever thought I deserved. Thank you. THANK YOU. Please, please show me what you want me to do with all of these gifts I’ve been given, because I’m ready… and I’m even grateful for that. THANK YOU.”

It was, without a doubt, the happiest birthday I have ever experienced.

However, while I am, traditionally, prone to wax sentimental and philosophical and reminiscent (you know; you’ve seen),  I’m mostly just enjoying this moment of stasis; I’ve reflected all I need to and wrung meaning out of every possible event that shaped the life I have right now. I’ve confessed and apologized and made amends and cleansed and detoxed the shit out of what was set in motion years and years ago. A part of me is a bit hesitant to admit pride or even comfort in where my soul presently is, but, dammit, I’ve worked hard and mentally beaten my soul to a pulp to get here, to this place of quiet acceptance, deliberation, anticipation and joy. Finally, I don’t need to spend any more time looking back. I’m at a place right now where I’m ready to spring forward and, truly, this is the first time I’ve ever dared to say that… invite my Higher Power to call me, if you will.

In my yoga class, we’re studying Vinyasa technique, which includes giving a great sigh at the end of a chapter or cycle in your life, to mark its end and the beginning of a new venture (I’ve found myself doing these after I’ve found a parking spot in the last busy shopping season.) I feel safe giving a great sigh now.

I feel safe.
I feel loved.
I feel loving.
I feel joyful.
I feel grateful.
I feel like I am part of my world.
I feel ready.

Welcome back, Saturn.

We met ten years ago to this week, by the way.

I’m sure you’ve realized in retrospect that you met me at the exact moment I reached the precipice of my freefall into unfuckingimaginable insanity/destruction after years of a slow-but-consistent descent in prologue. Really, the fact that we were still friends within a year of meeting each other is miraculous in itself because HolyLordballs, was I busy losing my damned mind.

I have a confession I never actually verbalized to you: you were my Bright Spot then. I remember meeting you and going to your dorm room and seeing this art that you’d created just because you wanted to make a prettier space for yourself (wha?! I didn’t know people did that! I thought people made art to show it off to each other or because their art teacher assigned it or because they wanted to submit it to something and get “famous”) and you sang songs that you’d written for your own amusement and you were this completely self-actualized, energetic being in a world of idiots (read: me) who were flailing around trying to leech energy off anything they thought was “cool” or “important” at the time and it was an unbelievable state of mind to encounter from where I was. Because, most of the time, when there’s someone who is somehow “above” the mentality of their peers, he or she has to have some sort of following or need to declare their mental/spiritual/artistic superiority to everyone else - especially if that person has been recently liberated from the confines of high school. But not you, dude. You just sort of did what you did and you liked what you liked and you were completely oblivious to the fact that you weren’t just “different”, but really, genuinely, special. (And not “special” like our generation’s everybody’s-special-in-their-own-snowflake-way “special”, but special like holy-shit-she’s-going-to-change-lives-and-do-shit-that-bends-reality special.) I’m not saying that either one of us knew what, exactly, you were supposed to do with all that “special”-ness at that point in the game and, you know, you’ve had a bit of a learning process with it, but I still knew then. Even though at the time, I was busy being either a)completely obliterated or b)completely absorbed in that disgustingly destructive relationship I was enamored with, I still recognized the energy we had together, even when people around us did not. (And still don’t, I think. I’m okay in the idea that we confuse people, though.)

ANYWAY. I don’t wanna bore you with a wordy scrapbook of memories ’cause, you know, we’ve talked about them to a masturbatory degree. (The only people who love talking about how awesome their situation is more than we do are Burning Man attendees…)
But, after a decade, I’m convinced that there has to be something Bigger going on here than two weirdos having befriended each other in a bullshit theater class. (Seriously. That class was buuuulllshiiiit. “Constructive Rest Position”? Learning to tremble? Bite my ass, Jermaine.)

You loved me when I hated myself so much I literally tried to murder myself. You have loved me when I let my demons reject you from my life. You have had that same delusional faith in me even when my life was nothing more than rolling out of my bed at my parents’ house and driving to the technical college up the road in my pajamas day after day because I’d failed at literally everything else. When I told you I was pregnant by some dude I’d been dating for 3 months, (less than a year after my second mental hospitalization, ohbytheway) your immediate response was to exclaim “CONGRATULATIONS!” and send me a bouquet of my favorite flower (lilies) the next morning, even though everyone else around me provided me with silence and fear for the next month. You have cheered me on from the sidelines, even when you were literally my only enthusiastic fan and you have never once shown any doubt that I wasn’t the person you’ve been trying to convince me that I am, even though I’ve done things to contradict that hypothesis many, many times.

Even though the noises in my mind sometimes get too loud for me to focus, I want you to know that I have never stopped loving you just as much. I cried every night you slept in the hospital and, aching with powerlessness, leapt at the chance to cram all your necessities (read: record player, paints) into my Jeep from Greensboro to Charlotte. I blew all my money from that coffee-shop job of mine for those monthly (sometimes fortnightly) treks up to Asheville to see you and I never once hesitated to plaster your art all over my dwelling space the minute it was given, in any form. I made sure to practice singing along to the more obscure PJ songs so I’d know all the words for the “next time” we got to see them perform (it totally worked!) I have always continued to talk to Chloe about you and show her pictures so she wouldn’t forget her godmother between the times she got to see you.

But I am, by no means, unaware that I’ve dropped the ball a lot and, when looking at this friendship and identifying its role within my life from this vantage point, I can’t help but feel the deepest regrets for the times I’ve let you down - you more than with anyone else I’ve ever disappointed. (Don’t tell my mom.) Dismissing your declining health and its symptoms (and understandable insecurity of those symptoms that compounded them) as “selfishness”, I pulled myself away from you and cut you off completely, in the name of “self-preservation”, instead of bothering to find out what, exactly, was at the root of your uncharacteristic actions. In my heart, I knew better, Allison; I know you better than to assume you’re just another brainless, unaware victim of self-absorbed-twentysomething-ism… why didn’t I do more? Why didn’t I stop to look deeper? Why didn’t I at least recognize that you weren’t being yourself - that something was obviously hurting you? I don’t know, Allison. I’ve spent hours of time wondering to myself what the hell kind of mental state I could’ve let myself get to in which I would completely ignore the “you” I inherently know and then regard your disease as your Self so much that I’d turn my back on you entirely. This time spent has only caused me insufferable pain - pain that worsens when I contrast my actions with the ones you’ve made when the roles have been reversed. As a friend, by comparison, I have been a selfish coward whose actions haven’t supported all those rambling speeches about your greatness I’ve made over the years. I don’t know why I have ever betrayed your trust or love when you have never once been disloyal to me, but I do know that I may never forgive myself for it. It’s just another testament to your wonderfulness that you somehow have, as always, seen that these actions aren’t indicative of my real Self and have forgiven me. Additionally, you have never once held me hostage for my shortcomings… Don’t think I don’t always carry those truths with me.

I always say that Chloe was The Thing That Saved My Life, but you need to know that YOU have constantly been The Thing That Makes Me Better. You bring out something in me that makes me a totally different person than the one I always thought I was; the energy I get when you’re around makes me love being alive and love being present and love being creative and fucking LOVE being myself. That sounds inane and melodramatic and really, really adolescent, but it’s true; you make me really happy to love the things I love. (”I JUST LOVE THE STUFF I LOVE!!!”) Just like I’d always kept my burning passion for Pearl Jam stuck in my pocket until I met you and let it reignite like crazy ever since, you’ve been the one to give me permission to really hurl myself at my loves, regardless of how idiotic they look to everyone else. You’re the one who lets me ramble for hours about Jim Henson/“Sesame Street” and who wants to watch “Tommy” 4,000 times to blabber about its nuances with me and you’re the one who will introduce me to new stand-up comedians or let me subject you to them and then dissect their genius for years upon years and you’re totally okay with spending Bear’s naptime just hanging out, smoking a hookah, drinking a shitload of Cheerwine, watching/running commentary during “Gia” and giggling about how fabulous it all is after making freshly-picked-strawberry-jam and you’re the one who gives me confidence to submit my writing to other people when I think it’s not terrible and you’re the one who gave me the balls to actually put that first stencil to use tagging various landmarks by immediately shouting “YES! LET’S DO IT!” and you’re the one who fucking laughs her ass off when I make a joke that I think is pretty good. You’re the one (many times the only one) who encourages me to not only figure out exactly what it is that I am, but to get really good at being that thing and then showing it to other people, when you will cheer loudly about it. Jesus Christ! Just writing that makes me feel unworthy.
Oh, but oh yeah! AND you’re able to do all of this cheerleading while also going out and seeking your own identity and truth and rocking at that, too.
DO YOU KNOW HOW RARE THAT IS!? Do you have any idea how fucking lucky I am to have found the aforementioned person AND that that person hasn’t totally given up on me yet AT ALL EVER (maybe because she’s insane, but I’m okay with that)!?!?!?! Because I don’t. I literally cannot conceive the odds of finding someone as special as you, having you come into and stay in my life for this long, and giving me all the gifts you have (and not just because I’m terrible at math…)

So, yeah. I just wanted you to know that I thought about all this today in church and realized that I’ll be talking about you still if I make it to 70 years old. And I realized that I would literally peel the skin off my back and sew it into a greasy, bloody skin-shirt for you if you absolutely needed it [in some post-apocalyptic, dystopian reality where that would somehow be crucial for survival.] (That sort of plot-hole is why I don’t write sci-fi.)
And I hope you know that everything I’ve ever said about your energy and vibrancy and incredible talent is the truth and is one of the rare, few things I Definitely Believe In. And I hope you know that I love you and have loved you no matter what my slow-to-adapt mind has convinced me of. I feel like you know these things, but I also felt like I needed to state them plainly and in print, where they could be cited and referenced.
More than anything, though, I’m so grateful that you’ve been such a definitive part of my last ten years. I don’t want to say anything hokey or forecasting about the future because that always seems to backfire for morons (ex: “Hope I die before I get old” - P.T.), but do know that these last ten years have been wonderful (even when they were fuckinggoddamnawfully terrible) because you have been in them.

Thank you so very much, Allison. Even if all our inside jokes and all our co-creations and all our memories and all our shared loves were suddenly stripped away from my conscious mind, I would still love you and everything you inherently are. I promise.

Right behind you,
L P-S

Last year and the year before I asked you for a ton of stuff and, while I ultimately got most of what I wanted, it wasn’t enough to make me happy.

Wait. Just hear me out.

The problem with my requests was that I already have “enough.” I did last year and the year before that and the year before that and, even though I probably had it all the years before that, I didn’t know what to do with it, so I didn’t think that I had it. Does that make sense?

Anyway, despite my petty fulfillment of material things, I have found myself in tears on my last two birthdays. That is not okay in my book.

Look, maybe the bar of “AWESOMEBIRTHDAYSOMG!!!” was set way too high by the way they’re celebrated during childhood, although I never had anything overly expensive or glamorous. (The first 5 years, my mom just taped balloons to the backs of chairs at my play table and invited half my preschool class over. We ate homemade cake and did whoonlyknowswhat. And it was a big freaking deal to me.) Maybe I’m too old to believe that birthdays should be special and awesome; that’s possible.

But, then, I don’t run around with a boa, tiara and long white gloves on my birthday anymore (I stopped that when I was 16) and I don’t expect my friends to plaster the roadsides with celebratory signs (18th birthday) or cover my lunch-eatorium with overzealous decor (also 18th birthday). In fact, I don’t expect anybody to do anything, really; I’m amazed when someone remembers my birthday without having to be reminded by Facebook. So I’d venture to say I’m pretty leveled-out when it comes to my expectations.

I don’t think wishing for “No tears on my birthday” is too much to ask, especially since this is going to be my last year of being a twentysomething. I mean, knowing me, I’d go for a night of karaoke and drag queens and bowling and graffiti and Mexican food and sushi (I don’t know how those would go together) and art and old movies and stand-up comedy and ice-skating and dancing to a fiddler around a bonfire and reading tarot cards and smoothies and taking a bum out shopping and playing tag completely naked but covered in glow-in-the-dark body paint and pretending one of us is a celebrity while the rest of us act as an entourage/paparazzi and watching the sun rise over the ocean while eating pineapples and roasting marshmallows and dressing like Tammy Faye Bakker to get breakfast at a truck stop and ghost stories and other general mayhem, but I don’t want to get too extreme or wear myself out.

So, this year, I really, really just want to be happy on my birthday, Birthday Fairy. Seriously, that is all I want. Thanks in advance for whatever you can pull off.

L P-S

Oh. Let me explain: I freaking love confessions. I know that sounds vague, but, really, it’s a blanket statement for sure. I love making confessions (always rewarding), I love hearing others’ confessions, I love poking and prodding at someone in hopes that they’ll confess something deep and self-denied to me. I adore it.

I don’t know where this started, although I have my hints that it was around the time I started getting to that age when the reality my parents had worked so hard to create for me started so show its cracks; that’s when I really started digging and spelunking through everything in my house, searching for clues as to who these people really were and what life I was actually a part of. Although I found many, many things that were deeply hurtful, I also came upon some truths that were revelatory and profound - secrets I wished we all had the courage to talk about openly. Both the disparaging truths and the joyful ones I uncovered gave me a high I’d never before experienced and I became hooked on “knowing The Truth”. I put this in quotations because, frankly, after 15-ish years of being one of those people who beats down doors and annoys people into giving me whatever “Truth” I’m searching for, I’ve also learned that “Truth” is, as with everything, completely subjective.

But, then, THAT also makes it incredibly addictive as well.

Fine. So I’m nosy. I’m impertinent and stubborn and violating of privacies and pushy and I like to know things that are noneofmydamnedbusiness. In high school, this was a way for me to feel superior to others, by finding the cracks in their facades (and then immediately running to spread the word, despite the actual reality of the situation or whether or not it was relevant…) However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun keeping the truths I uncover about others to myself, which I only just noticed here recently. Now, when I learn something “scandalous” about someone else (whether from my probing or from a private confession), it doesn’t shock me or send me into a flurry of gossip like it used to; it, instead, gives me pause to stop and consider this other person, their reality, the context in which their “secret” had/has to exist, and what that teaches me about compassion. (No, REALLY. I swear.)

And, ultimately, what I really, genuinely realized about myself is that I love collecting secrets and hearing confessions for no other reason than because those moments are where real humanity lies. Not in these characters we create to present to the world, but in those deeply-seeded truths about ourselves. I don’t, by any means, believe that people should be defined by these confessions/secrets/truths, nor do I think we should all run around wearing them on our sleeves (although I have a tendency to do that, which, frankly, is pretty damned juvenile of me). I do, however, believe in sharing our secrets with those we trust and, when receiving the secret truths of others, holding them in reverence and without judgment.

So, say what you will about all this being a well-developed justification for snooping/voyeurism, but I’m not really ashamed to say that I’m addicted to knowing what’s under the veil of humanity, regardless of the damage or joy it contains.

Some things in my psyche have changed in big ways, which is good for my day-to-day mentality: I’ve found peace with and befriended a major antagonist from my past (no, for real) and learned/came-to-peace with some other truths surrounding the whole context of our relationship, which clears up an absolute ton of weight sitting in the back of my subconscious (although I’ve tended to keep that part quiet in the years since we last spoke because, frankly, I hated that it was even there. ANYWAY.) Greg and I are in a really good, forward-moving, mentally healthy place; the Bear is slowly becoming more independent and I feel like I’m able to liberate her to her own volition a lot more, which is more rewarding than the feeling of being sapped of needs. A friend gave me a new perspective on writing this memoir (write it more like an editor reading someone else’s work instead of trying to re-live all that emotion and horseshit for the purpose of producing “authentic” work. So, basically, start editing those blog entries I’ve kept on a hard drive for some 8 years now) which is also incredibly freeing.

But, aside from that, there is still the Fear I’m finding myself faced with in my writing and the loneliness that’s been dragging me into stasis. I have set-in-stone, proactive plans to fix these things in the near future (like, I’m starting yoga classes this week and I’m taking the Bear horseback riding on Saturday and I’m making a writing schedule for myself so I’m holding myself to at least some sort of discipline.

But, if we’re being honest here (and I am), I woke up this morning and found that my excited, engaged energy from the last month has ground to a halt and I’m staring into the abyss of 2012 with a feeling of familiar dread and sinking morale. No matter how much I’m pep-talking myself (and, again, I definitely am), I’m fighting off tears and the urge to create another distraction for myself. I feel confident I could wallow in either for years if I really wanted to, mostly because I already have.

I’m reminded of an old saying a friend once shared: “On good days, chop wood and haul water. On bad days, chop wood and haul water.”

Wholesale prices are as follows (shipping is included in prices, so that’s why the math seems all wiggety.)

Bundles

5 Stickers $1.50 USD 25 Stickers $7.00 USD 50 Stickers $13.00 USD 100 Stickers $25.00 USD

So yesterday, I waltzed into New Therapist #Whatever’s office (I haven’t been in therapy in a few years, although I’ve been maintaining my mental practices of reflection, self-inventory, etc.) and, when she asked Typical Initial Evaluation Question #1 (”Why are you here?”), I unleashed a 20-minute diatribe about how I’ve been dealing with this shit for what seems like forever and I’ve been through more “recovery” and therapy and group therapy and self-help and general “healing” than I could possibly begin to describe in the last 10-ish years and I’m just fucking EXHAUSTED with it because I find myself still stuck in the same stupid habits and mentalities as I was at the beginning and dammit, why aren’t I fucking fixed yet?! I’ve forgiven everysingleperson who’s ever so much at looked at me the wrong way; I’ve forgiven myself for everysinglemistake I ever thought about making; I’ve “let go” and “12-stepped” and “retuned my mental radio” and visualized and meditated and undergone hypnosis and dug up everysinglesecond of my childhood and “accepted” and “gotten the tools of serenity” and genuinely flung myself headfirst into every possible brain-sick antidote on the market (and, apparently, picking up aaaallllll the cliched recovery jargon along the way - seriously, try me) and I am ready for my subconscious to hop on board with me because I’ve been ready to move on and be done with all this noise now. For real. Seriously.
And I’m starting to become self-defeating in my frustration when my subconscious won’t cooperate.
And that’s become a battle in and of itself.
Dammit.

So, when asked to give an example of how my subconscious “isn’t jumping on board”, I described this aforementioned, embarrassing impulse of mine and how, when I try to fight it off (I am successful 98% of the time it appears), it haunts my dreams night-after-night and I hate it.

And she’s all, “Well, I’m not a dream expert or anything…”
Me: No, I know; I definitely am not looking for a dream analyst or something lame along those lines. Sorry…
Her: … but what does [the source of this impulse] represent to you?
Me: …Fwaahh?
Her: Or, rather, what part of you does [the source of impulse] represent? You mentioned that having dreams about a childhood antagonist you no longer know or communicate with is simply your mind creating a mascot for self-doubt, fear, and self-stifling, so what does this other impulse represent?
Me: Aaahhhmm…
(Beat. I’m embarrassed I’ve never stopped to think about this. I have the feeling it’s going to be painfully obvious.)
Her: Well, every time you give in to this impulse, you feel like shit, right? And you feel like shit even by having the compulsion to [do this weird thing] in the first place and after all these years and all your efforts, right? Because you recognize how destructive it is and has always been to yourself and how you’ve worked to get away from it for years now…? even though you didn’t for the first few years it was a habit because - as you said - your “self-esteem was in the crapper.”
Me: …yyyeeeaahh…?
Her: So could this impulse represent the side of you that believes you deserve to be punished?
(Another beat.)
Me: Holy. Crap… You’re exactly right. And it seems so blatantly obvious now.
Her: Well, not if you’ve never considered it that way. (smiles) So there; now you’re getting your money’s worth.

At that point, I felt like she should’ve spread her arms out like she’d just done a magic trick. Conjuring a major breakthrough in the first half-hour of our first session that has already started to change the way I’m reacting to my brain and, thus, started a chain-reaction of revelations (i.e. “So, if I feel self-destructive when I’m at my lowest, and that’s not really curing anything, that means I need to work on loving and forgiving myself immediately and constantly, even when I can’t find any reason to love and forgive myself… because THAT’S ultimately what’s going to make me feel better ever again and get out of these destructive habits/impulse-patterns for good… Whhhooooaaaa…”)?! She’s a wizard!
…and/or I’m actually on the right track…
…either way, I’m totally going back next Monday.

And, no, I’m still not telling anybody else what the embarrassing impulse is.