Feed Your Soul
Eyes that shine blood red
In the dark
Watching
Waiting
For the underbelly to be exposed
Fangs to know
Claws to reason
Run, they said
But the creatures
Lurking in the hollows of our nightmares
They are so very hard to break
And my hands are already so dirty
Necromance me
So last week I didn’t do any blogging or step into Twitter because I just
could
not
anymore.
And you know what? People were pretty cool about it.
I just want to celebrate that for a moment.
We are a crazy society that sometimes causes pain out of thin air, makes bad situations worse, and uses hate to fight hate.
But we are also adaptable and beautiful and capable of healthy change. Of coming together and lifting one another.
Yeah, there are nasty people in this world. Hateful, bigoted, dangerous people who just want to spread pain and misery.
BUT there are wonderful people in this world, too. People who fight for what is right, people who would NEVER step on someone else to get higher up the ladder, who comfort those that need comfort, and mourn with those that are mourning.
There are lovely people who truly SEE those around them. Who support and lead and spread joy and hope in ways that touch hearts and invigorate minds.
A simple smile. Someone talking to you like you’re really there, like you’re human. A hug (when it’s welcomed). Someone to sit with you while you cry and just BE there.
There are wondrous human beings.
And there is hope. No matter how much life hurts. There is hope.
if i could have any job, i’d be a magic peddler.
leave fairy dust behind in my barefooted trail, sprinkling madness into your lives, waking you up, slipping fire into your veins.
every time you’d walk the same ground i’d walked, heat would shoot through the soles of your feet, spreading chaos like a disease, giving you the choice to harness or fall to it.
i’d sell tinctures to open eyes and flush hearts of doubt. carry a deck of cards, read your past and extract the damages so you could find the slivers of silver left behind.
i’d unleash dragons and fashion lakes of healing for lepers.
charge you to swim with the mermaids (for a nominal fee) and sell second chances for pennies.
i’d brush my fingertips over lips to hush destruction and hand out re-purposed gags as bandages stitched together with bone dust of the long lost enemies of life.
i’d breath love into the lungs of the sadists parading about as saviors and poison the earth with regrowth and health.
expose truth and lies the same – break the world’s rib cage open and expose that soft, squishy, vulnerable heart beating in the dark, begging for help.
pull the sky down and sing it a lullaby. dust rain down the saddest souls, sweeping all the decay and dead skin cells out of the way. there’s no other way to prepare one for joy, not even for a magic peddler.
i’d bottle your tears and water my garden as payment. as the loveliest flowers grew, i’d place a vase on your pillow and help you pray with your heart, connecting to everything growing and thriving about you until breathing came easy.
gather many together and break open their chests, sit everything that hurt in the middle and sob together. i’d whisper magic words as you slept. help you come to, pick it all back up and put yourself back together. help you stand with rose petal splints and laughter.
maybe i’d learn to heal me too
i think we need a little diversion.
a little distraction, a hug for our soul.
a little love and something warm to wrap around our shoulders, a little shimmer to inject into our veins.
something different than our normal, deeper than our superficial hellos and i’m fines. maybe something that matters but isn’t so heavy.
we need a fire, crackling with a soft glow, hushed whispers and soft blankets. medicine for soul sickness.
love that i can pick up and slide across my skin, hand to my friends and imbue into their hearts. to absorb my tears, alchemy to turn them to comfort, alchemy to turn tears to that feeling in your chest – that luminescence that feeds you hope – flushes your neural pathways and fingers and hollows behind the eyes of all the pain and ichor flocking to you. that feeling that washes you clean and fills you with fire simultaneously in the same breath, in the same stitch of nanoseconds, flashing by in a brilliancy of love letters and dead skin cells clinging to the magic of the moment.
i think we all need a little respite, a plushy, a paradise for the soul.
I know this is an uncertain time.
But we don’t need more ways to tear each other part. We can’t physically be there for each other right now. But we need each other.
We need each other.
“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” – Anne Frank
“Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.” – Roy T. Bennett
I hope that as the corona virus has turned your life upside down, that you are safe and loved. We will make it through these stressful times.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to search for joy today. Little things matter. Don’t let the world swallow you up with its hatred and isolation. We are in this together. We are strong and we care.
I think this is a perfect example of how the internet and social media is such a huge blessing. We are isolated physically. But we can still communicate and find companionship via the technology we have at our disposal.
I hope you have a fabulous day!
Me? I’m still going to work as of right now. The business I work for is considered an essential job so I’m pretty blessed. I only work part time and my health is being a jerk. The new medication I’ve been trying has made me worse and I’m having to get it out of my system. I’m struggling but I know I have to feel better eventually, at least emotionally (bipolar depression and anxiety are kicking my butt right now). I’m also not sleeping and dealing with a lot of pain.
But I know things will get better. They have to. Our struggles give us the opportunity to grow stronger. We can do this.
How are you?
(i know this is a long one, gals and guys, but i’ve needed to get this one out for a while)
I have issues.
I’m sure you do to.
It’s called being human.
But the world and all the social media and unrealistic read:fake news, reality shows, and images, etc., would have us believe that there is such a thing as “The Perfect Human”. And not only is this perfect version of a human being real, but there are loads of them, living daily, normal lives all over the world. In fact, most people are perfect and we’re just a rare messed up breed with issues.
So we should pretend. Fake it til we make it. Put on a mask. Ignore parts of who we are and shove them deep down inside where they will then technically not exist.
Because no one wants to see your “human”.
I don’t think it is humanly possible for me to roll my eyes any harder.
Everyone is messy. Emotions are messy. Life is messy.
We are constantly changing, adapting, growing, or we are becoming stagnate and atrophying.
Humans don’t come with a Non-Mess Version.
We have problems. We struggle. We feel a wide range of emotions and think a vast amount of conflicting things – all at once. We’re pretty amazing. So why do we look at this like we’re bad, wrong, or defective if we don’t only feel one thing?
I’ve had enough of feeling like I can only do a blog post, tweet a tweet, or record a video when I’m in a FANTASTIC mood.
At this point, I’m beginning to feel fake.
I’m not lying or acting as if I feel something I don’t. I’m not making stuff up or putting on a mask. But I AM hiding my entire personality.
A lie by omission is a lie nonetheless.
My struggle is thusly: I want to uplift and inspire and help others. I want people to know how amazing this life can be and what wondrous things they can do. That everyone has the choice of becoming who THEY want to become, no matter their circumstances and struggles.
Honestly though, I feel like a fraud. A fake. A phony.
Because I’m really struggling right now.
With my gut disease – which has literally taken over my life and made it hard for me to do any real living. I’m struggling with chronic pain and exhaustion from other chronic issues. With the reality that I might not get better and will have to figure out how to deal with the way my health is (and it’s gotten much worse lately) and still work part-time, participate in life, and still try to do things that I enjoy. I’m struggling with a lot of shame over not working full time because my body literally stops me. With the shame of not being in a good mood all the time. I’m struggling with bi-polar depression and anxiety that are swallowing me whole. I’m struggling financially and with the shame of not being able to financially support myself. With restless leg syndrome that won’t let me rest during the day at all and keeps me from sleeping well at night, even with the pills. I’m struggling with lack of sleep and lack of calories and not being able to eat anything I enjoy.
I went off sugar for a month, for crying out loud! And nothing happened. I swing back and forth between eating only what my gut disease lets me and getting physically sick of the foods to the point I stop eating – and eating something I like and suffering for it (and looking like I’m gaining weight due to inflammation, which causes a whole host of other internal pains).
I know people aren’t in a good mood 24/7. But lately, I’ve grown apathetic, angry, bitter, overwhelmed by depression, numb, and scared. I’m swarmed by these struggles for days or weeks on end. It’s exhausting to force myself out of bed.
I don’t want to be the person who is grumpy and drags people down. I don’t take my upsetedness (yes, I know that’s not a word, but I’m a writer, I’m allowed to make things up) out on others. But I’m not as peppy all the time any more. It takes a lot for me to focus past the pain and remember how to be a human and do the human things.
And no, I don’t look sick. My chronic illnesses are invisible. I’m not missing a leg. I don’t have swollen arms or oozing puss. I don’t have rashes or any sort of visible symptoms.
It’s all inside. And I try to ignore it as much as possible.
But it’s getting to me. And I feel ashamed about that too.
But I’ve had enough of expending what little energy I have on pretending that I’m not in pain. On being there full tilt for everyone else and ignoring my own health. Expending my energy on digging deep into the optimistic and peppy reserves I’ve got left and forcing it out.
Something occurred to me.
You might be struggling with the exact same thing.
Maybe you’re a mess too.
Maybe you feel like you have to pretend to be totally okay and happy-go-lucky, as if it’s your responsibility to be in a great mood and capable of doing all the things everyone else around you can do, so that everyone feels comfortable around you or uplifted and supported by you. As if others’ emotions and happiness are your responsibility. (It’s not, by the way.)
ENOUGH
I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to be an inconvenient truth. It’s okay to be a mess. EVERYONE is a mess to some degree. We are all struggling and pretending we’re not so that others won’t judge us or exclude us.
We, as a society, don’t like to look at things that make us feel uncomfortable.
But you know where the magic happens in life?
In the UNcomfortable moments.
So be a mess out loud.
I’m not saying emotionally vomit on everyone that walks past you. But be honest. Don’t exhaust yourself trying to be happy for someone that happens to exist in the same space as you.
The people who love and respect you will understand and support you. And what’s more, they’ll probably feel a bit more comfortable around you because you’re giving them the room and safety to be NOT perfect too.
“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.”
– Criss Jami
“I think the job of the artist is to remind people of what they have chosen to forget.”
– Arthur Miller
“Effort doesn’t matter if love is left behind.”
– Anonymous
These quotes intermingle in my mind. It’s like a story carved out of a maddening world, decimated until only a trio of strands were discovered among the rubble.
What does it say to you?
