Grief

I’ll admit, the voices in my interior Committees have some pretty brutal things to say to me.  But, let’s be clear, they don’t say anything that has not been said by someone before.

My Committee Members are not creative… they just parrot back the most unkind assessments and judgements that I have ever heard or read in RL or on the Internets- and they direct them at me.  They do it in a way that there will be no one to defend me… but myself, and I have a lousy track record of self-defence.

...and my Committees are currently in session.

I am a woman of unseemly sorrows.  I grieve for the loss of my helpmeets and friends; my long lost love of coffee, my daily, hourly, prayer of nicotine.  

That is where the lament starts, but it goes on to the aching loss of alcohol and last, but certainly not least, crystal meth.

It is grotesque but inevitable for me to grieve for these killers and distorters.  I think it may be something like the anguish that a mother of a mass murderer might feel when her sweet boy is dealt the death penalty.  Certainly, I don’t talk about missing these poisons with the sweet ladies of my church congregation; many of whom have never so much as touched a Dr. Pepper let alone a wine cooler.

I have only ever met one other active member of the LDS church who cops to having ever loved Crystal.  Other mourners may be out there, but they aren’t talking- just wearing their black armbands in private like I do.

Yet today, it’s autumn time and as the trees burn and blush, I will say out loud how I am swallowed up with grief and shame in equal measure.  Shame for who I was and also for what I have become.  

My body.

I love most of who I am, and what I do…. but my body…

People look at me and see an undisciplined woman.  A fat-ass.   A lazy cow.  Perhaps someone who could use a little bit of education on nutrition.  A girl who could stand to put down the spoon, already.  Go for a walk around the block.

Maybe you don’t see that, but some do.  I can read.  I have ears.

Undisciplined.  Lack of Willpower.  Lazy. Unorganized. Disgusting.

You have no idea, whatsoever, of who I am and where I come from, what I battle or what I have lost… but my Committees do.  

- and they think I'm a lazy fat-ass too.

I feel the shame, but strangely... not much regret.

I know I shouldn't post this, but right now I need... something. I think I need to be heard.

When I Used to Blog

So much has changed since the time in my life when  I blogged regularly.

For one, my folks moved from New Mexico, to a town just an hour or so away from us... so that doused one of the flames that used to be part of the proverbial fire under my butt to blog.

For two:  My kids are growing up.  My Birdie has a real-and-for-actual gmail account that we let her get to keep in touch with her friends from our old town.  The girl turns twelve in one week.  This drives home the fact that I what I am blogging is not just my own story, but the stories of people who may object to being players here some day.

The Bird has not actually found this blog and trolled the archives.   Yet.  

I know this, because if she had?  The questions would not end.  Not sure how I feel about that.... wait, yes I do!  Freaks me right the #@$% out!

For three:  I have known for a while that I apparently have only a certain amount of writing in me.  I turned my writing time toward a novel.  I am now on my first re-write.   Go ME!

No.  You can't read it.  Seriously.  You don't want to.  Not yet, and maybe not ever.

For four (yeah, I know... this pretend-bullet point thing is not funny or clever, but I'm gonna just go with it,   LOOK!  First-draft-I-don't-care!): I had gotten a pretty big calling working with children in my church congregation, and for better or for worse, it shut me down in many ways for two and a half years while I poured energy into serving.  Plus, I felt awkward being real, or real-ish here on the blog, and having children find it and read it.  Or parents of children reading it.  Enough people in my ward knew about the blog and that was... too weird.

Then we moved, and that shut me down in some other ways.

I had some health things that scared the hell out of me, and stole some of my vitality and a year and an half of my life.  I haven't really bounced back physically OR emotionally from the surgeries and subsequent recoveries.  I just haven't.  Can't pretend like I have.  I look older, feel older... I am older.

Probably in the same way that I only have a certain amount of writing in me (it has gotten better with regular practice) I appear to have only a certain amount of social energy.  I am not the same gregarious woman I was three or four years ago.  

I'm... 

I 'm just not.  I have lost some of my resiliency.  

I feel like I should apologize to someone for that.

At the same time, however... while I am no longer as ebullient, neither am I as heedless.  Guess all I am saying is, I am unsure as to whether it was a fair trade; but, fair or cheat, I am trying to get a handle on what kind of a woman is left of me.

Some of what is left:  Yesterday I got a big order from Amazon that still has my brains reeling and my face goggle-eyed from the pure... awesomeness?  I actually don't KNOW what word encompasses the deliciousness of the three books I got.  I cannot decide which book to devour first!

At least my brain still works!