Ten things I hate about you

I hate the way my voice fills with molasses when you compliment my legs. As if I don’t hear the thunderous applause of my cream colored thighs as I walk into a room. As if I haven’t been conditioned by men for millennia to hate every curve and soft spot of my life giving body. This body, that sheds blood to give life. I hate the way my cheeks redden when you compliment my breasts. As if these pendulous pouches haven’t been the talk of the town since I was 12. As if teachers, bosses, seamstresses, boys, and girls, haven’t shamed me into hiding under baggy clothes, minimizing sports bras, and the prayer for a reduction. Too long I’ve been taught to hate. Hate my hair, whose alternately curly wildness and limp tameness have caused me to be endlessly mocked and insulted. Hate my body hair, the ancestral remains of our evolution. I hate the way I’m praised for putting on makeup as if you haven’t told me time and again, “well, you should do what you can to attract a mate”. I hate the way I can see the beauty in my friends but not in myself. That I can’t let go of the insecurities I’ve wrapped around myself like armor. That for every half step forward, there are months of moving backwards. I thought I’d learned to be happier with who I am, but one compliment about my thick, creamy white thighs, and I’m back to being a quiet and shy pre-teen who quickly learned her body would never be her own, but a weapon to be yielded by suppression hungry men and the females they left plugged into the matrix.

Who You gonna call?

Hundreds of numbers in my contacts. Only four that I feel comfortable reaching out to when I’m in need of a friend. Makes it real tough when none of them can answer and I’m going through some shit.

Its amusing I suppose. Many people have told me that they think I have a lot of friends. I put on a great face at work. I’m loud. Constantly talking. On many committees where I have to present in front of crowds. I do a lot for my school community, and I (mostly) do it with a friendly face and a smile. Truth of the matter is, I often feel very alone. I only have a small number of people I trust with my inner sadness and anxiety. It’s a vulnerable position, calling someone when you’re lost in the throws of an anxiety meltdown. You’re open.  Exposed. Raw. And although I know it’s not true, it makes me feel even more lost when I have to fight through it alone.

I think part of me thinks that the “others” will leave me. That once they see a glimpse of my bleak side that they’ll abandon our friendship. That they’ll realize how worthless and unlovable I am and leave. I understand that that’s a cognitive distortion. I know I am worthy and lovable. What I don’t know how to do, is get the cognitive distortion to shut up. I can quiet it often, and occasionally for longer periods of time, but the minute I am overtired or over stressed, out comes the doubt and anxiety. It lives inside the stretch marks across my lower abdomen. Inside my ‘Wagner waddle’. Inside my inability to remember how I forged such emotionally close/intimate relationships with my four close friends to begin with. Inside the constant bad messages on OKC and the constant lack of replies. Inside the, week of normal conversation turned to ‘so tell me how you want to be fucked.’  I’m so tired of hating myself but can’t seem to make, not doing so, stick around long enough.

One week later, I’m writing a letter nightly…

My parents haven’t called me since July.  I saw them in July.

My parents moved to Florida from Upstate NY in February of 2015.  I had a very very hard time with it.  I’ve also done extensive work in therapy about why I’ve had the feelings I’ve had about them moving and how to work through them.

I’ve done a lot of work with my therapist about whether or not I can say something to them.  Is this just them?  Is it just how they are?  Maybe.  They did the best they could.  They’ve raised two wonderful daughters.  They’ve given up a lot of my sister and I.  They worked hard, provided for us, supported us, loved us the best way they knew how.  How can I possibly take grief in them enjoying their retirement?  I can’t.  And I’ve done the work to process those feelings.

The problem now, is that I literally don’t hear from them.  They answer my text messages.  They answer my phone calls.  I have not had one uninitiated conversation with my parents since I last saw them in July.

Are there still things I need to work through?  Absolutely.  But they have things to work through too.  Don’t they want to call their kids?  Don’t they care at all?  My dad just texted “I brag about you everyday.”  That’s great.  Fucking call me.

I’m just so exhausted.

Can you hear me now?

I was talking with my therapist today about my relationship with my parents. I used to talk to them once a week at least. Partly, I’m sure, in a desperate attempt to make sure I was still loved…it’s a mildly complicated relationship that stems from a lot of things I don’t feel like putting online. When I made a recent(ish) breakthrough in therapy, the phone calls stopped. I stopped needing to call them so much. That’s all well and fine…accept today, looking through my phone records, which only stem back to August on my cell, I’ve spoken to my parents 6 times, and every single time, I called them. My parents have not reached out to me on their own since August 2nd.

I know not everyone hears from their parents often. I have a good friend who essentially NEVER talks to his parents. Maybe once or twice in a blue moon and everyone is ok with that. That works for them. But it doesn’t work for me.

What parent doesn’t want to know how their kid is doing? I’m not saying call me every day, but not one incoming phone call in 3 months?  That bothers me a little.

I hope that you BURN

My mom asked me a few months ago if I was having suicidal thoughts.  Makes you take a hard look at how your handling things.  For the record, I’m not.  Not really anyway.  Do I feel hopeless?  Yes.  Do I often stop and think, “What the fuck is the point?” 100%.  But I keep fighting, even if that just means I wake up and put on clothes and go to work.  I’m having a hard time handling the news again.  I may need to stay off all social media again.  45 now says he’s banning people who identify as transgendered from serving in the military.  And how was your (non-existent) service you overgrown weasel?  Tell me again how HC was going to ruin the lives of the LGBT community but you were going to fight for them?

I want to fight but there are so many things to fight for and against that I feel like I’m drowning.  It’s hard to breathe, hard to move, hard to stop crying, hard to get up and out of bed.  Where do I put my efforts?  How do you fight when all the people who hold the power can’t be swayed?  How do you fight when a man who was just diagnosed with (essentially) terminal brain cancer, races back to DC to repeal health insurance for millions?  How do you fight when there are pipelines, oil spills, senseless killing of black men and women, a women in control of education who doesn’t think people with disabilities have value or deserve education, a defunded National Parks Service (Where are you LK?!)…how do you fight?  How do you keep your head above water and say, “This is the way our nation has always been.  We fight, we change, we grow slowly and painfully.  We make mistakes and fix them eventually.”  How do you keep from slowly drowning in fear, depression, sadness, and hate?

Someone please tell me, because I don’t know how.

Running on empty, with nothing left in me but doubt…

I’ve been clinging to music like a lifeline lately.  When I find a song that speaks to me in some profound way, I will play it incessantly, as if I’m trying in some desperate way to ensconce myself in the words or melody.

Work has been, traumatic lately, to say the least.  I’ve been met with a situation that is challenging beyond belief.  If I described it here, your responses would probably echo those of my friends, “How is that in the job description of a teacher?”  “That’s a dangerous situation for you.  Can’t they do anything?”  “What are you supposed to do?”  I won’t go in to any more detail here, just know that things at work are traumatic.

I’ve recently rediscovered this song, “All Will Be Well” by Gabe Dixon Band.  It’s featured in Season 4 Episode 6 of Parks and Recreation (“End of the World”).  It starts as Andy and April get in the car and drive to the Grand Canyon.  It’s a beautiful song and I’m currently obsessing over it.

I have a large tattoo on my left hip.  It’s a ribbon of music.  I thought for years about a song that I would want tattooed.  When I came up with the design for this piece, I wanted the notes to be coming off the staff, as if they were floating into space, or floating down onto the staff.  What the tattoo artist ended up doing was putting the notes on the staff.  When people see the tattoo, they ask if it’s a specific song.  It’s not.  I have only a vague idea of what the notes play as a girlfriend of mine played them for me once as I stood half naked in her living room.  The truth of the matter, and the reason why I bring it up here, is that, I don’t care what song it is.  It matters that it’s music.  Music speaks to me on a level that’s almost cerebral.  It allows me to feel things in a safe way that feels acceptable.  Emotions are not an easy thing for me to express or accept – as I’m sure I’ve said in previous posts.

I have playlists for almost every mood.  My playlist for when I’m feeling angry is filled with songs such as “Still Life” by CrowneVict, “Trapdoor” by Rubikon and “Until You Fly” by Cade.  My playlist for when I’m feeling sad is centered around the soundtrack to the movie “The Piano”.  I can listen to “The Heart Asks For Pleasure First/The Promise” on repeat for hours on end.  The same goes for “Act 4: Ah Tutti Contenti” from The Marriage of Figaro.

I don’t have a point in writing this other than to say that music allows me to express how I’m feeling safely.  It speaks for me when I find I don’t have the words to express how I’m feeling, or when I can’t process what I’m feeling.

Here are the lyrics for “All Will Be Well”.  I’ll try to remember to try and embed it in this post when I get home tonight.  Either way, go give them a listen.

The new day dawns
And I am practicing my purpose once again
It is fresh and it is fruitful if I win but if I lose
Oooooo I don’t know
I will be tired but I will turn and I will go
Only guessing til I get there then I’ll know
Oh oh oh I will know

All the children walking home past the factories
Could see the light that’s shining in my window as I write this song to you
All the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true
All will be well
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well
You can ask me how but only time will tell

The winter’s cold
But the snow still lightly settles on the trees
And a mess is still a moment I can seize until I know
That all will be well
Even though sometimes this is hard to tell
And the fight is just as frustrating as hell
All will be well

All the children walking home past the factories
Could see the light that’s shining in my window as I write this song to you
All the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true
All will be well
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well
You can ask me how but only time will tell

Keep it up and don’t give up
And chase your dreams and you will find
All in time

All the children walking home past the factories
Could see the light that’s shining in my window as I write this song to you
All the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true
All will be well
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well
You can ask me how but only time will tell

All will be well
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well
You can ask me how but only time will tell

You can ask me how but only time will tell

…But Alexander, I’ll never forget the first time I saw your face.

I wish I could hide my face.  If one more person asks me if I’m ok, I’m going to lose it.  I am not ok, but I also don’t need every Tom, Dick and Harry at work asking me.  They don’t need to know my business.  But I can’t.  I wear my emotions on my sleeve, especially when I’m upset.  Anger, I can occasionally hide, although it usually comes out as tears.  Happiness, I’ll wear with a smile.  Sadness, it’s written all over my face.  My eyes are watery.  My mouth, turned down.  The light, gone.  I’m sure I look like an empty shell.  A hollow person.  I’m barely surviving this week.  I know I’ll swim through the seven layers of shit I feel like I’m buried under and come out the other side, but until then, I wish I could hide my face.

I never was a very good actress.