And now I know

People tell me I am difficult

I am demanding

I have to have it my way

I am controlling

I don’t listen

I am bossy

I am loud

I need to calm down

I need to listen

I need to be quiet

And what I heard was

You are a terrible human

And I believed it

And I believed my husband was a saint to put up with me

That he lied because something was wrong with me

And I questioned why he stayed with me if I was such a terrible human

I tried to be well-behaved

Quieter

Agreeable

I poured all that I had into my family and my marriage

I did everything I felt was expected of me

And still I wasn’t enough of what I was supposed to be

And I felt trapped

I felt like screaming

But I knew it was a flaw in me

And then

And then

And then one day I was driving to work

It was sunny and beautiful 

And all of a sudden I knew

And I said over and over on my way to work,

“I am not a terrible person.”

It started as a question and became a whisper and a statement and then a shout and finally a mantra on repeat on my lips,

"I am not a terrible person."

And I walked in and told my friend, 

“I am not a terrible person.”

And she said,

“No, you’re not.”

And then I KNEW

And I was filled with a rage at the years I had wasted believing I was the flaw

I wasn’t too much

I wasn’t too loud

I wasn’t bossy

I wasn’t demanding

I wasn’t difficult

I just knew what I wanted

I was decisive

I was confident

I had become the woman my life forged out of the sweet and tender girl I once was

I fought for the life I wanted to live 

And I stood up for my dreams and my beliefs

And for this, I was told I was too much???

No

No

No

I am enough

I am brave

I am strong

I am determined

I am kind

I am understanding

I am good

And you know what?  I will fight for the life I want

I will say what is on my mind

I will be me

And now

They tell me they don’t understand

Why I don’t accept lies

Why I don’t negotiate

Why I don’t follow expectations

And I tell them they are right

They don’t understand

Because even I didn’t until recently

And I will never be less again

I will never stop taking up space

I will never compromise my happiness

I will never go back in that box

I am free

And still, they tell me to get back in my box

To compromise

To settle

And I will not

I have one beautiful life

One soul

One heart

And I will not give up my one life for anything

It is mine

And I am the only one who will fight for it

I will protect my heart

I will defend my joy

I will lift up my soul to the light 

And I will never forsake me

Never.

4/1/24

Stop calling it suicide

 

April 14, 2023 

She died just weeks ago

I didn't know her

but I knew her friends

her family

I knew she had depression

just like me

I knew it started when she gave birth

just like me

I knew she suffered greatly

that it never went away

I knew she tried to end the pain

more than once

But that was all I knew

And then I heard she died

and I knew

I knew how she had died

but nobody said it

nobody printed it in the obituary

nobody said it in her eulogy

nobody ever even whispered it

they left it out

like it was dirty

like it was bad

like nobody should know

like keeping quiet would make it less true

because you see,

they do not believe how she really died

they called it suicide 

the coroner wrote it down

but nobody ever said the word

they left it out

like it was wrong

like it was dangerous-

they didn't see the truth

She didn't commit suicide

she didn't kill herself

not the way you say it

not the way you mean it

not the way you think of it

as failure

as weakness

as cowardice

as selfishness

as burning in hell for the rest of time

She didn't decide to go

She didn't want to go

She fought 

day after day

week after week

year after year

do you know how long that is?

for ten years, it is 3,650 days.

For 16 years, it is 5,860 days. 

Could you imagine fighting an illness that long?

Of being sick every day for more than 10 years?

Can you imagine?

And every time you think you're well, it comes back

No matter how hard you fight

no matter how many pills you take

no matter how hard you believe

no matter how many doctors you see

no matter how many prayers you pray

no matter how many people hold you up

it hurts

Every day

She didn't die by suicide

don't even say it

She died from depression

She fought so hard

She fought so long

She fought with all she had

She fought for her kids

She fought for her husband

She fought for her beautiful life

But in the end it didn't matter

because depression is an illness

and sometimes it wins

sometimes we die

when we get sick

and it doesn't matter

if it is physical sick

or mental sick

our bodies can handle only so much

trauma builds

endurance wanes

and eventually

the illness wins

let's honor this warrior

this woman who fought

with every prayer you prayed over her

with every day she survived

with every person she touched

with her love, with her kindness

with every memory 

built during those years

where she fought with her all

to stay here with you

let's remember her strength

her bravery

her joy

let's honor those years and the light

that she gave us

and send her on with love in our hearts

with truth on our lips and

say what it was

she died from depression

She was brave for so long

Imagine the strength to fight for years

This warrior mother

respect her

love her

for her strength is an example to us all

her death a tragedy

a testament to the power of an illness

say its name

speak the truth

depression is an illness

and it killed her

em

Dear kids

Your sister and me at the park yesterday.

 

Dear kids,

I am writing to you from Japan.  It is two days after Thanksgiving, and I haven't seen you in three months.  Three months ago, I took your little sister, got on a plane, and flew away.  I never dreamed I would do it.  I never dreamed that after spending 25 years fighting to be with you and keep you with me above all else, I would walk away.

When this job was presented to me, I thought about the leaving and living without you, and I pushed it from my mind.  Whenever I started to think about how much I would miss you, I just put those thoughts into a compartment in my brain.  I try to think how I thought I would live for two years without you in my daily life and not lose my mind.  I try to think how I thought I would be okay.  And, again, I just put those thoughts and feelings into the little compartment inside my brain.  I think growing up as a child of divorce and then as a parent of divorce, you have to have compartments because sometimes to feel all the things at once is too much for one heart to handle.  But sometimes, those compartments cause us to make decisions without sitting with the full weight of their consequences on our minds.

So I accepted this job.  And I packed up our house.  And I quit my job.  And I withdrew your sister from school.  And then we kept waiting for the tickets and the date to be set, so we didn't have a deadline.  It was so easy to keep moving along like our world wasn't about to be blown apart.  We joked about me not even telling you, and just being gone one day- but we wouldn't really have ever done that.  And then the tickets were bought and we were leaving in four days.  And then I had it all planned in my head how we would say goodbye.  We would have dinner at the ranch and everyone would be together, so I could just give you each a hug real quick and run out the door.  And it worked- sort of.  Because after I hugged and kissed everyone, and squeezed my babies close to my heart, I realized that Brady wasn't there.  My hell, where was that kid?  And he was back at the house.  So I drove back, and you, my stubborn, hard-headed, kept-saying-that-you-didn't-even-care-that-I-was-leaving, walked out sobbing.  And as I held on to you and told you it would be okay, I got this pain right in the center of my chest.  This pain right inside of and behind my sternum.  And it hurt all the way home.  

And when I woke up the next morning to drive to the airport, I almost didn't go.  I almost stayed in bed.  I almost quit before I ever started.  But I went, with the pain in my chest, I went.  And that pain didn't leave for weeks.  For the first three weeks we were here, that pain gnawed at my heart every day, and I walked around wondering what in the hell I had done.  And when Clara cried for her daddy, or her house, or her sister, or her brothers, or Sky or Trent, or Mae and Benny, I wondered what in the hell I had done.  But everyone here says that it gets better, so I kept pushing through and telling us that we would be okay.

And three weeks later when Jason got here, I thought the sight of him would break me, but it didn't. Because Clara climbed into his arms and all I felt was the peace of knowing her heart was full, and we would be okay because she would be okay and he would be with us.  And then we went up to our hotel room, and Jason handed me a hoodie that had been at the ranch with him and I smelled my mother's house and I sobbed big ugly sobs.  And all I wanted was to go home.  And then we moved into our new house.

The first night in our new house, with the 17 pieces of borrowed government furniture and the contents of 6 suitcases and one box of loaner kitchen goods, I thought we were going to die.  The wind was so strong and it all seemed so strange, and I thought we would be blown away.  I woke up probably 15 times waiting to hear the sound of the big voice telling us to seek higher ground, or get in a closet or something because the world was ending.  And all I wanted was to go home.  But our household had been packed up and was on its way, and I had a contract for two years.  So I had to suck it up and pray to all the gods that everyone here was right and the homesickness would abate with time.

Three months in and our household goods have arrived.  I am sleeping in my own bed, with my own pillow and sitting in my own rocking chair at night.  I check out books from the base library and we buy our groceries from the commissary.  I love my job and Clara is settled in and has friends and a loving teacher and enjoys school.  Jason is learning how to run our house and has figured out how to work the Japanese appliances and traverse the grocery shopping and bill paying and other challenges of being foreigners in a country that is not our own.  I spend my free time planning trips and traveling, and I think that is what has finally helped the homesickness abate.  It is still there, but it is tucked neatly in its little compartment in my brain where it shakes just enough to keep me calling you guys in a rotation each morning and each weekend when we are at home.  

And in just 10 days I am coming home to watch you, T, graduate from college.  I am so excited to see you all.  I often imagine hugging each of you and feeling your weight, smelling your smell and seeing your eyes.  It brings me great joy and great pain, so luckily I don''t do it as often as I did when I first arrived.  But now, as I am preparing to come home for a short trip, the homesick is growing every day, and I don't know how I am going to leave you all again.  Because, I just realized, it has only been three months since I have seen you.  And this time, when I hug you goodbye, it will be six months and one grandbaby until I see you again.  And my heart is already breaking.

I love you and I miss you more than anyone could think possible to miss their children after only three months, but I am missing you for two years all at once, every day.  I cannot wait to hold you and hug you soon.  My heart breaks already from leaving you again.

You are my heart, my world and all the stars.  I love you across the sea and into tomorrow,

Mom

The hardest part

 The hardest part of depression is hard to pinpoint.

There is absolutely nothing good about it.

But the hardest part is not trusting my own mind.

I wake up and feel like the entire ocean is laying over me.

I force myself out of bed, and struggle to the shower.

I manage to get dressed and feed myself.

I fold a load of laundry, and I am so tired that I lay myself down on the couch I had been sitting on and fall asleep for two hours.

I wake up, and the ocean is still crushing me.

Am I sick?  Is something wrong with me?  Do I need to seek medical help?

Or is it just depression?  Is it just in my head?

I don't know.

But I wash, fold and put away three loads of laundry.

And I feed myself.

And that is all.

I spend the day sleeping or laying down.  So tired that I cannot function.

So tired that I don't have energy to care or move.

I just pray tomorrow is a better day.  Maybe I will figure out if I am actually sick or if it is just depression coming back again.

Tomorrow is here.

And the goddamn ocean is sitting on my chest again.

My husband asks if I am going to get up today.

I am going to try.

And I force myself out of the bed.

Take a shower, put on clothes, brush my teeth.

Walk like a zombie through the house with pain in my chest.  

It is hard to breathe.

When I speak, I have to hold in my diaphragm because it hurts to talk.

My husband says he can tell from my face we should have cancelled the breakfast.

And I want to shout that I am doing my best.  I am up.  I am moving.  I am wiping down the table and picking up the house.  But now I have to worry about my face.  I am trying.  But I don't say anything because I do not have the energy.

Because I cannot care.  I cannot worry.  I just have to keep moving.  Keep slogging through the water that doesn't abate. 

I make it through our breakfast.  I snuggle my grands and we decorate eggs.  I can do all the things. None of the kids see that anything is wrong.  When they leave, I use the energy they brought and shared with me to replant the flowers that were wilting in their tiny plastic pots.

I will not lay down.  If I do, I will not get back up.  I am so tired.  Living is heavy.  Breathing is hard.  So I am pretty sure after two days that nothing is wrong with me.  It is just depression come back.  It is just depression trying to kill me.  To drown me.  To bury me.  

It is my body trying to give up.

It is my mind telling me that I don't care and I don't feel and it doesn't matter.

It is my heart beating painfully in my chest.

It is my lungs trying to breathe when it hurts so much.

It is my soul aching for rest.

It is just fucking depression.

And it wants me to die.

But somewhere deep inside of me lives something that knows I cannot trust my body.  Or my mind.  Or my heart.  Or my soul. Somewhere deep inside is the part that my children feed with their love.  The part that keeps me fighting when every other part of me is ready to give up.

I will never give up.  

This little part of me that hides from the monsters will never let me.  

em 4/10/22

Pedestal

You say our children put me on a pedestal

that you can never reach me

that you can work forever

and they will never set you high

If I am on a pedestal, it is a pedestal I built 

with my blood and my tears 

my sacrifice and my love

It is a pedestal to raise my children up; it was never meant for me

 I built it piece by piece to give them everything

Everything I had and everything I never had

The dreams I wanted for myself and never reached

the dreams I hoped they would create themselves

The guilt of being a single parent, the fear of never being enough

The agony of trying to be two parents instead of one

  

But mostly it was built of my love

A love unyielding and unbending

A love forged before they took their first breath

A love worth giving everything that I am to grow

I gave them all of me, every particle, every fiber

I showed up every time and I stayed by their side

And for that, they held on to me as I lifted them up

onto a pedestal made of my heart

em

3/2/22

Somewhere between despair and rage

 

I find myself somewhere between despair and rage.

I despair that we teach our daughters that they are strong and brave,

that they are smart and equally intelligent to men

that they are capable of making decisions and running the world.

We tell them to be leaders, to break glass ceilings

to shatter the out-dated belief that women can't

We tell these daughters that they can

We tell these daughters nothing can stop them if only they believe

If only they work, and strive and persevere

If only they prove to the world that they can and they are

They will be enough 

They will be enough to change the world

 For years, women have fought, bled, died to see them succeed

to see them run, to see them soar on wings denied to us-

And then I watch the patriarchy hand them a plate

with the past being served as the future

with the pain inflicted upon generations of women

served up as tomorrow's reality

Our leaders erase the progress we have made 

They claim to love "life"

and I call them out on their lies

They claim the life of the unborn must be protected

They do not protect a woman's blood and body, heart and soul

They do not even see her-

I tell my daughters that they are precious and powerful humans

And perhaps that is the greatest lie

I despair.

I rage.

I rage against the patriarchy

against our elected leaders

against the Supreme Court 

against everyone who supports this abhorent law they have placed in our path

this "heartbeat" bill

that tells a woman the tiny heartbeat inside her is all that matters

not her own heartbeat

not her safety

not her mental health

not her body

not her future

not her will

not even her life.

I rage against these people who tell us that we cannot make our own medical decisions

who tell us we are nothing more than an incubator for life-

whether we consent or not

whether we want it or not

whether it will kill us or not

whether it will survive or not.

I rage against everyone who supports this choice

who does not have a utersus

who has never been pregnant

who has never known what it feels like to be pregnant and afraid

I rage against you

You should not have a voice at this table

You should sit down

You should, quite frankly, shut the hell up.

I rage for the young girl forced to carry her brother in her own body

I rage for the disabled young woman who had no ability to consent, who doesn't understand the pain of what is happening inside of her

I rage for the high school student who made one wrong choice and will now live her life with the proof of her shame as the center of her life

I rage for the girl carrying a child that will not live outside the womb that she must continue to feel living inside of her, knowing that it is a false hope, but not able to give up

I rage for the woman from a broken home who found out she was pregnant after her husband left her

I rage for the college student who was gang raped at a party and must carry the child of a man she can never name

I rage for the women who will live lives they cannot afford, raise children they do not want, and suffer psychological trauma because of this law

I rage for me

I rage for my daughters

I rage for the millions of women who will die because history does not lie.

Abortion will never stop

Abortion will become deadly, dangerous to the very women whose lives we should be protecting.

Women will bleed.  And women will die.

We.  Will.  Die.

I rage with the blood of generations of women running through my veins.

The women who survived your abuse and your rape and your servitude, who lived and died in the hope the world would be kinder to their daughters.  They rage.

I rage with the fury of the lies we have been told- 

for with your vote and your law and your judgement

you bind me in shackles to assert your control and shape my future without my consent

(which I guess, in the end, is the point of your law).  

Images from: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2014-mar-25-la-ol-the-coat-hanger-symbol-of-dangerous-preroe-abortions-is-back-20140324-story.html and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soloish/wp/2017/07/10/i-perform-abortions-the-men-i-date-often-see-me-as-a-political-symbol/ 

I grieve

 I grieve

I grieve for the loss of you

I ache with the pain of it

I grieve and I grieve

and I hate myself for it

for you have broken me over and over again

and I have forgiven you every time

now you break my children

over and over again

and they forgive you every time

so why do I grieve?

why can't I hold on to the rage?

I grieve

for the loss of our combined family

for the loss of our shared memory

for the loss of our future

the things we were meant to witness together

I watch them alone and I grieve 

A few weeks ago, I took M's last first day of school picture, 

and I almost sent it to you

and then I remembered

you do not speak to me

you do not see me

you have turned me into a ghost

and instead of the rage and anger I should feel

I grieve

and I send the picture to our daughter

so she can send it to you and you will only feel joy

because even after all you did

even after all the hate and lies

I still wish you well

I still hope you happy

I still grieve

And part of me wants you to know

Would you be satisfied to know?

Would you chuckle to hear you still wield power over me?

Would you be happy I hurt?

But part of me wants to know

Do you forgive me?

Will you ever?

Do you grieve?  

Because I do

I grieve

sometimes

until there is nothing but tears

and a well of anguish

and a sorrow that shakes my soul

I grieve

8/28/21