The Unsent Letter

I want to preface that I have not touched this blog in 5 years. I'm dusting it off and a lot of its immaturity but it's still me and bits of the story. All of the archived posts on here were really me processing losing someone that had been in my life for a very long time and sorting who I was without him. Therapy and a release. I read a lot of it tonight and I had many internal eye rolls. BUT, I'm going to keep them on here as reminders. I hope to bring a higher level of content moving forward. Before I do however, I found this nugget in my Google drive from eons ago. I think this was the last bit for me, the closure in a sense. And then, I stopped writing for a long time and began living (except for a few bits here and there on LinkedIn). To kick off the un-dusting of my blog, I thought it fitting to start at the end - which was really my beginning.

Years ago I had taken a day trip outside of London with my friend Marc. I’m not even sure of the name of where we went. We happened into this tiny vintage book store – everything was sort of old and dusty and it seemed like hours we just perused books and read old inscriptions from people who no longer existed. I gravitated towards a book titled, “Many things have happened since he died and here are the highlights.” It was a newer book and seemed misplaced amongst all of the leather bound dusty scented pages everywhere. Because it was the runt of the store, I had to have it. I tend to gravitate towards all things seemingly lost.

 
It’s a strange book – a bit chaotic and sporadic. Some pages only having one word. But it’s the story of a woman grieving, processing, random thoughts, memories. I still have the book. I thought of it tonight. I thought of the many things that have happened since you’ve been gone. It has felt like years. It goes something like this….

At first, I aligned myself with my status quo numbing of the soul with wine and cigarettes until one day I woke up and had lost the taste for numb and wine and even cigarettes. I woke up one day and just needed to run. And so I ran.

 
Then, I realized that my room, with a myriad amount of crap strewn everywhere for weeks wasn’t helping so I began to organize and clean and get my life aligned.

Most days, I wake up and if time permits, I stare into empty space for as long as possible. If I’m forced to engage with the world to pay my bills, I do what I have to do. Most days, I prefer to be alone and in silence. Which, for me, is the opposite of my usual coping mechanism of surrounding myself consistently with others. I’ve lost my will to speak and those around me don’t ask or speak of you and I’m not quite sure which is worse. My friends now just give me that look of sympathy, and empathy and we distract ourselves with discussions of all things unrelated to me.. It’s as if time has stood still and my silent resignation I assume says enough. Or, just the look on my face – perhaps that speaks volumes as well. Something behind my eyes is lost. It’s obvious even to strangers.

 
About a week ago I was at the gym. I guess it had been a hard day and I guess I was running…hard, in a way that perhaps was more than just running but trying to run away from myself. I was soaked, and spinning and nauseous but I just kept going because I didn’t know what to do if I stopped and then there was this hand on my arm. This woman kept her hand on my arm. She stared at me and I stared at her and we said nothing. It was this moment, and it was as if she was saying, “I know. Slow down, pace yourself, you, all of this, is not going anywhere no matter how hard or fast you try…give it time…” so I slowed down. And that was that moment. I find comfort in knowing there are other intuitive’s out there. I needed that help – in that moment. Then, I basically almost puked my guts out.

 
I cry a lot. Not in a sobbing way. In a more quiet, unbeknownst to me tears are streaming down my face in the most random of moments kind of way. At first, I wouldn’t allow it. I would swallow it back, swallow some wine and fight. Now, I’ve given up and given in and I just let it be what it is. There’s a grieving process and I need to let myself go through it. The other day I fell down the stairs (yes, I was dead sober). It sort of jolted me. And I cried half out of fear and half out of feeling alone and then I just sat there, on the floor – maybe for an hour, looking out my front door, realizing I had given up on ever seeing you walk through it again. And then I picked myself up, because that is all that you can do.

Last night, I sat outside for a while. The air has had that warmth of another season coming and after two trips to the gym and the realization that I couldn’t in fact do anything else but just be home and with myself I gave in and just thought. I thought about trying to reconcile my belief in us – having loved you before I ever actually knew you. I thought about trying to reconcile my belief in our house on the beach and our happily ever after. I thought about how to reconcile the belief that you hold a piece of my soul that I’m not quite sure how to replace…I don’t allow for wishes, or hopeful thought, it’s not healthy or relevant at this point and I can’t reconcile much, so I whispered thoughts into the air, took a brief step into your mind and then stepped quickly out and went to sleep.

I dream a lot. They are all very clear. Most times painful but it’s all that I have and mostly the only way that I can see your face so there’s a sort of anguished comfort in them.

 
I tried to go on a date. It didn’t work. I couldn’t do it. I’m not ready. I appreciate having the choice to be alone. And alone I will be until I wake up one morning and have found complete acceptance.

 
I don’t believe that I smile often these days, and if I do, passing by someone in the office, I sort of grimace and wince and think to myself how strained it all seems. It’s sort of a robotic state but as Winston Churchill said, “When you’re going through Hell, keep going…” so I keep going. A coworker said to me recently, “I haven’t seen your smile in a long time.” It’s annoying being the bubbly chic. The entire world watches impatiently waiting for you to come back. I’ll be back when I’m ready.

I’ve planned a few trips. I guess I look forward to them. Distractions really. It’s an odd state of existence, trying to live your life and go on and let go of something that you love and that for so many years you held on to. It’s like fighting a current and you can’t swim and it’s beating the shit out of you but you have to stay afloat and you know that eventually, you could just stop fighting it and let it take you wherever it’s supposed to. I’m not sure which phase of that I’m in. I’m fighting for something; I just don’t know what yet. I guess it’s still sort of murky waters.

When you send your obscure “Hey – I hope you’re well” texts – I understand that the meaning behind them is, “I miss you and I love you” – I appreciate that. I also appreciate what you can’t say and do and the reasons why you don’t. But, in the end, fortunately or unfortunately for me, nobody knows your mind better than I do – so I get it and as much as it’s sort of a mild sting – in truth, it’s good to know that I’m thought of. That I meant something. Because isn’t that why we’re all here really? To mean something? To be remembered.

I’m doing ok. I’m existing, floating, focusing on finding physical strength in the hopes that it will somehow transcend into emotional strength that I feel greatly lacking as of late. I miss you. Perhaps more than I had expected. After all, I lived many years without you. I guess this time my love for you was different. A more ‘real’ and simple, less chaotic type of love if that makes sense. It was easy back then to release myself from the drama. Now, it’s releasing me of you and well, in many ways, it has hurt more. I had thought this was the rest of my life. Now, I’m trying to work through the steps needed to create a different version of that.

In the end, I think it’s ok to realize that you’ll just love some people forever and maybe you aren’t supposed to be with them for whatever reason that is and maybe you don’t realize that until whatever reason that is walks into your life. Perhaps there are other reasons for both of us. I’m not sure. Haven’t got to that place yet. Time heals a lot. Time makes sense of a lot.

 
So, many things have happened since you’ve been gone. Those are some of the highlights. I don’t expect or need a response. I write this not to provoke any semblance of guilt – all of this is my choice and I am aware of that. I could have a part of you if I wanted, however I want all or nothing. I guess it’s the Taurus in me and I tend to believe that well, that’s what love is.

 
Wanting all of someone.

 
I’ve tried to write for myself so many times and I just haven’t been able to find any clarity beyond two paragraphs but somehow, tonight, writing to you, I could release some. So this is for me. So thanks for that, and thanks for listening. It was a much needed purge.

Hey – I hope you are well.

Happy to Be Published Again....

Thanks Elephant Journal!

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/01/a-hawk-walks-into-a-bar-and-becomes-infertile-how-i-grapple-with-my-miscarriage/

A Hawk Walks Into a Bar and Becomes Infertile.

I was never the type of girl who dreamt of babies, white picket fences or a prince riding in on a white horse. I dreamt more of reckless abandon, traveling the world and being financially independent. And so, that was somewhat the life that I created for myself. 

Children, for the past decade, have been an enormous part of my life. God babies, nephews, friends’ children. I love them all intensely. Slowly, through the years a quiet biological clock began to tick here and there. It was often easily quieted with the next great adventure or love affair. And so it went. The ebb and flow.

And then I met my Him. We got pregnant early on in our relationship. Very early. I wasn’t elated. I was scared shitless. However, just as I began to settle into the idea of actually following through with perhaps being a mother, I miscarried. I didn’t wallow in sadness. I believed what was meant to be was meant to be. I ate D’Angelo’s on the way home from the hospital after my D&C. It was about a year or so later that I sort of grieved. In many ways I still do. Maybe not so much for ‘it’—more so of the chance, or even greater, my insolence surrounding ‘it’.

I had just turned 40. My Him and I were now married. Ever since the miscarriage my body hadn’t felt quite my own. Something shifted, something changed. We were never able to get pregnant again and I just knew something was ‘off’. So began the months of being a lab rat at a fertility clinic.

I won’t bore you with the details but it turned out that I was in early onset menopause and the likelihood of me ever conceiving hovered around the 1% mark. Not too promising. I was able to carry a child, just not conceive so they encouraged me to try egg donation. I have a stepdaughter who’s been in my life since she was a one-year-old. So, in essence I felt that I already had the egg donation covered. I already loved a soul that came to me through someone else. I guess selfishly, I wanted my own person. Doesn’t everyone, in one way or another?

Finding out that you are, for all intents and purposes, infertile is something that I find difficult to process or digest. In the beginning I, for the most part, walked up to strangers on the street shaking their hand yelling, “Hi, I can’t have kids.” I felt the need to sort of get that out of the way. I wore it as my scarlet letter. In the beginning, I think I cried every other minute, mid-sentence. And in between that I bounced into, “I am woman, hear me roar, no big thing chicken wing, I am mother to all….” Maniacal.

We always want what we can’t have. And now I wanted it more than ever. I didn’t want to be different. Why me? Crack whores could have children. Those who could not emotionally, physically or mentally support a child—but not me. What had I done to the Universe to deserve such a slight? The intensity of loss, as a woman, a human, was at times a weight that dragged my core. The child that I had lost became a statue, a saint, a beloved being of regret that symbolized my last chance, and I had blown it because I didn’t love it immediately. Because I had been afraid of all that ‘it’ had meant. There are things that I experienced emotionally that pen to paper will never adequately be able to articulate. The chaotic darkness of process that is never truly definable.

It’s been a year and a half now—Christ, longer. Due to logical requests, I no longer announce my infertility upon walking into a room. I think I’m past the worst of it now. I am slowly settling into acceptance. I still do silly things like take random pregnancy tests just because, and I pull out an ovulation test strip every once in a while just hoping for a surprise…but alas, there is never a surprise. Life is filled with so few surprises.

Lately I’ve been plagued with the question “Why am I here?” If I can’t have that, then what is it that I will leave as my legacy? What will be my epitaph? What is my purpose? What is my unconditional love? My work? My thing to mold and shape and be a foundation for? I get that I have many things and beings worthy of love in my life, but there is so much in me to give and it feels stifled by there not being enough places to give it.

I have had a blessed life—that’s for sure. I don’t deny or negate that. I will always bounce back. I will always be OK and I will always see the brighter side of the moon. However, I can’t help but feel this emptiness that is like a quiet smoky ember that burns ever so slightly in my chest, and if I breathe deep enough, it rumbles itself down to my belly where it smokes and wallows in its ashes.

In these moments, like now, like tonight, when I feel so isolated from my own life and terrified of what my future might not hold, all of those things that I tell myself that make life right escape me. And my throat gets tight and music streams around me and I want to smash things to tiny insignificant bits. But I won’t. And I don’t. And I keep it tight and blow slowly on the ember to keep the tiny red coal alive because I’ve been so used to carrying it with me now that I don’t really want it to go out because it, it is better than the alternative of nothing.

It’s not self-pitying or at least not meant to be. It’s just questioning. Perhaps I just wager a question to the Universe. You took this, so could I have something to replace it? Maybe I already do and I’m just not sure of it. Checkmate. Fucker.

I’ll end this torturous pointless ramble with one thing. I remember that day. When I knew something was wrong and the hawks came down and flew in circles around my courtyard. And I knew that it was done. You were gone. And I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you. But thanks for thinking for a bit I was worthy enough to be inside of. I won’t waver next time I meet you. Promise.

Thanks for listening.

Russian Roulette

"Open your eyes, look within.  Are you satisfied with the life you're living?" - Bob Marley

I stood in line tonight at the grocery.  As I idly scanned my Facebook feed from my phone while my groceries were being bagged, the elderly bagger named Louie nudged me and said, “We’ve been having a discussion tonight and I wanted to get your opinion on something.”  I looked up at him intently.  “Shoot.” I stated.  “If someone offered you a billion dollars to play Russian Roulette would you take it?  You’d only have a one in 6 chance of dying. 1 out of 6 bullets.”  Without hesitation I responded, “Not a chance in Hell Louie.  Not a chance in Hell.”  He winked. “Me either kid.  Me either.” And so we went on about our ritual.

For some reason, driving home the conversation stuck with me.  More so because I’m not sure if a few years ago I would’ve answered the question so quickly and with such unabashed confidence in knowing my retort.  A few years ago I was lucky to get through my days without wishing that this life would somehow just vaporize into thin air.  

Every step for many years felt as if I was running in cement.  Going nowhere fast and if something didn’t change I was going to be frozen there, a statue of myself ‘The Girl Who Couldn’t Get Away From Herself’ they would’ve called me.  Repeating the same patterns of behavior over and over again expecting different results.  Yes, the definition of insanity.  I was the poster girl.  I had everything externally, an insane career, piles of friends, jaunting around the world just because but on the inside…I was vacant.  A shadow.  Some sort of lost semblance of something that I was supposed to be but couldn’t find my way to. There had to be more.  I had to be more.  

And then one day, after something insignificant, out of nowhere I decided that I no longer needed to carry these weights.  I could be something different.  Something better.  As long as it took, I would pull myself out of this drowning of the self.  I would find light.  And so I did.

It wasn’t easy.  It required a concentrated effort to unravel myself from myself.  Every time I went to react, I chose to act instead.  I chose to consciously and purposely move instead of chaotically flounder.  What did I want the outcome to be was the penetrating thought with my every word, with my every movement.  If I wanted love, I had to project love.  If I wanted peace, I had to seek it.  If I wanted understanding, I had to understand.  If I wanted something to be beautiful, I had to first believe that I was, in whatever form.  If I wanted forgiveness, I had to forgive myself first and foremost.  

I dusted off the hope chest of myself and went through each shred of paper, photograph, poem, travel, lover, lesson and embraced them all….one by one.  I incorporated the pieces of me into a wholeness of the being that I was now.  I took the 14 year girl in me who had been stopped in her tracks with anguish and held her hand and let her know that she was ok.  I had this now and we were gonna be just fine.  I stared my 30 year old self in the face, hugged her really fucking hard and said, “You will get through this and be far greater than you could ever comprehend.”  And I let her rest.  

I decided to be a little bit more gentle with myself.  To drink less wine.  Absorb more air.  I decided to envision, visualize, believe.  I would whisper as I drove for miles in my car, in the middle of the night, “Wherever you are, the rest of my life, I love you, I’m grateful for you and I’m ready when you are…”  I allowed myself the ability to wait patiently, to flow with the current instead of fighting the tide.  I would get where I needed to go if I could just float.  Just be.

And slowly but surely, it came.  Because slowly but surely I was ready to see it, to embrace it.  To recognize it.

There are a thousand cliches of self help.  But in the end, it’s two words.  Help yourself.  Stop waiting for some lightening to crack from the sky of your being to jolt a change forward.  Be your own electricity.  Stop grunting and start being.  There is no elixir.  There is no magic moment. It’s one foot in front of the other, doing the next right thing.  Being the next right thing.  It’s about being a boomerang.  What you project out will be what comes back.  It’s about releasing yourself of instant gratification and having patience with the process. It’s about having a process.  

I still falter. I am human.  But I would so much rather this, the strangely beautifully confusing moments to be my story than the last moment being that I was stupid enough to lose out on the next chapter because I might be willing to play a stupid game of staring down the barrel of something I might not be able to come back from. 

This is beautiful.  This is life and this is enough.  I am enough.

Thanks for listening.

I Love You Still

Super honored to have a piece of my writing published via Elephant Journal xo

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/10/i-love-you-still/

I took a break from writing...

For quite some time.  I'm not going to do that anymore.  It's not good for my spirit.

I no longer feel a compulsion to hide, regardless of who's staring.

Let the games begin.  

Guest Post - The Understudy

Check It.....

http://samanthamcgarry.com/2014/05/07/the-understudy/