Nobody gets out of life alive. But everyone should get out having really lived.

Remember when I needed an excuse to write? Barely. Hardly. It wasn’t very long ago. But that was another me. A short term me. That’s why I was so unhappy. I wasn’t outwardly unhappy. I still smiled a lot and always had a good time when I was being social around other people. But I had this inner crazy that I couldn’t get a hold on. I thought there was something wrong with me. I was convinced that evil is a gene. But it’s not, it is learned behavior. We all have personal freedom. We all make a choice. Who are we going to be today? Are we going to live in love or in fear? I try to mainly choose love. Also preparation and wisdom from people who came before me. 

 

There is still some fear I’m holding onto. Some parts of me that I don’t want to share. They are not entirely secret parts of me. But surely a version of me I’ve only shared with Jill Ramme in the cement stairwells in school; or with Susie in the chorus room; or Megan in her dad’s basement in between college semesters. For some reason there is a part of me I’m still afraid of, still ashamed of. It might even be the least offensive part of me. When I was younger I hated my voice because I sounded naïve. I sounded like a choir girl. I knew the difference between my voice and the voice of people who had something lived that was worth singing about. Now I have that and I’m afraid. I quit for so long. I literally had my abdominal muscles flayed and stretched and just recently fully healed but still not entirely with as much feeling as when I was younger. 

It requires keeping your head up. This is a hard thing for me. Head down in a book, on my smart phone, or at my son, because the world told me I made a mistake. But the world is fucking stupid. Anyone who has met my son knows I made the right choice for me. Anyone who has known me through the process of learning that has been raising my son knows I am a better person for him. Unconditional love has taught me things that hate and fear never could have. Before him death seemed like a reasonable escape. Now I care about the future. I know his life matters, and possibly he will have children, or my nieces and nephews will have children and what we leave for them does matter. Nobody gets out of life alive. But everyone should get out having really lived. Open your eyes to the damage being done. There are brilliant simple solutions and technology abounding, we just need all 7 billion people on this world to be educated to use it. Then we will be getting somewhere. 

I can never sleep until Alice slays the jabberwocky. Tomorrow will be another day of nothing. I bet it will still be talk of Miley and Syria, on different channels, friends who like global news vs. friends who like entertainment news. All news is entertainment. This joke has gone too far. 

I want every day to be inspiring but some days just seem the same. Tomorrow Zack and I will stay home all day again. Maybe if Kyle gets home in time we will go to Moore’s Farm Market. I am desperate for some healthy food, having to by crap food because it’s on sale and will create multiple meals sucks, because it will make you more full for longer. Frozen food sucks, canned food sucks, if it comes in a box it probably sucks, not necessarily in taste but most certainly for your health. 

Worrying about how to pay for food is new. Kyle and I have always both worked. The only time we didn’t we lived off our massive savings. Had we have been wiser we would have been happier and accomplished more then. Or at least enjoyed more our time together. We always enjoyed our time with Zack. Kyle will get a raise soon and we will gradually get used to being able to pay the bills without stress. I won’t forget this time though. I will probably be able to talk more openly about it once it’s over. But I’m sure I will draw on some of the tough experiences I’ve had for years to come. All of it has made me a better person. All of it shows me that I am strong and that I can survive almost anything emotionally, some crazy enough things physically. It is good to know these things about yourself. 

I wonder why I still fear people hearing my voice. It’s so strange. I remember living without fear; it was a long time ago. I just lived. I loved everyone, some people too much. I had a hardcore defense mechanism in place but fear was not an option. Excitement was always better than monotony. As long as it didn’t involve jail or grounding I wanted to experience it. I became much more concerned with my health and well being as a mother. I don’t want to live fast and die pretty. I want to be old and fucking shrinking, half forgetting who I am and what year it is when I get to the end. Sometimes you just reconnect with all that is. I had to stop believing that I was wrong for trusting the people who hurt me; instead of they were wrong for hurting me when I trusted them. 

I didn’t know all these relationships I awkwardly started in childhood would be so important. I didn’t know I’d know their adult artist selves. I didn’t know we’d someday have children. Some stories are still too raw for the writing, the stories about my severe losses. My severed limbs. Even when someone can’t be in your life every day you still know you sit underneath the same big sky. They are somewhere out there. Until they aren’t. You feel so much more a part of them. Their energy is not confined to a small space on Earth. What they left behind is in you. No one shares exactly the same feeling you have, every unique experience and memory becomes of its own worth. 

I think we time travel. We call them memories. But why do we remember some things at some ages and forget them at others. Sometimes we know shit and we can’t recall it. Sometimes we remember stories years after we thought they were forever forgotten. Our entire perception is that of a memory. The way things look, feel, smell, and sound. Our mind constructs the whole picture. Who’s to say my red is your red. We have something to offer one another, in what we remember, in sharing what we see and have seen, maybe in another life.