My Awakening.

Today I'm linking up with the Red Dress Club! Here's today's prompt, courtesy of Katie / @Ksluiter:

Hemingway was famous for his super sparse writing. He used almost only dialogue in many of his works. Write a piece in which you use ONLY dialogue. (I'm bending the rules because, well, I can.)


"Let's go someplace where we can talk," Jessie said as I got into her car.

"What about P.J.'s? I'm seriously craving an iced mocha," I suggested.

"Nah, I was thinking of someplace quieter. I just really need to tell you something," she said.

"Okay. Well, wherever you wanna go is fine, you're the one driving," I said, as I reached over to switch on the radio. I started humming along with Dave Matthews.

"So how are you? Are you going back up to school next week?" she asked.

"Yes! I'm so ready. I'm sick of talking to my shrink, sick of thinking about it all, and I really just want to get back to normal. Whatever that is. You know?"

"You're not going to hurt yourself again, are you? Because I gotta tell ya, that scared the shit out of me Erin. You just can't do that," Jessie said. "It's fucked up."

"Honestly, I can't promise I won't do it again 'cause I still think about it. It's like the urges come on so suddenly sometimes and I can't stop myself. Nobody gets it. But the Prozac and Klonopin are helping," I added.

"I'm worried about you. I mean, you're my friend and I love you and I don't know what I would've done if I'd been the one to find you with blood everywhere," she said as she pulled her car into a spot at The Point on the Lakefront. Then she turned off the music.

My stomach lurched. The Point was where people went to make out. I saw a few other cars, most of them with foggy windows. I leaned the side of my head on the glass and looked out at the waves. Jessie took the keys out of the ignition and tossed them into the cup holder. It got quiet. My stomach gurgled and I clamped my hands down over it instinctively.

"I'm not sure how to say this," she began. "We've been friends for a long time and I don't want to lose that. But lately..." she trailed off. "Lately I've been thinking about you. Like, a lot." She stopped and took a deep breath, then exhaled.

"I've got feelings for you," she blurted out.

"Feelings? What kind of feelings?" I asked, staring hard at the whitecaps, blurring the edges of her in my peripheral vision.

"Why can't you look at me? Can you look at me, please?" she asked.

Reluctantly I lifted my head and slowly shifted to face her.

"I'm in love with you," she said simply. "I just am."

"So you're telling me this now. When you know about Lauren, my dad, and everything I've been dealing with. You know I have feelings for her and I'm a mess dealing with all that crap, plus the cutting, my parents. And you do this now?"

"I know, I know. But I had to tell you. I had to get it out," she said, shrugging her shoulders.

I sighed and rubbed my temples.

"What do you want me to say, Jessie?" I asked. "I'm sorry I don't feel that way about you. And even though I don't really know who I am or what this thing with Lauren is all about, I know my heart belongs to her for now. I may be a freakin' train wreck, but I know that much."

"So why can't you just look me in the eye and say it?" she asked.

"You know I'm terrible about the eye contact. Get off my case," I snapped. "Besides, this is the last thing I need right now. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or anything, but I just can't deal."

I began unraveling. Looking out at the waves, I thought of Edna Pontellier. I longed to be in the Gulf, giving up, handing myself over to the rough waves. Salty, swirling water sucking me under, drifting down into the dark, cool deep. It would be so much easier.

"Jessie, I'm sorry. I really am. But can you please just take me home?" I plead.

Inwardly, I'm stuffing down the sudden overwhelming desire to cut myself, to offer up my blood to some unknown God.

I'm Loving My Mess--Allison Nazarian Style.

I've been busy, people. Busy delving into this incredible new book by Allison Nazarian, whom I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting in person back in September at CIP. (Jealous? I met a real, live, published writer and she autographed my copy!). It's ridiculously perfect for me. First off, just look at the title & cover:

Love Your Mess.

Nazarian writes about life being messy. Not literally messy, like the growing piles of paperwork, lists and bills littering my kitchen counter. Messy in the sense of emotionally, mentally and logistically. How real is your life, she asks? Because the conclusion she draws is that the more real we become, the messier life is. It just is. You know, like you can't have the chicken without the egg. Or which came first, the chicken or the egg? I forget how it goes. But you know what I mean.

"Messiness is a by-product of a life well-lived. It's not something to be avoided or ignored or falsely neatened up. And, in fact (get this), it is something you want. That you should strive for. That you should be thankful for.
Because the truth is this: No messiness means no lessons, no loving with abandon, no real living out loud." (p. 15)

Something else Allison writes about that really resonates with me is The Voice. The Voice says things like, "Of course you aren't getting anything done today...you are disorganized/unfocused/without purpose."

Or The Voice says, "Your kids are fighting because you are the world's worst Mother. Duh."

And it might even go so far as this, "You say writing is your top priority but you never get to it. Maybe you aren't really meant to be a writer. And even if you are a decent writer, you aren't making any money from writing. Stands to reason it's pretty worthless. Maybe you are, too?" (pp. 19-20)

I can't begin to describe how much I relate to all of this, these feelings. The Voice speaks to me all day every day. It rarely says anything positive. Here are some snippets of My Voice:

• You fancy yourself a writer, eh? But what do you write, exactly? A stupid blog?
• You've been saying for years that you want to write a book. Maybe you'll never really do it. And even if you do, who the heck is gonna publish that shit, let alone read it?
• You're a horrible mother. Those twins steamroll you. Clearly they're wearing the pants.
• You totally suck in the kitchen. You can't even make your own pie crusts.
• Your laundry room is a wreck. Why can't you ever clean it up? And that dusty thing in the cabinet? It's called an iron. Use it once in a while, mmm'kay?
• You're a bad wife. Being tired all the time is no excuse.
• You're going on a girls' trip to Vegas? You don't deserve to do that. You should skip it.
• Why are you wearing your pajamas during the daytime? And when was your last shower?

I'm giving The Voice the finger. I'm well aware my life is messy. But it's a good thing. Now I just need to learn to embrace it, accept it, and snuggle up on the couch with it. Because it's part of what makes me uniquely me. And as for my many messes? If you're a regular reader, you know about most of them. My gay dad, my struggles with my body image, bullies, and two short people who are running the show here when I should be. Because I'm the mom. Well, at the very least, I'm gonna write a damn good book about my messes. I mean, I'm not literally stealing Allison's idea, I just mean I'm going to write about the stuff that makes up my messy life. And YOU are going to buy a copy. Even if it's 20 years from now it better not take me that long, God damn it.

This book is so good I'm making flashcards to tape up all over my bathroom mirror, fridge, and on the inside of my car with quotes from it. I also think Allison should make an audio version so I can listen to her affirmations and wisdom while I'm driving my mom-mobile (hint, hint). Reading about her mess is especially comforting because she is a published writer who's experienced a similar kind of muckety muck that I have. And she's not afraid to admit it. Did I mention she autographed my copy? Which means I'm not alone, and it also gives me the courage to be more open about my messes. Which I think I have been, especially lately, on my blog.

You will love this book. You will fall in love with Allison just as I have. She's candid, bright, and she's helping me learn how to live.


Ergo:
I'm going to Vegas, baby. I deserve it.

Do you have The Voice in your head? What does it say to you?
Wanna read more? Go here and buy Allison's kick-ass book.

Do You Know My Friend Amy Oscar?

After my last post, I had a long conversation with my friend, Amy Oscar, who is an intuitive spiritual consultant. She was one of many I was lucky enough to meet at CIP, Sarah Robinson's conference I attended in September. What Amy does is fascinating, and I encourage you to read more about it here. Talking through things with her helped me put together some of the puzzle pieces I wrote about on Monday. One particular thing Amy said has stuck with me: "The story we tell over and over again is not the story." She suggested I take a look at things that were going on within our family before my dad came out of the closet. And indeed, there were things going on, but they will have to wait for another post.

According to Amy (I'm using her words verbatim because she says it far better than I could):

The third chakra is the seat of the will (and willpower). This is the place where "fire in the belly" lives, the personal 'foundry' where we forge, through our choices, the life that we will ultimately manifest.

In terms of your hernia, its location suggests to me a weakness in your ability to own your own choices, your authority over your own life. I said that perhaps, continuing to tell the story of the wound that you received when your father came out was holding you in the past - and holding this weakness/vulnerability open even though that event happened many years ago. Understanding the energy anatomy of the body can help us understand how symptoms and illness are often (I said, always) linked to causal factors in the psyche and energy body. In this way, a hernia - a weakness in the abdominal wall above the navel - suggests, to me, that this weakness, held over time had manifested from the energy body to the physical body and now physical surgery is the solution. From the perspective of energetic healing, you can support this surgery - and prevent further symptoms, recurrence, weakness in this chakra - by addressing the psychological issues in play.

Amy sent me here to check out this educational diagram of all the chakras and where they reside (if you're a curious bird like me). I was so intrigued that I asked Amy to give me the names of some books about all of this stuff so I can investigate further. Working with Amy again would be wonderful (if she's willing), and I'm  looking forward to learning and discovering more.

If you'd like to connect with Amy, you can find her on Twitter here:
Her blog is incredible, and I encourage you to subscribe now.
You can also find her on Facebook here.
Pssssst. She's also got a book coming!! It's going to be phenomenal, just like Amy!

Bits and pieces of our conversation, stream-of-consciousness style:

**symptoms in the body = flags from the psyche.
**so many things I'm dealing with: rage, betrayal, lying, and identity issues. All of these things coming to a head are like the an infection, like the wound in my abdominal wall.
**when I was 15, I shoved it all under the carpet to hide it-- the secret of my gay dad.
**intubation = symbolic b/c I could not speak, did not speak, did not have/use my voice.
**shame in homosexuality --> imagery I used of something I was choking on, being shoved down my throat.
**start looking at what was going on before dad came out.
**his coming out = his pulling the tube (intubation) out.
**other truths may still be buried, carrying a weight.
** the 3rd chakra is navel/stomach/belly button area = powerlessness.
**my dad didn't do anything to me, he did it for himself (I do know this, but still it's hard)
**to be writing/thinking about all of this now is good, but risky in a way because of the historical blow coupled with the anniversary of the wound, and now surgery in the same week. But may also be cathartic and very healing (literally and metaphorically).

Amy gave me some food for thought in a big way. She was brilliant, insightful, kind, and gentle with me. I'm utterly and completely in awe of her. So hurry on over to her blog and get to know her!

Halloween May Be Over, But November Haunts Me.

Every year the first week of November stops me dead in my tracks as I run headlong into a brick wall. I stagger to my feet, stunned, brush the grit off, and start the familiar shuffle down the same path I did back in November of 1991 when I was 15 years old. I can't believe it was 19 years ago. Nineteen, which is almost 20. Sounds like a lot. It is a lot. So why, then, does it still plague me? Why won't it go away? Well, because my gay dad isn't going away. He's still my dad. Our family is still our family, however atypical and foreign to some.

Nineteen years ago this week, my dad spilled his secret out onto the floor of our living room. Like a pool of blood, crawling and seeping all over clean, shiny floors. I drowned in it, choked on it. I'm back now, but I'm still changing, morphing, blurring, reaching, and becoming. I stare out my kitchen window watching the leaves drift down and listen to the trees laughing, dancing and whispering their secrets.


I'm instantly transported back to that day, like a time warp. A scratch on a record blip...blip...blip or a cd that's on repeat. Rewind, play. Rewind, play. Pause. Rewind, play again. You might be talking to me, but my brain goes somewhere else for a few minutes. I'm flooded with memories that seem so close and tangible, like bubbles I can pop; yet a part of me wishes them far away, out of reach, locked up in a box buried a million miles under the sea.

As soon as the secret was out and I'd gotten permission, I fled the scene of the gory crime--the butchering of our white picket fence family.

I'm being butchered this Friday. There's a hole in my gut (an umbilical hernia), similar to the one in my heart/psyche. The hole in my abdomen will be repaired. Yet I'm not sure if my soul will ever mend? Can mesh, stitches and Percocet be the salve to soothe my other gaping wounds?

This wound is not new, this hole in my abdominal wall. I had it last year, and it was repaired. Now it's back (cue scratched record: blip...blip...blip). What is it with this repetition in my life, patterns, things that follow me and won't go away?

I had my first hernia fixed in August 2009, and it was horrifying. I've had surgeries, but this? I woke up still intubated. And paralyzed-- I couldn't even blink my eyes open or force my lashes to flutter--all I could feel was something huge jammed down my throat. Something I was supposed to just swallow. Only it was too much. I wasn't in control, I couldn't do anything. Frozen for what seemed like forever in a stony sarcophagus.

After what felt like an eternity but was likely only a matter of minutes, someone pulled the tube out. I still couldn't move my body, but somehow tears flowed and I felt them drip down my cheeks. When a nurse came to check on me in the recovery room, I was at last able to make my lips and tongue move enough to slur, "I want my husband." I'm sure it sounded nothing like that, given the drug haze, and I had to repeat myself. Once The Father Load appeared, I lost it. Still unable to really move, but I could speak---I had a voice. I went on and on about how someone messed up and I woke up with the tube still in my throat.

I am terrified this will happen again on Friday. I am terrified I am losing my voice. There is so much I want to say. I am making a promise to myself that during this hiatus while I am healing, I am going to write. You may not see it all here, but I have to stop making excuses. I think writing will heal my wounds and without a tube stuck in my throat, I have a voice, and it needs to be heard.

Are you willing to listen? Are you silencing yourself? Are there things you wish you could say? Leave them in the comments.

Gay By Proxy?

Today it's time for a smoothie. I'm taking chunks of real, juicy events, throwing in some changed names, places, times, etc. and blending it with some artificially-flavored details. However, it remains "Pretty All True" in the words of my favorite Olivia the Pig, and one of my new favorite bloggers, Kris, of Pretty All True.

Gay By Proxy.

Back in 1996, my gaydar was going off. Constantly, it seemed. In my Senior Seminar class with Dr. Miller, in Cups Coffee Shop on Old Canton Road, walking around Northpark Mall, and even as I was helping myself to a giant red concoction full of Everclear on Fraternity Row most Thursday nights.

Gaydar is genetic, you know. My dad is gay, which means that gaydar comes free for him. And somehow he passed it along to me, which sometimes made me think I was gay by proxy.

Which could explain why I fell hopelessly in love with a girl named Lauren. Actually, I became obsessed. Clad in old cowboy boots, she strutted her stuff in my daydreams, all over campus, and into my Women's Studies class upstairs in the creaky John Stone House. I sat next to her self consciously, barely daring to breathe lest the grits I'd had for breakfast waft her way. I stole glances at her and was shocked to discover her meeting my gaze. Unable to maintain eye contact, I looked down at my lap and immediately felt my face flushing crimson.

Eventually I grew a bit of confidence and became friends with Lauren. Admittedly we were better friends in writing than face-to-face, perhaps because of my writer-y-ness, and because what confidence I had wasn't enough to let me look her in the eye whilst having a real conversation. I was too shy and scared. And I quickly learned that she was, too, although she'd never have admitted it. But I felt it.

The emails started flying between us.We had so much to talk about. They became intensely personal, lengthy, and some days I was under such a heavy fog that I didn't realize what was happening around me. I confided in her about everything, and she me. I began to analyze every word. Over the summer we also wrote letters back and forth, sometimes 8-10 pages long. Written by hand.

Even with my head in the clouds, I knew this was unusual. I knew I was feeling "things" for Lauren. And my gaydar was going off wildly, so loudly that I couldn't ignore it anymore, but I didn't dare say anything to her. To anyone. I could barely admit to myself what was carved upon my heart and surely visible to everyone else. What made it harder is that I started to sense that Lauren had feelings for me, too...

Desperately seeking validation, I took everything to my shrink's office. I knew I could count on Robin for an unbiased perspective. Loaded all Lauren's letters in an old box along with a scrapbook she'd made me. The inside covers of the scrapbook were covered with hundreds of pictures of flowers she'd painstakingly cut by hand out of magazines. Like the walls of Idgie Threadgood's room in the old folks' home in Fried Green Tomatoes, one of my favorite movies/books of all time. In my mind, we were Idgie & Ruth.

Robin opened the scrapbook and simply gawked. The time, energy, and love that had gone into it were obvious. She looked right at me and said, "You don't have to show me any more. I truly believe Lauren has mutual feelings for you." Robin sensed my frustration and I told her I was tired of hiding my true feelings. She helped me realize it was time to fess up, that I had to come clean and tell Lauren what was going on inside my head.

One night I asked Lauren to meet me in one of the lecture halls so we could talk privately. It was quiet and empty, so different from during the day. Darker. Things echoed. We sat next to each other on the steps leading down to the stage. My heart was racing in my chest and I didn't think I could do it. Somehow I did. I don't really remember any of what I said that night except that at some point I whispered (while looking down at my Doc Martens--not at her, not making eye contact), "Sometimes I want to kiss you."

She talked me out of it. She blamed my dad. She convinced me that I was just feeling our friendship very deeply and that we were so connected/in tune with one another. She rationalized it all and soon I was crying and apologizing and she was hugging me and it was all over not really.

I bought into her arguments, I clung to them. Because on one hand they made total sense and also because as you know, I have a big heart. I love everyone. But after that moment, I hated myself. Although I'd told her everything and didn't have to hide anything anymore, I felt exposed, naked, stupid, and wrung out. Which led to the episode in the shower.

Lauren found out that I'd hurt myself and things were never the same after that. I distanced myself because I didn't know what else to do. I'm sure she didn't understand it all, potentially blamed herself for part of it, and also resented my doing it in the first place.

But I can't take any of it back. I can't un-do it.

These are the pages of my life.

**Please don't forget to check out my giveaway which ends this Friday!! Go here to see Arizona Mamma's cool jewelry and leave a comment to enter. You don't have to be a follower or a blogger---you just have to leave a comment w/ your email address in the pretty white box! ***