<-insert Xena's warrior cry here->

I need to talk about just how messed up I was up until not even a year ago.

It amazes me that I could be an inspiration to other people, such a help to other people, while simultaneously hating myself.  It amazes me that I was so out of it, so off-balance, that the only self-worth I could garner came from trying to please everyone else.

This face about sums it up.

For context, in case you haven't read my earlier blog posts, let's summarize my childhood with a single word: abuse.  Let's summarize my young adulthood with another word: rape.  Okay, I can summarize my life up until November 2010 with one word: victim.  Or, survivor.  Depending on how you look at it.

Becoming a mother was the beginning of healing for me, though things got a lot worse before they got better.  In June 2008, at the age of 27, I found out I was pregnant.  At the time, I was in a co-dependent "friendship" with a woman who conned me out of $14k over the course of six or seven years, who was also mooching off of me, living in my apartment with her then-boyfriend. 

I discovered my unplanned pregnancy the same week that I was laid off from my job, high school teacher, the thing I had always wanted to be when I grew up.  I had just started a new relationship, but was impregnated by a different man, the only "friend-with-benefits" I'd ever had. 

The moocher "friend," a woman I trusted and loved with all my heart, took off a few months into my pregnancy, leaving me a 10 page letter about what a horrible person I was and how sorry she was for my child because she was sure I'd be a horrible mother.  My baby's sperm donor had no interest in our child.  My boyfriend started treating me like crap early on, but I had already broken the lease on my apartment and moved in with him.  I felt helpless.  I felt trapped.

Don't we all look so happy together?

I tried to focus on the positive.  I had my heart set on a happy ever after...with a misogynistic deadbeat who sexually assaulted me every single night for two years - and I didn't recognize it as sexual assault until last month, when a friend who had read my memoir called it what it was!  I kept making excuses for my ex, to myself as well as to my friends, until the night he left me and my one year old son penniless and homeless, in November 2010.

Hello, rock bottom.

I was an exceedingly lucky homeless person.  I didn't have a home for a few months, but I always had a bed to sleep in, people to help me search for work and to watch my son while I searched, people giving me whatever they could spare, even if it was just love and support over the internet.  My son and I never had to sleep on the street, never went hungry, and never went without knowing that we were loved.

It still amazes me how empowering an experience it was for me.  There were dozens of people helping however they could, many of whom I barely knew, all cheering me on, encouraging me, telling me I could do it, pushing me to prove to myself that I could.  I couldn't let myself fall to pieces or give up, because I had a precious toddler depending on me.

It probably goes without saying that I was depressed as all hell during all that.  I was so scared, and so angry, but I suppressed all my negative feelings as well as I could.

Holding it all in was killing me.  The optimistic, light-hearted, playful, affectionate, nurturing woman I had been locked herself away in some hidden corner of my heart.  I felt like a hollow automaton, just going through the motions, doing whatever I had to do.

My love for my son, and my determination to give him the best possible start in life, kept me from killing myself.  My beliefs about positive, conscious parenting drove me to seek out methods of self-healing so I could be the best mother I could be.  My spiritual path and experiences provided the tools I needed to put myself back together, piece by piece, and pure Divine Love provided me with a home in the last place I ever would have thought to look.

In this home, I am loved, supported, valued, and given the space I need to heal.  Gratitude really isn't strong enough a word to express how I feel.  I truly am blessed beyond my fondest dreams.

Now, having finally learned to love myself, having finally healed to a point that I feel like a whole new person, no longer either a victim or a survivor...now I have too many friends suffering the same kinds of crap I suffered.

My inner warrior princess is shrieking her battle cry, ready to throw her chakrum and cut through all their chains, if they would just hold up their wrists at the right angle.

I want to help.  I want all that I suffered and all that I've learned from that suffering to help others, to empower them.  I wish I could just hold them in my arms and overwhelm them with self-worth, confidence, and determination to make their lives even better than they can imagine.

But I can't.  I can't make anyone feel, think, or believe anything.

All I can do is offer my unconditional love and support, guidance when they ask, and keep praying that one day soon when they look in the mirror they will see themselves as the beautiful, loved, powerful beings that they are.

But...dammit, people!  Life is too short to waste on misery!

My Birth Story (Excerpt from my thesis, "Birth of a Mother")

My Birth Story – Excerpted from my memoir, Birth of a Mother

Me as a newborn with my proud parents.

     "I spend a couple of hours in the tub, alternating positions from reclining on my back to squatting, to lying on my tummy, getting restless. My three hundred and twenty pound body does not fit as well in the deep plastic tub as I would have liked, and I start letting my legs hang over the sides to stretch my calves and feet to keep them from cramping.
     As endorphins and other hormones flood my body, relaxing me, opening me, and preparing the way for my son's entrance, I want nothing more than to go to sleep. After every rush, I relax against the tub and close my eyes, feeling like I could start dreaming if I wasn't afraid I'd drown in the meantime.
     The nausea hits me without warning. Then my entire body feels flooded with restless energy, even though I simultaneously feel heavy and unable to move. The sensation suddenly morphs into feeling like my body is about to split into two, or explode. I remember from Gaskin's books that just before the pushing phase, mothers “transition” into it by experiencing feelings ranging from nausea and discomfort to panicking and losing confidence in their ability to survive the birth. To relieve the tension, and head off the panic, I facetiously announce, “Well, this must be transition, because I feel like I'm going to die!”
     As Kelli and Maggie burst into laughter, Kelli's assistant, Kristie, walks into the room, also laughing. “I knew she'd make me laugh as soon as I walked in the door!” she says, grinning at me.
     I appreciate Kristie's presence in the next moments, first because she rubs my feet while Rose puts a cold washcloth over my eyes, and Maggie has me sip more juice from a straw. Transition passes, and my body moves itself into squatting position without my conscious effort, and with the next rush, my bellow turns into a grunt, and I find myself pushing.
     Kelli looks up from knitting my son's hat and stares at me a moment, before asking, “Am I going to finish this in time?”
     My laugh is cut short by another rush that ends in pushing.
     I'm vaguely aware of my sister running around, helping the midwives and encouraging me, following their lead. I hear her telling the men in the other room that they need to watch the way they feel or think, because I might pick up on their worry or tension, and my heart overflows with love and pride for her, but I am too far gone in labor-land to tell her so.
     The urge to push is relatively weak at first. I roll onto my side, my other side, to my hands and knees, squatting and leaning over the tub, and squatting and leaning back against it. The last three positions feel best. A couple contractions even find me on my back, because my legs are cramping, and my feet are wrinkled and numb, yet throbbing. Someone rubs my feet and calves at some point, which feels like a wonderful release of blocked energy.
     After pushing for what feels like twenty minutes, Kelli checks me with her fingers, and finds a little bit of cervix still holding back my son's head. She pushes at it while I bear down, and it's much easier to figure out what muscles with which to push when I can feel her fingers. We get the last of the cervix away in that fashion, and the endorphins are making me crave sleep again. I hear myself saying, “a nap would be heaven” after every contraction, and finally, I decide to move back to my bed so I can rest between pushes without inhaling water.
     In a flurry of activity, all the ladies run around me, moving the birthing stuff back into the bedroom on the other side of the house, while Kelli helps me out of the tub. I notice my birth team blocking view of my body from the men as we make our way through the house, and feel like that was thoughtful of them, though I couldn't care less about being seen naked right now. Before I went into labor, I had a birthing outfit picked out, but once labor really started, naked was the only way I wanted to be. I am no longer ashamed of this large, incredible body, the body that conceived, housed, nurtured, and protected my baby as he grew.
     On the bed, I discover that lying on my side makes the contractions hurt, so for the most part, I stay in the chest and knees position, which lets me rest between contractions and almost sleep. I feel so out of it that I can't figure out how to sustain the pushes to move my baby out.
     I become frustrated, and the sound of the men talking in the other room distracts and irritates me, so I ask Rose to shut the door, not realizing that Dolphin is standing in the hallway.
     Kelli says, “How about we move you to the birthing stool, and let gravity help?”
     I stare at her like she's speaking in tongues for a moment, and when my foggy brain finally deciphers her question, I say, “Okay.”
     The birthing stool looks like someone turned a rocking chair on its side, but cut off the chair part, and then cut handles into each end of the curved runners. It's sturdy, though, and gives my birth team much more room to help me. Maggie and Kristie help me spread my thighs as far as they will go, and Kelli kneels between them, while Kristie contorts herself on the floor with her head under my butt to keep a hot compress against my perineum with one hand, and wipe away fecal matter with the other. They are all my heroes, and I am grateful at the matter-of-fact comportment of these experienced ladies, keeping me confident in my most vulnerable moments.
     On the birthing stool, with Kelli's assistance, I finally figure out how to push effectively, and then how to sustain it. I ask Kelli to use her fingers to guide me, so I can focus on pushing against them. I smell clary sage oil punctuated by occasional whiffs of my own feces at different points, and feel impressed all over again at how efficient the ladies are at keeping me clean and the floor and bed covered. I am so grateful that I feel so comfortable with them that I can poo on them and not feel bad or embarrassed about it.
     They know I can do it, and encourage me over and over. Incredibly attentive and intuitive, they know what I need and want before I do, half the time. Rose is also a huge help, just by helping them. She becomes an active member of my birth team, even though she's never witnessed a birth before. I could burst with pride for her.
     […]
     In the last fifteen minutes, the pushing urge becomes all consuming. I grunt louder and longer than I ever have before, pushing until I think I can't possibly push anymore, surprised when my body adds an extra, stronger push at the end of what I thought was all I could do. My throat is raw and I taste mucus from the grunting, as if I'm coughing up phlegm rather than vocalizing as I move my baby's head down my birth canal.
     I don't feel the infamous “ring of fire” when he crowns, just an itchy, stretchy feeling. My birth team sets up a mirror so I can see his head, but my glasses are still in the kitchen, so I reach down and touch him instead. His head feels like a slimy hairball, and I almost laugh, but suddenly, I can't think or do anything but push. My body totally takes over. His head comes out, and Kelli wipes his nose and mouth, then turns slightly to put down the cloth, whirling back around just in time to catch my baby as he shoots out of me, seconds after crowning. I almost laugh again at the wide-eyed expression on Kelli's face, which is the only face close enough for me to see without my glasses.
     But then she puts his warm, slippery body on my belly, and I cradle him to me, and the rest of the world ceases to exist. His head is covered in short brown hair, looking darker in the birth gore. His eyes are dark and almond-shaped, his nose flat and round, his lips full and perfect in his scrunched up, beautiful face. He could be any ethnicity in this moment. He is the entire human race, the past, present, and future. He is the entire universe, my universe, the overwhelming precious answer to every prayer I'll ever make.

Confession time...

I've been feeling pretty ashamed of myself since last night.

Ten years ago, while I worked on my MFA but before I started my eight years of thesis hours (no joke,) I had a couple of classes, one fiction, one poetry, in which we volunteered at the local homeless shelter and taught some of the "residents" creative writing techniques.

We learned a lot about life that semester, about pedagogy, and about human nature.  The couple of months I spent homeless, I got to hop from a bed in one friend's house, to a bed in another, while people I knew and trusted watched my son and other friends drove me around town helping me search for jobs, aid, and more permanent shelter.  I had a whole posse of mamas watching my back, all peers, most of whom I barely knew before all this happened, and thanks to them, my son and I never had to sleep in a shelter, or beneath the open sky.

The people we taught that semester were not so fortunate.  They had no real friends or generous acquaintances to help them.  They had no family, or their families turned their backs on them.

That semester, listening to these amazing people tell their stories using the techniques of storytelling and poetry that we taught them, changed me forever.  Perhaps someday I'll be able to better describe it.

The thing that stayed with me most after that class was my professor, Terry Thaxton's, lecture about how many homeless people are treated as if they are invisible.  All they want is for someone to SEE them, to recognize them as human, as beings deserving of acknowledgement, respect, and compassion.

And then, last night, I was busy trying to write and organize at Starbucks, getting the Moody Mamas Support Network going on Facebook...totally ignoring the homeless man who came in and sat on the couch across from me.

When he was walking past me, his hand hit one of the chairs and my table and he said, "ow!" then, "Sorry!"

I threw a half-assed smile at him without taking my eyes off my computer screen as I typed, and muttered, "No problem..."

He stopped and stared at me for a long moment.  At the time, I thought he was trying to see what I was typing, and I turned my back to him ever so subtly more.

After that long moment, he sat down, commenting loudly to himself about the food he had in a bowl smelling bad, he definitely needed to throw it out, good GOD that stank, definitely bad, stinks stinks stinks...

I was getting irritated because he was distracting me, so I picked up and went home to finish writing in the car.

It wasn't until after I went to bed that I realized what happened, and what I'd done.

That man so desperately wanted someone to see him, to look him in the eye, to recognize that he was there.  I'm actually crying right now because I feel so bad that I was so absorbed in my own world that I couldn't even spare him a full-on smile.

This isn't him, but he looks similar.  I think.  *hangs head

Next time I see him, I'll make sure to look him in the eyes and ask him how he's doing.

Even if it means giving up some of my writing time so he can talk.

I owe the world that much.

Letters to My Younger Self - Three Rules to Live By

Dearest youngling,

Listen to the words of someone who's gone through things you will hopefully never go through.  I'm going to lay down some ground rules for your life.  If you follow them, your life will be a million times more wonderful than mine has been.  This is just the first three...more will definitely follow!

Rule Number One: NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR YOUR FEELINGS.

Your emotions are the mechanism your spirit uses to tell your mind that something is good or bad for you.  If you feel good about something, trust that.  If you feel bad, something is wrong.

It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about your feelings...your feelings are yours.  They are your private language with the part of you that is also God, the part that loves you unconditionally and wants you to be happy and healthy.

No one gets to tell you how you should feel.  Which leads me to...

Rule Number Two: NO ONE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL.

No one makes you mad.  No one makes you sad.  No makes you feel dumb.  Thinking that others can make you feel gives others power over you.

But that 2 year old made his mother mad, you say?  Does a 2 year old really have power over a grown woman?  Only if the grown woman decides that the 2 year old should be in charge!  You are responsible for your own feelings; and pretending otherwise is making yourself a victim when you should be the hero.

So if you feel angry, accept that you feel angry, and find the real reason why.  You aren't angry because that person said something mean.  You are angry either because you are afraid that person is right, or because you feel out of control and want to control the other person.  Which leads me to...

Rule Number Three:  YOU CANNOT CHANGE ANYONE EXCEPT YOURSELF.

If you are not happy, figure out what's wrong, and change yourself.  You will never find another person who can make you happier than you can make yourself.  You know you better than anyone else ever can.

You can't make another person care about the same things you care about, but you can find other people who are more like you.  You can also examine those things, and see how important they really are to you.

You will change throughout your life.  The only constant in this universe is change.  So you have to decide whether you are going to change for the better, or for the worse.

Love,
Someone Who Wishes She'd Known These Things Decades Ago

My Ideal Lifestyle

I am ready to love my life to the fullest, and in that spirit, last week I took my notebook to the park, and between pushes of the toddler swing my son insisted on riding, I wrote a detailed list of every thing I would like to accomplish on a daily basis.

It's a long list, but totally doable.

Every day I rise with the sun, get tea and breakfast started, and perform a devotional followed by daily guidance divination. I want to rise with the sun because sunrise is beautiful. Tea is important because I rarely get enough sleep and coffee makes me jittery. Breakfast is important for nourishing my brain and body. My devotional is my prayer of gratitude, talking to the Divine, and my daily guidance divination is one way the Divine talks back.

Every morning I write until my son wakes, after which I spend time seeing to my son's needs, including a fresh diaper or assistance using the potty, lots of cuddles, food, and drink. Then I take him outside, so every day we get fresh air and have the opportunity to enjoy this beautiful world.

Every day I sing to myself, my son, my family, and the people on the road beside me fortunate enough to also have no air conditioning. Singing is one way I express the beauty of my soul. It heals me, and helps me radiate love and joy.

Every day, I make something beautiful. Maybe a new craft, maybe a poem, maybe organizing stuff in a more pleasing way, or maybe just a beautiful presentation of the food I cook, as long as every day I contribute to beauty in the world.

Every day I nourish my body with plenty of water and delicious, nutritious, vegan food. Every day I break a sweat by working my muscles, getting my heart pumping, and expressing love for myself and joy for life in yoga, dance, or play.

Every day I learn something new, whether from reading, observing, or experiencing something in a whole new way.

Every day I say I love you, and every day I talk to a loved one.

Every evening, I make a delicious, nutritious dinner for my family, and encourage each member to talk about their day. This is my way of showing gratitude for their love.

Every night, I greet the moon, remembering how huge she is compared to me, and how tiny a space she holds in the enormity of the universe.

Before bed, I clean the kitchen and pick up the common room and my bedroom, because cleaning is an act of love, and waking up to a (relatively) clean house is a wonderful thing.

Before bed I clean my body, brush my teeth, moisturize my hands and feet, and rub my neck and shoulders, because I deserve to feel loved and pampered.

Before sleep I do my affirmations, co-creating my world with the Divine. I write and work after getting my son to sleep, and any time I can throughout the day, then nourish my mind, body, an spirit with six to seven hours of sleep before greeting the dawn.

Winds of Change

The only constant is change, right?

Changes I've been through lately:

-I went vegetarian, suffered food poisoning from deviled eggs a week later, and became vegan instead. Although I do feel compassion for animals, I don't believe it's morally wrong to eat meat. I feel it's morally wrong to abuse animals the way our meat industry does, and I believe eating meat from such animals causes physical and even psychological harm (because hormones that affect our brains are in the meat, including the chemicals of terror and pain, which the animals release into their muscles in the last traumatic moments before the slaughter,) which inspired me to finally give up on the last of the meat I was eating. But it was the food poisoning that killed eggs and dairy for me. Now I can't even smell meat or eggs, or think about milk or cheese, without shuddering and retching a bit. So, long story short, my body told me I don't need animal products anymore, and that eating animal products was hurting me, and I chose to listen to it.

-I moved from an incredibly stressful situation into a astoundingly peaceful one. I went from a house of strangers where my job was to make sure no one knew a toddler lived there while desperately trying to scrape up enough money to cover the bedroom we called home...to accepting a surprising invitation to live with Aiden's father and his girlfriend, and her family. Written like that, it sounds like drama just waiting to explode...but there has been so little tension in the last three weeks since the move! I feel like I lost a hundred pounds. I only lost twenty, which is still awesome, by the way, but the point is I feel so much lighter, more peaceful, joyful, and I can honestly say that I love my life. Aiden loves it here too...he's much more confident, independent, social, talkative, and just plain happy.

-I'm supported in my goals of making a living with my spiritual and crafty pursuits. And not just in word! My housemate actively comes up with ideas of ways I can further my career, recommends me to friends, and is paying for me to vend at an upcoming pagan gathering that I thought I was going to miss for the first time in four years.

-I'm living with someone who likes and respects me. That hasn't happened since the early years with Keith! lol We're compatible. I met her New Year's Day 2011, and since that time, she's taken me to two pagan festivals (two more coming up in the next three weeks,) a community ritual, we've had an impromptu private ritual, two karaoke parties, a community picnic...she likes my vegan cooking and eats my leftovers! No one ever ate my leftovers before! lol

-I have learned SO MUCH about cooking in the last three weeks, just from going vegan and being determined to make delicious food for the whole family. I have learned so much about nutrition, culinary theory, how to intuitively season a meal that turns out great every time, new ways of cooking grains, beans, and vegetables (and even fruit, but I haven't tried that yet.) I LOVE roasted brussel sprouts and asparagus! I used to hate both of them, but roasting with a little bit of oil and salt makes them sweet and luscious! And my body loves being vegan. My mood has been so stable and peaceful, and I have more energy than I can remember ever having before. I didn't even notice that I don't need an afternoon nap anymore, even when I stay up late and get up early. Before we moved, I was so irritable and exhausted all the time...it's like I'm revived by being here and living this way.

-I get to sing! No one minds! They sing along! WHOO!

-People actually help me with Aiden! I got to go to Busch Gardens with my friends, and Aiden was fine with his father! My housemate takes him with her twice a week so I can write!

I have access to a car every day. My contributions to our home are appreciated. My creativity is both appreciated and encouraged, and even inspires my housemate's creativity. I'm truly part of the family. I could go on and on about how different my life is now. Actually, I'm not sure what's the same...