March 2020

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  • reciprocity

    Never do you feel more small and delicate when you’re hit with yet another sense of loss. Grief arrives in many forms: loss of loved ones, watching things go in a direction you didn’t them to, being embraced by memories of your former life. And they all sting.

    Today that humility arrived in the form of a friend passing on. I can’t help but be angry how Charon keeps paddling across all these wonderful, kind and inherently good people. It’s beyond unfair.

    Yet I try to find the purpose and meaning in it all. Sometimes things like this happen cause the Universe is a cruel bitch, but sometimes they’re the Universe slapping you upside the face, kinda like Cher in Moonstruck, “SNAP OUT OF IT!!”

    You see, the past 24 hours have been a bit of a mindfuck. I take it back, the past month has. Another round of what feels like dog years, blow after emotional blow where I feel like I cannot come up for air before something else is tying itself to my ankle to sink me back down.

    What was that? It’s early February? 2020 is gonna be aces? Shit. I am not throwing in the towel by any means here. Me? But look, I was having a real “woe is me” moment. A “can I catch a break? Because I am fucking exhausted!” pity party moment.

    And then I read the news and boy did I feel like such a first world problems BABY. I’m not going to diminish my struggle by any means. It doesn’t mean that some of the things I have had happen to me in the past year aren’t absolute fuckery, cause lord knows they have been. But damn…

    Another friend’s heart stopped beating… another set of lungs took their last breath today.

    And I am sitting here squandering those moments.

    Every day I strive to be a better, stronger, more authentic version of myself. It’s a journey that will always continue because arrival is for people lying to themselves. We are never there.

    And yet here is another reminder knocking near my door….
    Life is short. Life is fleeting.
    Why and what are you waiting for?
    Don’t be safe. Be bold. Be brave. Tell fear to go fuck itself.
    Want it? Then get it.
    Don’t have it? Then ask for it and be ok if it isn’t the answer you hoped for.
    Say what you need to say. Be authentic to yourself . Be true.
    Answer truthfully when your best friend starts questions with “You need to ask yourself why….”
    Allow yourself to be vulnerable and trusting even when both of those things have been absolutely decimated.

    Rewiring old thoughts, habits and behaviors are hard as hell.

    Recently a close and long time friend said to me…

    “Remember, you were the gold Ivonne”


    kintsugi.

  • r.

    Days old / thirteen

    We have been talking a lot about gratitude lately. 

    Having to be a single parent, who really has to prioritize time and money is a huge change for us. I try not to feel bad about it, but it gets me from time to time when I know I just can’t. When you want to provide the world, the experiences and having to restrain.

    All things considering, I think I am doing pretty ok despite it being less than a year since I moved out. They have had to watch me rebuild my life up from next to nothing. Ground zero. Blood, sweat, scars and a fuck ton of tears. Through minimization of the struggle and sacrifice like its been easy. To see almost half of your life, love and efforts brought to a close like it was a seedy back alley business transaction. To having to hear “What DID YOU DO in those 12 years?” in a job interview and have some dude look at you with the “oh that’s cute” face when you tell him you were a stay-at-home Mother. If you only knew, sir. If you only knew just how much I did, continue to do and am capable of. I am guts, heart, truth and spine.

    I protect them from the burden all while showing them my vulnerability. Safe-guarding them from the reality and weights I lifted, far more than I should have had to. The stress I carry within, working to heal my broken heart, while simultaneously holding them up, imparting the lessons I have learned from arduous paths, building them and us into this new normal that our lives have become.

    I remind them of what we need to revel in. To focus on what we do have instead of focusing on what we don’t. Focusing on needs over wants. That we have a great roof over our heads, in a city we love, the basic needs are met, we’re healthy, breathing and surrounded by an amazing tribe of support. Oh and let us not forget our two cats who know when we need it the most.

    I don’t know how much longer this will last. She still comes in for hugs, climbs in bed for snuggles, reaches for my hand while we watch tv or falls asleep leaning into me. Those years of being home got me them. This amazing person I call my kid. Our bond.

    This is what those 12 years got me. 

    And I would do it all over again.