“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” – Joan Didion
When the body is in pain, all you can do is listen.
Listen to what your body is telling you.
Slowing down helps the body recover.
It’s not always easy or fun
but it’s important to be patient
with your body in the midst of pain
and do what you can to help yourself heal.
Thirteen years ago today, my parents took me to PetSmart after speech therapy to look at the cats. We had gotten a cat earlier in the year who turned out to be kind of a dud. She was sweet but full of nerves (still is).
Little did I know, my parents had been to PetSmart while I was at my speech therapy, looking at the cats that were up for adoption from our local animal shelter. They had their eyes on an orange cat that sort of resembled the neighborhood cat that came around when we lived in Tucson.
Then a four year old tabby cat named Mikey caught their attention. His friendly personality won them over almost instantly. When I met him, he rolled over his cage and began purring. I told my mom I liked him and she said he’s ours. I was shocked.
I was thirteen at the time and thirteen years later, Mikey’s still around. He’s a people cat and only likes our dog. Other dogs, he’s less excited about. He fell out a second story window because of a dog who wasn’t cat-friendly.
He lost one of his nine lives that day. We found him a few hours latter, meowing on our fence. We think he developed wonky front legs because of the fall along with arthritis due to his old age. He purrs through any pain he may have.
Mikey loves the sound of his own voice. He will go into a room and meow just so he can hear the sound bounce off the walls. It’s probably soothing to him. He’s still a lovable cat who will bat your hand if you stop petting him too soon.
For the last few years, my family and I have seen Mikey slow down. He’s had his moments but he’s somehow always made it through. He’s certainly no spring chicken. We love him anyway.
Happy adoption birthday, Mikey.
It feels like her brain constantly resets.
That's the best way I can understand it.
To watch the ones you love become
different people is disheartening.
It's the disease they have that causes
them to revert to children or toddlers
depending on how bad it is.
You love them but it's difficult to watch.
It's difficult to hear them repeat themselves
and wonder who they are and why they're here.
It's like their brain has returned to factory settings,
only remember the bare minimum
when it comes to those they love
because it's stored in the cloud of their brain,
which will eventually fade away.
It’s clear to me that seasons no longer exist. They only exist as dates on a calendar, marking the passage of time. The rest has faded away to a time and place the planet no longer knows. We’ve had at least five major snow storms in the last two months. It’s autumn, where leaves are supposed to be falling. Normally, snow begins around the middle of November. But this year, expectations for normalcy have disappeared. We’re left with feet of snow as colored leaves dangle from frozen trees.
You choose to look at the dead field instead of the green grass.
Why?
The cliché phrase is true, you know?
The grass is greener on the other side.
Someone may tell you to look at the field.
The green one, not the one with no life.
You won't look at it until someone tells you.
But then you look at it and tilt your head.
Looking at something another way can bring change.
The goal shouldn't be to get to the other side.
The goal should be acknowledging it exists first.
Then you can slowly begin to make your way.
It's about the journey, not the destination.
It's another cliché phrase that fits.
We all have things we can look at differently.
It could be something we have no control over.
Or it could be something that you can change.
Whatever it is that's filling you with shame or denial,
Only you can be the one to decide it's time to change.
No more pretending like it doesn't exist or walking around it.
You can control your thinking.
Will you choose to look at the green grass?
Or will you continue to keep your head in the dirt?
The intention of the message is lost,
causing both sides to bicker and banter.
Perspective impacts opinion and causes
emotions to cloud one's judgment.
Person one says something to person two.
Person two takes what person one said to heart
and accuses person one of meaning something
they didn't because the communication wasn't clear.
This causes both parties to escalate their stances,
which leads to getting outside parties involved
because the communication is seemingly too messy
for either party to resolve the issue on their own.
Outsiders don't know the full story,
and often their biases show
who they're for and who they're against
within moments of hearing one perspective.
It's a case of misunderstanding,
when someone's been hurt too many times,
they can't speak without pain being present,
which causes nothing to be solved.
I don't have to agree with you to respect you.
You don't have to agree with me to respect me.
We can come from two different backgrounds and generations,
have different perspectives, beliefs, and ideas,
and still, be respectful of one another.
The focus is often on what is different about us,
who we love, what we believe, where we live.
While we may have moral differences that define us,
that doesn't mean we can't be kind, or at least civil.
We can get our messages across without yelling at each other.
It's possible to agree to disagree and not be hateful.
Call out injustices that need to be addressed,
make noise when something needs to be changed.
But don't be rude to someone who doesn't agree with you
and don't try to put your beliefs on them.
The goal shouldn't be to get someone
to believe what you believe because it doesn't work.
Repetitive behavior with the same speech
isn't productive or convincing.
It's to be kind to each other regardless of where we stand.
I'm not the bad guy and neither are you.
Before I had the language
to understand and articulate,
I just had the feeling.
I was twelve,
sitting in my sixth-grade classroom,
looking down at what I had written.
These words seem to have come out of nowhere,
like magic.
I looked around the room
and realized no one could tell
how I was feeling.
I didn't know anything about poetry
and yet, I had written a poem.
It was about how life is like a game
and you just have to go along
with the surprises you encounter.
I read the poem over and over again,
amazed I was capable of writing something so quickly.
Now I have the language,
to share and articulate
what I was feeling.
When I know I've written something
good that's worth sharing,
I experience that feeling.
My stomach fills with butterflies,
the hair on my arm stands straight up.
I'm reminded why I love writing
and why I must take the ideas that come to me
to express what I'm feeling.
Life is like a game
everywhere you look is a surprise.
I didn't know when I wrote these words
what I was feeling
or that I would become a writer.
I just knew when those two lines popped into my brain,
I had to write them down as quickly as I could,
before they could escape.
I watch the snowfall for a third time this month.
I can't remember the last time it snowed
three times before Halloween.
But here I am, watching it float down once more.
It stopped snowing in late May,
only to return in early October.
Is this just a weird year?
The new normal?
A sign of how climate change has impacted the weather?
All of the above?
Winter over stayed it's welcome,
and arrived just as the leaves were turning colorful.
While I appreciate the snow
when it doesn't stick to the roads,
I'll be curious to know
how these shifts will impact future generations.
I’ve been thinking a lot about words lately. Last week, I shared a blog post about how powerful words can be. A few days ago, I published an essay about how important it is to be aware of the power of your words when sharing online.
I wrote the essay after watching a preview clip of Meghan Markle’s interview. She discussed how the British tabloids have impacted her life and how difficult this journey has been. Yesterday, another clip from Markle’s interview was released. In the new clip, she discusses how she tried to adopt the British’s “stiff upper lip” but revealed that “what that does internally is probably really damaging.”
I like that Meghan Markle acknowledges this in the interview because it humanizes her. It’s refreshing to see her open up. I think it’s important that she acknowledged there’s damage in pretending everything is fine when it’s not. Her choosing in that moment to be honest about the difficulties she endures shows why it’s important not to allow your emotions to get lost in the craziness of life.
All too often, we’re told to swallow our feelings and go about life as though everything is fine. In actuality, everyone has something they’re going through. That doesn’t mean you have to tell every single person your life problems. But you don’t have to pretend like everything is fine around those who care about you and are there for you. Feeling emotions is often seen as weak. But feeling emotions doesn’t make you weak, it makes you human. When things are hard, processing emotions by allowing yourself to feel them is better than not letting anyone know you’re hurt and swallowing your tears.
At the end of the clip that was released yesterday, Meghan Markle mentioned how she takes things day by day because that’s all she can do. That’s what we can all do, take it one day at a time.
