OK-- so to anyone and everyone who wants to read about why, here ya go. Most of the time, I try to investigate why I'm doing something. What is my intent? My motives? Is it love? Is it to give? Is it to receive? Is it to amuse? Mostly all of those things. Sometimes I remember to investigate motives, but I do forget and goof up and goof up often... but this isn't one of those times :)

So, anyway, why do I blog? First, if my perspectives and experiences can be of service to anyone, I offer them. I make a lot of mistakes and many can be learned by just reading and pointing your finger at me. Why make your own mistakes when you don't have to? I have learned so much from relating to real people and real stories that I decided to be one, myself, no holds barred. I tell you the truth from my very subjective perspective. It won't be someone else's, but its mine. If it helps anyone or even lightly amuses, wonderful.

The point is that if there is any one thing that can be gleaned from my blog about life, art, spirituality, love, sadness or joy that will help someone become more secure in themselves to live openly and connect in their lives... then, wonderful. If someone, through my hard-nosed exploration can see the beauty in their own complexities and falliblilties, then this is worth it to me and I will continue to do it.

I offer my vulnerabilities in love and with the intent of love only for that purpose. AA is this way, my Mom's saving grace. We'd both be dead if it wasn't for AA and how they handle life. They talk of struggles openly and about what helped them through hard times and it helps new people and the cycle of giving continues.

Sometimes along the way, even with the best of intents, people's toes get stepped on. A note to my loved ones of past, present and future: Existing as someone connected to me, you will be vulnerable and this won't be comfortable to you. It will require you to be courageous when you feel you can't. Do it anyway and release the shame. It'll be ok.

This is why I don't name names, although the names are easy to find if you look. But the real issue in this blog isn't the name, the person or even the event... it is the lesson learned in the grander scheme of the human condition.

So, if these lessons of the human condition have been lost in my posts, then the person doesn't get it and they shouldn't read any more. For example, the last two posts were about manipulation by people who don't necessarily look manipulative... to us or themselves. We do it all the time, all of us, and we don't even realize it. Myself, included. The posts were also about how our roles in relationships change depending on our strengths and weaknesses.

So, about accepting our roles in those relationships... I accept being a bad-girl (blunt? insensitive?)  sometimes to make someone feel better about themselves. (Its mental gymnastics to understand why I say that, I know. I've been a "guard-dog" for people who couldn't do it for themselves was one way.)

I live based on how I'd like to be treated, adhering to the golden rule. I had rather have my feelings hurt with someone's truth than be placated with a sweet lie. I own being blamed (and criticized) for the repercussions of those things, willingly. I played a role in the victim/rescuer experience without blaming a soul for it but myself and I don't regret it or intend to whine about it. I don't want pity. I did it, I'm an adult and thats that.

But I am also an odd bird, wild. My love runs rampant as much as the other extreme. I wear my heart, my weaknesses and triumphs on my sleeve, opting to be vulnerable all of the time. This woman is my hero, my example and she fully gets why I paint and live as I do. To understand "why" fully, watch this: 

Sure, I get hurt and some judgment, but its worth it. I am human and very fallible and just like you or anyone else you come across. I just happen to be an artist with a blog. (Not a CPA, secretary or accountant. An artist. Much of what I write about becomes paintings.)

So, about this blog, I had been slightly “threatened” that someone had “something” on me that I wouldn't want “out there”. I imagine, in retalliation for what I wrote. I'm curious what someone could possibly have that I don't readily admit on my back through an exposed, soft underbelly. Can't think of a thing. 

But, I am not, nor ever will get, into the habit of hiding anything. Our weakness IS our courage and the day we get that is the day we are whole. I bless someone in their endeavors to dig dirt up on me because its already been dug a long time ago. Airing dirty laundry? There is a spiritual principle behind this. Respect it or not, but watch Brene Brown's TED talk and then make your judgment.

There's more of this post if you click "read more" down there to the right. I hope all who reads the above or anything from this unrepentant wild-child is blessed with the courage for a more authentic and loving life.

Grief is a complicated thing and people vascillate between deep despair, denial, anger, making "deals" <--I never did that one, back to one of the ones just mentioned and over and over. About anger... they never really tell you why you're angry or what its going to be directed at, do they? I guess it could be anything.  

Day before yesterday, I saw Oil of Olay bodywash Mom had gotten me for Christmas and I just bawled. For 2 hours. The thought that I didn't do enough for her, make her feel loved enough, just kills me. Since I had Devyn, I didn't have the patience I used to and the thought I'd hurt her feelings, kills me. Not being able to call her to tell her this weird mix of haircolor I concocted looks good, kills me. Not being able to hear her blather away about dumb things breaks my heart. 

Last night, we go there and she's not waking up at all. They'd done a CT scan and there is nothing wrong with her head that she can't wake up... she's just sick. Its not pain meds, its not a high fever, she's just checked out. Hell, I've been sick as a dog, had 105 fever and saw things, yet I could still say hi. WTF?

Then I got angry. I'm actually relieved, anger feels better than that despair. 

A long time ago, a couple built a house. They didn't have everything that they really needed to make it as sturdy as they should, but they wanted one anyway and they built it where they wanted to. It turned out to be a really good house. In the early years of its "life", a hurricane came along, Camille. The house still stood, most folks were surprised given that the hurricane had 200 mph winds. Sure, it lost its shingles, shutters and porch, but somehow the little house made it.  

Other things happened throughout time, additions had been built onto the house, new rooms, renovations, celebrations, births and birthdays. More hurricanes came and went and the house creaked and moaned and the superfluous parts blew off, but the main structure still stood. The couple was proud of themselves and their construction and maintained life as usual, thinking that all is fine. They tended to the outside, the gardens, the furniture, but never thought to check the bones of the house.

Later on, a small but compact storm, category 1, hit the house and this time, it started to shake more than usual, making crumbling sounds. No one understood: its withstood the biggest and strongest of winds, why would it now begin to crumble? The winds are coming from a different direction, its a small storm comparatively, so why is this happening? 

No one heard the support beams splinter in initial storm's torrential rains because they were so busy mopping up the superficial water on the floor. So now, people are shocked that this small category 1 is about to take out the small, seemingly sturdy house. 

The ones living there even get mad at the house: this is a completely different situation! Why are you crumbling??

How stupid is that?? Well for someone seeing the situation for what it is, there are a few choices... strengthen the support beams, move the house away from the hurricane-habitat or watch it blow over. 

Such is the life of someone who is an ACOA when they live long enough to revisit situations that remind them of initial childhood insults. Even long after sobriety and the choice to live a better life, the structural damage remains. In my situation, I've saved my Mom's life over and over and over-- whether it was through hiding her booze so she wouldn't drink into oblivion and drown in the bathtub, begging her to leave a man who would eventually kill her, all the warnings I gave her to behave differently when Dad (if he knew what she was doing) would beat her for what she was doing, hiding her in my closet when she came back after "running off", to actually sitting on her lap as a human shield when he was going to shoot her. 

Today, I am tired of having to make life and death choices for someone who isn't present. 

No matter how many times Stephen tells me that the situation is different, I can't help but feel tired and resentful. Yes its different, but the effect is still the same. I don't get a life, I get sadness and fear and loss. Whether its by choice (alcohol, a husband) or by nature (Nocardia), I am fucking tired of this and angry. I want her to suck it up, wake up and make a choice between life and death and not leave me to do it for her, like most of my life.     

But as unfair as it is, thats not going to happen. And I'm still left here to look at limbo with the thought that something else could be done to snap her out of this. My heart still breaks and yearns for the person she was before the illness. I still see some fucking olay bodywash somewhere, all day every day. God, I miss her and I'm mad and I don't want to make this decision. But here I am. 

My beams may be wobbly, but my foundation is strong. So fuck you, storm, bring it. Blow the house down. I'll rebuild.  

This is so not what I want to blog about, but I've got to get some of this out. I'll let friends know a little bit at a time, but thats about it. And, just to let them know why their stuff isn't done yet or I'm late for something. I just had to take a minute.

Life's been hard recently and just when I thought it can't get any harder, it did. Mom had been chronically ill and on her last days/weeks/months, but I had to put being with her on the backburner to work at what I could to make ends meet. I worked my ass off painting, promoting, etc. The day that Mom got really sick, I broke and told Stephen to do what he had to do to get whatever job he could. I literally told him to stalk the HR people where he's sent resumes and meant it. 

Then, good news: we got relief when Stephen got word that he was hired in Seattle. I can't even remember the name of the place... Its going to be a drive, but I am so relieved. I'm just worried for him travelling that much and being tired. It is so hard to be ripped apart by having to choose between making a life for your child/family or spend your last experiences with your Mom. I chose and now I don't have to. Thank you, God.  

Tuesday, Sept. 10, Mom was admitted to the hospital with with colitis- caused by the serious chemo-type antibiotics that is supposed to help win the war against Nocardia pneumonia she contracted in June/July of this year. Long term steroid use (which is sometimes just one course) creates vulnerability to Nocardia. She had to go to the hospital... they took her off the antibiotics for the colitis. The Nocardia had no speedbumps and then took off like a shot and sepsis ensued (the infection is in the blood then).

Then septic shock. Seeing her there, swollen like a blimp and leaking fluid from her extremities and on a ventilator, was too much. There is a point in illness when you had rather bear the huge loss of a loved-one rather than see them hold on through suffering for you. You can let your loved ones go much easier than watching them suffer. I think that is how parents of terminally ill children survive the aftermath. I could survive Devyn's passing better than seeing him suffer- oh God. Just please don't ever put me, him, us through that, please, no part of that. No parent should.

So, these days are filled with getting up with less sleep under my belt than I'd like, trying to take care of Dev as best I can, grabbing a minute for computer work and chores, trying to keep more patience than I feel like I can handle at the moment, going to the hospital and loving Mom, coming home, doing dinner, staying up late and working. Its hard and sad, but its supposed to be. And I'm not doing it alone, Stephen is here and doing the best he can, too. 

I'm so grateful to love what I do and have a passion for it. Graphics, promo for the Stanwood-Camano Arts Guild, painting, loving people through what I do. As a gift from God, it has been my saving Grace. 

They took the ventilator out today, but her other numbers aren't looking good, but we'll see how that changes with this new antibiotic. She woke up talking about Mary, Mary, Mary Magdalene. Her mind isn't here and she's in between places and the Angels, Spirits, Guides are helping her to let go here by forming relationships there. They know she won't let go because of the love she has here. That is what I think is going on. I really think they tried earlier and it didn't work- she's a clinger and she wouldn't let go. This time, they're taking their time and easing her into it- but that means her body feels more pain than we here want to see her feel. 

I can't wait to share the dream that Stephen and I had. It'll be a painting, probably one of my best. Just when I think things can't get more beautiful, rich, mysterious or unbelievable, it does.  

 

I really think I dreamed about the Oklahoma City tornado last night before it happened. Proof, I even posted about it here on facebook before it happened. Yes, call me a kook, but I do believe in paranormal perception, 6th senses, esp, whatever you want to call it.  I think its one of God's gifts that we all have to some degree. Read about brain wave activity and what is linked to psychic things here.

I watch Theresa Caputo on Long Island Medium and she's helped me so much to realize and guide whats going on sometimes, much more than when this stuff was hush-hush. She's incredibly gifted and I wish I knew how to "let it go". I translate too much. I need to just describe and shut up about it.

Anyway, I had a terrible dream last night/this morning or so. It was so vivid and here is what was in it:

There was some huge cataclysmic event in which people were grabbing other people's kids and "hiding them" because they knew "it" was coming. It seemed important that I know that they knew "it" was going to happen.

The thing that was happening was so bad that sheltering really didn't matter. What was coming, I didn't know. (I do lucid dreaming in which I can actually "think" in my dream and I thought it was a world war, a volcano or an asteroid because people were running to bunker-type bomb shelters.) I've never lived in tornado prone areas, so basements and bomb shelters are foreign to me.

The devastation was going to be so huge that most wouldn't survive, and the ones who did survive were walking around in disbelief that they did. All these people were just walking around, looking at familiar objects like.. zombies or something.

I kept hearing, or being infused with the knowledge that "There were two storms before this one".

Anyway people were trying to hide children so they would be safe.
We, this couple,  weren't "supposed" to be able to survive, but the children were because they were in this other area (we were separated and I didn't know why).

I then turned into one of the children at a school (I somehow turn into all characters in my dreams and see their perspectives) and I was a child, one among many, in a room with cinder-block walls. Water was coming in and I got hit from behind by what I thought was a wave, but all I knew was I was catapulted toward the wall and remember thinking, "Please God, let me go through that one window to the high left because I don't want to go straight through that cinder block wall.

These children were there in that space (it felt like "on purpose") so they would go quickly. I didn't know why they should go quickly... my brain made up some excuse why in that they didn't want them to suffer. I don't even know who they are. 

I turned into another adult who couldn't figure out why people had their hands in the air and dry dirt was puffing and flying around in the air (again, I thought this meant an eruption of some sort, after all, ash is dirt and we live on the west coast.) I saw a black wedge shaped thing that I thought was smoke or an ash cloud.

Anyway, I switched back into the child in the cinder block building area. Water came into where we were and I was trying to hold the hand of another child. That "chapter" of the dream ended abruptly and I was another character. I didn't get anything else out of that, no last moments, no nothing.

Onward, I turned into a parent (myself?) and saw fire, something on the ground was hot and coming "up"(gas lines?) and cars crumpled and mangled and abandoned. My vehicle was gone, nothing worked and I couldn't figure out how to get my child. Everything was obliterated. I saw a car that was in shape to perhaps drive, noticed that the seatbelt had been ripped and there was blood on it.

I felt the seatbelt and then started screaming with the realization that someone had been strapped in it when it was torn apart and knew that it had to be an immense force that could rip that kind of material. I thought that the person wasn't in one piece because the chances were good that he or she ripped before the belt material. It was obvious that the person wasn't alive anymore.

I turned into another child who managed to hide in a cage-like area with other children at another school. He was warning other children to not go "out there". I don't think this one had a shelter or they managed to get out of the group. They weren't supposed to survive, but they did. They were in a small, enclosed space, forgotten storage behind the school.

I saw wood panels, something that looked like boxes or wooden crates and chicken wire. It was perhaps part of the school, perhaps not but so close it could be an outbuilding. Dogs came... they were afraid of the dogs and didn't want to say anything. Some dogs didn't seem tame. One had black inside his mouth as he was barking at me.

We were afraid of how we would survive AFTER having survived the initial onslaught. They thought their parents were dead and that the dogs would bite them, so they remained hidden and quiet. (I hope there are no children who are hiding, afraid of the rescue dogs out there. I never thought of them being big and scary to kids before.)

I then turned into that other person who had seen the seatbelt. I started screaming to find my child, that I had to get "where" he was because I knew the people who had him would keep him safe, but I just couldn't get there. 

Somehow, then Moss Point popped in the dream??? And then something about the importance of the survival of the children under the age of five. (I guess that would mean preschool kids, who WEREN'T in school would be ok.) Then I was running through New Orleans and people, survivors, were sleeping outside because it was hot and they had no electricity.

I heard Devyn running upstairs and I woke up.

Two storms before this one. Two storms before this one. What keeps getting me is that there really WERE two storms that took this path, almost exactly, before this one. One in 1999 and the other in 2003.

Don't read this if you don't want your mood to drop like one of those jets with bad batteries. Read on if you want someone to relate to or just out of curiousity.

I've got so much work to do, but I'm taking a mental health evening. I read Damn You AutoCorrect! and got a good laugh. I even had a nap. I needed a mental health evening instead of working at every available minute cuz Mom had to be taken to the hospital again at about 5 a.m. this morning via ambulance. She started vomiting and had other "issues", while her hands were tingling and burning like fire. Sounded like an allergic reaction to me. I didn't take her, but that didn't mean that I wasn't up bothered, tho. Yes, I prayed. 

Today was my day. Stephen and I started switching days (one day is his work day and the next is mine) and we get a bunch more done that way. I was glad today was mine; I got to paint. It didn't help with my attitude, tho, like it usually does.

I'm just tired. Bone tired. What triggers my depression is stressful events that just keep coming, like ocean swells knocking me down over and over, and I think thats whats going on.

Normally, I'm a conqueror- I don't worry, I deal with "it", attack whatever it is head on when "it" happens and I'm not afraid of much of anything. But this shit keeps coming. Just when I think I've got a little while to recuperate, I get hit again. And I'm starting to get pissed off about it. God, fate, bad luck, whatever it is, give me a freaking break for about two months. Just let me catch my breath and get a few steps forward, ok?

Not that I think life shouldn't be this way, that these experiences are unfair, it what it is and I could be anybody. I would feel better if I could get a leg up out of this pit that keeps getting deeper. Every time I get my stuff set up to go out and network with other art sellers/dealers/interior designers, something serious happens and all forward progress has to cease. I get a project going and momentum (you know, the "flow" where its coming together and you're in the zone) I have to stop to write some dry assed complaint form with the Mississippi Board of Realtors or Dispute of Settlements and Fees. Its both draining and distracting, then there's this recuperation time (that may or may not happen) and then shit hits the fan again:

continued below this line.............

In a word, YES. It took a long time, much fearful insights (not fearless. Courage comes from being afraid and doing what you know is right. Fearless is just... stupid. Fearless people don't have the sense to be scared, ha ha. BTDT in the teen years).

Now, life is good. We still have money troubles, an argument here and there, but the internal conflict and resolution are much easier because the agitated anxiety taught me to be open no matter how armored and spikey others are, to respect my value system, to stay away from people that don't "get" me and head towards healthy people who do. I also was gifted with the foresight to do what is right according to my conscience and for the greater good (can't even walk past litter w/out picking it up), so hopefully my art reflects this wisdom gleaned.

My art of the time is meant to be scary, funny and freaky. Thats how the situation was. My art now? Somewhat the same, but in a much more beautiful and spiritual context. God uses all sorts of experiences for his art supplies :)

So anyway, after watching Brene Brown, the painting's meaning finally became comprehensible. It is about how the outside world lives in a space of ego and armor and I didn't. Never have. I tried and it felt completely un-natural, so I shut up and shut down.

Because of this, the feeling of belonging never came to me (until many years later when I met fellow artists/sensitives). Until then, "Fitting in" was something completely alien, and never so evident as when I was in the throws of my breakdown. The scream came from the feeling of not being able to escape it, this emotional knowledge of the disparity between what is inside people and what they show. There is a real person in there somewhere beyond the armor and spikes. Although people's internal workings are none of my business, open-ness is a gift not many people give. Sad, because they get so much more out of the interaction.

The rabbit is the Velveteen Rabbit. Like the Velveteen rabbit, you become real once you have been loved to the point of pain (intimacy brings pain). Real relationships bring arguments and misunderstandings... the rabbit has a scar on its heart and also its wrist. Its in the shape of Edvard's original person, with the same acidic colors (agitated depression heightens adhd or any of your senses, everything feels like an assault). Besides that, check out the dudes walking up the pier. You can't get a read on them, they don't want to look you in the eye. The one without the spikes actually smiled.

In the background are the tell-tale trees painted by every MS gulf coast artist that shows. All the trees look the same, so since this is about not fitting in, I put them in there. Most of the artists of the region also painted shrimpboats and magnolias at some point, so I have a shrimpboat in the background (that didn't exist- due to Katrina) and after feeling shunned at several art shows there (and not from this painting, either, lol) I painted USS FU as the boat's name. 

The struggle of my entire life had revolved around this ONE topic. When no one lives in the space you do or is willing to take off their psychic clothes either, the hunger for intimacy of being real with another person like yourself creates a starvation, a famine of the soul. At the time, I didn't know why or where it was coming from, but the depression had stripped me of any psychic skin and exposed the real guts of the matter. God was part of this, but God had stepped into the background... I suppose to allow me to be taken apart to be put back together again. How many other artists cannibalize their creations to make something new and improved?

For more information about psychic upheavals and re-integrations, read here about "THE POSITIVE DISINTEGRATION THEORY"