Today I feel like damaged goods.  I want someone else to be strong for a while. I’m so used to stuffing or covering up these feelings, that I feel like a weak person allowing myself to go through this.   Today is a shoulder needed day.  I feel like a wuss. It’s just that I can’t make it stop.

I want someone to have my back this time.

I want to be the kind of person that can be called upon if someone needs help.  It makes me feel good to help others.  I believe that’s what we are here for really.  I’m sure I’m repeating myself with this, but oh well.  This is therapeutic for me and I enjoy it.

It’s hard to trust after feeling betrayed or hurt.  It’s easy to SAY you trust, but to really be able to do it again, is hard.  I think that it can be done, but for me it’s important to make sure the past that caused that pain, is left where it belongs.

I’ve been dealing with these flashbacks and panic for quite a while now…this morning it woke me out of a sleep.  After talking with others, I’ve made an appointment with a doctor to be treated.  If it is affecting my day to day living, then it could possibly affect my recovery.  I don’t want that to happen.  Being able to sleep again is something that I hope starts to happen…plus I believe that THAT in and of itself will allow my body to be more relaxed and better able to handle whatever stresses come down the road.  I have to do something…I am really beginning to worry about my health.  The chest pain, sob and anxiety is miserable.  I hate it.  But I have faith that somehow it will be able to be handled and dealt with.

So, this post has been taking me almost three days.  My mind is full of so many things, and it seems when I think about it, I’m not at my computer.

It seems that some days are just too blah…and I wonder.  But, as I mentioned before…it is amazing how we can be refreshed with a new day…I simply am amazed by that.  I’m sure because we are all individuals that each persons experience is different and unique.  I’m also sure that there are some that have never experienced that before.  And some that will die without ever knowing it.

Having freedom is something that I never really appreciated until a few years ago.  Being cuffed and stuffed into a cop car is a slap in the face to taking freedom for granted…been there, done that.  Having to blow my car to get it started is another thing I don’t miss.  It was a rough couple of years, but I think I finally learned that I was being stupid and blind to the gifts I had been given.  I’m such an asshat….my current favorite word.  How could I take those things for granted, when I profess to appreciate freedom?  It’s not just my freedom to speak and do what I want…that’s what got me in trouble to begin with.  It’s my freedom to do the right thing, and I want to make those kind of choices.  Those kind of right or correct choices.  I know that I cannot do some of the things that I used to…seems like common sense.  Evidently I didn’t have any.  Hell, maybe I still don’t have any, but I’m trying to do better.  I’m asking for help when I need it, and listening to new and different ways of looking at things.  I still struggle though sometimes…old ghosts try to come back with a vengeance when they think I’m not looking.  I am very fortunate to have a wonderful support network, friends and family alike.   I have romantic love, familial love, friendship love, gooberish love…for my dogs and cat….and the reminder everyday that I have a choice what I am going to say and what I am going to do.  Ever since I was a child, I felt that I had to grab onto those happy moments, and those times that brought me happiness kept me going.  The sense of loss I felt when those that I loved went away, was something that I remember like it was yesterday.  I felt devastated and as a child, spent many hours crying and not understanding why.  I think that’s why I try so hard to understand now, because I didn’t early on in life.  And I just couldn’t be told “because” as a reason.  I had to understand.  I also remember wanting to die as early as the age of 9.  I was so unhappy.  But I didn’t know any other way, so I just dealt with it the best way a 9 year old could.  I found a way to MAKE myself happy, in a 9 year old’s way of thinking.  It didn’t always last, but it got me to adult hood, or at least the age of 16, then I found beer…but that’s another tangent….

With this exploration of self I’m finding that a lot of this shit I already knew…I just didn’t want to own it.  Now I sit here typing away, blabbing all this roto mix of feelings and letting it all go.  Not really caring if anyone reads it, but it’s becoming a way to toss it up.

to be continued…

I think it’s really cool how it’s possible to be renewed each time you feel completely broken…Thank you Lord. Yesterday was tough, but it’s gone…each day is a chance to have a fresh start, with life. I want to cherish it, and be a better person. I want to make sure that those I love know it. I’m trying my best.

Hebrews 12:15 AMP

Exercise foresight and be on the watch to look [after one another], to see that no one falls back from and fails to secure God’s grace (His unmerited favor and spiritual blessing), in order that no root of resentment (rancor, bitterness, or hatred) shoots forth and causes trouble and bitter torment, and the many become contaminated and defiled by it–

I’ve been buzzing around today…not doing much of anything other than cleaning, thinking, reading.  Since I have decided to face the demons from my past, there has been an influx of emotion today.  And it freakin hurts. Bad.  Like so bad I want to drink a bottle of Jameson bad.  The whole bottle. Right now. I physically HURT.  Right in my chest, it’s like my heart actually hurts. It sucks. I hate it.

It’s dark outside now, and that’s usually when this sh*t hits.  And I’m alone…naturally, I’m usually always alone.  Physically anyway.  So now comes the time when I have to feel this crap.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve REALLY truly honestly felt pain.  Logically I understand it all, so I’m trying to keep my logical mind in place, and not get carried away and become under the influence of this pain I am dealing with.  Because the second I do, I’m hittin the liquor store.  And I DO NOT want to do that.  Sooo, I’m writing, venting, vomiting verbal sputum.  The black thick raunchy vile death that has been sitting becoming gangrenous and smelly inside my body for so long, is now being forced out.  I’m feeling the loss of someone that I once loved, someone whom I never really told how much I wanted to be with them. At least I never showed it. I’m feeling the pain of all the mistakes I made, and all the bullsh*t I drug my kids through…the deep empty feeling that sits void inside my heart where my grandfather’s presence one filled. All these things have been ruminating around inside me today, and to be honest, it all hurts. I’ve cried today, a lot. My eyes hurt. I’ve prayed and asked for forgiveness.  I know this all will pass, but as I take things, sometimes, one minute at a time, it just seems like it’s taking TOO LONG!!

I was laying in bed at some point during the night thinking.  Scary thought, yes I know…..then something came to mind that I haven’t thought of in a long time.  Something that I used to be very aware of and understood.

I once heard the more one tries to live their life the “right” way, the more obstacles will be thrown in their way to influence them to make what could be the wrong choices.  I believe that we just don’t “disappear” when our physical body dies.  I believe in heaven and hell.  I just don’t know exactly what the process is to get there…process meaning what actually happens to the soul.  Some believe that there will be a portion of time where the soul will be “sleeping” until Christ returns…(Christian beliefs).  I have also heard that some go directly to heaven, or the fire pit.  As well as some who believe the soul/spirit stays around whatever plane is close to us, while we are still a living breathing human being.  I don’t know what is what.  I know what I have experienced and that’s enough to make me believe that there is A LOT we do not know or understand.  I do believe that we are surrounded by good and bad.  And that we can be influenced either way by many different sources.  My point being, that if I am striving to do better, and making progress in that area, then I believe there is the possibility of bad influences becoming more prevalent.  Some might call it karma, what goes around comes around, temptation, stupidity…whatever.  I just think it’s important to pay attention, not let your guard down, because that’s when I, personally, will fall.  In my experience, when I fall, it’s really hard, and I do and say things that could ruin a good thing.  If I pray, and ask for guidance and do a daily inventory of my thought process and actions, I’ll find that I am calmer, and more prepared for those attempts to allow me to fall prey to my weakness’.  I’ve said so many times that understanding or being able to understand is soooooo important to me. If I can’t understand why I do things, or why someone else does things, then I can’t react accordingly.  Or, I can’t help in a way that will be positive and beneficial to others. Whatever that reason may be, I feel like I need to try my very best everyday, and honestly, I haven’t been doing that.

To the ones I love, and that love me,  I’m sorry…I promise I’ll do better.

I have been seriously moved within my soul today.  I can not explain it, other than God is trying to tell me something…I have had an indwelling of the holy spirit before in my life, and I really feel something coming this time.  And remarkably enough, I am very calm.  Or ready…not sure which.  I found something I wrote down at some point, on a piece of paper in my bible.  It’s a thing that Oswald Chambers said…

“Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man.  It is the threshold of an understanding of God.  Jesus Christ said that  when the Holy Spirit came, he would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses the conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God.”

I know when I am under conviction…So I’m not exactly sure why this came to be and why I found this.  I just prayed for guidence and strength.  I am getting ready to have a meeting with someone, and maybe I need to be strong for something for them, or me, or God.  I don’t know.  But I do know in the past God has prepared me for things this way.  One of my favorite things that I have to do is trust and obey.  So I’m trusting right now.  I don’t know the future.  I’ll watch my walk and stay close to what I know right now.

I’m doing way too much thinking these past few days.  I’ll have to take a break eventually, but until then, I’ll keep typing.

In 1993, I became a Christian.  I was pregnant, unwed, and my baby’s father had just left..on Christmas eve of that year.  I fell down upon my knees and told God that I needed help, that I am miserable, a miserable excuse for a human being, and why would He want me?

The next few months completely built the foundation for the faith that I have today.  I not only made ends meet, somehow, I don’t remember…but I literally, and yes…literally, saw my prayers answered.  Sometimes those prayers were answered within hours of me praying them.  It was so clear these answers, there was no way I could doubt where the answers were coming from. I was not praying for what I wanted, I was praying for God to show me what He wanted, and those answers came in loud and clear. He was showing me what I needed most, that HE was THERE.  That’s all I needed…everything else fell into place.

The years since that time, I have learned what God’s voice sounds like in my life.  My communication with Him has ebbed and flowed, as my life has.  I have found when I didn’t request assistance in my life, with my decisions, I stumbled around like a lost soul, experiencing the consequences of my own decision making process.  Not always good, needless to say.  But when I clearly include Him in daily living, life seems to go much smoother.  I have someone else to give the burden too, the hurt to, the tears too.  I am never alone, and I know that feeling and it is good.  Even when I sit in my living room, with swollen eyes from too many tears, as it has been lately…I know that I am not alone. He has taken my burdens from me, so I don’t have to carry them.  Will I experience the heart ache, the pain of what life brings me, yes.  But I know that He understands me because He made me, and those thoughts and feelings and emotions I am going through, He put in me, so He knows…the ultimate Understander.  (Yea, that may not be a word, but oh well…)

I remember sometime someone said, “how can you have faith in something you cannot see.” That seems to be the question of the world…but that’s what faith is.

I was at a meeting today, and I heard someone say that they were trying to decide how to respond to a situation that they had encountered.  “Am I a going to be an s.o.b., or act in the spirit of forgiveness”.  I mentioned this on my fb page, because it made me think about my life, and how I want to be and how I want to react to things. With this new way of life I have chosen, writing is therapeutic for me, so I am blogging my thoughts and feelings on things.  Probably won’t mean much to others, but for me it helps.

I have been going through a lot of “stuff” lately, and haven’t chosen my words very well to express the way I am feeling.  I have made a lot of apologies, and asked for forgiveness.  I’m kind of a dork when it comes to some things…I don’t “get a clue” very easily, can’t “read between the lines”, and basically just don’t “get it” a lot of times.  LOL…I’m good at making a fool of myself, as those who have known me a long time, will tell you.  But right now, I am hoping for forgiveness, from a lot.  I don’t know if that will happen, and I know that no one is perfect.  (The way I believe, the only perfect person died on the cross).  So I sit here wondering…do I deserve forgiveness?  Some people will choose to take the high road, and simply say that they don’t need “this” or “that” in their lives.  Which is good.  Boundaries need to be in place to stay healthy.  But when do you say, “no, I’m going to work at this, this means something to me, I want to forgive, and be worthy of forgiveness”.  Every life situation has to be examined, in my opinion, and given a measure of importance.  If someone at the store treats me like sh*t, more than likely I’m going to just blow them off and go on.  But if I do something to someone I love, and it bothers them, I’m going to do my best to address it, and make amends…because they mean something to me.  They are important, they have high measure in my life, and I want to keep it that way.  And then, how about when someone means more to you, than you do to them?  How to handle that one?

Life sometimes seems way more complicated then it did a hundred years ago.  But I also think that there was a lot more hidden dysfunction, and a lot more hurt that didn’t get addressed as well.  Humans have been around for a long freakin time, duh…and it’s pretty easy to understand them, if time is taken to pay attention.  I love studying human nature…it helps me to understand “us”.

But back to this forgiveness thing.  I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes I’m just not going to get it.  No matter how many times I ask, beg, plead, cry, scream, punch…whatever…(no, I don’t punch people).  There are some that are not capable of forgiving, no matter what.  In my experience, those are the ones that cannot forgive themselves.  That was talked about as well.  It’s easy to say, “I forgive myself”.  But to actually do it, is another story.  I see the growth process in those that are close to me, and I sometimes see myself…a month ago, a year ago, or whenever.  I remember feeling the way they do…the hurt, pain, whatever…I can be empathetic to them, if I have experienced it before.  I can’t say that I know EXACTLY how someone feels, because we are all different, but I could get close.  It’s important to listen to others, to put down the walls so true intimacy can be reached.  Whether it’s a friend, enemy, or love of your life.

I’ve gotten off track. As usual. I realized today that to really forgive, means letting go, being open and vulnerable and being able to trust that person again.  Interesting notion given the fact that I have spent 42 years numbing pain, and not dealing.  It’s time for me to forgive and ask for that forgiveness.