When I was a child, my family wasn’t allowed to be a part of Christmas. Because of this, I hated the holiday.
I felt different, separate, and cast out.
It wasn’t because we were poor. My family just didn’t believe in holidays.
But it went beyond the presents and decorations. There were no Christmas cookies. No carols. No greeting cards. Nobody was allowed to say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”.
When I became an adult, I ignored Christmas. It was just another day to me. But inside, I felt hollowed out.
I felt isolated and lonely, even if I was in a room full of people. There was a shadow that surrounded me.
I’m grateful today, because I don’t have to feel that anymore. It’s been a long and difficult journey.
And I’m not finished yet.
First I crawled. Then I walked. Now, I’m learning to run.
And one day, my dear reader, I will fly.
Would you like to soar with me?
Merry Christmas to all who read this. Truly, you are in my heart.
Thank you for reading, and for supporting my efforts to heal. I hope this has helped you in some way. May God bless you and keep you always ❤️
At the end of service every Sunday, our pastor invites the members of our church to the front for personal prayer. At this time, some of the elders and deacons will ask us, individually, whatever prayers we need.
In the last few months, I’ve been making myself step up front and allowing them to pray for me. I say making because I am proud and egotistical. I don’t like asking for help, because it makes me feel weak. Asking for help in front of others? It’s downright painful.
Then there’s the voice from my childhood that says I don’t belong. Despite the fact that I want to, often desperately. I have to fight the deep-seated belief that I am not a part of, but apart from.
As it happens, my fiancé’s sister is one of the people who offers prayer at the end of service. She knows a lot, and we rarely have to tell her what prayers we need. She’s always been pleasant and supportive. Not once have I ever heard a negative word from her when it comes to my engagement with Kim.
And yet, I never quite expected the words that came out of her mouth.
She thanked God for putting me in Kim’s life. For giving her sister the man that they’ve all been praying for her to have. And she called me a blessing.
I truly conisder myself the lucky one. I never allowed it to sink in that I might be considered a blessing to someone else.
During my drinking days, no one would have called me a blessing. I wasn’t anywhere near living up to my potential. People were praying for me to find my way. Probation was telling me to pull my head out of my (yep) or they would send me back. Friends were watching me collapse. Women would only get so close before they realized they couldn’t save me.
I left wreckage in my wake. And there was no end in sight.
Eventually, it all became painful enough for me to want to change. Just one toe in the water at first. But then slowly, in fearful increments, I began to allow a higher power to work in my life.
Is this the answer for everyone? I don’t actually know. But I do know that is where it started for me. The idea that maybe, just maybe, there was something in this universe that could do a better job than me.
That was all that was required to make my beginning.
And I am grateful every day that I was able to allow that first little sliver of light to shine in.
Thank you for reading, and for supporting my efforts to heal. I hope this has helped you in some way.
If you’re curious about my poetry collections, please click the menu at the top of the page and select “books”. Each image will take you to the corresponding listing on Amazon.
Thank you for being a part of my life journey. May God bless you and keep you always ❤️
We sat on the edge of the roof that night, a frighteningly tall building, daring to look down, fearless
your hand in mine, I felt the power of one compact moment, that precariously placed domino that finally tips and cascades from that point and forward, forward to the end of our lives
it seems we spent the whole of our existence placing pieces, gently oh so gently, tender with the obsessive touch of perfectionists until the night we were finally ready to live
and that was the night that love arrived, tipping over our first piece before we had even placed our last
and now we were frantic, panting and full of passionate fear as we tried to position the climactic scenes of our ending, love chasing us, hunting
(readyornothereicome)
why do we spend so much time positioning and repositioning the fragile pieces of our lives
and so little time basking in the chaos of love as it topples them over?
“Making my Amends to the Dead” is available on Amazon in hardback, paperback, and digital formats. You can view it by clicking here.
The message was hidden so well, I may never be sure it was ever actually there.
I started a new job through a temp agency last November. I spend most of my shift sitting. This is in stark contrast to virtually any job I’ve ever had in my life. And there have been plenty.
My schedule at this job is consistent, as well. It was surprisingly difficult for me to get used to that. I had no idea how conditioned I was to hectic, inconsistent work environments until I started at Gater.
I come to work every day at the same time. I sit in the same chair and do the same thing. I listen to music. I’m rarely bothered by anyone, although I am sometimes asked how my day is going.
I feel respected and valued at this company. And I was terribly unprepared for how it would make me feel. It made me so uncomfortable in fact, that I started to wonder if I would be able to work the job long term.
Consistentcy, value, and respect? For me?
Thankfully, this was when life decided to heap a bit of chaos into my personal life. Topped with a dash of strangeness and perspective.
It was my first day as a full-time employee. I was awakened at 12:31 in the morning by the smell of smoke. It wasn’t heavy, but it was distinct. I walked around my apartment for a few minutes to see if I could find the source.
I was just approaching the front door when I heard yelling. Then I heard someone pounding on the neighbor’s door downstairs. I opened my door, taken aback by the thick smoke in our shared entryway.
In the span of a few seconds, everything became chaos. People were running and screaming. One of my other neighbor’s was arguing with 911 dispatch. I heard coughing, crying, and dogs barking.
Oddly, I was calm. I looked around my apartment, deciding what to take in the event everything burned to the ground. What was the most important? Out of everything I had here, what could I least afford to lose?
In the end, I walked out with a set of clothes, my car keys, and my cat. My car wasn’t starting at the time, but I needed a safe place for her. Thankfully, my mom answered the phone when I called. At least I didn’t have to stand out in the cold.
After a couple of hours, after the chaos of screams and sirens, we were allowed to go back inside. I didn’t want to miss my first real shift at my new job, so I gathered what I needed for work in the morning. By then it was around 2:30 in the morning. I called Kim and explained the situation. And with the patience and compassion that she has consistently shown me throughout our entire relationship, she gave me refuge.
I found out later that my neighbor had passed out drunk in his apartment with the stove on.
Now here’s where the strangeness comes in.
I’m sitting at my desk, four minutes into my shift. I hear one of my coworkers start a conversation with the person at the table next to him.
“Hey, did I ever tell you about the time my stepson passed out drunk in the basement and started the house on fire?”
Some people would call this a coincidence. Others would say there are no coincidences. If I’m being honest, I’m still not sure which group I fall under. I definitely think this is a strange way to start a conversation. Nevermind the fact that my neighbor had just started a fire in the basement apartment 7 hours earlier.
As I write this, it’s been 5 months. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the timing of it all. Part of me wonders if there’s even anything there for me to wrap my mind around. Or what it could all mean.
Lucky for me, this wouldn’t be the only time I got a message from the sky.
The Laramie County Library held their annual local author celebration last week. I was both excited and nervous.
I was excited because, for the first time in 2 years, I have a new collection of poetry coming out. I worked hard to make it beautiful, and I think I did well.
And yet, that was the exact reason I was nervous. There are pieces of myself in that book that were incredibly difficult to share, much like this blog. I think humanity as a whole needs healing. I want others to know that it’s okay to talk about the events in our lives that have left us damaged.
But we can’t heal as a whole. We have to heal as individuals.
When I arrived, there was a crowd of authors at the library entrance waiting to be let in. I don’t like crowds. They make me feel like an organism. Or one salmon in a school, fighting my way upstream, searching for the place of my birth. I was once an animal driven by instinct. Now I’ve become self aware, and I don’t like it.
I’ve always had trouble making myself visible in a crowd. When I was in the cult, being visible meant being different. Being different often meant being in the wrong.
It’s impossible not to be visible when you’re expected to go door-to-door on Saturday mornings.
I took 15 copies of my books to the author celebration. I left with 13, having sold 2 copies to my grandmother. I felt disappointed, of course. But to wallow in my own self-pity isn’t who I choose to be anymore. I have a journey. I have a story. I just need to figure out how to tell it.
Once the event was over, I left the library. I went to a bookstore with a handful of books and marketing materials. I asked the owner if he would let me leave a few of my books with him.
“Sure,” he said, taking the poster I had printed at Fedex. It was a 12×17 with the upcoming book cover and release date. He turned to face the sales counter.
“Let’s put it here up front.”
I was a bit surprised at first. I had dropped off materials only once before, and they had been relegated to a bookshelf near the back. It confused me, but I was willing to accept his kindness without any questions.
“I wanted to thank you,” he said.
My brow furrowed. Why would the owner of a bookstore want to thank an author whose books didn’t sell?
“You used to work a drive-thru window,” he continued. “My dad would come through every two weeks with the same coupon. You liked to joke around and call him your ‘arch nemesis.’”
I instantly knew who he was talking about but had no idea they were related. He was using the past tense. I knew where he was headed, and I wasn’t ready for it.
“He passed away a month ago. Thank you for always being so nice to him.”
He didn’t cry. His voice never cracked or wavered. He just looked me dead in the eye, calmly, and said the words he wanted to say.
It’s strange to me, the way events are sometimes returned to me. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about his father since the day I quit that job. From my perspective, he was one of many. A nice man, never disrespectful. And yet, he never did or said anything memorable. He was at my drive thru window for just a few minutes every other week.
It was different for him and his son. I won’t speculate as to how, because I don’t know what their lives were like outside of that twice-monthly interaction. I don’t know how they were treated by anyone besides me.
You can affect someone’s life drastically without ever realizing it. I’m sure I’ve done so a thousand times without knowing, because the Universe didn’t return it to me.
My sales at the author celebration were dismal. I lost my job two days after. My car broke down a week later.
The closer I look at my life, the less coincidence I see. What I see is a design with purpose. Although I hesitate to give it a label.
I’m sure we don’t all feel that way. There was a time I didn’t, either.
A strange thing happened to me on the way to my grave…
I began to heal. But the truth is, I don’t really have any idea where it’s coming from. In fact, for most of my life, I didn’t even know I needed healing. I was just a broken shell walking around, trying in vain to hold myself together, without realizing it.
Here’s the thing about my healing. First, I had to learn that I was broken. Then I had to understand that it was OKAY.
It’s okay to break once in a while. Break down and cry. Break apart and curse. Scream. Fall to pieces.
It took time for me. It’s still taking time. I finally realized it was okay to be broken. After that, I had to come to a belief that 1) I could heal, and 2) that I deserved to.
That was tough. Telling myself that I deserved to be happy, that I deserved love, and that all those people from my childhood were wrong.
But I also had to forgive them, and myself, for being broken, too. The only way I could do this was to show my broken self to somebody who was less broken than me. I had to lay out all my broken thoughts and beliefs.
And I had to be open to the possibility that they could do better than I had.
Forgiveness is by far the most difficult part. Nevertheless, I don’t think we can truly start to heal unless we can focus on our wounds, rather than the things that caused them.
If you forever curse the blade, you will forever bleed.
Go ahead and be broken for a while. Go through your process of grief. Or abandonment. Or whatever it is that you’re going through.
And take 👏 your 👏 time 👏 my fellow human.
Never STAY broken. Whoever or whatever has put you in this place of sadness. Don’t let it become who you are. You absolutely deserve to heal.
If no one else has told you they love you today, I love you. And I believe you will make it out of the darkness.
I have an answer for today’s writing prompt, but it isn’t the one I expected.
”Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.”
Growing up, people said a lot of things about me. Much of it was behind my back. I was a shy, awkward child who belonged to one of those offshoot, crackpot religions. You know, the ones that like to knock on your front door or try to stop you on the sidewalk. I was never comfortable with my religion, but I was a child and I was stuck.
My father was abusive, to say the least. Between him and my religion, I was programmed fairly well. Help them. Serve them. Conform to them. I wasn’t supposed to think for myself. My father and my religion told me what to do.
Throughout my process of growing from child to man-child, I learned much about how to keep others happy. I measured most of my self worth by the feedback and acceptance of others, particularly those people I valued.
I did this to the point where I couldn’t really tell who I was anymore. I had no idea where I was at in life, or what I actually wanted. I was without direction. I was unable to love myself.
I cared WAY too much about what other people said about me.
It went beyond that, still. I cared what they thought. I played tapes in my head of what I thought they thought. Quick, casual interactions with strangers would turn into huge events in my head, and soon I would know, without any shred of doubt, that this person (or that person) thought I was a creep because I said hi weird.
Then of course I discovered alcohol, and for years I did my best to drown it all out*.
That worked until it didn’t. But I kept doing it. I did it because it was what I knew. I did it until someone finally came into my life who was patient enough to show me there was something better, and that I was good enough to have it.
Or maybe I was simply ready to listen, and she just happened to walk into my life at the right time. I suspect the real answer doesn’t matter so much as the healing itself.
Part of my healing process is learning to put less of my self worth on what people think or say about me. It involves getting back in touch with myself, listening to myself, and above all learning to love myself.
What do I hope you say about me? Not a damn thing. I just hope you can read my words and be inspired.
I decided I’m going to Sell all of my belongings And move to Japan
So I can live in One of those Micro-apartments That they show on YouTube
Where the kitchens are so small They can barely hold A hot plate And a mini fridge
And the bed is Little more than A cupboard with a ladder
What a joy it would be To stand on my Two-foot wide balcony Watching the traffic alone Because there isn’t enough room For a visitor
Oh, the peace I would have In my tiny shower stall By myself with My one bar of soap And my bottle of shampoo Knowing there was no one Waiting for me To hurry up and finish
I would cook simple meals Of veggies and noodles And I would have fish on Friday nights
I would sit In front of my only TV tray And watch what I wanted
And when the smell of Warm supper Wafted through the building No knock would come to the door Because truly, Nobody would care to join me
And when the steady thrum Of outside noise Became too much
And the demons from my past Came a tap tap tapping
I would crawl into my cupboard, Close the door And cover my head
Because there is no room In my Japanese micro-apartment For anxiety and sorrow
A Healing Journey by neverstaybroken 
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