Photo by Emma Hardy

The Shadow

The shadow of you

the one that speaks 

with unkind words

Words that sting and words that promise

Words that nurture 

and slap me

I release you.

The shadow hangs on

clings for comfort

Words of affirmation 

pour from me only to be consumed

by the greedy shadow, and

Always needing more. 

Needing more.

A child needs a parent

Not a shadow that

Screeches and wails

A grandchild needs a grandparent

Not a shadow that

Hums with desire then

Disappears into itself 

A sullen shadow,

Rejected

poor shadow

Neglected

Will never know what beauty

Lays ahead because the shadow

Deflected. 

I release you.

I release you.

I

release

you.

     

 

 Artist credit: Helena Wurzel

It's been many, many years since I've written on this blog. I've been keeping a hand written journal, but my thoughts come so quickly sometimes that I find I need to have a simpler way to write them down for myself. I want to quickly acknowledge in the years since I've written on here, I got married in 2018, and we have a toddler together that I gave birth to in 2019. And there was a whole-ass pandemic we managed to live through. It's been some of the best years of my personal life, contrasted dimly by some of the worst. Let's dig into that.

I've been in therapy off and on for a handful of years with a very talented and credentialed therapist who has helped me work through the grieving process of coping with a mother who has Borderline Personality Disorder. It is something that took a long time for me to come around to connecting the dots together on, and for the longest time I tried to find ways to make things work to include my mother in my life as major life events were happening for me. I noticed a pattern that started taking place with her over the years, which was that each of these key life events happening for me, she would have something dramatic happen to shift the focus back onto her and it would ultimately nearly ruin the event (my engagement, my wedding, my baby shower, the birth of my child, trying to include her as an active grandparent in my child's life). It was as though she saw me as an extension of herself, and anytime I moved in a further direction away from her, she got more volatile, more focused on how we could bring things back to revolving around her and her needs. As she got older and her aging process made her mobility harder, and her health worse, I had many conversations with her about not over-extending herself and trying to find ways to help bring things to her house, make it easy, make things accessible for visits with her grandchild. I could tell she wasn't good at hitting the "pause" button for herself and was clearly willing to exhaust herself because she didn't want to miss out on anything, and didn't want to be told what to do or given options on how to go about things, no matter how gently put by me.

The breaking point came for me this August when we had an outing with my husband, dad and our child together at the Zoo and my mom (who had said would be staying at home to rest, but sending my dad along) sprung a surprise on us last minute by showing up, and rented herself a scooter to get around in that we weren't prepared to navigate dealing with, but we made the most of it and tried to make sure she felt included with us. She abruptly disappeared off to the bathroom not long into our Zoo visit (which in itself isn't terribly unusual because, as mentioned, she has health issues and needs to be be near bathrooms often so I had prepared ourselves for the possibility she might need to break away frequently). What happened next was not normal, she and my dad were vaguely answering texts after I checked in when about 15 minutes had passed to see if all was well, and then not responding after that. We stayed in the same place, and waited, and then waited some more until about 1 hour had passed and at that point, our toddler was melting down because my husband and I couldn't get my parents to answer their phones, and we didn't know where they were or what had happened and why they stopped responding. Eventually they showed back up and my mother stated that they had "gotten lost" and "toured the rest of the Zoo on their own and already saw everything" and asked what we were doing and why our child was melting down. I'm pretty certain my husband had smoke coming out of his ears at that point (ha!). We were both deeply unhappy. My mother has a pattern of making up lies that don't correlate to anything, and she truly can't help how often she lies. I could tell she wasn't being truthful with us entirely, and it didn't have a single thing to do with going to the bathroom. In fact, she had my father take the blame for why it took so long and why they toured the entire Zoo without us while we waited for them. My toddler was visibly very upset as to why her Grandma suddenly disappeared on her with no good explanation (and to add insult to injury my mom had the gall to ask "is she always like this?" as if to indicate she had some sort of behavioral issue instead of a very normal toddler reaction to a very not normal scenario). It was from that point forward my spouse and I decided to limit communication with my mom and it was during that time I took about 6 weeks to sort out how I wanted to proceed with my relationship with her. This was not the first time I had noticed her behaviors impacting my toddler directly in a bad way - and it reminded me of how things were for me at that same age when my mom failed to meet my very normal toddler / childhood needs. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was not longer able to shield my daughter from the pain my mom can inflict emotionally, and potentially physically (because my entire childhood I suffered from terrible emotional and physical abuse from my mom, and witnessed my dad endure it at home too). I concluded that my mom is not capable of being consistent enough with her emotions, her mental state, respecting boundaries, etc for her to continue being a part of our lives. So with a heavy heart I reached out via email and attempted one last salvaging attempt to see if I could lead her to the path of repair.

I emailed her (and should add, my dad saw this email too because my mom doesn't allow my dad to have anything private - she has access to his email, phone, and reads everything and often responds to it on his behalf too. Boundaries are not her forte.) and stated what I was deeply unhappy about, and suggested that if she could find a way to acknowledge when she has said or behaved in hurtful ways, ask us from time to time how we are doing (because she rarely did that and only talks about herself when we would see her) and apologize for when she has behaved or acted in hurtful ways. Her response to that was that *I* was triggering her by reminding her of her mother whom she hated so much and was "very cruel to her growing up" and that she suggested I go to therapy with her and talk about my being raped in college, and that she expressed that "that had impacted and hurt her too" (the rape) and she felt she needed us to be in therapy for her to talk about her feelings. She didn't acknowledge or apologize for anything. I realized in her response to me that she isn't capable of those things, and I let her know as my response that "our conversation is done here" and left it at that. I wasn't going to do the emotional and mental labor for her to fill her in on everything she was missing the point on - because it felt moot. It felt so hurtful to me that she would somehow simultaneously blame me for her feelings (not be accountable for it herself) and also make my being raped in college about her and her feelings. Who the actual FUCK does that.

For several months now, and of course with therapy guidance, I worked to have a relationship just with my dad. My sister and I have a relationship too - but her boundary was that I not describe what happened or what led to the breakdown of my relationship with our mom because she wants absolutely nothing to do with it, so I am respecting that for her. With my dad I let him know that if at any point he decided he needed to focus on his marriage and needed to take a break from visits with my husband, daughter, and I, I would respect that choice, albeit sad. 

Things had been going really well with my dad, considering. He was coming up to spend quality time with my daughter, and I could sense he felt relaxed at my house and we were able to have conversations together about everyday things (which was really nice, because my mom never let me usually have alone time with my dad without her present, and she usually did all the talking for the both of them so I never really got to hear my dad talk much). Unfortunately, on our most recent outing on March 18, 2023 my dad chose Owl Fest (an annual birdwatching festival in Portland focused on, you guessed it, owls) to pull me aside and let me know that if I were going to continue to choose to not allow my mom to have a relationship with us, then he was not going to be able to see or communicate with us any longer, indefinitely. As in, no contact with him. I asked him if he had understood what that meant - which meant no texting, no emails, letters, phone calls, visits, sending presents, no exceptions for birthdays or holidays and that it was a very final thing. He seemed saddened by that explanation and pleaded with me to consider just setting aside my differences with my mom and to make it so we can all just see one another. I could tell this was coming from a place that wasn't in his heart - but moreso the pressure was being placed upon him by my mom as a manipulation tactic on her end. 

I spent the next hour sitting with him in the woods on a hiking trail, talking and working backwards through where this was all suddenly coming from. I explained to him finally (because I hadn't ever stated this) that I firmly believe my mom has Borderline Personality Disorder and it had been confirmed based on my recounts in therapy sessions by a professional (and I let him know of course its not a formal diagnosis, because my mom would have to agree to see someone and then get a formal diagnosis, which, if you know anything about people with personality disorders, its a tough thing to accomplish). I let him know that I do not have any sort of personality disorder but I do suffer from C-PTSD and anxiety, and I talked a bit about how and why that is, my childhood, where things stem from, and how the decades of constant volatile mood swings from my mom and her emotional abuse and physical abuse harmed me psyche deeply. I have trust issues, and I have severe anxiety as a result from it and I have spent a lot of time putting in a lot of work on myself for years to help get on top of all of that. It seemed at one point during that conversation things I was describing about my mom's volatility and violent / aggressive outbursts, her manipulation tactics, the ways she frequently lies (to the point where she will tell people whole conversations she's had with another person that she most definitely did not have) her constant need for affirmation about her appearance and her constant need for attention, etc. It is exhausting to keep up with - but my dad was starting to understand what I was saying and began recounting his own personal experiences, including mentioning that my mom had told him that due to the fact he hasn't been intimate with her for over 30 years and is unchanging in that stance, she wants to spend her "dying" years (she is always "dying" of something - another thing - she very much abuses the medical system to her advantage) only surrounded by people who actually love her and want to have sex with her, and he said that she was recommending that they divorce or separate permanently because, as my dad admitted, their relationship had not been good for a long time. He stated she was blaming me for the divorce because I have destroyed the family and caused these problems for them at home. How? I don't even fucking know how to unpack that.

He expressed to me he is afraid of her, he thinks that she is very very smart and she's kept his finances, his social/family circle, everything held above his head for a long time. He said that if they sell their house and he moves elsewhere (near us) that he needs help with finding an apartment and how to, in a way, reacclimate to being back in society and not under the thumb of a decades' long abuser. It broke my heart to think that my dad and I were in some odd way trauma bonding over our shared abuse. He is aware that I hold him partly responsible for that abuse, too, because I told him that his response when my mom would have her rages was to shut down and disassociate and do nothing. I told him that he could've said or done things to stop her, and he didn't, and that was on him. But anyway, we are now at a point in the conversation I was having with him where he's considering going through with the divorce, and he begged me to keep it a secret from everyone (especially our extended family) because he is ashamed, and also he told me not to reach out to him at all because any contact I have with him (due to my mom looking at his emails and phone) makes my mom more infuriated and it makes the situation at home for him worse. He said he may consider seeking marriage therapy with my mom, but didn't sound terribly optimistic about it. I encouraged him to go the divorce route and suggested with him an action plan for ways he can get a hold of me and see me should he need to quickly get to a safe place and need a place to stay. So...now he knows how to reach me if he needs to, in a way that won't be traced by my mom. I just don't know if I am ever going to see him or hear from him again. And now my daughter doesn't have two grandparents she will potentially ever see again while they are living.

I've been grieving this really hard, crying every night after my husband and I put our daughter to bed. We have worked so hard together as a couple to ensure that within our own home, we raise our daughter in an environment where she feels secure, safe, heard and loved. I cannot fathom choosing a spouse over a child. But I also cannot fathom trying to leave an abusive marriage. I truly worry sometimes that my mom might be capable of murdering my dad because she gets so angry sometimes. I have one distinct memory from growing up where my mom was upset with my dad about something, and she hurled kitchen knives at him from across the room trying to hit him. It was very frightening. I know that I've offered everything to my dad that I can, and I just hope that he makes the right choice and finds a way to enjoy the rest of his life free from abuse, and pain.

Writing an angry email never felt so good!

                                          "Fishbones" by Samantha Harthoorn

It's been a minute since I've posted on this blog. I think the majority of what I was writing was to get me to the point of posting the re-telling of my rape trauma. Posting it was the most cathartic feeling for me, it certainly felt like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders and I could breathe again.

I've been in a really good place for the past couple of years, and find myself enjoying all of the little things in life. I suppose that probably is why I haven't written, because I tend to only like to write when I have something I need to express in more ways than one. That and writing is a helpful tool for me. I have such a wonderful group of friends, I've made some new friends as well. I've been in a relationship with someone that words can't really do justice of describing - he is my rock, my love, and my biggest supporter. There isn't a day that goes by that I am not thankful for him, my friends, my family, and my life that exists for me now.

What I wanted to share is that I....well...I wrote a fairly scathing email to my college's Alumni Assoc. and a part of me feels bad for the person in charge of reading all these emails, but another part of me hopes that they read it and take it seriously. I tried to not say "fuck" except for once, for emphasis. A good friend told me swearing only helps make a point if you don't swear very often. I don't know why I chose today as the day to send this email, I mean, I probably should have sent it long ago. Maybe I'm just feeling stronger in expressing myself, maybe it is because I just am tired of getting these letters from my school, these stupid jolly letters with pictures of happy students, living out their college experiences - one so different from mine. I hate getting the letters, and I don't know how they keep finding me at my new addresses because I move so often, and they still get my address. Sigh.

Anyway, here is the letter I sent. I think it made a pretty strong point:

Hi,

I couldn't find a place on the website, but wanted to request that I be opted out of any future mail from [omitted] regarding Alumni events or Charitable Donations.

My college experience at [omitted] was horrible. I was gang raped by frat members while attending college there on the campus  8 years ago, and the Dean, the President, and the Greek Association treated me in ways that further added insult to the injury of the situation. Every time I receive a piece of mail from [omitted], it feels like salt is being poured on a wound. I will NEVER attend an alumni event, and I will NEVER donate money to [omitted]. If there is anything I wish for, it would be for the college to take rape and assault of their students and former students more seriously, and to treat those situations with more care and consideration. Perhaps donations could be put to use educating the student body (this includes the Fraternities and Sororities) on how to prevent rape and assault on campus. Or how to report it. Or to know that if a student DID report it the school wouldn't just tell them there isn't anything they could fucking do, and to try and keep quiet to the media about it.

So please remove me from any future mailings. Remove my address and contact info. I have my diploma, and that is all that I would like as a reminder of my five awful years at [omitted].

Thanks,

[omitted] Class of 2010

Reflections *trigger warning*

"Silent Partner" by Annie Heisey, 2007.

The reason for posting a blog entry today is not by chance. I chose this painting, done by the local Portland, Oregon artist Annie Heisey, because of the year of the painting, the subject nature of her artwork, and specifically, this image. This was by far the hardest thing to write, because it is such a deeply personal story. So, let us journey into my faded memory, 7 years ago to a different time in my life.

It was May 4, 2007. I had gone out to Sunriver, Oregon, for a weekend getaway hosted by my sorority, Alpha Phi, and hosted by our partnered fraternity, Kappa Sigma. I was a "date" of one of my friends, who brought me along to forget about the upcoming finals week, to stay at one of the rented luxury vacation homes within the Sunriver community. 

The house was enormous, and although the boys had paid for about 4-5 of us (plus whoever they were planning on fucking at the end of the night) to stay there, and although they had graciously given me my own private room with a locked door to stay in, I knew all too well from previous frat parties someone would likely end up in "my" room hooking up or puking or passed out.

Even though it was probably in the mid 80's that day, my friends and I spent the day roasting a turkey and basting it with PBR and whatever else we could slather onto it. I intermittently spent the day wandering back and forth to the back patio, wearing my shorts and a bikini top, chain smoking cigarettes, lounging in the sun, drinking beer, and passing a joint around with my fellow male friends.

It was harmless, young fun. We were all just so happy to be away from campus, and able to do whatever we could without fear of the police barging through the frat house to issue citations for underage drinking and marijuana possession.

By the time night was approaching, we had readied the vacation home for the insurgence of some 100+ young undergrads to fill the house to dance with music, drink beer, and celebrate the closing of another school year. I was so excited, because I felt so comfortable with all my friends - my sorority sisters had been encouraging me to relax and have more fun and the guys from Kappa Sigma, who were my friends too, were joking around and having a great time. Everyone was relaxed, and I too, was relaxed. My boyfriend at the time of 6 years was at NYU, and we'd been doing a long term relationship for most of school, and I never really felt truly comfortable drinking or partying - even though I was in a sorority - because I didn't want to let him down. I didn't want him to think of me as less of a person for potentially causing a situation that could be made more tense because of our distance. 

People were boiling into the house now carrying cases of beer, kegs, and hard alcohol. Girls were swarming the living room in cute little outfits, trying to figure out how to use the sound system to blast music. The guys were piled out from the kitchen to the back patio where I had been sunbathing earlier and some were hopping into the hot tub with their clothes still on. I went out on the back patio and sidled up to a group of guys huddled around a bong. One of the guys passed it to me between coughs and proclaimed "This is some good, outdoor grown sticky Oregon stuff, have a hit" and so I did. I wandered back into the living room, popped open a PBR, picked off a bite of the turkey I had roasted, and began chatting with some of my sisters. Hip hop music was blaring from the speakers, and I was feeling inclined to dance a little. So, me, dressed in my bikini top and shorts, planted my feet in the middle of the living room, and began artfully waving my arms and legs around while my sisters joined me, giggling, and we got into the rhythm. 

While goofily dancing around, I suddenly felt arms and hands come around from behind me, and pulling me in closer to their body. I feel gyrating. I feel a slight erection. I wince, and turn around, and come face to face with a pale red headed male who I don't know. I look at him, place distance between us, frown (as if to say, stop what you're doing, you're gross) and walk away. He looks unaffected and moved on to the next girl. I didn't think about it twice.

I move to the back patio, where several of my male friends are in the hot tub. There's about 30 people still piled out on the patio, so there's girls and guys leaning against the hot tub, everyone is animatedly talking over the music and fairly buzzed. I take off my shorts so I am just in my bikini now, and set my flip flops off to the side of the hot tub. Immediately, I'm engrossed in a conversation with everyone in the hot tub with me, and we're all laughing and talking about how fun the party is so far. One of my friends, a short, fat, ginger haired fellow with a beard, who has a resemblance somewhat to a troll, is sitting in the corner. He seems like he's bobbing in and out of consciousness, and I remember warning him to be careful not to pass out in the water, because the hot tub can make you feel drunker, faster. He kind of grimaces and shoos me off, saying he's fine.

I move back over the the corner of the tub and there's two more guys who have joined, and everyone else has left the hot tub and gone back inside. It's just me, my troll friend, some large muscular bro with a tribal tattoo on his chest, and the weird pale red headed guy from the dance floor. 

I move back to the other side of the hot tub - the heat is making my face warm and I realize I'm not quite sober enough to get out of the tub, so I decide to stand and move my arms around beneath me to keep myself upright.

Suddenly, I feel someone behind me, and I turn around and its the pale red headed fellow from the dance floor - and he's staring right into my face. I dismiss whatever he's saying and face my back to him again, hoping he'll stop trying to talk to me. Clearly, he is on a mission tonight, and I am not interested. 

The next thing I remember, is someone grabbing me from behind and forcing off my bikini bottoms. I turn around, scared, and start pulling them up, making eye contact with the pale red headed man, who meets me with a very silent, warning gaze. He grabs me again, and forces my bikini bottoms off, and I yell "Stop! NO!" but it is too late, and my body goes into numbness and shock. I knew what was happening but it felt like when you are at the dentist and they inject you with novacaine before surgery. I could feel what he was doing to me, but I was immobile, and my body was numb.

Everything goes black. The lights are off in the hot tub now, and I come to consciousness and as I open my eyes, I realize I'd been held under water. My hair was wet. My bikini was gone and I was gasping for breath. Someone shoves my head under water again. I struggle. They hold me there. I realize that my struggle with the water isn't the only thing happening, and can feel the numbness between my legs of another person's anatomy inside me. As I surface again, I use all my will to turn around and face the red headed guy and fight him - except when I turn around, it's not him, and it's the muscular guy with the tribal tattoo. I try to yell stop, but words can't escape my mouth, and as he pushes my head under water again to silence me, I see the face of my troll friend, watching me, and the pale red headed guy jumping out of the hot tub.

When I came back to consciousness, everything was a blur. It felt like that scene from Donnie Darko, where Donnie enters the house party and all he can see are time space continuum tunnels coming from every person's body, and everything is in slow motion. I look around for anyone to help me, but everyone surrounding the hot tub seems oblivious to what has happened. I run into the party, shoving everyone out of my way screaming "who is that guy with the tattoo?! who is that guy with the red hair?! where did they go?! WHERE DID THEY GO?!" and a guy grabs me, tells me to stop yelling, and tells me they just left in their car to head back to Portland. I yell "YOU NEED TO CALL THE POLICE NOW!" and he looks alarmed and ushers me into the bathroom, telling me to wait there while he talks to some of the guys. 

I closed the door to the bathoom, naked, shaking, and completely wet. I bent over the sink and turned on the faucet and started screaming and crying and hitting everything within reach. I was crying so hard I was causing a gag reflex to happen, and kept dry heaving over the sink. After I stopped, I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed my back, my buttocks, and my thighs were covered with long bloody gashes. My life, as I knew it, had now changed forever.

Dreams

Let's talk about weird dreams. Maybe you dream every single night. Or maybe you don't even dream at all - you just drift off into sleep, and nothing happens, then you wake up, and resume your day.

I have, on a regular, mostly nightly basis, really vivid surreal dreams. As a child, I used to lay, half awake in my bed, forcing my brain to think every random thought it possibly could - hoping I could have fall asleep and dream about the most amazing things. Most of the time though, I really didn't dream about much of anything. I mostly had a recurring dream as a kid where I would go down a slide on a playground, and at the bottom of the slide was an alligator, mouth wide open, eyes focused on me, waiting to devour me as its dinner. This dream would repeat often. Also, dreams about death by tornado. I don't even know. I probably watched too many musicals as a kid.

Now, as an adult, and probably due to some weird underlying Freudian shit, I have on most nights the weirdest, most surreal, creepy, dreams. It's as if David Lynch and Salvador Dali made babies and put them in my dream brain. I've often joked with my painter friends that my dreams would make good art material.

After I wake up, I typically like to do a google search for dream interpretation . Not that I take any of what I read on the internet seriously. Dream Dictionary is about as accurate as Urban Dictionary. Though, it is interesting to see something interpreted for you. For example, my dream last night (queue swishy midi track and graphic effects to swirl into dreamland):

I enter a room, naked and barefoot. The room is floor to ceiling wood paneling, square in shape, and is decorated with tacky Chinese restaurant furnishings - a fake oil painting of flowers in a vase, a wooden table with steamed white towels folded on top of each other, a black stone bubbling rock fountain, and a table with a head cushion to lay down on. The temperature of the room is warm - which is good, because I am not wearing clothes.

I approach the table, and lay down, face up. I have my arms resting next to my legs, and I can feel the warm slightly stagnant air of the room swirling past my toes, which are hanging over the edge of the table. A man approaches me, and I can't really make out his features, but know that I do not know him.

He is helping another woman onto a table near me, and welcomes us to the establishment, and begins describing a variety of relaxing spa treatments we are to receive, for free.

He pulls out a ream of dental floss, and begins tying it around the woman's neck and face and tells her to lay down, face up, as I am, and that the string will tighten her features and make her look young.

He approaches me, and begins to tie the floss around my neck, and my ears, and my face. Crossing the string from one ear, across the bridge of my nose, and then back again, delicately creating a pattern of X's on my face with the string. He tightens everything up with a few knots, and then, I lay back. As soon as I lay back down, face up, focusing on my breathing, I feel the strings cut into my skin, and I look over, panicked, and see that the woman nearby is purple-faced, and not breathing. The man is watching me, and smiling from only the corners of his mouth. This wry, fucking, creepy smile. I feel like the air in my lungs is escaping, and I panic and try to remove the floss that has woven around my head. 
Then I wake up

So. I look this shit up. Because, clearly there has to be something symbolic about getting nearly strangled to death, and this is what I got: 

"The neck may indicate the way you connect your thinking (your head) with your feelings and sexuality (your body). Your neck is also the weak or vulnerable part of you, unlike the chest or head that is protected by bone, so any attack to the neck shows being influenced through your vulnerable feelings."

Interesting.

How to be alone

If you are at first lonely, be patient.

If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books; you’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There is also the gym, if you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in.

Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and mediation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.

The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by chow-downers, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and Silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo dessert and cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back, like a book of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, they are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches, might have never happened had you not been there by yourself. 

Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after a while nobody is dating them.

But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.

You can stand swathed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.

But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay.

Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relieved, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, and the community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.

Take silence and respect it.

If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.

If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it.

There is heat in freezing, be a testament.  Copyrights: Tanya Davis

There is this very relevant video for this poem I want everyone to watch. It's called "How to be alone" and I found it a few years back - I like to watch it still because the video, by Andrea Dorfman, features this incredible poem by Halifax writer/songwriter Tanya Davis.