Tag: adult child

football season

he is like lucy
with the football
assuring me
he is totally
one hundred percent
here for me
everything
will be okay
so i trust him
i run forward
& the earth falls away
& the wind is knocked out of me
& i am flattened…again
as he lets me know
it’s my own fault
while he places the football in place
again
& tells me
i should believe in him.

i am so hoping that i have broken the pattern. that i am no longer going to run up & try to kick that football. that i am able to walk away and keep on walking.
the man is not my friend.
he is not my family.
i cannot pretend otherwise, or i will get the air knocked out of me
again.

4

of course i was spinning out on mother’s day

sometimes 
you have to dip your toe
back into that
pool of pain
sometimes
you have to take a sip
of your sweet misery
sometimes
you have to
dive in
wallow
swallow
drown yourself
baptize yourself
rise again
& face another day
forgiving 
yourself
but never 
quite
forgetting
who you were then
who you are now
so you never
have to do it
again.

on this seventeenth mother’s day, i obsess about mother’s day number ten. on that day we returned home from a trip to manitowoc after visiting a friend, the dad hurried ahead of me to our apartment. i was unloading the car, herding our four minions, oblivious.
however, once in our apartment, i happened to look out the window to see the dad throwing something into the dumpster. this struck me as odd because the dad never took out the trash. 
so, being in the midst of a fucked up relationship where things were constantly being done behind my back, i went out & looked in the dumpster.
there i found a bouquet of beautiful flowers and a letter from the dad’s crazy stalker girlfriend. but instead of being addressed to him, they were addressed to me. 
would he have thrown them out if they were for him?
the dad had never gotten me flowers (or anything else) for mother’s day because “she’s not my mother.” i was actually touched that his crazy stalker girlfriend had gotten me flowers. beautiful flowers. despite the betrayal involved in her fucking the dad as we tried (again) to be a family.
he could have let me have the goddamned flowers. 
i would have liked any flowers on mother’s day.
but once again my mother’s day was in a dumpster….

7

gonna buy me a dog…

who held the door open
for him to walk
through
who was supposed to
keep me
safe
who can i blame
when i run towards him
instead of
away?

the dad is bringing my minions back to me tomorrow…with intent to stay & hunt mushrooms. i don’t want him here, but it is hard for me to turn him away.
so begins the inner turmoil that comes with every interaction with him. that weird mix of wanting to see him, being almost excited to see him, but also wanting to scream at him until my head explodes & then bury him in a shallow grave.
so i turned to my dog today and began berating her for not biting my ex. she adores him. it’s embarrassing how much she throws herself at him. so i lectured her until i was in tears.
then i began to wonder who i really was angry at. who taught the dog that my ex is not a threat?
and i wrote this.
it sounded so familiar i looked back to january where i first wrote this thought.
in january i attributed this open door policy for assholes to my inner child who feels the need to rescue others due to her own need to be rescued.
but on second thought, i don’t blame her for this reoccurring theme in my life.
someone should have protected her.
someone should have taught her to protect herself.
my birth mother did not.
now it falls on me to do it. i need to be the fierce beast here. i need growl, to bark at intruders. bare my teeth and threaten their security. i need to protect me from those who would destroy me rather than wanting to be with them.
it is embarrassing that i have to learn that…that it isn’t just instinct.

2

burn the world down

i am feeling a bit angsty. pissy. out of whack in the zen.

february 23rd was the wedding anniversary of my dead parents. they were married on february 23, 1963. my brother was born november 30, 1963.
why would anyone plan a winter wedding in illinois…hmmmm.
so during my hike/meditation on the 23rd i started thinking about it. my dad’s family always treated my mom like a second class citizen. like “white trash.”
did they get married because she was pregnant? she always claimed she had her period on her wedding day…but i think that might have just been a cover?
so i started thinking more and more. places i have not let my brain go before. whether or not my mom “trapped” my dad into marriage, his family must have believed it, & i suspect that he also did.
i tried to think of an instance where my dad showed love to my mom. i mean, he was obviously attracted to her sexually…but thinking back i cannot think of a moment where he showed her love. devotion. usually he was ridiculing my mom. acting like he was better/smarter than she was. often times he was downright cruel.
she, however, was crazy about him (literally at times.) she loved him & was utterly devoted. even dying within a year of his dying.
then–after reading a romcom novel & really really enjoying it to my own dismay & then wondering why i felt so uncomfortable with romance–i started applying this model to my own life. and found a disturbing pattern. let’s use dusty as an example….
when dusty was devoted to me, i looked down on him…considered him beneath me.
when he abused me, i loved him and became almost manic in my devotion.
and i could apply it to other relationships.
many other relationships.
my model taught me to ridicule men who are devoted to me while adoring men who abuse me.
fuck.
fuck fuck fuck.

but now i am aware of this. now i can start healing it.

ps. on 2-22-22 tuesday, i thought it was a good day for a love spell…so i did that. i did a love spell for my perfect man.
of course, i will keep y’all updated on my magical pursuit of true love.

“burn the world down”
9X12 inking on watercolor paper
$45 plus $5 shipping

8

inner child problems

my masculine is the
protective & loyal dog
my feminine
is the fiercely protective
bear
so who keeps opening the door
for strangers
with ill intent?
who keeps opening
my arms
to energy vampires
& narcissists?
there she is
my inner child
who grew up
confusing abuse
for love…
there she is
my inner child
ready to rescue
everyone else
because she hasn’t learned
how to be her own
hero.

i used medicine cards to determine my masculine & feminine spirit animals. totally accurate.
so then i was hiking a cold & snowy hill recently, trying to figure out why i could have such strong protection, yet still fall victim to abusive partners & friendships. i wanted to figure out why i let myself be such a victim when i have such a self-protective nature?
i need to figure it out so i can knock it the fuck off.
this is what i came up with. my inner child (and my empath) are mucking up the works by ignoring red flags in favor of trying to save everyone.
okay…
so now i just need to figure out how to teach them how to love themselves first? easy, right?

1

that last pregnancy

you didn’t love me
for that last pregnancy
for that last seed you planted in me
you didn’t love me
for a year & more after he was born
you didn’t love me
until i let you go
then
only then
you returned to me
like a no longer dormant venereal disease
hellbent on a rampage
love
some warped thing
that doesn’t even make sense
anymore.

i don’t think i have had good examples of “love” in my life. with my folks it was fucking or fighting. with my exes it would be crazy passion followed by extreme rejection…taking turns on the passion & rejection until one of us gave up for good. i am not sure i even know what love is supposed to look like. or how to do it.
i have to remind myself of these things, even if it is painful, because i do not want to get stuck in another fucked up relationship.

but would i even recognize a healthy relationship?

0

unfinished

i grew up in a house
that was never
finished
a house that was never
whole
the house was built
before i was born
but remained
always
unfinished
incomplete
through my entire life there
after i left
they built a sunroom
remodeled the prison cell style
bathroom
carpeted
the basement
but still left the house
unfinished
incomplete
i cannot imagine
the house i grew up in
as ever finished
but as i look around the unfinished
house
i live in now
i can clearly see it whole
if not
finished.

so how much did it affect me to grow up in a house that was never finished? was it a reflection on my birth family? my parents?
it kind of drove me crazy. two large rooms in the house just became a parking garage for crap. they could have been finished. they just never were.
what does this say?
now i have my madness manor which has missing floor. missing walls…. & i wonder, am i just socialized now to accept an unfinished house…or did i buy an unfinished house so i could finally finish the unfinished part of me?
does any of this make sense?
(it totally does to me)

this is the last page of my art journal started on april 6th of this year. while i was trying to ink my monarch woman, i watched a monarch butterfly flit around the flowers in my yard. seemed kismit at the time 🙂

0

broken

when you grow up broken
how do you learn to feel
whole?
when you grow up without
love
how do you learn to be
loved?

this thought was prompted by watching the second season of the end of the f***ing world (a very good netflix show.)

of course it is a thought that made a lot of sense to me. i wonder…do i even know what love feels like? my tarot cards are telling me of relationships…of moving past being injured to value myself & allow myself to be valued. but what does that look like?
do you think i can draw a picture of that?

0

help me

help me, mother
help me, father
i cry to the parents
i never had
the parents who
never taught me
how to be
help me, cosmic mama
show me, cosmic da
be gentle
with me
hold me; soothe me
chase away my demons.

this might be my admitting that i do need parents. the parents i got were pretty bad. some moments of good…but all in all, a crapfest. is it too late for me to appeal to some universal parents? to admit that i can’t do this on my own?

i did find myself watching a woodpecker outside the window of my house as it ate ants off of a fruiting tree, thinking to myself, my dead dad led me here…to this house. thinking that maybe it was a gift from him, from wherever he is now. an apology? an attempt to not be a shitstorm of a dad?

maybe if i open myself up to the parenting that i have been refusing ever since i figured out my parents where not going to give me what i needed (sadly, i figured this out at a very young age)…maybe if i open myself up now to being parented? maybe….

0

tolerating the intolerable

one of my gifts
my dysfunctional super powers
one of the survival instincts
that kicked in
early
was an ability
to tolerate
intolerable
situations
breathe through
breath held
one day at a time
with the prize in sight
always
with my eyes on that prize
…escape
ignoring with all my might
the pain
surrounding
me
until the day
i would no longer
have to.

i spent my abusive childhood waiting for the day i could run away. i moved out of that house the week i graduated high school.
in every dysfunctional relationship, i plotted my escape. tolerating the intolerable until i could safely leave.
all the messed up places i have lived…i pretended it wasn’t so bad until the day i could move away.

motherhood is the only place i refuse to do that…
wait…or am i doing it? holding myself just together enough until the day my spawn finally fly away from me….
fuck…how can i even tell? it has become second nature.

0

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