The Season of Eclipse

If I close my eyes tight enough I can transport myself back to a different time.

I can close my eyes and I can see your faces. I can almost feel the warmth of your skin under my lips as I kiss you and tell you "I love you." I have been holding back the tears more this year. I keep thinking that time isn't doing its job, I feel such acute grief daily. A part of me is trying to diminish this sadness, and I find myself apologizing for still being here at this place, unable to stand and face this even after so much time has passed. 

There is no sunshine in this season. I always think of how fitting it was, that you died in the fall. Even the trees shed their leaves in mourning. The sky was grey and the cold wind blew straight through to the bone. The moon covered the sun and became too sad to move again. My tears fell and covered the earth. I imagined having to wade through it, wanting everyone to feel the pain I was feeling. I wanted everyone to stop and look up at the eclipse while standing in the puddles of my tears. I wanted everyone to be just as paralyzed as I was. To my loves,

Desperate Grief...

It is almost the end of the year. Every year since Jonah and Ryan died grief is present in every single day. Once October starts I feel myself being sucked into a dark lonely place. Once their birthday arrives I just want to crawl under a rock and disappear. I don't want to be seen, I don't want to talk to anyone. Its terrible and I hate it. I feel robbed, cheated, disappointed, frustrated and angry. 

This event has defined my life. I hate to say that I give in to being consumed, but it has a way of creeping in, hypnotizing me, and when I snap out of a trance-like state, I find I have been defeated once more. Not one thing has been saved from this tragedy. Anything I am doing, or lately everything I am not doing is directly tied to their passing. It is an enormous weight. 

There are moments when I envy people who can find an escape. I cant even drink to ease the sorrow, I cant ever just disappear even temporarily because I have people who depend on me. If I cry either no one is there, or who ever is there is telling me not to cry, or they give me that look of desperation, because there is nothing they can do. 

I want to write more...

I want to express how I feel inside, everyday..all of the time but I can't.

The truth is I'm desperate...

I'm so desperate, and I'm tired of waiting for "one day".

Why the fuck did this happen?

Am I so terrible?

I love you so much my loves..I wish you could hear me.

Four years later the heartache has grown, it feels heavier.

Will I be crushed under its weight?...

I close my eyes and I see your faces and I feel sick to my stomach and my heart feels like its being stabbed over and over.

Help me...please. 

I Never Wanted to be a Survivor

These last two weeks have been tough. I can't pinpoint why these issues have been rearing their ugly heads lately, but I think maybe if I am open about this part of my life somehow this kind of burden can be lifted some. This isn't a happy subject. I will warn who ever is reading this now that this is a personal reflection on abuse I suffered as a child. This may trigger something in those who have been abused.

I didn't remember that I had been sexually abused until I was a teenager. I still find it so difficult to believe that I had somehow forgotten that this happened to me. I am 31 years old now, and I can still remember the moment when all these dots began to connect in my mind, nothings ever been the same. I remember feeling like the walls were moving closer and closer together around me. I remember the feeling of panic and shame that came over me, the feeling of suffocation. That memory still causes my stomach to knot up and nausea overcomes me. As a teenager I felt like I needed to hide. I felt transparent, if people saw me and knew these things about me they would be disgusted, so I hid. I hid behind anything I was comfortable hiding behind. I never felt good enough, I never felt beautiful, I never felt worthy. I felt hopeless and useless. I felt used and filthy and that no one would ever want me. I constantly lived in fear.

Why has it been so long since then, and I seem to not ever really get past this trauma in my life? Why does it still cause me to cry and fear? I have two daughters now, and I know that these events in my life affects my relationship with them in a way they can't see or understand. I use to believe that I could overcome this, that if I prayed enough or believed hard enough I could make my life and my heart and my mind forget about this and I could one day live free of this. But that isn't true. The abuse I endured at the hands of someone who I trusted as a child is a vile disgusting part of who I am. It is the dark part of me. It makes me sick and tormented and it exhausts my subconscious. There is always a battle against these memories. Sometimes they come so quickly to the front of my thoughts and all of a sudden my hearing is gone, all I can feel is the beating of my own heart, and panic and anxiety and fear.

I never wanted to be a survivor. I never wanted to tell the story of being abused. I wanted a good healthy start in life. I never wanted anyone to touch me in a way that violated me as a person. I never wanted to do things that no child should be forced to do. I never wanted to be afraid. I never wanted to feel so angry and so ashamed. I never wanted to end up as one of those broken people. I never wanted to feel as if no one would love or want me unless I gave them a piece of me. I never wanted to be compulsive. I never wanted to be a person that couldn't function the way I should be able to in relationships. I never wanted to have to escape by smoking or drinking. I never wanted to be abused, broken, wasted....But I was.

Everyday is a fight. Sometimes a long while passes before these memories come flooding back. I am grateful for those times. I am grateful that I have overcome so much since I was a teen, but I don't think that any amount of time that passes will truly heal these deep wounds. I think that I will just have to learn to live with this part of my life. I would really like to find a way to put this part of me to death finally. Hope. Hope is what I hold onto. One day I will look around and see no evidence of this in my life and in the lives of others I love who have also been abused.

Hairy Mess

I have an issue; I don't know what to do with my hair. In 2010 I had my mother Mohawk my hair. I loved it, I was at a phase in my life where I wanted something so different in my hair style, and was very excited about it. Until I decided to grow it out. The year it took for my hair to even resemble a hairstyle that I was OK with wasn't an easy one. I had been stuck with this ugly semi uneven fro that I did not like, no that's an understatement, I hated it.

After a few years and a few kids later my hair has grown a lot, and now I'm having a serious conflict deciding the fate of my hair. So to break it down I have what it most commonly called "natural hair" nowadays. My hair is curly, thick, and I don't know what the heck to do with it. I would blow dry it straight or flat iron it but I always run into the conflict of most stay at home moms with little children; what time do I have to do this? And not only that but I find it difficult to commit to taking the time to straightening my hair, which takes like an hour, to then have to wash it only a few days later. Not to mention before I moved I had dyed my hair a light color (why?!) because I thought I needed a change. Turns out I didn't need that kind of change and re-dyed it a dark brown which I am satisfied with for the time being. Why mention this part you ask?.. Well having dyed hair requires that magical "M" word that so many of us struggle with; maintenance.

This battle is only going to be answered by analyzing and realizing a few facts about myself. Here goes; I am not very high maintenance, and this is not a revelation, I can be a bit lazy at times when it comes to doing unnecessary things for aesthetic reasons, hence only shaving my legs constantly in the warmer months. Doing my hair is like doing exercise in that I know it has to be done, and I never regret it once its over. I do not want to look like a walking dead mom. You know those moms, you see them at your kids bus stops in the morning looking like they may just take a bite out of one of the kids? Being a MILF to my husband is a priority and I always want to be pleasing in  that way for him, he deserves it, and frizzy knotted hair in a bun on the top of my head is not sexy (lol). Cutting my hair is out of the question, I have come to the conclusion that it will require more work on my part with regards to upkeep and honestly I am not up for it. And since two toned, well three toned if I am going to be honest here (damn gray hairs! wtf?!), is not in, then I will have to face the reality that my appearance, hair wise, will just have to be one of those things in life that I procrastinate on but know in my mind needs to get done. I know it will make me feel better even if I drag through the process...Sounds good right?...we will see.

New places new names

I am no longer a New Yorker, well I still have a NY state ID but I have officially moved out of New York for good. This move is the last stop on what has been a series of moves motivated by confusion, pain and feeling like wherever I went I could not put down any roots. I have made one of the most adult decisions I could make; I bought a house. Well Rene and I bought a house. I love my house. I am loving being a stay at home mom again as well, although lately I have been dealing with some confusing feelings about daily life and what my days should consist of.

So on week three of being home with the kids I did it, I Googled " what to do as a stay at home mom?" As I saw the endless ideas for crafts, cooking, organizing, teaching, and activities I began to panic. Instead of seeing these suggestions and ideas as a way to master this new post I am in right now, I saw it as a measure of what I should be doing and how I needed to somehow meet up to a standard I'm not sure about. Sure I want to be this grand super mom, sure I want to be a master cook and a master baker, and sure I want to be the mom who can post about this wonderful activity schedule I have created for my kids along with being a teacher, counselor, launderer, money saving maniac mom who somehow finds time to write a book, or a blog, or anything worth reading. Of course I also want to be super fit and look amazing while feeling like I'm on a rollercoaster ride on the inside, but never showing it on the outside.

I'm thinking my lack of discipline is what is blocking my minds eye. Setting a schedule is probably the hardest part since schedules make me feel like my time isn't my own, and if I cant keep it while managing to keep up with all of the unexpected things that come up, then somehow I have failed. Lately I have realized more than ever that the standards I view as important to measure up to are getting in the way of finding out who I want to be in my life. I don't only mean that as a mom, I mean that in general. What and who the heck am I going to be? I mean I already know its not going to be the kind of moms I see on these websites that seem like they just want to be a part of something bigger, so they join all of these groups and engage in hobbies with and for their young kids to keep some fun in their lives. Or is that a lie? Times flying and my kids are getting big fast. I want them to be able to look back and remember me as someone who always took care of them and made their life sweet and funny and warm. I want to fit into the shoes of those moms who seem like they have got this super mom thing down to a science.

I don't know where to start. With all of the resources at hand I still feel like I'm in way over my head.

sad moments

It's moments like this ; sitting in the living room at a friends house living life. This moment makes me sad. It takes me to a place where I exist with my sons. I close my eyes and see them walking around playing together. She is here with me, smiling and helping me care for them, the part of me who won't let go of illusions and fantasy. I keep making excuses as to why I entertain her denial. To break her heart would devastate everything. So we sit back and watch them together. I am sad. I know in my heart they aren't here but I have to smile through the pain and shake away the tears that are fighting a war with my stubborn will. I'm sad because they are not here and my heart is filled with grief that life goes on and on and they won't ever be a part of our everyday lives. They exists to Rene and I, and her. To the rest of you, your lives have not been impacted by this like it has ours. I am sad because we still laugh and smile. I am sad because we gather with our friends and family and Jonah and Ryan can't be with us. I'm sad.