Dear………. another in a series
Dear Beautiful People,
It is not the way you look
Or how you speak
It is the way you talk
With
Your
Heart in your eyes and thoughts on a platter
Willing to let me in
willing to let me give you something in return
a heart for
a heart
in this instance
this moment
this second
of conversation betwixt souls
your eyes speak volumes
about what you’ve witnessed
the good
the bad
the joys and sorrows this world gives
and how you’ve surpassed
and conquered
and suffered
oh beautiful person,
I long to know you better
To hold the heart that weeps
To cradle our sorrows together
On a boat to float away
Your beneficence of that smile
The gift of your words
Means everything to me
You are an enigma to all the right people
You are a mystery to those who know of your goodness
In conjunction to all the ills done to you
This,
Oh dear one,
This is why you are BEAUTIFUL
. Sincerely
One who notices
Somatics
For those of you who know, and those who don’t, this has been a F*ing difficult semester for me. i’ve had a lot of ups and downs, emotional upheavals, therapy and somatics. my final for Somatics was to write a summary of my journey over the semester, no easy task. after finishing writing it, i decided to share. it won’t make complete sense to anyone, but here it is.
. .My Journey
My upbringing was extremely liberal; therefore I was very open to the idea of being able to better myself. I was not, however open to the idea that I did not need bettering, that everything I needed already existed inside me, I just needed to bring it to the forefront. So this is where my journey began, the learning that I have the tools to find support when I need it.
January began with me restarting therapy sessions and beginning a class to aide my healing. I found CRP difficult to get into and somewhat silly, but strangely therapeutic. I started to notice how my weight distributed, my posture, the aches and pains I had pushed to the back of my mind, and how little I actually relaxed throughout the day. By the end of the month I figured out that CRP was best for me anywhere but my dorm room; it was too distracting, too un-calming, and too loud emotionally.
February dawned the experiences of learning to relax my muscles through flexion and lines of movement. Through the lines that aligned the pelvic region I learned that I can walk with my feet straight and not like a pigeon. Through skeletal mapping I found some of my patterns of holding in my shoulders that I injured as a preteen. Through this I learned way to relax them, and understand where and why I have so much pain in them. As I continued CRP I started to feel little pops, twitches, and releases, not all of which were pleasant. I remember a small release in my hip occurring on a Monday that I never recorded and then my therapist was sick, and my world fell apart. It was a very black week. I didn’t see the correlation then, but subsequent events eventually showed me the connection. Besides this I also began to see my breathing as support and started to find my mantra to find peace: I am a tree.
March was another difficult month. I ended therapy the same week that I had my Feldenkrais meltdown. Before that however I was happy working on my breathing and finding my center. I had been beginning to feel really good and happy again. The different ideas of support, mental and physical, a had been complementing the work that I had been doing in my limited therapy; I had been lucky enough to get a therapist who was interested in somatic forms and knew that muscles have a visceral memory. But as I had not encountered any problems that I was aware of, I stopped being afraid and was able to let go. Then we had the Feldenkrais method. It felt good, and comfortable and right, up until we started work on the hips… by the time I noticed what was happening the emotions had already gotten too strong. After the initial onslaught, I was able to pull myself together again using breathing, and then forced rational thinking. Childhood memories are not all sunshine and roses for me. CRP became a terror, and I didn’t have therapy to help. But, by this point I had already acknowledged that I could use my friends as support back in February, so I tapped into that resource at hand; I told my roommate of my problem, and she helped coax me back into the physical pattern of CRP. From there she helped lead me slowly into being able to do it on my own by holding my hand or stroking my feet in silence. She truly was my savior in that. This experience is what really lead me to create my mantra, the final one. Breathing is my key to peace… and peace is something that has eluded me for a long time.
April was my mental fight; my fight against the emotional baggage that I’ve held for so long; my fight to reclaim my mind and body for myself. CRP was a large part of that fight. The days that I went into it, I had to try different techniques to see the internal damage and then let it go. I’m still working on it. Working with my skeletal system was helpful. I started to appreciate what was already working in my body, my feet, my hips, my spine, and I started to notice that my posture (the good posture) was becoming a habit. This I think is mostly do to the really fun and beautiful spirals. In the spirals I was able to stretch and breathe and loosen my hips in a way the other movements were unable. I’m still practicing these, and as I spiral I imagine my breath as waves crashing on the shore allowing my body to lengthen and curve like the edges of land where it meets the sea. I’ve also been learning lessens about letting go. Letting go is loss that I’m in control of, and therefore less painful. Its my decision, and no one else can take that away. At the same time, I’m learning to accept the changes that are unpredictable and to accept the losses that I have already been dealt in my short life. I want to let go, I like being able to breathe, and I like not having panic attacks every few weeks.
Set backs are not failures, they are experiences from which I will grow and change and accept. This is my promise to myself.
Thank you Linda for teaching a class that has had so much value to my life. There are lessons here that I will be taking with me, and I will be perfectly and wholly honest, this class has saved my life. No joke, no sugar coating. If not for this class I don’t think that in February I would have found someone to think for me when I was so obviously not in my brain. If not for this class, I would not have learned a way to collect myself together when explosions of emotion occur. If not for this class then I would have not learned to breathe through emotional pain affectively. If not for this class… so much would be different. Yes, this class released tension in my hips triggering the emotions, but I know that this would have happened on its own someday. Now I have the tools.
why i may like music
i am a rather introspective person… some would say stoic. i have problems describing my emotions or how i’m feeling unless i fell 100% comfortable with whoever i’m talking to. music gives voice to those emotions. pieces of this song, a part of that song, the theme from that concerto to those lyrics from Nevermore, with an upbeat from P!nk. its like abstract art, it means something to somebody somewhere.
Letters i’ll never send part3
Dear H.G.,
. YOU make me rethink
myself
. my Life
. my Decisions
. my plans
. my morals
I rarely speak to you
but today
. with the rain punctuating our inane remarks
. iloveyouiloveyouiwantyou
i wonder if it could be
. should be
. would be
. if if if if
haunting echoes of future regret
. emanate from your form
3 years
hearing your voice
. breathing in the lyrics
. seeing your smile evolve
. changing course is hard mid stroke
. if if if if if if
i changed
. rotated
. accommodated
. explored
would i lose
what i have
. nothing is set in stone
.
. yours ever,
. ….
letters i’ll never send pt2
Dear two rows forwards and to the right,
. who knew
. there was a sale at macy’s
Or
. Lady gaga went to the hospital
Or
. Cheese Burgers are the new super-food
What I don’t know
. is the answer
. to the question on the board
but your facebook status was so interesting
. and my distraction was
. evident
. obvious
. Blatant
. and
. rude
and YOUR distraction is
. hidden
. secret
. allowable
. Somehow
I’ll laugh when the exam
. time comes
. Watching youtube with you,
. ….
new concept
Letters i’ll never send. inspired partly by dearblankpleaseblank.com and deargirlsaboveme.com to very funny websites. the idea came to me while i was sitting in my research methods class, well while i was waiting for research methods to start. each letter however will get their own post. some are humorous some are more serious.
Dear Windows,
. I never look at you
. I look
. Through
. You
. I’m sorry
the trees
. Swaying
The Flowers
. Blooming
The Laughter
. and conversations
. Prompt my attention
.
Sorry
. The squirrels’ tag game
. distracted
. me
Here i am looking through you
. Again
.
. until next time,
. …..
To the boy that i first wanted to lose my virginity to
i had an uncomfortable dream last night; I dumped my current boyfriend, and somewhere in my aimless wanderings i ran into you, and you wanted me back, so i said sure without much thought. after being attacked by decepticons, we made love in the high school auto-shop. i never achieved satisfaction, and you were embarrassed. it was very awkward. like so much of our (mostly)preteen relationship. it took me a long time to stop being angry at you for how our relationship ended(and how you ended it), it took me realizing how messed up i really was. so thank you for putting up with my emo-ness, i was more fucked up than you ever knew. and there have been so many apologies that i’ve wanted to make to you, but how do you apologize for something that happened so long ago. especially for things, that no one really ever thinks about apologizing for. i mean “i’m sorry i was such a tease, and never made a move on you like i wanted to” or “i’m sorry for all those long talks we had about our crappy lives and i never did anything to help yours” or “i’m sorry i never called” even better “i’m sorry i dated one of your close friends right after he manipulated me into dumping you, and then got abused for it” yea… those would go over very well. so i thank you for everything you did, and all the effort you put into our very formal relationship. but most of all thank you for trying to be there when you were.
The boy who saved me first
so here i am, 20 years old, turning 21 in april, going to therapy for the first time for problems that should have been dealt with a long time ago. i’m realizing things that put me back into the darkness that im trying to fight off, but its different. there is something about being the one to control the descent, to initiate it, that lets me feel the warmth at my back, making deep dark shadows out of all-encompassing night. i’m starting to feel like i have some sort of control over my inner turmoil, and it feels like the first time ever. baby steps. i can feel the hurt and confusion and anger, and know that it doesn’t have to tear me apart that as i accept and examine where it comes from i can let it go so all that remains is memory. memory of what it felt like, a ghost of what i’ve been feeling since i was 8. knowing where my rage comes from, understanding that it is valid and ok is freeing. maybe one day i will feel that i can where my name as a badge of honour again, and not see it as a symbol of my pain, but a symbol of my ability to exist and love and learn and LIVE. so to the boy who saved me first, i thank you. you saved me enough so that one day there would be something left to save. your name has come up so often in my sessions, that i know, that you will be apart of me and my life forever. when i lost hope, i could think of the boy who reached back to me when i reached out all those years ago in 3rd grade. you were my knight in rusted armour; we were both broken from happenings in our past. we both had a sense of abandonment from the world, and we found twin hurts in each other. i had always wanted a twin.
and now i begin to feel what flying is like, something I’ve been dreaming about since i was young. with each day I’m learning a little more about how to pump my wings together, and to wait for the right kind of wind. and maybe, just maybe when this maelstrom is finally over, i’ll have practiced in my cave long enough to see the blue skies and fly over the wilderness for a time. i just want to fly.
Raging against
Rage. Indefinable rage has characterized my life for so long; sometimes I don’t know how to deal with it. Waves of confusion still crash inside me causing a tumult of WHY ME? It hurts. Is it better to know? Now I have something to rage at instead of nothing, but its almost like IT HURTS more. I feel so broken when its called back to me. Just mentions of SIMILAR events have me close to DEAD AGAIN. I’ll be thinking about it for days now. I don’t want the NIGHTMARES; I don’t want the fighting to breathe and catch a hold on reality; I don’t want to CUT OFF EMOTION; I’m tired of keeping it in me. I feel WEAK for feeling confused, and scared, and dead. I feel WEAK when a few simple stories in class can have me in full flashback mode trying not to break down or run out of the room. I DON’T WANT TO FEEL LIKE THIS ANY MORE, but its not really a decision I can make. Here it COMES AGAIN, welling up, trying to spill out but I can’t let it, the words on the page is ALL THAT I HAVE to keep me sane.
a look back
i’m thinking back to an earlier post i had on here, about the last time i thought i would ever go to my dad’s. and then the post i did after that about 6 months later concerning the same thing… i think that i was still very begrudging my dad and his lack of attempts to be in my life. now though, i am ashamed that i never wanted to spend time with him, i geuss i’m over myextreme anger. it took me long enough. my dad loves me, and has tried his best over recent years. there was a time in my life that he wasn’t there, but i’m moving past that and now letting him be a part of my life, i’m even trying to get in the habit of emailing him once a week, and call once a month. that in itself is really hard for me, i don’t initiate conversation with other very well. My boyfriend has been really helping with my anger problems, little does he know, he thinks that i never get angry, its sweet, but sooo not true. i’m growing up, i used to think that i was such an old soul, and that i was way too old for my body, but i think that i was right were i should have been, my only means of comparing mental age was with my mother really and truly. i geuss thats kind of an insult to my mum, but she really isn’t that old mentally, i love her dearly, but i’m realizing more and more that i raised her, and i was just a kid. there’s a lot more to it, but going through course focused on adolescence makes me realize that i was a typical teen, and my time of storm and stress was made a tiny bit worse due to a lack of stability. i’m getting it now that i’m out of the house, my boyfriend’s family has taken me in and given me so much that adds to it. my boyfriend’s drother is one of the most awesome people i’ve ever met, and he lets me talk to him about anything, and depending on subject matter, throws a pencil at me. my boyfriends parents are parents, they are each very giving and loving in their own ways, and my boyfriend is so much the partner that i could never have wished for he’s so wonderful. he lets me lean on him, and i believe that he takes every advantage to lean on me when he needs it. it feels weird to me to have someone i can lean on for everything no matter how inconsiquential it proves to be. i wish i had, had more of that when i was younger, i feel less prepared for the world and i’m not sure if i can do it all, i’m going to try, but there is no guaruntee that i’ll make it. pressure… fear… i am still an adolescent, it lasts until 24, did you know that?
i feel quite bad for saying things like this about my family, but then, whose family is not a little messed up? we all have our problems.
