Posts

Showing posts from 2018

Let go and fly

Image
I really want to write about my imploding life right now. I want to share how devastated I am, how I almost had a slip the other night...17 months sober. I want to tell you all about what a fucking failure I feel like, and how I just want to wake up from this nightmare. But I can't. Too many cycling emotions surround me now. Too much pain. And since many of the stories I want to share have clearly had years to marinate, my current story...ending unknown...will come out in its own time. With that, I am going to tell you the story of my almost. As I share these seasons of life, you may notice that they are out of order. There is no real reason for that, other than they call to be written when they are ready. I have been doing a lot of reflecting on relationships from my past recently, not just for the purposes of my current project, but also as a reminder of times of love and kindness and growth. Reflection helps us to see the lessons we were presented during times of chan

Love me, Please

Image
It's a hard truth when you wake up at 35 years young and realize that the knight you were waiting on, the grand warrior to make life easier and filled with romance and adventure...has been here all along.  Inside of you. But the truth isn't meant to be easily digested, it simply is. This all began with the idea that I needed to write. I need to write almost as much as I love to run and need to breathe. It's a calling I have had since I was a child writing poetry and songs. I have always loved words, I just didn't know the name of the story that called to me. I searched it out for awhile. I gave up, I came back. I got lost, I got hurt, I almost died. And yet, when I came out on the other side of all the shit...the words still beckoned. In the past few months the words have started taking on a shape. A title emerged. A feeling of completion has drawn near. I am pulled, hard, into the necessity of this.  I am inspired by many of the stories out there. Resilie

Dear Jessica

Image
Dear (younger) Jessica, I hear you and see you. You didn't get the chance t be seen or heard when you needed it. And now you have decided to take over. I appreciate your passion, but I am kind of trying to love and fully embrace life right now. So let's have a chat. You were hurt. You were assaulted. You were wronged. And then...they shamed you and lied about you and did all the terrible things no one should do to a child of 15-16 years.  Not you. THEM. But they have also moved on.  So should we. Let go.  You are such a badass woman now with so much to be thankful for.  Let go. Dion't forget, never forget. Just relinquish. They were wrong. You were a child and you had a boundary. It was violated. That is nothing to be ashamed of, what would you tell your child? Let go. It's time to stop being angry. It's poisoning you. There have been and are amazing men. Amazing people. They have loved and do love you. They have supported and do support you.

Discovering my WHY was bullshit.

Image
The minute she said that "your WHY is soul deep" I knew I was in trouble. Let's back up a bit. By now you know I was (am? it's an on going debate) a runner. It's one of the core components of this blog. It's a huge part of my survival story, my healing, and...my downfall. Apparently. How did I come to this realization? I listened to a badass ultrarunner  named Sarah break down the ' WHY .' Her entire talk was a freaking gut punch. And that is when I knew, the layers of the onion that is Jessica's healing and recovery just got even more complex. This latest layer peeling begins with something called the Women's Movement Collaborative (click the link womxn to join up!!), and a 2nd life altering weekend at OSI in Fuquay-Varina, NC. A gift from the universe. There have been a lot of these lately, and y'all, I won't even pretend to understand. I am just going to say I have mountains of gratitude. Ok, so there is this WMC thing, t

How are you really feeling?

Image
Some days you just need to write, and today is one of those days. I have finally cried, tears I have needed for months. Big, gasping, bucketfuls of tears. So many my head and throat and eyes hurt. I imagine I will be quite puffy tomorrow, and yet, I don't think they are done. I sense many more in my near future. Once upon a time I believed that crying was weakness. We are supposed to be happy, always. To be anything else was utter failure. Humans are happy. Elated, even. Except these over simplified emotions never fully explained the complexity of life events for me. Since I couldn't have the emotions I thought I was supposed to be having every second of every day, I used drugs and alcohol to help me. If I was completely numb, then all the emotions blurred. Of course, as you can imagine, that didn't work out so hot. Alcohol did exactly what it is supposed to do and provided very temporary positive effects that spiraled into heavy doses of magnified anxiety and depression

Resilient Scars

Image
New writing rule, Amy Winehouse for the hard shit. Girl totally got it. RIP. So, I have been struggling connecting with chronic pain, something a lot of our clients (and my partner) live with daily. According to Brene Brown's synopsis on empathy, the path to connection and true empathy is being able to find the similarities in other's experiences. I have been in pain: check. I have been in a lot of physical pain: check. I understand the neuroscience and physiology of the pain response in the body: I mean, holy shit, that takes it all, right? NO. Stuck. I have been so fucking stuck on this. How do I relate? I pushed out two humans unmedicated from my vagina and thought I was going to die both times. I finished a marathon hobbling from a leg injury. I get pain. I just don't get non-musculoskeletal continuous pain. Or so I thought. Y'all, be really careful what you wish for, the Universe doesn't pull its punches. The other day I was telling a client about thi

A Tale of Two Pictures

Image
Can you see it? It's funny how you see it in others and miss it in yourself. I was going though old pics from a year ago, exploring the images I took from a solo hike shortly after my last drink, and I came across this image. It seems perfectly juxtaposed against the second image from our recent vacation. Can you see the difference? To think, this was how I was interacting in my world.  Sad eyes. Fake smile.  I didn't fake it till I made it to this point. Honestly, I barely made it. Some days I was 100% certain I wouldn't make it at all. I struggled. I fought against the healing that I needed. Yet here I am. Not every day is a win. But each day is another day. For that I am grateful. This summer has been slow for our business. Not unheard of in our industry, but it is scary as hell when this is your livelihood. The very thing that keeps a roof over your head and food on the table. Instead of seeing it as an industry trend I was internalizing it as personal f

Happy Sobriety Year to me!!!

Image
One year. One beautiful, messy, super fucking hard as shit year from hell. One year in which all the crap I ignored for 20 years bubbled up...and I am still wading through it. In the thick, so to speak. I am fortunate, though, I do not wade alone. And even when I do, life rafts are near by, held in place by people who love me. People I didn't know a year ago, and people that are slowly becoming my family. Thankfully, I also married a former life guard, and while he is on his own journey simultaneously, he is a quick learner. I never really had a clue how much connection played a role in addiction. I could tell you a whole lot of random shit about what addiction does to the brain, how it's a fantastic learning model, what it's like to give cocaine to rats...but connection? Funny, that never made it on my radar. It is everything, though. And the addict will tell you straight up how isolating life is when using. I don't need people when I have my vice. But like air, wate

Chaotic Ramblings

Image
Discombobulated. That's where I am. An emotional roller coaster, lost in the onslaught of memories as I break down the glorious walls I built to protect myself. Eff this noise. One foot in front of the other. One day at a time becomes one moment, one breath. 10 FUCKING MONTHS SOBER. This is it, I have now reached the point where I have been without alcohol (or drugs...but that’s a different story) for the longest stretch since I first got drunk at 19. Yup. 10 months. Excuse me while my brain throws it's monthly tantrum over me still being in the thick of this shit. Therapy has gotten shitty. We see 3 therapists: one each and a couple's guru. They are simultaneously amazing and HARD. Holy shit it's hard. We are both working through our own stuff and then we pile on the stuff we do together once a week too. Now seems like the perfect time to go through it all, right? Amidst parenting, trying to grow our business, barely making ends meet. Sure thing. Let'