Saturday morning I woke up hungry.  I don’t usually wake up hungry or worry too much about it when I do, but there’s something about knowing there is nothing you personally can do about it- it makes the hunger that much worse.  I had just enough coffee left to make myself a weak cup of coffee.  As I sat in my living room listening to some Indie Folk mix Alexa found for me, I took a long look around my living room.

My life is so different now.  If you told me in January that this would be my life right now, I wouldn’t have believed it.  It’s like I woke up after a long deep sleep as someone else in a life I don’t recognize, and I’m having to catch up with everything that’s happened until now.  Everything that’s happened until now is so heartbreaking and difficult to look at and make peace.   I’ve made some great strides, and yet, it feels as though I’m standing at the end of a long road that ends in the vastness of everything.  Every way I look is a path I could take, but I stand paralyzed with fear of making the wrong choice again.  I’m overwhelmed with possibility.

All of those whom I called my closest friends have left me.  I do not regret them or begrudge them, it’s just a very strange feeling when everything is suddenly sucked out of your life.  It feels like the tide has been sucked out and the tsunami is coming.  The tsunami is coming and I don’t recognize my life or what direction to take it now.  I find myself more and more going through the motions of a life I used to find moderately satisfying considering the circumstances.  I had a circle of friends, a fun single life, and a compartmentalized old life I tried desperately not to remember every second of the day.

I plan.  I think ahead.  I find the answers.  I take care of things before they get out of hand, but I can’t see what’s coming now and it’s a blindness I’m not used to or comfortable.  Not having a plan makes me feel very vulnerable.

But…

The Universe speaks to me of patience every day, and I’m trying.  Patience is the hardest lesson for me to learn.  Humility I have in droves (regardless of what those who don’t know me may think), but patience has never been one of my virtues.  I feel like these last 10 years have been holding me back and I’m for the first time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel- but unlike Andy Dufresne at the end of Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, I have no master plan.  I’ve crawled through a mile of shit, and some days I still feel as much in bondage as if I were inside a cell.  I’ve become stir crazy in this life.

I don’t know the right choice.  Home doesn’t feel like home anymore, and that’s a very strange and scary place to wake up every day.

I’m at a crossroad, and even though it feels like the tsunami will hit at any moment; I know I can swim.  The chaos I can handle.   It’s the suspense that kills me.

This last month or so has been really rough.   (Hell, who am I kidding, the last 40 years have been really rough, but let’s just focus on the last month, shall we?)  I’ve been doing a lot of meditating.  I’ve been doing a lot of reading.  I’ve been really working on myself and the things I keep what feels like bottled up deep inside, but is really just beneath the surface.  Last night it just came to a head; a breaking point.

My father and I have always had a difficult relationship.  I was never a daddy’s girl.  Growing up my father was distant and rageful at times.  He could be cutting and cold.  Most of my memories of him are of his drunken rages.  I would stand up to him face to face and challenge him even though he terrified me.  He terrified everyone in the house at times.  Someone had to do something.  So I did, and because of that, I bore the brunt of a lot of his misery.

Yes.  His misery.  I honestly don’t know a great deal about my father and his upbringing.  I know he was the youngest of 5, with an older brother he adored who died suddenly when my father was in his early 20s before I was born.   I know his father died suddenly when he was 3 years old and that his mother fell into a deep depression.  I never even realized that he only had an eighth-grade education when I was a full grown adult.  He was so successful even with his addiction.  He was so smart; so good with math and mechanical things.  He could see it in his head.  My son shares that.  You wonder how someone could do so much with so little, and honestly, my father is quite phenomenal.  It makes you wonder what he could have had if he had also been loved and cared for as a child.

I came home last night with a heart that felt like it was a thousand pounds.  Holding onto hurt is heavy like that.  As I poured myself a vodka and Dr. Pepper to get through the evening, I lit my cigarette, took a sip and a drag and burst into tears.  Here I was numbing the pain just as he did.  Just as he so desperately tried to make the pain of his life experience easier to bear, I sat doing the same thing.  For the first time, I saw him with mercy.  For the first time, I saw him as broken.  For the first time I understood that even though it was chaotic and scarring, he was doing the best he could and what he knew; what he had probably always known.  He had loved me the best he could.  He had just never been loved the right way.

I cried harder.

I then pulled out my phone and sent him the following:

“Daddy-  I forgive you.

I know how hard it was for me growing up.  I expected more than you had to give because it hadn’t been shown to you.  Not the right way.  It’s hard to cope.  You turn to things to numb hurt.  I get that now.  I’m sorry you’ve had to wrestle so many demons.  I love you, and I forgive you.  Just know that.

Just know when I stood up to you I was only trying to do what I felt was right.”

He responded back, “I know.”

And then I asked him the question that has colored every relationship I’ve ever had with a man:

“Do you love me?  Even when I’m difficult to love?  Do you love me anyway?  Because you loving me is the most important.”

He responded, “Yes I have always loved you.  My love for you is unconditional.”

Even though it was text, my father has never said to me.  Ever. My mother was always the one to tell me “Daddy loves you.” But for him to say it to me; those words mean more to me than anything.  I think I’ve acted out relationships with the wrong people over and over and over in a way of trying to get my father to love me.  Desperately wanting to be loved and cherished.

I thanked him and we both said that we loved each other and left it at that, but I felt a huge weight lifted from me almost immediately.

If you are reading this and you are also hurting, work on surrendering your past to the past.  People can and do change all the time.  I’m not who I was 20 years ago.  I’m not even sure I’m the same person I was in January.

There’s a lot going on in the world out there right now that we can’t control, but we can control how we respond and hold onto things.  Lighten your load, my friend.  Forgive.

I’ve been trying to deal and come to terms with the emotions I have stuffed down and looked away from for so long.  I really feel that is the only way to excise the demon is to face the monster.  Sometimes it manifests in such strange ways.  Like this morning- I was thirsty and grabbed a glass from the cabinet.  It was a Shrek collector’s glass from right before everything shattered.  I remembered the day I  purchased it.  My son was still small enough for a car seat.  He was 4 that summer.  Our last summer.

As I took the glass down I heard in my head that cherubic 4-year-old voice excitedly saying, “Schwek da fird, mommy!”  I can hear it clear as day in my head and even now, a tear rolls down my cheek.  Part of coming to terms with everything I’ve pushed down and looked away is that I have to feel it, and I have to turn it into something that doesn’t hurt.  So through tear-stained cheeks I drank the glass of water and gave thanks that I had that time with him; that I have that memory of me with my Puss-in-Boots plush and my son with his Donkey plush on a hot summer day. We enjoyed the air-conditioning and the movie and the experience together.

I am grateful.  I have to remind myself each time.  One day hopefully the tears won’t come along with it.

I know what I have is PTSD from the trauma of losing him at such a young age and for no reason other than to wound me.  Little things trigger it.  Like a claw machine.  The claw machine reminds me of our last afternoon together before the culmination of the nightmare.  We had court the following day, and I knew that I had not had enough money to win.  I had no money, honestly.  I knew my child had been purchased.

Even now that is a crushing feeling that I haven’t dealt with yet.

I remember I had dropped him off at school that morning, and I came to work and silently cried and cried until my boss, a very kind soul named Joe told me to take the rest of the day and go get my baby, which I did.  I took him to the park, I took him for pizza, I took him to play putt-putt, and I let him play with the claw machine until I had no more money left.

That’s why I can’t look at claw machines without a pang of sorrow.

There are many things that I avoid to not have to come across a painful memory I have stuffed away, but that isn’t serving me.  I am thankful Joe let me have that afternoon with him and wherever he is in his life right now, I wish him all the best life has to offer because he is a good soul.

I want a partner in life.  I want REAL friends.  I feel this pain and sorrow and not dealing with it; staying stagnant in a place where too many memories hang on everything- it needs to go.  It needs to be excised.  It’s going to take time.

But I am grateful for the journey and the kindnesses I have been met with along the way.  I will work harder to pay that forward.

Any time that I feel extremely stressed out or am unsure of my next step, I withhold food from myself.  It’s something I picked up in middle school and have never quite shaken.  Some people might see my food restriction as some sort of vanity, but for me, it’s about lessening the pressure.  I want to be smaller.  If I could just make myself smaller and in a way invisible, this will all blow over eventually.

My weight over the years because of this cycle has fluctuated drastically.  I’ve been very heavy and very thin at times.   Right now, I’m about 25lbs heavier than I would like to be, but overall I’m comfortable with how I look.

Still, any little stressor and the alarm bell goes off to make myself smaller; less visible.

When I was in high school, I could go for very long periods of withholding food or eating the minimum possible to maintain consciousness.  My father at the time was a chaotic and raging alcoholic.  I often fought with him because it made me want to claw my eyes out and tear my eardrums to hear my mother cry.  So at night, I would fight with him, and at school the next day I would drink a small sweet tea and maybe eat a chicken patty.  Maybe.

I wanted to be thin, but I also just wanted there to be less of me.  I wanted to be less noticeable; more invisible.  I wanted to disappear at times.  Sometimes I still do.

However, these things within us; these things we hold onto–or withhold from ourselves–they hold us back.  I’ve recently been meditating on removing any blocks I have that are keeping me from moving to the next part of my life.   All the old has fallen away.  False friends have left.  Ex-boyfriends have finally disappeared completely.  I am at peace with all of that.  Yet, just like the story of the Mengele Twins I mentioned in an earlier post- she didn’t need to forgive the Nazis- she needed to forgive Mengele.

My father is my Mengele.  My divine spirit who always knew this was my journey forgives him for all of his transgressions since they have made me who I am today and brought me to where I am in life.  However, the human side wants to see right and wrong, black and white; forgive/don’t forgive…eat…don’t eat.

The human side of me needs to purge this pain.  Avoiding it has not helped to heal it, just as avoiding food does not help me to function as a person.  I need to come to terms with the fact it was awful, it was at times terrifying, and now it’s over and there is nothing more that can be done to change it.  It has made me who I am.  It has taught me to fight things that feel bigger than myself for the greater good.  It has taught me persistence.  It has steeled me.  It also made me a warm and loving mother who could never say “I love you” enough or kiss or praise or hug in a way that felt like it sufficiently said how much my child means to me.  Being raised by a bad parent made me a better one.

I invited my father to my Master’s commencement.  It was the first time I had seen or spoken to him in more years than I can remember.  He’s a quiet man by nature, and never been one to be overly affectionate.  I imagine that’s all he’s known, and I think he loves me the best he knows how.  He came and watched me graduate.  He said he was proud.  He kept his distance out of respect.

I once said I would never forgive him for the things he’s done and hurt he’s caused; the things he’s said.  My father is a damaged fallible person and hurt people hurt people.  I don’t want to be like that.  Holding onto that may hurt him some, but it’s my burden to carry around and to be quite honest I’m tired.

I forgive my father.  I actually love my father.  I just need to work on liking him.

I recently wrote about a male mutual friend of me and my ex-husband “confessing” to me that from what he says my ex-husband never was faithful to me the entire time of our relationship.  I’ve been divorced longer than I was married, and have long made peace with the end of the relationship itself.  However, in as much as we fought like demons toward the end and we simply HAD to divorce for the sake of both our sanities the idea that he had never been faithful to me from the moment we met shook me to my core in a way that was unexpected.

For the first time in a very long time, I mourned that relationship.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love him and we have both very much moved on from the start of our romance more than 20 years ago.  I was a child, really.  However, even as bad as things got, I honestly believed that he loved me.

This “friend” has confessed his own love for me, however with this revelation out of the blue he said, “I HAD to finally tell you.  You HAD to know.”

No.  No, I didn’t have to know.  I needed to know 20 years ago when despite what he says if this is true an opportunity could have been found to tell me- if you really love someone.  That’s not what he chose to do.  Instead, he chose to sit on it for 20 years, and spring it on me out of the blue,  My marriage was bad, but it wasn’t ALWAYS bad.  My ex-husband and I had our loving moments.  We had our fun moments.  We had a few good memories.  I was at peace with the fact the marriage just fell apart due to incompatibility and age difference.  I didn’t NEED to know, 20 years later, that it may have all been complete and utter bullshit.

This friend took from me the good memories I had, and there were so so very few to remember by now.  It’s been so long.  My memory is not the greatest.  However, I remember some fun times with my ex-husband and I felt he loved me.  So how fucking dare you take that from me.  There was no need.  There was no just cause.  It was a selfish move to garner favor with me.  Instead, it’s made me question everything I thought I knew about my marriage and my family.

I called my ex last night and asked to speak with him privately.  I told him I didn’t want to fight, but I wanted to know if he ever did love me.  He assured me he did and was in love with me when we were married.  Even if it’s a lie, let me have it.  It doesn’t hurt anyone for me to think that for a period of my life I was loved by someone.

My ex-husband called me again this morning and assured me I had been loved.

I don’t know what to believe honestly, but at this point does it matter if its true or not?  If it’s untrue then let it be untrue.  I don’t NEED to know.

Just let me believe.  The truth at this point only has sharp edges.

I don’t feel that I can speak to you authentically unless I am completely authentically me. To be authentically me, I’m going to have to reveal the things I fear others will judge me for feeling or doing.  I know not everyone is going to like or agree with me, and that’s ok.  But, the little story I’m about to tell you is the inspiration for this very blog you are reading.  It’s a story about accidentally finding yourself somewhere you didn’t quite know you were going.

It’s a story about accidentally finding yourself.

I had a former friend once tell me that I should tell my story and that I should start it out with, “Yes, it fucked me up.”  Truthfully, though, it didn’t.  It woke me up.

About a year ago, I asked to join a suggested group that a Facebook friend was also a member.  I thought perhaps there would be some funny or cool memes in there to post in our mutual group.  So I requested to join.  I didn’t read the description, although the title should have given something away (no I will not give them any publicity here as they have exploitative practices.)  At any rate, I clicked request to join and was apparently approved.  Later that day my newsfeed was suddenly flooded with poorly constructed and poorly censored racy photos of women.  Having been somewhat into photography at one point myself, I was mesmerized by how easily these men were pleased by what I found to be somewhat sleazy poorly lit soft porn.

The images posted didn’t seem to have any real focus (other than “here’s my boobs!” or “look at my ass!’)  So I wondered If I could create a seductive image, that gave nothing away–how much would men enjoy that?  So, I threw up a selfie for approval.  Once approved, I had around 3K likes in an hour.  People were suddenly tagging me in other posts and asking for more photos. So I made and posted a few more. Within 5 days of being in the group, I was being voted as one of the top 5 “hotties” that should be in some makeshift calendar they wanted to produce.

It was madness.  People were messaging me.  People were harassing me in the comments.  I soon befriended several moderators to tag, but whatever was happening was like a tidal wave that just took over me.  I suddenly had this alter ego.  I suddenly had “fans” and people wanting to know where else they could follow me?   Was I a professional model?  Was I a dancer?  The male moderators liked me for the most part and my wit in handling many trolls on my own until I tagged one of them, but I was mostly just fascinated by the entire thing.  I had recently come out of a bad relationship where the guy had really just wrecked my self-confidence, so yes- it was really nice to get all this validation, but it was also weird how some people connected to me on a parasocial level.

I hate to “Yadda Yadda Yadda” through some of this, but let’s just say eventually there was a lot of drama, and the group’s “management” split off into various sub-groups none of which ever attained the level of membership as the first.  So, I looked for other groups to post my photos.  By that time I had made an Instagram account and I really just wanted to practice growing it.  My typical M.O. was to drop a pic, babysit the post liking the comments to drive affinity, and stick to myself.  I would participate in a group request post (where they request a specific kind of photo), but other than that, I kept to watching my own posts.

And group after group after group it NEVER failed.  WOMEN would demand for my removal.  Women I didn’t even know.  Women who had pretended to be friendly with me.  They would say the most vicious and hurtful things, all because of some “attitude” they ascribed to a photo.  Every group I’ve ever posted in I’ve been one of the top posters in the group, and in every single one some shitstorm blew up over one of my photos with women coming for me with proverbial pitchforks and I would get tossed out.

It was very emotionally upsetting.  It was upsetting not because of what they said about my looks or who they thought I was as a person, it was the fact they said those things and all they knew about me was a photo that got more “likes” than theirs.  Each time I was tossed from a group for that or for trying to defend myself against that, It would send me into the worst funk.  I have always championed women to learn to be comfortable in their own skin; that another woman’s beauty is not the absence of their own- yet here I was reviled by some to the point they reported my Instagram account (then at 21k followers) to the point Instagram took it down.

I’m not a model.  I’m not the most beautiful woman in the room.  I have a flabby stomach because of having had a C-Section and the last year of grad school I packed on a few extra pounds.  I really want them gone, but let me tell you-

Men don’t seem to care.  They don’t.  My being 25lbs heavier since I started the initial social experiment has not done one thing in regard to my ability to gain followers. Since the initial account was removed in April, I believe, I’ve already grown it back to almost 7K followers.  I was relieved when the large account was gone.  The large account overwhelmed me.   I’m now building the account the way I always wanted it to be-  more nouveau pinup-noire with a mix of new bohemiam.

I’ve realized from all of this how much we as women pick ourselves and each other apart, and then I look at these men who call me a goddess even though I look nothing like one.  I want women to stop being so competitive with each other and see the beauty and sexuality that we still have even after kids and divorces and being knocked on our asses by life.  Owning your sexiness is not a bad thing. I want women to stop worrying about eating the chips at the Mexican restaurant or missing out on the cheesecake when everyone else is enjoying it. Stop hating ladies.  Let’s start celebrating.  This is our time.  We can own our sexuality  AND demand equal pay.  You can have it all that way.  You can have your cake and eat it with joy.

People have often asked me what the end game is for the pin-up style Instagram.  I honestly don’t know.  It was an accident and social experiment that got away from me.  However, I love to express myself through visual art whether the medium is photography or paint, and I truly enjoy making the images.  Where some accounts are about sex, mine is more about creating the art of seduction.

So, that’s how we got here-  an almost 40 (now 40) hot mess of a human being who literally just spilled her sausage biscuit down the front of her work clothes and can NEVER find her shoes is the embodiment of sex appeal for around 20K followers and growing (I have several platforms I use just to learn how to use the media.)

Here I am, Aphrodite in Real Life- I have no clue where I’m going, and what a long strange trip it’s been.