This used to be our dining room. Now it one of two “sanctuary rooms” – places in my home that I have carved out to be at peace, meditate, pray. An “anti” War Room, if you will.
By: JANA GREENE
Sometimes when I pray, I’m not even sure what to pray for anymore. But when God brings someone to my mind, that’s the impetus to pray for them.
I don’t mean giving God “instructions” on how to help someone, which I used to call “praying with specificity.” I replaced elaborate prayers with simple trust in God, because the most eloquent prayers are “help help help” and “thank you thank you thank you” (as my favorite author Anne Lamott opines.)
I ask and then I try to listen. Because there is no wrong way to pray, and prayer is designed to be communication from one sentient being to a supreme being, no holds barred.
Once I saw a movie that recommended having a “War Room” – a physical place to go to pray where the reception is clearest to God and where mighty battles are fought in the heavenlies, waiting for our next words to change the outcome in supernatural realms.
So of course I decorated my closet with scripture and crosses aplenty. But all I managed to do was feel guilty that I wasn’t praying more (or right?) every damn time I had to grab a pair of shoes out of the closet.
Was I praying enough? What if I don’t and when I get to Heaven, God informs me that he really wanted to do this magnificent thing, but I Was two beggings short of getting the outcome I desired.
See, that puts the onus on me. And the onus is not on me – it is on Love.
I don’t make a big show for myself now, prostrate in my literal prayer “closet,” striving, striving, striving to be the person “God created me to be.” Building a tower of Babylon with my puny, pleading words (which are beautiful to him, by the way, but his love is not dependent upon them.)
No. I mean that if you come to my mind during the course of my day, I am simply asking God to love on you in a way that’s tangible. God loves n us through one another, nature, laughter, and hugs from friends.
If you have a need or a heartbreak, I focus my intention on your hurt as best I can, and believe in advance that he is walking alongside you, no matter what event is anguishing you. Being a very visual person, I picture you in a cloud of love, total acceptance, resolution, and peace. I can’t describe it any better than that, but trust me, it’s better than that.
And I ask him to increase your awareness of him in and around us. Because he is always at work in and around us, even when we aren’t begging for his favor. I pray he uses me in any capacity he sees fit to convey his great love.
One of my favorite episodes of The Golden Girls is the one titled, “The Flu.” The premise is that all the ladies are attending a banquet, where one of them will win the “Best Friend of the Friends of Good Health” award. In sitcoms, chaos often ensues, but is resolved by peals of laughter within the 30-minute run-time, which would be damn handy in real life. Amirite?
Over the course of the past five years, I’ve thought of this episode a bunch. Those Golden Girls always seemed to be forever attending banquets and award ceremonies. I am the age they were, and nary one banquet have I attended. Also, I am certain I would win any friendship awards, period. Several times, I have felt like a candidate for “The Worst Friend of the Friends (“Chaos and Mayhem Chapter.”)
It started with the pandemic. Remember watching Tiger King? I swore was the most unhinged thing ever, (can you believe this guy? ) Little did we know there would be a shift, the likes of which we have never seen. Little did we know, Tiger King was actually the LEAST unhinged thing coming.
The next four years are a blur of pure madness, and for me personally, a diagnosis of leukemia. Because my body does not give a single *&%$ that I was already overwhelmed.
And The Madness we have been living through have affected us all. The political landscape leveled by the scorched earth policies of this administration have divided us in ways we never knew were possible. It’s a red-letter day when I get out of my pajamas, y’all. I’m owning my depression and anxiety.
I used to have boundless energy to nurture friendships and be the best friend I can be. Checking in on my friends, reminding them how cherished they are, and – on occasion – leaving the actual house to see them. The truth is that I care SO much that I’m sort of paralyzed.
We live in the Upside Down now, our little corner of purgatory. Not to be dramatic, but it’s been the worst.
Mentally, it’s like being at the circus for years, with no way out of the tent; scary clowns running amok, wild animals uncaged, terrifying trumpets and trombones, and where the hell is the exit? I am hanging on by a sequined thread of hope somehow.
Because it’s the worst, so am I, on occasion. Or that’s how it feels. Maybe that’s how you feel too. You very much want to be the person you were pre-pandemic. You very much want all of your friendships to thrive, but all you have the energy for is a box of Oreos and doom-scrolling. The struggle is real.
I so badly want to be a truly good friend. I’m so blessed by my chosen family. But the only award I’m up for is “The Best Friend of the Friends of Shitty Health,” or maybe “Friend Most Likely to Dissociate for Long Periods of Time.”
In a way – like the Golden Girls – we all have a “Flu” right now. And we have for years, at this point. We are all operating from a place of “caring fatigue.” It’s a real hard time to be an empath, absorbing everyone else’s energy.
We are all experiencing the achiness of division, the headache of existing in a world so harsh. We are all infirm right now. We were not created for the onslaught of global information, or the over-saturation of horribleness. Our connectedness is in peril. The clarity of those of us seeing through the veil can be a hinderance.
I long to be the friend I was before all of this (*gestures wildly.*) None of us have been this way before, and it’s a real intense pilgrimage to feel deeply.
IMBD sums up the Flu episode thus: “Blanche, Dorothy and Rose all come down with the flu and infuriate each other. When they each suspect that one of them has won a major award for their charity work, their competitiveness causes them all to attend despite their illness.”
At the conclusion, Blanche, Dorothy, and Rose – all who were expecting to win the Best Friends award – are not the winners. Dorothy’s mother, the Queen of Snark, Sophia, takes the prize. But in the end – as sitcom rules dictate – all of the girls come to the conclusion that the award is not the accolade, but their actual friendships that matter most.
I hope we all come out of this mess realizing the same.
After a grueling religious deconstruction, who is a girl to trust?
By: JANA GREENE
I’m trying this crazy new thing, and it’s called trusting my intuition. It’s crazy. My whole life I have been coached to never trust the human heart – especially your own – for it wants its own way. It is deceitful and full of the flesh, they said. It will steer you wrong, they said. But I am finding it an oracle itself, not separated from a loving God by sin, but part and parcel of the Spirit.
God himself (or herself?) put it in me – intuition. Why would we be sent into the wilderness with sub-par equipment? Is he like the producers of “Naked and Afraid,” letting us choose our one, inadequate tool for the whole journey – and SUPRISE! It’s shitty intuition! Here you go, here’s a stick, when you could have used a pocketknife or a can of “Off” spray!
Godspeed, Kiddo. It’s a jungle out there. Whatever you do, lean NOT on your understanding!
I can no longer fathom that our consciousness is separate in any meaningful way from the Source. So, intuition – while not perfect – is trustworthy, in that it has much to teach us. In the realization that it’s not a sin to consult our intuition is a game-changer.
Most of my life, I have shushed my intuition in an un-valiant effort to prove to God that I had a faith bigger than my understanding.
But the gut is a quiet thing if you’re not used to listening to it. It politely tugs at your hem, whispering “excuse me, please, but I have a feeling about this.” Listen to her until her voice steadies. Listen to her until she is heard and BOLD. But for God’s literal sake, LISTEN TO HER. Say “yes” to the copious heaps of lavish grace and decide to stop eschewing it for distrust of self.
We are so afraid to honor ourselves; we forget God is not the kindly warden overseeing us while we do time in our flesh prisons, but the living breath in us – part and parcel. Holiness is our DNA, and all the self-flagellation in the world cannot whip it out of us.
My gut tells me that it’s true.
Can I get an AMEN?
(Part II to come: Trusting the intuition of others)
The birds are singing outside my window. The audacity of them, having joy, when the whole world seems to be on fire.
When I was a little girl, living with my grandparents, the windows were never open. I loved them very much, but it was a depressing place. The drapes were always drawn. My grandparents watched the 6 o’clock news when my grandfather would come home from work and then watch an entire lineup of shows until it was bedtime. My grandmother would watch her “stories” all day – the holy trinity of 70’s melodrama – The Young and the Restless, General Hospital, and Days of Our Lives.
In the evenings was The Rockford Files. Little House on the Prairie. Quincey. And to wrap it up, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. But it was always dark in the house, save for the glow of the television. There was a myriad of dysfunctional happenstance in that home, but one thing that stands out – the darkness. The isolation. What I now know to be severe depression and agoraphobia, but at the time seemed a willful boycott of fresh air and light.
The only time I knew my grandmother – whom I called “Gaga” – to voluntarily leave the house was for one of three things: Church, twice a week. The grocery store. And Foley’s department store salon, so she could get her bouffant hair-do done. She took me with her for those appointments, proud that I was her granddaughter. “Look at that auburn hair!” she would tell her hairdresser. And I would beam, because there was something unique about me that she was proud of.
The odd thing is that she collected bird figurines. She loved birds but could not tell you why. But later – much later – she and my grandfather changed. They didn’t just wake up one day and felt the sun on their faces by chance. They changed deliberately.
Seemingly blue, they became mall walkers. They got out every day to walk the Sharpstown Mall, wearing coordinating outfits (they went through a cowboy phase – it was Texas after all, which mortified me then, but seems adorable now,) holding hands the whole time. They started visiting interesting places, some of them outdoors. They took to eating healthy. And my grandmother’s favorite thing about being outdoors? Birdsong.
When I had my first daughter, they came to visit me. Gaga accompanied me on a diaper run. Just a casual jaunt to the store, so we could spend all the time together we could before her return to Texas. She gave me one of her ceramic birds on that visit. I’m so glad she did.
Out of the blue, she said, “You know, for most of my life, I didn’t hear the birds sing. I was too depressed to even hear it. Now I sing alongside them!”
And then she proceeded to sing a hymn, as if birds sang hymns. I guess to her, they did.
I miss my grandparents. And I also miss hearing the birds. Because recently – even when I hear them – the birdsong is muted with anxiety and worry. Yeah, yeah, yeah…it’s Spring. The birds are tweeting away. But did you know everything is messed up right now beyond repair? I have leukemia, and our country is being hijacked, and our environment is poison, and my pain level from EDS is BONKERS, and….
And, and, and.
We cling to our anxiety; at least I do. Without realizing it, I snuggle up to the Worst-Case Scenario, who – like a toxic ex – is unhelpful and mentally abusive. I know better, but I can’t help entertaining ideas of doom, doom, DOOOOOOM.
Funny, how we think sitting in the proverbial dark will hasten the light.
I’ve been doing a little isolating myself. And although the drapes are not drawn, they may as well be. The world seems so dark, so broken beyond repair. I leave the house to go to the grocery store, medical appointments, and the occasional dinner date with my husband.
But today, I sipped my coffee and deliberately listened to the birds sing, thinking of my dear grandmother and her curious collection in her China cabinet.
The bird she gave me is one of the only physical things I have to remember her by. It is chipped and the paint is faded, but it is perched on a stand that plays “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head” when you wind it up. And that’s the song she used to sing to me when I was very little. It was released by B.J. Thomas the year I was born.
“Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head. But that doesn’t mean My eyes will soon be turnin’ red, Cryin’s not for me ’cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’, Because I’m free, nothin’s worryin’ me.”
May we not lose our humanity because the world is on fire. May we deliberately seek out sunshine and mall walks and the outdoors. Out of the house, yes. But also out of the gloomy inner”indoors” cling to.
May we hear the hymns of birdsong and not count it as noise, but as a harbinger for HOPE.
It is Spring, after all, which “springs eternal,” even when we are hiding in the dark.
That is what I believed about myself, as an unplanned child. I carried the message that I was an “oopsie” for as long as I can remember. Nobody in my family outright said it, but I carried the shame as if it were by my own doing.
Once upon a time, I was s a very religious teenager, I carried my Bible to high school each day, hoping it would let everyone else know who I was – a Christian. I would not realize until much later, that Bible was a talisman to keep me safe from my peers, because I was scared of the world.
Once I was a young mother, absolutely certain that this – THIS! – was my true identity. All other things I had identified as melted away. This is it. I was a mother. I threw myself into raising my daughters with my whole heart. So, this is who I am, I thought. But I was a mother with a secret.
In a land far, far away, I had somehow also become an alcoholic. I could go through a box of wine (classy, eh?) in two days. Chardonnay was my savior, I could not function without either the promise of, or imbibing in, alcohol. I was not the mother I wanted to be for my kids, so when they were 5 and 8, I decided to get sober.
Then I came to identify as an alcoholic, albeit one in recovery. In each of the hundreds of AA meetings I attended, I would introduce myself to the group with, “Hi, my name is Jana and I’m an alcoholic.” So that was my identity too, in the early years of my recovery.
The next twenty years were a blur of trying on identities, macro and micro. I strove to be a career woman, which was a terrible fit for a person who would rather daydream and create art than push for corporate success.
I buried myself in church activates, becoming a prayer leader, a recovery coach, and a door greeter.
I was playing Identity Whack-a-Mole. Just keep moving and hitting on various things, until I hear DING DING DING! We have a winner! I’m a __________ after all!
Now, once upon a time – in a place not at all far away – I have become angry. Not angry as in a passing mood. Angry as in a whole-ass personality. I am mad all the time, since November 4th.
Every day, I worry and fret about what all of this means for the futures of my three daughters and granddaughter. Every day, I have flashbacks of being obsessed with the Book of Revelation, which I furiously studied way back in high school. Doom. Doom. DOOOOM. Anger is my least favorite emotion and the one I am poorest at.
Hi. My name is Jana, and I’m an angry woman, trying desperately to not become bitter.
And I hate that journey for me. I truly don’t want to be mad. The anger comes from a place of fear for the country I love. But even so, it is transformative in the worst of ways.
I will not get stuck here. I will one day move past anger, and I’m giving myself grace until then.
I now understand that we are all an amalgam of every experience we live. Every “identity” that makes us feel temporarily “special”, just a lily pad jump away from the next thing that will also reveal who we are. Not for us to cling to, but to learn from.
It made me feel special to be a teenaged evangelist, a mom, and even an alcoholic. Looking for ways to prove to myself that I alone – on my own merit – have worth.
And I guess I’m writing this to remind you that if you feel like a mistake; if your hardest struggles cause you to slap a label on yourself, you don’t have to cleave to it.
We are wondrously complex visitors in a place that is equal parts amazing and terrifying. A place that – as you enter and leave – erroneously insists you be labeled for safe consumption.
A society obsessed with asking “how do you identify?” lest your mark on the world be for naught, and your search for identity be rudderless.
Dear Reader, I’m glad we are on the planet at the same time, so that we can remind each other that we are not a fleeting identity, but a PERSON. A messy, floundering one, perhaps. But all the same…
Hi. My name is Jana, and I am not a mistake. I am a life-long learner, a grateful mother. I am indeed an alcoholic. I am a writer who doesn’t get paid a lick for her craft but does it anyway so the feels have somewhere to go. I’m a wife, a partner to the dearest of all to me – my husband.
I will hold doors open for people, even though I’m not a greeter at church. I will be a shoulder for the addict and alcoholic. And I will – heaven help me – learn how to manage anger in healthier ways, so I do not identify as such.
Can you tell yourself three things today, while standing in front of a mirror and probably feeling silly about it? Can you commit to affirming yourself every day with your own voice, and praising all the iterations of who you are, have been, and will be?
Just three things each day. Easy peasy.
Tell yourself one thing you love about who you were in the past. Childhood to menopause, doesn’t matter – just one good and true thing about the past version of you.
Tell yourself one thing you love about yourself right NOW. Remind yourself that the current iteration of YOU deserves to be reminded she is strong and capable. (It’s kind of a f*cked up time to be alive, but you are killing it, sister!)
Tell yourself one thing you will love about yourself in the future. What attributes do you strive for? Who is the person you want to be in a more evolved state? Be positive and believe it’s true!
I’ll go first:
I love that when I was a child, I was scrappy, and able to carry burdens to heavy for me. I am proud to have overcome the trauma. Wow – that little girl was STRONG!
I love that right now, I am the most spiritually free I’ve been in my life. God reveals himself in nature and in music, in friendships, and in the least of these. It is for freedom we have been set free, and it took me all these years to understand what that meant. Freedom is everything.
I love that in the future, I will be able to use my gifts to help others. I will practice a peace that passes understanding, and my countenance will be calm. I will forgive myself more readily, judge myself and others less harshly, and stand up for myself when I need to.
I challenge you to drag your ass to a mirror every day, look into your own eyes, and come up with three things each day.
(And don’t worry about running out of nice things to say – you’re very lovable and brave and strong. Always have been. Always will be!)
Peace be with you, Readers.
PS: Feel free to share your three things in the comments! We are all in this together.
I speak up for myself now. Well, sometimes. As long as it doesn’t rock the boat TOO much. As long as the person I have conflict with won’t stop loving me because I’m mad. Only when I’ve rolled the issue OVER and OVER I’m my brain ad nauseam and have decided I’m with a safe person. Only after I’ve played out the worst case scenario in my head, mini-grieved the possible outcomes. And after I speak my peace (because I’ve learned my peace has value, too,) I will fret and worry that I’ve upset someone. Doesn’t matter if it concerns life events or little frustrations, I speak. Even if it’s a whisper, I speak. Even though I know assertion-guilt will try to make me feel like a bad human. I’m starting – with fits and stops – to say when I’ve been hurt or bothered, even though I’ve been a people pleaser all my life. So… No, You cannot talk to me like that. Little Me had no say, but I’m re-parenting her, you see. I’m teaching her things I should have taught my daughters, and must have somehow over the years. They speak up for themselves, without fear of abandonment, because they know they’re safe. And Little Me is safe now too, finding her voice and using it.
Good morning, Reader. Well, the sun came up again. Damn if it doesn’t just keep happening. You know what that means, right? At your stations! Here we go!
It’s okay if you run to your station, but it’s also okay to inch, crawl, stagger, or be dragged, so long as you rise and report to The Universe you are present. Being present is everything.
Accept that – like Jesus – your holiness and humanity both get to seize this day. He, being 100% divine and 100% human (just like you) equipped to get through the muck. Jesus was the Prince of Peace. He was also a Tipper of Tables.
You get to respond to every new challenge in the way of your choosing. You’re not just rolling with the punches. You’re not a victim, but a participant in this miraculous, jacked-up, eternal production. I know it feels victimizing sometimes.
I am waving to you from my station this morning, hollering at you from over here, “HEY! IT’S ME, YOUR FRIEND WHO IS ALSO EXHAUSTED, BEFUDDLED, FEELING BEAT-UP, AND ANXIOUS! I’M HERE TOO.I KNOW THIS IS HARD. KEEP GOING, OKAY? YOU’RE DOING AMAZING!”
Love always starts the show and always takes the last bow. Remember that when the antagonists seem to be winning. Remember that when the plot is thicker than pea soup and it looks like the bad guys are winning.
What a time to be mentally ill, eh? Depression, anxiety, we got it ALL this year. I have not been okay for a few weeks now. This morning, I awoke and write some poetry, as the angsty of nature are apt to do, and thought I would be okay today. But instead of comforting myself as usual, it felt a little disingenuous. And in the interest of transparency, I came back here to the blogosphere to air my grievances because today I’ve already binged watched My 600 Pound Life, and some show about real-life emergency room drama, and (surprise, surprise) that is not the antidote for feeling down. You know how toddlers behave when they are so maxed out on sensory input that they just melt down? They cannot tell you if it’s because they are hungry, or tired, or the seams in their socks are off kilter. They just whine in C Minor until you could pull your hair out in frustration from trying to console them. Yeah, that’s relatable. I may look fine, but deep inside, the seams of my socks are driving me crazy. The newness of the cancer diagnosis has worn off, and instead of feeling like a stab to my spirit, it’s more of being poked with a butter knife, repeatedly and with gusto. Duller, but still stabby. Just another chronic condition on my already-full roster. My overall pain level from my other conditions this week has been nonstop, as if not to be usurped by the cancer. And I don’t care who you are, everyone has a limit. So, I am fighting the urge to just give in to it, crawl in bed and sleep, and try again tomorrow, which I reserve the right to do, because again – everyone has a limit. I’m long past pleading with God to deliver me, which depending on which denomination you follow, could be construed as a lack of faith, or a surrendering. I am going with the latter. God will not stop the coaster, but he will pull the safety harness over the both of us, riding alongside me while I scream my head off. I imagine him holding my hand as I approach every incline, telling me breathe, we can do this together! And I’m yelling stop this crazy thing! Sometimes we rejoice WHEEEEE! together, other times I feel like my stomach is going to exit my body via my throat. That feeling you have at the top, knowing the ground is all the way down there, and you are way up here I and your heart hammers out of your chest? I have felt like hornking up my stomach since the election, I’m absolutely leveled by it. But days keep coming, they keep happening. So many of my friends – family I’ve chosen for myself – are in crisis mode right now, and my empath spidey senses are all a-tingle, 24 hours a day. Breathe, I tell myself. Focus on breathing. But my thoughts wander from breath to all sorts of doomy things, my depression saying see? I TOLD you everything is awful! So I come here to write. I changed my pajamas from yesterday into a fresh pair today (you expected me to say I got dressed, like a properly undepressed person? Pish.) I pray, the click-click-click of a roller coaster going up an incline the rythm to my mantra. I say, I see you to my Big Feels and realize so many of us are feeling like toddlers melting down right now, not having the proper language to express the groanings of the spirit. Maybe we need to tear off our wonky socks and run around barefoot. Maybe I need a nap and some graham crackers. Just don’t give in to the sadness. Just don’t pick up a drink. This January, I will celebrate 24 years without a drink, and Hons, you’d better believe it’s a hard-won victory this year. Some years are easier than others, but this year has been a helluva doozy. So, all of this ranting to say – If you’re feeling low too, just know that you’re not alone. Tomorrow is indeed another day. Blessed be, fellow humans. I’ll hang on if you will. WHEEEEEE.
Who else wakes up and for a few precious seconds, thinks you must have had the most terrible nightmare, only to realize no, it’s not a horrible dream. It’s happening. And you simply cannot believe with your own brain cells that it’s actually happening, but here we are? I am using every tool in my mental health coping skills. I’m digging through my rusty 12 step recovery toolbox, flinging tools hither and yon, saying no, THAT won’t fix this….dammit this won’t either! Tools flying everywhere, all of them sort of useless but also not. It feels like needing a certain screwdriver but not having it and needing a hammer and not having that either. So, you just use the handle of the wrong screwdriver to hammer that nail in the wall to hang a picture, which isn’t even what you set out to do, but oh well! It’s a tool that did a job! It’s like that. If you got anxiety problems, I feel bad for you, son. We got 99 problems and the president-elect is definitely one. I don’t know what to do with my mind, my face, my hands. I am either doom-scrolling whilst sobbing or disassociating with cat videos – tinny laughter hanging in the air like an insult to The Cause. Disassociating with dumb TikToks of people dancing. Comedian schtick. But it’s the only way, Obi Wan. I’m throwing everything at this – faith, videos of kittens, the seeking out of comraderie with my fellow sisters. Absolute outrage. Profound sadness. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then faith again, which I always seem to land on, which pisses me off, really. How dare I have hope at a time like this? The nerve of me! But I cannot fathom that this waking nightmare has no purpose. Maybe it’s the catalyst for the groundswell that needs to happen. It needs to happen. But did it have to happen this way? See, that’s what I don’t understand. But maybe it’s bigger than our lil’ supposedly puny girl-minds can fathom. Maybe it’s too big for us to understand just yet. And If you’re reading these brain droppings here on my blog, you are probably in an unfathomable place too. If you follow me for recovery content, or homespun stories of faith, or because I am a proponent for plant medicine, or write about mental health (or lack thereof.) We may never get back to our regularly scheduled programming. This has opened chasm, fundamentally changing all of us. And it needs to. It should. We wake, and shake, and think this simulation totally sucks! But it’s not one, of course. So welcome to the resistance, which sounds melodramatic but sadly is really not. It’s just regular reality now. The Sisterhood of the Hornet’s Nest, kicking at the hive of patriarchy, since it’s been laid at our feet. You done did it now. We are all in a kerfuffle! Women all across the world are rallying behind us – a testament to the sisterhood. Blessed be, friends. May the odds be ever in our favor.
Not long ago, I was having a conversation with my husband, and he used ‘FOMO’ in a sentence about a concert we were hoping to attend. He said something to the effect of, “I know having chronic illnesses gives you FOMO at times.”
“I’m sorry, gives me what now?” I said, completely unfamiliar with the term.
“Fear of missing out,” he replied. And shitfire I was not aware there was a formal acrostic for the phenomenon, but I’ve been having FOMO for years now. Because when you struggle with debilitating health issues, the only way to not live in FOMO-mode is to not make any plans at all. Nary a one. And it’s not that bleak yet. Yet.
We are going to see The Black Crowes tonight in concert, a surprise from said husband, because they are one of my favorites. But we have missed three out of five shows we’ve bought tickets so far this year, because while it’s not that bleak yet, it’s also not that great. I get sick frequently, and the pain and fatigue are out to get me, I tell you. Of all the conspiracies floating around right now, this one has the most solid evidence. My medical team can attest to it. I fight my own body harder than anything else, at present. (What I fight – like what you fight – is subject to change, right?)
Still, my husband bought the tickets because he is hopelessly bad at giving up on me, or the things we would like to do. He is also never disappointed in me when things don’t pan out. And that’s key, because disappointing people is definitely a huge issue of FOLPILD for me – Fear of Letting People I Love Down. Also, FOBAB – Fear of Being a Burden. FOMAC – Fear of Missing a Concert. The list is endless, really.
What do all of these things have in common? Fear.
Fear is the opposite of a lot of things, not just the opposite of faith. That’s too simplistic. It stands in the way of hope, makes letting go impossible. It blocks positive energy, causes despair, and chips away at our dreams. Fear itself is a very useful tool to keep us safe – as an impetus to head for higher ground when a hurricane, for instance. But as Western North Carolina grieves and toils in the aftermath of Helene, we are in collective awareness that even the highest ground can be devastated.
Fear is a warning device, but a shitty insurance policy. It doesn’t keep anything bad from actually happening. It just trains our systems to react to opening a dreaded email like we are being chased by a bear.
So, what the do we do? Live in the confines of fear? After all, it’s there for a reason. Whether we fear or not, we are going to miss out at times. Especially as a Chronic illness patient, for whom FOMO is a constant bedfellow.
And all fear is not the same. Missing out is a first-world problem, in a world full of devastation and disaster. I know that, and have experienced the hollow, dark fear of a terminal diagnosis. The constellation of deep worries that we have for our children. I get that fear, too, and that’s a whole different animal, but just as destructive.
If we are chronically ill, we are going to let people down when we make plans we cannot keep. We will try not to be a burden, but we must cultivate a circle of safe people who understand when we have to reschedule things. I am so fortunate in this regard. My friends understand that most of the plans I make are tentative. I am not flaky, but my health is.
Of course, I cannot tweak the entire tour schedule of The Black Crowes, so today, I rest. Resting is how train for events, like in the Olympics. Okay, its nothing like the Olympics. But it might as well be. People assume resting is fun. Because most people don’t get enough of it – they are forever buzzing around and getting things done (what is that like?) so resting is their side-gig. They do it as a luxury, whereas my body completely stops functioning if I don’t spend half of my damn life in bed. It’s not fun at all. It’s not always relaxing, because the fear of missing out is legit.
And the truth is that we do miss out. On a lot. But let me tell you about a side-effect of this phenomenon. I am abundantly thankful for the occasions I make a concert or party or get to run to the grocery store and run errands like a normalsauce person. Because I GET TO, you see. Oh the glee!
The sweet victory of making it to a concert. The appreciation for running boring errands. I brag to my husband about getting errands done like some women probably brag about their career milestones. Doing physical therapy at the pool, picking up a few things from Trader Joes, AND going to the bank?? Taking a walk AND getting a haircut? *Cue theme song from “Rocky.”*
Tonight, I will fight the urge to stand on my chair and scream “HEY. EVERYBODY! I. AM. NOT. MISSING. OUT RIGHT NOW!” (I will not do that, because I cannot even stand on solid ground without injuring myself, but inwardly, I will be yelling it.)
And that’s a part of me that punches FOMO in the throat. I would not be as filled with gratitude, if I didn’t have this particular set of challenges. I am not just happy when I don’t have to miss out, I am ECSTATIC.
How ecstatic, you ask? Tent Revival ecstatic. Golden-Retriever-with-her-head-out-the-window-of-a-moving-car ecstatic. And grateful? When I can experience activity in life, I am as grateful as a Norman Rockwellian family around a Thanksgiving table. As grateful as a mid-life white woman who missed her calling as a groupie, who gets to rock out to her favorite bands and yell “WOOOOOOO!” – even if she has to sit while doing it.
Blessed be, my friends/readers. (I’m grateful for each of you, too.)
When we are young, we grasp at labels in the striving to know who the heck we are. Our identity is in finding out identity. And we glom on to our role in each life stage until it describes us to a T; until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. And when the wind changes, we are lost.
When I was a victim, I thought of myself as a victim. And the more trauma I experienced only convinced me that victimhood was my identity. Shitty things had happened to me, stacked-up evidence that I have every reason to be depressed and anxious. Who wouldn’t feel justified, coming out from under that abuse? I’m a victim here. That’s who I am.
Then, I became an alcoholic, and in recovery rooms they tell you “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic,” which is no lie. So, I said, “Oh! That’s who I am. An alcoholic.” And while there was certainly no joy about that revelation, it was better than just being a victim, at least. I did the programs, worked the steps. Really dug into recovery, because I am an alcoholic, you see. That’s who I am.
Then I became a mother, and then EUREKA! I found my identity for real! I even had a new name – “Mom.” I was obsessed with being good at it, and so my whole identity became hinged on being their Mama. Then Mommy. Then Mom. Each one of their life stages determined who I was, by virtue of who they were growing up to be. Until they were teenagers, carving out their identities, I was starting to lose my own. Children grow up, and you are left wondering, Gee…who exactly am I, apart from a mother? I’m a mother. that’s who I am.
Eventually I became a fundamentalist Christian. I would tell people that their identities are found only in God. I told people who were full of self-hatred to strive to be “less of you, and more of God.” It’s another confirmation to a hurting person that they themselves are of such little importance, God demands they become even smaller. And if they are like me, they have been trying to be empty of themselves all their lives, not realizing that the God is within them. So, for most of my adult life, being a Christian was my identity. I was on the Greeting Team, for crying out loud – me, an introvert. Being a Christian is who I am.
My husband jokes that I only like to watch TV shows with “complex” characters. Characters who don’t respond how you expected, and perhaps have a dark side. When the bottom fell out of my faith and I went through a deconstruction, I realize you don’t have to die to yourself and your human desires and interests to please God. He doesn’t turn away from our humanity.
Today, I am still those things, but the influence they have over my primary identity is nullified. The way we see ourselves is not static but flowing. I’m a survivor, rather than a victim. I’m still an alcoholic, but the stigma behind it has morphed into acceptance. I’m still a mom but relate to my children as adults now. I am still a follower of Christ but have a different relationship to him than I ever had. A better one. We never stay the same and thank God for that.
And we will never fully understand our identities in this dimension, I suspect. But maybe it’s because we are BOTH / AND a conglomeration of selves. Maybe our identity doesn’t require a label, and neither does the Universe require one. We put that pressure on ourselves. What complex, beautiful creatures we are!
We are complex characters, y’all. However we identify ourselves, we don’t always respond how you’d expect. We have a dark side. We are attributes and character defects, all rolled into one.
Blue Ridge, Smokies, Appalachians. Whatever you call them, there is wisdom and holiness in those hills. But they are haunted and hurting.
By: JANA GREENE
I didn’t mean to stay up until 3 am sobbing, but that’s what happened. Last night, I allowed myself to peek down the rabbit hole, lost my footing, and fell in. And I kept falling, no roots to grab to right myself; no way to slow my decent. And I landed in the middle of a great chasm of destruction – all the people’s evidence of life – their cars and homes and bodies, in a great mire of thick mud, devoid of hope. The Great State of North Carolina, mortally wounded, the mountains scarred by flood, human beings scarred for life. The Blue Ridge is truly blue, we are all blue right now. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth, an event as apocalyptic as a Frances Ford Coppola film, but so much worse.
So, I was up most of the night, watching coverage of the destruction in the Western part of the state. The places we have vacationed wiped off the map. But that’s just where we vacation – because it is indescribably beautiful there. Vacationers are participating in a luxury, though. Vacations are a luxury item. The families who call the mountains home and are leveled by this, they are suffering beyond what we can even imagine.
If you are reading this somewhere outside the “war zone,” you (and I) share a privilege right now.
I did what I do (I’m not sure why I do it, I’ll have to ask my therapist?) I didn’t even try to redirect my sadness. No, I dug in. I consumed news stories and footage of rescues. I listened to the stories of shell-shocked residents whose entire lives had been washed away. I read articles. Wondered why there weren’t military boots on the ground. Wondering what the F*CK is going on right now?
My hand over my mouth the whole time, trying to stifle any audible sobs, as my husband was sleeping next to me. I wanted to wake him up to grieve with me, but he has a job to do in the morning, and besides…. what could he do? My tears didn’t consult me before welling up in my eyes. It was too primal for that, too organic. Kind of sacred in a way. I needed to cry alone.
So, I did what I do this morning – sit down at a keyboard and try to unravel the tangled chain that is my mind. To tell you I’m sad, because maybe you are sad too. I’m not sure why I have to write about everything that needs processing, but here I am. My eyes are swollen, but I am safe and warm, writing this high and dry at the coast. Oh, how I wish I could share some of that highness and dryness with our mountain neighbors! How I wish this hadn’t happened at all. But while we are entertaining the absurdity of wishes…
I wish they had been warned. I wish they were alerted about the dams that would break and the levees that would give. Someone somewhere, probably with a high-paying job at the Corps of Engineers or something had to know. But this is the mountains, as far West as you can get in the state. Nobody was expecting a hurricane there. That’s kind of our thing, here at the coast. They should never have to worry about storms that materialize over oceans. But this time, they did.
I wish our government truly gave a shit. I wish vital funds – gathered from struggling taxpayers being squeezed for a chunk of every paycheck – would go directly to aid for our own citizens. I wish that instead of throwing several thousand tarps and a few million dollars to aid our friends in the path of Helene, they would funnel it directly to those suffering most. Here. In AMERICA. And while I’m wishing, I wish that the money we literally pour into other countries would go to feed hungry schoolchildren. And help struggling families here. We, the American People, can scarcely afford groceries these days. Our backs are against the wall. And we are making it rain money in a grand, global gestures to win us points on the world stage. All the while, “Rome” burns.
I am just one middle-aged housewife in North Carolina, writing with puffy eyes and a lurching heart to try and make sense of this. But there is no sense to be made. What good does it do to go down the “rabbit hole?” Why not just go about our business, maybe write a check to a relief agency, and shrug, “Oh well, what can I do?”
You see, rabbit holes get a bad rep. The term alludes to Alice in Wonderland, and the crazy-ass chain of events she set off my falling into one. She didn’t jump into it. She fell. I think that’s an important distinction.
And I think maybe everyone in America should allow themselves to dip a toe in the Hurricane Helene rabbit hole. Because people are not understanding the magnitude of the destruction they see in 15 second YouTube videos, or worse – the “news.”
Entire families were lost. Bodies – those family members now tangled in the debris – are everywhere. As of this writing, over a thousand people are still missing. Why is this important to know? Because of our humanity, and the way it is slipping downriver, like so much floodwater. I turned on the national news. A few snippets of milder images, some anchor droning on, confirming that yep, it’s awful. The global news? It barely broke the surface. The storm was last week, several news cycles have lapsed since. It’s old news.
Except that it isn’t. And like Alice in Wonderland learned, we are all mad here. How else to explain the government’s reaction to this tragedy? Madness.
I do not regret my deep dive that kept me up all night. It felt like my tears were somehow paying homage to the lost and the despondent. A prayer behind every single one. Not in words, but in groanings of the spirit. Great, heaving groans that sound like a house being sucked from its foundation. Groanings that only God can translate.
Because I had no words, aside from what I am writing this morning. The people don’t need armchair philosophers. I don’t know why things like this happen. But I do know that there are spiritual laws. And I am responsible to share my experience with you, Readers. We are ALL responsible to share our experiences, and to spread awareness of the dire, Armageddon-esque happenings right here in “The Greatest Country in the World” (Pshawww! Alas, that’s a blog post for another day.)
Father, Father God. Loving Mother Universe. Sweet Holy Spirit. The collective soul of all humanity. Please help us. Grab us by the hand as we are falling, falling into the hole. Give us discernment to know how we can best help. As our hearts grieve, we cannot imagine the grievings of our western brothers and sisters. Let us never turn a blind eye to suffering. Let us never come to the conclusion, “Oh well. What can we do?” Increase our awareness of fellow humans who are hurting. Comfort for whom great loss has become their new reality. Help us to be your hands, feet, and mouthpiece.
You guys could be reading any of a million things right now. Instead, you are here – voluntarily reading a blog. But blogs fell out of fashion at least ten years ago. Nobody reads blogs anymore, I’m told. So go on, GIT! (I’m just kidding, I love my readers and am extremely grateful for each of you.)
I am not commercially successful as a writer, by any stretch. But I love to play in a wide sky of words, reaching up and plucking the right ones out of the ethers, matching them with other words just waiting to be paired.
I’ll never forget that years ago, an acquaintance called me a “prolific writer.” Lawd, I was so flattering. Prolific! That sounds even better than “she writes real good.” Only it doesn’t mean “she writes real good.” It means I write a lot – some might say too much. It means my OCD manifests on pages and keystrokes. The dictionary says it means “an artist or author who produces many works.” And I produce many. Since the age of sixteen, I have used the written word to try to pound out my destiny, not realizing that I was really just pounding out my feelings. Any time I feel a certain way, I’ve written. And the truth is that I sometimes don’t know how I feel until I process my feelings through writing.
And the #1 reason writers write is to give the mindf*ckery a ticket out of our brains. Sometimes it takes the ticket and we feel resolution. Other times, it takes a seat and laughs at our efforts to rid ourselves of….well, ourselves. And it carries in another heavy box of anxieties, and dumps it at our feet, all while keeping eye contact. Bastard.
I had no idea how people could process their emotions without writing about them, because they tell you how to process them, if you listen. Recently, I stumbled across the journals I kept in high school and in my early 20’s. It made me say BLESS HER HEART (her being the me of my youth.) Pages upon pages of hand-wringing over the state of my dysfunctional family, and how I somehow felt responsible. Which in hindsight was silly. I was a kid, a child. And there are reams and reams of crying out to God (I can now imagine him now whispering, enough already!) to forgive me of my sins. To counteract my wretchedness. To save my sinning heart.
Now, I was a responsible teenager. I had to be. What in tarnation did I beg forgiveness for? I was chaste and virginal, read my Bible daily, felt guilty about how much time I thought about boys, and maybe if I prayed hard enough, I could be more like Jesus, and my world would right itself. The onus was on me to become holy, and I thought I’d never attain holiness, though I tried through weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Only here’s the truth, which would have made me scream “HERETIC!” The onus is not on us. I was already holy. I didn’t have to audition for a part in God’s family. I didn’t have to freak out because I noticed the guy in front of me in algebra had a cute butt and I would ask God (as a bonus) to make him have to sharpen his pencil at the front of the class so I could see it in motion. Now I imagine God chuckling about that. At the time, I imagined him shaking his great head, face in hands, then stroking his beard, agonizing “This kid. This heathen kid. She’s in for a long journey.” (And he would be right about that.)
In the coming days, perhaps I will share some excerpts from one of the literal volumes I wrote in my youth. As an exercise in healing. In an act of offering up to God my words from a different vantage point. God and I can read it and weep, together. Because holy cow. I showed myself exactly ZERO grace in all those years. And that’s too bad. I want to remedy that.
I have a friend who burned her old journals, and I have thought about it. They do have nice fabric covers, as was befitting a journal set in 1984-1990. Fabric covered books were it-on-a-stick in the 80’s. I’m sure they would burn clean. I’m just not ready to obliterate the words of my younger self. Because just as I am teaching her things today, she has a lot to teach me too. I need to read what she had to say so that I can comfort her trauma and validate her fear. She was so afraid.
So, I’ll keep on writing prolifically, if not well. Maybe share some tidbits from those journals – the beggings, the uncertainty, the desperation. In sharing my unpretty feelings, maybe someone else in the throes of uncertainty and desperation see that they too can come out the other side.
The written page (or screen) is a processing plant, and I – in my hard hat – labor at a keyboard, to try to determine how I feel about any given joy or trauma. So oftentimes when I am weary, the words tuck me in for the night. After I’ve written, I can almost hear a prompt to rest now, you’ve done all that you can do. You’ve written about it, and so now it’s been acknowledged.
Because everyone likes to be acknowledged, and if need be, written about prolifically.
Well, it’s been two months since The Diagnosis darkened my door.
The Diagnosis is capitalized, in case you’re wondering, because it’s a proper noun. A name. An entity. An alternative to the “C” word, cancer. Just now, I am still grieving the loss of one of my dearest friends to cancer. People I love very much are fighting it right this minute.
In the last ten months, it has come to call in ways far too intimate for my liking. And I guess I’m mad about it. Because yesterday, I went to therapy. I needed it. I always need it.
The session went well, and I even boasted that I have accepted it now, as if accepting something like that is a one-time deal. Like a harvest moon in eclipse. Or getting “saved” at church.
I should have known better, given my spiritual history. Because once was not enough saving for me at church, and I’d go up to the altar every time there was a call. Week after week, I would try to resolve that tiny piece of doubting, stuck in my soul like a piece of spinach you can’t get out of your teeth after lunch. I was a junkie for getting saved, even though they kept telling me it was a one-time event, no necessary to repeat at every tent revival.
And I suppose there is one tiny piece of me still that vacillates between Ascended Zen Master (as if!), Grandmother Willow-level wisdom (again, ha!), weeping Victorian mourner (I am faint with the swooning!), and crazed badger.
Because I rage-cleaned my shower yesterday, after an already full day of getting things done, after a day that my body implored me to wrap it up already. I decided that I could scrub the entire shower, even though I nearly dislocated my shoulder by putting on my seat belt earlier. Wise Grandmother Willow I am not. And this after telling my therapist (and believing it,) that I’m handling The Diagnosis well now, it’s old hat. Just another chronic condition to manage. That old chestnut! It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. Anger is in the rear-view mirror, I guess! Bye, Felicia! Fast forward a couple of hours; I am home alone with my feelings.
Could a cancer patient do THIS?? *scrub* *scrub* *scrub* for a solid hour. The answer is yes, she can. But she really shouldn’t. At some point, I started crying without realizing it. I was literally awash in water, soap, tears, and snot. Out, damn spot!
The question is: Could a cancer patient do rest? With multiple chronic conditions and zero Zen Master skills? Can she listen to her body without shutting it down for being too high maintenance?
Can she, without constantly cracking a joke about it, let anger have its say about this? Anger, my least favorite of all emotions; the one I suck at expressing the most? Can I accept that it’s a little like getting saved – you think you are, but what about this sin or that that I may have committed? I’d better make sure. And I reckon The Diagnosis deserves the same courtesy of expression that I believed would keep me from burning for all eternity. Oh, you thought you were saved? Better make sure.
Oh, you thought you were done being angry? BETTER MAKE SURE. Better scream into a pillow again. Better listen to some gangsta rap to calm down. Better pray, step up to the altar – that place in myself where God has taken up residence. I don’t have to go far to encounter him.
Better not deny those feelings, because they have every right to be here. The Diagnosis invited them. Maybe I have to entertain them in order to usher them out? I don’t know. I’ve never done any of this before, and like most things my neurosis tries to sell me, I feel like I’m doing it wrong.
But at least my shower is squeaky clean.
Blessed be, friends. Thanks for following my journey.
Can we talk honestly about denial in the name of religion?
For most of my marriage, I have unintentionally masked. I told my husband everything, but not everything. Not intentionally by sin of omission, but because I couldn’t – I had stuffed it so far up my own ass for survival’s sake, I had built up a memory meltdown. Let’s just move forward. But you can’t move forward until you switch the gearshift from reverse. Otherwise, it’s just idling.
And it worked, for many years. If I was upset, I’d stuff it. Or banished it in the name of JESUS. Traumatic memory would surface, but I would rebut it with but you’re happy NOW. And to be honest, if some of it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe it. It’s a got-damn wonder I am not locked away somewhere to protect me from myself, much less sober.
One of the reasons I am estranged from members of my family of origin is that they know. They know, they remember, and so long as there is distance, they don’t have to make amends. I have accepted that they can’t. I only write about the least violent incidents. I polish it up pretty nicely. I am not saying all that I could say, I promise you that. My intention is not to make anyone uncomfortable, but if it does, maybe it should. I am writing this transparently because I know so many, many souls are walking wounded here, being told that their trauma has been Houdini-ed in the name of Jesus, but still feeling bereft.
But I will admit I remain damaged, and that is okay. It all took a toll. How silly to expect growing up in an environment of daily screaming, physical violence – and indeed the worst thing that can be done to a little girl – is expected to be taped over by some of the laughs and good times, like an unfortunate VHS performance. That’s what a lot of people won’t tell you about growing up in an abusive home. There were good times too. I suppose they are supposed to override the bad? But the bad was bad, and it’s stuck in my gray matter, petrifying until solid, since childhood. I was steeped in it.
I dealt with it by Denial by Religion and Busyness. I engrossed myself in ALLTHETHINGS, all the distractions, the past 20 years. Raising three teenagers. Battling a chronic, as-of-then undiagnosed illness. Pretending to give a rat’s ass about my “career” – ANY “career.” Launching two city-wide recovery programs. Getting Recovery Coach Certification.
Need a greeter at the church? OKAY! Need a prayer person to pray with people crushed by their own abuse and pain? I’m ON IT. Fuck my own damage, let me weave sincere and elaborate prayers for the hurting. God is good. Amen?
I was getting up early every day to have coffee with Jesus and Joyce Meyer. Just feels like the devil is stompin’ me when I miss Joyce! I would say (and sincerely mean it.) Later, be the best wife, because you have the best husband. Your marriage is proof that miracles still happen. Don’t fuck it up with your trauma and neediness! Be the best friend, mother, warrior, Bible-reader. Smile, even though the physical pain is searing. Smile, even though you have unresolved trauma like some people have freckles. It’s all in your head anyway, you’re crazy. (It’s all in your head may be the gaslightiest self-gaslight of them all.)
I mentored the crap out of anybody with a heart-wound in those years. And for that, I am not sorry. Everyone broke my heart. Everybody got a little piece of me. Every ounce of trauma was healed in the NAME OF JESUS, AMEN?! God gave me permission to stuff it, what with all the Christian counseling I’d gotten that taught me to “pray it out!” It’s been CAST OUT, as far as the EAST from the WEST! God’s ways are not our ways, brethren.
In other words, GET OVER IT.
So, the trauma sat. Because whether by flaw of character or complete ignorance, I couldn’t seem to get over it. It took residence in my body, every tissue marked by it.
In all of us lives a whole preschool of children. Not in a multiple personality way, but layered like a cake of a hundred of layers. As many layers as went into our development, as many memories went into the batter at that time. We live in the frosting – the Present – but we sit upon years of joys and sorrows, expectations and traumas. Without it, there is no reason for the frosting. But frosting is no good all on its own.
My inner 4-year old’s pain hasn’t been cast out – ironically, because she had been cast out all her little life. Just try telling your 4-year-old that memories aren’t ghosts, and POOF! they are all gone because words were said over her, named and claimed. That’s not fair to her.
Joyce Mayer’s loud, booming voice frightens her. The Lord comforts her, but not in a magical instant as advertised. She used to hide in her toybox, when things got loud at home. The lid to the box slowly lifting with a great creak, and a hand of assistance is offered. It isn’t a “one and done” experience, though – that lifting. Every day, she hides in her toybox to some degree, and every day, the lid is lifted, the sun pours in, and a hand is offered. So, I, in my 4-year-old wisdom, take the hand again and again, and sometimes, that is what grace looks like – what miracles look like. We want out of the toybox altogether, but we do it by taking the hand every day, even when things are scary.
Getting the chance to nurture her with the help of The Greatest Therapist of All Time (PERIOT!) is an honor and privilege. I hope to hear out all the past versions of Me, with a little more compassion now. And I am writing raw for the first time, instead of just idling.
This isn’t the funniest season of my life, that’s for sure. So my writing hasn’t been the comedy-filled yukk-fest I’d hoped it would be. It’s been absolute clown shoes for a while now, but not in a mirth-making way.
When I decided to start this blog, instead of totally rehabbing my old blog, I did it for reasons that might seem obscure to some. The truth is that I wanted to write more humor; humor about everyday life that perhaps the 2014 version of myself might find in poor taste. I’m kind of into poor taste right now, to be honest.
I wanted to write about being a follower of Christ from here, not from there. I have been “there” most of my entire life, but in this new place, there is curiosity. Questioning. Observing. Laughing. And most of all the thing I’d tried to write about for twenty years but didn’t fully grasp: Grace.
Especially grace toward myself, can I get an AMEN?
“Wouldn’t it be easier to switch up thebeggarsbakery.com, where you have nearly 2,000 followers?” said my husband, who is right-brained and makes actual sense. It can be frustrating to explain total nonsense to a sensical person, because they have logic on their side, and all I have is a handful of glitter and some unrealistic expectations.
“I have new things to say,” said I.
“I know. You’ve just worked so hard to gain your following.”
“And I won’t ‘build my career?” I say. We laugh, because I am not career-driven. I have no competitive nature, absolutely no “drive” or “hustle.” No calling higher than sharing my mind and welcoming the sharings of others’. It’s a crappy career path, but a fulfilling endeavor.
When I was a kid, longing to be a proper writer, I believed I would make a living by writing, which is totes hilar, as my kids used to say. My 10th grade Journalism teacher, Ms. Flowers, wrote in my yearbook, “See you on the Johnny Carson Show one day!”
What an amazing compliment! I hugged the words of that prophesy close to my chest, choking the life into it. I carried it everywhere I went and still do.
Now I know that reference is lost on several generations, but if you are Gen X, that is prime adulation. That’s the pièce de résistance of success. Only the most amazing writers were interviewed by Johnny Carson. Stephen King! Danielle Steel! JUDY BLUME!
As compliment like that from a Journalism teacher? That’s like saying, ‘You’ll win the writing Olympics, Kid!’
Spoiler alert: I did not win the Writing Olympics, because that’s not a thing.
When in my 20’s, I wrote for a small, local paper, crafting community news pieces for 5 cents per word. Do you know how many 5-cent words you must write to put your kid through dance class as a single mom? Or even spring for a few Happy Meals? Many. SO many words.
I then wrote community news for the newspaper in my little city. I was paid the stately sum of $12.50 an hour. This – the pinnacle of my earning – ensured that I made exactly enough every month to contribute one-third of the mortgage payment each month.”
But hold up, y’all. Because THEN, a major magazine (it was 2016, magazines were still a thing; stay with me here) happened across a Beggar’s Bakery blog post I’d written about addiction, and asked if they could pick it up for their issue next month?”
HOLY SHITBALLS, BATMAN! Yes of COURSE you can! Send over the contract! Hurry up before you change your mind, In Recovery Magazine!
The contract was for zero dollars, ya’ll.
But think of the exposure! That’s what they told me. The EXPOSURE!
Now, exposure means you’ll be compensated for your talent, just not today. It means, we see you, Boo….but maybe the next publisher will see you and pay you!But probably not, to be honest, you’ll be a pauper if you try to survive on writing. The odds aren’t really in your favor. But thanks for the free work!
I self-published a couple of little books after that, which ended up costing me hundreds of dollars and making me none. I poured my soul into the first book, my little evangelical soul. I gave countless copies away.
I spoke on recovery in front of large groups of people, which I hated. I know they said the Lord wants me to “stretch” and “grow,” and that public speaking was another way to share the gospel, but I did it with bile rising in my throat and a hankering for a Xanax to get through speaking on recovery.
I now know that God “growing” me by torture is not his bag. But when giving my testimony, I could never wing it. I carefully wrote out every word and read it with all the passion of a kid reading a term paper about state capitals. Not because I wasn’t passionate about it, but because I’m better at bleeding my words than reading my words. Please look away, people. The vulnerability is making me so naked up here.
But see, I’m a prolific writer, if not a successful one. Doesn’t that sound impressive? PROLIFIC. But “prolific” really just means that I write A LOT. Obsessive-compulsively, some might say. Stephen King is a prolific writer. But so is the guy off his meds driven to write a hundred-page manifesto because he is on a mission. “Driven” can mean lots of things!
To me, it means that if I don’t find a home for my thoughts outside of my brain, they’ll stage a coup, and I will be prolifically in a fetal position forever and ever, amen. Since I could hold a crayon, the page has done nicely. It rolls out like a red carpet, welcomes my words, and rehomes the scary ones.
So anyway, thanks for reading my work. Because it affords me connection – with you guys and with myself – and with whatever sanity I have left. Life got heavier with the diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia in June. I haven’t really yukk-yukked it up in my blog posts lately. But don’t worry, I majored in Writing for Free, but I minored in Gallows Humor. So, I’ll get there.
In a way, pain and cancer and struggle and anxiety are all surmountable, because a kind teacher told my 16-year-old self that she’d be on Johnny Carson one day. Ms. Flowers would want me to write honest and raw. Prolifically. Imagine that. Kind words have power.
In conclusion, life has been humbling. Would you agree? Humbling and not at all what the travel guide promised. But still full of surprises, blessings, and BS.
I hope your dreams land you at the pinnacle of your happiness, hustle be damned. There are more ways than one to “make a living.”
A couple of months ago, when I was young and full of hope, I mentioned that I was going to try to write a little something here every day. Yesterday, I did not, because I used most of my energy decorating for my daughter’s family birthday party. I really felt bad about myself for not writing. Not because it’s writing – but because it is a thing I fizzled out on.
I fizzle out on a lot of things, but it turns out that today – after blowing up a scadzillion balloons – all my “hot air” has not all been relegated to party festivities. So even though I didn’t write yesterday, here is today’s post.
I am very good at two endeavors: Starting things and losing interest in things. Now you’d think a substantial bit of time would have to be passed between those two, but not for me. I can lose interest almost instantly. Not people, mind you. People I love for life. But just about everything else? MEH.
I won’t half-ass the starting of things, of course. I go in whole hog, as we say here in the South. For example, when I took up yoga, I swore I would make it a consistent practice. Two weeks later, I subluxed a hip trying to do a downward dog and had to quit. And I can’t really blame the injury, I was already getting bored.
I have done this with crafts, business ideas, dieting, religion. Unrealistically saying to The Thing, “you better fix my whole damn life.” And out of ignorance or denial – I’m not sure which – I will low-key believe that ridiculous shit.
The problem is that I come at The Thing with both barrels blazing, shooting until I’m out of ammo, click click click that trigger anyway, until I collapse on the floor and tell myself, you can’t even shoot right. Lather, rinse, repeat with every hobby, jobby, or political lobby, until it holds absolutely no interest to me.
The Thing will be the antidote to life. The Thing is going to be so fulfilling, I will forget that I’m neurotic and flaky and stand triumphant for once on the monument to my completed task! The Thing is going to save/help/make me worth the air I breathe.
Holy shit. I am expecting The Thing to dole out my worthiness. That’s too big a job for yoga. That’s too big a job for me. It’s too big a job for anyone but God.
Perhaps, for example, The Thing is not writing; it’s the joy and pain expressed in the writing. It’s the purging, sharing, heartache and laughter.
The Kingdom of God lives within us. We cannot find it anywhere else. We cannot summon it. We cannot find it IN anything else. It can’t be imported, exported, structured, organized, or unfulfilled. It exists in energy so divine; the glorified hustle has to take a seat.
Perhaps “going inward” is the only consistent practice we require to find The Thing. And if the venue of my spirit is good enough to house God, I guess it’s good enough for me…wild and unfocused as it may be!
There is no consequence to not tweezing your brows even though you can see two errant hairs close up when you look in a magnified mirror.
Your family will not fall apart if you have leftovers three days in a row.
If you wash whites and colors together, nobody has to know. Nobody. Will. Know.
A three-hour trash TV marathon is good therapy.
A nice, well-timed depression nap can make all things new.
Your kids can eat an all-beige diet for all their preschool years and be fine (Flintstone Chewable’s cover a multitude of nutritional sins.)
Listening to really good, really loud music is CHURCH.
Staring off into space for extended periods of time is not a waste of it.
Holding hands is not just for children.
Don’t forget to lollygag and dilly-dally on the regular.
Store-bought is fine, if you can’t make your own serotonin and dopamine.
Paper plates are a mom’s best friend.
Animals are kind of superior to (a lot of) humans.
Remember that “no” is a complete sentence.
Cut ties with people who make you feel less-than important. Or LESS THAN, period.
Buy the concert tickets. You’ll almost never be sorry.
Not a single soul on this planet is better than you. Straighten your crown. You deserve to be wearing it.
Straighten your sister’s crown too, and remind her she’s a queen.
Hit the meeting. (If you know, you know.)
Be sloppily thankful for blessings, and ardently prayerful for troubles.
Shave your legs. Or don’t. No one cares.
Tomorrow is a fine day to start what you put off starting today.
Write the words, paint the picture, sing loud and badly, laugh until you pee yourself a little. And then laugh again.
And remember you are hurtling through space in a big, blue marble through an infinite, ever-expanding universe, and you yourself are made out of stardust and moxie for the express purpose of learning to love and be loved.
It has easily been the longest summer in my entire life. Punctuated by triggers and glimmers and rolling thunder, it rains almost every afternoon. The day will be sunshiny (albeit, hot!) and from a great distance, you will hear the thunder.
At first, you wonder if the noise was a motorcycle or a garbage truck in the neighborhood over. But if you listen closely, there is the thunder cadence – a low vibration awakened, that you feel in your chest before your ears can confirm its source. And then the building growl roiling over the clouds: Yep, that’s thunder. Again. Here we go.
Nobody wants thunder at the beach. Thunder is a rude affront to the vacationers. It means get out of the pool, pack up your sand buckets. Might as well eat lunch out; the beach requires flexibility. But everyone has the same idea, so every restaurant is crowded and has an annoying wait. The kids are whiny, there’s sand in unmentionable places, you just want your ass in a beach chair, your kids in the pool and out of your hair, and BY DAMN you’re going to enjoy this experience in spite of the thunder and rain. All of this started with a little thunder.
When I received the diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia on June 13, when the summer was still fat with promise and completely benign. A lot of people freshly diagnosed with cancer describe the new diagnosis as a kind of hurried chaos. “For a while, it was a blur,” is a common sentiment.
But for me, it has not been a blur. It has been a sloth racing a snail and losing. It has been much pacing through my house, wandering aimlessly. It has been too much time on my hands, angry outbursts, crying seshes, and doomscrolling. I am wishing time away, and then chastising myself for wishing time away.
Because I could have 20 years with this cancer, although that’s the exception. I could also have five. Talking openly about the possibilities is therapeutic for me but makes everyone else uncomfortable. I’m not trying to make anyone else uncomfortable, but I’m trying to accept that we all have an expiration date, and if nothing else gets me first, this cancer will. That’s not fatalistic. That’s realistic. Cancer is not the only chronic health issue I deal with, but it’s a doozy.
Nobody wants thunder at the beach. But every day it comes – the realization- a rude affront to all the plans I’ve made for my life. The doctor’s visits mean crowded rooms where people wait, annoyed. I really just want my ass in a beach chair. Summertime means a season of heat and rain, that’s just the nature of the season.
And it occurs to me today that its exactly what depression feels like. I’ll be swimming with my floaties on under clear skies, when I will feel the rumble in my chest. At first, its mostly vibration, but by the time it’s all said and done, there are torrential tears and terrifying cracks of doom. They show up every day, like clockwork, suffocating me with humidity, impossible to ignore.
So, I write. And that helps. I talk to people I love and to the GTOAT (Greatest Therapist of All Time,) and that helps too. I listen to music loud enough to drown out the claps of thunder, and throw paint on a canvas, or fitfully meditate. The practice doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be practiced. But Jesus help me.
Please help me with the episodic depression that pops my floaties and sucks me under as soon as I hear thunder. Expect it to visit at least once a day. I can hide like a frightened animal in a storm or do a little rain dance; that’s entirely up to me – triggers, glimmers, and rolling thunder – all. Help me to accept that it’s just the nature of the season, and to keep my joy, all while realizing yep, that’s thunderagain.Here we go…
Words by Jana Greene 