And that's how it's done people, total control.

I want applause.  I deserve it.  

This morning at Tim Hortons I stood patiently in line behind two women.  One advanced to the counter on the right leaving me and another woman in line.  In strode a woman who appeared to be about 55 years old, maybe older.  She looked at me straight in the eye and went directly to the counter on the left and began ordering.  

After I came to from blacking out I said loudly, "uhhhhmm excuse me?"

She looked me in the eye again and said “yes?", very sarcastically, then turned her back to those of us in line and her attention back to ordering.  

Okay maybe I missed something I thought.  Maybe my blacking out didn't get her attention and alert her to the fact there was two women waiting in line.  Maybe this wasn't clear.  "Try again Nicolle, stop being so dramatic", I said to myself in my now barely conscious brain.  "Get a grip gurl", I thought in judgement about my own temper.  

Trying again, maintaining Canadian politeness, I said, "pardon me but there is a line".

She replied with, "I KNOW, I saw that".

Damned if I didn't black out again.  The floors in there are not clean for the record.  

"We are waiting in line", I said louder pointing furiously and frantically at myself and the woman ahead of me who, lucky for her, was advancing to the other service counter but not before tossing me back a look that said clearly, "I am as stunned as you are". 

"I have someone waiting", said Miss Line Bud'der gesturing outside angrily. 

And I snapped.

"I don't care if Jesus himself is waiting for you, you GET IN LINE like the rest of us", I said.

The Tim Hortons employee then spoke up and said to her, "ma'am I cannot serve you until I have served this woman first".

AND Mrs. Bud'der then said, (*breathe*), OMG she actually said, "FINE, serve her then!" pointing at me aggressively.  

I think there is an outline on the floor where I passed out for the third time. 

It took every ounce of my strength to approach the counter and order my coffee as I stood within inches of the woman.  Who, by the way, refused to move aside so I could comfortably order and pay.  I had to step around her to get my coffee.  By this time the entire store was staring and most of them were shaking their heads in total amazement at what they were seeing.  Looking back I think they were amazed I hadn't killed her.  

Standing amongst these customers was a woman with her young son (I assume), probably 10 years old.  I looked at the mother and stammered, "I am totally stunned, I can't.....I don’t….unbelievable".  She shook her head and smiled almost forgivingly at me for this woman's behaviour.  Then I looked at the little guy with a smile and said, "not one swear word kid, NOT ONE".....and I high fived him followed by, "YAY ME!" 

I walked out pretty proud of myself.  

In all honesty, I might have curled into the fetal position in my car for a few minutes to prevent myself from following the woman home.  But still, "yay me!"  $87,352 in a lifetime of therapy costs at work folks.  

Movement, lube and M&Ms. Curious?

I wrote this a few months ago.  Correlation yes.  Insightful, certainly.

"I screwed up my shoulder a couple of weeks ago when I took a header in my garage.  When added to my existing back issues, and my noodle being askew, well I have just been miserable.  It's all on the mend, it just takes time".  

It took two weeks to recover.  I was miserable.  

Now insert here from about a month ago. 

"I tried a work out that was a little outside my reach and went for it balls to the wall, all in, and hurt my back".  

It took a week to recover.  I was miserable. 

And finally, insert here from last week.  "I weeded my parents yard and my back did surprisingly well.  Then the bed broke (long story) and I had to sleep on the couch.  Thereby aggravating my back".
  
It's taken a few days to recover.  I've been miserable.


The good news here is the recovery time!  See it shrinking?  Cause I do.  I am good with finding the silver lining.  

The common denominator was misery. 

The pain was making me feel miserable but so was the lack of movement.  In fact, I think they were equal in their misery creation.  I haven't worked out, a real workout, since I got home a few days ago and I can feel the misery climbing.   
  
I know that not exercising perpetuates "my issues".  My body isn't getting "oil" as I like to say.  Movement lubricates the joints.  My mind isn't getting the much needed endorphins.  When I was in a mental health facility in 2014, movement was part of the daily schedule.  There were classes you were required to participate in.  There is a reason for that.  

Like me, you probably find yourself saying, "I can't, I hurt too much.  I am too sore and miserable".  And to that I say this (hang on to something); 

I have a bone spur, tendonitis, and bursitis in my right shoulder.  My pelvic bone is badly rotated to the right and forward.  My SI joint barely moves.  My hip and femur aren't lined up well (whatever that means).  Plus the area is hyperextended so I can stretch until the cows come home and get little to no release.  Which also means I have no stability there.  All of this causes pain.  I have an L5 S1 disc herniation and bulging discs above and below that.  I have sciatic nerve pain down the right leg and that leg is almost always cramped.  My reflexes aren't as fast in the injured leg even though it's the dominant leg.  So I fall, a lot.  See the aforementioned "header in the garage".  I have had both of these injuries, the back and shoulder, since I was in an accident when I was 17.  I go to an Osteopath weekly.

I have been battling with mental illness since I was young.  I can't remember a time where my emotions were not an "issue".  My moods change rapidly, sometimes due to my environment and sometimes for no other reason than my mind is wired that way.  I go to a psychologist weekly.  

I have menopause.  As with most women, I've gained weight because of it.  Helping nothing.  And I have multiple hot flashes a day because of "the change".  So not only am I a big girl now but I sweat like a large farm animal lounging in the desert in Mexico...in August.  In all honesty, getting my sweat on is the last thing I want to do.  Shit, sweating any more than I already do is not what I want to encourage this body to do. 

*whew*  That was a mouthful.  If anyone has reason to just stay the fuck in bed it's me.  

And yet that said, without a doubt, movement makes me feel better.  Pretty much every one of the issues listed above gets better with movement.  Please understand that I am not preaching ultimate fitness, diet, or anything even remotely close to that.  And I am not lecturing.  I don't begin to know your circumstances.  I haven't walked in your shoes.  I don't know you, or your story.   

All I can say is for me, movement is key.  It's a distraction on a bad day.  It releases endorphins in my brain which makes the mental illness symptoms ease up a bit.  It lubricates my joints making them feel better.   

Are you sure a nice walk wouldn't help?  Would it hurt to try?  As much as I hate myself for saying it, I highly recommend it.  I’d rather be eating M&Ms, trust me.  Sometimes, I do both.

Drier than the desert down there

In 2014 I had a hysterectomy removing my uterus, my ovaries and my cervix.  As a result I went into immediate menopause.  

Yes, male people, I am talking about this.  Because I need to.  Women need to talk about this shit more not less.  Okay yes, we need to talk about all our stuff, all the time, but you should be used to this by now no?

Menopause means basically means that I now gain weight by simply looking at food.  I just looked at a mini M&Ms bag and gained half a pound.  Now when I look in the mirror I see only this stomach split down the middle by a ragged scar from navel to pubic bone.  Each side sagging just a little as my skin ages.  It only serves to remind me that my reproductive times have passed.  I am 46 so I think the parts would have fallen out by now but still.  No one needs constant reminding.

I have hot flashes that make my skin feel like it's on fire.  Sometimes it's just in my face and it flushes so red that people ask me if I am okay.  My face becomes hot to the touch, like it's actually burning from the inside out.  Sometimes the hot flash attacks my entire body.  I can feel every single pore heat up, individually, one by one. I can feel them heat up and then break into a sweat.  It makes me feel nauseous sometimes it's so overwhelming.  My head spins a little as the heat climbs from my toes to my head.  

I am a bigger girl.  When a hot flash comes and my face gets red and I sweat uncontrollably, there's nothing pretty about it. There it is, that negative self talk.  How must this big sweaty girl look to the outside world? I imagine, "oh look, the fat girl over did it.  Poor thing, look at her."  I don't think people see that I am not winded, or over doing it.  I am just standing there.  It comes out of nowhere.  I exercise every other day religiously (mostly to help with these flashes) and I can sweat less on the treadmill at a light run than just standing in line at the grocery store.  

My sleep has always been erratic at best.  I had my first sleep study in my 30s.  But with menopause?  When I go to sleep, which I can only do now with medication, I am usually awake within 3 hours.  Often when I get an hour or two of solid sleep time, my body decides that is far too much and wakes me up with a hot flash.  I wake up soaked, head to toe.  Simply drenched.  So much so that when I get up to change my pyjamas I can see the cartoon outline of my body in the sheets in sweat.  I do laundry every day basically.  

My bed now has two comforters on it.  One for me, one for my husband.  I throw mine off every other minute all night long.  When you sweat it's because your body is trying to cool you down from being too hot.  *throws comforter on the floor*  Then, when the hot flash passes, you are basically damp all over and you get a chill.  *angrily rips comforter off the floor*.  I used to do this with only the one comforter shared between my husband and I.  End result?  Two matching comforters.  It was cheaper than divorce.  

I have to have a portable fan with me, basically everywhere. I can only keep the house so cold before everyone complains.  It's not uncommon for me to look over at my husband and find him curled under a blanket (or 3), in his winter ski jacket, and toque.  I won't change the temperature though because he has more clothes.  I can only remove so many layers of clothing and skin.  It's become very obvious that only the dog and I like it colder than 20 degrees celsius (68 fahrenheit).  At Christmas time, with company requiring a higher temperature (they are guests after all), the fireplace going, the candles lit and the oven on, I basically sit outside in the snow....in my underwear.  

I don't know if it's because of the surgery or just the menopause but I now urinate a bit for the following reasons:

- coughing.
- sneezing.
- running.
- aerobics of any kind really.
- stretching too far (or reaching for anything).
- laughing.
- crying.
- sitting.
- standing.
- and my favourite, for doing nothing...at all.

The fact that we go from needing Tampons and feminine napkins monthly, to Poise and Depends all the time, is one sick fucking joke and I am NOT laughing.

But the best symptom of menopause?   The drying up of one's vagina.  There are fucking tumbleweeds rolling around down there.  I wet piss myself all day long but when I want to have sex, nothing.  I could make out with George Clooney for half a day, but when the time comes, nothing.  

"Hang on a sec' George". 

*opens nightstand drawer*  
*grabs lube*  
*snaps cap open*  
*squirt*  
*rub*

"Okay, I am feeling sexy now, let's do this".

I am sure over time I will adjust and feel like a woman again but right now, I just want to bitch my face off as menopause apparently deems it so.  

*sigh*

*piddles*

DAMN IT. 

Guns

I come from a gun loving family.  Yep, you read that correctly.  My entire life there have been guns around me.  I have personally shot an automatic weapon, a semi automatic weapon, a rifle, a shotgun, and held a handgun.  I know a ton of people who own guns.  Whether they are owned for recreational sport, competitive shooting, hunting, or for animal protection on the farm, they all had guns.  I am not uneducated on gun ownership.  I am not at arm's length from the issue of gun ownership and how it would affect those around me to own, or not own a gun.  That is why I write this because it affects the people around me.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people".

Fuck off.  There I said it.  That statement needs to be told to fuck off.  People with guns kill people.  A lot of people, and fast.  If I had a knife I could kill a few people before I was de-armed.  I would have to get close to you to stab you to death.  It takes time and accuracy to kill someone with a knife and to do so before you could take it away from me and shove it up my ass.  If I had an automatic weapon (or even semi automatic weapon with a massive clip full of bullets as is the case of the Orlando Florida shooter), I could kill a lot of people before I was de-armed.  That is a simple fact.  

"If everyone was armed, this wouldn't have happened."

People are actually arguing that if everyone was armed on Sunday morning in Orlando then the killer could have been stopped.  Maybe that is true, maybe fewer people would have been killed or hurt.  It is also true to say that if the murderer had no access to a gun, especially one holding a large clip of bullets, 49 people would still be alive.  Fact.

"There will always be guns, on the black market".

Yes, that's true.  But they won't be easy to access.  They will be expensive and hard to find.  You will need to know a criminal to get one.  Oh and if you know criminals and can get a gun on the black market, you probably are a criminal, and it's my personal opinion that criminals should not have easy access to guns.  A way to limit their access is to limit everyone's overall access.  Less guns, less killings.  If we don't allow them to be owned, less people will own them, duh.  Less guns in circulation, equals less people with guns, duh.  Less people with guns overall, equals less people filled with hate with guns.  Especially guns with these massive clips full to the tits with bullets.  100, 50, 30, 20, even 10 rounds.  They are unnecessary.  And if you don't believe me on this fact, see Britain, Australia and Canada and our guns deaths.  

"It's my God given right to bear arms".

Nope, that wasn't in the Bible.  Least not that I remember, it's been awhile.  With all the religious based hatred these days I have fallen off my readings.  Do you realize my American friends that the laws for the right to bear arms actually came from English laws and traditions?  A country which then banned the right to own a gun sometime in the 1950s I believe.  And since then, no mass shootings.  Lots of knife attacks.  Never almost 50 dead in one night, by a sole assailant, with a knife.  

Canada had the same laws as the USA and over time we have adjusted them to the point that there are strict rules as to who and how you can get a weapon and the types of weapons you can get.  The AR 15 assault rifle used in these mass shootings in the USA can be owned by a Canadian!!!!  Did you know that my Canadian readers?  BUT, the clips you can use in your gun in Canada can only hold so many bullets.  They do sell the bigger clips but with a rivet in them that restricts holding full capacity.  AND these guns are still considered a restricted weapon with the small capacity clips.  Remember these guns were invented for military purposes only.  So in Canada special rules apply for ownership, safekeeping, and even how the gun is allowed to be transported and why it's being moved.  Oh, and here, you cannot walk out your back door and fire off a few rounds.  Personally, as a starting point, I think they should be forced to stop making those high capacity clips all together unless they are made ONLY for guns issued to the military.  5 bullets is MORE than anyone should ever need as a rightful law abiding gun owning every day citizen.  

"It's my constitutional right to bear arms"

Yes, yes, that is factual.  In your constitution it tells you that you indeed have the right to bear arms.  It reads, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed".  Are you militia?  Do you plan to be militia?   Are you worried you won't be a free state?  Is someone threatening your freedom right now, that you are defending with your gun?  Oh they are?  Give me a minute, I am going to get to this.

For the record, at the time this was written into law, your guns needed loading with powder.  I believe they shot once and you had to load it again.   If you want that gun in your house I am all for it.  Have at it.  You can have ten of them if you would like.  Maybe we could limit the carrying on your person rights to three at a time?

"I need to defend myself.  We are at war with the criminal element".  

Really?  You need access to an AR 15, or an AK 47, shooting a hundred rounds per minute to protect yourself?  Are full gangs of criminals breaking into your home in the middle of the night, hundreds of them at a time, swarming in to steal your Timex?  You know what a criminal looks for when they break into your house?  Guns.  Your fucking guns!  

"They're fun".

So, your fun should be more important than the repeated loss of lives?  Is your right to have fun with a deadly weapon more important than a life?  It's fun to snort cocaine, doesn't mean I should have easy access to it at a moments notice!  It's obvious there is a problem with automatic and semi automatic guns with high capacity clips being used to kill innocent people in the United States.  Perhaps then everyone should decide that their right to play with a gun is less important than life?

"I want it on my person in case of an incident like Orlando, or other mass shooting incident.  If more of us were armed this wouldn't happen anymore".

How many stories have we heard where an armed average Joe (or Jane) actually stopped one of these shootings and they were not actually a police officer?  That the person who stopped a mass shooting was just some gun toting redneck carrying around an AR 15 at Dunkin' Donuts?   I can hear the story now, "when I heard the shots I knew I was being called into action and I stopped the tragedy before it happened".  But not really because the assailant also had an AR 15 that they stole from your neighbours house which they used to kill 50 people before you arrived.  I have not seen the NRA talking about this in the news and we know they control everyone and everything so if it happened, it would be on the news.  They would publish the fact that guns saved lives.  They haven't published it because it's not true. 

"We are at war with terrorists".

See above.  You show me how and when an armed average American citizen, non Military, stopped a crime or a terrorist attack and I will consider your argument but until then, as I said before, "come on, really".  

All of you right to bear arms people are using that simply as an excuse because you like to play with guns.  Well I don't think, call me crazy, that for recreational fun anyone needs an automatic or semi automatic gun with a large capacity clip.  Sorry friends and family or now, after reading this, otherwise.  

If you hunt, have a gun.  Keep it safely locked up in a gun case that is secure and not easy for a criminal to steal.  Last time I checked moose, bears, elk, deer etc do not break into your house to be hunted so there is no need for you to be ready at home to hunt in your living room.  Nor is it necessary for you to have a gun in your vehicle.  Do you often pull over and shoot a deer at the side of the road?  Is that even legal?    Or do you need a specific permit to hunt off the highway on the way to work?  People don't hunt with automatic weapons.   At least not the hunters I know.  I know, I know, some of you do hunt with semi automatics.  Listen up, if you can't kill your target in under 5 shots you should be ashamed of yourself and not be hunting.  You are supposed to be skilled when you hunt and put as few bullets (lead) as possible into your kill so you can eat it.  "You eat what you kill", is the saying I believe.  Derived from "you kill what you eat" because when it was first said if ya' didn't, you'd starve to death.  There were no grocery stores when this whole hunting idea came into play.

If you live on a farm and need a gun at the ready as you roam your property in case you see a cougar taking out one of your sheep, have at it.  You can have a gun on your rural property as a farmer protecting his flock.  Some people get dogs or donkeys, I guess you need a gun, okay that's a little more legitimate.  There are less criminal elements looking to steal automatic weapons in the countryside because last time I checked farmers use actual hunting rifles.  Small clip rifles, less bulleted clips.  I don't think you spray your fields full of sheep with bullets using an AR 15 or AK 47?  Most farmers I know take killing animals seriously.  Guns are serious business.  Guns kill.  I like those theories, let's run with those.  

If you are using them for competition, headed to the Olympics, own a gun.  I think you only need it when training at a licensed facility so I guess it could be locked up safe and sound at home huh?  AR 15s with high capacity clips are actually used for competitions if you can believe that.  Where are these competitions?  I assume in a town where your sister is your mother and y'all drink moonshine for breakfast.  Personally I don't think one is considered talented if able to shoot a target with fucking cannons worth of fire power.  You don't spray a target with a hundred bullets and jump up and down yelling "nailed it", do you?  These guns are not necessary for competition.  

Florida has very generous gun ownership laws.  The right to bear arms is strong in the land of Mickey.  Maybe if they weren't so easy to get then a mentally ill man filled with hate wouldn't have gotten one?  

Just as a couple of recommendations in light of these shootings we hear about every single day.  These are just my recommendations as places to start to help solve this problem:

- When your teenager says, "I hate you", or "I hate them", or "I want to die", even "I am running away", take their access to guns away.  If they are caught smoking pot, drinking, or doing meth, perhaps we take their open access to guns away? 

- When your baby learns the code to your gun safe, perhaps you change the code, maybe even where you keep the safe?

- Maybe someone who is Bi Polar, or Schizophrenic (any mental illness really) shouldn't have access to something that could easily kill them or someone else when they have an uncontrollable mood swing?  

- Maybe someone who hits their wife, or kids, shouldn't have access to something they could kill them with?

- Maybe if you are on an FBI watch list, on the no fly list, we should make those just a few of the restrictions to owning a gun?  That would entail changing the 2nd amendment but I can't see how that would affect you?  Aren't you a "law abiding citizen with a god given right to bear arms"?  This has nothing to do with your rights.  This suggestion would just ensure that a terrorist couldn't get a gun.  A mass murderer might be derailed.  And you might have to fill out a few more forms to prove you are just a good ol' American.  Are you saying that this new process, the potential time delay, is more important to you than the children who died at Sandy Hook?  Or the kids seeing a movie?  The people dancing in a bar?

I mean shit, perhaps I am wrong but I think these are good starting points don't you think?

- Maybe, we could make the punishments for any crimes committed with guns (or thwarted by you right to bear arms citizens) so hard that it deters people from using them?  And maybe, if we outlaw large clips as I mention above, if you are caught with one, especially caught committing a crime with one, your punishment is even more.  God help you if you are caught selling large capacity clips.  Throw the book at you!  They are simply not necessary.  

Maybe some of the above recommendations could help?

All I know for sure is this, we need change so that people are not dying.  And if that change means starting with no more AR 15s on the market or in your living room or mine, I am all for it.  At the very least limit the shots that can come out of one as it seems to be easy to get and a personal favourite of murderers.  I do not want it to be so easy, so convenient, to kill people.  And if you don't either I don't know how you can argue otherwise?  Again, it seems like a good place to start because guns, in the hands of human beings, seem to kill people.  

I know you are going to say it's about hatred, it's about terrorism.  It's not the guns fault.  Well, it seems this whole love thing isn't catching on fast enough, I wish it would.  If we need to blame something we can actually change, guns seems like a logical place to start.  They don't get personally offended when we ask them to change their beliefs and hate less.  Sadly we cannot seem to change those accustomed to hatred or being manipulated by their religion or faith to hate for no logical reason.  We are not going to be able to change the fighting over religion, political beliefs, sexual orientation or race tomorrow.  I think it's too much to ask, especially to ask of stupid people.  But we can change gun laws.  Love sure would solve it all though wouldn't it?  The respect and love of life.  The world's problems would be over.  The end. 

Psssssssst...pass that last part along.






Oh and before you get all worried, or pissy, since my diagnosis with a Mental Health issue I can no longer own or have access to a gun in Canada until my doctor, and spouse, say it's okay.  And I am fine with that because sometimes I get too dark.  Sometimes I think about hurting myself.  And I don't need help from a gun that has a great deal of permanence to it's use to harm.  

You can't be loved if you don't love yourself?

Well Spiritual Poet, you can go fuck yourself.  There are a ton of people out there, often mentally ill people, who struggle with their self worth.  And they find love.  It's harder for them and their partners sometimes as they figure out how not to make the other suffer for their own self loathing but it is more than possible to be loved when you don't love yourself.  Saying otherwise is harmful to so many people.  It's reckless to say these things.

What we are basically saying here is that if you are abused, verbally or physically, (or both), you deserve it if you don't love yourself.  If you have low self esteem then you are getting what you put out there.  The predator will see the self loathing and attack.  While that's not entirely untrue, they will find you, it does not mean you are at fault, or you deserved it.  It means they, the predator, the abuser, are a vulture.  

And anyone who says otherwise is being abusive to anyone and everyone with low self esteem.  "I wouldn't have to hit you if you just did the right thing".  I don't see the difference.  

Telling someone they deserve what they get when they are so obviously struggling with low self worth can lead to death. 

So....

I do believe what you put out there is what you get, but I believe that more in a "work hard, get results" kind of way.  If you don't eat right and exercise, you will not be healthy just because you want to be, you need to work for it.   Wanting money, will not make me rich.  Life doesn't work that way.  Working for money will make me wealthier. 

I am pretty confident that if someone is struggling with their self worth they can find someone who loves them for exactly who they are.  Perhaps someone else's love will encourage a person to love themselves.  And that, is a positive outcome.  I do not believe if you don't love yourself, and that's your "vibe", that you will never get love in return because the Universe doesn't work that way.  

Still, Universe or not, you must look in the right places for love, not the wrong.  Most people who do not love themselves pick horrible partners to re-affirm what they believe.  If you stop doing that, then you can be open to the right person.  Picking the right person is a matter of picking better than you think you deserve.  You do not actually have to be confident and self loving to do this, you just need to "make good choices".  You have to understand that if you are not getting love, the kind of love you've seen and heard of, maybe you don't even understand, then that is not the person for you.

I have seen a ton of confident, self loving people, get divorced.  

My husband Dan loves me more than I love myself, that is a fact.   His love is what made me decide to take on a  journey of self awareness.  I didn't do that for me, I did that for him.  And that's okay.  I still did it, I am doing it.  It doesn't matter how I got here.  The end result is me bettering myself and learning to love, myself, him, and everyone around us, more every day.  He saw this in me.  He saw what I was capable of before I even did.  And that my Universe people, that's a positive from a negative.  

In short, fuck you Universe and all those that say I didn't deserve this because of my vibe.  My vibe is struggling but she's pretty darn lucky all the same.  Some would say I deserve happiness even.    

Mother's Day

I couldn’t understand why they wanted me to take a Grief counselling class when I stayed at The Homewood Health Center in 2014.  I hadn’t lost anyone recently.  I lost a friend in 2007, surely that wasn't still affecting me.  At the very least, I thought I had accepted it. 

“Why am I taking this class”, I asked? 

“Because Nicolle you need to mourn your entire childhood.  You need to grieve it and accept the loss of it.  You cannot get it back, no one is capable of doing that for you.” 

For weeks I wrote about my childhood bringing myself and those around me to tears.  Things were remembered that I had long since thought I’d forgotten or blocked from my memory.  It was both horrific and cleansing all at the same time. 

So that said, if one more person, just one more person says to me, “be grateful your mother is still alive, celebrate her this Mother’s Day”, I am going to lose my shit.

I spent two months in a mental health facility in large part because of my parents.  Our parents mould us, then it's up to us.  Sometimes those moulds are damaged and need to be rebuilt.  My mould is being rebuilt because of the time I spent alone with my mother.  After my parents split my father took off for awhile to get his head back on straight.  While he was looking to straighten his, my mother was losing hers.  And I was alone with her. 

I have forgiven.  I will never forget.  I lost my childhood.  I mourn that like anyone mourns losing someone in death.  Some days are better than others when we mourn.  Triggers can appear out of nowhere and sometimes, we can see them coming in the calendar.

Often times the people who tell me to be grateful for having a mother have lost their own in death.  I understand completely the loss you feel.  I feel that for my childhood.  

Do you remember hiding as a child?  When you hid, did you need to chose places where you could brace yourself against the door?

Do you ever remember falling down a flight of stairs?  Can you remember how you fell?  Or at least have you heard the story of how you fell?

Do you remember having a broken bone and a cast?  Remember how cool casts were?  Do you remember how you broke your bones? 

Until you've walked in someone else's shoes, please stop telling them to celebrate having shoes.   

Mother’s Day is one of the hardest days of the year for me.   Every year on Mother's Day I feel horrible guilt for not reaching out to my mother.  I feel this overwhelming need to beg her forgiveness for not being a good enough daughter.  I feel ashamed because I know better.  I feel sad because I miss my mom while at the same time I know I miss what she never really was.  My mother was an actress.  In the presence of others she was a great mother and then when we were alone, it all disappeared.  I feel hurt because I truly believe my mother doesn't love me.  Perhaps she doesn't know how to.  That fact doesn't make it hurt any less.  I am jealous of every one of you that truly get to celebrate Mother's Day.  I am incredibly envious that your mothers love you unconditionally.  And I am angry when you don’t know well enough not to say to me, “be grateful for what you have".  Twice a year, her birthday and Mother’s Day, I struggle greatly with all of that.  

I know my mother was, correct that, she is sick.  She suffers like me, from mental illness.  My mother refuses to admit anything in our relationship was in any way difficult.  She has said, "her childhood was perfectly happy".  Many, doctors, family, friends have said that my mother simply does not accept the reality around her as being true.  She manipulates the truth to suit her needs at any given time.  What she sees and others see are two completely different things.  I sympathize with all of this, because it means she is actually ill.  As you know, I am a big supporter of people suffering with mental illness BUT, I was a helpless, lost, child.  Her child.  I needed her.  I’ve always wanted her in my life, and even needed her there.  She has never been there, not without a cost to me.  And that hurts.  She did the best she was capable of and that is a fact.  A fact that doesn't make it less hard on me but it does remove my anger.  It is what it is, no matter how it came to be.  

I forgive her.  

I don’t live in the past.  I try not to worry about the future.  I live right here.  Here however was moulded and created by influences that were harmful.  I can do nothing about what was, but I can do something about right now.  I can work to make my life today different and easier on me.  I no longer act out all the time based on what was.  I need to think hard about every reaction I have to ensure the reaction is based on what is, instead of what was.  That’s in itself, is hard enough without you confusing your mother with mine.    

I wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there who I am so proud of, my friends who are wonderful mothers. 

I wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there who love freely and unconditionally.

I wish a Happy Mother's Day to all the great step Moms out there who've chosen to love unconditionally.

I wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all those who’ve lost wonderful Mother’s.  I hope you are celebrating the unconditional love you received from them.  I hope you are able to celebrate that on this day more than sorrowfully mourning the loss of their presence.  Sadly I know it might be the latter and that today is very hard for you as well.  

I especially wish for a peaceful and Happy Mother’s Day to all the kids out there who spend the day wishing and longing for what never was, and may never be.  Please know, you are still perfection.