Tag Archives: healing

a miraculous thing worth mentioning

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This past Sunday for the first time as long as I can remember I got out of bed at a reasonable time. I was not super-glued to the bed with fog and dissociation the way I am on most Sundays.

I got out of bed, and I knew I wanted a kale smoothie with pineapple and mango. So many mornings I’ve wanted this, had the ingredients in the freezer, but then the world turned into a fog and all I could do eventually was extricate myself from the apartment in order to not lose any more time. But, this was not the case this past Sunday. I thought about the pineapple mango kale smoothie and how I had brand new freshly washed organic kale in my refrigerator. I focused on the fact that I wanted the cool, fruity, creamy and clean taste that comes from combining kale, pineapple, mango and banana in a smoothie.

I told myself, “Today you can do this. You want this. You want to have a smoothie at home for breakfast.” I turned on the tv to a show I had recorded: “NCIS Los Angeles” while I made my smoothie along with some wheat toast on the side. I felt myself start to float, but when I felt this start to happen I would look at the beautiful kale, and think to myself “if you leave the apartment you will not be able to have your favorite smoothie.”

And, let’s be frank, the incredible loud whir of a VitaMix blender will bring anyone dissociating back to present time. It’s like a jet fighter is taking off in your kitchen.

Much to my amazement, I had myself a kale smoothie with a side of wheat toast with local salted butter. It all felt right and homey. I actually watched two episodes of “NCIS Los Angeles.” Before I knew it I spent the entire Sunday at home doing homework, and cooking for myself. I did find that there are some dangers to staying home and eating. It is far too easy to polish off an entire box of Annie’s Organic Cheddar Bunnies Snack Crackers. Then there was the attempt to cook a package of turkey bacon for the week so that I could make sandwiches with the meat. That was a pipe dream! The turkey bacon did not last through Monday.

I deem this past Sunday a strangely significant milestone for me. I’ve no idea what was different about this past Sunday, but I’ll take it, along with a kale smoothie.

a hiatus of sorts

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I did not intend to go on hiatus. It just happened.

This is me trying to come back to the blog. Hell, this is me trying to come back in many respects.

And, as usual, anytime I’ve been gone from the blog for a good bit, it is very hard to come back. Or rather, the writing of a blog post is what’s hard. 

With an anonymous mental health blog, many of us inevitably share it with people close to us. I still share it with very few people. But the fact is, I’ve had people figure out that this is my blog. My Freshly Pressed post from this past March cause some people to connect the dots, and that’s how more people know who I am. 

As a result, one particular person who I know is reading this blog has not been a good person to have in my life. Wish I could elaborate, but they are reading this blog. And this person still thinks they have power over me. I will say this:

To the person who thought they could call the shots:

You underestimated my strength, and my intelligence. I have a mental illness, but that does not mean I am stupid. I am in the middle of one of the biggest challenges of my life. Separately from this challenge, I am going though integration. and it is incredibly bewildering at times. The strangeness of it too often causes me to say, “Who the fuck am I?”

You are the largest disappointment in all of this. I thought more of you, but I was wrong. Someday the world around you will learn the real you. You can’t keep up the charade forever. 

I miss the person I thought you were. I now know I was blind to the real you. Funny … I miss that blindness. 

You no longer scare me. 

No matter what happens, I will be okay. 

P.S.

Stop reading my blog. 

An ending

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Today I gathered all of my tea cups, tea tins, tea filters and other miscellanea that make an office space a home, and packed up my office cube. I will no longer switch on the overhead light every morning first thing when I get in for the day. I switch on the overhead lamp, start up the computer, and immediately take the tea bag out of my tea cup because the walk to the lobby and elevator ride is plenty of time for the green tea to complete the brewing cycle. I will miss the Zen and Now green tea from the coffee shop four doors down from our office. Though I won’t miss that they consistently use water that is far too hot for green tea, but I still supported them because I liked starting my day in that ramshackle, yet friendly shop with the door handle that does not work well and requires you to bump the door open with your hip as you push down on the door handle.

I will no longer have morning chit-chats with our secretary who is also my dear friend. Every morning I would say to her, “Good morning, chica!” For my last day today she bought me my Zen and Now green tea, and left me a beautiful fuchsia vase of flowers on my desk.

My colleague and I will no longer go to the pizza dive for lunch where we typically clean them out of all the remaining slices of buffalo chicken pizza they have on hand. I will no longer confuse my colleague with my mangled silly Spanglish utterances such as my famous “Como que what?!” He has since started using my Spanglish with his family on occasion. There could be worse legacies.

My colleague and I made a trip out to my car with my stuff, and when I opened the trunk of my car I realized that I still had tea cups and other assorted stuff from the last time I switched jobs. I looked at the old stuff, and realized that boxes of stuff from a departed job are hard for me to contend with. These boxes are big ol’ Boxes of Goodbye for me. I came home, looked around, and realized that I have such boxes squirreled away all over the place: other boxes from past departed jobs, boxes from ex-boyfriends and ex-partners – all of which are unopened and discarded on the road of constant change in life.

I have to trust that this ending is a right and good decision. This ending brings a new beginning, a beginning that I sought out and earned, and now that I have it in my hands it takes my breath away and scares me a little.

This is what I want. I want this beginning. 

Eyes wide open, heart wide open, I move forward to a new beginning. But this time, today’s Box of Goodbye is tomorrow’s Box of Beginning.