I have tried to write this blog post a ridiculous amount of times. I feel that I have so much to say that I don't know where to begin, and once I do begin, everything comes pouring out and I can't make sense of anything, which makes me hesitate to post it on a blog. 

So maybe, I just need to keep this short and simple. I have been trying to get a grip on what I want out of life so that I can then put a plan in effect to make those things a reality.

In movies, I am a huge, HUGE, sucker for the montage. In particular, the "I am taking charge of my life now and making big leaps in self progress." Movies make it look so easy. An upbeat song and 30 clips that demonstrate what "getting your life on track" looks like. Oftentimes this includes shopping or a makeover and the person finally doing something for themselves. 

Anyways, in the movies this always seems very easy. I mean who wouldn't want to turn their life around or improve things if it only took the length of one pop song? 

Now I am ready to start my own, more realistic montage. Of course the first step in this is to figure out what it is I want. Easy, right? HA!

I am going to leave this post on that note. Rather than sitting here trying to perfect a blog post, I am going to take care of the other item on my list which is to spend some time figuring out what i want to do. What is truly important to me? What matters? I know that I am capable and resourceful enough to get to where I want to be, but I need to allow myself to determine where that journey begins. 

 

Describe home.

Sometimes the most complicated answers come from the most simple of questions.  I imagine myself sitting in a fourth grade class; fourth grade was a good year.  I think I really started understanding books when I was in fourth grade. I didn’t appreciate them until much later in life.  Maybe I was looking out a window, or thinking about the play rehearsal I probably had after school, but I wouldn’t have been thrown with a simple assignment such as an essay asking to describe home. 

If asked to accomplish the same assignment today, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.  My version of home has changed so many times throughout the last few years, and for the longest time I couldn’t even bring myself to acknowledge that the home I knew would never be again.  Like so many times before, and so many times to come, I got caught up in a material meaning of and forgot that home is where the heart is. 

I will never forget the feeling I had the day the abandoned sign was finally posted on the basement door.  We had made a relatively mutual decision not to care about the house, I suppose. We all acted in our own little ways like we were trying, or would try, to salvage what was left of the house.  I still, wish I would have been more proactive as far as emptying the house of possessions, but in reality, none of us tried very hard. 

That’s the thing about sentimental objects; you can only have so many. I treasure everything that reminds me of mom, but I can only have so many of those objects.  I have had to work excruciatingly hard to adjust and honestly I couldn’t have a full room of my past reminding me of her, of my mom.   I still choke up just saying the word.

Mom.

It makes my muscles tense. People constantly flatter me, complimenting me on my ability to turn a situation, to find the good in the bad.  I suppose I figure if I’m crying I might as well do it with a smile.  I accept situations for what they are; you have to change, if you can’t change the situation.  I can deal with situations. I take a situation, assess it with my heart, and take action accordingly. Words are elegant weapons, Words I can’t even bring myself to speak.

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.” Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

My heart weeps.  In my darkest moments I can’t contain the small sobs that escape its chambers.  

I don’t ignore it anymore; I let it weep.  I still use it sometimes as white noise, it’s evolved from a sound I feared to a sound I use to lull myself to sleep, the most prominent evidence that even in death, she remains a consistent and necessary part of my life. 

I’m writing this because of my recent dream.

I mostly remember that Troy and I were at the house.  It was clean and the doors from the bathroom into the master bedroom were open.  It was as if I had seen those sea green walls yesterday.  There were other people walking around too, probably Heather and Ryan.  I opened the door to the basement to find that the stairs were completely missing.  You literally couldn’t even get to the basement.  No one else seemed to notice. 

I couldn’t stop staring at the rats.   There were rats scurrying around a pile of dead rats.  It was disgusting.  It was as if someone had quarantined this part of the house in order to prevent further infection. 

Over a long period of time, I have done the same with certain emotions and memories, which remain well kept in vast vaults hidden within the mazes of my mind. It isn't that I want them gone, I selfishly keep them locked so far away until both my sanity and my memories can live in a civil alliance....and I'm getting there...slowly, but surely.

Adapting

There are some traumas you can’t recover from, no matter the amount of therapy.  Ever since I was a child I have endured family disaster after family disaster.  My family is far from perfect, but sometimes I wonder how it would have been if things were different. If wishes were fishes, ya know?

What if mom had never gotten cancer?

What if I never found out about my ½ brother, Ryan?

What if mom didn’t have to fight depression?

I have so many questions, answers I’ll never know.

I remember the paper I wrote about the day I found out my mom had cancer. The teacher, who I don’t think liked me all that much, made a point about this paper and how it moved her to tears, and I was really proud of myself.  I didn’t know; back then, that less than ten years later I would write a paper about the day my mother died.  I am proud of these papers not only because I aced them, but because they really meant something to me.  Both of those papers moved people to tears, as my mother majestically moves my inspiration towards positivity.  

To me, writing is the most intimate way to emotionally move someone.  Literature.  It is so important to me, documentation.  Writing. Journals especially. Journals and diaries are tools some of us use to de-cloud our brains, very important.  We manipulate words into beautiful pieces of art.  I appreciate and value words and the way they fit together, depending on where you put them.  It’s all up to you.  You are an architect of a cathedral of words where you store secrets and desires and fears.  Once you put those words on paper you can manipulate them, and eventually you can teach yourself to not only manipulate your words but also manipulate your thoughts. 

It’s techniques such as these that allow writers to function. It’s a skill some people are born with and a skill some of us develop as a coping mechanism. The thoughts in my head are transported to paper, like musicians manipulate notes into beautiful music my ears eat up like a pastry from my favorite pastry shop.  If you don’t have a favorite pastry shop then you don’t know what I mean (and you should get one).  Everyone copes in different ways. I have found my passion and I enjoy indulging in the passions of others.

How long people wish to find a light in the darkness.  How difficult it can be with the past consistently looming in the corner, creeping in at night to suck away the light that lingers. 

“The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.”
― Jess C. Scott The Darker Side of Life

My mother was on the higher end of the brightness scale.

The brightest and darkest light signals the eye is capable of sensing span across nine orders of magnitude, a factor of roughly one billion apart. Because the eye can only sense a contrast ratio of one thousand it adapts its definition of what is black.  The light level that is considered “black” spans across six orders of magnitude, a factor of one million. 

~ Our eyes are capable of sensing light in almost complete darkness.  This is amazing.  We can adjust to extreme measures.

It takes approximately 20-30 minutes for eyes to adjust from bright sunlight to complete darkness, becoming ten thousand to one million times more sensitive than at full daylight.

~It takes time.  Adjusting from light to dark takes time.  It’s a process. You aren’t going to be able to see in the dark right away, you have to allow yourself time to adapt.

The Purkinje effect takes place during this process, changing the eye’s perception of color. 

~There is consequence to every action. We can’t just plunge into darkness without any consequence.  Something must be sacrificed, a little part of our reality, a little part of us. 

It only takes the eye approximately five minutes to adapt from darkness to bright sunlight. 

~Darkness is a slow, grueling process to adapt to, but we can adapt if we must.  Light is easier, sight is a sense we often take for granted.

I understand this is very basic. Maybe not even the entirely correct terminology or phrasing, but the general concept is here, and it’s an event that is systematic.

“…And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt-this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

My sister and I, we will be okay.  Due to circumstance we have been given a unique view of the world. Together we will adapt and together we will grow.  Our scars will never fully heal, but we are true artists and will cover those scars with magnificent tattoos over time.  We are fighters. We have more love for each other than any depression could elude. We are completely judge free, for I can’t conceptualize a situation where I wouldn’t support my sister.

“I don't know how to stop the atrocities. I don't know how to make people care. But looking into my sister's eyes, we seem to have carved out something between us that none of the madness can touch. Invisible threads.”
― Lisa Shannon, A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
― Brené Brown

My sister and I have agreed to do a joint blog venture. I perused the web for sister quotes to come up with a blog name. I stumbled across this:

"Sister to sister we will always be,

A couple of nuts off the family tree."

~Author Unknown

They may say it's the apple that doesn't fall far from the tree, but in my family we are definitely all nuts. 

          What did the big nut say to the little nut?           I will always cashew when you fall. 

          What did the little nut say to the big nut?           Why are you always pecan on me?

          What acorn-y couple of jokes right?

Being nuts was always a joke in our house. My sister and I were lucky to have parents that were able to make difficult times into laughable memories. My sister and I learned to roll with the punches. Life knocks you down, but you learn to get back up. It's a lot easier to do that when you have a family that supports you. I feel lucky for that. 

I miss my mom. Sometimes just admitting that makes me feel momentarily paralyzed with longing sadness. I just pulled out a box of her journals. Reading parts of one of the the last ones she wrote in. It's hard to explain, but my mom was really funny. Even when she was writing about being really sad, she still had a sense of humor. Here is an excerpt:

Saturday           11-8-08

"In group we talked about being more positive. I'm trying, but I'm positive I'm very, very depressed." -Mom's Journal

Here is an excerpt from one of my journals:

May 28th, 2009

"I'm sad today. Well, all week. But the tears aren't going to hold out much longer. Started crying on the way to Leo's. I think my mom wants- I think she might be dead by this time next year. Suicide." 

Anyways, something I have wanted to share. I graduated from the University of Minnesota on May 17th. I bought myself a journal, the kind where you are supposed to just write a few sentences a day. I love journals. Anyways, I did this for about a week. On May 28, 2009 that is what I wrote. That night, after I finished dog sitting (Leo was a dachshund)  I went out with friends. Sometime near bar close, I got a call from my sister that my mom had overdosed. I didn't even think much of it. My mom had been in and out of the "loony bin" as she liked to call it. I left the bar with friends, and called my dad. My mom was dead. 

Time heals, but scars will always remain. When I wrote that in my journal, it wasn't as if my sister and I hadn't already had concerns about my mom taking her life. It's just, we joked about it. Writing it in my journal meant I was really admitting it to myself that I was scared for her. It makes me think of how we are connected to our family. When they die, you feel them take a piece with you. She was ready to go, and despite the distance, I think I could feel it. 

I guess that's a sad way to start a blog, but I guess I have just been feeling a little lost lately. By lately I mean for a long time, even before my mom died, and by a little, I mean a lot. So I might as well start writing about it. Maybe no one will read our blog, maybe it will just serve as an outlet for me to work out my pain. Maybe one person will read one phrase and feel like someone understood them. Grief is complicated. Depression is hard. 

I want to be the kind of person who can live unapologetically. In some of my darkest moments the words that have come to me are, "Live with conviction." It's not enough just go through the motions, even though I so often do. I want to stop thinking of the future as some saving grace. I want to embrace the present. Stop worrying so much about where everything is going or what effect I am going to have on things.