a note to my younger self; the try hard.

 Seeing myself in what I wrote publicly over the last ten years is a mind trip. I never showed you the abuse that happened. I never showed you the guilt that seeps in, deep in my bones. 

Oh Little one, you shouldn't have had to carry the burden you did. you acted so hard to possibly be accepted because who you were was not acceptable. the self-hate you carried because of not knowing who you were was worthy of love. striving for a gods perfection - to people who didn't even see the words they were saying were killing people? 

your friend who was raped and murdered at 13. 

the friend that was ostracized for a young pregnancy.

the ones who were hidden and whispered about for their queerness 

while the ones who hit their children were protected.

when your grandmother died and someone said it was gods divine plan- payback.

the three "friends" who tried to kill you.

the ones who thought they could assault the queer out of you even though you didn't even know what that was yet.

you cared for so many people, who cared for you?

your father who was gone, or drunk. does he know you?

your mother, in so much pain she didn't see she wasn't feeding you, so you learned to feed everyone except yourself.

your education, papers you printed out yourself, never graded because you were teaching your siblings how to read. 

Three suicide attempts, never noticed. 

blamed for your own coping mechanisms. 

I see you, darling, swearing off men and love so young because you didn't trust them.

identifying as an adult at ten- because in all but age you had to be. you should have had a chance to be free. you should have been allowed to make mistakes. to run in skirts, to fight and play. 

I see you so desperately trying to convince people to love you. the perfect worker. the perfect daughter. the perfect tool. 

never having a nickname. not allowing yourself to break until they broke you. ADHD, chronic pain, and depression are pushed down and lashed out against instead of addressed.

I understand why you're tired, love. You've been strong for so long. it's ok to be soft. it's ok to rest. You're worthy of help. you don't have to do it all yourself. you don't have to be perfect. you can fail and still be worthy of love. it's ok to acknowledge you're in pain. you can ask for help, the people worthy of being around will not begrudge it to you.

I understand that little game you used to play, where your parents died and you were in charge of caring for your siblings. It's easier to pretend than to understand why your parents weren't there for you. they didn't even realize they weren't, Little One. they did what they knew. it's ok to forgive and remember.

I see your need to run away. I see your need for pain, thinking someone might notice you. 

I see you trying so hard to save everyone else while you were drowning.

I always thought my dreams of drowning were a vision of how I was going to die. little did I know that it was an allegory of how I was already drowning. You're a stronger swimmer than you think. you made it out. 

out of the stagnant pit, they call a place of worship. out of the gripped hand they call love.

funny how freedom feels like a freefall when you've never used your wings.

Maybe now that I know who I am, the next chapter will be easier.

27 was supposed to be the day I finished my story. maybe just maybe it's actually the day it starts being mine.

 It's so strange, coming out on the other side. Certain things form who you are, and make fundamental changes to how you see yourself and navigate the world. Sometimes, you make it through a time, and you realize going back to your childhood home, your comfort, the friends you once knew and you realize that the spot you carved for yourself no longer fits you. the person I claimed to be no longer bears resemblance to what I see in the mirror. you walk through that door and are changed. sometimes, you can't go home in a way that matters.

my trauma, my fear, and my convictions morph and change me. I become who I once needed. Fierce, protective, emotional, and careful. I've come to terms that sometimes I was a terrible person, mimicking the things that are said and done around me to survive. I need to give the acceptance I was not shown. I need to give the care I craved, to myself and everyone around me. I need to fight. I need to say the hard truths. I need to be selfish and take the things I need to survive. I understand more than ever some of the things that make me who I am, and the internal fight I deal with daily is going to last as long as I do. I need to live for myself because trying to stay alive for everyone else isn't working. 

I'm less than two weeks away from 27. 14-year-old me, 17-year-old me, and 23-year-old me are in there somewhere, proud that I lived through their attempts to kill me because they couldn't accept themselves. they had no one to understand them, but I do. I see them. I see me. I've been given so many second chances.

 I became what they needed.  I became my own safe space, a place to rest and create. I am the person that feeds them when they are hungry and sits with them when they can't see the good in the world. I love the body we all share ferociously, and I give the body the nourishment and rest it needs. I'll fight for the future my best friend tried to drown at age 8, I have the sexual ownership that was almost stolen by the many men that it will never belong to, I fight the establishments who tried to control me and once fooled me into thinking they cared about me. I protect the health that so many jobs and men have tried to mine riches from for themselves.  I am my own. I choose who to share my energy with. I choose who I surround myself with. I choose my path forwards, for that's the only direction to go, no looking back. I respect myself, I make space for personal growth and healing.  I am my own light. I surround myself with love.

I acknowledge the many things that happened to me in the past and I feel the hurt no one else is capable of listening to.

I have a voice. I have free will. all of Man's Gods are nothing to me, for I govern myself.

I am woman   I am creator    I am healer     I am hope    I am a force of nature

No one can take from me that which is mine, be it my sex, my health, my freedom of choice, or my life.

I will celebrate myself. 

I will set myself space to unabashedly feel the whole spectrum of human emotion. 

I know loss, I know grief, I know pain. 

I know bliss, I know love, I know determination.

My body is mine. no one can take it.

My soul is mine, no one can determine its worth.

My mind is mine, only I can make its decisions.

Life has many chapters, and the new chapter is one I'm writing for myself.

I was sabotaged young because the world is afraid of my power. 

The world needs me in it to see its strange beauty and its pain.

 I was put on this world for many reasons, all of which I determine on my own.

I was put here to mourn and to heal. To get stronger. You can't kill me. You can't take my heart. You can't kill me in a way that matters.

I am here despite us both. despite everything. I am beauty and trash. I am dust and starlight. 

I am 

I am

i am

I am here. I made it this far, through war, through plague, through control, through neglect. I have become something wholly unexpected. I have teeth and claws and blood. I am soft and strange and I contain multitudes. 

I exist, despite everything. 

I can give myself peace. 

and, despite everything, I still care. 

I break curses. I bring blessings.

wow, I cant believe I found this

 I wonder if I should do a life update, a lot has changed since 2016. 

I got married, got gayer, and became a witch. i was homeless, I sold pot for a living, I've been through a lot.

most things I have written here are an amazing statement to who i was, but I dont even identify as the same gender anymore. 

i now live in my own apartment, but the last time this was updated was the last time I could call myself sane as well. 

I am a manic depressive adhd  permanently disabled non binary witch and it probably would have been cool to blog through that, but mental health. 

love you!

the struggles of doctrine vs emotion

Lately my life has been chaos. My father and sister lost their licenses, my mother was diagnosed with chronic fatigue, I've been in a legal battle for my home because my landlord is so sick and her *cough* possibly evil senile OCD mom *cough* wants me out this weekend. Work has not even been able to cover wage cost, there is not enough of us to cover any sickness, I have been diagnosed with severe depression, anxiety and IBS. I have not made any friends in the last year here, and I'm tired. I'm done.
     So what do I do? therapy. What does therapy do? It makes me admit that I am a Bisexual christian with a learned distrust of organised religion and codependency issues because of the alcoholism I grew up around. The thing it doesn't do is tell me how to fix it.
    I searched the bible over and over, trying to find why I've been taught these feelings are wrong, and turning up evidence that the feeling itself is not wrong, not my fault, and not my choice. What I found instead is love. Yes, the emotions that come along with that confession are tough, but the emotion and feeling are not wrong, acting on it is. More so because I have an amazing man that I am going to marry.
It's still so strange that all the christian stigma is about sex. Premarital? The bible DOES say that you should be faithful; but think about this. They got married at 13. How freaking old are they when they start? Scary. Gay? eeeewww Sodom and Gomorrah! well, they didn't know about germs, or condoms. and God seems to want us to have kids. Does that make not having kids wrong? Well... it may seem that way in some circles. Sodom's sin, according to Ezekiel, was pride. Every single person struggles with pride. Our sense of self gets in the way of everything.
A lot of the rules set out were primarily about bodily safety. They didn't know about HIV. They weren't allowed to eat shrimp because they didn't know if they prepared it wrong, they would die of food poisoning. The rigorous hand washing? Again, they were slaves. They had no idea how to keep themselves healthy, and vaccines didn't exist.
    I do not feel that it's wrong to feel attraction, its acting on it. It's not wrong to be angry, Its wrong to act out on it. You will and can be forgiven, but its best not to make it a lifestyle.

Confessions of a Pornographic Generation

     Colossians 3: 2 Let heaven fill your thoughts; don’t spend your time worrying about things down here. 3 You should have as little desire for this world as a dead person does. Your real life is in heaven with Christ and God. 4 And when Christ who is our real life comes back again, you will shine with him and share in all his glories.5 Away then with sinful, earthly things; deaden the evil desires lurking within you; have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires; don’t worship the good things of life, for that is idolatry. 6 God’s terrible anger is upon those who do such things. 7 You used to do them when your life was still part of this world; 8 but now is the time to cast off and throw away all these rotten garments of anger, hatred, cursing, and dirty language.

        Colossians 11 When you came to Christ, he set you free from your evil desires, not by a bodily operation of circumcision but by a spiritual operation, the baptism of your souls. 12 For in baptism you see how your old, evil nature died with him and was buried with him; and then you came up out of death with him into a new life because you trusted the Word of the mighty God who raised Christ from the dead. 13 You were dead in sins, and your sinful desires were not yet cut away. Then he gave you a share in the very life of Christ, for he forgave all your sins,14 and blotted out the charges proved against you, the list of his commandments which you had not obeyed. He took this list of sins and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross. 15 In this way God took away Satan’s power to accuse you of sin, and God openly displayed to the whole world Christ’s triumph at the cross where your sins were all taken away.

      I was introduced to porn when I was seven. I was at a friend's house playing dressup games when an ad for "Russian dolls" came up. The Internet was relatively new then, and we didn't know about viruses or popups, so my reaction was just "I don't think my mom wants me to see this." To which my friend replied "Close your eyes then." From then we roleplayed with our barbies what i know recognise as oral sex. How does an eight year old see this stuff? It became a premature and unhealthy sexualization of my childhood, which is what i think my parents were trying to protect me from. It didn't work. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't know what to do about it. Fast forward a few years, skipping forced kisses, bad jokes, stories from friends about rape and pregnancy and fear.

I was 16 and my "boyfriend" introduced me to sexting, and I later found out he was constantly cheating on me, and because we were long distance, I couldn't know what was happening, and I wasn't going to compromise what i believed. But I retaliated with the virtual version, porn.

       Through much of these years from seven to 17 I struggled with guilt and depression, not necessarily linked, but possibly influenced by porn. I thought I was ugly and undesirable, that my worth is what I can do not who I am. people asked if I was Lesbian simply because I abstained. Some of my fears about porn are these. It's unrealistic, and acts like a drug. Once you have it you want more. Its unglorifying to those around you, and those on screen. What if my theoretical future husband wants to look at those girls more than he wants to look at me? What if we want more than the other can give? How long will it take for you to cheat in real life if you live these fantasies in your head? What if i believe the empty sex is all love is? Does it fuel rape, prostitution, violence? Does it make us feel unworthy? What if your children see it? We as humans are conditioned to want sex, but I want it to be beautiful when it happens, not full of fear or frustration. 

      I am now 20, and I want to live for God. How do I do that when these images are branded in my head? How do I respect my  future husband? Is it possible for him to respect me if he has a similar struggle or if he doesn't understand my story? Nearly everyone in our generation has this problem. We are naive, introduced to a good feeling, and then trapped. Pornography is our drug. We don't need to be shamed, pitied, or called names. I want our peers and our leaders to stand for purity, grace and respect. I believe in marriage, one man and one woman. Not rape or porn or lust, or the sex trade. Not objectifying or leering. I don't want that in my world. I want true love. True respect. 

pain

I haven't updated in a while, because i feel i have nothing worth people listening to. but I have to do this for me. I hurt. I have anxiety, depression, and fatigue and pain from pretty much whatever I eat. work has been hard. long distance engagements have been hell. loneliness is pretty much my best friend at the moment, and i am so tired. so very tired. but i have something to learn. i don't know what, but it doesn't matter. i know its worth it even if i cant see it. it has to be. I'm not on this earth for pain. I'm here for something bigger and better.

climbing mountains

The last month and a half have been crazy when it comes to change. I moved to Calgary late November, turned 20 on December first, and started a job the very next day. Within three weeks I had been transferred, worked boxing day and Christmas eve, moved again, and hosted my family at my new place.
     As amazing as it has been, moving on and being a so called "contributing adult," It's a challenge. A brand new town, new job, new roommates, and a world full of strangers just going along in life has thrown me into a bit of confusion and disconnect. I'm really enjoying Urban Barn, (the job) and I've been making decent sales, but what I truly want to make is friends.
    God is truly showing me how his planning goes, and I trust that even in the transition stage of life, with the budgeting issues and transit and loneliness, He's got something big and amazing coming this year. For now, I'll push myself to excel and connect. I've made myself some goals this year to help me deal with the changes, so my depression doesn't go haywire :P   I feel as if everyone should take a bit of it home, it really helps me with anxiety and productivity.

- Read a chapter every day. (I do bible, you can do self help, fantasy, whatever. It helps to calm you down and focus)
- Save a small percentage (I have a fairly tight budget, but ice cream and emergency funds are a must)
-Invest a small percentage in the future. (wedding plans, travel, school, all included in this)
-Choose one thing to excel at this week (it could seriously just be cleaning the toilet)
-Do one art piece a week (I love art. It channels my emotions in a positive way, and helps me relax and function. You could choose anything that makes you happy. go jogging, bake a cake, take some selfies.)
-Learn something every week ( I do Khan academy finance courses. they've really helped me out in the renting/budgeting thing.)
-When youre stressed, fearful, frazzled, or inexplicably sad, do these things-
- list good things in life (fluffy puppies, hot sauce, blankets)
-list your virtues (diligent, helpful, can stick my tongue out and touch my nose)
-three good things that happened today
-list what may have triggered the negative emotion, then attempt to fix it. you'll feel better even if all you do is understand why you feel this way.
-eat, shower or nap. even these little things help you feel like a human instead of a blob of despair.
- talk to someone you love. (call your mom!)
Yeah, maybe it seems over the top, but it helps my brain when I feel like an overloaded circuit. It may not help everyone, but it might be a step towards it. If this is what I need to do to not shut down, its a good thing to do. Everyone has coping mechanisms. My sister's is reading, my moms is rearranging furniture, my best friends is fudge brownies. Its not bad to have them, just remember that they are not everything. don't hide in them, because it does consume you if you do. And yes, this is also a letter to myself.