Journey

Has it really been thirty years
since that first trip to the Bahamas?
Since I had to white-knuckle
turbulent skies and roiling seas?
Wasn’t I afraid to make such
a journey alone?

Did I expect my singlehood to be
satisfied by the billions of
stars in the night sky?
Or by that diamond tennis bracelet
I purchased, no longer in style?

Did I think my loneliness would
be relieved by my friend, Tom Clancy?
Or maybe by the stateroom upgrade I
was offered as a first-time cruiser?

Was it desperation that led to
sex with a stranger I picked up
among the pulsing and gyrating
of the disco?

I know it was courage.

Due date was in August of 1992, but her druggin’, smokin’ & Lord knows what else made me quickly exit the womb.
Three months early I made my debut. All odds stacked against me, in foster care, sick, having seizures. The doctors didn’t think I’d make it through.
Eventually I was adopted by a family who wrapped me in love. As I got older, they became poison, having me question the plans written up above.
God, why did you let me end up in a home with such abuse? Sure I’m the golden child; and, no one would ever see a bruise. Yet, the mental anguish, lies, and cutting words made me cry.
Over the years I starved myself and even cut my legs and thighs.
God are you sure this is your plan? Why didn’t you let me die when you had the chance? Eventually, I came to see I could stew in how I felt; or, I could take the harder path and make the most of the hand I have been dealt. So, finally I made a choice. To speak hope rather than just gripe with my voice.
In 2016, it got hotter by another degree. I majored in counseling psychology. I’ve seen many clients over the years. I’ve heard many stories and seen many tears. Some overcame, sadly some were found slain. Though my strength still waxes and wanes, being able to plant seeds to help others bloom, even on days when my inner sadness looms, I am reminded my struggle was not in vain

Dear, Unsealers:

The following poem is a flashback to November 2015…

In the early morning hours
I stepped off the plane in Madrid
After a long, turbulent flight across the Atlantic

As I see the window ahead of me
I’m on the other side, en el Aeropuerto Barajas
With daylight yet to break

It doesn’t look like I’m in Spain
But indeed I am!

All the waiting and anticipation led here
To these eight days, my first trip away from home
Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Sevila & Cordoba await

To think, this wouldn’t have happened
If I wasn’t told months earlier, “no”.

I didn’t know it then….
I would learn to love traveling solo, joining group trips

This was a celebration of turning thirty!

I spent my adolescent years
immersed in ‘boyish’ play–
no Barbie dolls or dance premieres
to soften village frays.

Each night I’d fold my hands and pray
with mud-caked fingernails
for God to send a girl my way
to play act fairytales.

Alas! The years absorbed my wails
and dimmed my purest dream
while fate allowed a shift in scales
with daughters’ rosy gleams.

One winter day I witnessed screams
beside my gray-haired mom
and felt the wings of Seraphim
apply a healing balm

to bygone tears and white-pressed palms
of unremembered faith
with preemie eyes of panicked calm–
her entrance worth the wait.

My heart embraced her strung-out state
and set my blood ablaze,
though I could never kindle hate
when selflessness outweighed–

a mom agreed for mine to raise
one precious baby girl
and on that raw December day
my sister changed my world.

Addiction eased and pith unfurled,
revealing spunk and grace
and though adulthood duties surged,
I doted on her perfect face.

From pageants to a high school play,
I’m still her biggest fan
despite not sharing bedroom space
or crowded minivans.

I hope I’ve shown her that she can
rely on Sissy’s love
through any bind or muddled plan–
our bond surpasses blood.

Long long ago, I lay in bed
I felt like I’d be better off dead
I sat right down wondering why
The world would not just let me die
I spent my days thinking up reasons
To not be living through any seasons
Every time I opened my eyes
I felt like my faith was low not high

But one day I went though the change of my life
When I finally had lived through quite enough strife
I realized me living was the key to it all
I’d finally made an important call
A call to God to restore my sanity
Was all I needed to withstand humanity
A call to God gave me faith and hope
I no longer felt like hanging from a rope

Every day now I wish to live
I cannot know what each day will give
But any day that I am alive
Is better than being cut with so many knives
I never want myself to be dead
I’d rather be home eating some bread
The Lord is with me wherever I go
And I love living like you’ll never know

To anyone who hears me,

The past can be beautiful, and inspiring, a trove of memories that you come back to visit on a rainy day. For some like me, the past can be dark, scary, and have such a strong pull that you remain in a cyclical pattern, becoming the worst version of yourself more with every tug.
The 13-year-old me first placed the blade on my skin, 21-year-old me made the deepest cuts that would last my lifetime. 14-year-old me took her first sip of alcohol, and 23-year-old me depended on that alcohol because she couldn’t see the opportunity for brighter days. 14-year-old me smoked her first cigarette and 24-year-old me couldn’t go an hour without one.
You see, I have a pattern of addiction tendencies. I would crave whatever would take the internal pain away, though that pain was only intensifying. I was self-destructive and lacked a love of life. I was empty, hopeless, and lost.
Until the fall of 2018. I had recently turned 24 and took a pregnancy test, though I wasn’t expecting much since they were always negative. To my surprise, this one was positive! I didn’t know that this would ever be possible for me and I was a mixed bag of emotions, hope being the brightest. I had lost a baby before through miscarriage and I carried that fear with me until at least 20 weeks pregnant. Every day though, I felt hopeful.
I would place my hand on my tummy and talk to her (I just had a feeling she was a girl), telling her of my day, promising her that no matter what, she and I would get through anything put in our path.
This feeling of hope and promise of new life brought on a version of Christine that I had never met. She was scared, of course, but was so much more fierce than ever before. She had a reason to push on, to brave face any situation because another depended on her. Once I met her and held her in my arms, all of the dark and empty past melted away.
I vowed to her and myself that I would never hurt myself again. Even in the darkest of times, I would hold on to hope and believe that everything happens for a reason and this beautiful girl was brought into my life for the biggest and best reasons of all. She is my little teammate and my best friend. She loves me endlessly, fills me with unfathomable joy, and gives my life purpose.
Now, as a mom of two, I cannot help but look back at the fall of 2018 knowing that my life was going to drastically change and that was the turning point. I no longer drink alcohol, I don’t smoke. I no longer wish to self-harm or self-destruct. I am focused on bettering myself each and every day not only for my benefit but because I am raising two profoundly unique and wonderful children.
They have a mom with a dark past but one that works each day to make a brighter future. The mom that they will know is one that will fill their cups, teach them, and guide them through the highs and lows that life will inevitably bring. They will see a mom with a love for life, herself, and her family.
I thank God every day for giving me children, and for changing my life. Without them, I don’t know who or IF I would be any longer. I’m so eternally thankful and have no doubt that those two positive tests changed my world forever. A mother is who I was born to be.

Sincerely,
An infinitely blessed mommy.

BE SOMEONE

When we sang, my friend’s mom would twist the fork of her body around in the computer chair to lid her sobbing. She knew it would make us laugh and fall out of our harmony, break our flow. The three of us were tied by the strings of our guitars and the dialect of language, a love language, from braising music together. We spoke in a unique tune, a way that transported us to a private recording studio, with a record deal, where we were about to go on tour. That’s a song we hummed in secret, where you dream that you can “be someone” like Tracy Chapman promised. I think we just wanted to be happy. Together, we were happy. Away from the lockers, the bells, painting our faces, and trying to navigate the buried, shunned and often self-loathing hours of being a kid. Because the math textbooks didn’t have a formula for how to not hate yourself.

So we sang. It was an elixir that couldn’t be administered by spoon. It was as elusive and intangible as trying to pack kisses into a jar. We were goosebumps and we were infinite within the growing pains of high school, the urge to hide under a hoodie of “not good enough,” the pressure to be something you know not yet, the terror that you’re different, and no one else carries this backpack full of grief in your peculiar way. We all felt it but not when we sang in the basement of my friend’s house. Not when we sang together.

Twenty years and counting since we’ve performed on stages, at clubs, in a basement, or a garage and I finally understand why her mom cried. She adored the music, but she was witnessing love swaying, leaping through airwaves, tickling her skin and earlobes. Love that leaked an aroma from our voices and poured into a giant vat of Sunday sauce and noodles, slow-cooked, upstairs on the stove, made by my friend’s mom with the drippings of our voices. We were comfort food.

The terror and demons rotted in the weighted bags on our backs. The stench of queer love fermenting in the hidden pockets, eating disorders eating away at the cloth, family trauma burning holes through the bottom. A symphony of agony. But we could go home, set the grief on the carpet for a few hours, and believe we were good. And we were so good. Not just the three-course meal of our voices, although our friends and classmates treated us like rock stars when we performed. I mean the way we harmonized to fill the wounds of ourselves, even if just for a two-minute song. We knew how to heal one another’s pain through the synchronization of an “us,” a belonging.

Decades of dust have piled on my diaphragm, the guitar’s body warped from humid cries. If you don’t use it, you lose it. And we lost it. We are now notes in different songs and different states, the way some music leaves your life for a while.

I wonder about her, and why she deleted me from her song. I wonder if the three of us knew it would be the last time we sang together whenever that was, and what we sang, and if my friend’s mom was there turning around in the computer chair to hide her crying. Like she knew. I sing the songs now, alone, through discordant chords on my guitar and a voice register that lives lower, that can’t reach those high notes. Can’t reach them. I crack through the ballads, the melodies missing the two other strings of harmony.

But, still I do it because it beckons me, the way falling in love during childhood lingers flavor that you crave for the rest of your life, that you can taste without it touching your tongue, without it being there. And they crawl into my ear when I least suspect it, especially on a Sunday, when I just want to sit with a bowl of pasta. For two minutes, they are with me and I’ll never stop singing with them, because it will always remind me I can “be someone.”

Hello friends,
I’m Andrea and I’m an addict. So cliche trust me I know. It’s true though seriously I am. Drugs, food, shopping any and all things impulsive I’m in. Drugs is the front runner in my list of truths though. My favorite. I was able to look in the eyes of the people I was talking to, I was social, I felt “normal”. I thought I fit in and I thought I was so relevant. I was a mom, an employee, a friend. A functioning addict …a true member of society. I spent many a days looking out the window asking why and how did I get here? I spent many a nights working and hustling to support a now raging habit. I new death was imminent. One more contaminated move and it was over. I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t want to feel. Anything. I looked in the mirror one day and what I saw shocked me. My face with fresh sores picked through paralyzing bound of anxiety. My eyes looked a 100 years old while me skin aged a lifetime. I knew I needed to change. So I did. About ten years now. I’ll say though nothing prepares you for sobriety. All those buried feelings come right back to the surface. Raw, rare and exposed. It’s wierd to feel again, to feel human. I know now what I say matters, I hear my voice and I like the sound of it. There’s so much I don’t know. 20 years of hiding and wishing i was normal, which is just a setting on the dryer by the way…I’m now at a place of acceptance. I’m in recovery but am I truly recovered? I have urges sometimes….fleeting thoughts of getting high. The process. The chaos. The feelings or lack there of. I miss it sometimes, but not enough to ever go back. I’m lucky….I got out. I have a second chance, and I’m eternally grateful. I don’t know a lot but I know I just need to keep hanging on because my journey is so far from over. Thank you. We do recover.

Dear Fellow Beautiful Beings,

Everyone knows someone, if not personally then most likely in the tabloids, or countless movies and tv shows, who have suffered from some kind of substance abuse. But what about when that narcotic is another human being?
Welcome to my world!
It’s a tricky one cause there is no bottle of booze or jar of pills to put down. It’s all stored in that hidden place of shame and dread. My brain! Which apparently thrives on giving great power to the opposite sex, allowing them to completely occupy my cranium like a cancer. It’s an obsession in my psyche that at times, feels so incurable and hopeless, I end up questioning a reason to exist.

I apologize if that was too brazen of a start, but I’m almost fifty- And honestly, I’m just really sick of the pain.

This is probably foreign to most of you, but if you’ve never completely ruined your whole day just waiting for one person to text you back, consider yourself extremely lucky.

I’m not writing this because I know any answers or solutions, only that I know the addiction, and have, at various times throughout my life, suffered greatly from it. If you are reading this and can relate just know you can reach out to me after your peers refuse to hear that “assholes” name once more!
If you don’t have a close friend afflicted with the same mental illness, forget them having any understanding of your pain, they instead just deem you as weak.
Which makes you stop relaying any obsession related feelings or actions to them, leaving you even more alone in your pain. This is not at all a criticism of the frustrated friends I have had over the years….
Just a statement I felt I had to address for anyone that has been in the same shame filled predicament and felt they had no one to reach out to.

I wish I could have more open conversations with female friends, but just like a guy assuming all women are insane, the first female response I receive is too often “that guy’s an asshole, or narcissist.” Or both. I don’t buy it to be that black and white. But maybe that’s because I have been called crazy ever since I can remember.
My friends may be right, and these guys may be complete douchebags, but I am the one who should be more harshly judged. Majority of these guys showed their cards from the beginning, and I kept going back. Recklessly betting with my emotions, knowing the house always wins.
I am the one that needs shock therapy for spending a large chunk of my life vying for the love of several emotionally unavailable human beings! And the last one was a Raiders Fan. As if my shame wasn’t embarrassing enough!

I’ve spent a huge majority of my adult life grasping for the undying affection of the opposite sex. Desperately wanting random, various men to love me, all while picking the absolute worst candidates for the job.
What’s that famous quote “I don’t want to be a part of any club that would have me as a member”?
If someone likes me too much and too quickly, I automatically assume there is something very wrong with them. Cause why would they choose me?
Or maybe I just love a good challenge…

I spent the years of 2009-2012 being completely obsessed with a guy I never even kissed. To the point I knew his daily schedule and would try to time my walks to the gym to correlate when he was leaving his local AA meeting across the street.
In case you didn’t believe me when I said this wasn’t based solely on sexual contact…

I’ve had a few healthy relationships in my life, and about four completely unhealthy, obsession filled, several years long casualties. I’m writing this in desperate hopes that this “last one” is exactly that.

I fell in love in early 2020 with who I now hope is my last bad habit.

And yes, I did sleep with this one and the sex was amazing. But he was insistent that we were just friends. I would wait around till he wanted to see me again, which was usually about every three weeks, just the type of annoying cycle every woman is used to.
Eventually I was literally breaking my own heart for an hour of what I thought was the deepest love I had ever felt for another person of the opposite sex.

Complete ecstasy followed by a month of tears, and sad desperate angry texts, usually in the vein of “why don’t you love me?”

Is there any more of a turnoff?

At least once a month I would plan out what I was going to say to him when he contacted me. Usually, a very dramatic monologue about why I did not want to see him anymore. Desperately hoping every day that he would text me so I could tell him why I don’t want him to text me anymore.
Literally, the definition of insanity…
Please contact me so I can tell you why I no longer want you to contact me!

But of course, he never did. He didn’t need to. I wouldn’t make it two weeks without convincing myself that if you love someone you should check in and see how they are doing. Which in turn would result in him offering to come over and who am I to say no? I could die tomorrow.
Carpe Diem!!
Still trying to figure out if my brain is a blessing or a curse…

I tried being with other people but it just felt mediocre, and why settle for a buffet when I can still get the Filet Mignon?
These are the justifications my brain makes.

The more months that passed, the more seriously I began to ponder that this self-destructive, depression inducing behavior, could actually turn to real serious self-harm. It’s already a challenge going thru this menopausal mid-life change.

After three years of desperate yearning and too many thoughts of disappearing, I suddenly became insistent that he be my last depression-filled, self-destructive, obsession.
If I didn’t finally change, I was going to die. Not necessarily because of him, but because he was just the next protagonist in the story of my life of men I have chosen to destroy me.
In a desperate quest to find the silver lining in what felt like a no-win situation, I forcefully embraced the mindset that the universe keeps giving me the same challenge until I conquer it. I made it my personal emotional boot camp to stick it out with him until I no longer felt like I needed him in order to survive.
I kept going back to him while doing intense personal therapy to make sure I would never choose another one of these killers again.
This sounds like insane behavior, but until I learned why I gave him and countless others a key to all my happiness, I knew I would have just repeated the same behavior with someone new.
I have run thirteen full twenty-six mile marathons, and watched An Officer and A Gentleman at least a dozen times.
Just like Richard, I don’t back away from a challenge.

After many long walks accompanied by motivational podcasts, and hours of the best spiritual hot yoga (shout out to CorePower Yoga) I no longer cry from the ridiculous thoughts that I desperately need him in my life. I also no longer have anger toward him.

I do my best to look at every situation as one that comes from a place of love. Whomever I am tortured by is quite possibly in turn tortured by somebody else. I don’t know these guys personal stories. I just know I don’t want to blame them anymore. “Hurt people- hurt people.”
I’ve been looking so hard for validation from others instead of just getting it from myself.

I have no answers or any hint of a cure. I’m not sure there even is one, except that similar to being an alcoholic, I just take it One Day At A Time.
The one thing I have learned is that it’s not always real. Not every thought I have in my head is fact. It took me till the age of about forty-two to learn this, but better late then never I guess. So now when the negative thoughts and hours of dialogue I pretend to have with a guy rejecting me plagues me to the point of tears, I don’t fight it. I grab some Kleenex and cry and just imagine those bad thoughts are like a horrible radio station I am forced to listen to till it runs out of battery.

This article hits on a chunk of my life that resulted in depression, but I’d like to end it by reassuring all of you wonderful people who were caring enough to read this till the end, that I am very good. I practice amazing self-care every day, and I am constantly grateful that this is quite literally my only problem in life. What’s a little mental illness?!
At least I’m not a Raiders Fan…

Sincerely,

Jen Murphy

God struck my heart like lightning
Giving my life a brightening
Since then, my hope is in the Lord.
Connected like a power cord.
A heavenly guide by my side
Together we shall abide.

It was a Thursday morning, just like any other. I got up, grabbed a cup of coffee, took it back to my bedroom, turned on the news and scrolled through my phone like any other morning. At 6:00 am I hopped in the shower, hoping I’d get out the door a bit earlier so I could get to the our teacher’s union meeting which was scheduled at school before class started. I walked down the hall, grabbed my lunch, toasted a bagel and off I went. Little did I know, that morning, November 8th, 2018 would be the last time I’d be surrounded by your loving walls.

You welcomed us about 18 years ago, after moving from a smaller home in town. I remember thinking you were so much more luxurious home—you had central heat and air instead of a wall heater. You had a large, open kitchen instead of a small galley kitchen. You even had two separate rooms—one for family to gather—the other for the adults to mingle. Well, the adult mingling didn’t happen as often, but the family gatherings were abundant. Our little family had about 6480 dinners often while the television was showing some funny sitcom–a handful of other celebrations happened in the dining room and outside on the patio. Birthdays were shared—by my estimates you hosted about 72 of them. You even hosted a Thanksgiving celebration where my entire family came—long before things got complicated. You even hosted two high school graduation parties. Special events which make me smile.

I loved your beautiful gas fireplace insert where I spent many nights healing from my broken ankle last December. I’ll miss the days of sitting on the sofa, feeling the warmth of your beautiful fire.

My favorite memories come from our beautiful Christmas celebrations. The fireplace mantle which our stockings hung, the tree which stood tall on display in the front window—it all looked so spectacularly gorgeous. I always loved how your bright lights which hung from the roof’s edge, would shine during the Christmas holiday. You knew just how to bring Christmas cheer to our family. For that I thank you.

I’m also thankful for all the baths in the tub…a nightly ritual. Many books were read, while I soaked my often weary bones. Many tears were shed while soaking. Many worries were released. Those nights will be missed.

Our family will forever be thankful for keeping us safe each night. Many happy nights, some sad nights, but most importantly many restful nights were spent in your bedrooms. Those nights will no longer happen. Sadness. Tears. Restlessness. Anxiousness. All used to be comforted by you. No longer.

I will forever be grateful to you sweet home for housing our family BBQs on your patio. And I’m especially thankful how your fences took such care of our beloved Akitas—Kuma, Bella, Hopey and Odin. They played, they healed, they ate and they thrived in your yard. Thank you.

Our kitty River also loved stalking the critters outside your yard at night. A time or two she’d climb up your old oak trees, getting stuck then needing rescue. All of our furbabies were thankful for the space to roam and explore.

I’m heartbroken that I won’t be able to sit and drink coffee, or wine from our patio with my friend any longer. The flowers, birdhouses and hummingbird feeders will forever be missed.

Your occasional snowy winters, beautiful spring mornings, chilly fall evenings will just be distant memories. Your gorgeous camellias are no longer—the days of cutting one of your red or pink flowers which had always reminded me of my mom will no longer be. For that I’m sad.

What I’m especially thankful for is how comforting you were to me during my grieving days and subsequent years following the deaths of both my parents. You helped me heal—your four walls brought extreme comfort to me. You listened to my tears—my fears—my aching heart.

I bid you farewell my sweet home. The beautiful sunsets and sunrises viewed from your windows, will no longer be. My heart is broken, but I’ll remember our time together forever. Love to you always, me💕