Thanks Twitter for the #FakeLoveFacts Hashtag trend. I’d say I feel much better, but that’s not true. But it did distract me for a little bit, so that’s good.
I do talk about other things on Twitter, (cough! #Resist #TheWalkingDead) really, you can click, you know, like, if you really, really wanted to. I’m going to go finish of that quart of chocolate ice cream while you do.
It was a very long night, and this morning is not looking much better.
I’m oscillating between Debra and Maya Angelou; between Fuck absolutely everything and Oriah Mountain Dreamer; between running home to Canada, and staying here to fight for what I believe at my core is the right thing to do.
Hey, I never said I was perfect. Zen Bitch, remember?
I love you Debra
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou, 1928 – 2014
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
The Invitation
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Oh Canada, I love you and I miss you, but there is more work to do where I am.
And I wouldn’t be a yoga teacher if I didn’t tell you to breathe. Slowly and Deeply. Repeat.
Stages I go through in a breakup* (*not in any order whatsoever. *reserve the right to revisit bulletpoints)
Singing loudly with Annie Lennox, Aretha Franklin, Pink and Carrie Underwood while driving – am strong empowered woman who needs no man
Fetal position, rocking back and forth muttering things to the dog – am certain no will ever love me, that my hair will never behave respectably, that my feet are just plain ugly and I should just give up now and become a cat lady
Cool. I’m, like totally cool. No, actually I’m so important and so busy with all my important busy life things that I have no time to do anything buy my very important things that really just take up all of my time. Lord I just have no time to be worried about such trivial things! Am important, very busy person, anybody can see that, also I like wearing my pants inside out.
Fuck it. Fuck absolutely all of it. Fuck all of it somuch that I’m going to sit here and eat ice cream – NOT low fat or froyo, but FULL fat Ben and Fucking Jerry’s ice cream, AND I’m going to eat it straight from the container sitting on the couch at 11pm, because I can, okay??? Am so damn happy that no man will ever see me naked again that I’m gonna sit here and my godamm ice cream, okay?
Obsessively checking WhatsApp to see who’s online and when. Not because I care, I just happened to pick up my phone. Am totally in control here, and do not care when anyone is on line and not sending me messages. Do not care even a tiny bit. Absolutely did not just check my messages just now.
Hang out with hot 30somethings. Decide right after gorgeous blonde in short shorts says, hey you’re my mom’s age, you look good and that’s what’s really important that I need to hang with my 50something friends maybe a little more.
Make empowered decision to go see all Marvel/Xmen/Star Trek movies by myself, because dammit I am an empowered and free woman who needs no man to go to movies with. Also I can eat all the damn popcorn myself.
Buy a parrot, because… because honestly I’ve got nothing here, but I did buy a parrot who is learning to dance and sing to Brittany Spear’s Work Bitch, so that’s pretty entertaining.
Revisit the ‘Empowered/Fetal/Fuck All of Things’ Cycle for a few more rounds.
Journal, Meditate just like Mastin Kipp says I’m suppose to, because you know he’s a 30something who is apparently enlightened, or at least has a book and a blog and sends messages on YouTube from Maui on how to cope with heartbreak. (aside – he would likely frown benevolently on a few of my other coping mechanisms)
Fail spectacularly and not being petty and bitter. Journal about greater than average pettiness and bitterness. Meditate on super charged petty bitter non enlightened behavior that would disappoint Mastin.
Wonder if I should share any of this with my therapist, but then worry she will think less of me, then wonder if maybe I am not approaching this correctly. Decide I’m fine, and will tell my therapist so.
Draw picture. Write poems. Mock picture and poem. Buy $50 worth of art supplies to colour picture. Continue to mock now coloured in picture.
Buy cute dress, because Fuck it.
Buy new bra, because really Fuck it
Buy groovy top that 30somethings wouldn’t be caught dead in, but would probably say would look good on someone my age.
Look at bank account balance. Berate self over apparent complete lack of self control.
Remember that my birthday is in a week.
Fuck all the thoughts about what to do on your birthday. Will pretend to ignore the damn thing this year, and secretly stuff face with cupcakes and Ben and Jerry’s.
Re-examine feet. Decide they are the ugliest feet that have ever existed. Wear open toed sandals anyway, because Fuck it, no one will ever see me naked again, so why worry about ugly feet. Right moving on.
Wonder why you have to write all this shite only after midnight, and not in the morning like normal writers.
Debate major hair cut vs finally embracing dreads. Buy more hair product because bank account still had a few dollars in it. Decide that stress increases frizz, and hair products with cool smelling ingredients will decrease stress.
Write self depreciating blog, spends hours writing and rewriting it, finding pictures and clever gifs and memes instead of sleeping, because sleep is for wimps and people who have to have passable hair, pretty toes, and who don’t eat Ben and Jerry’s at midnight, who don’t need to sing Carrie Underwood in the car.
am strong empowered woman who needs no man
just happened to pick up my phone. Am totally in control here, and do not care when anyone is on line and not sending me messages. Do not care even a tiny bit. Absolutely did not just check my messages just now.
Zen Bitch 