It's just a bathrobe you wear backwards, you morons!

I have made every attempt to avoid having this discussion, but tonight I decided I cannot put it off any longer.

The WTF Blanket** (not appropriate for all audiences)

I was hoping to turn this into a deep spiritual truth about how we are often sold things we really don't need, such as "fire insurance". However, I'm laughing too hard to write anything sensible. It really is just a BATHROBE you wear BACKWARDS. It's like a chia pet...it seems like a good idea at the time, but for the rest of your life you will be the person who was actually convinced enough to buy one.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.


**If you live under a rock, or in a country that does not actually invent such entirely moronic necessities, the original Snuggie commercial/advertisement is here. And yes, people actually do buy these things. In the US, this commercial plays almost constantly.

The Saturnine Cycle

I'm unraveling this a piece at at time, so one post might not seem to have continuity with another, but they do. There might be gaps between posts as I process, but stick with me.

First, I want to clarify something. I'm not so fragile. I used to be fragile; even six months ago. Hell, even three months ago. But not today. The things I share in this series are like tumbleweeds; the wind has shifted and they have blown out of my soul. Don't fear for me. I do have dreary days where I wish the world would not spin for awhile so I could get my bearings again. However, something snapped and when I decided I needed to be unstuck, well, the decision was more than half the process.

I happen to be a melancholy personality...saturnine, if you will. The dark side of the moon is more welcoming to me, and some days will clearly reflect that shadow. However, a grand realization I made in recent weeks is that THIS IS OK. I have always fought it, writhing and twisting and rejecting it as something broken about my humanity. It doesn't seem this way for very many people I know; either many people don't let on, or it just isn't that common. Maybe it is more common than anyone knows, but I still have had to convince myself that I'm not doomed to die because of it.

For most of my life these feelings have brought me to suicidal thoughts on a regular basis. Adolescence and teen years and twenties were struggles. However, during the first eight years after I had children I was not tormented at all. I never had the saturnine cycle those years. I don't know the reason, other than maybe my brainpower was tied up so tightly in caring for babies that there was nothing left to share with that part of my soul.

But it came back with a vengeance about four and a half years ago. My charismatic self tried with all my might to convince me it was a spiritual attack from the enemy, yeah, you know the drill. Fasting of various types, and hours of prayer and bible reading did not alleviate it. I didn't tell anyone, of course, because then it would be believed that there was something in my life that was opening me to spiritual attack. Unconfessed sin, unforgiveness...and it would be drug out of me by some listening prayer or some such magic. For.My.Own.Good. You know. I was certain it would feel as if I was squeezing blood from oranges; and whatever came out of me never served to solve the problem...only leaving me with more questions. So this was a topic that never saw the light of day.

I may have mentioned panic attacks before. That was usually brought on by the melancholy cycle, I realize now because I had so much fight in my spirit against it. Often it was like being at war with my own soul. Sometimes it would last for an hour or two...and then the sadness would settle on me like some fog, sometimes days or weeks. Then, without warning, it would lift. But those panic attacks...they aren't fun. They leave me snivelling in a corner with my arms around my knees chanting "It doesn't matter...it doesn't matter", my happy-place mantra...and sometimes also accompanied by bouts of rage and sometimes terror...

This was only a few times per year...never bothersome enough to pursue it more than by religious means. However, the threat was always in the back of my mind...breathing and waiting. The panic attacks were not the enemy...I knew without a doubt that there was a root....something dark that I could never identify, something I was shouting at internally, but a beast I could not see, could not identify.

Slowly, like the sun dawning, shadows shortening in my soul, I realized something a few weeks ago...if I choose to welcome the melancholy, embrace it, it no longer terrifies me, and there are no panic attacks. It has become a tool with which to hone myself, to dig deep into the places where there is venom needing to be drawn. Certainly, I will still cry...still walk, the halls or the street, or drive the forests. I will still grieve something intangible. But.It.Is.OK. And I have unearthed much of the root as of late...I will share more on that another time.

The grand difference in all this is the idea that my moods...once I came out of the season of struggle from all the abuses and unhealthy emotional attachments, and disentwined myself from the all-wrong God and learned to feel again...are useful to me, beneficial even. I write better when I am melancholy. I am more attached to my soul, like Wendy sewing Peter Pan's shadow back on, it feels more solid to me, even in it's increased wistfulness and fogginess. I have found this place, rather than something to be feared and fought against, is a place all my own that is a part of me for a reason.

Someone once asked me if I was born under Saturn. Hell if I know, was my response. Well, no, actually during that season I never would have cursed. At that time, astrology was just asking for trouble, in my opinion. Dare not tread where the devil lives.

A week ago, I took another look at that question in light of recent self discoveries, and decided to find out the answer. Lo and behold, wouldn't you know? Now, I don't believe astrology is any more telling of God than anything else we humans conjure, but there must be some rhyme or reason to how God hung the planets, for when doing my natal star chart for my birthdate, time, and place...it's as accurate of me as my Enneagram or MBTI. I know all the typically religious responses...don't worry for me...I'm not going to go looking for my answers in it. However, it does serve as confirmation of some things I have always known; another vocabulary to help me sort things I'd rather not face.

Things are beginning to fall into place, and Jupiter is aligned with Mars.

Just kidding.

Call me crazy, but this is my journey. Take it with me; or not.



Fallen: Part I
Amateur Therapy Hour
She's Like the Wind
Awakenings
Fallen II: Shit Makes Things Grow
The Saturnine Cycle
Light in the Windows

I have a dream...

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

"But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speech delivered 28 August 1963
Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

He believed it could happen.
It finally has.
Today, in a very significant sense,
America makes good on that promissory note.
Amen.

Fallen II: Shit makes things grow

Today is the fourth anniversary of the day my new chance at life began, the day I received the medication that would revive me back into this world, and I would begin to awaken to the conscious understanding of how fragile my life really was. Four days prior, I was prepared to take my own life, but the plan was knocked out of my control before I could follow through. I suddenly came into the very real knowledge of how it would impact my children, my husband, everyone, if I was gone. The pain of this life was very nearly intolerable, it was so bright and sharp; the only thing more intolerable was the thought of checking out. Everything did not fall into place immediately, but this illness did remove one thing from my list of options.

Each of us, being aware of our own internal brokenness, are always doing two things: one is finding ways to cope, ways to make life tolerable, and two, seeking the sources of said brokenness and attempting to reassemble the pieces into something more than tolerable, but alive.

Behind door number 1 we are likely to find our addictions, to behaviors or substances, that help us get through each day and year and crisis. I have been thinking a great deal about why we have addictions...what about them truly provides the mirage of hope and sanity? Obviously, some have physical numbing effects that might make aspects of life easier to cope with in the short term. Other addictions are behaviors that elicit feelings of control or emotional stability. However, most of us are lucid enough to recognize these addictions, for what they are, We even realize they aren't doing anything to make our circumstances or mental state more bearable, and that they likely are creating additional stress or trauma in our lives. Yet somehow we convince ourselves, either consciously or subconsciously, that these behaviors are beneficial to our well-being.

Behind door number two we see a deep internal struggle. Most of us who have addictions also know there is some underlying cause, and generally we are pretty clear on what that cause is. However, coming to a place of being willing to challenge that cause, to battle it for control of our lives, is terrifying and paralyzing. Many of us would rather remain in our addictions; for we believe whatever pain they create must be less than the pain of facing the root cause. We might even logically know that resolving the root will not be more difficult, than where we are now, but here enters in the mystery of choosing to stay stuck in a place that is manageable and familiar over choosing to be free, with all it's unknown possibilities. It's a choice many of us make, some for years, decades.

So we find ourselves in an impenetrable dilemma; how to get unstuck? In my experience there is only one answer to this: we have to come to a place where remaining the same makes us so entirely ill, even to the point of wanting to choose death over life, that we have to change or die. For some people that is a figurative death, spiritual or emotional. For others of us, it is literal.

I don't want to be guilty of infomercial hype, but it's important to note here that I would probably be dead if the shit hadn't hit the fan. However I realize in retrospect this was more a standing at the crossroads of "I want to change" and "I am terrified of change". I never really wanted to die, to leave my children with that legacy, what I wanted was anything different than where I was. I felt too hopeless to move under my own power; I thought death would at least force me to move. But I waited one more day, I woke up one more time, I allowed the shit to fly; and today I am inclined to think of that as spreading fertilizer for my future.

It was the most terrifying place I had ever been, because the outcome was no longer under my control. I set in motion, either deliberately or inadvertently, a series of events that became it's own animal, rabid and charging. I had no idea where things would go from there, but I was insanely thrilled to be on this ride.

Getting unstuck is ugly, I won't lie to you. Again, because we must release our tightly guarded control in exchange for freedom. It's stinky and squishy and disgusting what we might find for ourselves when we are no longer hiding our shit behind a bottle, or whatnot. However, the feeling of freedom is so thoroughly enticing, mouthwatering after the starvation of control, that we cannot fail to be moved by it.

In the wise words of one of my favorite spiritual teachers, whose identity I won't reveal because this comment was not meant for all audiences:

Shit makes things grow.

Or my paraphrase: The deeper the shit, the taller the flowers.

When I walked away from religion 4 years ago, I had a supermassive vision of what this change would mean for my life. In this context I don't mean it was the religious aspect that was the catalyst, but rather the elimination of my best but entirely failed coping mechanism that opened the door for me. Everything in my life went all topsy-turvey, and I had no illusions that I would be able to stay the same. I had every hope of finally becoming a healthy and whole person, outside of the lies that told me religion would solve all my problems. The thrill of this process and the anticipation of the eventual celebration of life I would find were almost too much some days. In truth, some changes came almost immediately. Others, well, they have taken time, more time than I would like.

Some changes I have only begun to see the need for, and it is in those places I am stuck. In my most recent soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that I don't want to stay stuck. I have been looking at my addictive tendencies and the things I am trying to hide behind them. I am more than ready to close door number 1 for door number 2. I want to unravel the tangled threads that hold me together, to weave a new thing.

I have many addictions. However, contrary to appearances, alcohol is NOT one of them. Funny how that is.

More later.


Fallen: Part I
Amateur Therapy Hour
She's Like the Wind
Awakenings
Fallen II: Shit Makes Things Grow
The Saturnine Cycle
Light in the Windows

Awakenings

This morning I took my son to the school bus stop in the early hours, it was just as the sky was lightening, and the clouds were glowing pale pink, but they revealed the moon still shining dutifully. The street was dark, for the lamps had extinguished themselves in anticipation of the coming light, and the houses had smoke billowing from their chimneys and it was just a little foggy and almost entirely quiet, and so I stopped to take it all in. I could hear the rainwater running in the storm drain, and then a bird cawed and a dog barked...and for one fleeting moment I closed my eyes and listened while nature did it's thing. No idea where it came from, it hit me so hard it made me suck in my breath and get teary eyed, and the naked trees even seemed patient and wistful rather than mourning.

There is something precious about winter. The bulbs peeking out of the dirt just now, the realization that the green we enjoy in the summer is a result of winter downpours. An anticipation of the birth of new things to come. If I only venture a peek in the right direction, front and center is the majestic mountain, white down into the foothills and glimmering in the low afternoon sun as it stretches out to greet the universe.

There is something gentle about the darkness. The lights down our street, barely breaking the pitch of the night, seeming both intimate and inviting. They illumine the winter, while the fire in my hearth crackles, and I am able to breath the aroma of woodsmoke and it opens the pores of my spirit.

There is something worshipful about winter. It is so quiet, so deeply cold, it brings out a sense of thankfulness for homes to burrow into. When I stare out off our deck at the forests of pine, I see something that isn't there, some perception in me that is underused and many millenia dormant and I feel in my heart the tug of a desire to inhale the wild and hold it inside me.

There is something deeply introspective about winter. Something that allows us, if we only reach to feel it, to turn inside ourselves and root out that which isn't useful. It provides peace for the things we do not understand about our souls and answers for the darkness in them.

It has been unfolding, slowly, in ways I had not noticed before. For so long I have railed against this season that I now wonder if I have only been so adamantly opposed to it out of habit. The winter solstice touches me deeply, and I used to fear this feeling. This year I embraced it, just a little, tentative. For my entire existence, it has been insisted to me that the celebration of solstice is a pagan rite, and one must not even tread the edges of it. On Friday, it was said to me that this is much more a Celtic notion than a pagan one, though at times in history the two were intertwined, one does not define the other. That's good enough for me to feel safe and permitted, for Celts reside in ancient places of my soul, and so I belong.

This year, I briefly stood out in the night, anticipating the coming daylight that would bring an extra moment with it. It was snowing that night; abundant ambient light reflected off the snow. The air chilled my lungs on the way in and I was thankful to God for the wisdom to create a balanced year of beauty, each season in it's own unique way.

Maybe it is just part of aging...for so many years, we live in the summery youth of life where we like to frolic and play carelessly, but as we age and we begin to appreciate the slower, darker, more thoughtful pace of winter. If we only let ourselves ingest the winter and use it to close up from the glare of life, like an anemone, I think some healing happens that we don't have time for in the summer months.

Then, maybe, there isn't only one way to be. Some people might be summery in the love and laughter that defines them, for they bring us light. Others might be positively winterine in their melancholy and introspection, but they bring and the peace and quiet ear of the darkness. Is one more desirable than the other? Tonight, I'm not so sure.



Fallen: Part I
Amateur Therapy Hour
She's Like the Wind
Awakenings
Fallen II: Shit Makes Things Grow
The Saturnine Cycle
Light in the Windows

She's like the Wind

Trying to write a follow-up has proven challenging. After numerous false starts, I'm wondering when I will have more to say on the matter. Of, course I have much to say, but am not finding the words to be forthcoming.

Someone used to tell me I am a prolific writer. I used to believe her. Yes, I can crank it out, but so much of it has been a worthwhile effort to skirt the real issues, because they are far too personal and formidable to actually talk about. How often do I really write from the gut, the heart, the soul? However, I am feeling, as my writing truly emerges from the muck of the years, little scares me anymore. It has been a spiral down (or up, depending on the day), spinning around, always closing in on that which is true in my soul.

I try these days to write by Spirit...and I hate using that terminology because it just feels like too much abusive yuckness and unbearable weight from the charismatic years...please know I don't mean it that way. Spirit is that which is God within us, not some means by which to control people, and not something that can be chased after with words and deeds.

People have occasionally asked me how I know Spirit; it's not something that I possess sufficient vocabulary for. If life is waves crashing on the shore, Spirit is sun. If life is that which gives worry and anxiety, Spirit is peace. If life is the city, Spirit is the forest. If life is a storm, Spirit is the wind. I set my sails by it. Take whichever metaphor you like.

On this particular topic, I have to follow Spirit; both to remain safe, and to protect you from reading content you really wish you hadn't. With that, I cannot promise when the words will come. I only know Spirit has been there always, and if I listen, she does not steer me wrong.

Maybe I'm not in such a hurry to cinch my coat tightly around me and turn my back to the bluster. Maybe I am standing on the prow of a speeding ship, with my arms spread wide. Whichever, it does seem the longer I'm on this journey the easier it is to experience the wind; and for that, I'm grateful.


Fallen: Part I
Amateur Therapy Hour
She's Like the Wind
Awakenings
Fallen II: Shit Makes Things Grow
The Saturnine Cycle
Light in the Windows

Amateur Therapy Hour

It all comes to the surface eventually, doesn't it? Like the spirit trying to reject a splinter, it pushes it closer to the surface so it's easier to remove.

I can't believe how bringing this up has opened a real can of worms for me...emotionally. It was the toughest shit I have ever been through, and while the repercussions have led to good and beautiful in me, trying to dig the thorn out really hurts. Because there is so much to it...what to say, what to say? It would take a lifetime. Where to begin? At age 8 or 18 or 28? What to tell? What to leave out?

You all are wonderful. Do I tell you that often enough? Simply wonderful.

Sue posted today about not having to answer to anyone...and I really want to be there...I am closer than ever, but I still struggle with worrying that people will hate me and walk away. I guess if that's the case, then you are better off without me.

Anyone still here?

It has been a hard year...any of you who have been around know that. And just when I think it HAS to get better...the breakdown of new things, every day, relationships, lead to hopelessness again. Expectations are an evil thing because they are rarely met...so I am wondering if the key is to learn not to expect much from anyone? A cop out, sure? But a better coping mechanism than addiction? You tell me.

I Facebooked today "What determines happiness?", because it seems extraordinarily elusive for me. Is it something we are born with? Something learned? Something added to us? Something chemical? Or do we all sit around thinking how elusive happiness is for each of us, not knowing that it is as fleeting for everyone else...and that we are no different?

Day to day it seems I am lifeless and feel as though nothing will ever be right in me. I remember being 8 years old and being sure I was just entirely broken...that God messed up when he made me; God saw me and said "Oh shit, this one is going to have a tough go of it"? That feeling has never gone away. I tried to drink it away, tried to eat it away, tried to sex it away, tried to pray it away, tried to give it away, tried to God it away....but nope, still there.

I know I'm not the only one...are we a breed of ingrates? Why are we in so much pain, so dissatisfied? Everyone has trauma and crisis in their lives, why can some of us never recover? Are we addicted to the pain...is it the only way we know how to identify ourselves? Do we fear losing some sense of uniqueness if we become happy?

It is this pain that caused everything bad in my life...the pain I have known since early childhood...but I don't know where it came from. I can't point to some event that caused it...it's like it was always there. Did something happen to me that I don't remember, or am I just way too sensitive, as everyone has told me my entire life? Because I feel as though I have taken every negative emotion...every time I have been laughed at or criticized or stepped on...and shoveled them into a stinking pile of poop in my soul. Maybe some people just know better how to compost?

Granted, living north of 45˚ will probably kill me one day. This time of year is the worst...we are organic and our modern lifestyles do not allow us to hibernate the way we need to in the winter. We have to face the cold and darkness even though nature intends us to reside underground, in the relative safety of the dirt, where no one expects anything of us until the first warm rays fall on us. So we're left to slog through, only half-awake, half-alive.

I look at the meth addicts that are so common here in the NW and think, what a shame, see how their life has been ruined...seen them try and fail to kick it, because it creates a perpetual numbness that only meth will counter. But then I think, how am I different? My drug is legal, but no less destructive. I am 38 and have the health problems of a person much older. I knew all along I was harming myself, but for whatever reason it didn't matter. Because in some sick way it kept the pain at bay, a chain on the dogs.

Or maybe because we are in this inward pain we have to create reasons, legitimate excuses to feel the way we do. It's not acceptable to be in pain for no apparent reason, but if we are made fun of for being fat, or whatever evidence of whatever addiction, then we do have a legitimate excuse for being in pain. Maybe we fear that if we were to do something about the addiction, if we WERE to kick it, then we would still feel just as much like shit but have no excuse for our pain? I think as a child I was hurting and was told to get over it, to stop being dramatic...so I created real reasons to be in pain so they would stop telling me to stop crying.

Sure, we can take medication, but what good is a drug that just numbs it all...reducing our capacity to feel pain while also reducing our capacity to experience pleasure? Seriously, what good does that do? (And I do not stand in judgment by that comment; speaking for myself here.) I would rather experience every fucked up moment of my existence and know I'm alive, and know who I am, even if no one else is OK with that person, and to be able to cry and not feel like everyone wants to fix me, (because crying obviously means there is something really wrong...either in our lives or inside of us, right?) and to be sad and not have people tell me that is the wrong way to be, and the only right way to live is happiness.

I no longer hide behind the pain, and I'm still believing this will lead to something good in my life. Not today, but someday, down the road, I will not have to medicate, if only I am free to feel. Right now, in this moment, I will eat my cookies that are slowly killing me from the pancreas on out, but maybe tomorrow I will eat one less, and feel one more.

So if sorting out the reason for the pain means I can kick the addictions, it's worth it. But does anyone really ever have success with that, or are some of us just going to be in pain no matter what? If not one thing, another?

And fellow pain-bearers...tell me, what is this total disconnect I feel whenever anyone asks how I am? Why am I unable to tell anyone how I am hurting? I feel shame for my pain, is that it? Because still I am unable to answer that question for anyone. And what are these panic attacks? "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter" my mantra when curled in the corner. That puts the pain at bay again, for awhile.

Yep, I'm broken. But are we really supposed to feel whole?

You might say, "see a shrink, for godssakes". Truly, I would imagine that my collective readership has better credentials for psychoanalysis than thousands of dollars of therapy. And I can't afford it anyhow.

Have at it.


Fallen: Part I
Amateur Therapy Hour
She's Like the Wind
Awakenings
Fallen II: Shit Makes Things Grow
The Saturnine Cycle
Light in the Windows

Fallen: Part 1

Today, Heidi shared this:

"I understand that when we have been indoctrinated so far to one side of an issue (ie. our behavior must be appropriate to be accepted in ‘church’) and we finally realize this is killing us, the knee-jerk response is to move as far from that position as we can. So we move to what we perceive is complete freedom. (Yes, I know this from my own life, as well as observing others). The pendulum has now gone from one extreme to the other. Now we no longer have to ‘behave,’ so we use our freedom to discover all the ways we can mis-behave. We attempt to see how close we can get to the cliff without falling off. I think in some ways this process can be helpful in loosing the grip of legalism, but it can be self-destructive when taken to extremes."

I'm doing to dig into this because it's extraordinarily important, but I'm only able to touch on some of it in this first post. So you may have questions about the places I fail to elaborate; I will try to answer them in the comments or in future posts.

But first, a disclaimer: my experiences are unique to me, and I don't mean to say that my process is anyone else's process, or my answers are anyone else's answers. I only hope to address how completely fucked up we all are, every last one of us, and how church-as-we-know-it often contributes to our fucked-up-ness. Church is a drug, like any, to some of us, and just as destructive. I'm not saying that is true for most, but I begin to wonder if those of us who tend towards addictive behaviors are more likely to be harmed in church environments. Addictive behavior isn't tolerated in church, so some of us swap drugs or alcohol or sex for church addiction. Those who are more skilled at moderation might have a much healthier go of church.

* * *

Sixteen days from today will mark the 4th anniversary of the day I almost died. It was about a month after I had left church and I was suicidal because of the condition my life was in because of who church had made me be. However, God took me down before I could take myself out. (Yes, that statement might contradict a previous post; get over it). This illness incapacitated me for almost a month, and by the time I was well enough to consider suicide again, I had realized that alcohol made it possible to cope with life. I rarely get hungover and other substances give me migraines. Easy choice.

I was drunk for much of the following six months. I would start some days as early as 9 AM Sometimes I would be intoxicated when I went to pick my sons up from school. Occasionally I had to sober up right before my husband came home from work. I had come to the revelation that God wasn't who I had always believed him to be, and if the church represented God, I wanted nothing to do with him or it ever again. A person lost in grief for a loved one, I looked for solace at the bottom of a bottle. So began the pendulum swing.

A song this afternoon drove me back into the hell that was those early months of my church-leaving. Pitch black, I had nothing left to lose and I sank into the miry despair that surfaces when one realizes ones entire existence is based on a lie, and lie onto lie. The first lie was what I had believed about who God was. The others were lies I had believed or told because of the first. Everything came crashing down after that, but like buildings we put up where they don't belong, in floodplains and on earthquake faults, when they fall to the ground, it is only then we can see the sun.

Today, it was almost as if I could feel myself in that February night, drunk nearly unconscious, about two months post-church. That was the night I sat by while one of my best friends committed adultery in the next room with a complete stranger we had picked up at at bar. Granted, I had been more sober earlier in the evening and had drug her out of the bar when I realized there was trouble brewing. However, she called him and told him where we were staying, and by the time he arrived, I was too intoxicated to care or to do anything about it. I even found myself cheering her on in my mind. Not cheering for sexual reasons, nor for marital reasons; every fiber of my being was about breaking the rules. Fuck God, fuck, church. Fuck it all. I was going to be free.

Earlier that day I had realized my crash was coming, my point of no return on ceasing to care, so with one last desperate kick to the surface, one more grasp towards hope, I had reached out to some other friends. However, these "friends" would rather see me drown if it meant they could get to their Purpose Driven Life group on time. (Forgiveness for that was given a long time ago, just to be clear, but God help me if I ever think a church event is more important than the well-being of a person I care about. Point made.) So I took a deep breath and went down. I have made my peace with it all, but for six months I lived in total shock at my behavior and what had happened, walking around like a zombie, mumbling, drunk.

For that entire season, my only, solitary prayer to a God I no longer believed in was something along the lines of this:

Lord, protect me from myself,
because I don't give a damn anymore
and I know what I'm capable of.

There will be more; I know this is dark, but it gets brighter.



Fallen: Part I
Amateur Therapy Hour
She's Like the Wind
Awakenings
Fallen II: Shit Makes Things Grow
The Saturnine Cycle
Light in the Windows