Dragon In You

We crown ourselves and set jewels of 'It's my right to do that!' all around. Walking around with heads held high, tiaras kept straight. But let me tell you of the danger of mixing up nice and kind.  It is nice to be authentic. It is nice to own your space. It is nice to do what you want to do because it brings you happiness. But then there it sits in the corner. Hello kind, would you like the stage for a minute? Let me tell you a story of a nice Halloween decoration. It was nice, for the owner. They enjoyed it... yada yada yada.  As the years of Halloween progressed I started with a mindset of "How fun is this for my child Ronan", to sending Ronan's dad photos because he was deployed, then finally doing Halloween together as a family in Utah with our newborn baby girl, and Pennsylvania as a family of 4, then a recently separated on the path of divorce single mom halloween in San Diego with two very small children. All of which were fairly regular albeit some s...

This post isn't meant to make you sad, but I've been feeling a little sad lately. As I've thought for days, well who am I fooling: for weeks, months. Years. I think sometimes of the odd reality I live in. Married and single. I became a widow at age 29. I gave my husband all of my 20's. I spent my 20's working, next married, then having children, being so incredibly grateful to be a stay at home mom. I also spent them confused, terrified, and in despair for my late-husband's mental health. Now a single mom staring blankly at the question of "to be, or not to be (dating), that is the question." I've not been on a date in a long time. Honestly, the comedian on stage yesterday said it perfectly: "I feel like a door that says push, that everyone is trying to pull." What would it even mean to date? A question that I think I'm too traumatized still to answer. I have my push ways and get rubbed up against pull people. I look at the flow of th...

We have all been there. I’ve been "there" through every iteration and identity I’ve claimed, then disowned. As I’ve transitioned and identified myself with one thing, then to another. The pattern I’ve noticed is it always starts with something that is good for my mental health, a bandaid or a way to cope. Something that brings me maybe temporary relief or longer lasting feeling of safety.  So it’s no wonder I’ve been afraid to commit. With what felt like a wayward heart that was ever changing upon finding new information that I felt more closely I related to. I’ve woken up to normal days that have ended in earth shattering, life altering, new identifications slapped on me without my consent. My husband and wife relationship died slowly over years and then in an instant and forever, as a widow. I’ve had days that felt like years and looked back at years that felt like days. It seems as though “the only constant thing in life is change” became my walking billboard.  Until it wa...

  “Do you know the life I want for you!?” I exclaimed in a deeper more forceful voice than I intended. I had woken up late and left the house to go have coffee and play date with friends. Leaving the house and breaking a cardinal rule. Never leave the house when it’s dirty.  I operate my life in a few categories, to the extreme. A clean house is one of them. For years, with small children and exhaustion state as the baseline I had a cluttered house. Small children, and all the beautiful physical things that came with that. But because of something that occurred a few days after Thanksgiving 2021 (more details on that in my memoir “Dragon In You”) I have significantly downsized on the things in my life.  Although I could look back and claim triggers to all of this and there would be truth in that. I choose to look at my clean house as a way to thank and take care of myself, despite the origin. I would be only telling part of the truth in that statement though. Triggers do ...

The holidays have always come with expectation. Each year the picture in my head grew smaller and smaller of what a loving festivity should look like. But try as I might to have it “just be another day.” The Holidays were not.   Decorations, a constant reminder of those who love this season. A feeling I wished I had but that sensation so unfamiliar. So what was I to do? For a few years after my husband died I hid from all things that were a celebration. Repeating the phrase “this is just another day.” But what was I so afraid of? What part of myself was shamed for not having a partner by my side or the guster required to flood the house with autumn colors and then turn winter theme? What about majestic snow covered mountains drew me in and also broke my heart (read blog post ‘Pitch of Honesty’ for that explanation.)  So this year, surrounded by some friends one of them posed a question. “How are we going to be kind to ourselves as moms and not aim for perfection this year duri...

I sat in the hospital room once again with one of my children. It was a San Diego winter but non the less, sick season was upon us. Since my son was born it seemed the Emergency Room was our unwelcome second home. With ear infections and the flu becoming us (what felt like weekly). Every time my son got a sniffle I knew this was where we would land for a breathing treatment and a steroid shot, to then be sent on our way. So in some respect it was normal. A unfortunate familiarity. And what I have learned is when I let my guard down is when it’s easier for anxiety to hit me hard and out of nowhere. I sat. Waiting. With the nebulizer in place it was only a matter of time before we would be discharged. My eyes fluttered in a subconscious attempt to take a micro nap. Something I was desperate for, for years. Relief from being tired. My wish would soon be granted by a flood of adrenaline. My least favorite way.  With only curtains separating myself from the patient next door privacy was...

A nice day for me to pitch it to him, hope with a future investor. My book wrapped up neat and tight with a bow, a perfect witness to my life, I wrote. The story is outside of myself now. Giving the audience no minced words or reason to deny my existence.  I no longer needed to remember everything because it was written out. Now the world can know, if they want to. He responds. The movement of sound. His words drifted into my ears, pierced through my flesh and into my soul. I sat there stunned and thrown off balance from the pitch of honesty. Unable to feel the floor beneath me... I was seen. In a light I wasn’t trying to be. Without consciously forcing myself. Naturally. Because what he said reflected that what I had been professing meant something. The manifesto I wrote had bearing and weight because I had just walked him through the thick of it. He acknowledged that the space I held in the world was physical, mental, spiritual.  Living now in the mind of this investor who s...