honeydunce

I don’t talk about my depression and anxiety very much. I’m open with only a few close friends, and even that comes with a certain kind of quiet. It is something I never want to mention, even though I loathe the stigma that comes with mental health. My own mind bewilders me, can get lost in it for days. For some reason, I want to give my hell some privacy.

Well I can’t do that anymore. If I stick to my values…if I’m true to myself, then I can’t uphold the hush-hush nature of mental illness. I can’t lock it up within and suffer–I just can’t do it anymore. I’m thirty years old and I’m tired of dragging around a bunch of sadness. I’m tired of wearing down paths of negative thought. I have to veer off and forge new ones, safe ones. I gave up. At the end of my rope, I asked for help.

I’ve been in IOP treatment for almost a month now. I see a therapist, psychiatrist and I’m in women’s group therapy. It’s a team that works tightly together, and it’s changing my world. It’s changing how I view myself, and that in turn changes everything else I guess. The past month? Also exhausting. Difficult is another worthy adjective. It means facing all the shit shoved aside. It means finding ways to make peace with the chronic migraines, to self-soothe instead of punish. It means that I’m out of excuses and reasons to keep it the same. I can’t be afraid to feel better.

So goes my living right now. My bad days aren’t extinct by any means, but I am learning to take one emotion at a time. To take pleasure in a pleasurable thing because it is just that–something pleasing to do. To take pleasure because I deserve it. It’s hard work, this believing I deserve things, good things. The paths are worn into ruts all smooth from repetitive usage. It seems strange at first, almost against everything I know to create a new one–a path that doesn’t involve so much self-hatred and briar patch. It isn’t comfortable, all of this breaking habits.

Let’s just call it the discomfort that’s saving my life.

& the bridges of my feet flat-stepping your ribs,
a rope by rope descent
of bone,
the spiral staircase to a drop down moon.
Your wrists in my hands,
the glass by the sink,
both covered in lips;
behind curtains of meteor, behind
the papercurl of your smile bends, behind
your compass above the magic of magnetism
and the fickle of north–
behind us in the car
the seats are empty
the rain is loud
and you are
the best day
that has ever happened and
if a kiss leaves face like this, and if
a war of warmth insists on palm-bed and thigh then I
being who I am with a chest upset with sirens,
with a tick that stutters just over the face of
two dimensional numbers ,
marriage of hiccup and blink
edible cup and licorice spoon–

the room is full of cut grass, piles of sage and affection,
blue with necks getting kissed, big whiskey kisses fat and stinking but still
your smell,
that smell the smell I love comes
shining through,

frightened rabbit.

In the Atlantic
where ships fall apart,
you talk about building a house there.
You use your hands, eyebrows, entire body
to say things like
property line, blueprint,
community.
Halt the explanation
to take your waiter’s hand,
lips against wrist whispering
“and you will be my gardner.”

Playing pretend pours out of you like water.
Only Alices are left, pedaling for the keyholes.

we kissed–
you sulfur’d match,
me surface.
dagger of boat through waves,
one of us construction,
the other paper. The bite
of the scissor slice.
Better than the books and
right in front of my teeth.

war protest rally, frick park 2004

Dear City,
You are good to my heart. You offered a soft place to land, and let me stain the surface with a shell-less flesh. The wet fist. I stared past the wounds and right at you.

I was young, I left everything. Now if I go anywhere else, here is where I have some history. At first you were just inclining road beneath streetlight, stone wall to the right. And now your streets have names, your corners own secrets. There is penned varicose across the canvas and I can’t say I miss the blankness. I know a bit of you, and it is enough. It is something difficult and good, and I have a hard time ignoring that combination.

new years even party, undisclosed location 2006
It counts. When you go to a party in the middle of the city, cracking PBRs in some stranger’s kitchen–their mismatched salt shakers, their daily existence in this mystery you cannot wrap your head around. It counts when your heart gets whipped against the ground between its borders. It counts when you take a job and get fired from one and work two–when you dress for corporate by day and sling beers by night. It counts as a home, this city. My spectrum, my litmus. It is a large gulp of my heart.

Thank you for the decade, Pittsburgh. I’m glad we let each other in.

the patrons seated at our spanish restaurant, owned by the My Little Pony gang

Dear Maddie,
Last weekend, I was lucky to spend some quality time with you. Since I live about 5 hours away, I take what I can get, but it’s never enough. You are four years old and such a brilliant little person. Whenever I appear after a long car ride, you grow the biggest grin and run to hug me around the legs. That gesture alone melts my world away. As soon as I see you, I forget about paying rent or bills, the job, the entire city I live in. Everything becomes suddenly so simple. Around you, none of my usual insecurities even make sense.

When I visit, you always ask me if I want to play. These days, you love the My Little Pony ladies. When we act out a story line for them, you usually like to tell me what mine are going to say. Your mom gently reminds you to let me share my ideas too. When this happens, you pause, then say “Do you have some ideas?” Of course, any/all of these ideas are up for veto by you, and that’s just fine with me. After all, I feel like I’m stepping into your world, and I want to be respectful. Maddie, sometimes I am afraid that my imagination is rusty, that perhaps I am too self-conscious to feel as free as I did when I was a kid. It is a genuine fear–to be afraid that I will forget how to let go. Thank goodness for you, though. Your imagination certainly inspires mine.

You love to play restaurant. Sometimes it is a spanish-speaking establishment. This is hilarious because the only solid phrase you know is “buenos noches.” For the rest, you make up words with the most serious look on your face. I say what little words I know in return. You hand me a notebook and explain that this is where I will write down orders. We use the echo-microphone to bark the orders. On your two tiny play-kitchens, we make strange concoctions and plate them up for the guests. Our clientele is quite eclectic, with princesses, race cars and animals from around the world.

You get a little bummed when it’s your bedtime, but there’s always a story to be read. You will jump out of bed and stare at your bookshelf intently, until just the right tale presents itself. I sit next to you on the bed and read it from cover to cover. Every character has a voice; every picture is pointed at and discussed. Last Sunday, you wanted me to read “The Nutcracker.” The book contained a few Christmas stories, and upon completion of “The Nutcracker,” you swiftly flipped the pages to another story. This time, it was “Twas the Night before Christmas.”

I hugged and kissed you goodnight, and you told me that you didn’t want me to leave. Your voice trembles and my heart breaks. “I don’t want to but I have to,” I say, my own voice shaking. My eyes fill up with tears. Saying goodbye to you is the worst, Maddie. I never manage to do it without crying.

Perhaps it is on the verge of cliche to say, but I really can’t imagine or remember a life without you(or your little brother) in it. When I am visiting home, I don’t recall crossing a street without holding your hand. It’s so much fun to witness you becoming the person you are…it is an honor to be a part of that. Your presence puts everything in perspective. I worry more about the state of the world, wondering what sort of things wait to greet you. I want you to be able to face all of it with a heart full of love.

I hope this wasn’t too sappy for you, little lady.
all my love,
aunt nikki

Whenever I return after a long weekend spent with family, significance to self, items/objects, woes and/or victories changes. Perhaps this comes with leaving most of my heart back there with the bloodline and little ones. I can count on being disoriented for at least a day or two. Already miss ‘em. More after I readjust.

Today feels like a bit of a bust. A somber anniversary. The Steelers get absolutely mauled by the Ravens in the regular season opening game. The final kicker: a gnarly headache. I drowned my sorrows in a mug full of vanilla soy ice cream, Craisins, a soy mini chocolate sandwich, and a generous dusting of cinnamon sugar throughout. Upon completion, I filled it again.

a few choice moments of the season:

	Kid Cudi, Best Coast and Rosta - All Summer .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine