She Will Be Loved

"Look for the girl with the broken smile, ask her if she wants to stay awhile. And she will be loved." - Maroon 5

One of my girlfriends wanted to see a specific picture from my past life. She wanted to know what my ex-husbands new wife/my ex-friend looks like. I have about 20 photo albums. In my past life I was the one who took all the pictures. The rest of the group probably wishes they had asked for copies. Or maybe they don't since they just want to forget I exist.

My apartment is a mess because I dragged all the boxes out of my closet and there are photo albums I never look at all over the place.

Some people think I should burn them. But I was flipping through them looking for a picture of her (I know I have one) and I realized something. I wasn't crying this time.

All four of my therapists have told me that I got stuck in the sad stage of grief and I had to go through the angry stage to move on to acceptance. I messed up the order because anger is supposed to come before depression. I've had my moments but I don't really stay angry. I came back to Toronto and I was ANGRY. You know how the JWs have those rolling bookcarts on the streets now? They are everywhere in my neighbourhood. I used to hide when I saw one. But after my three month time-out down east, I came back and started yelling at them on the street. I probably seemed crazy. I just don't want them ruining anyone else's life. Plus they don't even have a license to be on the street so I'm pretty sure this kind of harassment is illegal.

My girlfriend's family is in town and so we went out for dinner last night with them and her dad. She has a sister. At one point she said "Did you know my dad calls you daughter #3 when he talks about you?" I looked at him and asked if it was true. He said yes. I guess not all Irish guys are bad for me.

And he's dad #3 to me. My favorite ex's parents and kid adopted me four years ago. His dad signs all his messages to me as "D" because he knows I have a dad and doesn't want to get in his way. He wants me to know though that he's always there for me.

I'm somewhat of a religious mutt. Technically, on paper, I'm a Jehovah's Witness. My therapist said I'm a very bad one and my friends laugh about it, but that's just the way it is. When I was looking through those pictures, I knew I will never burn them. I'll put them back in the boxes. It was such a big part of my life - the first half. Lots of smiles and hugs and beautiful people who I still love. I've said it over and over, it's not the people I blame, it's those billionaires in Brooklyn who control everyone's thoughts, cover up child abuse and tear families and friends apart with their cultish rules.

I relate to the Buddhist philosophies. Those are the books I read now. I wear a Celtic cross around my neck and go to Catholic mass on Christmas Eve every year. I've started praying again. I don't know who I'm praying to, but I'm starting to feel at peace with the chaos of this life. And I'm smiling. :)

I guess I just want to encourage you that if you're in an unhappy situation - abuse, cult, bad marriage, a cheater who lies to you...whatever it is...you can leave. I won't lie. It's years of blood, sweat and tears. It won't be easy. The Jehovah's Witnesses like to quote a passage from the bible that says if you leave your life behind and join them you will find "mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers" to replace the ones you've lost to go be in their crazy environment.

I have that again - here on the outside - although it's taken time. Out east, my family who took care of me when I needed it have proved they would do anything for me. In Toronto, I've got moms, dads, lots of brothers and sisters again and the best ex-boyfriends a girl could ask for.

I am very loved. The sadness and anger will come back sometimes in waves, I know that. But the big steps are over and the nightmares are less frequent. I'm starting to feel strong again and the JWs are not going to like that because I will keep writing. :)

Sullivan out.

My Therapist Says...

So like every Friday afternoon, last week I walked into the doctor's office. 

I picked him on purpose. He's a spiritual teacher, he's studied Buddhism, he's very Zen.

I told him about the nightmares. Just like the week before. The week before he told me I should just ask those people to leave when they showed up. Didn't work, I couldn't do it.  

This week was completely different. And a little surprising. 

Him: Have you thought about getting a sword? 

Me: No. 

Him: It might help. Have you ever taken self defense classes?

Me: I took boxing for awhile. 

I went through a rough time. Boxing helped. I remember one night, when the X and I were still friends, he texted me before my class and just said: "Punch something. Hard." He and my brother are probably the only people who will ever know how hellish life was back then. 

Or maybe my therapist gets it too. I've been on the internet for the past few days looking up boxing gloves and how does one even buy a sword in Canada? 

Maybe we can fuse the zen, the spirituality, the striving for inner peace with our innate need to feel like we can protect ourselves from harm, from evil, from injustice. 

I'll figure it out. In the meantime, I'll still go to yoga, but I found a boxing gym close by. My gloves will be pink. And if you know anyone who sells swords, let me know. :)

Sullivan out.

Sort of Revolution

I'm very bad at being zen. I try. I go to yoga. I've read a tonne of books on the subject. One of my therapists (yes I have two, stop judging me) is also actually a spiritual teacher. I signed up for a Buddhist meditation class with my brother a few weeks ago. We have to do homework every day. Thank the Universe I'm not back at work yet, I have no idea how I'd fit it all in. 

Yet, I still worry. All the time. Halfway through my meditation class this morning, I got a panic attack and had to leave. Crying. The teacher came out and said don't worry about it. You've been through hell. Would you like a hug? The amazing kindness of strangers is almost overwhelming at times. It just made me cry more. 

Today is my little brother's wedding. He's such a good guy. Funny, smart, hard working. We have some complicated issues in the family. My sister didn't feel like she could be there and I decided to stay behind to be with her today. It's hard though, not being there. Not seeing him marry his beautiful high school sweetheart. Or as he will no doubt be doing, dancing like an idiot tonight, the way he did at my wedding, a million years ago. :)

The problem with families sometimes is that you just can't talk things out. Mick, Erin and I? We can talk. About everything and anything. We don't always agree, but we don't let that affect the love we share anymore. I know my parents love me - all three of them. I love them too. But the fact that we can't even discuss anything, ever, makes it hard to move forward. 

I know I've drawn lines in the sand. With both sides of the family, I've made a stand, a decision on where I stand on things that they don't agree with. Or would rather ignore and not speak of. I've become an unfortunate inconvenience with my absolute refusal to bury my head in the sand and take everything that gets handed out. It is probably hard for them to process, I was always the good girl. Never tried to rock the boat. 

My therapists (yes both of them) keep telling me that my problem is not standing up for myself and what I believe in. Being too much of a people pleaser. I feel that by leaving the JWs and speaking out against that organization started a sort of revolution that is spilling over into the rest of my life now. Work, family, friends. Once you've come so far, there's no going back. Not for me anyways. 

Come so far. Let me know when we get there...if we get there... 

Baby Steps

I had a long week at work. I was so exhausted come the weekend that once again I didn't accomplish everything I was hoping to. Some weeks, I just need to calm down and accept that I'm only human after all and trying to be more than that gives me panic attacks and will lead me to an early grave. 

It's possible y'all are tired of hearing me prepare for this Mental Health week speech thing, but one of our Partners called me on Friday afternoon, he's been struggling with his speech too. So I guess we're in the same boat. Telling terrible, personal stories, hoping it will have an impact on someone. 

I've realized in preparing for it though, I am very, very grateful for my job. Yes, I believe in work/life balance and our priorities should be the people in our lives, not the work we're doing. But we can't underestimate how much head space our jobs take up - even just by virtue of the fact that we spend so much of our time there. 

I have been extremely lucky to land where I am, meet the people I've met and have the opportunities I currently have. My team bought me a big bouquet of flowers on Friday afternoon and I honestly feel the love. 

The journey I've been on professionally though, has been one consisting of millions of little baby steps. When I was JW, I worked part-time and spent 100 hours a month doing volunteer work for them - for years. Arriving here, I felt like I was so far behind other people my age, I would never catch up. But I'm getting closer and closer to where I want to be. 

I saw my mother today, that relationship has been consisting of baby steps as well. Learning how not to push each other's buttons, how to peacefully co-exist with me as a non-JW has been a journey. 

I took her out to get our nails done and she tried to be discreet while she slipped a JW magazine into my favorite Buddhist book. I appreciate the sentiment behind it. I would never expect her to stop trying to win me back over to them. 

But you can count on this: there are two instances in my life where I will ever, ever again step into a Kingdom Hall: if I happen to be invited to my sisters wedding and my mother's funeral. Other than that, we've had a bad breakup and I'm not interested in revisiting it. 

Interestingly, the magazine she left me was entitled: "Why Go On: Three Reasons to Keep Living". Reason #2 was "Because There is Help". Second paragraph was entitled "People who care" and spoke to the fact that JWs have a unique opportunity through their outreach and door-to-door work to encounter "distraught people" who may have felt desperate and considered ending their lives. 

I quote: "Following Jesus' example, Jehovah's Witnesses care about their fellowman. They care about you." I hope that two of my best friends who I turned to when I was "distraught" and suicidal, who told me "there is no help for disfellowshipped people" and asked me not to try to contact their families again, read that article. Hopefully it will help them better understand their Christian obligations. 

I feel like the past five years has been made up of million of little baby steps. I'm not sure where it all will lead yet, but I know this much: I'm on the right path. :)

The Landslide

Life is a series of peaks and valleys. Which I've grown oh-so-accustomed to that at this point.

I read a great article on my "daily dharma" the other day that said we should forget happiness. The pursuit of it, in itself, is a fool's errand. He said:

"What is freedom? It is nothing more, nothing less, than life lived awake."

This is what I crawled towards at the beginning, before I could walk, when I ventured out to find the real truth. Crawling of course, because confronting reality is a painful ordeal. It's the plot of every great movie, every moving book. Overcoming adversity and becoming more than what we were raised to be, but maybe what we were meant to be? It's inspiring, it's brave, it's fucking hard. We crawl before we walk, we walk before we can run. 

February is always the most depressing month, maybe that's why I born into it (the ever-sensitive Pisces). Lately, the family, the work, the boys, the friends, it's all been depressing. Fighting, severe illnesses, stress, unhappy situations...maybe we're all just experiencing a bad case of the winter blues. And I've been backsliding into the Landslide. 

My eczema is back, after all these years. I guess I'm more stressed out than I thought. I can't wait to add that to the things I reveal to new guys I date: Oh, you know, I was raised in a cult. And I'm divorced. And everything itches. :)

I'd rather hurt though than feel nothing at all. And when you hurt, you know you're still alive. And that soon, you'll feel the sun and the happiness that comes with surviving the winter. And the bad times. Living wide awake means we accept and feel each emotion as they come, and make peace with them. Let them in, learn to love them. That way, even if they bury us, we can find a way to crawl out and learn to walk again. Maybe eventually, we can run. 

Sullivan out. 

Triple Threat!

Gawd, I love Saturdays.

Last weekend was the worst weekend ever. The Triple Threat. The good thing about when bad things come in threes is that then you're absolutely, positively in the clear for awhile. The storm is over and now everything is calm. It's a beautiful, gorgeous fall day in Toronto. It almost doesn't matter that it's November 16th and I still don't have heat in my apartment. (Law suit pending...)

I was talking to my brother about this and I really think that everything bad that happens to us in life is a test, to see how we will react, what choices will we make, will we give up? Sometimes, I won't lie, you want to just throw back your head and scream at the gods that be and ask them why they are such assholes when you are just trying to be a good person.

Buddhists believe that nothing is permanent and we need to detach from our suffering. I'm a newbie at it, but I've been reading Jack Kornfield when I can't sleep and practicing. I have a panic attack and I just think...I'm not my body. I'm not my job. I'm not this date I'm about to go on. Because we are all part of something much bigger than that.

It helps to put on something that makes you want to dance in the living room. So I have a Saturday morning song for you. Here ya go. 

Listen to this and then enjoy your morning run, yoga, coffee, walk in the park, whatever you're up to. Every day is a gift, every day we lose a little more time. Let's *shine* while we're here, for what it's worth. :)