When Whispers Become Screams

I feel so isolated.  I am often alone.  I don’t mind being with myself most of the time, but then there are times when the voice of doubt starts whispering.  The whisper grows until it is screaming in my ear.  Sometimes it gets so loud I say what it says out loud, like if I affirm it somehow I can quiet it again.

  I go over the agonies of my life weigh my reactions.  Whip myself for past wrong doing.  Wonder if the bridges I have burnt can be rebuilt.  Wonder if the bridges were burned by me or by the other party,  who spread the gas, and who struck the match.  Was it equally lit or did one do more than the other?  We are often told it takes two to tango, but I can tell you if one person truly wants to dance you can be an unwilling partner.  I have dragged people around the dance floor of my issues and been dragged by hair around theirs.

When doubt is screaming I am always to blame.  I am shamed and helpless in the grip of my guilt wondering why I do the things I do. It isn’t reality it is an idea that somehow I am bad, unintelligent, useless, and the cause of everything that has gone wrong in my life.  It creates this petulant place inside me that wants to punish me.
Sometimes I think that this self-destructive streak comes from this deep never ending place of pain and grief inside my soul. A part that is there all the time but doesn’t show always.  The part that sobs for my losses; the things most people don’t know how to answer to when they hear about them.  The things I don’t tell people so they can be comfortable around me.  The things you can’t tell by looking at me.  If I get hurt because of my self destructive streak I have a wound you can see.  Pain you can identify with, something you can understand.  I don’t have to be that “crazy bitch crying for no good reason”. You can say hey look at her that must really hurt.  You don’t have to shift uncomfortably when you ask why and I tell you that it is the anniversary of my son’s death or his birthday, or I just can’t tell you because I am worried for your comfort.  (or it is something else as deeply personal I cannot share)

I know I am not the only person so deeply alone even when surrounded by people.  Not the only one with doubt whispering until screaming , who revisited everything wondering what could I have done better.

The answer is in saner times you could have done nothing better, you used the tools you had at the time.  You may do it differently now.  Now you probably have a different tool box.  It is okay to walk forward and let the ocean of time wash the footprints out of the sand of your past.  Stop seeing if your feet still fit, you have grown and they no longer do.  Love to those that actually take time to read this.

We all suffer

I see your confusion.  You seem to have forgotten that I am a human being.  Let me help you.  I am like you in the important ways.  I love, I laugh, I cry, I hope, I pray, and I believe.
I love my children. I love other people even the shitty ones.  I stay away from them because they hurt me.  They lack understanding and the ability to see beyond themselves or the petty differences. I mean petty things like color of skin, how or who you pray to, your circumstances, or even the body you are going through this life in.
Laughter gets me through. Sometimes I lose it.  I can’t find it in all this.  I become self destructive and just so saddened by it all.  I see the lack of humanity and the inability to give.  Even those that are on the fringe and pushed out emulating the system and politics they despise for forcing them out.   They become judgmental and as sick as that system.  When you hang with the outside you have to watch what you say because you might step on toes it is as nerve wracking as a high society dinner.
I cry, hope, and pray almost every day I cry because it is so hard to live here like this.  I hope and pray for change and a better tomorrow.
I am still nieve enough that I really believe in it.  That it is temporary things will get better. Not only for me but for the world. We all suffer I know this. we all need.
 People no longer recognize one another no longer see.  We have become terminally selfish and self involved. We are killing community and our society.  Believe me you need the tribe to survive.  We  are no longer a whole.  We are broken and splintered to busy misjudging and being offended to truly connected. As long as we are yelling “MINE MINE MINE” and driving hard for the gold.  We are not United.  Our devided house is quietly falling.

Forged in Fire

Hello again,
I know you all don’t know me but what I wrote here.  So let me talk about another facet of my personality.  This is the part of Elizabeth that alienates people.  I will turn you off with a couple things: 1. I will have the best of intentions and you will hate me for it. 2. I will find the absurdity and sometimes politically incorrect hilarious. 3. I will not be dominated. 4.  I know the risks have been forged in the fire and still walk back in to fight the good fight.
So for number one.  I will talk to you straight up.  I have the best of intent,  want to check in with you. I will however ask you about it with truth like “ I know you have this problem just making sure you are safe” this is sometimes to much for them.  To honest, their not ready, to blunt, or just whatever.  This makes people disconnect now I know I can’t make everyone happy I try to be gentle.  I want them to know I love them and care about their safety.  For other people it is a relief we don’t have to play games and try to figure out how to approach the T-Rex slobbering in the corner.  (sometimes the T-Rex is me)
Number two.  This is a tricky one.  I find life absurd a so funny. This is sometimes bothersome to people but that just has to do with the fact they do not get satire. It is the fact that we are all so politically correct and so scared of offending people that we are like porcupines wrapped in cacti prickly about everything people say or even think that we get mad about the littlest things.  (disclaimer time for those who know me know I am one of the most inclusive accept everybody for who they are people)  well the other night I was talking to a few young people one set looked Latino and the other were very Anglo and the Latino couple had said they referred to the Anglo couple as “da bruders” now I started laughing and couldn’t stop for a minute. This offended the Anglo couple (which I am very sorry), I understand I am not a nice lady I get it.  I am not always going to be politically correct.  It doesn’t make me think anyone is better than another.  I in fact do not believe in race because it is a social construct made to explain one person’s superiority. Genetically penguins have more difference than human beings. I am very big on referring to people as people.  But sometimes shit is just funny. Stop being so serious.
Number three I will never conform to what someone tells me to be.  I will take the ass whooping(sometimes literally)  stand up and continue to be me.  I will still say what I think is right, tell someone to be kind, and even stop something that is blatantly wrong.  You can try to bully me, guilt me, and even hit me.  I will not be dominated this disconnect I am totally okay with.
Number 4 this one I find a lot with other women.  They seem to think that because I do not sit quietly that no one has tried to teach me what women do.  That I am not channeled.  I am strong and have a strong voice because I have fought so hard to be heard over those that have tried to shut me up.  I was quiet and sweet once.  That voice was not heard in those world.  I was forged in the fire and came out stronger. Beautiful thing do not just happen.  They are made by the most destructive forces.  You are sculpted then tested in the fires.  I have only accomplished all I have because I do not shy from the fires that forged me.

Judge, Jury and Whatever

Mother Teresa said many wise and wonderful things. One that stands out for my thoughts is “If you judge people, you have no time to love them” I find I am often judged.  I am perplexed as to why people around me feel like they not only are allowed, but are entitled to judge me.  In the end their judgements teach me about them.
These judgements teach me that they are really small people; who often think themselves bigger, better, and somehow more than I. The people who judge me think their personhood is somehow intrinsically of more value than mine.
The judgement comes from an ignorant place.  A willful ignorance of who I am, the struggles I have faced, my hurts, my isolations, and the great will it has taken for me to get every piece of ground I have gained.  I pity the littleness inside them that causes this fear and ignorance. Does it hurt me? Of course it does. It hurts me very bad that my intent is assumed as negative. That my passion is seen as aggression or overbearing. I get excited by the opportunity to exchange information and have an intelligent conversation that I am often seen as the “know it all”.  I am very clear that these judgement have to do with them. If they like me is about them.  I am good and well liked by others and they get me.
I cannot help how some see me.  I cannot help that I love, I love to laugh, or make those around me laugh, I fill myself full to bursting with the life around me.  I will be the first on the dance floor and probably the last to leave.  If I ask you how things are mean it. I am genuine.
It is out of our control how the world around us takes that. Do not allow the slings and arrows of the scared and  scarred make you like them.  Remember to fit into a dysfunctional system you must be as dysfunctional.  Do you want to be messed up enough to fit into the system that judged you for being who you are?

The alien among them

Remember being like 5 when you just felt like you belonged.  No matter where you were.  School, home, and even just in the community you never had that feeling of otherhood.  That sense of not belonging there, like an alien left behind.
  I feel like that often in a group of people like I am other.  I know it is the voice inside me.  It does not make it any less real,  less true yes, less real for me No.  I compensate by becoming super funny and charming and a bit too gregarious.
  I  know this can make others somewhat off put.  I attract the wrong attention a lot to.  I can blame all kinds of things not fitting in in school.  Not marching to the drum everyone else does.  Not wanting views forced on me.  I am strong willed and very strong voiced this can make others feel like it is aggressive but I am not willing to but pushed to your way of thinking.  Can I be persuaded well yes the use of cake is often very useful in that regard.

  Buddhists believe that the only mind that cannot learn is a closed mind.  There is no one truth.  So if you have decided a truth you cannot see the other possible truths.