in my head, journals

10. journal 11.10

Content warning.

My roommate and I started making plans for the holidays today. Last year was our first year in this new place, but by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I didn’t want to be alive anymore, and so we did very little beyond just getting by.

I was dealing with a dangerous mix up of medication, and a really triggering situation at work. When I say it was a hard year, I mean I had to really fight to live it.

My therapist had not retired yet, thankfully, and she walked me through every day. My doctors were great. The roommate hovered like a tattooed and bearded bird. My close colleagues lifted what they could. My friends came through.

Everything is okay now.

But when making plans for Christmas this year, I realized I can’t even remember anything about that time. I went through text messages and receipts to get a picture, but what I’ve collected are not memories, just records.

I’ve been hard on myself because I haven’t fallen back into the rhythm of before, because my body is still healing, because I’ve pulled myself away from the world. I’ve lived this year haphazardly.

But today, more than that, I remembered that I lived this year.

I made it through.

No one would call it graceful, but I am full of air, and blood, and bone, and there is something graced about that.

This Diwali, I made a conscious decision to start over. I’ll keep doing this. I will rinse my life off on January 1st and any new year I can find before or after, until I’m many many years away from that feeling. A sensation like that is like sand. You find it everywhere in small bits for a long, long time.

In the last few months, I’ve started taking my silly little pictures again, and it’s been such a relief.

Today, something unexpected happened, and it was such a relief to know I cannot know what comes next in the big scheme of things.

But of course I can plan.

This year on Christmas, I will make sugar cookies shaped like leaves, and lemon cookies shaped like strawberries. On Thanksgiving, I will roast a chicken on my heavy cast iron, and bake a pile of donnycakes, and temper frosting till my homemade chocolate glows in the light. I think I will dress in simple house clothes– nothing photo-worthy– and sit by our little train and watch it run circles around me. I will make hot chocolate.

And next year, when I plan for holidays, I will remember its sweetness easily.

  • Statue of a woman painted as a tiger, covering her body with a towel
  • 5 yellow lemons in a clay pot with a multi-colored towel under them
  • Black vase with two small poof flowers, overlooking yellow booths. A rainbow sits beside it.
  • Yellow-orange street marigolds.
  • Rainy day leaves on a wet sidewalk
  • A rust speckled chicken with a coop in the background

26 thoughts on “10. journal 11.10”

  4. Such lovely and interesting photos! I’m also glad you’re okay 💜 It made me think about what I’d really like to do next month in the lead up to Christmas. Maybe some baking. I haven’t baked for a long while! Maybe read some Christmas themed books. Big hugs to you friend ✨

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  6. I just have to say this, because I’m being gently pushed to do so….the spirit that is my true me sees and loves the spirit that is the true you.
    And I suspect the spirit of so many mothers feel the same.
    You have an incredible gift of words. Words that spill and tumble and stand up and speak of the real. Your words help your spirit come thru the cracks of your humanness to show that there is a light of love that is blazing inside and manages to get out and is shared with all.
    And maybe it doesn’t shine out every day, because there will always be the rainy, stormy, and cloudy days that cover us all. But boy, when your sun peaks thru, it can be gentle and soft, and it can also be brilliant and blazing.
    Please never give up. Please never take away your little sun from your family and friends. Including those of us who only know your thru your gift of words.
    Just always be, even if it’s sooooo difficult sometimes.
    Keep the hope and always be. ❤️

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