Who am I? (Transparency pt. 1)

Where do I begin?  There have been so many amazing changes in my life that It would take a while to tell it all.  I think that for the sake of my fingers and your eyes I’ll give you the shortened version.  I’m married now!  Yup, little..uh…big…um…me is married now.  My new husband is none other than the one I’ve mentioned in posts past (we are not doing a flashback here, you’ll just have to catch up).  We had an amazing wedding, spectacular honeymoon, and things are off to a beautiful start here at home.  And now for the update…I’ve gained 11 pounds in the past two weeks.  I already see the stares of confusion.  Yes, I’m happy and things are better than ever, so why am I choosing to focus on my weight yet again.  Here’s the deal, my weight is a lot more than a number on a scale.  It’s how I feel, what I’m thinking, what’s wrong, what’s right, etc.  That three digit number on the scale says a lot more about what I feel inside than any look on my face, and that’s saying a lot since my face never hides my feelings.

That whopping 11 pounds is exposing my frustration with myself.  I have no idea who I am.  I feel like I am having a full blown identity crisis, but the crazy part is that I know exactly who I want to be.  How the heck do I get to be her?  I want to be…. what I mean is, I want to….see I have no idea!  All I know is that I want to be happy, I want my children and husband happy, I want to financially sound, and I want to do it on my terms.  I feel like I just threw a tantrum while writing that.  I want to sit and sip my coffee in the morning while looking out of the window and going over the day’s schedule which doesn’t require me to go to work for someone else.  I want to be my own employer, boss, CEO, and empire.  I want all of that and I want to be able to attend parent conferences and work PTA events.  I want it all, and 11 pounds tells the tale of my frustration with feeling like I’m dreaming of the impossible.  How?  It symbolizes me just letting life happen instead of taking things into my own hands and molding them the way I’d like to see them.  Sure I was on my honeymoon, but there was a gym and there were healthier food options at every meal.  I wanted to feel it.  I wanted to indulge and let life take me where it would, and now it has done just that.  It has taken me back up the weight loss road I had been sprinting, crawling, walking, and then finally gliding down.  I felt so beautiful and confident just three weeks ago.  Three weeks ago I felt like I could do anything I put my mind to.  In that short time, I’ve retreated to feeling and treating myself like I need to take what I can get.  Foolishness I tell you!

There is a real link between food, the body, the mind, and spirit.  When we eat better we feel better and then we treat ourselves better.  Our thoughts become clearer and our drive increases.  Armed with this type of monumental knowledge, I decided today to start over and begin to work my way back down that mountain.  I have delighted in playing chance with my life over the past few weeks and now I want to be deliberate.  I want to determine where I end up, who I will be, and how I will get there.  The road is not clear but at least today I see my way to it.  I keep giving myself little pep talks every few minutes.  I keep telling myself I can do and that I’m worth it.  Most of all, I keep reminding myself of how far I’ve come already and that a little over a year ago I never saw myself at this point.  You know now that I think of it I may not be having an identity crisis at all.  The real issue is that I know EXACTLY who I want to be, what I want, and how I want it and now comes the work.  Well here goes nothing…it begins.

Foundation or Concealer?

Looking in the mirror hasn’t always been easy. I can never tell if I see what’s truly there or what I feel. What I am sure of is that lately my reflection has been plagued by blemishes and imperfections that have taken over how I see myself in the mirror. So what can I do to hide these flaws? Foundation or concealer? In weeks past I feel like I’ve just been piling on layer after layer of both. My openness with my bipolar disorder has taught me to accept that it’s ok to say that I’m not ok. I’ve been piling on concealer, figuratively speaking, to my mind and heart. I realized today that it just won’t do. What I need to pull off one of the biggest transformations of my life is going to take nothing but the best foundation there is. Not a single product found in the store is going to get the job done. I’m going to have to gather up all that I have a create a master blend. I need something that will both cover and expose everything. This foundation will have to make it possible for all the amazing attributes and accents that I add to shine through flawlessly. In case you aren’t clear on all this, I’m not talking about makeup at all. I need a foundation for my life, my heart, and most importantly my mind. I’ve been in an up and down battle with my mania and depression (duh, that’s what bipolar disorder is, right?) Like makeup, there’s so many tools, but which is right for me? The concealer I’ve been using is an endless stream of work from home jobs and obsessive bargain shopping. It’s still not covering the blemishes and imperfections. A foundation that I’ll need will have to be waterproof . Tears flow relentlessly at times, and I need something to keep me reassured that the work I put in with the things I apply to enhance the natural beauty of how I was brought into existence and who I am meant to be is securely in place. Foundation or concealer? Both? Today I don’t have the energy to apply either. I don’t want to hide anything or pretend I’m ok. I’m not ok and I can’t put anything on top of that will make looking in the mirror today an easier. What I do have is the blessing of knowing what I feel and being free enough to express it. I may not feel ok today, but I don’t feel like I need to hide. I can look in the mirror and see all those things I don’t like. It stings, but I know who I am. Today is the day to be bare. To be clean. To be honest. Not all days will be hard, but the question still remains…foundation or concealer?

And it Hurts Like Hell

There’s no other way to describe what I’m feeling other than pain. A love so pure has been taken, twisted, tainted and possessed by a force so much greater than I. 10lbs 4oz. of my heart tearing. How did this happen? Why? To lose someone you love and never see them again is a pain like no other. To lose someone you love and have them within reach is another type of indescribable pain. They’re right in front of you and gone at the same time. 10lbs 4oz. of my heart torn away. Where are you? I miss you. I need you. Im not okay and won’t pretend for anyone. What I am is surviving. 10lbs 4oz. of my heart taught me 20 years ago that I had to. I’ll go on and hopefully one day you’ll return to me. Until then I’ll continue forward because it’s what has to be done. Almost 21 years ago…10lbs 4oz. cut from my abdomen and laid on my heart forever.

No Rest for the Weary

I work 24 hours a day. No lie. I work 24 hours a day. In the morning, I awake and somehow halfway pull myself enough to look halfway presentable to random stranger number 3 at sometime during my day. Then I get my twin angels out of bed, usually with them still in the deepest of sleep because they partied well into the night, and begin the task of dressing them. I do the purse, keys, phone check and carry my little ones down the stairs and begin to load us and our essentials for the day into the car. The morning must begin with their morning snack of mini muffins or trip to Dunkin Donuts for their donut holes because well…that’s what must be done to keep the 12 minute ride to the daycare on course and peaceful for the good of all of us. From there my angels are dropped off and off to work I go.

WORK…What a word. I don’t mind working, but this is not what I saw myself doing at all. I don’t hate it, but let’s just say the environment is more than draining at times. I long for those 15 minute breaks of solitude they so graciously offer twice a day so that I can escape to my car and ask myself, “girl how did you get here? We were building an empire 4 months ago.” Look, I don’t know. I guess the want and need for the “financial freedom” called to me. These days it’s being drowned out by thoughts of mental and emotional freedom. Any day now I’m waiting to see if they’ll win out.

Anyway, on with the day. I finish work at 5 and then it’s off to the daycare to pick up my girls. It’s at this time that the precious cargo I’m carrying begins to vocalize their desires for any and everything food and/or sugar related. “Yes, babies. Mommy is about to make dinner. Hang tight.” As soon as we hit the door and without even putting my purse down (a scene all too familiar from my own childhood) I begin to clear away the slew of dirty dishes, pots, pans, left over food garbage and containers that are blocking me from fulfilling my mission of feeding my family. Once that’s half accomplished and dinner is underway there’s usually a Pull-up situation. NOPE. NOBODY is potty trained. Yes they are three years old. JUDGE YOUR MAMA. I’m sitting here barely hanging on and baring my soul and you’re fixated on the fact that my children are not potty trained. Well come train them, but I caution you…touch them and lose every finger.

Moving on. Dinner is on the table, children are somewhat content, daddy is now home and a sigh of relief has come over me. Not because I can’t handle the girls alone. Simply because as odd as it seems and as yin and yang as we are he is my peaceful place (most of the time). So we exchange brief pleasantries. He may or may not eat. Hell I may or may not eat and then it’s off to bed. The girls get their tablets and favorite tv shows and we get our bed and whatever I so happen to tell Alexa to queue up just for the background noise to put me to sleep. The husband and I exchange an I love you or two after I take my nightly anti-anxiety medications and then within minutes I’m off…oh no not to sleep. TO WORK. That’s right. I work an entire day in my sleep at night. From the time I rise, getting the girls dressed, breaks, lunches, personal family drama in between, to the ride home…AND THEN I WAKE UP!

This sounds insane, right? Miserable? Well it is? I can’t even get peace of mind in my sleep. The burdens of mind and heart are so heavy they have infiltrated even those peaceful, hopeful, secret passages of my mind that I held only for hope and personal fulfillment. I am TIRED. I never rest. When I sleep I’m TIRED. When I’m awake I’m TIRED. My heart is tired. My mind is TIRED. My spirit…TIRED. I know why. So much of what pulls at and on me doesn’t belong to me at all. There is little respect for my mental and emotional well-being, especially amongst those who are SUPPOSED to love me. I am only as good as what I have to offer. Screw the rest. If I can’t offer them whatever support they need (not because I don’t want to, although in many of these situations that is the case), but because I mentally, emotionally and physically just can’t then I’m the villain. Horrible daughter, mother, friend, whatever it is, whomever it fits. Once again I have hurt and disappointed THEM with my selfishness and lack of ability to provide them with something they need…ME. Check this out for the people in the cheap seats…I DON’T EVEN HAVE ME RIGHT NOW! I’d do just about anything to be in full control of my world and order it any way I want, say no and be able to stand on it without remorse or being made to feel guilty or evil.
I AM TIRED! There is no rest in my life. I can’t give what I don’t have. I have no Kairis to give. I am working hard to get her back, but believe me as I gather the fragmented pieces of the better part of who I was and rebuild this upgraded version of myself the access will be extremely limited. Never again will I be so depleted, defeated, used and abused by the very people I have spent a lifetime giving my all too. I AM TIRED. I’m too tired to keep fighting battles that aren’t mine. Hell I’m too tired to keep hearing about them, because most of the solutions I offer are thrown aside and ignored anyway. So how about miss me with it completely from now on. I AM TIRED.

I am a person living with anxiety and bi-polar disorder/depression and in my opinion I manage damn well. I take my medications. Use the coping skills I’ve learned in therapy. Participate in therapy and now I have to learn to do the most important thing which is completely dismiss negativity and toxicity. So many people don’t understand those two things I just mentioned and that’s fine with me. I hear people make jokes about it and that’s fine too, because that’s your truth regarding something you have no personal knowledge of. For the longest I wouldn’t even speak of it because I didn’t want to “embarrass” my husband. I speak openly about it now because I know that there are people who need to know you can lead normal and healthy lives, but you must focus on the healthy and not what everyone else tells you normal looks like. My normal is very likely quite different from yours and that’s fine because it works for me. What does not work is when I begin to neglect myself in ways that affect those two conditions and can cause them to then cause a disruption and disconnect in the way that I live the rest of my life. My world is not centered around diagnosis. It is centered around awareness. That is why with certainty I can say I AM TIRED.

Now before I close what has been a great release for mental and emotional well-being let me say this. I’m far from defeated. I have a purpose. I know what it is. I have goals. I have plans to reach them. I AM TIRED, but I AM NOT FINISHED.

“Dear God, make me a bird…” (Jenny’s Prayer)

via “Dear God, make me a bird…” (Jenny’s Prayer)

Make it Snappy Nappy (getting back to basics)

This morning inspiration struck as I was struggling to find someone to give the answers to my hair dilemma. I have decided to do the work and the research that it will take to educate myself on what it will take to not only help my hair grow, but to have it growing as healthy as possible. Part of what led me to this journey was becoming fed up with all the so called professional stylists who feel as though my asking for advice and guidance was their opportunity to let me know that the only way to achieve my goals was to see them ($$$). How about all I want is a conditioner recommendation for my type of hair? Or can you tell me what type of hair I have?Well guess what, if I my current situation allowed me to see a REAL professional for hair CARE once a week or every two weeks then I would definitely do that. I know now it’s ok to ask questions and I shouldn’t leave the encounter feeling like I owe that person something. This is especially true of those who claim they are passionate about their “craft”. I now realize that I own my successes and education even when it comes to something as seemingly simple as my hair (hair is not simple btw).  
The other night Traci King woke me up with her hilarious, but very real and honest posts about how people value what they do and themselves. It was as real as real could get and she didn’t half step. She helped me to realize that if I truly want something, anything, then it has to be done in excellence and excellence should be expected of those who I partner with to achieve that goal. That means I need to equip myself with knowledge, and not just the stuff you can find on YouTube. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of good info available there, but it wont give me all I need to know so there’s more to do than just follow someone else’s moves. I need to know why a product works, how, what kind of hair it works on, etc. I learned that while laughing listening to and reading her words that night. BTW, if you want to know what a TRUE HAIR CARE PROFESSIONAL does then please visit her website (thematrixexperience.com).  
Another person that led me to this new found freedom of knowledge is none other than Paris Tucker. Ms. Paris has invited me to get it together on more than one occasion and straight shooting doesn’t even begin to describe her. Nevertheless, she has taught me that placing value on MYSELF first is the only way anyone else will ever see any value at all.
Thank you ladies and I look forward to doing this. I needed a new project and spending time learning something this beneficial feels good already. Here’s something I learned from both of these amazing people who I have adopted as mentors (my word not theirs), stop putting things in your hair that you cook with. If you want to know why I invite you to do the digging.  
Until next time…

What’s Done in the Dark

Pssst…come here. Yes you. Listen, I heard what you said and I saw what you did when you thought no one was paying attention. I want you to know it because I did the same thing…yesterday. Yesterday I sent my husband a message telling him that I was leaving and that I’d no longer be here for my children. I asked him to show them the countless pictures and videos I took to show them how much I loved them because I know that no words will ever convince them once I was gone. I asked him to forgive my weakness and lack of success at being a wife and mother. I cried a steady stream of tears just as I’m doing now, while writing instructions about how to carry on with the Christening. I cried as I looked at the gun on the nightstand, I cried as I looked at the bottle of pills on the dresser. I broke down completely when I held my innocent little babies and stroked their hair while telling them how much I love them and didn’t want to leave them.

 I want you to know I saw you. I saw you looking at the bottle, that oncoming traffic, that car running in the garage. Most importantly, I heard you. I heard you say in the smallest voice that still clung to a quickly unraveling thread of hope that you are tired but you dont really want to quit. I heard your whispered prayer that you needed to be rescued.

Well, here I am. The One who saves. The One who loves and the One who forgives and understands.I want you to know that the spirit that rose up in me and saved my life last night is alive, well, and in tune to your every breath and cry. It has given me permission to expose my dark nights so that you will be aware that you too are stepping out of the darkness. I won’t expose you as I’ve done myself. After all, there will be one hidden in the dark shadows of night that you will need to whisper to and they don’t need to see you through my eyes. You will give them their light just as I’ve done for you…backlit by the promise of the coming dawn.

Where is the We in Me?

I’ve been married for a about a year and a half now and I must admit that it is so much more than I prayed for in all the good ways.  My husband and I have a great dynamic that works for us and doesn’t owe any explanation to anyone looking in from the outside. I am his and he is mine and that’s just the way we like it.  Even with all of its wonderful attributes, I have to admit that there has been something evidently flawed about the way things work in my relationship with my husband and in my household in general.

In this house we stress unity.  We constantly stay on the boys about how we function as a unit and how each member of this family needs the others.  It’s what we expect and that’s an expectation that holds us together.  That being said, a recent revelation has shown me that there is one member of this family who has not caught on to the “we” of it all.  This person is still working and thinking and functioning in a “me” and an “I” state of mind.  I am that person.

As a woman I know that I have been structured to believe in the we of a family and putting family first.  That’s simple.  What I had not been taught was how to submit to the we.  I know that submission is a touchy subject for some and that’s fine, because when the term was first introduced to me regarding relationships I had a hard to understanding it as well.  Simply put, when I got married the “I” that I was used to no longer existed.  Now allow me to be clear.  Kairis is still Kairis.  I still have my own thoughts, goals, desires and what have you, but they line up a little differently now.  The submission that I am speaking of is that of understanding that I am not this house and that I am not this family.

For years before meeting my husband and marrying I was a single mother used to making things happen for my family without the help of a physical partner and that was a badge of honor.  Truth be told it still is.  I was raised in a family full of women who would handle it themselves and would work it out for their families with or without a man in the house.  It’s just what they did.  Strength and survival ruled and nourished the households within my family and that’s why I don’t find it all that strange that I’m just now figuring out that it wasn’t wrong, but it isn’t the way it should be for me. Having MY own job and MY own car and MY own money have always been important to me.  It proved that I was an adult and responsible, and as far as I had been shown it proved that I had become a woman. No one had to take care of me.  A year and a half after getting married I’m just now figuring out that it is not my husband who had to learn his role in this relationship, but it’s been me all along.

The fact that I’m pretty much physically unable to work while we’re expecting the babies has put a lot of mental strain on me, and in turn I know that my husband has had to bear much of it.  I’m proud to say that I’m getting it now.  I had to go back to the fundamentals of this thing called a relationship between man and woman.  I was pulled from his rib and made to be of support to him.  God didn’t create me to compete with him (which I often did in my own mind). I was created to add to him.  I increase my husband.  WE are one flesh.  I think back on the things I’ve been doing since we’ve been married and just have to shake my head at my ignorance.  For months whether I was working or not I struggled to pay the bills all by myself.  I never even told my husband when the bills were due or showed them to him.  When I needed money I drained my savings.  When I wanted to treat myself to something I’d just do it for myself without considering the other part of my we and how my treat would effect us.

It soon became a torment for me not to have my own spending money.  I became angry and resentful and would lash out at him and even say things like, “I don’t want to ask you for anything.” I’d even say that I hated that I couldn’t take care of my own children or provide for myself, or do what I wanted when I wanted.  Shame on me.  How must that have made the MAN of my house feel.  I was basically telling him that I resented his involvement and that I wished his role as a provider was diminished or not necessary in the first place.  I get it now.  I have a role here. I am his tears when he can’t cry, I am his peace after a long day at work, I am his partner.  We pull through things together.  I lift him up and he lifts me up and together we raise up these children.  I submit to him, he has to submit to God and we are in good shape if we understand this.  When all hell is breaking loose I can go to my husband and he will comfort me.  The God that is the head of our house then comforts him.  There is structure and order to this.  Without it there is danger of corruption.

I’m so glad that the revelation of We has come to me through the word of God.  I can’t imagine continuing to struggle like this.  As long as I was operating in a ME mentality there would never be the unity and peace in my marriage that we need.  Submitting to my marriage means I commit all I have to this.  I had to stop “manning up” the way that I learned to when I was single so that my husband could take his rightful place as head of this household under God. I had to submit to the concept that we are in this together. All I am and all that I have am here and as long as I am here we will grow together and get better, but no matter what there will always be WE.  I have submitted to the knowledge of what marriage is and the foundation of this and all other relationships. The We is the whole reason we started this. We started this marriage to see it through until the finish. I want to be old sitting on our front porch staring at the sunset and excited for bed at 7pm.

Alone In My Womb (Part 2)

 

Sparing you the wondrous process that is conception I’ll fast forward to two and three months into this miracle that had begun to take place in my body.  Shall I begin at the constant nausea, the debilitating dizziness, or the unfathomable fatigue? Nah, merely physical symptoms of a budding love that will grow into something totally worth it.  I wont waste our time there.  What I want to get into is the pain.  Pain at just a few weeks to a couple months into pregnancy?  Absolutely, but this was not physical pain.  This pain was embedded so deeply within the layers of tissue and cells in my body and burrowed discretely into my heart and soul.  I found it so difficult to let go of the loss and what could have been and what should have been.  I began to criticize myself for decisions that I made during that time and second guessing decisions made for the benefit of this miracle.  In short, I didn’t trust myself.  How could I?

Shortly after finding out we were expecting the fantasies turned into fears.  How could I have wanted this? Why would I want the responsibility of carrying life? No, two lives.  Where did I get the nerve? Who said I was qualified?  All of these things were my new normal.  Day in and day out as I lay in bed sick and barely able to move I felt pulled in multiple directions by my own thoughts.  On one hand, I was and am so grateful, so very very grateful beyond words that God had entrusted me with such a charge, but on the other hand I was so remorseful for feeling completely unprepared and selfish in my desire to do so.

It wasn’t long before I began to retreat.  I have this private place that I go to escape everything and everyone. I go there quite often at times and even though it’s not hidden from view, when I’m there I’m completely shielded and comforted by the fact that no one can breach the walls to disturb me.  This place is called surrender.  I surrender myself to my favorite unreal realities.  I binge watch Friends and I Love Lucy until I need a break which is rarely ever.  The reason this is my place of refuge is because it so simple in surrender.  There’s about 23 minutes in which there is a beginning, a conflict and always certainly a happy ending.  Everything always works out in surrender.  No one is left with doubt, worry, guilt, or shame.  Oh, did I forget to mention shame among the symptoms early in the miracle?  The shame comes from knowing now what I wish I had known then.  The shame comes from being more of the person the children I already have deserved back then but, have only recently grown to be.  I’m someone different in many ways and I’m not the mother they had.

Anyhow, they’ll be time to get into that.  We’ve got to get back to surrender.  In surrender, the main characters face some type of conflict that is always resolved without the appearance of lasting effects on their lives or the lives of their loved ones.  In surrender, they get chance after chance and they ALWAYS come out on top. That’s where I found myself hiding. I became so good at hiding out there that I would become annoyed when real life would intervene and demand my presence. I mean honestly, I’d have to come out, drive someone somewhere, cook something, discipline someone, answer a phone, reply to a text, or resolve some type of conflict and the worst part is that it always took longer than 23 minutes. Nevertheless, I became aware of my hiding and have been working to force myself out which is where you find me now. Sitting here typing my thought all alone in my womb.

More to come.

Alone in My Womb (Part 1)

Finally!  After a very long and tiresome journey I have somehow navigated my way through the dense forest that is me and found my way back home.  I have to laugh at that myself because it seems ridiculous that I could have been lost inside myself.  Well, indeed that is the case.  I’ve been wandering and following a trail of fragmented clues that I left for myself for what feels like an eternity.  The truly interesting thing about all of this is where I found myself.  Here I am, all one and in my womb.

I’m about 5 months pregnant with twins (TWINS!) and I’m finally figuring out what I want where I belong and it’s all thanks to experiencing what I don’t want (okay so it could be the hormones), but nevertheless I am here.  Here in this place where I feel so safe, protected, and vulnerable, all the while feeling fierce and fearless and all conquering.  So how did I end up here?  Not pregnant, but you know, here in this new found place of serenity and freedom.  It started with a pain.

Since this pregnancy began I’ve had my share of aches, pains, and emotional tidal waves, but there was something about this last bit of pain I felt.  It wasn’t in my body it was in my mind.  It was my feelings.  Someone or maybe even something hurt my feelings.  I spend so much of my time browsing websites about motherhood and pregnancy that I’m sure I’ve been feeding myself some pretty mixed messages.  I mean come on it’s the internet and there are some pretty…let’s call them “unique” people out there with all kinds of views about pregnancy and motherhood.  It’s no wonder I got lost in all of it.  Still,  I wont blame the dreaded internet for keeping from my ultimate destination.  It’s been me all along.

About six years ago my husband and I suffered the loss of a child while I was pregnant and that is where I believe I began my departure.  As can be expected I experienced the different stages of grief over time.  When we decided that we were finally ready to try to have a baby, I believe that those bags that I had packed were on the train it had definitely began to pull away from the station.  I became obsessed with the idea of getting pregnant, but that wasn’t the worst part.  The part that really derailed things once that train took off was that I expected it to be perfect.  There was a fantasy to it all.  Conception would happen right away and then this beautiful, miraculous, and effortless process would be underway for the next nine months.  You can stop laughing now and just try to stay with me on this crazy journey.

It CAN Happen!