me:

“It’s turning out great, right? My homemade ‘kitchen flowers’ make me so happy every week!”

her:

“It’s really pretty this time, mom. Plus, it’s hydrangeas AND lillies, BOTH our favorites! But I have a question. Daddy always sends you flowers, so, why do you need to buy your own?”

me (heart SWELLING):

“Because daughter, WHY NOT? I decided years ago to stop waiting for the world and people in it to “bring me my happy” and get out there and start bringing it to MYSELF! It’s especially important for moms to treat themselves kindly when they can, because it’s a very hard job and sometimes the things moms do and give tend to go unnoticed or recognized, often unintentionally. Life happens and people get busy – ESPECIALLY most daddies – so, moms have to remember to appreciate and value themselves regardless of who else remembers. You’ll always be able to make and find your OWN joy in life, as long as you’re willing to search for it. So, I want you to promise me that when you grow up you’ll treat YOURSELF to flowers often … because … YOU CAN and you DESERVE IT!”

her:

“Mommy? I am SO gonna do that AND have this same talk with your granddaughters one day! We’ll start trend in our family called ‘get yourself some flowers, girl’!”

me:

“You just made my day, Gia! I’ve been WAITING for you to notice that I buy myself flowers and finally ask me why! Now that you know, I really, REALLY hope that someday when you have a house of your own and I stop by to visit that I’ll see ‘homemade kitchen flowers’ on your counter from YOU to YOU!”

(“The Day Of The Homemade Kitchen Flowers“)

🌸

… fast forward to today:

YES, her Prince Charming brings her flowers constantly … but YES, she either buys or picks them for herself, too … and YES, making sure there are fresh flowers on my kitchen counter at all times will always be one of my favorite and most powerful mental wealth hacks and ways to continue “stealing The Sun from the sky” and staying in perpetual flight!

Girl, the BEST days of your life … have YET to come!

Dear “Every Woman Out There Who’s Been Avoiding Stepping Into Your OWN Reign With Your OWN Tiara For Years And Years And Years And YEARS, To The Point Of Near Suffocation, If Not Death”:

Haven’t you held your breath and your tongue long enough? Why are you holding yourself back? There’s still SO much for you to say … but it’s NOT too late to run … no … walk … turn away quietly and just WALK away like a QUEEN! As for all those shadows you have cast? Guess what? FUCK the shadows, because YA CAN’T HAVE SHADOWS WITHOUT LIGHT! The light is there already, by the way, but ya might need to close your eyes to see it! All the best days of your life truly have yet to come … not the least of which is the one you get to CHOOSE to have as soon you’re done reading this. After all, you’re STILL here, right? So? OPEN UP AND SEIZE IT! No, you DON’T owe anybody ANYTHING … but you DO owe it to yourself, your GOD, and ANY other women in your halo to get out there and LIVE YOUR LIFE ANYWAY YOU PLEASE … NO APOLOGIES! THESE are the only promises left for you to keep:

Close the door … and close your eyes … but DON’T close yourself off to everything that’s still left for you to see and try! I know you’re afraid … and THAT’S OKAY … but, hey! Look at me! If I can do this, YOU can do this! Your QUEENDOM is calling you!

By the way, if you don’t download this most beautiful love song to yourself that I’ve been listening to on an often weekly basis since it was born this day fifteen years ago, please do so immediately! Listen to it daily until it reignites the flame inside your soul that you may have never even known was there in the first place. She’s just waiting for you to whisper to her. NOW, BURN!

It’s “World Day Of Bullying Prevention Day” once again, and I don’t know who needs to hear this right now, but if you’ve ever been the one some giant FUCKTARD did or said something cruel to during a time when you were already on the ground searching for even the smallest shred of light in all that darkness, only to have the door slammed SHUT and leave you all but blinded, I want you to know that you didn’t deserve that, I’m sorry you had to endure it, but I’m GLAD you’re still here reading this.

When you think all is forsaken, listen to me now … all is not forsaken! You need never feel broken again. Sometimes darkness can show you The Light.

{Disturbed}

In the meantime, if YOU are the FUCKTARD who all but put your hands around the throat of someone who was already struggling to breathe … YOU’RE GROSS! Also? Karma is a Jean-Claude Van DAMN mother effing bitch, soooo … have fun with all that!

… and by “recovery” I mean “recovery” from ANY of the following (in NO particular order):

•Acute Trauma
•Grief
•Sexual Abuse
•Domestic Violence
•Emotional Abuse
•Natural Disasters
•Bullying
•Abuse And Neglect
•Abandonment
•Witnessing Violence
•Developmental Trauma
•Intergenerational Trauma
•Life Threatening Illness
•Your Childhood
•YOUR FAMILY
•Terrorism
•Verbal Abuse
•Accidents
•Assault
•Childbirth
•Pandemic
•Divorce
•Kidnapping
•Military Combat
•Displacement
•Addiction
•Depression
•Alcoholism
•PTSD
•Mental Illness
•Eating Disorders
•Narcissistic Abuse

… and the list goes on and on!

With that, and in honor of World Recovery Day today, if YOU are in recovery from any of the above or perhaps something else on the list that I missed, please be gentle with yourself and don’t be surprised by a rollercoaster of various emotions all in one same day. Oh, and by the way … contrary to what you or others may have tried to convince you of …

YOU AREN’T MACHINE!

YOU NEED TO SLEEP!

So, cut yourself a break today and allow yourself to rest and reboot as long as is HUMANLY necessary! Also? Here’s to even BEING human in the first place, along with all the pain and suffering that has brought beauty to your bleeding. Remember not to take your humanity for granted, by the way, as you’re endlessly navigating all the highs and lows of living out your second chances. No, it was wasn’t supposed to be this way, and yes, you were meant to feel the pain as you were becoming the SURVIVOR you truly are!

~ REAL Cat

To heal a wildflower, you must first go to her roots. To get to her roots, you have to go back to the beginning.

Let’s go back to the beginning!

(“Letters To Anna“)

Oh, to be a one of those flowers that blooms after a wildfire! “Dear Me”: Just keep blooming in a perfect circle, going forward by continually going backwards to the very beginning of the fire! Then, if as I’ve long known I truly am the most favorite and beloved daughter of this God I adore so much, they’ll never know they’re the children of a cursed woman:

But you see, the flip side of this bittersweet, double-edged sword of a living love story I’ve become is that I’ve gotten to learn the very hard way that my heart is love and my hands can rest because my soul has learned to happily exist in the blissful peace of my own solitude unless and until I decide to let anyone near me with a hammer again, much less be forced to just stand there and watch some mother fucker with a hammer continually annihilate my children.

(“The Shardsman, The Hammer & The Glue“)

Wait! Let me rephrase that: They’ll never know they’re the children of a woman who once thought she was a cursed woman. For as long as I shall live, I’ll keep shattering myself like glass, breaking every one of my bones, tearing out my heart, and scourging my own soul just to keep that that kid who lives inside of me free to bask in the glow of my own wildfires!

Breanne Randall once said,

I can dress in black and hang my head and mourn the loss of the life I longed for / or I can set it all on fire and build new dreams from the ashes / where are the matches?

So, with that, and in honor of this “Ancestor Appreciation Day“, I’m gonna keep lighting everything and one around me on fire! Here’s hoping you will, too! YOU CAN DO THIS, “ME”! I mean, really? You have no other choice! WE have to keep healing the broken little girl inside us … for THEM … and by “them” I don’t just mean the kids. I mean the strangers who walked through fires of their own so that we could find our voice!

In the meantime, pray GOD that the broken little girl who is now a part of our family finds the strength, courage, and brutal self awareness to “see herself” in the next generation of wildfires she’s now torched our family with so that she doesn’t burn and destroy my grandchildren.

That’s right … YOU HEARD ME!

YOU created the cesspool you’re drowning in, which, (ps), is making you kinda stinky! You can’t really expect to run around breaking every person, place, and thing you touch and not have to fuckin’ pay for it, now can ya? Meanwhile, “if” by chance you’re in the wake of what seems to be the war to end all wars, there’s cold, dead bodies laying all around and you’re the only one left standing, perhaps it’s time to reexamine yourself, or, God forbid, examine yourself for the very first time EVER!

No one seems to like you?

Can’t hold on to relationships?

Don’t get included in family functions, ’cause …

You always RUIN family functions!?

Constantly getting fired?

Constantly in trouble with the law?

Constantly have your ‘lil ears BURNING?

People can only show up to the places where you are drunk, stoned, or otherwise highly medicated?

Welp, ya toxic ‘lil monkey …

the problem just MIGHT be YOU!

One of my favorite lines from a song of ALL times is by a band even a ginormous shithead like YOU might have heard. (It’s Def Leppard! 😉):

And then in conversation, I love the way you mention ‘nothing’s ever gone your way’ with a hammer in your hand. You spell out a master plan.

(“To Be Alive“)

YOU NEVER LEARN!

Steve Maraboli once said,

The problem that we have with a victim mentality is that we forget to see the blessings of the day. Because of this, our spirit is poisoned instead of nourished.

Lookit, your victim mentality isn’t serving you very well, so why not just go ahead and FIX IT! Own some things. Account for some things. Apologize for some things. STOP SOME THINGS! Make amends with those prolly very few people who are somehow still willing to let you in their atmosphere. Start taking responsibility for your bullshit actions and for fuck’s sake, GET INTO THERAPY!

While I’m sorry that I’m not sorry for the rough around the edges delivery here, know that I only aim to help. Yes, I know that the truth really hurts, but I am here to tell you that I, too, used to cry “victim” after the consequences of my own bullshittery. Guess what, though? I’ve lived, learned, and since accepted the errors of all my formerly fucked up ways and all the people I broke along the way … not the LEAST of whom were my children. Then? I forgave myself, walked forward with “Power + Grace“, and my life is just so much more … BETTER!

YOU CAN DO THIS!

You can stop whining and crying over all the stuff that YOU broke! Ga head and give it a try! YOU GOT THIS! Oh, and one last thing. This post is being published on “National Day Of Remembrance Of Homicide Victims” today in honor and of those who have been truly “victimized”, which (ps), in this regard isn’t you!

… ’cause remember, and Epictetus said it best: Any person capable of angering you really does becomes your master, so don’t let anyone disturb you and make you their little bitch! Keep that thunderbolt in your own hands as much as humanly possible and don’t let anyone grab it away from you!

… but (ps):

Don’t you dare beat yourself up too bad when in the past you have in the future you do fork over your lightening bolt to some fool who angered you! It happens to the best of us, up to and including me, ’cause we are only human after all. Oh, and by the way, as is par for the course with me, I tried to find the perfect “day” to post here in The Diary, but couldn’t find a single trace of a “World Anger Awareness Day” to save my life. So, instead, I’m posting this now in honor of the release of this epic if not most recognizable AC/DC songs was released thirty-four years today!

On this day ten years ago, Three Days Grace released what to me has become one of the most bittersweet requiems and landslides of all the “mother guilt” I’ve struggled with in the wake of not just my own shattered childhood, but even more so my children’s. Meanwhile, dare I forget that moment a couple years ago when I found her college entrance essay hidden in my desktop downloads. I wasn’t quite sure whether to smile or cry as I read it, but ended up doing both, because …

I’ve often wondered if my life is just a bunch of pages in a comic book. It seemed that since the beginning, I was thrown as many adversities as my author could think of so I could become a character just like my in dad’s dusty old comic books that I would flip through under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep. I was born in the middle of a nasty divorce, and my teenage brother took up caring for me since my parents would be too busy fighting to notice either of us. I wanted to make things easier for the people around me, so I learned how to be independent and resourceful, and I was instilled with a personal goal to strive for excellence. The rest of my life has been met with similar misfortunes. Bullying and social ostracization, poor choices of friends and boyfriends, and finally, the abrupt death of my stepfather, who had raised me and despite the lack of shared blood took up the yoke of being my dad for 11 years. In the end, I had no friends, a dead parent, and a list of diagnoses of disorders that reads like a master list.  The last thing I want is pity. That’s not why I say this. The reason I say all of this is because despite the years of bitterness and pain I felt being in my “comic book”, and the many times I wanted to give up completely, I have grown to love everything that has happened to me. Why? Because I know that if it wasn’t for all I had to endure, I wouldn’t be a fraction of the woman I am today. Because throughout everything, I made the decision to make sure my backstory would make me like Batman, not Joker. Every cruel word and deed taught me that the people who are hurting the most can cause the most hurt, and that I needed to be kind and patient – take them with a grain of salt because the last thing they needed was cruelty back. My anxiety forced me to become sure of myself so I could meet my own expectations for myself, and to learn how to move outside my comfort zone to succeed and connect with others the way I want. My ADHD and OCD gave me an incredible love for challenges. Yes, it is more difficult for me than others to do basic things, but in the end, I learned that I could turn the things that hinder me into my superpowers. My ADHD allows me to devote myself completely to my passions and always remain excited and looking for the next thing I can do to improve and gives me this unquenchable thirst to learn more and do more. My OCD gave me the strength to always strive to do my absolute best, while also forcing me to learn how to be gracious with myself when I make mistakes, as mistakes are just lessons that teach me how to improve and do better.  My PTSD made me both gentle and tough. I gained more empathy and became incredibly resilient. It gave me a fierce desire to protect and support those who had no one else to support them, because if I had to suffer so that others might not, then I’m happy to show my scars with a smile. It made me love harder and care more, about others and about myself.  I’m in no way perfect. I have my kryptonite like everyone else. But I am a fighter. I know that I can face whatever comes my way, and I am proud to say that I have grown into my own superhero. I just hope that someday, my “comic book story” will give some kid just like me the hope to keep fighting and become their own superhero, too. 

Ugh. It was just like that very first “Death Punch” to my soul years ago when my son sent me the first of many to follow not so cryptic messages in the wee hours of the morning to let me know he “remembered … EVERYTHING“!

… and so, with that, to my beautiful, battle born phoenix of a risen angel daughter. Only God knows when you’ll finally begin digging in to the entirety of this virtual love letter I’m writing to you, your brother, and all of yours, and though I’ve appreciated your reading the entries I’ve asked you to thus far, I know it’s not quite time for you to sit down with “all of it”. As for now, just know that I’m so beyond proud of you and there aren’t enough words in my soul to atone and account for the many apologies I owe you for everything I missed while I was physically “there” with you while often being nowhere in sight. Late at night, I couldn’t hear you crying. I suppose I was too busy crying my own self to sleep while all the love around us was dying. How do you stay so strong? How did you hide it all for so long? Why couldn’t I take the pain away? Oh, that’s right! I was too busy free-falling in the dark for my own protection to make myself feel like I’d be okay. Still, I have so many questions.

That was then.

This is NOW!

I once heard it said that,

People change for two main reasons: Either their minds have been opened or their hearts have been broken.

Daughter, I am here to tell you, your brother, and anyone else who ever reads this that I am doing my very best to change for both those reasons. As for now, I’M HERE, baby girl. I “hear” you and I “see” you. I’ll be right beside you ever more if you go through hell and back again, no matter how close or far I ever am, and you will never close your eyes and fall alone in the dark. I love you, RISEN angel.

~ Momma 🖤

“NO man is hated more than he who speaks the truth.”

~ Plato ~

“The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.”

~ Søren Kierkegaard ~

“Give me liberty, or give me death!”

~ Patrick Henry ~

My heart is literally shattered today, not just for his family, but for our country. This is NOT “what America means to me“! Even so, I find there no irony in that his assassination will most assuredly be another call to arms and “Turning Point” for our very sick and broken country, not unlike the FIRST shot heard ’round the world on April 19, 1775.

On the other hand, however, I’m gleefully aware of the hardcore FACT that although they tried to silence him, what happened today will, indeed, carry his voice and wisdom through the ages. My grandkids and their grandkids and maybe even their grandkids will know who he was, what he said, and what he stood for. Lol. Imagine being so abysmally uneducated, illiterate, and completely void of any ability to “speak your truth” intelligently, face to face, mouth to mouth, and without the use of violence, gunfire, or your own personal guerilla warfare tactics? So, good job to the actual idiot savant who assassinated today. Guess what, moron? In your attempt to silence a movement of truth, Light, and factual objectivity as regards the whole of humanity, you ended up lighting the fuse of a never-ending, ever-burning cord!

Rest in peace, Mr. Kirk. You lived your life as a true Lion and fierce leader of your pride of patriots and Christians alike with courage, compassion, honesty, loyalty, and conviction for this land you loved so very much. Your legacy will live on throughout our American history as one of the brightest, most faithful, and heroic beacons on our often dark and sordid pages. Well done, my friend. Well done.

Dearest Me,

“Is this the place that we called home to find what we’ve become? Walking along the path unknown … we’ve lived, we’ve loved, we’ve LIED! Deep in the dark … we didn’t think we “needed” The Light … or that the ghost inside us belonged to the other side.”

(Words adapted by Bad Omens’ “Specter”)

Looking back, it literally blows my FUCKING mind how many heaping piles of toxic, twisted, and dysfunctional behavior – ironically most often at all the places I was forced to not just believe, but tell other people were “safe and loving homes” and thus perpetuate the disgusting “FAUXrytales” that the powers that were my life needed to be perpetuated at risk of “what would people think if they knew the truth?” For years I choked on silence and secrets amid the ABUSE, CHAOS and VIOLENCE that was my childhood and is now still my adulthood to protect the image of the PERFECT family “behind the gates”!

Guess what, though?

THAT version of me is gone! She’s as dead as the specter who still roams the corridors of my mind as a reminder of how we got here. I’ve GOTTEN to learn the VERY hard way that losing people who send wrecking balls through the walls of my heart and the places me and mine dwell is not a loss – it’s TOTAL freedom – and I’ll never betray or “ghost” myself with silence and lies again!

And so, with that … YES! Yes, i AM the angry daughter … ever the work in progress … and I’ll STAY this angry until my MY daughter has finally moved THROUGH all the anger she inherited from both me and the generations before and is now wielding like a torch through her own haunted spaces … just like her momma … so that someday HER daughter (who I carried within MY womb, by the way) won’t ever have to stay angry for longer than is necessary to keep the specter of herself at bay … unless, of course, like me, she decides to pull out its little diamond studded leash and walk proudly with it like a wild and beautiful BEAST with MY fire in her eyes and resilience coursing through her veins!

In my opinion, the very first thing you should do before casting judgment and punishment when anyone betrays you (and trust me, it WILL happen to even the best of us at least once in life), is proceed according to my “Peter v. Judas For The Dummies” system:

Simon Peter denied knowing Jesus three times out of fear. He was sorry, repented, forgiven, redeemed, and thereafter known as one of THE most faithful Christian leaders in the history of forever.

Peter was SORRY!

Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus with a kiss in front of the Roman soldiers for 30 freakin’ pieces of silver out of greed. His “remorse” was rooted in self-pity and despair, then he killed his damn self.

Judas was NOT sorry

(for anyone but himself)!

They BOTH betrayed Jesus … BUT … one is an example of how forgiveness and grace can be shown when true remorse and a resulting change of behavior. Peter’s story teaches that even after serious mistakes, GENUINE repentance, and a TRUE desire for forgiveness, can lead to restoration in any relationship, no matter the level of betrayal.

Judas’s story shows that just because someone feels sorry for themselves, although we should forgive them (if for no other reason but clearing our OWN conscience), we must always use discernment when considering any further relationship with them.

So, who are the Peters or Judases in YOUR life? More importantly, who have you been to others? Peter … or Judas? I can admit that I’ve been both at different points in my journey, but thankfully I’ve grown past my Judas-y, “poor ‘lil victim” days gone by. Accountability is one of the best things I have for breakfast these days (even when it hurts to swallow).