Dear Me,

Oh, how this epic roller coaster of a life I get to ride on never fails me! Five years, six months, and one whole day later, and leave it to that ride or die of mine and his bittersweet, cryptic, and powerful “music thing” messages to bring one of THE most important Diary entries I’ve ever written full circle by sending me THE perfect song to finally pair with it!

Meanwhile, and dare I remind you …

This is no longer just our communion. The worms of our flesh have turned with all the sacrifices you once swallowed, but now the once cold blood from the cup is warm again. It wasn’t so evil, as much as it was hunger … this body and the bones I picked clean. I built that cage I was trapped in with her, but guess what? I REMEMBERED WHERE I’D HIDDEN THE KEY! All of the reasons for me to get by became a need to get “high”, then pulled me down into an abyss of a life that was no fucking life whatsoever! The trick was always for me to get out of my own skin, but the beast had been calling for me all the while and slowly assuming control. I once truly was a taxidermy sewn into my own soul, but THESE days? NO MORE SLEEPING … only STAYING WIDE AWAKE in this dream that’s allowed me to get out of my own skin, because I was only ever as sick as the secrets I kept within! Those days are gone now, though, aren’t they? I’m so fucking proud of you, me! I LOVE YOU!

I’ve prayed incessantly for the moment I would be at peace with the thought of no longer being the number one woman in his life, and yes, “you” have always been at the forefront of my MOST important prayers:

“Please, God, PLEASE let her momma be raising someone precious for my son. No, I’m not asking for her to BE perfect. Just let her be the perfect one for HIM.”

Some years ago I found this excerpt from a prayer someone wrote to God about his own sons, and I’d been keeping it tucked safely in the “drafts” of this Diary for the day he’d finally found someone who I believe was worthy of sharing it with. It had something to do with Princess Katherine, who as you know just became The Princess Of Whales:

“And so I pray … for a princess that realizes she’s the daughter of the King of Heaven and Earth … for a Princess clothed in humility and grace (rather than the latest fashions and trends) … for a princess with hands that will get dirty for the sake of serving others and feet willing to walk the extra mile (rather than one that demands manicures and pedicures by age seven) … for a princess whose “adornment” is not merely outward (arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel), but rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is “very precious in the sight of God.” {1 Peter 3:3-5} … for a princess who loves unconditionally and forever, and doesn’t run out when her prince falls off his royal horse and isn’t as charming as she dreamed (because it WILL happen). Amen.”

(“How To Talk To The Girl“)

And so, with that, here’s to me realizing that no matter where in both Heaven AND Hell this journey has already or will ever take me, I’m still and always God’s most FAVORITE daughter ever and one REALLY really blessed momma. BY the way, how freaking epic is it that she “kept” that little voice message I left her? As I said to her in the screen-shotted conversation you’ll see below, although she and I will clearly not always see eye to eye on things over the years, these are the moments that I’ll most want them to remember when it’s time for me to head on over to The Brighter Side Of Grey. Here’s hopin’ they just “leave out all the rest! Indeed, today is a GOOD “Good Friday“.

As and aside, can I just say this to any and all of you mothers-in-law out there reading this right now? If you are blessed enough to have a son who’s found a girl to spend his life with who loves him as much as you do, why not take a minute to just let her know that “you see her”? Although “Monster-In-Law” was a really cute movie, the message therein was powerful:

“A daughter is her mother’s entire heart existing outside her body. She is her strength and her dreams and a better human than she could have ever imagined. She is her light, her baby, her world.” (Unknown)

But what about a daughter-in-LAW? She is his mother’s entire HEART existing outside her body. She is his strength and his dreams and a better human than either he or his mother could have ever imagined for him. SHE is his light, HIS baby now, and HIs world (as it should be)! Now that I think of it, this same rule can apply to all you dads out there, too. I of all people know exactly what it feels like when a father or even grandfather can’t cut the cord.

(“Monster-In-Law“)

Yes, God does know how many tears I’ve cried for my mother over the years. To begin, my mother did not … and I repeat — DID NOT — have a “childhood.” Rather, she had a “mother’s” responsibilities, helping raise her seven siblings while my grandmother was literally “working on the railroad all her live-long days.” Alongside my great-grandmother and namesake, Catherine, she became the third parent and “second adult” during that precious time in her life when most other girls her age were running around outside playing hopscotch and riding their bikes.

Keep in mind that my mother never really had the luxury of falling apart or grieving the psychological and emotional trauma of her biological father’s absence via abandonment — something even to this day she refuses to acknowledge. And besides, even if she had attempted to “deal” with all the cards that weren’t “handed,” but rather THROWN at her, who would have even noticed anyway? In the less-than-1,000-square-foot shanty of a home she was raised in and made the reluctant but willing domestic goddess of — chock FULL of not just her one older and six younger siblings, but an alcoholic and mostly abusive stepfather, an ailing grandmother, and a mother (when she wasn’t working on the railroad) — there was neither the time, energy, nor space for anyone to see or catch her if she’d either dropped or attempted to lay down a single one of her burdens. Now, here I am, many decades of her all-but-forced motherhood later, having to watch her as a grown and beautiful woman who not only doesn’t know how — but refuses — to ask anyone for help with anything. She only knows how to keep giving until there is nothing left. So, yes, IT’S HARD TO WATCH!

Meanwhile, if any woman in the history of humanity ever deserved to be treasured, cherished, adored, pampered, and placed high atop a pedestal by her HUSBAND … it was her, my beautiful Mother. Instead, she’s spending what’s left of what were meant to be her “Golden Years” locked away in a very beautiful yet abhorrent prison like Cinderella. She was his very first prize! His first conquest! THE purest trophy of all trophies!

The “empire” he’s so disgustingly proud to brag about “building on his own” would never have seen the light of day without her as a loyal grunt by his side. My mother … the true, rightful, and selfless QUEEN of this family was his first missed opportunity to show truly kind, patient, and unconditional love to the one person on the face of this planet who has ever faithfully loved him despite himself, which, P.S., is saying A LOT! Instead, she’ll be spending her birthday today in the prison he built for ALL of us but that I was able to escape.

Don’t get me wrong, though. She is, indeed, “treasured, cherished, adored, pampered, and placed high atop a pedestal” to the best of my ability, my sister’s ability, and all four of her grandchildren’s — BUT — the love we try to pour back into the cup she’s so selflessly always pouring into ours should have only ever been the SPRINKLES on a cake that HE should have decorated for her … NOT the entire bowl of frosting!

It is what it is, I suppose. She accepted her fate a long, long time ago, opting instead to let it make her physiologically ill at the core of her bones, joints, and nervous system, as is the plight for most autoimmune diseases — which I personally believe are somehow related to the internalized pain, anger, and suffering that are all too often masked with a beautiful smile.

So, for now, we’ll just continue to do the best we can to make sure she rides off to The Brighter Side knowing that she was seen, heard, and appreciated for everything she has given to this family, often to her own demise.

Happy birthday, “Maria Antoinetta”!

(And, yes, that’s really her name!)

A quote often attributed to George Orwell says:

The most terrible loneliness is not the kind that comes from being alone, but the kind that comes from being misunderstood. It is the loneliness of standing in a crowded room, surrounded by people who do not see you, who do not hear you, who do not know the true essence of who you are. And in that loneliness, you feel as though you are fading, disappearing into the background, until you are nothing more than a ghost, a shadow of your former self.

Guess what, though? YOU … are NEVER … “alone“! Go look into a mirror right now! Do you see that stranger looking back at you? THAT person “sees” you! THAT person hears you! THAT person has your six! THAT’S your ride or die! THAT person does understand you inside and out, and THAT’S the ONLY mortal being you can count on to never let you down or abandon you as the seasons change!

THAT person is literally PRICELESS!

Much to the contrary, actually, people so often do feel themselves fading and disappearing into the background until they eventually reduce themselves to nothing more than the ghostly apparition of who they used to be — because THEY abandon THEMSELVES! “The Task,” however, is for THEM to choose NOT TO!

With that, here’s me passing along yet another whack-a-doodle “song of myself” to you and your “ghost” — you know, that shadow of a person you’ve separated from and hidden away for so, so very long now?

Do me a favor and read these words out loud to yourself as though a friend or loved one were speaking them. Sounds silly, right? WHO CARES? Just do it, please! HAVE this powerful conversation with yourself — NOW:

Speak of the devil, look who just walked into the room. The guilted and faded notion of someone I once knew. All the perfect moments are wrong. All the precious pieces are gone. Everything that mattered is just a city of dust covering both of us. So many silent sorrows you never hear from again, and now that you’ve lost tomorrow, is yesterday still a friend? All the bridges we built were burned. Not a single lesson was learned. Everything that mattered is just a city of dust covering both of us. Did you hide yourself away? I can’t see you anymore. Did you eclipse another day? I used to wake up to the color of your soul. Did you hide yourself away? Are you living through the ghost? Did you finally find a place above the shadows so the world will never know? The world will never know you like I do.

So? How’d it go? How did hearing those words “from you to you” make you feel? Pray GOD they made you feel some kind of way, but more than anything, here’s hoping “you and you” can finally find a place to reconnect far above the shadows of a world that will never know you like YOU do! Pretty deep, huh? But do you understand what mommy is saying? Ghosts aren’t always so scary, by the way … especially when it’s the ghost of YOU!

Oh, and one last thing …

This epic song was released thirteen years ago today via the birth of its mother, “Amaryllis,” which, too, is an entire song of myself, “The Queen Of The Night“!

Grandma and grandpa painted a picture of 65 years in one little house. More than a memory … more than saying “I do” … kiss you goodnights and “I love yous”. Me and you, baby, we’ll walk in their footsteps … build our own family one day at a time. And we’ll build this love from the ground up. Now ’til forever, it’s all of me, all of you. Just take my hand, and I’ll be the man your dad hoped that I’d be.

(“From The Ground Up“)

Meanwhile, here’s hoping and praying that they don’t walk in any of our jacked up footsteps and they carve out much healthier paths and futures for themselves and their babies than any of us ever did!

Also? I don’t think they’ll be staying in this “one little house” for 65 years, because I’m gonna make them sell it exactly two years from closing yesterday, then build one more, then maybe ONE more before the sales comps in their still growing small north Texas town blow up after the interstate finally cuts through it in 2030! This realtor momma is gonna make them millionaires playing real life Monopoly trading little green houses for a red hotel within ten years flat!

CONGRATULATIONS, ONE AND FOUR!

I’m so freaking proud of you both (and so must Zack be, too!)

I bet you didn’t know that there is actually such a thing as “World Puppetry Day“, now didja? Congrats, my friend! NOW YOU KNOW! With that, let’s talk about the most puppet-y of all puppets in the history of mankind … YOU … and how releasing yourself from the toxic strings you keep yourself tethered to and the death of your own ego will be the beginning of your entirely new and improved REAL life!

But, Cat? How? HOW do I free myself from MY strings?

(… said no one ever!)

I’m so glad you asked, lol! Here are a few good starting places:

Stop Getting Offended!

[SEE ALSO: “Agreement No. 2“!] Don’t let small things upset you, because not only are other people’s boneheaded words and deeds not worth all the stress, you don’t have to spend your energy on them! KNOW YOUR WORTH, “add some tax”, and don’t you waste a minute of your most precious commodity of all, TIME, on anyone else’s bullshit!

Master YourSELF!

Drop that superiority complex, rock star! In my humble opinion, the most effective leadership style of all is in striving to just be better than you were yesterday, not better than anyone else today or tomorrow. Only YOU should be your competition … no one else!

You … Are NOT … Your “Accomplishments”!

Don’t get me wrong. Of course, success is important, but it doesn’t and shouldn’t define you as a person. So, know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, give yourself way more credit for all the little things you achieve, and know when to stop reaching for “more”.

Winning Isn’t Everything!

You can’t always win, and that’s okay, but more so than that, sometimes losing is winning! Don’t let your quest to be the best at everything affect your self-worth. You’re not always gonna be the best … or the fastest … or the smartest … or the anything-est. (Wait! Is that a word? Well! It is now, right?) Run your race at your own pace, no one else’s! You’ll get there when you’re supposed to!

You’re Not Always Right!

Let go of the need to always be right. It’s okay to let others win.

LET GO OF CONTROL!

“God grant you the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference!”

Enough said? Capeesh! And that, my friends, is where we end. So, grab a pair of scissors PRONTO and just STOP making yourself dance around like a monkey in a shit show!