How, Cat? HOW do you keep on going? WHY haven’t you just given up?
me:
Umm, because I promised myself a long damn time ago that I’d NEVER let myself down again as these seasons keep changing and changing. And believe it or not, the Light in me IS much stronger than the dark! So, I picture FUTURE me standing at the horizon—with a sword in one hand and fire in my eyes—waiting for YOUNGER me to reach the divide! Also? I sing my favorite love song to myself literally every single day because I am my own greatest love story. That’s how!
Back in 1986, Corey Hart gave birth to this beautiful song, “Goin’ Home,” via one of my favorite albums of all time, “Fields Of Fire“! Little did I know that thirty-nine years later, its embers would remain quietly flickering in the deepest chambers of my heart.
MEANWHILE …
To My Kids:
This is me “standing at the divide”—better known as “the post office of my life”—not so silently praying, if not begging, for you all to take up permanent residency in YOURSELVES:
“When the seasons change and we’re in for colder weather I won’t let you down when the seasons change. I won’t go down. I’ll fight through the pain. I’ll be there right by your side. I’ll never let them bring you down when the seasons change.”
A line often attributed to the Sufi poet and mystic Rumi says, “The cure for the pain is in the pain.” I couldn’t agree more. Like the most beautiful, albeit bittersweet, dances with love, that wisdom has transcended time and space.
As for me, I believe pain and suffering have also transcended time and space through the root systems of our family trees. The agony lives on until someone finally says, “No more!” and decides to calm the fire of that generationally gifted pain within themselves. That’s how we begin to stop the toxins that poisoned our roots from bleeding through the hearts of the generations that follow.
… the Monday after he shot himself, someone hauled my ass to the doctor. They wanted to make sure I was medicated so that I could function. So, they put me on a prescription of something for 30 days. Umm, I don’t even know what it was. I just remember I was numb. My mom came to move in to the house with me for a while. Of course, I didn’t leave my room unless I had to … to handle, like, the business of it all … go the funeral home, make the arrangements … but I didn’t leave my room that much. Plus, they were shoving drugs down my throat to help me cope with everything. And, umm, I had a 30-day prescription of whatever it was. Honestly? I couldn’t tell you what they had me on. I wanna say it was Klonapin. Whatever it was, it was pretty effective. I was numb … I couldn’t feel anything … but after my prescription was over on the 30th day … 35 days later I guess we’ll just call it … I had no more medication. I had no more … nothing to numb the pain or the reality or to change anything, and it was time for me to wake up and smell the coffee.
And you know what? I remember that I have these blinds in my room. Well, it was our room. We kept the blinds down all the time to black out all the Sun. We would do that at night, so … we liked to sleep in the total darkness. And they had those blinds down. For 30 days in a row, I never opened them throughout the whole medication process after the 22nd. But, on the day that my medicine ran out, there was nobody there, my mom had already gone home. It was just me and the dog and my new reality … my new life … and I got up and I put my feet on the ground and I just … I remember going to the window, and I opened up my blinds, and I looked out into the backyard. I looked at the Sun. I look at the sky. It was a blue sky. It was really pretty outside. It was September. It was the end of September when that day happened, and I just made a decision. I said to myself, “I can either let this define me or I can not. I can either be a victim or not. I can either crumble or not. I can either get up or stay down.” And I made the decision to get up and that was then.
I’m so glad. I’m so thankful. I’m so thankful for everything I’ve been through in the last … not just the last 283 days or whatever … I’m so thankful for everything that I’ve been through in the last 50 years. I’m gonna cry. I wouldn’t change a thing! Everything. Every moment. Every time I’ve fallen. Every time I’ve risen. In the darkest hours of my life, that’s where I found the richest blessings. That’s where I found myself. I found myself in all my broken pieces. All of that pain … the pain that I have experienced has been my greatest gift … my greatest blessing.
I wish so much that I had a way to “ozmose” what I know and how I feel and what I’ve learned on my journey to as many of you as I can, because I know there are people in my atmosphere right now as I’m sitting here waiting for my girls. I call them “my girls”. (My daughter’s friends are my daughters, too. That’s how it’s always been in my house. She’s got a knack for picking amazing girls to surround herself … now, put it this way. She hasn’t always been so good at that, but she’s got a really good tribe now, and these are her tribe for the long haul. I’m thinking that the people that she has in her life right now are gonna be her people 40 years from now. I can tell! But anyway, I’ve digressed.)
I know that there are people in this world at this very minute that are crumbling. They’re questioning … they’re hurting … they’re aching … they’re dying … they’re hiding … they’re fighting for their moment … and I wish that I could just give you what I have and just “poof” it into you, but all I can tell you is just hang on. It’s “Chin Up! Knuckles Out!” You know that’s what I like to say. I’m telling you guys … everything that you need to survive and overcome? It’s inside of you. If I can do this, YOU can do this! I am the happiest fucking bitch I’ve ever met. I really am. I have joy in my heart. I have peace in my heart. I hope I don’t have to leave tomorrow, but if I do, I’m happy. I have lived and I have loved. I’ve had the most amazing pain and the most amazing loves of two men in my life that … three, if you count Christian … my son, Christian … I have been lucky enough to have had the sweetest, most truest love that any woman could have ever had. I’ve had that twice now, and how lucky am I, because there are women in this world that haven’t had that once.
And when I think about all of the things … all of the gifts that those two men left for me, I’m so thankful, because … I wouldn’t change it even if I had known the way the stories were gonna end. As painful as it was to watch the one guy hit the … I watched someone dying on … I’ve watched THREE people die. I watched a daughter die in my arms. I saw a man dying in the street. The man … the first man that I ever loved in my life … I watched him laid out in the middle of the road after he hit a brick wall going 90 miles an hour. I had to see that with my own eyes.
And then I watched my husband “dying out loud“. I watched him. I didn’t … I wasn’t with him when he shot himself, but I watched him dying. I watched it day by day. It was the worst thing. I mean, I can’t even tell you. It was so hard to do. It was unbearable to see a human being dying in front of me. But I did it. But I wouldn’t … and had I … even had I known the way it was gonna end, I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, because I figured out the secret. I figured out … I figured everything out and I’m so thankful for that.
Please, God, let it be me! Let me be the one to have absorbed the very last drops of poison that bled out and suffocated the rotting roots of our sick and dying tree so that the branches of my children and theirs will reach up and touch the Sun instead of digging back down into hell. I am humbled and honored to have been chosen for such a sacred calling and for getting to know “the secret”.
Happy Birthday to this song I’ve been listening to faithfully for going on thirty-one years now. It, too, has transcended the time, space, and beautiful changing seasons of my life.
So, tell me, friend: WHO’S YOUR PERSON? As for me, I can honestly say that, other than mykids and my ailing German Shepherd who’s just about to cross The Bridge, my “person” is ME. Just me. Guess what? THAT’S OKAY!
I mean, don’t get me wrong—I very much DO have a handful of EPIC ride-or-die “got your clockers” in this life, some of whom I’ve never even met, but those women all have lives and families of their own, so, logistically speaking, I’m on my own here.
A room full of people doesn’t guarantee a single real connection. Sometimes being unseen and unheard can feel lonelier than being by yourself.
Meanwhile, Haruki Murakami writes in his story “U.F.O. in Kushiro”:
No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.
— Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin
Both of these thoughts make me sad for anyone who hasn’t yet learned to “see, hear, and understand” themselves so that they never feel alone, even in a crowded room, and even sadder for those who need to “get away from themselves.”
Have I ever told you that I sing love songs to myself? Like, as in I literally SING to myself … every day! It’s called “That Music Thing,” and it’s one of the most valuable mental wealth hacks I’ve ever empowered myself with.
When the seasons change and we’re in for colder weather, look for me on the divide. I won’t let you down when the seasons change. I won’t go down. I’ll fight through the pain. I’ll be there right by your side. I’ll never let them bring you down. I won’t let you down. When the seasons change.
— Five Finger Death Punch, “When The Seasons Change”
When my son was a teenager, he started sending me songs to communicate his feelings, often in the wee hours of the night. Until then, because of the trauma he’d experienced in his fucked up, toxic, and beyond dysfunctional “childhood” courtesy of his dad and me, he’d been keeping his broken feelings buried and was unable to verbally express the depth of his jaded emotions.
He sent me the first song at age 16, not long after I’d moved out of our family home for the third and final time, just days before my nervous breakdown. The song was “Remember Everything” by Five Finger Death Punch, who, of course, are now my favorite band (and Ivan Moody is one of my favorite humans), but until I got that “text heard ’round the world,” I’d never even heard of them. The text came through without any words … just the link to the song … BUT … no words were necessary. Once I’d listened to it, I knew exactly what he was trying to tell me:
Mom, I love you, but I need you to know that I REMEMBER EVERYTHING!
He remembers? Remembers EVERYTHING? What the FUCK have I done to my only son? I’m not gonna lie, folks, THAT was one literal—not metaphorical—hell of a rough night for me. If you’ve ever listened to that song before, I’m certain you’ll understand why, and just for the record, if you’ve never heard that song before and have a history of childhood trauma, listen to it and you’ll understand why! Nevertheless, sending me that poignant and cryptic message at 3 o’clock in the morning was probably one of the best ways he could have possibly ever expressed exactly what he was feeling in the midst of all the undeserved wreckage and chaos that had become his life.
Needless to say, it was a pivotal moment in all of our lives during a massive season of change, but hearing those words as they swept through my ears and washed over my own broken mind was an actual five finger death punch through my soul. Not only did it remind me of the countless ways I’d failed him, it reminded me of the many things, I, too, “remembered” about my own dysfunctional childhood and how history was now repeating itself. It was devastating, but necessary, because as most of us know all too well, sometimes the truth has to hurt us before it can change us for the better.
Thereafter, it became a thing with us, and to this day he lets me know what’s going on in his heart and mind with his random music messages. Although some have been heavier than others, and some have been mind-numbingly ethereal, others have just been love songs to let me know I’m still his best momma.
“That music thing” has now morphed into more than just me and him communicating. These days, it’s also about me communicating with myself. Singing myself love songs is one of my favorite mental wealth hacks of all and has now become a powerful way to not only love myself back to life unconditionally, but keep myself loved eternally.
“When the Seasons Change” by Five Finger Death Punch is one of my life songs and has made an appearance in this Diary more than a couple of times. It’s truly been applicable to all the most important people, places, and seasons of my life, so, yes, I belt it out loud to myself all the time. Sometimes I have to tweak the words to my “love songs” to make them more applicable to me, as in the case below. Lol, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, life here in my Queendom moves to a rhythm of its very own, but hey, it’s all good. A queen’s gotta do what a queen’s gotta do … especially when the seasons are changing!
There’s a light in ME that tears me down to nothing. There’s an angel in MY eyes. There’s a hope inside THAT I CAN MAKE IT BETTER – I see right through MY disguise. When it rains it pours, and everybody stumbles. I won’t let them bring ME down. There’s a hope in ME that I will die for something. Was there fire in MY eyes? All this pain inside – Will it be this way forever? I can run but I can’t hide. When the seasons change … and I’M in for colder weather – look for ME on the divide …
From the moment I met you I knew you were special I just did not know HOW special you were and how special and important you would become to me. I can honestly say that you have shown me the best that life has to offer despite our problems, issues we have had had and things we have done and said. I know it can get even better than it has ever been.
I know I don’t verbalize it enough but I really do think overall that you are an incredible wife, friend and mother to OUR kids. You are more thoughtful, forgiving and caring than anyone I have ever met or anything I could aspire to be. I truly envy that about you. You are also a gorgeous woman. Your inner beauty has always been the biggest draw from me and it is the reason that I married you and the reason I love you so much.
I know I have not always led you to believe this, but I also love to hear you talk and I do enjoy talking to you. You are the only person in my life I feel that I can truly confide in and not be judged. You know more about me than any other person on this planet and I know that goes both ways. You are a very passionate speaker, and you always do your best and take the extra time/effort to help someone understand your point or feelings. I love that about you, and it is one of your greatest strengths in my opinion so long as you are tactful, and light handed with criticism. Please don’t ever feel that you talk too much or that you are a bad person for speaking your feelings/thoughts so long as you know in your heart that you are coming from a good place and do you best to be constructive which you usually do.
I have done, said and thought so many things to/about you that I am not proud of, and I am deeply sorry for. I know that 2017 really can be the best year of our lives, that this year we can really start over and get back to the place where we truly love, honor and cherish each other with no regrets, bitterness or anger in our hearts towards each other or anyone else for that matter. You are the reason for my happiness and confidence. You built me up when no one else would, picked me up when I fell, held me when I cried, celebrated with I thought I had done nothing spectacular, kicked me in the butt when you knew I needed to get over myself and believed in me when I did not even believe in myself. You ARE the light and the love that has filled my soul all along. You are the reason that I am the father, husband and human being I am today. You have taught me more than I ever thought I could learn from a person and challenged me to do things that I never ever thought I could do and more. We met for a reason, and we are together for a reason that was always meant to be. We love each other, feed off each other, mend each other’s wounds and fill in each other’s cracks. We must continue to do so because we will break without each other. We have to stay together even when we don’t think we can and give each other no reason to like the other or be likable to the other.
I know we will grow from everything that has happened this past year and that things have gotten better already and will continue to do so even if they get worse for a time. Our pain and suffering is temporary but our love and connection is literally eternal. I am sorry I forget that sometimes.
Happy 2017, Baby! I love you and I know you love me. It’s time to truly enjoy life TOGETHER and make this relationship we have better than it ever has been. I Love and adore you Catherine Williamson and I always will. Thank you for being my wife and thank you for being you.
There’s a light in you that tears me down to nothing, there’s an angel in your eyes. There’s a hope inside that you can make it better. You see right through my disguise. When it rains it pours, and everybody stumbles. I won’t let them bring you down. I won’t let you down when the seasons change. I won’t go down. I’ll fight through the pain. I’ll be there right by your side. I’ll never let them bring you down when the seasons change. There’s a hope in me that I will die for something. Was the fire in my eyes? All this pain inside – will it be this way forever? I can run but I can’t hide. When it rains it pours, and everybody stumbles. I won’t let them bring me down. I won’t let you down when the seasons change. I won’t go down. I’ll fight through the pain. I’ll be there right by your side. I’ll never let them bring you down when the seasons change. When the seasons change and we’re in for colder weather, look for me on the divide. I won’t let you down when the seasons change. I won’t go down. I’ll fight through the pain. I’ll be there right by your side. I’ll never let them bring you down. I won’t let you down. When the seasons change.
