Broken Lives Matter

Missed the train; it was a soul-crushing disaster. Rescheduled and there was an upcharge, but whatever. I want to get away and see the peope who love me.

Hello Lovelies, I'm not running out the door, as I thought, just yet. All day yesterday I thought it was a day later! So it turns out I've got another day to capture my thoughts on digital paper, as it were, and I thought I'd continue the slightly sad track I've been on lately. Maybe this is just to get it out of my system before the adventure and thrill of an all-day train trip and a week in the embrace of my family. I look forward to that with breathless excitement, and I'm deep in the process of getting my house ready for another long absence, the likes of which only July knows:) Before I head out, I have some processing to do, and it has to do with loss. Particularly the exquisite loss of the unnamed--what am I mourning? Why do I miss what I can't define? Why does it hurt so much? I've had so much experience with loss in the last 20 decades. First was my dear dad, then the man I told myself "Dad" had picked out for me to marry and cherish u...

Hello Lovelies! I thought I'd share the very coolest thing I've seen recently, this time to do with our friend Molly Burke and her physical challenges. The lady is certainly living her life to the fullest, and enjoying every second of what it has to offer! In the process she's teaching all of us, including me, an I thought I'd pass it along. Just look at her joy! It's amazing to see. And such a delight, as an art-lover myself, to know that she has this available. https://www.facebook.com/reel/214935851358826 A little online investigating, and I wasn't able to find the name of the exact gallery, but I found that immersive galleries are a huge thing right now, particularly in the bigger cities. My own medium-sized town had the Van Gogh exhibit not long ago. I had the chance to go but it was on a day much windier even than this, and it can be quite a challenge to navigate the walker through wind. I often feel like I'm fighting for an inch of purchase on th...

Lovelies, I'm broken. Every day is a fight against myself standing in my own way. At 40-freaking-One, here I sit and struggle to get through every day, scared to death. And this fear makes me broken. Afraid of failure, but VERY afraid of success. What would I DO with success?! How would I handle it if things suddenly WORKED OUT? Very little in my life to this point has ever worked out. I've gotten used to keeping my head down and striving only for the finish line, not to make a splash while I'm striving. And therein lies the rub. If I don't get out of my own way, I never WILL succeed. But I will also never be happy, yea though I completely expect to fail:( The trick of it is to get comfortable taking risks, like I did in 2020 when I moved. That was the last BIG risk I've taken, and the time since has absolutely flown. But I've felt absolutely stagnant:( Enclosed is a video addressing some of this fear--the feeling of inadequacy, the negative self-talk that p...

Hello Lovelies! This weekend's weather has been amazing, though for me there have been waves of sadness. There have also been pools of joy! One of them is this beautiful video of (an attractive) man signing the first few lines of "If You Could Only See" by the band Tonic. This song was somewhat of a cult favorite in its day, so you'd be forgiven for being unable to place it:) For ME though? I was a huge Tonic fan, and this song was in heavy rotation at all the hockey games for the home team, which in my case played just across the river from this band's hometown, in Canada! There was nothing like hearing it in a sports arena, and watching this guy's movements and emotion while signing is ALSO a sigular experience. How beautiful. https://www.facebook.com/reel/520838176916239

Hello Lovelies! I'm so flattered to see the views of my little posts going up:) I have been trying to add content more regularly than I used to; it's quite easy to find. Below I've included a Reel that made me smile. As a twin myself, I used to hate it when my parents dressed us alike, but the joy and genuine pride on THIS pair of faces when they "twin"--warms my heart. I thought we should all see it, since it reinforces an idea I think we all need to get used to. Number one, there is no "standard." We're all individual, we're all special, nobody is a perfect mirror. Number 2, that's wonderful, and we need to celebrate it. https://www.facebook.com/reel/864088035345839 Update! Facebook saw my assertion that we are all the same and raised me a Bible verse:

"What if the word victim could be redefined into something closer to hero, Amelia? Recognizing that the path some tread spares others from the same? Amelia saves the day, again - The Universe" Isn't that wonderful thought, my Lovelies? All we endure because of physical, mental, or psychological challenges render us superhuman. And we didn't even have to get bitten by a radioactive spider like Spiderman:) Received from an affirmation service I've followed for YEARS; here's how you too can join! Just add them to your contact list on your email server (google, hotmail, cox.com, etc...)Ensure delivery of your TUT emails: Add theuniverse@tut.com to your address book. PLEASE NOTE THEIR WARNING: This email address is not monitored, please do not reply. Visit our Contact Us page.

Lovelies! Let us examine another source of our divergence or disability--something that makes it harder to face this world that was not meant for us. It's also something that the majority of Americans have dealt with at least once in their lives, and that's not counting the incidences of long-term (complex) PTSD that can mess us up for life, constantly resurfacing in different ways we don't notice. According to https://www.ahchealthenews.com/2018/11/29/70-percent-of-u-s-adults-experience-this-at-least-once-in-their-life/, these "reactions" can be the developement of COPD, heart-disease, high-blood pressure and cancer. I wasn't aware of ANY of this! But how much sense does it make--I mean--SERIOUSLY? The stories most of us have grown up with are "hopeless alcoholics" or drug abusers who have buried their own trauma under years and years of self-destructive behavior to escape their emotions after a traumatic event, or to provide a little relief ...

How amazing is this? "Differently-Abled" where? All it takes is for somebody to decide to do it. This world needs more people who don't see themselves as the world sees them. https://www.facebook.com/stories/109715777626156/UzpfSVNDOjY4MDM2NTkzNzI1MDgzNw==/?view_single=1

It's the natural inclination of the ignorant majority: "If I don't understand it, there's something wrong with it." Perhaps this would come as a shock to them, but there are those of us who pivot from misunderstanding to accepting on one thin dime:) And that's what I think needs to be emphasized in this cruel world. Don't stare, don't question, don't spend a day trying to make it all make sense in your head (as I have, with other things, but only because I'm overthinker)-- love and embrace. Full stop. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=150850391401729&set=gm.3759272607633935&idorvanity=3257344684493399

Hello Lovelies, happy Sunday! It's gorgeous and sunny, which reminds me that recently remarked to a friend: "too much sun depresses me." Once my doctor told me that too much sun IS one of the depressors listed as possible for people nowadays. So I guess that tells me what I wanted to know, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Does too many beautiful days in a row bring you down? Do you fight the urge (as I am currently) to draw the curtains, crawl back into bed, turn off all the lights and sleep until the moon comes up? JUst now I found myself worrying about all the plants in my front yard, thinking I need to get out there and water them. But I know from experience that it's better to do even THAT after the sun has gone down. I guess the take away is that EVERYTHING is worth waiting until the night time to accomplish. Or that I'm nocturnal. If you could see my skin tone, lovelies, that would be the first thing that came to your mind:) There's just someth...

Hello! I have a little note to share that I'm sure all of you suspected already. Indeed, I myself have known it a while. But I also know that in the depths of personal turmoil it can be hard to remember what used to make us happy:( Because of course when we're despairing, it seems like we'll never be happy again. My point in sharing the following meme is that yes, happiness WILL return. And there are things we can do to make it return faster:) Keep your chin up lovelies; no mood is forever.

Hello Lovelies! Found this while scrolling, and it got me thinking rather deeply for the first day back after the long weekend. Am I even supposed to be here? Are ANY of us lovelies? Maybe the reason I feel out of step with the way things are is NOT because I don't belong, but because the WORLD was not meant for me. Or any of us. We're supposed to be somewhere else. We're supposed to be somewhere higher. We're supposed to be home.

Lovelies! It's been so long! I am sharing this for the love of those young people (and myself) with "mild" disability that apparently disqualifies us from sympathy or empathy in a world that metes it out only on a case by devastating case basis, as it sees fit. But I also wanted to add that the opposite reaction can be true-- AMONG those who love the disabled. They fight amongst each other over who is most deserving, and I'm sure those of us who know this is true--REALLY know. We've had to defend ourselves against the ignorant, providing our diagnosis to garner sympathy, or just basic understanding. As if the use of medical terms alone makes a situation more pathetic. How wrong is that, lovelies? Why should I stand there with my walker fighting over the big stall in a bathroom because some other woman without an aid thinks she deserves the room to spread out--more than I deserve to have mobility? View this post on Instagram A post shared by S...

Hello Lovelies! As you know, not all disabilities are visible, which got me thinking. If mental health struggles constitute divergence, i.e. mental challenges...then I've known these people all my life. And the thing that blew MY mind that has been in survival mode for most of my life and thus filtering out everything that didn't really matter--there has not always been a DEFINITION for these mental challenges. As far as I can tell, the term "neuro-divergent" hasn't been in regular use before the last five or ten years. My apologies to those of you who've known about it and used it for years before that; either I didn't know you well enough to know your lexicon, or it was never really used around me because it was probably assumed that "neuro-divergent" was too technical a term to throw into regular conversation. Ha! One conversation with me would have allayed all your assumptions. I use what I call "heightened English" (that's ...