Gratitude and The Blues

This is my journaled prayer to The Committee two days ago:

4-24-12


Gratitude


1. My sweet beasts who pull me out of my funk
2. I'm willing
3. I haven't smoked - wow
4. Sunshine today
5. I'm out of bed & dressed with only a small desire to crawl back into my comatose state


Dear Committee,
Help me process and not stuff. Show me the way to self-care. Gently push me in the right direction. (I am too old for smack in the face revelations so I thought I should be specific)


Please help me open my children's minds and hearts to the divine. 


Bless these people that I love (you know who you are) especially (yep, this one is for you) who is having a hard time. 


Bless these people that I struggle with (you probably don't know who you are, but I'm praying for you anyway you bastards)
Give them health, wealth, happiness, and love. 


That night I went to a Take Back the Night Rally and I heard some amazing women speak. One woman I know and especially admire, Been in the Same Boat Mama, (she and I were married to the same man. We commiserate). I was humbled by survivors' experiences. I was humbled by the men and women there who  tirelessly work to support victims of violence. Those women gave my a soul shake and smacked my cheeks with their courage. Wake up Queenpin...feel what you gotta feel, but feel it in perspective. Life goes on baby, this pain is only a minor bump in your road.

That is one of my favorite things about life, and one that also has a tendency to baffle me. Life goes on, until it doesn't. In my day I experience hundreds of emotions. I'm a drama queen baby, I'm the Queenpin. My emotional repertoire is large and wide. I'm sad, but I'm grateful. I miss my man, I miss my smokes, I love my kids. I love my job.

I've got the blues, and getting out of bed is not my favorite thing right now. No cigarette to look forward to. No sweet text from my man to start my day, but today I walked across a yard of buttercups following my sweet beasts. We peeked into a nest of baby bluebirds. I smiled at the beauty of it. I breathed deep, grateful I did not smoke. But then again today I talked to my sister on the phone, hung up, and called her back immediately with tears in my eyes, "Does the whole family just think I am completely fucked up?" No, they don't, but they don't always get the Queenpin. That's okay. Neither do I, but things are getting clearer.

My cravings for donuts and drink have passed. I've just got the blues, and the gratitudes. I've got life, because it is going on. I refuse to miss it all laid out in my bed feeling sorry for myself. I've realized as a single mom I've get about two days of that max and then my babies need their mama back.

Plus, they need help processing all this too. I've promised them we are going to sage cleanse the house of all the bad juju my moods have been creating. I'll be smoking out the bad feelings in a new way, a spiritual way. So to my dear friend cigarrettes I am gonna have to say: Fuck off carcinogenic fumes, Queenpin's got her healin' on.