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“You’ll come to a place Where the streets are not marked Some windows are lighted but mostly they’re, darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare stay out? Do you dare go in? How much could you lose? How much can you win? And if you go in, should you turn left or right? Or right and three-quarters? Or Maybe not quite? Go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find for a mind maker-upper to make up his mind”

I feel like I’ve always harbored a bit of a balance problem. Except, I didn’t. I live on both sides of the grass so it’s always green.

Here’s the thing though-there’s that fence line. That blended, stable force- that’s balance. That’s where you’re supposed to be.

Perhaps stark contrast is simply how it is meant to be for me.

How much could you lose? How much could you win? And if you go in, should you turn left or right…? Or right and three quarters?

The uncertainty of sudden oscillation when you were certain you’d held your spot- a point, usually an object on a wall or the like, that maintains your proprioceptions- is quite undulating.

And a big part of me wants to only show the good “notes”.

From The Holiday- Jack Black, a musical creator for film, tells British tenant Kate Winslet, when composing her “walk up song that he “chose only the good notes” and I think it a most beautiful sentiment.

And here is where we find ourselves.

After years of tumultuous, histrionic, well-painted fallacies, I’d suddenly found myself freed.

Freed from the disconcertion that comes from a confounded relationship lasting ten years and bearing two beautiful boys. The kind of defilement that entertained an abusive narcissist who fit the bill to a tee and saw me coming from a mile away.

Liberated from the man who caged me. Who broke me down.

Ensuring my rebirth.

He kidnapped our kids and took them four hours away when I told him our relationship was over. That it could go no further.

The next day while I was at work, he left, and they were gone with him. To be returned only under the guise that I not to divorce him- ensuring that I would.

And so it is that I stood up for myself.

I rose.

Then I soared…

You’ll be on your way up You’ll be seeing great sights You’ll join the high-fliers who soar to high heights. You won’t lag behind because You’ll have the speed Youll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best. Wherever you go You will top all the rest.

The it felt like I’d finally found my-love-written-in-stars until it appears that it was not, in fact, meant to be.

Or perhaps it was. Only that time has passed. The soil enriched by the decompositions after the growth. From death comes rebirth.

A time for everything.

A time to reap and a time to sow.

A time to tear down and a time to build.

Relationships with anyone are difficult – add kids and chaos that comes with love, loss, and life—kaboom.

Way too fast. No holds bar. Leap in with both feet.

Wherever you go you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.

Because sometimes you won’t.

Perhaps I was not broken but healed, the spaces filled with gold.

I have my boys. My house. My life. My freedom. My friends. My souls.

Adult relationships, especially those that attempt to blend, seem to dispel into oil and water.

Serving its purpose and grateful in its planting and bloom with appreciation and understanding that it’s winter has come.

The essence of birth. Rebirth. Newborn soft and squishy and oozing with love needing delicacy after such a violent entrance to the world.

However, it cannot be held in perpetuity.

It is cushions of goodness, warm enveloping embraces, who’s absences are felt in the coolness of the skin that it once held.

Then the bubble was burst.

Something that was like a beautiful symphony became cacophonous.

Perhaps you were born for a time such as this.

Maybe I was.

My dad used to tell me when they’d preform surgeries fully opened abdominal cavities then patients would take a turn for the worse- their systems overwhelmed, collapsing under the chaos.

The abdomen was packed and the patient then propped up in front of an open window to literally air out.

Be exposed to the elements. To heal. And to rest. To have reprieve. To recover before resuming exhumations.

I don’t know how true that is, and I kind of don’t want to know. I like the ideology impregnated in this explanation of its origin.

Somehow the systemic revolutions always made sense to me.

Decisive. Free-falling. Let chaos create order. Microbes feeding on air and blanketing the organisms that continue life.

I’ve always loved Chaos Theory- to the point I have it tattooed on my body as a reminder.

“What else, when chaos turns all forces inward, to shape a single leaf.”

Step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s a great balancing act.

Or maybe not quite?

*see below- excuses for my tardiness .

Last year, I got in a sort of accident at work or certainly worthy of being called a mishap. I will not get into the specifics however, suffice to say that led me here- to the island.

The island is the property I inherited from my parents after their deaths. I am not sure if I need to clarify this but they died seperately and completely unrelated, unless you count the illness part.

She was so sick and I just think we discounted it. Ignored the signs given all her strength until then and probably thought she could just power through the struggle. We were wrong.

I found a large and likely quite expensive diamond tennis bracelet- broken and in a butter tub with buttons and coins just placed in a cabinet in the formal dining room turned office/library like no big deal, like nothing, like that is just normal, everyone puts thousand something dollar bracelets in with old batteries and pocket lint.

You know I have finally, sort of, started actually cleaning out this house from their stuff. It’s comical however, I digress, I have not thought of this so much as “my house” and more their house that I inherited. If that makes sense.

I have kept an unreasonable amount of their things exactly where they were when they died. I previously had pulled it out and cleaned it then put it back where was. ‘Cause that’s where it goes.

My mom said she had to get accustomed to living alone which was a huge adjustment for her because she “went from my moms house, then I got married, and then I was with your dad”.

I don’t think I really understood what she actually meant until now. There is something absolutely different about starting over with kids or without kids empty-nest style.

To acknowledge the best thing I can do for myself and for everyone else is actually take time to be with myself. To ground, to heal, and to slow down. I have been swimming for far too long. In fact, I think I drowned. I know I did.

It is here that I find myself–which I have now come to realize is exactly where I should be-right where I belong, on a proverbial island, in the sort-of country on a couple acres, in a beautiful house, with two infinitely wonderful, healthy, and happy little boys.

Two little boys whom found themselves home all summer long with their north of quirky mama.

These boys home all the time with me made me realize quite a few things:

• I have not really been healing. I have just been sort of floating or I don’t know, hibernating-ish. So it is absolutely necessary for me to take a much more active role in myself.
• I was healing maybe but not in the right good way but more like by leaning into some one who get like both extremes of forever. Now the unrequited kind. See next bullet…
• I DO NOT NEED TO BE DATING!! This is heartbreaking and abundantly clear. Also categorically unfair.
• I was not going outside nearly enough. I need to remember take a deep breaths and understand that I was neglecting that basic life function.
• Actively seeking peace is absolutely necessary. I mean actively, not passively, because as soon as there is complacency, or more accurately, letting myself free fall down these “rabbit holes”, then chaos descends. How easy it is to slide into this cocoon of old habits looking for distraction to satiate the giant hole in my being and focusing on the wrong things, on the wrong “syl-LAB-bull”.
• Them boys really are isolated accidentally. There are no neighborhood kids because no neighborhood. No cousins near by or all that close in age or interest. No consistent visitors to show them a different perspective.
• It is really just the three of us– and that is what finally made me want to reconnect and with definite purpose.

I don’t know. I’m heartbroken and hurting. But most importantly present, soaking in this life of mine, which I suppose, or have certainty’s, that this is exactly where I am meant to be.

“The world is made up of two kinds of girls, the simple girls and the Katie girls. I’m a Katie girl!” –Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

I have been thinking about how I wanted this blog to go and be about. First of all, I have no idea what blog even stands for- I know that Vlog is a video log but blog not a clue. I know also that lots of people “blog” for various purpose or reason, most of which seem to be about food or advice or travel, so I really came into this with a sense of “oh man, you better not just have all these mindless ramblings pretending to be far more interesting than you actually are…” sense of purpose. Really though, I started to write and it was some pompous diatribe that I scrapped almost immediately. However, it did get me thinking about how to sort of organize this and keep myself on track as well as what my motivation is for wanting to do this.

I really liked the style that Sex in the City portrayed–sort of an inward outward monologue, like a peak into her mind, but she also seemed to have a sense of purpose and story telling–which I would like to get to that point, but I’m crazy new at this so just hang in there. Also, my sentence structure is garbage (see? I told you).

I just feel like maybe I could help people? Help myself? Tell a story? Tell my story- so that one day if no one is left to tell my story then maybe this will. Not that my story is better or worse than anyone else’s.

I am saying that first of all–I hate the comparison of traumas or tragedy. I may be a spoiled whining brat because for most and likely all of my life, I have had a roof over my head, water, clothes, and no worry as to where or when my next meal was coming. By all accords, I have lived a privileged life. Here’s the thing though, the things I’ve been through, endured, or perpetrated, things that have traumatized me or made me question my existence–they hurt. No matter what. There is no comparison. It all sucks, it matters, yours, mine, ours– there is no comparison. We are in this mess together. It seems like I have heard this time and again–“I didn’t tell you about this thing that was absolutely terrible or anything really because what you have been through or what you’re going through is so much worse.” I’m going to tell you like I tell them–that’s bullsh*t. It does not make any sense to me at all because like who am I to judge your trauma? or I don’t know we’re very good friends and I care about you and I’d jump at any opportunity to help you or listen or otherwise because your stuff matters too. But I can’t help you or be there or what have you, if you don’t tell me. It sort of feels like you’re saying my tragedy is to tragic to help you? Or I don’t know, like it is so bad that I should just sit in it and deal with that? Shoot. I know that’s not what it is. You don’t want to add weight to the heavy load. Would it surprise you that hearing about your — whatever, takes weight off. It allows me be useful.

So that is what I think I would like this blog to be–useful. To that 23 year old whose parent just committed suicide and is thinking “now what?” Or lost anyone for any reason. There is no shame in that. It took me forever to know that. Only recently did it occur to me that I have no reason to be ashamed–these things happened to us, not because of us. Not because of me. Have I done things that are shameful? Sure. Do I deserved to live in purgatory for that? Absolutely not. Why should I hide my story?! Why should you? We should not. It is them that should feel the shame, and people should know what has happened. It helps to know we’re not alone. Or not the only one.

I would say “I don’t have a shame bone”, when in fact, I had the largest shame of them all. I couldn’t save my mother and I will never get back the time I did not take with her. I was in a relationship for ten years and abused nearly the whole time. I was sexually abused. Physically, emotionally–all of the ways for a long time. Not a single person in my life knew, until it happened in front of them and I could hide no more. I have trauma that goes back to childhood, stuff I swore was in the past where it would stay. Early childhood stuff and I thought for sure this is just normal and it happened so just leave that there and live life. You know–onward. Wrong. Despite all best efforts–it will find a way out. But no way was I going to end up on a couch talking about my childhood and parents. Ha. Wrong. The biggest shock though is that it is all okay. There is no shame in sharing how something shaped you. How it made you feel.

We all have complicated family relationships, complicated relationships, worries, hopes, dreams, and anxieties. Aspirations and talents not yet discovered. Or just needs someone to listen. Life is messy. And gross (potty training suuuuccckkksss with this second kid–poop everywhere, by the way.)

So my proposal is this–I talk about messy stuff, life, and my story and the lessons these things have taught me. I don’t know if this is even possible but I mean I could try to answer questions or give advice? I wouldn’t mind at least. I also have no idea how this is going to look. No clue if it’s going to be a weekly thing, every couple days, or what? I am fairly sure that I should spread it out over a few days before I submit for criticism–so I don’t just spontaneously spew some way too blatant truths as I see them.

I was also thinking maybe recipes–I could even do that thing where I bore you with a really long nostalgic story, and then waaayyy down at the bottom– the recipe. That’s funny. For real though, recipes, handy tricks, and interesting facts are certainly in the future for us.

My high school yearbook teacher, as part of our photojournalism coursework, would have us do these weekly projects with a specific subject matter and would end with a “what you learned” requirement. While I am sure she meant technically, lighting and exposure and what not, I absolutely took that opportunity to talk about what life lessons this photograph has taught me. What I learned about myself and the world around me. I made her cry every single time, which was not my intention but I think it made a mark on both of us. She was like another mother to me. Or the mother I needed? I don’t know. I do know that when she showed up to momma’s funeral and I just looked up and there’s this light coming into the side door, and it was her. She came. I didn’t tell her and she’s here. It hugged my soul.

The point really is this–how about we talk about “what we learned” and see where it goes.

So uhm…here we go?

P.S. All through high school, whenever she saw me in the halls, didn’t matter how many times a day, my freshman english teacher would sing to me “Ka-ka-katie, beautiful Katie” and it still makes me giggle. It was embarrassing in that wonderful way that still makes me feel special and rushes blood to my cheeks. Interestingly enough, I looked up the song and it’s from 1918 by Geoffrey O’ Hara– “K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy, You’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore; When the m-m-m-moon shines, over the cow shed, I’ll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door. “

It’s about a soldier with a stutter in love with a girl.

So there you are–K-K-K-Katie Girls!