I roll tighter, almost blocking out the light.

Words arrived a few days ago in a black puffy envelope. A gift.

A note “stay tender.”

Two words strong enough to rock me to my core.

How did she know? Is it possible that poets always know?

Our links to one another, word threads floating through the air and we grasp them like lifelines. Knowing exactly what to say the exact moment it needs to be said.

Two words to undo the armor I desperately wanted. An invitation and an anchor. A reminder. To come back to myself.

Because armoring up isn’t my way. Going inward, yes, but armor - no. Only when I feel truly battered by life do I begin to build bricks around myself. Flimsy as they are, an illusion at best.

Stay tender.

I’m trying. I’m trying so damn hard.

Swimming against currents that aren’t even mine. The only life vest I can find are words I didn’t write.

Stay tender.

A mantra. Refrain. Oxygen.

Love speaks through us all. May we remember to listen.

I’m trying. So damn hard.

Does anyone have an easy button to lend?

What about a way out of the in?

Listen.

I stepped out onto my balcony a little while ago, a need to feel the heat and breathe the warm air. I looked up as I always do and above my favorite tree, a heart cloud greeted me.

It almost looks like it’s waving.

Over here, look at me, remember.

Remember that perfectly imperfect hearts are everywhere.

Stay tender.

Just

stay.

Hi friends - just wanted to say I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you as always for reading my words (I started to type heart - same diff I suppose). I hope you’re all hanging in there and doing the best you can. Sending lots of love and hugs your way.

Xoxo- Mesa

PS - Courtesy of - I was able to receive the book gift from Meg. I am forever and ever grateful, Jane. 🩵

Oh! Here’s also what arrived with ’s book (which is absolutely beautiful and full and everything you need- trust me, you do):

A little bit of Andrea 🩵 forever.

Go chase clouds and tell me what you see. 🩵

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I was spending time on the Stack last night and came across this great piece by -“Relax, nothing is real (according to science)”.. and this line jumped out: “It only takes one person to see us in our truth, and suddenly, we feel like we can do anything.” (truly the whole thing blew my mind! Go read it!)

I’m reminded constantly about the power of having a good support system. It borders on magical because it feels incredibly rare these days. I feel quite lucky to have quite a few people I am surrounded by who i know I can turn to when in need. Rare indeed.

I find myself in this space between moment. Life keeps happening and yet, I am buoyed. I'm normally a spiraler - anxious monkey mode is my default. Today I decided that instead of ruminating I would take action. I would put out the call for help and helpers arrived. Magic.

I truly think people are far more likely to help than not. I'm not always prone to optimism, but today I can feel it percolating. I enjoy being optimistic far more than the alternative. Maybe it's the full circle moment of it all. The ecosystem of support. Or as calls it - the “I got you” effect.

I like to think that like attracts like, that when we ourselves are helpful and kind and loving, we receive that in return. Maybe not always, because there will always be outliers to that, but maybe it’s more common than we realize. All I know is that when it happens, it awakens that magic buried inside us.

We hear often about the importance of who we surround ourselves with, a true truism. Find your tribe. Support each other. Make magic.

*The ask- please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Every little bit helps right now and is so very needed. If monetary support isn't an option please consider sharing my work or giving a recommendation? That would help as well! Thank you as always for being here and for your support!*

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Refer a friend

I’ve never really thought about what to wear to receive bad news, but it turns out all black is appropriate. The same day of the bad news, I was also jokingly called the grim reaper at work (courtesy of being HR).

Oh blessed irony…

On Wednesday, my husband and I received the news that he could suffer a stroke, heart attack, or sudden death, at any time. It’s not if, it’s when. He is at very high risk because of the severe untreated sleep apnea he’s had that we didn’t know about until two days ago. He’s not a snorer so we’d never noticed that he wasn’t breathing 46 times an hour.

46 times an hour his brain tells his body to stop taking a breath.

It’s mind boggling.

The havoc that it has caused on his body is insane to me. His kidneys are damaged. He has arrhythmia now and PVCs - his heart skips every 6th beat. All because of his sleep breathing or lack thereof.

I find myself waking up all throughout the night now, in a panic. I’ve always been great at catastrophic thinking - I think about all the scary things that could happen and how I’ll deal with them. It’s like my brain thinks it can prepare me for the worst if I walk through it in my mind.

For all my catastrophic scenarios, I was not prepared for the doctor’s news. Which ended in an “I’m sorry,” and a “go out and live your life.”

Not if - when.

That’s all that keeps repeating in my brain.

Nothing prepares you for the news of inevitability.

It’s a mind fuck really.

Instead of spiraling, I go into research mode. Dr. Google. Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medicine- everything I can find on his condition based on what we know right now. How can I fix it? I must be able to fix it. I can find the answer.

Not if - when.

I can’t though. I can’t control his brain. I can’t breathe for him. I wish I could.

I wish I could tell his brain to knock it off, to let him breathe, let the oxygen in.

I wish I could tell his brain that it can’t have him, not yet. We’ve only had 16 years and that’s not enough.

I wish I could tell his brain that he has too much to do still. Documentaries to make and traveling the world to do.

I wish I could tell his big beautiful brain to let me keep him please, a while longer.

Love doesn’t know what inevitable means.

It’s a waiting game now. And a race against the time that he always told me didn’t exist. He’s the only man I know who can quote Einstein on a first date. His big beautiful traitorous brain. The thing I love as much as his tired heart.

As I write this, he’s sitting next to me on the couch playing Zelda (Minnish Cap). Getting frustrated with the controls, wandering the map, solving puzzles, and living life. I asked him if I could write about this and he said yes, because he knows it’s how I process things. Because he knows me.

Not if - when.

It seems he always has.

Here’s hoping for something good soon. Here’s hoping that whatever treatment he receives will give us the time that seems impossible.

(Thank you to everyone who’s reached out and sent good wishes and empathy our way from the Note I posted a few days ago.)

Thank you to all of you for being here and for being a soft place for my heart to land in this crazy word filled place.

Clawing for the words that just seem to bury themselves into hiding places I can’t find.

I’m Magellan without a map and my hearts compass is broken at the moment.

So where do I go?

What do I do?

Look to the stars that charted this path long before I knew what breath was.

A way in.

Into what?

A place untouched by time.

Where everything is golden and bathed in the hour of in between time.

It’s true that nothing gold can stay, so let it fade to silver or black.

I just want a way in.

Something to bring me back.

Some place to let all of my desperate words fall out.

Can the moon or Mars or Saturn’s rings carry it all?

The weight of unsaid things.

A way in.

Or out.

It’s a choice to make in the empty heart chamber where goodness lies.

And darkness sings in the hollow.

Thanks for being here friends. And reading my words. Poetry is sometimes the only thing that flows when nothing else wants to come.

I hope you’re all taking good care of yourselves and each other. Just remember we’re all we’ve got.

Xoxo- Mesa

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I used to walk home from school from kindergarten through 5th grade, off and on depending on my mom’s mood. On these walks I experienced everything from being followed by creepy boys, snarling dogs, and upset girls, to daydreaming about crushes and … baby birds falling out of trees in front of me. Yes, one day as I was walking down the sidewalk, I passed by the neighborhood house with trees that hung over me and provided shade, and a baby bird dropped from its nest and fell right at my feet. I immediately looked up for the momma bird, but there wasn’t any other birds nearby. So, my seven year old self picked it up and carried it home cupped in my hands.

The little baby bird was brand new, it didn’t have feathers yet and seemed barely alive. I thought I could help it get back to its mom after I took care of it. I reasoned that if I could get it to eat or drink then I could help it become strong enough to get back into the tree. As soon as I got home, I laid it down gently in the grass in my backyard, ran into the house and grabbed a Payless Shoes shoe box that used to be my Barbie’s house and put the baby bird into it.

I spoke to the little baby telling it what I was doing and that I hoped it was okay. I made it a little bed in the box using leaves and clover that I yanked out of the ground. As I laid it down on its little bed its beak was very slowly opening and closing, no sound coming out. I murmured some more to it.

Hoping that it might be hungry, I tried feeding it grass (typing that makes me cringe). I’m sure you can imagine how well that went. I won’t go into details because I still feel bad about it 40 years later. When the grass didn’t work, I tried to give it water using a spoon. Very quickly I realized that it wasn’t responding to anything I was trying and had gone still.

Poor baby bird didn’t last long in my care, it was dead before sundown. I had done everything I could possibly think of. No adults were present so I really couldn’t alert anyone to the baby’s existence, so I’d sat with it and tried to keep it alive.

If only the internet had existed in 1986 for me to have Googled what to do.

I watched that baby bird die and I cried because I didn’t really know what else to do. I felt this profound sadness that its mom would always wonder what happened to her baby. I also felt a tremendous amount of guilt. When my mom and grandma finally came home, I told them what happened and showed them the box with it still inside. I was inconsolable. No matter how many times they told me it wasn’t my fault, that I’d done the right things to help it.

They helped me hold a small burial for the baby bird. I shared with them that I hoped it was in a better place where it could fly and be free. I thought maybe there was a heaven for baby birds, but I wasn’t quite sure, I hoped though. I carried that guilt with me for a while.

Thinking about it now, all I wanted was for this little life to keep going. In my child mind, I knew the basics of survival- food, water, shelter, comfort. It felt like instinct and I didn’t question it until it hadn’t worked. As an adult, I know now that to keep something alive, it takes all of those things and more.

I know the mechanics of keeping something surviving, even though I suck at it sometimes (RIP to all the plants that I’ve lost). But truly being alive is something much more. The same mechanics with the added layer of will. At least for us humans.

I think about how that experience with the bird shaped me. How I see life and death. To learn so young about survival and also how quickly life can end.

I didn’t want it to be alone in the end.

Just like all of us.

I hope we all have someone who will pick us up when we fall, and who will stay with us to whatever end we find.

But mostly, I hope we each have someone who will always root for us to live.

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I hate Mother’s Day. I always have. Mostly because it is a reminder of what’s missing.

This year I have a special treat for the day. Neither of my kids want anything to do with me.

So.

Am I still a mother?

That’s the question I keep asking myself.

If they both have decided that I’m not the mother they feel they deserved, do I keep the title?

I admit that I made mistakes. I admit that I didn’t make a lot of money to be able to do things that others could do. I admit that I did the very best I could and still it wasn’t enough for either of them.

So, do I turn in my half of the dna given to them? Do they get some sort of refund? Do I?

I am guilty of not being enough. Not having enough.

Apparently I was “never a mother.” Or say some.

I am a lot of things in life, but intentionally cruel has never been one of them.

I used to wonder if I had killed my mother. By cutting her off from me. She was a terrible addict, her addiction drove her to do some really awful things.

A few months before she died she went on a two week bender with a bunch of strangers she’d met while she worked at a gas station. She just disappeared one day. My stepdad called me in a blind panic because she never came home from work and no one at her job knew anything. We called the police, the hospitals, the morgues, and filed a missing persons report.

I was a wreck.

I was pretty sure she was dead.

And then one day a mysterious call was made to my aunt’s house, the person had asked for me. My aunt took the number down and I called it back from my house. A stranger’s answering machine picked up. My mom called me back a few minutes later. Acting as if nothing was wrong.

I blew up and told her I was done with her. She’d hurt me for the last time. I told her I would never speak to her again and she’d never see her grandchildren again.

I wasn’t cruel. I was honest. Her addiction was out of control.

I didn’t speak to her for months. Until my stepdad called to tell me she was in the hospital and something was wrong with her brain. I finally spoke to her. She begged me to forgive her. Sobbed like I’d never heard her sob before. And I broke down and did. I forgave her.

I went out to Vegas for my cousins wedding a few weeks later and saw her there. She didn’t look good and was clearly not well. We spoke a little bit and then I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, told her I loved her, and I left.

She died two weeks later. By suicide.

I have wondered for 18 years if I played a role in that. In her note she said she believed she could do better for me by not being here. That we were all better off without her. When I read her words I lost a piece of myself that I don’t think I’ve ever gotten back.

A few years later, when I made the decision to end the marriage I was in and my son stayed with his dad, one of my “best” friends for years told me that my children were better off without me. Fifteen years later, I guess they agree with her.

I’m not sure how my heart beats around the broken shards lodged there. I’m beginning to wonder how much of my heart is even still intact. Almost every worst fear I’ve ever had in my life has come true.

And yet…

I’m still standing.

Barely.

I miss my kids. More than they will ever understand.

I dream about them all the time. They’re always little, sometimes babies, and I am always trying to hold onto them. In every dream.

I wake up with empty arms. And I forget how to breathe.

I am not quite sure how to fix this now. I feel like it’s so easy for them to just let me go. It seems that’s the trend these days. Push people away that you don’t agree with or don’t understand or don’t want to understand. Maybe that’s okay I guess. If I’m the cause of someone’s pain, then yeah boot me out of your life. I get it. I certainly don’t want to be the cause of their pain.

But I don’t know how to not love them. Not that I even want to. I love them. Period. That’ll never change. I wish it was enough.

I don’t know right now how to make it better.

So I’ll give it to the gawds of time and space. And wait patiently while hoping. Maybe someday it won’t be this way.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to remind them that I’m still a mother. Always theirs.

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In the grove of midnight sunflowers

Spinning round and round

Searching for ghosts

In the space between breaths

Cradling spirits in teardrops

Would humming bring them back to life?

Winds pick up and the stalks sway

They’re pushing against while

Turning their faces towards one another

Looking for the light.

In the grove of midnight sunflowers

Come and join me there

We’ll talk til we’re dizzy and thirsty

Finding a drink in the dew.

Playing under the stars and streetlights

Turning our faces towards each other

Finally finding our own light

and peace in the dark.

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Words, poetry, essays and books that MOVE me, people who live with their hearts wide open, good food, coffee, baby laughter, friendship, family, animals, and LOVE. Those are the things I live for now.

For a long time, I couldn’t see or know or understand what keeps me going.

And then I started writing.

The piece below the picture is the first story I ever had published. It originally appeared on “The Mighty,” 10 years ago today. I decided to republish it here as a reminder of where I started from and what mattered to me most when I began the most vulnerable writing of my life.

I’ve grown since I wrote the piece, though I still feel mostly the same way about suicide and selfishness. The stigma remains and that is heartbreaking. I also understand more now from the perspective of the pain being passed on to the ones left behind. I didn’t agree with that for a long time, but I understand it now. Suicide grief feels so different from other types of traumatic grief. So, I get the notion that it feels like the person just passed on their pain. Like a game of pain hot potato. Even though it’s not exactly true, my mother and father’s pain did not pass on to me, but I did carry a lot of guilt alongside the grief. I carried anger for a long time too - “why couldn’t they stay for me” became the theme in my brain. I understand now. But I didn’t take their pain, they took that with them. I just inherited a different kind of grief.

The grief is less all these years later. For that I am grateful.

I do want to acknowledge that there’s also a survivor’s type of guilt that comes with the staying. I stayed when others didn’t, what made me so lucky? That’s a frequent thought in my mind - no matter how irrational it may be. My heart breaks for everyone who’s been touched by suicide. It’s a sticky kind of pain that doesn’t go away, it just shrinks over time.

Suicide is a tricky subject to cover and can bring up big feelings in people so please take precautions when reading the below if it’s a sensitive topic for you.

I mean no harm and do not want anyone to feel badly if this is too much for you. Your mental health matters more to me.

Thank you for reading my words and for being a part of my writing life.

Xoxo - Mesa

“Please Stop Saying Suicide Is Selfish” -5/2016

I am a suicide survivor. I have made two attempts and survived. I have also lost my mother, my father, my paternal grandmother, an ex-husband and a few friends all to suicide. Dealing with the multiple losses has left me at times in a state of fear that I must be a magnet for death, which I think is probably a natural response in some ways.

However, upon the loss of my mother in 2008, I chose to channel my grief into doing something in the mental health field and becoming an advocate for mental illness, addiction, and suicide prevention and awareness. The catapult into psychology was brought on not just because of all the death, but because of the psychiatrist’s words when I told him my mother had taken her own life.

He said, “That’s the most selfish thing she could have ever done!”

I immediately ended the session and walked out, realizing this man, who’d been in the psychiatry profession for over 25 years, had no idea what he was talking about. In that moment I knew I would do everything I could to change the stigma surrounding suicide and mental illness.

Suicide and selfishness have been synonymous for far too long in our society; it’s almost like we think we can guilt people into staying by saying they’re selfish. If we demonize them and make it a shameful act, we think they won’t do it. Or if we tell them they’ll end up in hell, they won’t do it. The reality is people are suffering and continuing to take their lives. I’m here to change that language. I’m here to say that suicide is not selfish, it is a response to pain.

A person who dies by suicide typically is not thinking about how they can be selfish; they are thinking about how they can end the pain they are enduring, and most of the time they perceive they are creating pain for others. They want to end that, too. Those are not selfish thoughts.

Often people want to place blame on the ones who have attempted or died by suicide because it is easier than dealing with the pain of the loss. It is easier to be angry and find fault with them than to admit they were sick. People experiencing mental illness who have lost hope are at the greatest risk for suicide. They are dying inside. They’re sick. The last thing they want to be told is how selfish they are for feeling the way they feel. The ones who have left us might have done so because they felt they had no other choice. They did not know how to survive any longer. They are not selfish.

I was not selfish for being terrified that my pain would never end. I had lost all hope. I was not selfish for not understanding what was wrong with me. My mother and father were not selfish for losing their battles to addiction and taking their own lives because they didn’t understand what was wrong with them (mental illness left untreated for four decades).

I survived and sought help. Many people do, and that continues to give me hope. You, the person reading this, please know there is hope. There is help available for you or someone you love who may need it.

I know my statements are bold, and quite a few will probably want to argue or point to instances where suicide could be construed as a purely selfish act. Please let me make something clear - I am not advocating for people to die by suicide, I am advocating for people to understand that suicide is not a selfish act when dealing with someone who has severe mental illness.

I would like to start the conversation about how to prevent suicide, how to help people find hope from one second to the next, how to find the treatment necessary when suicidal thoughts permeate the mind.

We can break the stigma attached to suicidal ideation by being open to talking about it, instead of shaming people into silence.

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Please know that help is available - starting with a suicide hotline - 988.

https://988lifeline.org/

The first time I met the green eyed monster was in childhood. I didn’t know what it was named. I only knew that I had this burning in my chest and my face felt engulfed in flames as I watched all of my friends get ready for the Daddy & Daughter dance at the church. They had something I wanted - a father who was there and willing to be part of their life.

I had a ghost buried in a bottle of booze and lines on a counter top.

I was irrationally angry at them, though they’d done nothing wrong. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, I just wanted to hide and be left alone. I didn’t have language to understand what I was experiencing.

I give little me a lot of grace.

Once I learned what jealousy was, I traced it back to that moment. I had a name for it, but the damage was done. I had self exiled. I never felt the same about church or that particular group of friends again. I felt alien, othered, and ashamed.

The next time I experienced jealousy was over a boy in elementary school - I had the biggest crush on a boy who had no idea I existed. He was the popular kid and I was the nerd with coke bottle glasses and “poor” kid clothes. He only saw the pretty girls. And they only saw him.

I was invisible.

Burning inside with wanting to be seen, to be chosen, to have what they had. Knowing that I didn’t. I was so mad at them and they had no idea. They went about their days without any idea that I was harboring all these feelings, wishing I could be them instead of the “nerdy gifted kid” that I was. I had half a dozen reading awards and they each had half a dozen friends.

I was lonely.

By the time I reached Junior High, I was no stranger to the burning ache of wanting something I couldn’t have. At this juncture in my adolescent life, I still wasn’t someone who acted on my jealousy. I burned quietly. Watching everyone I knew find “love” and first real kisses. My first real kiss had landed me on the ground with a near concussion and an unwanted tongue in my mouth - which I was then punished for on my first day of 7th grade. The boy who’d made me fall and then kissed me, decided to trip me in front of everyone on the first day of school because my terrible kiss wasn’t humiliating enough - I was on crutches by the way. The laughter of that moment still echoes in my mind. While I was brushing myself off, friends were draped all over their boyfriends.

I was alone.

And then one day-

I wasn’t invisible anymore.

On the first day of 8th grade, I was deemed pretty by boys and girls. I suppose I’d finally “made it”? Having shed the pink coke bottle glasses for rounder sleek silver frames, stylish haircut, and “cool” kid clothes. I arrived ready to be seen for once, my ugly duckling turned swan moment.

A few months later, I had my first real boyfriend, one of the cutest boys in school and he only had eyes for me. For about a month. And then the phone calls started while I was at his house. He’d usually let his answering machine pick up while we were hanging out. Girls began leaving him messages telling him to leave me, that I wasn’t as “hot” as they were and that I wouldn’t do for him what they would. He told me not to let it bother me.

I burned alive instead.

He didn’t put a stop to it.

I felt invisible again.

I stayed and he looked elsewhere over and over again. Never setting me free and I was too afraid to walk away. What if he was the only boy who’d ever like me? I couldn’t see that he didn’t. That he was using me. Until one day, I heard a familiar voice on his machine, a voice of a friend telling him that he was better off without me and what did he see in me anyway?

I decided she was right. Only I was better off without him and her.

I learned then that even the “closest” of friends could stab you in the back if you had something they wanted. I was jealous quietly, they were open and loud and hurtful.

At 13 years old, I became quite the expert at identifying jealousy when it was aimed at myself, because of my own quiet jealousies towards others.

I was terribly jealous as a teenager and into my 20s. I got loud about it a few times - with good reason though, mostly because I knew when someone else was encroaching on what was supposed to be “mine.”

Once you experience it, you never really forget it. The behaviors might look a little different from person to person, but the motive is almost always laid bare if you know what you’re looking for.

Throughout the course of my life, over and over again this happened to me, with boys, jobs, etc. And I watched it happen to friends. I’ve watched it happen to my husband.

Jealousy, when left unchecked, can create irreparable harm.

This pattern has been with me now for decades. Still I trust. Still I believe in people I shouldn’t. And still I am stabbed by people who think I have or am something they’re not.

I become invisible.

I get eaten alive by a larger green eyed monster.

Jealousy in adulthood hits different. I feel differently now regarding jealousy than I did even ten years ago. I think this is due to my age and the no-fucks-left-to-give era that I’m in. I simply cannot muster the ability to be jealous or to care really anymore if someone else is jealous of me.

What gets to me now is the mischaracterizing that happens when someone else is jealous. The way another decides to perceive me as someone I’m not, hurts. Period. No other qualifier.

Am I immune to feeling jealous of others? No. I absolutely feel those pangs sometimes, but they are few and far between and last for about thirty seconds. I’ve learned to let a lot go. I’ve also learned that there’s enough for everyone - so what’s the point in wanting what someone else may have or may only be perceived as having?

I’ve learned to ask myself what am I really feeling?

Fear.

Lack.

Insecure.

Once I’ve named the underlying issue, I can let go of that pang and put the green eyed monster to rest.

I so very much wish others would do the same.

And now for funsies - some of my favorite songs about jealousy:

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Just kidding.

If you’re like me, I’m sure there’s a trail of cold or hot bodies you’ve left behind in the land of disappointment. This is a rite of passage. To disappoint and to be disappointed. We are born this way. It’s inevitable. I’m pretty sure it should be the first commandment:

THOU SHALT DISAPPOINT! Repeatedly. Often. If you don’t, you’ve failed and you’re doing life wrong. No heaven for you.

At some point though, when you keep hearing over and over what a disappointment you are…it becomes a drag. And caring stops.

Yeah, yeah… I’m such a disappointment.

Literally how I feel now whenever I’ve disappointed someone. Including myself.

Maybe, just maybe, expectations need to come down a little bit. Maybe it’s actually okay to feel disappointment! And maybe it’s okay to not give anymore shits about disappointing anyone. Self included.

As you can see, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought.

I recently told my kid I was disappointed in some behavior. Then I drew a boundary. And I received back the airing of all grievances that could possibly be unleashed. All of it chalked up to my being a failure and disappointment. Ouch. But also - okay fine. If that’s the opinion that’s held - keep it. I’m good. I don’t need to carry someone else’s opinions and disappointment about who they think I am.

I’m free and you’re free and they’re free to think and feel however and whatever and whenever about me and who(m)ever (I can never remember and I don’t feel like googling) else.

So, while I am sorry to a degree for having been the GREATEST DISAPPOINTMENT in the history of the universe, it’s a very small degree. I spent so much of my life just wanting someone else to be proud of, instead of disappointed in, me that I completely forgot about myself. I contorted myself into a thousand boxes and did not fit into a single one.

Except my own.

I fit into the me shaped box- scrapes and dents and pesky imperfections. Sometimes this box is painful. But it’s nothing compared to what I used to put myself through.

Aren’t you tired of contorting too? Aren’t you tired of the unrealistic expectations of others too?

Maybe it’s that more than anything else - the placement and the weight of unrealistic expectations.

Anyway, so I’m a little sorry to disappoint, but I assume it will probably happen again.

And at this point I’m okay with that.

I’ve made peace with it.

Here’s hoping you can too.

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Tell me about disappointment friends! Please feel free to share your thoughts with me!

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I don’t remember the hit.

I came to screaming.

A year later and the screams have finally stopped haunting me - mostly. Sometimes, when I’m about to cross through the intersection where it happened, I’ll hear myself again - a loop of sound that I didn’t know I was capable of making.

It’s such an odd thing…coming to because of your own screams.

I don’t remember the hit - I remember the sound, the loss of hearing, “smoke” surrounding me.

I swore I was on fire because of the powder from the airbag that kept my head from slamming into the side window.

Pain exploded in my abdomen where the seatbelt had done its job.

My mind has blocked out my head hitting the airbag. My mind has blocked out the impact.

The first thing I recall is looking up and seeing that my front end was embedded in the side of a van and that I was turned at an angle I shouldn’t have been.

Through my windshield, I could see the other driver on her phone. My car was speaking to me trying to call for help and repeatedly telling me I’d been in an accident. A muffled ringing sound was beginning in my ear and I realized I needed to shut off the car and call 911.

I was not calm. I was terrified, in pain, in shock, and angry.

My car totaled. Front end falling apart - the radiator was trying to escape.

A very nice cop opened my car door and held my hands to help me out. I told him everything I was experiencing and he said an ambulance was on the way. He grabbed my purse and water for me. The other party was completely fine, still on her phone, and refusing to look at me or showing any kind of care. The coldness from her still chills me to the core.

I never saw it coming.

A year later and I still flinch if cars pull out from the sides to quickly.

Red light runners bring out a rage in me that is ignited every time I see it happen. Which is every day in this city. To and from work, I see cars fly through red lights. I want to chase every single one down and shake them and force them to listen to my screams. So they can be haunted instead of me.

I ended up with a concussion and whiplash.

I was lucky it wasn’t so much worse.

Though I don’t exactly feel lucky.

The days and weeks immediately afterwards left me in a fog. I spoke as though I was underwater most days, my speech delayed unless I had to be “on” and then it became a fight to stay as present and alert as possible. I could do it, in short bursts. By the end of every day I am usually a pile of mush, unable to make decisions that require a lot of thought. No one tells you that brain injuries can last months and years. No doctor sat me down and explained to me what was happening in my brain, they just gave me a diagnosis and left me to figure it all out.

A year later and the bruises are gone, but every so often my neck, back, hip and knee flare with pain, a forever reminder. My body will never be the same.

Four seconds changed my life.

A year later and my creative mind still struggles, buried under the soggy weighted blanket of the concussion. I frequently find myself playing the is this the concussion, perimenopause, or just my brain now, game.

A year later and I still have a hard time driving through the intersection. I hold my breath and look both ways several times before going.

The panic attacks have mostly stopped. But the fear lingers in the backseat, occasionally trying to whisper shout at me to listen to them instead.

I had a small nagging feeling this morning when I woke up, to slow down. Not to rush to do anything or be anywhere. I arrived at work safely and breathed a sigh of relief. I don’t remember holding my breath.

The body holds it all though. And my mind sets it free.

Here’s hoping that next year, May 6th, will become just another day where the weather isn’t terribly hot yet and I won’t have wonder if I’m being haunted anymore by my own screams. A day in which I can just breathe normally and know that I’m okay. Always. No matter what.

I can’t get those four seconds back, but I can make sure that I don’t let them hold me hostage.

Healing isn’t always linear, though I wish it was. Some wounds do just fine when they’re covered.

Others need the light.

During the summer of every mistake I could think to make in the year 2000, I was 21. I was deep in the throes of wanting to escape life and would go out almost every night with different friends and drink to forget. One particular friend group included two guys who had a great apartment that was nearby, so my girlfriends and I would usually end up over there with liters of root beer and bottles of Captain Morgan. Enough for all of us to have a good time while listening to music and playing drinking games.

We’d been hanging out over there every few days for about a month, and one of the guys was becoming increasingly flirty with me. He was 24, cute in that broody but kind of boy next door way, dry sense of humor but so funny, and heavy handed in his pouring. One night, I was drinking more than usual and flirting back more than usual.

I vaguely remember him leaning around me when I was standing at the kitchen counter and our faces being just an inch or two apart - he leaned forward in that way that guys do to see if you’re open to advances. I leaned the rest of the way in and then I was in his room. Giggling drunkenly on the bed, feeling free and happy, and wanted. I was crushing hard. And drinking even harder.

I don’t remember much about during or afterwards. But I do remember feeling nervous the next day, wondering about what exactly I’d done and vowing to myself never to get out of control like that again.

A few days went by and I didn’t hear from him, which I didn’t really care about, I mean we weren’t dating or anything. I was just a girl friend who came over to drink all the time. So, when my friends (who had given me the lecture on the way over of basically “don’t get involved with him, it’s bad news”) and I were over there again, I was slightly embarrassed, but not overtly. Before the typical night of drinking commenced, I walked into his bedroom to have a conversation about what’d happened. I didn’t want any awkwardness.

With sober eyes I took in my surroundings more clearly- king sized bed with rumpled and dirty tawny colored bedding directly in front of me, a large oak dresser to my left- the top held a tv and VCR, stack of VHS tapes, a few bawled up t-shirts, and cologne bottles. I don’t remember anything else about the room because I stopped looking around once my gaze landed on the tv screen.

I was staring at myself. On the screen. My drunken self from days before.

I had been recorded.

Without my knowledge.

Without consent.

A deep flood of shame immediately enveloped me and instead of grabbing the tape, instead of confronting him, I fled the room.

I told my friends I was leaving and bolted.

No. Wait.

That’s not what happened.

He came out to stop me from leaving, he’d seen me catch him, and asked to talk to me.

He admitted to taping me. He said he’d erase it. He said he wouldn’t show anyone. He never apologized.

I left.

Shaking. Cold. Full of pain and panic. And so damn ashamed.

I felt powerless and betrayed and stupid.

So fucking stupid.

I learned later on that he’d shown his roommate and a few guys I didn’t know. And they’d laughed about how drunk I was. This was told to me by my friend who had been told by the roommate.

I never went back.

I never saw him again.

No.

That’s not true.

I did see him, at a funeral a year later when the roommate died. I don’t know why I went, I think because my friend didn’t want to go alone. I didn’t speak to him and he didn’t try. My face would get hot every time he came into view.

We left.

And I kept drinking to forget.

Eventually I did - forget, that is. I blocked out that entire experience. For 25 years I have kept this buried.

Until a few weeks ago, wow it’s already been weeks, I read the CNN report.

Women being drugged and filmed.

Without consent.

A website that housed the videos received millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of hits. The “sleep” rape videos received thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of views. A chat was created dubbed Rape Academy where men could learn about how to drug and rape - thousands of members paying for that information.

Like every person I know, I was horrified and angry and incredibly sad. I wasn’t shocked though. I wasn’t surprised. Just deeply upset.

A few days later… flashbacks started first in my minds eye. Blips of memory.

Every time I read anything about it, something would wiggle free in my mind. A week ago, I was sitting on the couch in the early morning hours, talking to my husband about the whole “not all men” argument and I said sure, not all men, women know not all men, but it’s damn near always men. As soon as I said those words, the floodgates opened and I started sobbing. My story pouring out about what happened to me. Fear that a tape of me could be floating around out there somewhere on one of these websites. Could I have been used as an example somewhere?

I was crying and crying as my husband listened and as I quieted down he then said you’re right - always men.

His acknowledgment set something free in me.

I debated with myself before sharing what my mind had locked away for so long. But then I remembered why I write - so that I and so many others don’t feel alone.

I no longer feel ashamed.

Just angry.

Angry that I could be used. Angry that he held no remorse. Angry that so many hold no remorse.

Sad too. For the girl who hid inside bottles of booze to forget. Who didn’t know what to do or how to ask for help.

My heart breaks for her. For me.

For millions who have gone through shit like this.

Can I call it assault?

Violated. Definitely violated.

Forgive me. I’m processing out loud.

Another reason I write. To know myself. And figure it all out as I go along. Much like we all do, right?

I’m rambling now. It’s what I do when I’m nervous and stalling and can’t quite figure out how to end this.

What’s the lesson? Does there need to be one?

Maybe it’s as simple and complicated as this thing happened.

And not just to me.

Thanks for being here, friends. I’m grateful.

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I’ve been crying off and on all morning, watching videos of kindness and reading words from strangers telling their stories of love and loss and healing. Looking at pictures of people in moments of joy. Something about all of that just opens the floodgates - my heart opens and so do my tear ducts.

I inhale these good things the way I used to deep inhale the nag champa incense that my mom used to burn. Letting it wash over me and hoping it all lingers so I can return to it again and again.

I keep letting my heart break over and over again to keep my spirit intact.

Everyday.

I can’t remember the last time my heart didn’t shatter at something. Whether it’s been witnessing another’s pain and loss or experiencing my own, I think my heart is mostly dust that gets swept back into it’s shape as I dream.

As such, my heart wrecks on the daily. Fragile thing that it is.

I’m glad for it, to be honest. I’m glad that I can feel and think - everything. I worried for a small time that I’d be stuck in my head and forget to feel. But the heart doesn’t forget. Mine tends to drown out my brain and forces me to listen.

How lucky are we? Those of us who decide to feel it all. And become heart wrecks.

Tell me - when was the last time you let your heart wreck so that you wouldn’t break apart?

What is that opens you up?

I watched a video just now of a horse protecting its fallen owner during an earthquake. The horse used its hooves to move her and it shifted its body to cover hers, but not directly on top so that its weight wasn’t pressing on her. As soon as the earthquake was over the horse got up and stood next to her. It didn’t run or try to save itself- it chose her. To protect her.

(And courtesy of a reader and writer friend, I was informed that it was AI. 😭 I was duped and not paying close enough attention. My heart leading the way.)

See - heart wreckage. I am reduced to a blubbering mess when confronted with beauty.

And then there’s this.. from the human side.. That is real.

We contain multitudes.

Another thing that wrecks me in the best way- watching my friends succeed and put their hearts into the world! I know so many amazing artists and writers (same thing really) and have watched them put their books into the world recently! It’s awe inspiring.

So I’ll end with that - here’s some beautiful brilliant writers with work in the world or about to be in the world that I am excited for:

just released her memoir Hurricane Lessons! (Buy it from your local bookstore if you can.)

just released a beautiful, saucy and fun book called How to Find and Keep a Gay Man: 69 Spicy Tips for Lasting Love! (Buy it!)

just released a beautiful novel Book of Grace! (Buy it!)

just released the second book in her Pearly Gates series- Midnight Croissant! (Buy it! Buy both!)

is about to release her poetry in memoir book Conjuring the Hurricane: The best way to save your life is any way you can! (Preorder now! Out on April 28th!)

is about to release her memoir Widow in the City: A memoir of heartbreaks and hookups! (Preorder now! Out May 5th!)

just released her memoir Bitter Sweet: How to heal yourself when your family is broken! (Buy it!)

just released his stunning latest novel Waking Up at Rembrandt’s! (Buy it!)

Please feel free to add your favorite writers in the comments! Let’s cheer each other on! 🩵

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This is a little piece from the archives, 2023! Crazy to think that I’ve been here for nearly 3 years, almost 300 pieces written. And nearly as many drafts just sitting, waiting to be finished. Anyway, this piece spoke to me today, as I have stopped and started so many times trying to let the words fall out. I’ll let past me speak today.

Xoxo - Mesa

Memes give the best advice, don’t they?

I do this fun thing where I play the what if game until an idea comes that feels just sticky enough to be let loose.

All of these ideas competing for attention and all I can think about is how I need to sweep the floor. I calculate in my brain how long it’s been and cringe. Way too long. And then I yell at myself for waiting and I should all over myself. The woulds come in to try to clean up the shoulds. Coulds are hanging out in the sidelines waiting for their turn.

I’m beginning to feel a bit Seussian.

What am I left with. This idea about being a human is hard. I honestly don’t know where easy came into play. Maybe that’s the part that the entire world is striving for, the great WHAT IF life didn’t have to be hard? I don’t really buy that though. We love drama way too much, it reminds us we’re alive.

Maybe.

I’m most likely overthinking it. Playing by my gut sometimes feels the most natural, but the second guessing always arises somewhere in the middle. I’m nothing if not predictable to myself. I recognize the patterns now, the self doubt.

What if I broke that pattern?

Maybe later.

For now, I have a floor to sweep.

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She woke up -

Done with the mediocrity.

Done with the excuses.

Done with the contempt.

Done with being afraid.

She grabbed all of the Done women

And they ran away into the woods

To build tiny homes.

To be free.

To take their chances

with the bears.

The end.

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Human trafficking.

Rape.

He’s now got the shiny checkmark and over a million subscribers. He’s been on this platform for about a week.

He is a rapist.

He is a trafficker of women.

And he’s making money peddling misogynistic bullshit and masses of people are eating it up.

Meanwhile, about a year ago, Glennon joined the Stack and hordes of women pushed her off within TWO DAYS because she arrived too eagerly and with too many people wanting to support her.

So yeah, let’s all just sit and watch as this douche bag climbs the ranks and brings all his conspiracy theorist, sexist, rapist supporting cult bros to this space instead.

No platform is perfect, but it disgusts me to no end that this asshole just immediately takes over. In the NEWS category for fucks sake. He’s not a fucking journalist. He’s a disgusting pile of garbage.

Where’s the hordes now?

I refuse to leave this space. I refuse to abandon it and let the stupid assholes take over. I’ve built a small following and make barely anything from my paid subscribers and I am absolutely okay with that, I’m happy and grateful for every single one of you. I love this space, I love writing, I love being able to connect with so many amazing humans.

So…Fuck this dude.

I’m not going to allow him to ruin my favorite place on the internet.

I hope you won’t either.

I hope you’ll continue to support the people here who are phenomenal writers and I hope we can continue to build this place into something better.

I don’t expect the powers that be to do anything, so it’s up to us.

Also, if you don’t know who this slime ball is - consider yourself lucky.

Cause again - fuck this dude.

Anyway… enough about him.

I just want you to know I truly am grateful for you.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for sticking around. Thanks for your kindnesses and support. Thanks for your humanity.

I like to believe there are more of us than them. I hope you’ll stay.

Xoxo - Mesa

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Grief. I have been deep in grief lately. For so many reasons, not least of all for the lunacy taking place in the world.

I just keep thinking…

We live on this planet that is floating - FLOATING - in SPACE and tethered to a MOON and we’re kept alive by the SUN and protected by an atmosphere.. and all we can come up with is war. Ways to destroy ourselves. While a tiny sliver of people dare to dream and get into a rocket and go explore.

And our ridiculously stupid president posts about destroying a civilization and shares a video of a woman being killed and bitches and whines and boasts and bloviates about nonsense in order to justify his bullshit. He is the absolute worst of humanity. I am disgusted to share a planet with him and his ilk.

I digress.

I have been looking at the pictures of the moon and our home and allowing myself to feel awe for the first time in a decade. A decade. Almost a fifth of my life I went without this feeling. Too busy being afraid to feel anything else. Moments of joy here and there sure, but awe… no, she’s been hidden for a long time.

When Ben and I first moved to Sedona in 2011, I was overwhelmed by awe. All I had to do was step outside at night and look up and I was immediately filled with it. Or anytime I drove around I was inundated by it. Sedona is one of the most beautiful places on earth. On a clear night if you drive to the top of Airport Mesa road, tilt your head back, and look directly above you - you’ll find the Milky Way. I dare you to feel nothing when you see it for the first time.

We get so lost in the minutiae of every day smallness, yeah, yeah, bills to pay and health to worry about, and petty grievances. Meanwhile, there’s this whole universe surrounding us winking into existence every night just waiting for us to notice.

I am saddened to no end when I think about how many people don’t see or care or experience the awe that comes from realizing just how small we are. The refusal to be moved.

Downright heartbreaking.

One of my first words was moon. My mom used to take me outside at night and show me the sky and she read me books about the man in the moon and one of my first creative displays I made in school was the moon landing. She helped me make a papier-mâché moon and I used Lego astronauts and dreamed about what it must’ve been like for them. Wonder. Filled with so much wonder.

I think I must have always loved the night sky. Especially in Fall and Winter- when it’s crisp and clear. One year for New Year’s Eve, Ben and I drove to the parking lot at Bell Rock, opened the hatchback to our tiny car, and climbed in to watch the stars go by. He took a Timelapse of the sky moving and then left the aperture open to take in as much starlight as possible. There is so much more that we can’t see! Mind boggling how many stars we’re actually surrounded by. (See below from our night out - that’s just a teeny tiny fraction of the sky the width of what his lens could capture.)

I’m rambling.

What I really want to say is maybe we’d be better off if we found more ways to have a little bit of awe in our lives. If we shifted our attention away from the insanity just for a minute and looked up. Maybe we wouldn’t want to destroy so much. Who knows. I guess I’m just a dreamer.

But I’m not the only one.

Some poetry I’ve written about the moon.

🌖

We came from the stars
To tell our stories 
Origins found in blood and bones 
No different than the meteorite 
Shooting across the universe 

We became human 
From divine
Dirt
Leftover star stuff
With the capability 
To live, laugh, and love

And yet
What do we do with this gift
Forged from other places 
Nameless spaces 
We breathe war and destruction 
Death our only recourse 

Pushing up daisies 
Once we’re in the ground 
Instead of returning to 
Where it all began 

We came from the stars
We don’t belong anywhere else 
Except maybe to each other and
Ourselves 

What we do with this accidental gift
Reshape the moon
Find our way to Mars 
Map the universe 
And wait 
For life to claim us

🌖

Returning to the Moon
When I was a year old one of my first words was Moon
I always felt happiest under the sky at night
I was obsessed with the stars and moonlight
I’d reach for the man in the sky
Outstretched baby fingers
Silently begging to fly
 
As a kid I’d search for constellations
I knew they were embedded not just above
But somewhere inside
I could feel them burning in my blood and marrow
Ready to burst from me
Waiting for me to join the rest
 
In a city made of light I was constantly on the move
To find the darkest places
The night called to me
I would meet the call in the desert
Finding the roads to climb
Higher than the rest
I’d flip the car around and lay on the hood
Peace settling under my skin
 
Home is where the heart is
And mine belonged to the night
The sky the clouds the moon the stars
Nowhere did I feel more free
 
I still search sometimes
For the North Star
The man in the moon
Patiently awaiting
My return

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Tell me what fills you with awe these days. 🖤

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Heartbreak feels like being burned alive from the inside.

It starts in my eyes and clogs my throat - choking on unseen smoke.

Fire spreads down my chest and into my stomach, searing along nerves.

Hands and feet burn from the cold, though warmth had just been there a moment ago.

Muscles lock in my jaw, arms and legs stiffen, and I become a statue burning alive.

All of this happens within the span of opening a text message and seeing words I couldn’t have dreamed of. Not even my worst nightmare could have prepared me for my chest being cleaved in two.

A mistake made 24 years ago and suddenly everything I’ve ever done to try to make up for it - gone.

Ashes on the wind.

I can feel myself throwing guards up left and right now. Building Fort Knox around my heart.

I thought I’d fortified myself better, as if there’s some sort of coating I had shellacked onto myself that keeps pain like this at bay. Turns out nope.

Drawing boundaries is something I’ve struggled with my entire life. I have an extremely hard time saying no, I do it, but it’s very hard for me to do so. People pleaser that I am.

I laid a boundary down last week. My heart decimated in the process. Words covered in swords meant to maim lobbed my way. Busted straight through all defenses.

I couldn’t have defended myself even if I’d tried. Once someone’s mind is made up, it’s damn near impossible to change it, especially when they fully believe what they’re saying is the absolute truth. I could have said “everything you are saying to me right now is incorrect and not based in reality”, but I didn’t. I didn’t say anything at all.

I rolled right over and bled out as the words did their job.

Funny how this all works isn’t it?

“Let The Words Fall Out” - where I advocate for using words as bridges, building connections.

This is not about politics. Though it could be.

I am too far gone in my pain to really feel much of anything at the moment regarding what’s happening in the world. We have no control over what’s happening, and we desperately want to believe we do.

I desperately want to believe that I have a say, that I can control the outcome of this life. Everything I did can’t have been for nothing. But maybe it was. I mean, I could have easily stayed in the massively abusive relationship surrounded by drugs and alcohol. I could have stayed living with my addict my mother and endured watching her be beaten. I could have stayed in the weekly unit and believed that was all I’d be worth. I could have, could have, could have so many other things.

I chose differently. I left. I got out. I tried over and over again to remake myself into better and better versions. Only to be told that none of it mattered because I did not fit into the mother shaped box of another’s expectations.

All of the grief, guilt, constant questioning of myself, only to end up here.

Protection twisted into abandonment.

Lack of money twisted into inadequate care.

And now I’m…

Unmoored.

Untethered.

Unsure.

Unforgiven.

Undone.

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Can you feel it?
Roiling just beneath the surface 
Looking for a crack to seep through 

There was a storm 
Brewing in my veins
Demanding to be released 

The force of my sobs
I thought for sure I’d break
Into a million pieces 

Wishing for the dam inside to do it

I understand now why we claw at ourselves 
When grief overtakes us 

We are trying to create the cracks 
To let the storms wash us clean 
But they never do 

There’s always debris left behind 
Remnants of what’s settled 
Into our breakable bones

Only hope remains

Day 4, prompt used there was a storm.⛈️

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Poetic prose today for Day 3 of Poetry Month!

Hope you find some time to write some poetry for yourself. Sending love to wherever you are. 🩵

If you’re enjoying my writing, will you please take a moment to share?

Xoxo- Mesa

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