Hello

I have started this piece and deleted it a million times in my head, and four times in my attempts to get the right words. You see I find myself in new territory. I find myself struggling not to go backwards. The new me, this me, is trying really hard to stop and think, and if my kids ever read this, yes children, same thing I tell you. I told you I understood, and it's because you are me, in some way or another, ALL THREE of you have me in your personality. This new me is learning to set boundaries, and not to need the last word, I love having the last word, but it shouldn't be at the cost of someone else's feelings or emotions. I don't have to be an ass.  I did something this week, I was so excited. I posted about it on Facebook. It was something positive. It was something I never thought I would do. It was something that almost didn't happen because I let other people get in my head.  I'm not sure where my post took a turn, I am not sure why peopl...

As most of us sit in some version of "shelter in place" the thoughts swarm in my head. The words I don't want to say out loud, are about to hit this screen with the clacks of the keyboard. Writing is my therapy, and since I haven't been to therapy in like over month, closer to two I think, I needed to do something. So here we go.... Remote learning for school, has been a flop this week. What is funny is last week we did some activities online from school approved sites and the kids were good with that. Funny how I get the packets from school and the chromebooks come home, and then it's a whole different ball game, and they no longer want to play. I haven't started today, and it's only day two of remote learning, the hope is low today. We shall see what today brings besides coffee, and lots of it. The other thing that is bothering me, is people hoarding the toilet paper. Did I miss a memo somewhere where this is the golden commodity?? I don't get it...

I wear my heart on my sleeve but I will make you work to get my walls down. I don't think I am ugly but I have a heard time believing my husband when he tells me I am pretty. I am patient but I want what I want right now. I feel everything but grow numb to life. I love hard but I am quick to walk away from people. I want peace, but I will fight till the death. I am a victim but I am a warrior. I am calm or charging like a bull. I look like I got my shit together to some, but in reality I have NO CLUE what I am doing most of the time. I am obese and I struggle with eating disorders. I need attention as much as I enjoy being a hermit. I have roots and I want to have wings. I advocate for people with mental illnesses, and I hate the damn label. I am all these things. My life is an oxymoron and somewhere between the two opposites of life is my middle ground. I hate middle ground because well I have never stood in the middle, I am on one end of the spectrum or the othe...

Melissa Cote at a  NHA4A event  This is something new for me. I interviewed my friend Melissa for her non profit, NH Artists 4 Autism (  https://www.facebook.com/nhartists4autism/ ).    NH Artist 4 Autism mission is to spread Autism awareness and acceptance. There is a fundraising event in April, for Autism Awareness month. We, oh let me mention, that I can be found behind the scenes here too,  organize local sponsors, and this year at the big event we have local vendors too. Melissa and I, are both Autism Mommas, and our children are very different but we relate in the advocacy for our children. I often tell Melissa we are out there in the weeds together, or if we are getting ready to really advocate for our kids, we are in the trenches of war together. Below is the interview: What made you start doing events for Autism? My youngest daughter, Zoey was diagnosed with “severe autism” in 2014. She was diagnosed a month before her 2nd Birthday. ...

      I grew up in a small town, next door to my grandparents, who owned a store. My grandparents are kind of small town celebrities, and my mom joins that rank too, even though she moved a little further away. Small town life, while it is peaceful ( most of the time), often times means word travels fast.  People get divorced around here, and the whole town knows in a week. You get arrested, good luck making it twelve hours before someone knows. My teenage years, everyone always liked to threaten they would tell my mom or my grandparents, if I got even a hair out of line.     Now as an adult, or an adultish, person, moving back to that small little town, brings mixed emotions. Sometimes a serious of events happens, and I question my choice. I choose to move here, we needed help, but there is a whole level of being in a place I swore I wouldn't come back to.     They used to say it wouldn't be the same if you left and came back. I always wonder...

I honestly thought at this point in life I would have things figured out. Life, well it leaves me on a never ending path of new experiences good and bad. I learn things, I regret very few things, and I move on. I go forward into whatever direction the wind blows me. I really do seem to have a Gypsy heart, from year to year the only thing that is the same is the love for my inner circle, and even that changes from time to time. Life can be mentally exhausting, and December dear lord we fought some battles, I will always, always fight for my kids, all three of them. December was a whole lot of this. I ended some battles in 2019, and just left them where they were, because I am learning that you don't have to always have the last word. Some battles will carry over into 2020, because some, the ones related to my children, all three of them are the ones I NEED to invest my energy in. I recently had therapy and we did a depression check in because December was that fun and I...

Dear 2019, You were supposed to the year my life finally fell into place. The year I was putting all the bs behind me and moving forward. This was the year I was going to feel like a grown up, being 35 and the youngest being in school full time, I thought this was the year I was going to figure it all out. Spoiler alert, it wasn't, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. 2019 was the year of some pretty interesting curveballs. I spent the summer becoming caretaker of an elderly women, who would just walk out of my life. It sucks when you know someone is mentally abusing and elderly person, but you can't control others. I set up a boundary line and moved on. If she called me right now and said she was sorry, I would dive back in, because that's the kind of person I am. I can't not help someone who was family by choice. I can't not help. Then, there was a really big thing that I don't really talk about because it's not my story to tell. My part of it I c...

The ending to 2019, is proving to be a rocky one. I have been lied to, by the places that are supposed to teach my kids. They have put me through hell, and yet I still have to brave face it, and deal with them. My children have come to me crying. One wants to be home schooled, one is still doing well in school, and one I want nothing more then for him to come home. My kids, are so much of my life, that often I joke about what I do in my life that doesn't involve them. I have been doing some advocacy work on the side for a friend of mine, I got him started and he has been doing pretty well I thought. I have been wrapped up in my own stuff with my own kids, but he sent out the bat signal the other day, and I have been called upon. Then, then, there's the unusual health issue I had found myself just recently having. It sucks to be in recovery this close to Christmas, I can't seem to get enough ahead to hold my footing with my little health issues. First I was sick, then ...

Tis the season, what a complicated season it has become this year. I think I wrote a little while ago about being "stable" and the tailspin that sent me on. Why you might ask, because never in my life I have been the stable one. Passively suicidal, over dramatic, ten thousand emotions and a bit of a space cadet is what I am used to being called. SO imagine my surprise when I was sitting there in therapy and I was called stable. Typically I struggle this time of year. Seasonal depression and arthritis at my young age of 35 leave me often times lost in pain and in my head. NOW, now I got this new label. What happens when we go into a time of year that is normally hard for me and I fall all to pieces? Have I failed? Is it just my mental illness screwing up my life again? How do I function? Now let's add to this my weak immune system has already failed me and I have already had Bronchitis for a month. Yesterday I had one of the most intense flashbacks in my life and I s...

      I care too much. I care too deeply. Once my walls come tumbling down, I trust too much. I think if they cared enough to chip away at the walls then they must care. This is where I get myself in trouble.      Throughout the year in therapy we have been working on boundaries, relationships and how to make those two work. I developed a three strike rule, third strike and you are out. This was to save me from the ever turbulent waters of navigating life with other people.     I suck at relationships, I push the wrong people away, and let in the words of my mom " energy sucking vampires" in. I have never known balance in relationships, personality disorders and PTSD gives a pretty skewed version of life. So I came with the three strike rule, show me your heart is ugly three times, and you are out. I think it's fair, and let me tell you it has been a life changing rule.     Over the course of the year, the whole year, this has come...