Easy

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beauty, blogging, courage, disabled, disabled person, health, lesbian, lgbt, life, love, photos, same sex relationship, self, woman partner, women loving women, writing

I am not an easy person to love.

I am a challenge, a case study in patience.

I am complicated.

Not on purpose.  I’m not sure people set out to be elaborate, thorny bundled masses of Complex® on purpose.  It’s just what you end up with once Life, situations … people are through with you.  You wind up getting up from the ground one day and realize how ramshackled and rough around the edges you are and in the next breath wonder who in their right mind would want to love all of your gnarled pointy edges, on purpose.

For a while, you may even stumble around and try to pretend what happened to you, that situation or that incident, wasn’t that bad.  But you know in your heart of hearts that you’ve been changed, cause the sun doesn’t elicit the same welcoming warmth of light, nor does the moon comfort you against your pillow like it used to late into the night.

I used to lament that realization stage – the one where I knew I was a mess and that I also had no idea how to begin to clean it up.  I stayed in that space for a looooooonnnnnnng time.  Why?  Well, I thought I had to be something.  That I had to be strong or that I had to be tough or that I couldn’t ever let anyone know that I hurt, deeply or the ways in which I was hurt.  Trying to be something made it easy to hide the fact that I felt like a mess on the inside and that I didn’t know how to fix Me or to make my life better.

But after trying to be everything else but honest with myself, I knew I had one out left: truth.

My truth was that I didn’t know Me enough to stand firm in the middle of my mess.  Oh, I knew enough about other folks to help them through their messes, I knew enough to be a leader during a crisis but not so much my own.  Instead I looked outward for help.  Though help did come, it wasn’t in any form or shape that I could recognize and so, went unused, unwelcomed and ultimately unwanted.

I spent some time angry with those around me for not coming to my rescue like I had done for them.  Didn’t they see I was drowning?  Didn’t they see that they had to come into the trenches of my mess with me so we could both plan an escape route for me?  But behind anger is usually another emotion and that emotion for me was disappointment.  I was disappointed that no one willingly left their lives and what they were doing, to help me fix mine.  Isn’t that what folks do for one another?

My hard learned answer to that is No.  Not every burden or trial is to be carried or shared with those around you.  The big stuff, like the death of a loved one or a serious illness should be shared with those willing to help carry the sorrow.  But the smaller things?  Sometimes it’s best to work those out on your own.

Don’t get me wrong – even with the small struggles, I reach out and talk a point out with those willing to lend an ear and help shed light on what’s going on but the majority of The Work, I had to do on my own.

The moment I realized this, it was both liberating and frightening.  Handle all my own emotional shit by myself?  There wasn’t enough time in the world for that, I thought.  But all I had was time on my hands, when I thought about it because I was in such a nasty funk, that there was no space for anything good to come in.  So what else was there to do but to take time and fix Me?

And so I’ve cried, I’ve contemplated, I’ve talked, I’ve read and I’ve pondered.  I’ve examined, I’ve grieved, I’ve given up and found hope again.

And my conclusion?  I’m not half bad.  Really.  Yeah, some terrible things have happened in my life that probably shouldn’t happen to most.  But considering, I’m pretty okay.  I have flaws and my certain ways but at the end, I am just as worthy of love as anyone.  I’m just as capable of loving as anyone.

And this is where I am right now, this intersection of celebrating my Okayness and having the courage enough to share that with another soul.  Again.

John Legend has this song coming out later in the summer called All of Me, take a look:

There is the lyric that goes:
Cards on the table/we’re both showing heart
Risking it all/though it’s hard

Cause all of me/loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me/I’ll give my all to you
You’re my end and my beginning
Even when I lose/I’m winning

Cause I’ll give all of me
And you give me all of you

I give you all of me
And you give me all of you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m good at giving my all, at anything.  That doesn’t worry me.  I am finally feeling strong enough within Me to weather many of the storms that have put me down for the count before.

What gives me pause is finding the right woman to be all in with.  This part, scares me.  Truth.  John Legend’s song makes me weep because my heart knows the joy and strength it takes to be all in with another human being – and what it feels like to think you’re all in, only to find out you’ve been all alone the whole time.

Though my heart is ready to give Love another go, I am also super cautious at the moment because sometimes people don’t realize what being all in means.  It doesn’t just mean when things are super well and fun, it doesn’t mean when I just have a cold or when I am a bit down.  It means when my SMA is being ugly, when I am having a string of ill health, it means when I can’t quite see the light, though it is shining right in my eyes.  It means standing in the middle of the unknown abyss and knowing only that you’re holding on to my hand and that I have no intention of letting go as long as you don’t.

That is scary for anyone, I am sure but that’s what ‘being all in’ means to me because I know I would be all in like that for the woman who has my heart.

-S

Often

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beauty, blogging, disabled, disabled person, lesbian, lgbt, life, love, poem, poetry, same sex relationship, self, woman partner, women loving women, writing

Photo Credit: svilen001

You are looking for me and I will know you when I see you…

© 2013 Sandra Jean-Pierre

I think of you now,
often.

in the dim and dark
stretches of the night

when my back needs
rubbing
or my soul
needs consoling,
when my lips
need you near to kiss.

I imagine our
days,
filled with
small talkings,
big love
and unspoken
knowing nods
of the disease
that we both
refuse to acknowledge,

that keeps my
arms from
wrapping around you
fully.

Often
I think of you now,
when I am picking out
my outfits,
sure
you’d be happy
to see me
in anything my
heart desires.

I think of your smile,
your mischievous smile,
welcoming me
home,
out,
in our bed.

Often,
I wonder why it is you love me
and I can see your
look of bewilderment,
questioning how could you not
and
my heart melts.

Often,
I think of you often…

Though I’ve not
met you
yet…

-S

Again

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art, beauty, blogging, courage, disabled, disabled person, life, mental-health, photography, photos, self, woman partner, writing

I’ve begun crocheting again.

I decided that I needed to be doing something more tactile with my hands, instead of cerebral with my mind.  The internet is a great place – plenty of spots to learn new things and to discover things about yourself that you never knew quite how to express.

But I’ve been online steadily for the past few months and I needed something to break the monotony.

So I went back to what I know how to do – create something beautiful out of not much more than bound and wound together threads.  I love how I can get in a rhythm and spend hours weaving and crafting something one of a kind from thin air.  I love the hours of labor, the time spent in thought or steadily feeding my mind information through my podcasts as my hands and fingers stay busy with the project that is unwittingly being formed in my lap.

But my hands/arms?  Don’t always agree to the hectic pace my mind/soul sets.  I’ve spent the past three days in deep meditation over my latest project and now my hands, are no good for anything, though my mind has a hundred and one new crochet patterns that I want to try.  I am this limitless soul in a limited body, doing the best I can to be true to both.

I don’t think how ‘terrible’ things could get in the future.  Instead I limit my projects to what I think I may be able to handle and fill my time with things that won’t leave my hands like spaghetti.  When I am having a particularly bad day I think what it would be like when She and I finally meet.  I wonder if She would kiss my arms and make them better or rub my palm-backs to bring them back to life.  I live on the edge of this intention, because the alternative is too menacing for this life to be lived greatly.

And I intend to live it great.

-S

Strong

It is green.

It tastes unapologetic like white-fleshed grapefruit – refreshing and bitter all the same.

I know that when I take it in the early mornings, the ferrous fumarate will be slowly released within me for the day.  It will break down in the acid of my stomach and course through my iron deficient bloodstream.  It will fill one of the gaps that my body has produced, nutrient wise.  It will ensure me one more healthful day.

I generally take it with food, mashing the bolus in my mouth to a watery mass before placing the long green pill in the North-South position on top of it all.  I wait a few beats, relaxing my throat muscles, throwing my head back slightly, praying to my nervous system to cooperate, before attempting what I hope to be The Swallow that will take the whole lot down.  If I am lucky, everything will slide down the back of my throat, while I will it not to seize or spasm or clamp down on the slow moving pill before it gets far down enough not to come back up.

If I am unlucky, then the watery bolus would have left, abandoning its primary passenger to disperse its bitter green coating on my highly astute taste buds.  Then I will have to start over, tucking the rapidly disintegrating pill on one side of my mouth, while I mash a quick spoonful of ready food on the other, to try again.  I generally don’t begin to panic until I have tried this a few times and have managed to fail with each attempt.  By then copious amounts of water would be employed with perils of its own.  My last ditch effort would be to spit the pill out, wait a few minutes and try again, with a fresh pill.

I’ve only been so unlucky once.

I take the green pills because my lab reports tell me and my doctor that I am iron deficient.  As if my body doesn’t know what to do with the iron, so it throws it out of the window or down a coal chute instead of using it.  I am told to buy them at $29.00 per box of 100 capsules and to take them when my gums seem pale or when my finger tips look blue or when it is That Time of the Month.  Which can be confusing because That Time doesn’t always happen like it should when you are 5 or 6 anemic.  But my finger tips still turn blue and my gums still look pale and my face looks… sick even if I am not bleeding like most women do.  So I have blood tests regularly to check this since I am not always sure what the subtle signs my body is giving mean.

My Doctor tells me that I could be bleeding somewhere inside.  And I imagine my Celiac ridden intestines riddled with holes letting my iron rich blood escape wantonly.  My Doctor also tells me that I need to eat more things like liver and greens and to take those pills.  But this just makes me side-eye him and let loose my litany of vegetable packed foods that I cook and eat.  He tells me it is not enough and that I need to eat better, take these pills or schedule a transfusion of either blood or iron intravenously.

I promise to eat better and to take the pills.

I think my body a traitor.  After all, there is that SMA thing I have to deal with and now it can’t even hold on to iron, which is important for things like allowing my blood cells to carry oxygen properly and to fight off infections.  I try to buy more greens and eat healthier so my face doesn’t look so sick and I don’t have to sit out in the sun so much because I am cold.  But I take the pills because this sluggish feeling and this shortness of breath scare me.

And then one night I hear it.

Bapbapbapbapbapbap bapbap Bapbapbapbapbapbap bapbap

And I take a deep breath, which interrupts the small steady noise.

Exhaling slowly, I listen for it and it returns,

Bapbapbapbapbapbap bapbap Bapbapbapbapbapbap bapbap

I realize that the green pills I have been taking, have made my blood so efficient, that my heart is pumping hard enough to cause my bed to gently rattle my headboard, in rhythm.

I am shocked and a little bewildered. Was my heart working this hard because I was anemic and my body was starved for oxygen?  Now that my blood was enriched and better at doing its job, was my heart beating this way out of habit?  Should I be worried?

I listen intently for some minutes before falling back asleep, comforted.

In the months and years I’ve spent on then off, then on the green pills again, I’ve come to realize that that night was not a one off scenario.  Whenever my iron is low, my heart is silent.  But when I take my pills proper my heart sings.

In the nights when everything seems wrong, when there is nothing to meet my sadness or upset, my loneliness or my desperation, if I listen carefully, I can always, always hear my heart beat the rhythm of my living loud and yes, strong.

-S

Love Me

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blogging, courage, disabled, disabled person, lesbian, life, love, mental-health, same sex relationship, self, woman partner, women loving women, word choices, writing

It’s one of those nights, where the day has worn on me long and thin, where my eyes burn but I push them to entertain me anyway.

It is one of those nights where I am needy and greedy and visceral with it to no one in particular.  It is one of those dangerous nights when all my pieces don’t want to add up yet I refuse to run on a deficit.

One of those nights where nothing is wrong but nothing is right.

I miss kissing, holding and being held.  Wanted, desired.

My bed is too cold and I am tired of warming it on my own.

These smoke and shadow memories make me sad.  I want a handful of “right” for a change.

Hug the one you’re with… for me.

-S