Learning How to Speak Again, Part 3: I'm Overwhelmed

Thursday, October 24th, sometime around 11pm

Today I sat on the edge of a giant plaid couch.

"You'll have to sit really far over, because the middle sinks," the therapist said on our first day, which was exactly one week ago.

And now, after a week of looking forward to this second session (pining for some clarity), I finally sat there, my purse and my keys slowly sliding away from me into that gaping sinkhole that was the middle of the couch.

"So, what's going on?" She asked. "You seem sad."

"I'm tired," I said. I rubbed my eyes. I pulled my hat down farther over my x-shaped scar. I nestled into the cushions of that plaid couch, wanting to fade into it completely.

This is not fun, I thought.

I began to talk, her questions guiding me hither and thither, across the many different terrains of my life, the good, the bad, the awful, the horrendous, the joyful, the mediocre.

And

Friday, October 25th, 1:52pm

Well, that's as far as I got last night. All night during my shift at work I felt a heavy pressure in my throat. I wanted to release it, but I didn't know how. I tried tears. Before going into work I sat in the parking lot listening to melancholy country music and trying to muster up the emotions I needed to finally manifest that horrible sinking sensation into something I could let out.

At work, people asked me why I was down. Here's the thing, I didn't even know.

That therapy session had opened a box of dark, old pain. And I had pulled out things I hadn't discussed in years (if ever, at all...).

"I like to close my sessions well," the therapist said. "I don't want you to leave here feeling raw."

Well, consider me raw.

I thought writing would help me move through these murky waters of whatever-this-is-I'm-feeling, but I sit here unable to capture it. Maybe it's one of those situations beyond words.

I think I would like to dig my hands into some clay, to feel the ache in my arms as I push and pull against the rhythmic spinning of a lump of earth not yet formed into anything. Or to graze the blade of a tool across the outside of a bowl, watching the excess ribbons of clay shedding over the wheel.

Or maybe I need to play the piano, to lose myself in that way. The keys have always provided some distraction.

I threw myself into paperwork during my shift, training the newer staff, reading over scholarship applications and trying to dull that ache with productivity.

It didn't really work.

On my break, I went to the childcare center. I had started working there when I was 19. I remember the long shifts spent staring at the clock as toddlers tumbled around me. I saw my reflection in the glass as I ambled down the hallway. I am 23 now. Sort of a woman. My wedges clicked loudly on the tile and I considered how many different versions of me have walked that hall.

"I'm here to hold a baby," I said as I waltzed into the youth development center.

"Um... okay..." the staff said as she handed me a baby who still had tears in her eyes. She had no idea who I was, didn't know that this had been my job long before it had ever been hers.

I wrapped my arms around the little one and breathed out a sigh of relief. It was physical connection with another human being, something I hadn't experienced in weeks. I smelled her baby head and felt her chubby fingers explore my face.

Who are you, stranger? She asked with her big brown eyes.

We walked over to the window of the youth center and looked out to the lobby, waving to my coworkers at the front desk. They are also my babies, and I watched them closely through the glass, waiting for the moment they would wave me back to help them with something.

The little one stared at me. She was tired, and occasionally let out a whine, her head bouncing into my shoulder. She was resisting sleep.

Behind us, the cries of another infant rose shrilly. Three staff gathered around him, rocking the carseat and shaking a rattle.

The raw pain of a baby crying is just so relatable to me. I had been trying all day to get tears to come, and they simply wouldn't.

I remembered when I was a nanny to my sweet little blond love of a baby, JB. When he was very small, he would cry sometimes, and if he was inconsolable, I would cry with him. This baby reminded me of him. Of all the crying babies I have held. With my little brown-eyed companion still nuzzled into my shoulder, I knelt down next to this tragic little fellow and started to rub his foot. It's what I always used to do with the upset babies in the youth center.

I used to sit in the rocking chair, the babies laid out across my lap. With one hand I'd cradle their necks, and the other I'd rub their feet. I was amazed how many times it soothed them, even when a bottle or a song wouldn't.

This little one, distracted for a while by my foot rub, stared at me with huge blue eyes, his lips quivering as his tears paused on his cheeks. For a few minutes, he was completely calm. We shared a look, our blue eyes meeting, tears in his, none in mine (frustratingly enough).

Rising up from the side of his carseat, his cries started again. A little pang shot through my heart. For five minutes I had soothed myself while soothing him.

I handed my little brown-eyed girl over to her mother, who had come to collect her, and I walked back to the front desk, running into my coworker on the way.

"I was hoping you'd get out of your funk at some point tonight. Glad you finally did."

I watched the lights of the youth development center flick out one by one as the staff closed up for the night. The lobby became quieter, my coworkers started to dwindle out of the building as it got closer to ten.

On the drive home, my tears welled up in my eyes. Whenever I feel pain like this, it is so bittersweet, because it is so mixed with other things.

I sat down last night at my laptop and attempted to explain. But sometimes, I can't with words. I was considering a hundred different things at once as I sat there.

Being kissed on the parkway under a dark night sky. Dialing 911 from a locked bathroom in Atlanta. Petting the curly head of my dog as she heaved her last breaths on the floor of a vet's office. Waiting on hold with a rehab center while I tried to find out where my boyfriend was. Waking up in an ambulance and not knowing my own name. Being seven years old and seeing my new backyard for the first time. Falling on my knees in the snow at age 14, utterly convinced there was a God up there who loved me. Ten years later, seeing a shooting star and thinking the same thing.

There is just so much. It is overwhelming.

As I pulled into my driveway last night, I could still smell the sweet baby scent on my jacket. It was comforting to think of those little ones, by now at home, sleeping soundly. Or perhaps not. Either way, they were loved.

And I am too. I went inside and gave my mother a hug, thinking how precious it is that once upon a time, I was her baby.

Tears finally came this morning. Alone in my house, I sat down to write, and I ended up crying.

Do I feel better?

I don't know that I feel better. But I feel something. And that's all I needed.

Aloneness

[written september 7th, 2019]

Starting is always the hardest part.

It took me twenty minutes alone just to type that sentence. After staring at the blinking cursor and trying to determine exactly what comprises that feeling in the pit of my stomach, that raw, slightly sweet, sickening feeling that sinks from my ribcage down and slowly rolls back and forth, threatening to burst out of my body in some form of tears or rage or a deep, sad sigh.

It is hard to express that feeling, though I know everyone has it at some point or another.

And it is my instinct to mend these uncomfortable moments with some other emotion or sensation.

Today I felt that horrible feeling sink into me in the middle of my work shift, following events I still don’t care to discuss, and quite frankly, it made me want to puke.

A year ago, perhaps I would have instantly flown into action to relieve that feeling. (What is it, even? It’s hard to treat if you can’t diagnose. I’d guess it’s a combination of disappointment, hurt, and fear.) I’d find a way to quickly self soothe, whether that’s to delude myself with some fantasy concocted to buffer the pain of reality, or to create a new situation in order to distract and distance from that feeling of dismay.

I still want to self soothe. It’s a terrible feeling, so mighty for me today that it drove me to the keyboard. The feeling makes me ache to write. To draw that feeling into something specific I can hold.

I despise feeling like I’m suddenly floating in a stretch of aloneness. That feeling immediately pulls me out of reality into an overwhelming sensation of doubt and discontentment. It stirs up an illness I didn’t know was there.

Lots of things can turn on this gross, nauseating pulse inside me. Finding out something you don’t want to know, for example. Bad news. Betrayal. Even just that feeling of dread that sometimes happens for no reason. And it’s a difficult feeling to feel. I try to put it into words, into something tangible, so I can turn the light on in the dark room of how I feel.

Feeling it is like holding a soapy dish, hot and uncomfortable, it threatens to slip from my hands. It hovers in my belly like a sick butterfly. I want to hold it like a ball of yarn and let it slowly unravel, releasing with it all the fuzzy thoughts I can’t quite materialize. How can you let go of something that you can’t hold? The feeling holds me, I am a prisoner to the whims of my mind, and it is this I am trying to change.

I want to flip the light on, banish the darkness in one fell swoop and take that first waking breath that assures you “It was just a dream.” Except it was not. It was real. What happened was real, and what I felt was real. But I can leave that feeling, or at least, I can try.

I just want to be loved. To be known. To live in a world without comparison. But that simply isn’t possible, because to live without comparison would be to live alone. I despise the fact that I am not just me, that I do not exist without the existence of others. How could I? To exist in a vacuum would not be life, if the main purpose of life is to create and perpetuate that life force.

I don’t want to be compared to her. To them. To all the other beings that I feel I compete with for love and companionship. To all the beings I want to love and do, or the ones I want to love but can’t - or even worse, the ones I don’t want to love but can’t help loving.

It sickens me that when I am alone, I am not fully me, because I am thinking of him. While he is away living his own life, I am also living his life. I live it inside my own life, so that my life doesn’t feel like it’s my own anymore.

I can never be fully alone, and that is what has struck me as I recently have tried. I, in my mind, exist alongside every person I’ve ever cared for. I hold onto them for far longer than I’d like to. Their words ring in my head, their touch lingers on my skin, the daydreams of what they are doing scatter through my mind as I try and focus on my life.

What is my life?

I have created a life in which I love other beings very deeply. A deep desire to connect with others has been a constant, permeating theme resounding through all my decisions. But what do you do when that all goes sideways? When you reach through the stretch of aloneness to grab onto someone else, and they aren’t there? Or, they can’t reach back. Maybe they don’t want to.

Learning How to Speak Again: Part 2... Hate, Love, & Wholeness

Last week as I was hyping myself up to start writing again (earnestly, honestly, and regularly) I had an idea for how I wanted to structure the journey.

"I think I'm going to write about my resentments," I announced to an uninterested coworker. "One post for each resentment."

"Do you have a lot of those?" He asked.

Men, church, middle school, doctors, law enforcement, capitalism, past employers, old friends, summer camp, perfect people, abuse, societal expectations... 

As I considered how many places, people, or situations I resented I felt a pang of insecurity. And then a flood of debilitating "monkey mind" thoughts.

No one wants to hear you whine, Sarah, gosh. 

Why are you so negative? 

Are you really so self-absorbed that you have to share every ounce of suffering you've been poured in life?

No. One. Cares.

I laid in bed later that night contemplating why I felt such a strong urge to dive into my resentments. Does this make me a negative, tormented person? Shouldn't I just move on and write about happier things?

I resolved to try.

This morning, I opened my journal. "Things I Like," I scrawled across the top of the page.

"Flowers. French Braids. Coffee. Reading. Music. Children. Languages. Holding hands. Laughing."

Fine, a list is all well and good, but we are here to WRITE, to speak, and for me, that means to discover the truth about things (the truth about what things are to me, that is). And that requires going deeper. Pulling out the 'if's, 'and's, 'but's, and 'why's.

I started to write, determined to stay chipper and positive. But as the words flowed, I found myself struggling to be authentic. I was attempting to edit out the resentment. And with that, I lost the depth of my voice. I was acting, not speaking.

I could dive into any of the "Things I Like" things listed above and somehow, ultimately, I would end up back at one of my dreaded resentments.

And then it occurred to me.

The things that bring me joy are not wholly positive things. My resentments are not wholly negative things. I am attempting to dichotomize my life into good and bad.

That, my dear readers, is not how life works.

Perhaps my resentments are not merely negative vibes I want to spew out into an already dark world. Maybe they are the entry point to dive deeper into the things I love.

I hate some things. But I will say, most of the things I hate are closely connected to things I love. Isn't that how it works? We hate things because they threaten the things we love. We love things because they help steady us against the things we hate. It is all connected.

It is all connected.

My resentments are not things to absolve, to erase. They are the painful, unpleasant, uncomfortable aspects of all the good things in life. They are the trigger point for change. They are the road to better understanding myself, others, and everything else. As I give them a voice, they teach me. And like grief, jealousy, despair, and fear, resentment does not have to be permanent.

It can be a teacher. It can change me, and I can change it.

I can allow the things I resent to exist, and I can allow grace and forgiveness to stand there beside me as I face them.

I resent some things that have happened to me. Only because they threaten the beautiful things in life that make it worth living for me. Betrayal, violence, heartbreak, grief, disappointment- these are all the dark sides to the joyful aspects of being human.

And for me, since I feel these "dark sides" so very, very deeply - I think that they provide an incredible entry point into writing, into processing, into changing, and into loving, even.

So I will be writing about my resentments.

And it won't be all bad.

It will ultimately be just another way that I honor the things I love. It is an undeniable, important aspect of "wholeness" which is ultimately what I strive for when I write.

I am not scared of the things I resent. (Well... maybe a little.)

I am only scared of the things I love being destroyed. Of losing the good to the bad. And once I accept the fact that no matter how great my resentments, they can't destroy me or the things I love, and that the good things will continue to exist despite the bad things, well... then I guess we can just chat about it and it's really not the end of the world, huh?

"You are equal parts bitter and sweet," a lover once said to me in a letter. After he broke my heart that phrase echoed in my mind.

So are you, I thought. So are most things.

Learning How to Speak Again: Part 1, The Night I Fell

No offense, but I don't want to be here right now.

This post has been sitting here, empty, since September 9th.

I don't want to write.

I don't want to.

But it is such an integral part of how I process life, learn to understand people, and grow deeper into an awareness of who I am and why I am, that sometimes it must be forced. No matter how uncomfortable.

I won't lie to you. I am incredibly uncomfortable right now. I've just spent twenty minutes googling "mindfulness exercises" and "how to get rid of resentment" and "why do I feel so upset for no reason".

The truth is, I've been upset for some time, I've just been squishing it into some hollow part of myself and closing the door on it. I've tried to stay busy. Since I graduated college in May, I've tried to fill my time with as much work, exercise, and observation as possible.

By observation I mean I've finally brought myself out of the finance textbooks and excel spreadsheets to take a look at the (so called) "real world".

And again - I won't lie - I don't like what I see. Maybe the world I'm in is different from the one my professors promised me. And maybe that's my fault. But I can't begin to describe the torture of going from one job interview to the next, wondering what future awaits me at the end of all this "fake it until I make it" nonsense.

Add on top of that, the bitter end of a year and a half relationship and subsequent waltz into another shit-show starred in by men... and you can see why I might not feel like writing.

Who wants to write when all you feel is either "this is some bullshit" or "what the heck is happening" or, even worse, "damn, I really don't like myself right now."

That's where I've been at, I just haven't really allowed myself to think about it. I just really couldn't think about it.

And then, two weeks ago, I woke up in an ambulance and REALLY couldn't think.

"What's your name, sweetie?" The paramedics asked me. "Do you know what happened to you tonight?"

I did not know. In fact, I knew less than I've ever known in my entire life. I don't know if that feeling is the reality that babies exist in before they can talk, but it's the closest thing I can compare it to, and just thinking about that feeling makes me want to let out a wail that would put newborns to shame.

I don't know if you've ever forgotten everything you ever knew, but I have. It is the most terrifying feeling in the world not to be able to say your own name or unlock your phone. I had a sinking feeling deep inside me that I was someone, but who? It was like waking up and realizing that while you slept, the entire world around you has shifted and you are now lost in it, unsure of yourself, unsure of everything.

"You have a pretty serious injury, your head is bleeding pretty badly."

I didn't know what this EMT was talking about, but I recognized something on his face - concern, maybe even fear. And it resonated into me and I also began to feel fear.

"Who are you?" They asked again.

Inside me I felt the answer, I felt it swelling behind my rib cage and pulsing through my veins. I felt it - I just couldn't say it. Words did not exist inside me any more at all. All that existed was adrenaline, sensation, panic, and uncertainty.

I could go into more detail about that night, and sometime I will. But suffice to say, it was an entirely unique experience unlike anything else, and the moment I will never forget is one where I finally remembered my name.

"What is your name?"

My heart raced, I felt something rushing from deep inside the core of me to the surface. Those seconds before I was able to finally speak lasted for decades. I can only imagine it as what they mean when they say your life "flashes before your eyes." I felt everything (somehow) but I could say nothing. I knew what it all was (love, fear, joy, sorrow) but couldn't comprehend any of it. It was the most overwhelming moment I've ever experienced.

And then: "Sarah."

It was like hearing my voice for the first time. "Sarah Kane."

As words came back to me I was able to start shedding that intense knowing from my body. My brain could know, so that my body wouldn't have to.

That was 16 days ago.

Four days in the hospital and another ten days in bed at my parents' house gave me a lot of time to feel. In fact, I felt more than I have in years. And the flood of feeling overwhelmed me. For days I felt like I was suffocating.

And slowly, over these days, I learned how to speak again. To put words to the discomfort I am experiencing. To recognize the resentments and the pain that live deep inside me. That jealousy seething behind my eyes. The grief weighing like a rock on top of my heart. The fear squirming like a drowning fish, tripped behind my rib cage. The loneliness - the sadness - squeezing my lungs like an angry hand.

And as I slowly came face to face with these characters, I realized something very important.

I was going to have to name them. Address them. Give them a voice so they could speak, rather than tearing me apart from the inside out.

And, so, I'm going to.

I don't want to. But I want to feel better. I want to heal. I'll be doing that here. Not for validation from my readers, or to be seen and heard, but because there is no shame in honesty. My hope is that when I write about the pain, it'll be like that moment in the ambulance when I finally remember (and could say) my name.

See you next time, folks.

Nightmares, Summer Camp, and a Free 30 Day Audible Trial

Today I was sitting on a high top chair in the lobby of the YMCA when I saw her.

Her tangled, ashy brown hair falling like a mane down her skinny, spiny back. She leaned over the water fountain, her tiny chin straining outwards to catch a drink. She is 7. Maybe 8. Maybe older, but still small. There are scabs on her heels and knees. She is electric, she is anxious, she is wild.

My heart leaps when I see girls like this, girls who remind me of her. My camper. My camper whose sweet, beautiful name I can't say here on the awful, no-good internet.

Today was... a lot.

Today was the aftermath of yesterday, which was the aftermath of several years.

Yesterday I drove through the pre-dawn hours of the morning to work, where I arrived at 5AM. I unlocked the Y to leave the naked outdoor darkness for the warm buzz of a waking building. Like a zombie I completed my opening tasks. I listened to the dim eighties music trailing down from the upper level. I counted the cash drawer and yawned, subconsciously lulled by the distant whir of fans being turned on and machinery stirring. I love these early morning sounds, for too many years I have taken them for granted - the coffee machine growling, the computers softly humming, the lights whining above me.

Yesterday was a long day. The sun rose, people arrived, and I worked. I left my shift exhausted and immediately returned to bed, where I dreamed. My work clothes still on, sticking to my skin as I became damp and warm under my blankets and drifted deeper into sleepfulness.

In my dream, I was trying to "walk the loop" of the first summer camp I ever worked at.

In my memories now, I can clearly visualize passing the old swimming pool, the spider-webbed streetlights casting shadows on the gravel road, the lake blurred out in front of me, softly lapping closer and closer to my dusty ankles as I plod along.

But in my dream, I was lost. The path kept winding into strange places, new buildings rose around me and I was disoriented. I ducked to peer into tents where campers slept in an eerie silence. Through cabin window screens I saw the faint rising and falling of the colorful sleeping bags. It was peaceful, it was chilling, it was overwhelmingly real.

In all that dreamy, faded, surreal calm I felt panic.

I was looking for something or someone, but even in my dream I didn't know what it was.

This was one of those dreams where you travel so far back into the recesses of your mind that you wake up feeling completely foreign in your own life. I woke up in August 2019 and I didn't recognize the boring beige walls of my room or the strange eastern light filtering in through my blinds. I was still in my dream, where somehow a whole summer of camp had passed, and then suddenly I was driving along childhood streets towards the house I grew up in on Kanuga Road, where my mom, ageless and omnipotent as she often is in my dreams, said: "How was camp?" as I stepped onto the welcome mat, my sandals still soaked with lake water.

I was looking for her [my camper], I think, and I didn't even realize it until today when I saw that child leaning on the water fountain and I felt a flash of something through my subconscious.

I am a little bit homesick for camp. And by camp, I mean... ugh, I don't even know how to say it.

Camp is a strong thread in the tapestry of my story. Every summer, I have loved my children. I have nourished those young ones with stories, with art, with music, with attention and company and hugs and snacks and games. There are children who I will always remember fondly, some whom I am still scared of, and then there is that one child who somehow managed to rip my heart out and take it home with her.

I am sad.

Today, when I saw her, I felt a rush of emotions. It wasn't just camp. It wasn't just nostalgia, or my post-period hormones, or guilty regret for not going back to my children this summer. [Though I do very much regret that.]

It was everything. It was that love that overwhelmed me when I saw her today. I can safely say that she, that one wild, terrifying little girl, was the single most important person who taught me how to love myself and others.

[Of course, she's not the only one who did. But she's the most precious to me in my mind.]

So let's recap that.

Yesterday, I was sad.

Today, I saw her.

And it wasn't her. It was some other child, who after drinking her fill ran off to line up with the multitude of other small beings pattering about in the lobby, waiting to climb the rock wall.

But that split second where I thought it was her, or even just imagined what it would be like if it was her, overwhelmed me. I remembered what it was like to love something outside of myself so intensely - so purely - not the way I love lovers [ugh, men], or my books, or my own fantasies [hopes and daydreams, you know?] Something else.

I'll admit, this evening was difficult. I laid on my bed and let emotions swirl around me. My life today feels so terribly unfulfilling, unimportant, uninspired. I know this isn't true, but I feel it. I wake alone and I fall asleep alone. No matter how many people I talk to throughout the day, I ultimately come back to myself and my mind - and trust me, it's pretty scary in there sometimes.

And today I was just so deeply, deeply sad. I was reminded, when I saw her, of that aching feeling of love and longing. The feeling of something outside of your body and your own entity capturing you fiercely.

Is that love? That ache that brings you out of yourself?

It is a painful ache, a sweet one, one that simultaneously makes me want to give up but also to keep going. I must keep going. Because there is something outside me that I love.

At camp, I would read to my girls at night. I read A Wrinkle in Time, and only A Wrinkle in Time. I have read that book so many times that I have paragraphs of it memorized by heart. We must have read through the whole thing three times by the end of that summer and over the course of five different groups of girls.

Tonight, as I lay in bed feeling that desperate, sad, ache, I searched the internet for that book on tape. Because I want to be the camper. I want to lay in bed and listen to the story, to lose myself in the tale of Meg Murray, who was one of the main characters of my childhood, and who captured my campers each night with her boldness and her flaws.

I had to get a free trial of audible to accomplish this. Now I'm worried I won't remember to cancel it before I get charged out the wazoo on the 10th of each month.

But I got it, I got the audio book, and I laid there listening to the author with her raspy, grainy voice as she said the words I have read out loud so many times. It was cathartic. I watered my memories with my tears. I let myself ache. I let myself feel.

Then, I sat up. Suddenly. I felt overwhelmed with an urge I haven't felt in months - and haven't felt this strongly in well over a year.

To write.

And I did - I am. And putting words to this ache, putting on paper the strange dreamy fragments of my mind feels so good.

Writing is a way to love. To honor. To sustain. I am glad I have returned to it tonight, when I needed it so very much.

I will fall asleep to the sound of Madeleine L'Engle reading outloud, and I hope my campers are out there, sleeping soundly also.

And I will write again soon.

I will try to capture that ache that brings me out of myself, because I need it to love those around me now. There are campers, little beings who need love, inside so many grown-ups. There are men I know who need their hearts watered with tears. There are women who need stories to soothe them. There is a camp counselor in me longing to nourish the world, and there is a camper in me who needs nourishment.

I will never stop writing about camp.

I will never stop writing.

I will never stop.

April Showers Bring Depression & Despair - WAIT WHAT?!

Based on my quick tally, I've cried nine times so far this month!

It's April 9th.

My friend Jacquelyn tells me it's normal. After all, I have three weeks left of my undergrad journey, which means, folks, it's the end of an era (cue symphony playing a dramatic finale measure). If that doesn't make you get a little emotional, well - you're probably not about to graduate college, so leave me alone! YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND ME! *weeps*

On top of the nostalgia (and PTSD from two semesters of Portuguese), there's also the fact that I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING. I've spent countless hours pouring over job sites and stressing about how I'm going to survive, and, oh - it's not looking good.

It's not that I can't get a job, it's just that... I can't really get a job. At least, not really one that pays a living wage... and one that has a description that makes me think, "hey, I guess I might NOT jump off a bridge if I had this job..."

So... there's that. There's also the moments of sheer panic where I start to hyperventilate and count the pennies languishing in my car floorboards just in case I'm homeless and need them (soon). I know, I have nothing to complain about. I live in the great capitalist United States of 'Merica, I have a roof over my head, I just finished four years at a (just okay...) university, and I've got my whole life ahead of me!

That's exactly the problem - my whole life! *morphs into Edvard Munch's The Scream* My whole freaking stupid life is ahead of me, and you know what?! That's freaking scary, man. I'm standing precariously at the top of a page on two giant inky words that say CHAPTER ONE, and I'm about to jump into a sea of nothingness. A whole bunch of pages that are crisp, white, and utterly empty.

And I'm supposed to fill those pages with what?! A career? Hobbies? Kids? Pshh. Yeeeeah.

I've been told** that it's ok to feel a little lost and aimless right now. I've been flattered, in the past, by those who found my dark and despairing humor entertaining. On this blog, I managed to make some of my deepest & darkest fears cute, clever and somewhat laughable.* But where's the line between "cute depressing" and "depressing depressing"?

To answer that question, I don't know, but I promise to keep trying until I find out.

Oh, by the way, I'm writing again. My condolences. :)

_____________________________

*Unless you all are liars! In which case... OH GOD WHAT A FOOL I AM
**I don't know if I was actually told this or if I made it up to feel better about myself.

A Story about My Legs

Boats, planes, trains, and automobiles
All have carried me far & wide.
But none are as strong
or as fragile
as my own two legs.

Kicking since the womb
they have persisted.
In childhood they carried me across creeks and up pines
Between neighborhood houses
up and down my own creaky staircase day after day.

They have worn ballet tights that pinched my thighs
and jeans that left tattoos of seams & buttons
that I marveled over in the bathtub.
They have launched me off sofas trampolines and bunk beds
They have hidden beneath so many sleepings bags & sets of sheets.

These legs carried me to every place I've ever been.
They have dragged my body out of an overturned car
They have fearlessly jaunted down school hallways
They have kicked in a hundred streams, swimming pools,
and oceans.
They have danced in clubs and college dorm rooms
they have dragged me to class after class
For 22 years I have stared at them below me,
connected to a body that is somehow mine.

At times
These legs have betrayed me
They have shaken and wobbled on high bridges
they have been gnawed on by countless mosquitoes
They have bled and itched and scarred each summer.
They have twisted on staircases
They have frozen in fear
pried open at the knees by a raging lunatic.

Sometimes I worry they are not enough
to take me to all the places I want to go
and to deliver me from all the places I fear
But I'm grateful for them
They have helped me stand, run, walk, climb
and at times, kneel
They have been a criss-cross applesauce refuge
for children, animals, babies
They have cradled the braided heads of my friends
and wrapped around trees & lovers
They have stretch marks and scratch marks
they are long and strong and deliberate
And they have carried me
faithfully
to every place I have ever been.

IGOR, FL \\Places I Hardly Know\\

Written May 2017 - Asheville, North Carolina
I G O R,  F L is a place I thought I would hate.

     I did hate it.

     The crowd I was with could have been a part of that sensation. I was driving a load of British and Scottish camp counselors around Florida and I was grumpy, sick – and even more sick of driving. I had spent an afternoon at the Tampa Aquarium, staring mindlessly into tanks and sidestepping around many erratic children.

     “Igor is a MUST SEE,” my friend Kat said.

     I had torn myself away from Jellyfish and Stingrays for Igor. I had once again braved the onslaught of Tampa’s rush hour traffic for Igor. I was enduring the incessant whining of French pop music for Igor.

     And we finally got there, and . . .

     What a disappointment.

     The cobblestones did not make this town feel quaint and historic – no. It felt trapped, suffocated by the past. Some type of Eastern European music trailed out of tin speakers as we trudged down the sidewalks searching for the rest of our crew.

     Bars on windows added to the oppressive feel. Most buildings stood abandoned. Rusty fire escapes hung low over the sidewalks, making the streets feel like cages. What was most distressing, however, was the people of Igor. They were few and far between, as most of the people walking these streets were decidedly not natives – women in heels clinging to the arms of their dinner dates, teens running in packs with their polaroids, tiny groups of middle-aged women pointing at falling down storefronts and frowning – these were not the people of Igor. These were the tourists of Igor, which for a few brief minutes, was a club I was a part of.

     No – the people of Igor were distinct. I saw them sitting on the tops of fire escapes, shopping in the corner markets and the curb shops, working behind the counters at the dark and dingy bars. An elderly man limped by us on our promenade down main street – pushing a baby in a faded red stroller – a baby not more than two months old, wrapped in a large t-shirt and loosely bouncing back and forth in her grubby chariot, her head heavily dangling on the top of her tiny body, her eyes open and wandering.

     I felt sick to my stomach as the old man continued on past us. There were a million questions present in my mind, but I felt I had no right to ask them, and so I silenced my discomfort and followed my group up to the edge of a tattoo parlor, stinging my eyes with all its neon signs, where the rest of our friends were waiting for us in a cloud of excited conversation.

     “Let’s get our ears pierced like Kat has hers done!” One of the Irish girls yelled.

     Somehow, with the town decaying around us, and my spirits deteriorating even faster, I agreed. We all crammed into the parlor. I paid my bill before taking a seat in the chair; unsure of what to tip for services I had not yet received.

     The needle was large and dull and I watched in wide-eyed horror in the mirror as it dove into my sunburnt earlobe and the blood slowly pooled. I thought my small silver hoop was beautiful, but the hole got infected and ached for weeks and weeks, burning hotly through the rest of our Florida nights, keeping me awake and tossing irritably between the dull bodies of my sleeping companions.

     Eventually, I took it out, but still to this day there is a miserable little lump in my ear, and when I feel my broken cartilage I think, “Igor! What a terrible place.”

A Response to (There Was Love.)

Two years ago - almost to the day - I posted this poem.

He was punching holes in walls and I was making 911 calls.

(We were holding hands and making jokes and cooking casseroles.)

     He swerved off the road screaming "I oughtta kill us both!"

(He massaged my aching neck when we got home.)

     There was cursing.

           (There was loving.)

                  There was abusing. 

                       

                       (There was loving.)

   

                             There was hurting.

                                  (THERE WAS LOVING.)

          There was choosing.

               (And I know he chose wrong.)

          But it's so confusing.

               (My enemy held me all night long.)

     

          And I'm still losing...

              (I'm still fighting a war that can never be won.)

               But I still love love.

               And love is never done.

Reading those words today sends a gross wave of nausea over me.

And also, relief.

Because HOLY CRAP have my feelings changed!

I don't want to invalidate all the heartbreak that 2016 Sarah was feeling in the immediate aftermath of abuse. I don't want to disagree with the fact that she DID feel love for this person who wrecked her life. But, having two years time and the Blue Ridge mountains in between he and I, my approach to the past has changed.

I want to throw up anytime I see the word "love" remotely close to his name.

That was not love.

No matter how many tender moments existed within the chaos - that was not love. He did not love me.

Did I love him?

The answer to that question no longer matters at all. Because I no longer have room in my heart and mind for that question to nestle, like a little bug chewing on a leaf.

These Nights and the Snow and the Books

This time last year, I was in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. 

It was already beginning to snow - and frequently - with white blankets of storms swirling in one day and blown away by sunshine the next. It was a strange and tender time in my heart. I went there to dwell on my life and to write, but I hardly did. I never really spoke while I was there - mostly I just listened. 

There is a certain kind of meditation that happened for me out there. It was not intentional, by any means. It was, in a way, forced on me by factors beyond my control. 

One, there was no cell service. That alone forced me to forget about scrolling through Instagram as a mindless hobby. I carried books around. I read so many books. And while I wasn't really writing, at least I was reading. I was soaking up the beauty of my beloved craft, even if I wasn't actively creating it. Reading books might not seem so different from reading off a screen, but it really is. Somehow, it's quieter. I go deeper into myself, while at the same time, farther away than I ever get when I'm scrolling on social media. Reading took me beyond myself, beyond the rickety twin bed and the screeching porch rocker, beyond the Rockies. 

This was a form of meditation for me, losing myself (the shallow, contrived, play-acting part of myself) to find that part of myself that does not babble mindlessly but that listens, and watches. 

There is a me within me. She is my core, and she is nothing that you see. She is not funny, or tragic, or dramatic, or angry, or sorrowful, or idealistic, or anything, really. She is beyond all that, further back than all that. She is quiet. She is eyes and ears who aren't looking for anything in particular. She is a pure drop of me-ness in a sea of world-ness.

And she is who I became when I read my books.

And what else brought me down to her? The snow brought me to her. I liked watching it fall like dust blown off a windowsill down on onto my life. My life was suddenly fully contained between Long's Peak and Big Thompson Canyon. There was little else. There was no downtown Atlanta, there was no Veritas Christian Academy, there was no ex-boyfriend, no childhood home, no bible studies with girls I "kinda sorta know" and no one that knew me. 

That was all gone, and with it, gone was the Sarah that was concocted to survive in those worlds.

I was now somehow different.

That's not to say the same petty worries and lingering character flaws didn't follow me, because they did. But, thrust out of my normal environment into this strange and beautiful world, I had less time to exercise them.

It was a tender time, a raw time, and I was busy doing not much of anything. I spent nights either alone, in my small and quiet twin bed beside a drafty window, or with Jon. His cabin was sweet and small and in need of a woman. We spent many nights together, on our sides, gazing up at the window to our right, outside of which some sort of moon was always hanging. I liked to listen to his voice as I was falling asleep. 

I was unable to write. And most of the time, I was unable to speak. But lying here, in the safe blanket of darkness, I could begin to whisper fragments of thoughts to him. It was different - he didn't try and make sense of anything I said. Some boys before had tried to "understand" me, and I never felt like he tried to. He just held my hand, squeezed it maybe, and said very little.

This brought me down to myself, to my core of "me-ness". These nights, and the snow, and the books, and many other things which I long to write about as well. 

sk

Where Has Sarah Kane Been?

My blog currently consists of 141 published posts and 7 drafts.

Lately, it has been very hard for me to write. I sit down and open my keyboard, but something inside me balls up tightly. I have a hundred thousand words welling up within me, yet I can't express any of them well.

What has changed from two years ago, when words flooded out of me so easily that I actually had to work HARD not to spill them all out?

It's tricky for me to say. Perhaps it's the grind of being a senior in college, of writing paper after paper, essay after essay, speech after speech.

Or maybe it's the monotony of working in customer service, in a job that requires me to keep a smile plastered on my face and a script flowing from my cheerful lips at all times.

Or maybe it's feeling an immense amount of pressure from the world around me to be perfect. I've already shared so many of my failings - so many epic flops of my life. Failed relationships, failed jobs, failed friendships, failed educational pursuits, and the list goes on.

Maybe I'm sick of faking it at work and school, but maybe I'm also sick of being brutally honest here, in my writing. My life is so messy and imperfect as it stands now, but I feel no need at the moment to invite anyone into the complexity. It's also, on a daily basis, very mundane. I get up, I go to school, I go to work, I see my boyfriend, I go home. My days are riddled with the same daily anxieties and to-do lists, the same simple pleasures (ice cream, Netflix, going on walks) and none of it really seems WORTH writing about.

Then of course, as I type this, I recall that writing isn't so much about what you have to say as it is how you say it. I could write about the ice cream cone I ate for seven long and winding paragraphs, and if I'm really getting into the ART of writing, it'll be good. Or at least... I'll feel good, after writing it.

So, why did I say all this?

Really, this was a horrendously forced post. I sat myself down and said, "right, I don't care what you say, or whether you blatantly lie, but you MUST write something."

And, so I did.

I will make a valiant effort to overcome the artists' blues I've been so deeply in the throes of, because even now, as my finger gets close to the "publish" button, I feel that little twinge of gratification, and it makes me long for the days when I typed up a daily fury.

sk

two poems

//Sad Girl//

Sad girl does a good job cleaning up
Shutting away her sorrow in her cabinet brain.
It is collecting slowly behind her eyes
Dripping back and forth between her ears everytime she tilts her head
to listen to your stupid jokes
while you are mesmerized by the dangling bluebird earrings
that try to take flight when she laughs

she laughs
and her shoulders curve up
Her body is a bowl holding sadness that she struggles not to spill
onto everything she needs.
all her papers and books
the ink drawings from a man she works with
the sad poems that she eats for dinner
and the long list of things that broke her heart.

//Train//

I would like to hop the train that runs through biltmore village
And leave behind all the beauty gurus yammering at me through a screen
And the fifteen minute workout for the perfect butt
And the aisles upon aisles of the ideal vitamin
And the shelves of books on how to stop being sad
And I would like to sleep on a hard metal engine room floor, 

next to some burlap bags of carcinogens
and dirty ashy puddles of rain water

that offer nothing to me whatsoever.

The Tragic Teens

[This is a story and he is in it.

But it is not about him.

I have spent two years mourning the loss of almost a decade - a decade of stories that I feel I must bury along with him. I have said before I struggle to detach myself from him, to unravel the twisted thorny vines that he rooted in my tender, developing heart, to edit out his dark narration of these years of my life.

I have thought about throwing all that sweet soil of ages 12-20 out with the weeds.

But I refuse.

He is in it, but it is not about him.]

I. 

I do not recall what kind of underwear I wore when I was twelve.

But I do remember with great detail my choices when it came to my socks. 

They were plaid, and they had to be knee-high. I owned three pairs in different colors and I cherished them. 

Knee-high plaid socks were a no-brainer. I was a private school girl now, after all these years. But, I didn't like my knees and thighs. They looked strange and bulky, poking up out of all that argyle. My solution was tights, worn strategically under the socks, to give my legs what I perceived to be a flattering "airbrushed" effect. Then, it was shoes. Ballet flats, of course - something cheap, and very bad for arch support. Unless it was PE day, and then it was sneakers, yes, right on top of all that plaid and those tights which were all on top of me: Sarah Kane, age 12.

I never doubted that these fashion choices were right for me. Were they ideal? Of course not. In an ideal world, I wouldn't be wearing a starchy pleated skirt and a white polo shirt - and I certainly would have had better legs - but, even at 12, I knew what I had to do, and that was to focus on my strengths. 

I knew my strengths had something to do with the fact that I was half British, could play the piano, and was very good at reading. And, newsflash, none of those things had anything to do with the way I looked. So my plan was to distract from my mediocre appearance by covering up as much of it as I could - and hence, we find 12-year-old Sarah layered in tights and socks, no matter the time, and no matter the place.

There exists somewhere on the internet a relic from the past. A photo of me and a few of my classmates loitering outside a gas station in Washington D.C. on our eighth-grade trip. It was sweltering, we were miserable. The baby hairs at the nape of my neck were curling in protest, my palms were damp, a sunburn was creeping across my forehead, and my socks were still over my tights. 

"Why do you do that?" One of the girls in my class asked, snarling her upper lip and looking down at my legs. 

"Do what?" I asked.

"Wear your socks over your tights." 

"I don't know what you mean." I was completely thrown. Was this girl crazy? What kind of a question is that? 

"It's just, normally, you pick one or the other, it's just... oh, never mind." She gave up, wandering away to purchase a soda. 

II.

I am grateful not so many people bothered me about these things. The comments I do remember still sting today. When I suggested in my video production class that we do makeup on the boys for one of our projects, one of them raised his hand and said mockingly, "yeah, well too bad YOU'RE the one who really needs it!"

"Adam, that's enough," our teacher said.

He silenced my foes, he stood up for me. He was a good teacher.

A few weeks later when I came into class wearing a little bit of eyeliner and mascara, our teacher peered at me curiously. "When did you start wearing makeup?" He asked.

"Today," I blurted out. Crap. I had meant to say "oh, I always have" or something less monumental than the truth. 

"Well, you don't need it," our teacher said, "but you look very pretty."

My cheeks felt hot. I had never been told that in that exact way, that exact tone. There was no shock, no surprise, it almost as if it was a fact and not just something to say. Fact: I look very pretty.

I rose from my seat and walked to the door where I paused. I knew that socially it was required of me to provide some kind of reply. I turned to my teacher. "Yes, it was very kind of my parents to let me start wearing makeup. They knew I wanted to look pretty for my last few weeks of life." 

"Are you dying?" He asked, a brow raised.

I shrugged. "Only of boredom. Boredom, boredom, boredom." With these words and a flush still warming my cheeks, I dramatically exited the classroom. End scene. 

III.

Drama class was shockingly boring. I had expected something much more stimulating than what I remember taking place.

What I remember is being handed sheet after sheet of white printer paper and being asked to draw set designs for this scene and that scene. But we couldn't even draw the sets so they looked pretty. If it was a chair, it was just a circle with the word chair inside it. If there were steps, we just put lines with the word steps on them. No shading whatsoever! It was a disgrace, really.

But one day, when I was done early, I crept over to the grand piano that sat solemnly in the corner. I never, ever recall that piano being played by anyone other than me. 

I gingerly touched the keys, hoping that the chatter of eighth graders would swallow any noise I was making. I played. As I let myself wash over the keys I felt the excitement of creativity buzzing in my veins. I was making it up as I went along. It was a thrill.

And then, my drama teacher was behind me, her swaying bosom right beside my ear. "Oh, that is delightful!" she swooned. "What are you playing?"

"I wrote it," I said. 

"Oh!" She squealed. "Incredible! You must write for the senior play!"

She needed some lines from The Tempest set to music. Eight or nine lines, to be exact. I worked on it for days. I wasn't used to my creativity being commissioned. It was painstaking to carve out a melody. The problem was that the lyrics were so short, it was almost impossible to create a complete piece of music with them. But I did it. And I played it for Mrs. Stone and she clapped her hands with glee and shoved a cheerful senior in my direction. "Teach her," she said. 

I wish I could say I remember this senior's name, but I do not. I remember she was so tiny, tiny as a bird, I thought. And her hair was dark and she had bangs that swooshed across her beautifully crystal clear forehead that housed crystal clear eyeballs which were surrounded by thick, overwhelming shards of mascara. She was perfect.

I taught her the song, and I gave the pianist for the play my notes for what to play. 

The day came to go see The Tempest. I considered this not only my virgin expedition but my magnum opus, my pièce de résistance. My supportive parents peered over my shoulder at the program. I hope my name was in there. At this current moment, I can't be sure it was, although I do feel a distant memory of myself looking at my name in striking black ink against the cheap yellow paper and thinking, "that little name right there, is me?"

The time finally came, it was my song. I smiled as the pianist began. And then, the senior opened her mouth, and out came a vile, off-key rendition of my masterpiece. She was squawking out the iambic pentameter like a sick, sad parrot and I wanted to sink into my chair and die, die die!

"She was just nervous," A well-meaning grown-up soothed me later. But I had lost faith in seniors, utterly and absolutely. However, I now had something absolutely despicable to ruminate on during drama class for the rest of the semester. I watched my drama teacher pace the room while I scratched away at printer paper. Chair, chair. Table. Curtain. I was relishing my first real taste of humiliation, of failure. 

I was a true artist now. And even better, a martyr. I was suffering, and I was very, very good at that. I added it to my list of strengths. 

-Half British, can play the piano, good at reading and writing, with an aptitude for suffering. 

[to be cont.]