reminders

reminders

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

so fall is officially here and september is passing without all those cold damp days !!  my heart and soul have yearned all year for short days, crisp air, and leaves of red and gold drifting slowly to the ground. i thrive in autumn. in autumn, it feels as though i can finally breathe. i am ready for cozy blankets, homemade apple pies, pumpkin candles, fuzzy socks, the smell in the air as the wind blows cool. i am wholeheartedly ready for autumn.

i love wearing oversized sweaters, eating soups, crunch leaves, aargh !! i am alive !!

as i’m writing this, my cat petals is next to me dreaming of something and making soft noises. i’ve come to realize that i’m living in some sort of valley even tho the mountains, are not actually mountains, but they are a respectable hills… i’m super excited for fall to arrive to paint the trees with beautiful strokes of orange, red, yellow… i live in an eden, y’all !

my boys patriots have been marching towards superbowl whatever, crushing their opponents, creating unnecessary drama (aka atonio brown) and they have been better than they were before. on my health update: past week has been a bit rough for me as i was mostly “light headed”. i think the prednisone had functioned only way too well and my lungs were completely open and i was breathless for completely different reasons. well i immediately stopped taking prednisone monitoring my breathing and keeping myself consciously focused. also i was the first one to get a flu shot for this season.

i’ve been interviewing as people keep bugging me. but i have set my salary high as i really don’t need to look for another job.

the biggest update of my life is :  the coop girls from work and i have formed an investment group and we are planning to invest in various joint ventures. i am thrilled to bits because this actually challenges me as i am not made to work from 9 to 5. i have tried to no end to get more skills from the goddamn department where i work, but that came to no fruition. what pisses me off more is that none of those people, i approach got no balls to tell me that they don’t want to teach me. but despair not ! i have found others who are willing to teach me and take my help.

the girls whom i have come to think of as my daughters, and i work at a lot of logic puzzles and when we chat we are always talking about our careers, future and us being feminists. i really think they look up to me as their mentor, and they have a lot of admiration for me and vice versa. they are young and getting started on their lives and i am really happy to make that impact on their lives and even if they take a nanobyte of what i taught them and apply to their lives, my purpose is done. i  really think as humans, we should be more than a simple mammal which eats and poops… i need to challenge myself and excel. and working on investing gives me that outlet. i’ve given myself five years to stabilize my life which was upside down with my husband’s death and i’m patting myself on my back as it’s not yet year three, and i’m well ahead of the schedule !

the girls the other day did the sweetest thing for me. in passing i mentioned to them i love when someone leaves me notes. and both my husband and my love julien used to leave me notes and i miss that a lot. so on monday, when i went to work, my whole monitor was filled with post it notes and they were quite creative. i laughed so much and also, i fucking teared up ! i need to bring those notes to my home so i can cherish them when i am old and sitting in a rocking chair with a couple of kitties on my lap.

already buying a house went on a back burner this year and in lieu of that i thought of buying another suv, and was debating between bmw x7 and bmw x5 and i have finally settled on x5, but i think i am gonna push that to the back burner till next year.

i’m quite pleased with myself lately as i’m very energized and seemed to be on the road to healing. the darkness seems to be making way to light, sun, humor and best of all, the feeling of doom is slowly going away..

missing my husband a lot. i mean it’s five years already and why the fuck can’t i forget ?  i went out with the boy and sat a table for five in a moroccan restaurant, that exclusively played classical music, and he assured me that i should write more poetry and that the world would listen if i spake….. i told him he should get laid, preferably by me. i was there before, soon after my husband had died. i remembered looking around me through my tears and secretly hoping someone would fall in love with me.  it was ages ago and i have paved my ways with my teeth… constantly grinding them and tightening them.

life was strange and always always hard for me. i constantly remind myself of the good friends, lovers who saved me from ending it all. tears and more tears. i have seen good and bad. went through a lot and through it all. i haven’t learned much. but i have given up on fighting and wanting. lather. rinse. repeat.

when my love julien died, i’ve thrown away all of my calculators since i’ve seen last of him. i no longer needed to measure the speed of my blood which flows in my vein when he walked towards me.

i grew weary. who is it that said our beds are crowded with the ghosts of our past ? i don’t have many ghosts but i have bitter shadows. the boy is away for his work and i keep waking up to the sound of my heartbeat. i’m writing a poem for him in the shower. i often find myself in the grips of loneliness. is this what love is ? or is it the myth of love…

the boy assures me. he is ready to marry me. he pledged that he will be faithful to me. i told him, once, twice, on repeat… i don’t care for his promises; as long as you are open and honest with me. all i want from him is that he won’t forget. i want to be able to look at a mirror and not see the ghosts of my past who dug their graves inside me. if i were to be a cemetery to all these ghosts, i at least want to be able to have a garden and not just be a rotting old coffin who houses all these ghosts. let me bloom. let me stretch my neck towards the stars & gather the warmth. let me water them with my tears. let me hold my skin together to house my withering spirit and not sink into the darkness. this is not a lament at being heart broken. this is just a simple wish to gather the moons, stars & wishes and put them in my pockets. after all, pants with pockets are really important when the nights are this cold and dark.

anatomy of me being scared and being brave

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

12/02/2017

i write stories to survive… i write stories to remember that i am still alive. this year is weird. this year is being scared and being brave. a few years ago, when i found myself all alone, i thought it was like the whole universe was shaking its fists at me, at us (my kids and me). sometimes i forget about the times silence filled up the house, and sometimes i forget about the nights i didn’t sleep and sometimes i forget about my shaky legs carrying me around from one empty room to another empty room trying to find comfort.

people probably are under the impression that i walk around with these things tucked in my pockets, and that i wake to my sadness and greet them in the morning; but i think my grief, and sorrow has a way of hiding themselves in the gaps of my bones, living under my skin like a itch that doesn’t go away and they only rears their head now and then.

there are other things hiding there as well…. things i don’t talk about, because when you give them words, you give them weight and they are already heavy enough on the nape of my neck pushing me down into the earth. i don’t need to share the weight. and i’m not afraid of them, but they are unnecessary, unerasable reminders on the path behind me. i am not claiming i won’t look back. but i’m trying to not let the things from my past falter my steps forward. there are a lot of things i could tell you about.

like all those sliced up thighs and thin red lines on my wrists and the time the only boy i ever loved telling me to turn around and never look back. there are a lot of things i could tell you about, you know ? my friend screaming at me to stop me doing something stupid and the night at the hospital i sat next to julien knowing that it was the last chance to say goodbye.

but i don’t think it’s something that i’ve got to do because those stories are just stories and their effect has already been filled.  i am what i am but i am filling into the details and i am still learning. like how i’m realizing how there’s something attractive in distance, to me. there’s something harrowing and beautiful about getting in the car and just going. which is what i do. often. and, one day, what i think i’ll do. i think, because of the ways that changed me, running as far away from things as possible and holding them at arms length feels right, even if it stifles the way my eyes shine, and the way i am trying, ceaselessly, to bridge all of these gaps and stitch up these miles. it’s not just about love. it’s about owning up to all of the things that i feel, which is something i am bad at and which makes my lips stutter and my hands shake.

so the things i’m learning to be brave about? they’re not about the suicides or the hasty goodbyes or leaving a home i thought i knew. and not about all those things that people shoot me sideways glances about. it’s about the feelings i tucked inside my chest and didn’t tell anybody about–not because i was ashamed but because i didn’t think they were relevant or that anyone cared.

so i’m growing up and still learning, and i’m getting to the place where words are always burning that the tips of my tongue. it feels a little uncomfortable, but how else am i supposed to deal? i’m gonna find a way to let them go. and it’s not brave in a “baring your soul for the world to judge” type way. it’s brave in a “finally becoming comfortable with being who you are and not letting anyone, namely yourself, tell you that there isn’t worth in that.”

i have been trying to be brave for a few years now and i do this over and over again every december… i have a little post it note on my bathroom mirror which says “become committed to being scared and being braver” and i’m gonna start living by it, or i’m going to be doomed to a life of sidelining myself, and only ever being brave for other people.

so i’m showing up here again with my heart on my sleeve and a handful of things i want to tell myself and to let go. i hope i’m ready to listen, i hope i’m ready to believe. it’s not a process, it’s not a step-by-step program. it starts the second i want it to, the second i step up, and that second, for me, is right here. right now.

hello again, december !