Wallflower Writing

Wallflower Photos and Wallflower Writing

Wallflower Writing

You deserve better love.

My mom and dad met at alcoholics anonymous. Not exactly a Cinderella story. But I survived.

Eventually, my dad died from the long-term side effects of a drug overdose. Or an actual overdose. There is a fine line between the truth and his truth. And honestly, I never want to know the difference.

Before I was 16, my mother became estranged from me and by the time I was 18, I was estranged from her.

Sometimes even when the world says the opposite, our life experiences will chain us to a life sentence.

When I was going to middle school there was a guidance counselor who always had her eyes on my family. Weekly visits to her office which I always thought was counterproductive since I was being pulled out of class.

But, when you’re in a bad situation you don’t always know it.

You can’t always see for yourself that the hand that feeds you sometimes doesn’t always have your best interest in my mind.

Or even, that the hand that feeds you is not the only way to survive.

When you’re from a broken home, you search hard in every nook and cranny for goodness. Almost hard-wired to be better. You hold tighter to nuances of hope wherever you can get them. You stitch them up in your soul so you can be the one to wrap goodness around everyone and everything that comes your way.

But putting a blanket over a problem doesn’t make a problem go away.

Not even one that’s stitched in goodness.

There’s so much to be said about getting the help that you need. So much humility in admitting that it takes more than years of being strong to survive.

There is just much more to living than just repeating techniques which we used to survive. 
There is love to be had, if only we let love in.

We can do better when we know better,
but we are not always taught to know better.
It is up to us to re-wire. To get better.

Healing is not forgetting where you have been. Healing is taking back the love that didn’t get in.

So much of who we are was decided for us, but it is up to us to choose differently.

You don’t just inherit the chains you are given.Eventually, you set yourself free.🌾

-Wallflower Writing

#vulnerableshare #ptsd #recovering #bekind #mystory #wallflower #healing #freedom

Listening is truly a rare artform. Do you listen? Or do you just wait for your turn to speak? Do you listen to my eyes? Read my wrinkles? Hear my tones? Feel my cadence? Study my beats? Are you listening? Or are you just waiting for your turn to speak?

It’s probably time to toggle off the automatic rebuttal. Put your phone down and pick your head up. Push aside your “self”. Quit putting mental energy into forming a response. Meet and greet with grace. Listen with compassion and intention at every encounter in between. Look into my eyes, don’t just read my lips.

Be an active listener. It is only when you listen that you hear the cries that call us to change the world. Because when you take the time to LISTEN, you will see that someone having that intense and vulnerable experience of being heard, looks just like love.

We are only human. We are hard-wired to care about ourselves and to serve ourselves. It does not make us bad people, but it does mean we could probably use a little fine-tuning. And maybe we could all use just a little bit more of that love.

So I ask you to take it with you and think about it. Are you truly listening or are you just waiting for your turn to speak?

I started rolling my socks. Or folding. Or matching. To each, their own.

It’s one of those things I thought that I would never do. Why marry them when I’m going to pull them apart in one second?

But, all the time I spent ruffling through my dark sock drawer, searching for a matching pair would get me all sweaty.

I would huff until I found the right pair and don’t even get me started on what it’s like to search for the little slip socks that go with flat shoes. Some days we mix and match without care. Different sizes? No big deal. Until your sock keeps falling and it throws your existence into a spiral. 

Getting ready to go for the day always starts with this mentally and physically tedious task. So, we buy more socks. It’s easier to just buy more socks than to deal with this mess. 

Better-fitting socks.

Cooler socks.

Then we wear them all through. And when they’re clean you throw them as you do, unmarried and unrolled into the abyss of your sock drawer.

Eventually, it gets harder and harder to find a pair.

Every wash and dry makes them smaller and somehow the drawer has grown larger. You’re sorting through what seems to be 8 years of socks, with a mix of some of your kids and the occasional sock of your husband. New socks. Old socks. Cool socks. All the socks.

They’re all there and yet, somehow, not a single pair.

You perpetually spend more and more time unsatisfied, digging through your drawers.

Getting ready for things, whether those things are finding your socks or finding your sanity, all start with you and the work you’re willing to put in to look after your future self.

I get that now.

I must choose to take the time it takes.

We have to do what we can to make sure we can get out the door without the chaos that clutters us inside, that we can never talk to anyone else about.

Nobody wants to hear about your socks.

Everybody has their own unique sock situation.

Only you can take care of the things that take up space in your head. And only you can take care of your socks.

So take care of your socks and take control of the things that you can. You don’t have to fight your socks. Only you can know how much you’re willing to take before you decide to change it and only you can change it.

Can you imagine that in due time, mere socks could lead you to insanity? One sock at a time, for me, it felt like it was.

True accountability takes its most honest form when nobody else is looking at you.

So, I’m trying. I’m taking baby steps to look out for my future self, one pair of socks at a time. What are you doing for you today?

Not everyone in your life is supposed to be there.

There will be people who will be there for years and years and years and then one day just as fast as they came, they go. 

Some grief doesn’t have death attached to it. For some, it’s enough just to have the absence of that life in any form.

It is okay for friendships and good times to become memories. It is okay to go your way if it’s not right for you.

There will be people that you leave willingly. Choosing to undo growth before it begins because you know that some are only meant to be segments of your story and you’re still writing that story. 

Let that willingness out, you’re just not meant to serve them all, no matter the size of your heart. No matter how badly you want to.

Some people were simply not meant to be ours. It would never be fair to keep them, even when their pending loneliness falls heavy on your shoulders. That just doesn’t serve you, them, or your heart. And there’s not a soul that I ever personally met that deserved a half-assed friend. Not a soul.

Sometimes you have to go. 

Sometimes you will grieve these losses and other times you will celebrate. But each time a friend comes to you, you will be changed just as you are when they go, no matter the duration of the moment they stayed. 

Because every person matters, and every moment matters. These lessons teach us boundaries. This grief teaches us about discourse and how we can learn from it. No faith, no friendship, and certainly no time nor grief, no nothing is linear.

We were not meant for everyone. And not everyone was meant for us. Each friendship and every interaction is a lesson to learn.

But only if we are willing to learn it.