Tag: life

Self-Care When You’re Lousy at Self-Care

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

peaceSelf-care is important. It’s how one can maintain a happy existence even when life turns into a pressure cooker and your juices are threatening to boil. For some people, self-care comes so naturally that they don’t even have to think about it. They take time out to recharge their batteries, make time to do it. They take care of themselves with no problems. They relax without guilt. They don’t even think about not doing it. It just happens.

I am not one of those people.

Hell, I’m not even exactly sure what self-care really means. I know for some people it’s a reminder to take care of the basics because they get so wrapped up in stress that things like eating and drinking and sleeping and such get neglected. For me, self-care is more of a reminder to just take a break. To leave whatever stress or turmoil or work or whatever where it sits and walk away. Leave it alone, let it rest, and go soothe my soul with some kind of peace.

And I am garbage at that.

I’m one of those people who never works hard enough, is never good enough, and could always have done more. I’m one of those people who never deserves a break, never earns one, and I feel guilty if I even consider taking one.

For me, self-care is a struggle. Not only do I battle the inner narrative that I’m being lazy if I’m not being productive, but I also live in a world in which my attention is demanded. Alone time is hard to come by. I’ve learned to work through interruptions for the most part. Now I’m learning to self-care through them, too.

I’m learning to self-care, period.

As much as I long for a day (or a week, sometimes) of peace, I’ve learned to take it where I can get it. When I’m actively practicing self-care, like I did this past weekend, I accept that out of a day, I might get a broken hour or two of peace. Asking to be left alone for a while is not an option. The request either isn’t respected or if it is honored, it comes with hurt feelings because opting out of being someone’s personal audience for a day is considered a personal affront. So, I’ve found that it’s in my best interest to make the most of the time I can get. Little sips of peace. Not exactly full-on refreshing, but still nourishing.

As for the actual method of self-care, I relax best by doing something I really want to do that isn’t related to work. This past weekend, I did marker art. Sometimes it could be finishing a book. Other times I’ll dedicate my peace pursuits to studying some subject I’m interested in for an hour. It could just be a twenty minute dance party. For me, doing nothing is hard. There’s too much guilt and anxiety that comes with me doing absolutely nothing. If I do a little something amidst the nothing, then that lazy narrative has nothing to say. A gentle mix of productivity and rest.

I have found that, with continued practice, I’m getting better at this whole self-care business. I’m recognizing when I need to take these breaks and then I’m taking them. Before, I’d run myself into the ground and then run myself into the ground a little further before making the very slow climb out of the hole and feeling like a lazy fuck every inch of the way. Now I’m refusing to let myself get to that point.

Slowly but surely, I am getting the hang of this whole self-care business. I can’t say that it’s becoming more natural for me.

But I can say that I’m doing a much better job of including it in my world.

When We Talk About Orlando

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

pulseI went on two Twitter rants about the Orlando mass shooting since it occurred and what I’m going to do now is reiterate the three points I made in those Twitter rants for posterity (and with fewer “fuck you’s”, but they’re still implied).

When we talk about Orlando, we have to talk about the politicians that offer their thoughts and prayers while they continue to take money from the gun lobby. We have to talk about how they value their nickels and dimes more than common sense that could save lives. We have to talk about how they are so thirsty for votes that they will sacrifice whatever morality they might have on that altar made from spent shells and innocent blood. We have to talk about how they are so keen to protect the status quo, to protect their status in the hierarchy, that they will let people die so they can remain at the the top.  When we talk about Orlando, we have to talk about the price that has been put on our lives.

When we talk about Orlando, we have to talk about the breeding ground for hate. This was a hate crime. Nobody muttered the word “terrorist” until it was found that the shooter identified as Muslim. If this shooting had been perpetrated by a white Christian male (and when the news broke in the early morning hours, that’s exactly who I first thought the killer would be), he would be a “lone wolf” shooter. He would have been another Dylan Roof, but for the LGBTQ crowd. We have to talk about how so many “good Christians” are remaining silent about Orlando because they want to blame the victims (“I’m sorry it happened, but God says that homosexuality…”), but they can’t because that would align them with the shooter and more importantly with a religion they abhor. We have to talk about how many politicians have lobbied for bathroom laws, for sodomy laws, against marriage equality, against gay adoption. We have to talk about the preachers that use the pulpit to spread the message that being gay is an abomination, that we should “love the sinner, hate the sin”, that God can cure them of their homosexuality. We have to talk about how this shooting will be used to fuel Islamaphobia by both the politicians in their pursuit for votes and by the “good Christians” in their pursuit for conversion. We have to talk about how this fuckhead will be held up as an example of an entire religion, a lie that will be repeatedly told and with fervor. We have to talk about how millions of people are called upon to denounce this one fuckstick’s actions, but are still demonized. When we talk about Orlando, we have to talk about the casual way our society makes us less than.

When we talk about Orlando, we have to talk about the fact that the victims were gay. The media is glossing over this fact. People are taking to social media to ram home the terrorism part of the rhetoric, to ram home the fact that these were AMERICANS killed and that is more important than the victims being gay. No, it isn’t. We have to talk about the fact that before they were dead AMERICANS they were living GAYS, living with restrictions, being denied rights. We have to talk about how when they were living gays, YOU put the gay first, well before you even considered them being American. We have to talk about how you want to obliterate the victims’ sexual identity so you can condemn one religion without betraying your own. When we talk about Orlando, we have to talk about the fact that these people were targeted because they were gay and this sort of “terrorism” is something those of us identifying as LGBTQ have been living with and experiencing for decades.

Love winsWhen we talk about Orlando, we have to talk about caring, about support, about empathy, about tolerance, about understanding, about hope, about revolution, about worth, about humanity, about equality, about justice, about freedom, about help, and most of all, about love.

Love is love.

Love wins.

 

Ways to help.

Fear the Bathroom

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

toilet“OMG! They’re letting MEN use the GIRLS room! What is this world coming to?”

Hopefully, a quick and painless end via meteor, but I feel like we won’t be so lucky.

That quoted nonsense above is the rallying cry of the pearl clutchers on Facebook as of late. The idea that *gasp* transgender people might need to pee while out in public is apparently cause for great concern. The need to pee while out and about is a great concern of mine as well, but only because public bathrooms have a tendency to be fucking gross.

It seems that people who have never met a transgender person, never educated themselves on transgender people, and therefore have no fucking clue how it works are convinced that the ONLY reason a transgender person would go into a public restroom is to commit heinous acts of violation against others and not to, ya know, take a piss.

First, let’s clear up a few things and do a little education here. Here are some definitions you need to know.

A cisgender person is someone whose gender corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth

A transgender person is someone whose gender identity doesn’t correspond to their biological sex assigned at birth or someone who does not conform to societal gender norms or roles.

A transvestite is a person, especially a male, who assumes the dress and manner usually associated with the opposite sex.

A sexual predator is someone who would dress as the opposite sex for the specific purpose of entering a bathroom for voyeurism or to commit sexual assault.

Oh, hey, were you one of those guys that made a joke that you’d totally dress up as a chick so you could go into the girl’s bathroom because your working knowledge of life apparently comes from repeated viewings of teen sex comedies? Congratulations! You’re a sexual predator!

“But I was just joking! I wouldn’t actually do it!”

I don’t give a fuck. You’re part of the fucking problem, Beavis.

There is a HUGE bathroom problem. The problem is that men will gather their torches and pitchforks to protect their womens from the big, bad trannies lurking in bathroom stalls, but at the same time would scrutinize every detail of a woman’s account of actually being sexually assaulted by a cis male because this sort of accusation could destroy a man’s life, you know. The same man rending his clothes about the idea of a transgendered person peeing in the stall next to his wife at Target will automatically say that any woman accusing a celebrity of rape is lying and only doing it for the money. The men outraged about a trans woman needing to pee while out and about in public are the same ones that will tell you that “boys will be boys” and “she shouldn’t have drank so much” and “if you don’t want that kind of attention, don’t wear those clothes”.

Am I singling out the men here? Yeah, but I’m going to admit that there are women that feel the same fucking way and shame on them, too.

There’s another BIG bathroom problem that’s hardly getting a mention at all. You’re all so worried about what’s going on in the women’s room, but what about the men’s? What about the transgender women that would be forced to use the men’s room due to their sex assigned at birth? What about them?

That’s a rhetorical question because I already know what you bathroom defenders would say about them. You’d say, “Fuck them. They get what they deserve if they go into a men’s room because that’s what happens when you’re a freak.” My pants aren’t on fire, so you know I’m not lying.

And that’s just it, isn’t it, kids? Trans folks are more likely to be sexually assaulted, more likely to be physically assaulted, more likely to be murdered by cis folks than the other way around.

Because this battle of the bathrooms isn’t about protecting women from sexual predators. If that were true, if that were really the endgame, then public bathrooms would not be your chosen battle ground. College campuses and right inside the home would be the places to start.

No, this isn’t about protecting women from sexual predators. This is about protecting your ignorance, protecting your narrative, protecting your view of the world. The idea that someone exists outside your scope of understanding makes you uncomfortable, threatens you, scares you, and therefore, must not be allowed to thrive, to exist.

This isn’t about keeping women safe in the bathroom. It’s about keeping transgender people out of society, out of view, to make it harder for them to exist, to be normal, to be like everyone else. Because that’s what they really want, you know. They don’t want to destroy the sanctity of the public bathroom (God, if that were only a real thing, then maybe they’d be cleaner); they want to be treated with the decency and respect you would treat any human that needs to go the can when they’re out running errands, that you would treat any human anywhere, regardless of circumstance. They want to be like everyone else.

Guess what? They are. You’ve probably already interacted with one. You’ve probably already peed next to one. And you didn’t know it. Why? Because the transgender folks are trying to protect themselves from YOU.

And in the end, that’s what this whole fucking debacle is about, isn’t it?

You.

You and your ignorant bullshit (courtesy flush that deuce, if you please).

If you’re that concerned about the inner workings of the women’s public restroom (Seriously, what the fuck do you think happens in there? What are YOU doing in there that’s so goddamn interesting?), maybe YOU should only pee at home.

The rest of us, trans and cis, are happy to pee together in peace.

So long as you don’t piss on the seat.

 

*Definitions for cisgender, transgender, and transvestite were taken from dictionary.com. The definition for sexual predator was created specifically for this post, but still pretty accurate, no?

May Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

pinkflowerApril turned out to be quite a productive month for me, quite unintentionally really.

I finished the latest round of revisions on The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys as well as the first drafts of all five of the potential script contest entries (first fifteen pages and one-page synopsis) before I left for Chicago. Part of the purpose of going to Chicago, besides seeing friends and eating orange chicken, was to be able to work on my writing without interruption or distraction. I found myself in a hotel room with no major writing project demanding my attention as I was still undecided what script to do for the contest. I ended up polishing “What You Don’t See” and “Short Hallway” (I polished a haunted hotel story in a hotel room while watching 1408 because my commitment to a theme cannot be denied) and got about a third of Voice polished before I left. A productive short trip despite the anxiety troubles I had.

I finished polishing Voice after I got home. I then turned my attention to the script contest. I ended up picking one called Open Christmas Eve and did my best to get those first fifteen pages perfect. I hit the “What the fuck am I doing? I can’t do this! I have no idea what I’m doing. This is pointless” wall Friday night, got my “Fuck it” second wind Saturday afternoon, and after a few more tweaks and some polishing, I submitted it Saturday night. I recognize that it’s probably a waste of an entry fee (and only with extreme luck will I even win that entry fee back), but I still did it. There is some kind of accomplishment in pushing myself to explore different forms of writing.

Speaking of, April was National Poetry Month and as an exercise I made myself write at least four lines of poetry a day. They’re just scraps of poems, nothing glorious, and I have no idea what, if anything, I’ll do with them (I posted one on my Instagram at the end of the month to celebrate), but it was a fun little project.

After all of that in April, what’s to be done in May?

I’m going to completely finish The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys. It needs a little more revision (just some tweaks), a beta read, and a polish. Once that’s done, I’ll get to work putting together the ghost story collection. I’m also going to work on finishing the first draft of Open Christmas Eve. Now that it’s submitted, the rest of the script should be easy to finish and I’ll feel like less of a cheat having the whole thing written.

I sort of feel like spending the summer writing a short novel. I’ve got the idea (actually, I have two ideas, but I think I’m going to save one for NaNo) and I think I’ll spend some time this month working on fleshing it out.

No worries about getting bored. Still plenty left on my To Do List of Doom.

I Took My Anxiety to Chicago

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment
The frog no doubt was evil, but that's a different story.
No doubt the frog was evil, but that’s a different story.

Anxiety is just another fact of my existence. I don’t talk about it much because I don’t really think about it much. Having a low level of social anxiety coursing through my veins when I leave the house is normal for me. It’s so normal, I don’t even have to think about what to do to cope with it. I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s unconscious for me. Most of the time it doesn’t interfere with my functioning.

But, like my depression, my anxiety will occasionally flare up, sometimes for no identifiable reason.

That’s what happened this past week.

I was planning to spend a few days in Chicago. Aside from dinner with friends both nights, I was going to spend most of my short stay in my hotel room, writing. I was going to drive up there, leaving between eleven and noon, making my usual pit stop for gas and food, and get to my hotel right around check-in time. It’s been a few years since I’ve made the Chicago drive, but it’s one I’ve made often enough that I know it pretty well.

I anticipated a little anxiety. I usually have it on the Chicago drive. No big deal. I also anticipated my anxiety to spike when I got into the city, even though I knew my hotel was easy to find, just because driving in Chicago always makes me anxious. It has to do with not being exactly sure where I’m going and not wanting to look like an idiot.

I did not anticipate my anxiety being high when I woke up that morning. Coping slowed me up considerably and I ended up leaving later than I wanted to, but I left, reassuring myself that I’d be fine once I got on the road.

When I got to my pit stop, I still wasn’t fine. Normally, I get gas, go to the bathroom, grab something I can eat while I drive, and get back on the road as quickly as I can. This time, I lingered, eating in the parking lot, reluctant to resume my drive. But, I did, once again reassuring myself that I’d be fine.

By the time I got to Chicago, I was wound up tighter than three-day clock. I know I looked like a complete and total moron when it came to parking and checking in at the hotel, but I couldn’t stop myself from being anything but flustered. Failing to interact with fellow humans like a competent person did nothing to unwind that spring between my shoulder blades and by the time I got to my room, I just wanted to cry and then go home.

Instead, I chanted and coped and journaled and unwound that spring little by little. By the time I left for dinner, I was feeling better. The anxiety still had a weird edge to it, but it was back to what I think of as normal levels. And it stayed that way until it was time to check out.

I found myself once again lingering and I had to force myself out the door to the elevator because my need to not check out late is a serious drive. Once in the car, I programmed my phone’s GPS (even though I really didn’t need it), took a breath, and drove out of the parking lot. Anyone who might have seen me driving those few blocks through the city to I-90/I-94 or on that stretch of Interstate probably questioned my sanity (as well they should; sanity has never crossed my mind) because I talked to myself the whole time. Out loud, telling myself what a good girl I was, how good I was driving, how proud I was of me. A constant stream of praise that didn’t stop until I hit I-55 and felt “safe”.

Crazy? Sure. But it worked. I couldn’t hear my anxiety over all of the compliments. And because I couldn’t hear it, it couldn’t get the best of me. The drive home felt like every other drive home from Chicago, easy peasy.

Anyway, it’s not like my anxiety could complain.

I did take it to Chicago, after all.

I Was “Healthier” Then

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

PigtailsWhen I was 17 I weighed about 180 pounds. By no means is that acceptable to a thin-obsessed society, but it’s about 70 pounds less than what I weigh now. Therefore, because I weighed less then, I must have been healthier then, too, right? After all, aren’t we all repeatedly told that in order to be healthy you must weigh the minimum?

This bullshit line of thinking came to me the other day when I was walking. When I was in school, you had to run the mile twice a year, every year. As someone who has never been a good runner, even as a healthy-weight kid, this was my Hell. You had to run the mile in like 7 or 9 minutes (I’m sure my fellow classmates that were actually capable of doing this could tell me the right number). The most time allowed whether you ran or walked it was 15 minutes. You had to do it within that time frame to be considered acceptable.

I could barely walk that mile in 25 minutes.

I thought about that the other day because now, six days a week, I’m regularly walking a mile in 15 minutes or less.

But I weighed LESS then. So I had to be healthier back then, right? Isn’t that the bullshit logic we’re force fed today?

When I was 17, my physical activity was pretty much non-existent outside of the minimum effort I put into PE and whatever walking/standing I did at work. Granted, having H/I cup boobs kind of put a damper on more aggressive physical activity because that shit is painful, but I admit it. I was a first class slug when it came to moving my body.

My diet at 17? Well, I’d say I ate less than I do now. I pretty much lived off of french fries, pancakes, whatever the cafeteria served for lunch at school, and whatever I ate working at Taco Bell. That’s it.

But, I weighed less.

At 27 I weighed about 200 pounds. More than my high school senior days, but a good 50 pounds less than now, so I must have been healthier then, too, right?

Well, I kind of was. I moved a whole lot more, that’s for sure. After my breast reduction surgery, physical activity became much less cumbersome and potentially hazardous. I did yoga and belly dance five days a week in addition to whatever miles I clocked working at Wal-Mart 24 hours a week.

And I still ate less at 27 than I do now, I think. My diet basically consisted of whatever was quickest, whatever frozen, processed shit I could pull out of a package or anything I could dump out of a can, whatever I could stick in a microwave and heat up on the fly. Fast food and soda were staples to my diet. I basically ate like a raccoon foraging in a dumpster. I also smoked a pack a day.

But I weighed less.

Now I weigh about 250. I eat more than I did at 17 and 27, but I eat less garbage. Very little soda and fast food, way less processed foods. Most of the dinners I make are vegetarian. Most of the lunches I eat look like they were packed for a third grader, all of the food groups represented.

I move more than I did at 17, but less than I did at 27. Consistency has been my biggest issue. It was hard to get back on the exercise horse after I hurt my knee. It was hard to be consistent working three jobs with varying schedules. Now just working two jobs that are more stable, I’ve been slowly able to work that consistency back in. I’m moving more than I have in a long time and I’m really happy about that.

But am I healthier than I was then?

According to the scale and society, no.

But I feel like I am.

And So It Lingers

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

mirroredDepression is a fact in my existence. It comes and goes. Sometimes it has a trigger, sometimes it doesn’t. I had a very serious bout of it in my late teens/early twenties. I do not take medication for it. I manage it through lifestyle and I can go very long periods of time without any issues.

Another fact of my existence is that I get a touch of the blues around the Christmas holidays. I dread the period of time between Thanksgiving and my birthday because it’s hectic, it’s stressful, it’s demanding, and it harshes my mellow. Take the family obligations, add a day job in retail, and lingering aches from other holidays in different retail jobs and the stress is enough to trigger some blues. I don’t like to call it outright depression, but I’m definitely down during those couple of months.

As I mentioned in this post, for whatever reason, my holiday blues were worse this past Christmas season. I’m still not sure exactly why. However, the rule of thumb is that around my birthday, I’m typically feeling better. I love my birthday and all the entitlement that it brings too much to feel blue. And I felt better on my birthday. Not tip top since the blues had been so intense, but I was definitely feeling better.

And then I started feeling worse.

And then better.

And then worse.

And now I’m back to better.

And it’s really fucking annoying. Because, if I’m going to be honest, it’s not just the blues anymore. It’s more than that. It’s depression.

There are days when I’m unspeakably sad for no reason. There are bad brain days when there are no good thoughts to be found in my head. There are days when every smile I attempt looks more like a grimace.

I hate those days. Not just because they’re bad days, but because they’re days I’d forgotten. They remind me of the time I broke my brain, when the depression was so bad I began having symptoms of psychosis. I don’t like to be reminded of such things. It takes me to bad places. And the bad places are not where I want to go, kids. I do not like to entertain the bad thoughts that swirl through my head like a tornado.

Some days I don’t have a choice. It’s a tornado! If a tornado is going to hit your house, there’s nothing you can do about it. You hunker down and hope for the best. And that’s kind of what I do. I do what I need to do to get through the bad days, reminding myself that it’s just a day. Give it a day. Do my chanting, do my journaling, do my exercises and my meditating, stick to my routine, and the storm will pass.

Thankfully, there hasn’t been much in the way of damage.

Right now, I’m seeing blue skies for the most part, and I’m working hard to keep it that way. I know that there are some outside triggers that have been exacerbating my issues and I know there’s not much I can do about most of them. But I’m doing what I can do and eventually, this will all just be another incident in my depression history.

That’s the way I want to think about my depression.

Not as weather.

But history.

Show Your (Breast Reduction) Scars

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

cleavageApparently, Ariel Winter decided to wear a dress to the SAG awards that showed a little side-boob and as a consequence, also showed a little breast reduction scar. This, in turn, led to her defending her decision to show some scar along with some side-boob because, goddamn, we can’t be having with this showing of any imperfection, especially from the womens in Hollywood. We live in a society for crying out loud.

Read the comments of that People article (if you dare). In between comments of support and discussions of how bra sizes work, you’ve got people bitching that nobody wants to see that and men bemoaning the loss of Miss Winter’s breast tissue.

Now we all know that I’ve not been shy about my own breast reduction or talking about my boobs in general. I spent several years feeling like they were a completely different entity that happened to be attached to my chest, the objects of jokes and unneeded attention (so many guys wanted to just touch them because they’d never seen boobs so big outside of porn). My boobs are easy to talk about in a dispassionate sort of way. After being big for so long, they’re no longer a big deal.

But, the scars, man.

My hang-ups about my scars remain. They’re still a source of huge insecurity for me. Maybe if I hadn’t had the complications, maybe if I wasn’t predisposed to scar so badly to begin with, this might not be an issue for me. But, it is. I am endlessly amused by any guy that comments on my chest or stares at my tits because in my head I’m picturing the horror on his face if he saw what these jubblies really looked like.

Because I know he’s not expecting it.

It’s been over 13 years. The incision scars have faded, but you can still see them. The evidence of the complications I suffered with my left nipple/areola will never go away, never look normal. And let’s not even talk about the stretchmarks I acquired getting to the point of needing surgery.

That shit isn’t going away, kids. That’s me. Just another imperfection to add to the ridiculously long list of imperfections I have.

Miss Winter said that she wasn’t ashamed of her scars, they’re part of her. I have to admit that this child that I could have birthed has a very good point. Why should I be ashamed of the scars I incurred from a major surgery that took pounds of tissue from chest so I could make an attempt to live a more normal, pain-free life? Why should I care what some guy that I’d never show my tits to in the first place thinks about my scars? Why should I care what anyone thinks of my scars?

Pardon me, kids.

My self-perspective has just done changed once again.

In Case of Nuclear War…Smoke

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

nuclear cigarette“Oh, this, yeah. It’s in case nuclear war breaks out. I gave it up a long time ago. It’s part habit, part superstition. It’s, you know, a writer thing.” –Mike Enslin (John Cusack) explaining the cigarette behind his ear to Mr. Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) in 1408.

I have a pack of emergency cigarettes.

I officially quit smoking like six and a half years ago (June 20, 2009; it’s one of the few dates I remember and not because of the significance, but because I have an easy way to remember it) and since then I’ve smoke a few cigarettes, usually in social situations with a certain group of people. I bum one for old time’s sake, smoke it, feel disappointed that it doesn’t have the same calming buzz effect that it used to, and I’m good. This doesn’t mean that I don’t still feel that craving. It doesn’t mean that I don’t still dream about smoking. It doesn’t mean that I’ve gotten over the habit of wanting a cigarette as soon as I get in the car or after I eat. It doesn’t mean that I don’t really, really want a cigarette when I’m anxious, stressed, or feeling blue. It just means that I didn’t really need that cigarette right then.

But sometimes I do.

I have not been shy in saying that smoking was a form of self-medication for me, primarily to help me deal with stress and anxiety. I never crave a cigarette more than when I’m stressed. I just want that poison in my lungs, I want to feel that exhale of smoke because a certain measure of stress goes out with that polluted air. When I get stressed, the first thing I think about is lighting a cigarette. But I don’t.

Until I do.

I have yet to find a completely successful alternative way for me to deal with stress, anxiety, or depression. This is in no way knocking the methods I have found. Meditating and chanting and yoga and dancing and drawing have all been great and a vast majority of the time, they get the job done.

Until they don’t.

This past holiday gauntlet was just miserable for me for no discernible reason. The only thing I can think of is that my usual holiday blues got an extra boost from the lack of sunlight. Whatever the issue, by the time New Year’s Eve hit, I was at the end of my rope and that thing was tied in a noose. Nothing worked to back me off that ledge. Nothing.  All I wanted was a cigarette.

I had one hidden away in my dresser. I’d used it as a prop for a Halloween costume one year and never threw it out. I knew it was in there. I knew it could save me.

Saturday after New Year’s Day, I was going out with some friends. I decided that when I left the house, that cigarette would be coming with me and I’d smoke it in the car on the way to dinner. Sure, I’d probably bum one or two off of one of the girls later on in the evening, but that would be social. This was business. Serious business.

I smuggled that cancer stick and lighter (even after I quit smoking, I’ve always had a lighter around) out of the house in my coat pocket and lit it up as soon as I pulled out of the driveway. I inhaled that death smoke and I exhaled everything that had been clinging to my nerves for the past two months. That old, healing magic was back. I enjoyed that cigarette more than any I’ve smoked since I quit smoking six and a half years ago because it did what they all did before I quit. It made me feel better.

Last week, I bought a pack of cigarettes and hid them in my dresser. Why hide them? Two reasons. One, people will line up around the block to tell you how bad smoking is for you and how disappointed they are that you fell off the wagon even if you really haven’t. Fuck that noise. I don’t expect you to like what I do or even understand it, but it would be most appreciated if you could just shut the fuck up about it. You don’t have to say a word. Believe me. I KNOW.

Two, I know where they are and that’s all that matters. Like a fire exit or alarm or extinguisher, I know where it is and I know how to get to it and I know how to work it when I absolutely need it.  It’s that emergency plan they always told you that you should have when you were in grade school.

The next time I feel myself going nuclear, I’ll break that glass.

Turning 36

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

heartthrobHere I am, turning 36 only a couple of days after David Bowie died, and my brain is having a lot of thoughts.

The first thought is that I had no idea that I would be this affected by the man’s death, in part I suppose, like many, I never thought about him being anything other than immortal. But also, as much as I enjoyed the man and his work, I don’t think I’d ever call myself a David Bowie fan. I think the only thing I own is his greatest hits album, though I’ve definitely listened to much more than that. I just didn’t spend the money or have the devotion required to call myself a fan, I think. And yet, news of his death has left me prone to tears.

In seeing all of the very lovely thoughts and remembrances scrolling along my social media feeds, all of which were quite touching and it was amazing to see how this one person affected so many people, a certain sort of theme kind of captured my mind.

Existence and reinvention.

Existing as you are, whatever you are, that day and existing as that human until it’s time to be something else, then reinventing yourself into your new existence. That’s basically what David Bowie did during the course of his career. And people dug it because they could relate to it. They could relate to every phase of his being no matter what the outward projection was. They could relate to that honesty and that otherness that they maybe couldn’t quite accept or express in themselves.

This isn’t meant to be some kind of poetic eulogy of questionable quality. It’s supposed to be about me turning 36. Which I have done. Successfully. And it is at this successful turn so soon after this significant human’s demise that I am thinking about my existence and my need for reinvention. I’m thinking about my need for honest expression in general, for the honest expression of my otherness. I am thinking about my ability to be in my truest form.

Heavy shit, I know.

The age number is arbitrary, though I know people will enjoy elbowing me in the ribs while pointing out how close I’m getting to 40. But I’ve been having my mid-life crisis since I was 28, so that number holds no superstitious sway over me. If anything, being 36 has promise since it’s divisible by 3 and that’s the sort of thing I like.

I’m sure I won’t spend the whole time I’m 36 brooding about my life and all of the questions in it. I’ve got shit to do, after all, and I’m crap at multitasking.

But I bet I pause more often this trip around the sun to check my existence.