renearanda

[renearanda]

He wrapped his arms around me and said, "please come with me. Or I can come with you." 

He pulled me closer. "We don't have to say a word. You can do whatever you need to, I just... I want us to be close. I want to be your witness and I want you to be mine." He put his hands gently around my face and whispered to my lips,

"We have so little time, the last thing I want to do is fill that time with space between us."

And in that moment, I was cured. The cancer was gone and I could almost see the faces of our beautiful children. I could feel the warmth of falling asleep with him in our bed, ten thousand nights. I could smell the anticipation of coffee in the morning waking up to his beautiful face.

He made me feel like life without me wasn't a life he wanted. He would do anything to build with me and it was easy to try. Easy to just BE with each other.

And then the moment passed. And I remembered I was still slowly dying, not yet halfway through my operations and the cancer could come back at any moment. And I might miss my window to save my fertility if the cancer moves toward me faster that he does.

I blinked the last of the fantasy away and he was already gone, out of sight down the street. Blocks away. Worlds away. Universes away.

And I was alone in my car and in my heart. Praying to God to love me enough for all of us in moments our humanity renders us incapable.

[renearanda]

I've written so many drafts, I've lost count.

After the draft before this, I realized that in most of them, I tried to protect the feelings of someone who hurt me.

Trigger warning, I'm about to talk about addiction.

I tried to protect someone who hurt me because I loved them. I still want them to be happy. I believe they deserve the life they want. They shouldn't have to change for me. But by staying, I was giving up the life *I* wanted, in an attempt to give them what I thought was unconditional love. Yet, I wasn't happy. How is that unconditional love if by enabling behavior, neither of us were happy?

Addiction is incredibly painful for everyone involved. If the addict doesn't want to get help, there's absolutely nothing you can do to force them to get and stay clean - and you shouldn't have to, but if you really love them, in the name of “unconditional love”, most of us do.

We all choose how to cope, and we all make incredibly difficult decisions all the time. We all mess up but it's on us to take true accountability for our pains. Pains are serving the purpose of letting us know that something is wrong. The way to fix something is not to run from it and it's not to numb it. We have to work through it. Sometimes there is either no immediate solution or a solution never comes. In those situations, there is nothing we can do about what's wrong, but we can redirect energy and pour our focus into constructive things we can control.

Get help when we are losing a battle, stay transparent for those who are offering their time, energy and lives to support us (we owe them that much for their faith in us), and mitigate temptation on top of abstinence.

Those of us who love these individuals through their struggles and especially the low points, we are left to feel hopeless and powerless, the weight of saving a life we perceive to be slowly forfeiting itself.

But only the addict can turn their life around. I've witnessed addicts who do a lot of incredible, beautiful things to help uplift people and push others to meet their goals, so seeing that heart and strength despite their struggle has reassured me that I was correct in leaving my past situation:

If they break promises,

break items like dishes, furniture, the front door, a window, walls, irreplaceable sentimental possessions that they never replace (without taking from someone else's generosity),

If they get behind the wheel and even cause a hit and run accident they never accepted responsibility for,

If when you communicate concerns and fears, you are made to feel as though you are the unreasonable one for feeling hurt (as though you're just “not understanding” where they're coming from),

If they are name calling, blaming, yelling, talking in circles for hours (after you’re begging with them, crying, to talk after you both get some sleep because it’s been a long, trying week admist work deadlines or recently deceased friends or your own cancer),

When it doesn't matter if you ignore the berating, try to sweet talk them, or try to stand your ground because everything sets them off, so you just have to endure it until they run out of steam or sober up,

If after years, they still refuse to accept professional help,

Embarrass you with inappropriate behavior in front of coworkers and friends,

Betrays your confidence by sharing your secrets or weaponizing your vulnerability,

Isolate you from your family and friends,

Put you and your accomplishments down to make themselves feel better about their own insecurities,

Skirt accountability by saying "it's better than before" as though the progress excuses each next slip up,

If the inebriated behavior puts you in danger or even makes you FEEL like you're in danger (especially to those of us who are physically weaker than our partner)...

And verbally say, in a blackout state like a strange man in the woods, “what if I kill you if you don't marry me?”

At what point have they forgone the VERB “Love” for the illusion of it?

I never knew which version of them I was coming home to. My friends looked on for years watching me shrink, and when they expressed their concerns, I just kept defending them. I believed in them. I loved them and still do. But I'm learning to love myself. And I'm learning how important it is to say for the world to hear:

This behavior is not okay.

Both my enabling and their choices to change their brain.

It's okay to put on that oxygen mask first before helping others and take space to heal before you lose yourself for good. And sometimes before grabbing the oxygen mask, you might have to climb out of your burning seat.

Humans are complex and no one is perfect so I stress that we don't have to condemn someone while condemning their behavior. If we condemn the person, there is no one left to build something healthy for themselves.

I pray they never stop building because there were a million reasons why I fell in love with them. There were a million reasons why I believed they could get clean. There was a lot of bravery and a lot of progress. But after years of broken trust, the good times did not outweigh the bad, and twice in the relationship, I feared that if I said or did the wrong thing in one of their blackout moments, they might kill me.

I share all this not to shame them. They are working hard to get sober. And if you know them, please do not mention their name here. And don't let it change your relationship with them because each relationship has different depths and levels and how they treated me is not a testament to how they will treat others. I share it because it was lack of accountability due to lack of transparency that allowed they're destructive behaviors to go on for so long. By listening to requests to keep all of this private to “honor intimacy”, I was doing both of us a diservice (especially because they did not honor the intimacy I gave them with their family and friends). I was instead turning inward and harming myself in more ways than one and in ways that I'm not proud of.

Looking back, I realize how unfair I was to them: I used to separate the sober version from the addict. In truth, that meant I never fully accepted who they were, because they were BOTH. They were all of their best moments and all of their worst. And when I finally accepted that, I realized that I was not in love with them, and that my growth looked like leaving… to open myself up to a love that was kind. To truly believe I deserved a love that would never EVER do any of the things I listed above, no matter how hurt they were. Life is hard enough, the last thing that should make it harder is “love”.

I hope that whatever you're going through, and especially if any of this resonates with you, that you continue to talk to your family and friends and seek a therapist or group. All those things weighing on you: talk it all out, even if it feels silly, scary or weak. You are STRONG when you choose to get better and leave the world better than you found it. And you are not alone because none of us really knows what we're doing, other than our best sometimes and not our best a lot of the time. Please pray/send good vibes/healing thoughts (or whatever shape manifesting takes in your heart), for those in pain who feel like they have no alternatives.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning into my journey and rooting for me (even those doing it silently - I believe your well wishes reach me) as I grow. I love you all and I'm so grateful to be on this life adventure alongside you. Here's to a future that reciprocates the actions of love, challenges to overcome and emotional support we all deserve to earn our dreams into realities.

[renearanda]

In Loving Memory of a Rose (Please Don't Buy Me Flowers)

A rose thorn has torn a hole in my thumb.

Forlorn, I grasped too hard at its stems,

Trying to make what I witnessed last,

Moving too recklessly fast -

They've hurt me for coveting them.

A rose boundaries to be loved tenderly,

A spiked declaration of its delicacy

And begs instead to be watered in the gardens we fathered,

Lest it loses its luster; flusters its sheen.

A rose is not born to be shorn naked of its defenses simply to be seen,

To be severed from its roots and its sisters,

Or to adorn our vases

and take up conversational space in glass cases

Until our amusement wanes, ill-equipped to care

For the wound we have carved into the path her evolution has paved.

We warrant torture for her, isolation for which we have paid

Bade her lay in the soilless bed we have made for her.

Wilting all the while,

A rose sings the most beautiful Eulogy for herself.

She dances too slowly for you to perceive the depths of her flowering elegance,

Silk petals empowering her funeral gown as she drains down the rest of her health.

We pick her in ignorance:

Neglected, death is swift but undignified.

Yet tended to at our best, a rose still withers slowly,

Her confidence hangs lowly until her purpose has died.

In our incapable care, Love adulterized by being idealized and idolized;

Consumed, her once sacred romance is petrified, then exhumed.

If she’s lucky, the memory of her perfumed to mask the smell of every other flower.

Out of an ivory tower, were Love to have been left unplucked,

…She might have bloomed.

[renearanda]

He serenades the world with her name

From every mountain top he summits

And every trench he crawls through,

Not because she can hear him

Or wether the world is listening or not

But because she gave him love to begin again with

And every day he begins again,

In Love.

[renearanda]

I couldn't sleep so Midjourney and I came up with this.

My two spirit animals combined, the wolf and the crow, illuminated by my mother's favorite lights (RIP), the Aurora Borealis.

Iris Mater Corvus Lupus (Rainbow Mother Crow Wolf, in Latin).

An "Irmacolu" or "Irimat Corlup". Corlup (crow wolf) for short, of the Irimat (rainbow mother) variation.

[renearanda]

The world gave way into stardust and you emerged, breathing consciousness in until you shaped yourself from the nebulae. Our flames flickered at the friction and magnetism and gravity pulled us into orbit around each other. It was the first time I saw myself when I looked at you. It was the first time acceptance traveled faster than light.

(A poem by me. Art by Midjourney when fed these words:)

[renearanda]

I fed Midjourney AI my poem and this is what it imagined.

Sara Ann And Her Mountain Man

Princess of the Wilderness, I don’t just confess… I proudly proclaim in the Aranda name:

I admire your desire to live life literally higher- Peak of the mountain high; Elevation: seventy-two thousand between the sea and the sky Where the rocks don’t tell you what you should do, They don’t ask you, “How much do you make?”, “What are your plans?”, “What path of least resistance will YOU take”; They invite you, beck and call, they entice you, “Come back to me”.

That’s what called your heart to Colorado The city of ‘Boulder’ When people both young & older called you crazy, Worried for your safety, You were listening to your gut. You would find yourself, no matter what.

And you did! You didn’t run out of fear but of freedom. You ran, drawn to your other half and you found him, He who made you whole; A mate for your soul And you brought him back when you came home to us, smiling; The accumulation of your adventures and experiences compiling.

And every day, you continue to climb closer to Mom. When you follow your heart, you will never be wrong. Your traveling bravery is the sun splintering through the trees; across the seas. Your dedication to your dream: a refreshing breeze. You don’t feel the need to move mountains because feeling the mountains moves you

Brother-in-Law, all the wonderful things you think you saw… When you continue to let this songbird fly free, There is magic behind your wildest dreams You will continue to see.

My sister, thank you for being so inspiring. My sister, you are beautiful. My sister, you are strong. My sister… Climb. Climb! Climb on.

[renearanda]

I fed Midjourney AI my blurb and this is what it imagined.

Red Flags through Jade Colored Glasses.

My attention does not guarantee my respect.

My curiosity can be, not often but at times, morbid, masochistic, and maniacal because when it’s crucial to the enduring health of my heart & soul, more than a desire to explore or expand upon potential for happiness, it’s prudent to investigate misery and exhaust my patience to the point that I am irrevocably certain I do not want or need that which piqued my interest before I let it go and move on with zero intention of ever looking back.

A lesson learned is a tangibly better me. Respecting the privilege of my own time has enabled me to acknowledge and admire that red flags are lyrics in a beautifully subtle foreign language that I am abruptly more fluent in for having tinted my lenses in Jade.

My attention does not guarantee my respect.

[renearanda]

I fed Midjourney AI my poem and this is what it imagined.

Toxic

While I’ll always wonder if we couldn’t have rocked it, The chemistry there was bound to be caustic. Maybe we knew we would’ve been toxic And never started so as not to stop it.

[renearanda]

I fed Midjourney AI my poem and this is what it imagined.

Gasoline.

Sparks. Your world might blow up when you fan your flame next to gasoline… But if it catches, it’ll light up your life and send you flying to heights you’ve never seen. Would you rather spend a life in the dark? Or go out with a bang? Is there such a thing as a “middle ground” between love and pain?

[renearanda]

I fed Midjourney AI my blurb and this is what it imagined.

Gold Digger

He called her ‘gold digger’ after she pulled him from the quick sand, thinking he was actually a diamond in the rough.

But he couldn’t devalue her love when he didn’t value himself enough.

[renearanda]

I fed Midjourney AI my poem and this is what it imagined.

Manic Machine

I’m a biological machine. What I mean is: What makes me tick is when we talk. You turn me on and turn me off; Wind me up every time you walk.

[renearanda]

I fed my blurb to Midjourney AI and this is what it imagined.

Silver Lining Dream Catcher

Join me in trusting love today. Join me in letting go and basking in the light of wonder and hope.

I am grateful. I am driven. I am going to work toward making my dreams a reality until I draw my last breath.

What is my dream?

To inspire hearts into believing that change is possible; that nothing can deter your BEING from contributing to life’s progression and evolution outside of your own self. I tell stories to connect worlds that feel universes apart under the bigger picture that is existence in its entirety.

And no, I’m not high. Just weaving a web of silver linings like a dream catcher. Because that’s what I life for.

[renearanda]

I fed Midjourney AI my poem and this is what it imagined.

I Am the Storm.

I sat on the hill for a while.

Listening to the wind in the leaves of the trees, thinking about how conversations could’ve gone. All the other ways the wind could’ve blown, but didn’t. I feel the cycles:

Breeze. Stillness. Gust.

I have been that storm when arguments formed from colliding opposing fronts: what started as something thought, brewing into something discussed, erupting into something I would’ve swore it must. I have promised, I have not followed through, I have apologized, antagonized, I have cussed and cried and dwelt on times someone I trusted lied. I could’ve been more direct. I could’ve been less so. I have ripped things up by their roots like a blindsiding tornado; Torn the ground out from underneath cliff-sides like landslides… Without the Novocaine of channeling, I have been a torrent from all sides: a hurricane.

I have to breathe and believe the eye of that storm is the center of me and only in the calm is there relief. Reprieve from myself. I look around and see the destruction my manic movements have caused. I see how my coldness was biting. I see how I challenged you to keep fighting and then cease without cause; how I have crushed you with crashing waves of insecurities. I have stoked fires and leveled us to dust. In the calm, I recognize the disaster of feelings is not spared, only paused. Like the weather, emotions are mother nature - seasonal and changing, always rearranging the terrain…

And yet I seek stability. Forgive-ability. From you. From me. From and for the world we live in. I let the stillness sink in.

I sat there on that hill, self-observing-itself, like maybe the clouds don’t do - though I don’t know that to be true like the sky might. We are evolved and evolving, adapting every day and night. We have rain boots to wade the floods and the muds and umbrellas to redirect downpours and I wore a coat to brave the cold to sit there. I’m told we can’t perfectly predict the weather but with the task of preparedness, we can weather the storm. We can choose to be warm.

When I leave the vantage point from this hill in the eye of my storm and seek shelter from the coming tempest, I will assess this premise: I suspect, with the mountainous task of retrospect, introspect, and an examination of what and why I even “expect”, maybe I, too, can weather the breeze-stillness-gust cycles of my imperfect, predictable self. I must.

[renearanda]

A letter to my better:

Soft.

Tender.

Moved with love, a tendency to nurture.

Nuanced but deliberate.

You see my intention and you embrace it.

Patient. Determined. Reciprocative.

There is no distance when our value overlaps and when you see our differences, you seek to bridge the gaps.

And you do so, reaching your heart out as an extremity and still the entire essence of you.

I receive you wholly, and fully, I meet you there with my entity.

We harmonize. We elaborate. We expand.

This is our plane. This is our band. This is our sacred bond. We are safe here, safe to respond.

When you see my light, you ignite it.

You bring peace where others might fight it.

In my field, you are a gardner.

You are my love, my life, my partner.

[renearanda]

Dissonance.

You tell me what I can never be. I tell you.... Watch me.

[renearanda]

Silent Majority

After all that talk, the actual "Silent Majority" stayed silent and in turning up in numbers, spoke volumes.