Micki's Musings

"Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk? I’m frightened. I don’t like it in here, it's terribly crowded. Have I gone mad?"   "I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret... all the best people are."  --Mad Hatter and Alice Crowded, too busy, not busy enough. That's my brain. One minute I can't think, the next too much is going on. I do not like it inside of my head. Now that school is out, now that I have less to fill up the down time, my head...it's so busy, so full, so crowded. I've even been around my family constantly the last few days. I've been surrounded by distractions and things that normally create a beyond joyful atmosphere for me. I can't see it. I can't feel it. Everything is far away. Except for inside my head. Inside my head I'm still spinning. I try to fill it up with watching people around me, playing with the kids, drawing on the sidewalk in the rain. Everyth...

I'm just a little black rain cloud Hovering under the honey tree I'm only a little black rain cloud Pay no attention to little me Oh, everyone knows that a rain cloud Never eats honey, no, not a nip I'm just floating around over the ground Wonderin' where I will drip What a busy, amazing week and a beautiful weekend. The end of the school year, graduation, my sister's wedding, all filling up my life with so many things to be grateful for and so many people to love. All around me are signs and wonders of God's love for me and my family, signs of His hand in my life, signs that He is there, is watching over us, is going to make everything okay. It's great, grand, and wonderful. And all weekend, a black cloud hovered over me, squashing my potential happiness and peace and joy, reminding me that this weekend will end, that everyone will go home, that I will enter real life again where he will be there waiting to pounce, waiting to s...

I am analyzing again. I think that's a good sign. But I've been noticing people lately. I get stopped, frequently, by friends and neighbors and sometimes strangers asking me how I'm doing. It's a small town. Word gets around. There are all different kinds of people, of course, but it seems the people I speak with lately fall into a couple of different categories: the needers and the givers. I don't mind either category, but my reaction to them depends entirely on which category I am currently in myself. The needers are the ones who need me to tell them I'm doing well, that everything is going fine, and that I know everything will be okay. If I am actually feeling okay, I can give them that script, and they go away feeling happy for me and admiring my "strength." If I am currently needy myself, I try to transform them into givers instead. I tell them what a hard day it's been and how I'm worried for my safety and sanity. I'm more adept...

Strength and fearlessness-- two of the most overrated human qualities I have encountered thus far. I've mentioned before how courage is a more desirable quality than fearlessness. Fear is meant to keep us safe. It can be healthy and helpful if managed wisely. I want to be courageous, not fearless. I want to have the ability to recognize, manage, and conquer my fear, and I'm getting there. Then there's strength. People encourage me often by telling me how strong I am. I appreciate what they are trying to say, but it is a lie. I am not strong. I tried to be, for a long time. I wanted to show everyone how strong I was, how tough I could be as I did this life. I wanted to be the one to whom others could look for inspiration and to succor their own strength. I had good intentions. But in my attempts to stay so constantly strong, to carry others, to never falter, I became my very weakest version of me. That kind of strong is not what I am or who I want to be. Strong is...

I am more normal now than I believe I ever have been in my life. I attend a trauma survivor support group, and at our first meeting we were given a two-sided paper of common trauma symptoms and asked to check off each of the symptoms we had been experiencing. I checked off all but two, both having to do with obsessive compulsive behaviors. I don't have those. Yet. But I fall at least partially into every other category on the list. I don't have a digital link to it, and I'm not going to list all the symptoms here, but I have them. So interesting. So fascinating. So normal. I am quite a normal trauma survivor, trauma experiencer. Good news, right? It's just thrilling to be so normal. My favorite word. Normal normal normal normal normal. What a grand word to describe me, to describe my life. So effing normal. I feel like I'm dreaming. I feel no guilt. I fear no consequences. I feel like I can do and be anything I want and it won't matter either way. It mak...

Well, I no longer want to shoot him. I consider that a good sign. I still will, if I have to, but I no longer have pieces of me that wish for him to show up and threaten me so I have a good reason to end him. That's a good thing. I felt myself slipping into a dark place. Every day feels like forever to me. This week has lasted a lifetime. I only felt myself slipping for about a day-and-a-half, but that was a very long time. Too long. Long enough to make me afraid of me a little bit. My judgment isn't super great right now. My mind is sloppy. I am more impulsive and reckless. For me, that means I'm probably at normal levels, because I've always over-thought and over-analyzed things. But now, I don't care as much about consequences. Like I said, probably merely at "normal" levels now, but it's new to me and I don't like it. The trust is what I miss most. I am a trusting person. I give people the benefit of the doubt. I plan on people doing what...

I don't know how to do this life. I really don't. Right now, I feel fully insane, spinning and spinning and running and fighting and soaring and falling and hiding. Right now, I'm hiding. The kids and I have been hiding out from him since Monday. You see, Monday evening, he broke into my house. Again. That was at least the second time he's done it, I found out. I didn't know he'd done it at all until he did it again when our daughter was home alone. He thought we were all gone. She heard banging noises at the garage door and thought it was maybe the storm, but then it became apparent that someone was breaking into our house. She didn't know it was her dad. He's been trespassed from our property and also has a protective order against him and has no business whatsoever being there at all, let alone breaking in through the garage door. (We've since discovered he likely broke in through the laundry room window, which is right by the garage door.) ...