Broke Down Spirit

1. Valkyrie Said,

   When you are the farthest down is when you will know your friends. When things (life) gets ugly and it does, it cannot be avoided even if you never thought you made a mistake, as you said the walls will fall in. That is when you look around and see who is left. I can guarantee you that the crowd around you will thin but what is left is the cream of the crop so to speak. The rest will return when things are better but why allow anything less than the cream surround you. People instinctively shy away from conflict, but if this is a battle are those people who you want in the foxhole ? NO……I will take fewer friends (and family, some of my worse enemies)but the few I have I can count on whether The “chips” are up or down. Not everybody wants to be upfront but as we all know we are dying to me there isn’t time for much bullshit.

2. Broken Too Said,

   True…there is little.

3. KC Said,

   “I wish you could ALL look in my eyes and see what I feel.

   Then…

   You would know…

   Then…you would know what I know…”

   (I have thought this very same thought many times in my life. Take comfort that someone in the universe possibly does know what you know).

   “Who really means it?

   I do.”

   (I do too).

   @Valkyrie – Not everyone shies away from conflict. Some are compelled to help. I’m one of them. I’ve put my own safety at risk to help others in need.

4. Broken Too Said,

   What a staggeringly beautiful assertion.

   How many times have I said, “Look at me…look INTO me…connect with me…PLEASE!” I hope that it can happen at least once before I pass into the “next phase.” …Maybe it just did.

   O, that I can find the strength…and the wisdom…and the WHATEVER IT TAKES to commit these forlorn and joyful thoughts to words that others might eat and be filled.

5. KC Said,

   I’m an incurable romantic. I don’t mean in the contemporary sense with the sexualization of romance…but in the sense of relying heavily on intuition and emotion. But I’m also well-grounded too. My experiences in life have balanced this romantic side so that I don’t necessarily live with rose colored glasses on, rather, I’m able to understand the hard realities that many people face.

   I don’t know anyone (any woman at least) quite like me. I mean, I don’t know anyone who goes around with lofty ideals in my head and thinks about the great philosophers of the world, who sees correlations between what’s been written about in literature in the past and the current state of the human condition, who has experienced first-hand suffering at the hand of another and who has seen the abuses (homicides and sexual assaults) in my line of work.

   I don’t quite honestly know how I can still be a romantic knowing what I know about the evil in the world…yet, I still have hope. I still reach out to those who I feel need uplifting.

   I feel quite confident that should I die today, I have done my very best to make at least a few others feel less alone in the world, more understood. The art of writing from the heart is waning…being replaced by quick email exchanges. But I don’t use it that way. I use technology to help convey my feelings, to share the love I have for those special to me, and my blog for those who I don’t know as well to uplift those who are hurting.

   While I have not thought of it in a completely religious vein, I suppose I am using my gift of writing to fill others up.

   I wrote an email not to long ago to a friend of ours who got laid off from work and is now a SAHD to is 3 year old son and infant twins. I hadn’t heard a response for about a month, when all of a sudden, he replied and told me, “you don’t know how timely your email was”. And he confessed to me that once a week he tried to calculate if he had enough life insurance to sustain his family. That broke my heart…when you feel you are worth more dead than alive. Needless to say, I’ve since written him even more (hopefully) uplifting words.

   I can’t let the sun go down on me without doing everything I can to spread my message of love and hope. I can’t possibly be the only one like that, can I?

6. Please tell me I’m not the only one « Raising Smart Girls Said,

   [...] June 11, 2009 by raisingsmartgirls This post is borne out of a comment I made on Broke Down Spirit’s blog post from June 10. [...]

7. Valkyrie Said,

   KC if you are, the human race is on its way out. I don’t shy away from conflict either, but there are too few of us left. The prevailing logic is not to offend that group etc….. say what you mean and mean what you say.

8. Broken Too Said,

   Parts of the whole–on the continuum of human arrangement and condition–are contrasted and/or identified by “differences.” A “day” is comprised of a sunlit period (that we call daytime) and a non-sunlit period (that we call night). At any given time there exists one “most giving” person and one “least giving” person in the human population. At any given moment there is one “most great” act of love occurring and one “most heinous” act of violence and or indifference.

   Humans–with their ability to “reason”–have devised all manners of means to explain this dynamic. This is the essence of mythology, or the attempt to explain (i.e., order) otherwise unexplainable experiences. Every religion that now exists or ever has existed is a function and expression of myth. Each person, to a greater or lesser extent, has his or her own mythological perception.

   My allusion to “eating and being filled” was not intended in a “religious vein.” Pretty much everybody will eat something today. But a scant few will eat my cooking. And, only a few of them will give much consideration to what they are eating…or who “prepared” it. On the analytical side, I think I was just expressing my loneliness. For whatever “reasons” I am where (and who) I am. And, right now, my sense of being feels detached, longing, wandering, wondering, hopeful, apprehensive, free but hindered…lonesome. It is what it is. Part of the “trick” for me is learning to accept me and “where I am” at any point in time or place.

   [KC: You are a "romantic" because you are a romantic. You love because you love. Somewhere there is someone who lives in "polar contrast" (dichotomy) to your expression...there are many who contrast in more general ways. Your experiences caused you to be exposed to the effects that some of the "different ones" perpetrated. Thus, a greater sense of wholeness has been made available to you. Most people do not seek this sense and don't have a clue...they wouldn't know "reality" if it slapped them in the face.]

   Allow me to digress…or maybe it’s not digression. A couple of weeks ago I volunteered to help someone clean up after a .357-to-the-right-temple suicide. Now, everybody will have their own reaction to what I just wrote…they will have their own reactions to what I’m about to write…and some might even try to tell me what I am “supposed” to think and feel in this situation. Precious few will OWN their personal thoughts and feelings and allow me to do my own OWNING. I did not know the self-killer prior to his decision (?) to distribute parts of himself all over his father’s kitchen. I knew nothing of his family (only a slight acquaintance with one of his uncles) or his condition in life. The person that I volunteered to help with the clean-up is someone of great significance in my life, and he (for whatever reason…I didn’t ask) saw fit to offer his assistance to this family. Okay…enough back story. Anyway…the whole time we’re scooping and wiping and scrubbing and rinsing and sweating and bleaching and soaking and bagging and talking and listening to “friends of the family” talking…I’m thinking about this blood and these bones (fragments) and these chunks of brain that just a few hours prior had flowed through arteries and veins…and provided structure and protection…and struggled to make sense of existence and even developed the “thought” to make this mess. I wondered where these people were BEFORE this young man scattered pieces of himself on the walls and floor and table and chairs and countertop. One thing that stood out to me…a white, blood-spattered Bible. Surveying the scene on my initial entry, the Bible caught my eye for two reasons (at least)…the direction of the spatter did not match surrounding spatter (the book had been moved) and there was a (spatter) shadow on the table where it seemed the book had been…in front of the last chair that the self-killer sat on. [Now I'm digressing...back to the point...] Who can say for sure how the now-dead man might have been helped if these people had been as concerned about pieces of him while the pieces were still intact?

   I’ll leave it at that for now…

   Cyber hugs for all

9. KC Said,

   That is EXACTLY why I live the way I do.

   When I was 18 I bought sleeping pills with the intention of killing myself to get away from my mother’s control. I “ran” away from home earlier that day and walked 10 miles trying to decide what I was going to do. In the evening, when I had to decide where I was going to go with no money and just the clothes on my back, I took two off the pills, and contemplated if I had the courage to take them all that night. I couldn’t decide if I was ready to end it all. That was 21 years ago this summer.

   I tried to reach out to a few friends, they let me down. I tried one last place, the home of my very first boyfriend. His parents saw my disheveled state, took me in, talked to me. His father asked me if I needed to spend the night.

   They didn’t know they my saviors. I have spent my life trying to pay it forward because how in the hell do you pay THAT back?

   And now…I look at my life, my beautiful children, my wonderful friends (the old ones and the new ones), the people who I’ve helped in my life. I’m so grateful I was saved that night. What I would have missed! What YOU would have missed by not having known me!

   I know it’s not possible to help everyone, but I try to help where I can.

   ***
   I am humbled by this discussion (and a lot of the ones we’ve been having). You are reminding me what I am all about.

10. KC Said,

    I forgot to include my husband in my list of blessings I received for not having killed myself so long ago.

11. Valkyrie Said,

    I had a similar experience but i didn’t have to clean it up in the same terms as broken too did. There was a clean up but different. This was a child who had been out stealing cars and got caught and wrecked,died. He was 14. His mother showed up and was very upset, but all I could think about is where was she 2 hours ago when he was out stealing the cars. If she had cared enough wouldn’t she have known where he was ? what he was doing? I don’t presume to think that when my children get to 14 I will know where there are every minute but I can almost guarantee mine will never get killed while driving in a stolen car.

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