fight and flight

Once upon a time
my heart got broken into a few too many pieces,
my soul got smashed up a few too many times, my brain got fried, my will got torn down,
my dreams got shattered,  and my whole self got older and slower and tired.
Once upon a time I wanted to give up and fade away.

That time passed…

Once upon another time I dragged my sluggish body and weary soul into a very special dojo with nothing but a wilted spirit, a blank slate, and zero to lose.   More time passed…
It took work… a lot of work… but gradually the remnants of that shattered, tattered old self began to fall away like a dried out chrysalis and something else began to emerge…  something brand new, energized, and strong.

On the training ground of my dojo I learned (am learning) that I don’t have to be defeated by obstacles, no matter how great.  I can rise up, shake it off, and square off against any opponent -including my own fears and weaknesses – with the confidence that no matter what happens,  I am always learning and growing stronger.    The empowerment I gained through the Elite Martial Arts program helped me to make that choice.  I chose to dedicate myself to the hard work of growing stronger instead of  growing older, and as a result I am becoming stronger now (at age 40) than I have ever been in my life.

After just under a year at the dojo,  I am not only learning how to overcome challenges, but I have become addicted to the idea of overcoming as many of them as I can.   It seems that not only am I not interested in running away from obstacles,  but I seem to be  into the idea of running headlong into them.
About a month ago, completely out of nowhere, I signed up to do an obstacle race.  I’ve never been a runner before,  I’ve never done any kind of race,  and as my first one ever I chose not only an obstacle race but the one which is infamous as the toughest and most hardcore of them all:   The Spartan Race.

The one I’m doing is The Spartan Sprint– the “starter” Spartan Race– approximately 4 miles,  loaded with crazy obstacles, and hard penalties for each obstacle you miss.
I have been researching, reading, video watching, and falling so hard in love with this insanely difficult thing that I haven’t even done yet.  I have been training,  running,  pushing myself harder, loving the feeling of being pushed,  and already obsessing over the idea of doing the next 2 levels up:  The Super Spartan and The Spartan Beast.

Once upon a time it would never have occurred to me to even want to know something like this existed.
Once upon a time I was old and tired and weak.
That time has passed.

The Spartan Race is two weeks from now.  I’ve never even run up and down my own block before last month, but now I’[ll be running with people who are strong young triathletes, fighters,  military warriors, and all manner of professional adrenaline junkies.   I’ll be dragging myself through mud, running uphill over boulders and creeks,  hoisting over 10 foot walls and crawling under dirty barbed wire.   I’ll get banged up and worn out while my aching body tries to tell me I should quit and I don’t belong there.  I’ll be racing against myself and the world and all the lies I have ever been told about what is and isn’t possible…
Two weeks from now, I’ll be a Spartan racer.   I’m sure it will be much harder than I am even imagining… and  I am giddy with excitement like a child about to get a pony.

My dojo is teaching me how to tap into my own strength,  and how to defeat that which might defeat me.  How to fight smart.
Training for the Spartan Race is teaching me that  I also love to run… not from but toward challenges, in order to conquer them.
Fight and flight.

Everyone is fighting something at some point.
The older we get it can seem that the fights get tougher as your fuel gets lower.
They say once you hit 40 “it’s all downhill from here”.
I’m here to testify:  That is some lazybrained backdated bullshit.

Make hard changes,  fight for your health,  conquer your obstacles and win your own joy.  Don’t be forced into submission by time and nature,  become a force of nature.
Shake it off,  do the work,  decide to keep growing and always keep going.
It’s like sex- an awkward and painful chore at first, but once you start doing it the right ways and for the right reasons you’ll want it all the time.

Seriously- if I can do it, anyone can.

Once upon a time I couldn’t,
but that time had to pass…
because I stood up to it
and  kicked it’s ass.

birthday

April 2:
If things had gone right, today would be my son’s first birthday.

Very recently I was upset about  something related to his death and I was told I needed to “just let it go”.  I was told that I need to move on so that my emotions don’t define me and keep me tied to the past.   The problem with that probably well-intended but totally insensitive command is that Orion is not part of my past.  A child is a part of his mother permanently, and figuring out how to manage that fact when my child is gone is my very present struggle.    When I gave birth, I became a mother.   Mothers don’t let go- they cradle, embrace, and carry.  The fact that he didn’t survive doesn’t change that fact, it just makes it an incredibly painful fact.    Over time (and honestly, there hasn’t been very much of it)  I have begun to rebuild myself and I am indeed rising from the ashes of that tragedy.  I am learning to transcend the damage and transform into something new.  I am becoming stronger, I am becoming a fighter, but I am still a mother.  My newfound strength is in part a tribute to the life I created and lost, and I will honor him not by wallowing in the sadness of the past but by allowing myself to remain exactly who I am in the present and  letting my very real emotions swell up and pass through me like storm clouds on occasion;  by enduring and conquering the arduous process of recovery one step at a time; and  by knowing for certain that even though I still ache I am stronger now than I ever imagined I could be.
For the love of my child and for the love of myself I will honor and allow that process whether or not anyone else understands it.
And I will never, ever “just let it go”.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Starchild.

metamorphosis

My son’s name was Orion.

For a while now, I have had the idea in my head that I’d get a tattoo of that constellation.  When I started on my martial arts journey I figured out a more detailed plan:  The stars of the constellation in the tattoo would be left hollow, and as I moved upward through the belt  system I would get one star colored in the same color as my new belt.   The final colors for my final belt ( the black one) would be the stars that make up *Orion’s belt*.

It’s fitting that the two things should be paired.   The strength I have found to cope with the immense break in my heart has come from the strength I am finding in myself through my borderline obsessive training at Elite.  (Did I say “borderline”?)   I honestly cannot say enough how amazed I am with the transformation taking place in my life right now.   There’s the physical aspect which is the most obvious to other people:  I’ve lost 30 pounds and I have just enough visible muscle tone to make me feel like a secret superhero sometimes.   But it is so very much deeper than that…

Losing weight is fantastic.  Feeling good about my body is great.   Learning how to kick ass on command is fucking awesome.  But the fact that I am beginning to actually and sincerely feel good about being alive is the thing that feels completely miraculous.
When Orion died  part of me died with him, and  I don’t just mean that metaphorically.   There is a very strong link between a mother and her newborn child, particularly this mother and that child.    After he was born I needed with my whole heart and soul and mind to be exactly wherever the fuck he was…
and he was dead.
It’s not that I wanted to die- I wasn’t suicidal,  I just wanted to be with my son more than I had ever wanted anything in my life.   I’ve never had the courage to admit that before, but it’s part of my truth- and now I can say it’s part of my past.
That child will always be a part of me-  spiritually, emotionally, and  physically on the deep down cellular level.    I am now committed to living at full power.  I am committed to becoming stronger and stronger than I ever thought I could be.  Little by little, step by step, effort by sweaty heart-pounding effort, I am getting my power back and then some.
My own personal resurrection.

Which brings us back to the tattoo:
I’m about to get my 3rd belt next week and the tattoo idea was itching to come to life.  I started looking up images of constellation tattoos and frankly all the ones I saw looked weird and crappy.  I needed to figure out a meaningful  image that would bring the design together as something solid.
One sleepless night it came to me.   When you turn the constellation Orion on its side (which is how he appears in the sky in this part of the world anyway)  it becomes a butterfly:

The butterfly, of course, is a symbol of all the right things in this context:  transcending death, resurrection, metamorphosis…and now my Starchild in the sky.
I worked with an incredible soul and amazing artist by the name of Bart Willis (owner of Southside Tattoos)  and we came up with just about the coolest butterfly image I know of.   The design is embedded with the stars of the constellation, which will be colored in White, Yellow, Orange*, Green, Blue, Purple, Brown, Red, and Black…one by one over the next few years.

Here, then, is what the back of my right calf looks like as of today.
*The white, yellow, and  orange stars are already colored in, but this photo was taken before they were done.  They are they three tiny starlets to the right of the image, which would make up the “head” of Orion if the butterfly wasn’t there.
And just below the butterfly?  That is the logo of my beloved life-saving dojo, Elite Martial Arts.

And I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to kick much higher with that leg now, seeing as how it’s got wings on it and all…

*Tattoo photos by Adam Glick

 

Page One

I like to write. I love to write, actually.
At some point I would like to write this damn book that’s been gestating in my brainsoul for the past 6 years.
It’s an autobiography, wrapped in something like sci-fi (parts of my true story might be easier to believe as a fantasy thriller anyway).   
It turns out that really getting a flow with writing is something that takes a certain amount of uninterrupted calm and  solitude that I simply can’t find more than 20 minutes of per week.  So, I guess I’ll start making it a point to write for those 20 minutes each week.  I already know my story, I just need to get it out of me.   Sounds easy enough, right?

So here’s something that feels like a decent first page. 
(And this part, by the way, is 100% true)
Just putting it out there to see if it’s readable and/or makes you want to read more….

Once Upon a Time, pt 1:
_______________________________________________________

I have always had a strange relationship with the sky.  From my imaginary spaceship to my childhood bond with the sun to my teenage crush on a certain constellation,  I have always had secret skyfriends.

When I was a little girl I used to stare at the sun.  We went on long car trips fairly often and I would pass the time by watching the sun.  I liked that it followed me through the sky like a faithful pet.   I would stare without blinking for long enough that I could see inside it, and wild colors all around it.   When I did blink I would be treated to a brilliant circular flash of color that I have never seen since or found a way to describe.  Just for a flash.  Something like blue, something like pure light, certainly nothing of this world.  Beauty exploding inside of beauty.  The sun danced around inside itself for me, putting on shows and keeping me company while the big people listened to horrible music and prattled away about nothing (nothing as interesting as dancing skyfire, anyway), obnoxiously oblivious to the miraculous  magic show that was happening right outside.

I felt a genuine  connection with that lonely fireball up there,  and sometimes I could feel it reaching its rays down and filling up my head with light like a balloon.     Some might have called that some kind of spiritual experience.  I just thought it was the sun’s way of giving me a hug.

From my earliest memories until I was about six or seven,  I was able stare at my skyfriend for hours-  until one day someone saw me doing it and had a conniption about it.  I was told angrily in that way that startles a child into fear that I was doing something very, very bad.   I was told that if I continued to do it I would eventually not be able to see the sun or anything else ever again.  It never hurt my eyes before that moment, but it started to after that.
I remember the first time I looked up and the light made me have to actually squint and turn away.  That moment broke my heart.  It was like losing my first dear friend, and I cried and cried.

For a while I still managed to sneak peeks.   I learned to look through the cracks in my fingers or even through the veil of my closed eyelids.
Little by little I stopped looking, but those images are literally burned into the deepest part of my vision itself now.  Sometimes when I blink I still see a shadow of that circular flash of blue,  and sometimes I can still imagine my whole head filled up with sunlight like a balloon.

Sometimes.

moonman suit song

*silly mid-tempo jangly space-bop song:
(disclaimer:  I have to listen to an ungodly amount of Americana and twangy country music at work, so this thing is  infected by that– it sounds twangy in my head–but at least it’s a song…I think…)

I wanna get me a moonman suit
Dress up like I’m out in space,
I’d hop around and I’d be real cute
and keep the whole world outta my face.

Then I would never have to fix my hair
And I would never have to be polite-
And you would never have to breathe my air
Then maybe everything would be alright.

I’m gonna get me a moonman suit
Dress up like I’m in outer space
I’d observe all of your ways, so cute.
I’m just a visitor to this place.

Then I could have some space around my skin
And no one would really bother me
And I could occupy the space I’m in
and be exactly how I need to be.

And I would hop around the walls and ceiling
Who needs gravity anyway
If you don’t understand the way i’m feeling
I’ll take my rocketship and fly away~~

And I could fly into Orion’s heart
and hold his hand for once, he looks so strong–
And I could search the universe forever
until I figure out where I belong

the ghost of christmas past

It’s been a year now.
This time last year my 2nd heart stopped beating and I lost the deepest love of my life.  My son Orion was born “still” on the 15th of December 2011.  No reason…perfectly healthy mother and child, he just got wrapped in his cord and I lost him.  Doc’s official diagnosis was “bad luck”.
I knew something was wrong for a while, but I kept being told (by everyone -including my NURSE) not to worry so much.
On the 14th I went to the doctor and got the most horrible news I’ll ever hear.  They sent me to the hospital and the next day he was… born?  It doesn’t even make sense to use that word… none of it makes any fucking sense.

So a year  has passed,  the anniversary is rolling toward me like storm clouds, and I’ve been trying to find a way to write about how I’m feeling right now.  I’ve been trying to find clever or interesting ways to describe this part of the journey, or come up with some profound message or lesson learned to share in words. There are none. This shit just sucks. It hurts and hurts and that’s all.

I have found ways to cope with having to be normal for people.  I have been inspired to grow and heal.   As I have written and talked about endlessly,  I have found much needed strength, motivation, and reprieve from depression at the dojo (Elite Martial Arts of South Austin to be precise) learning mixed martial arts with an amazing group of people.   Exhilarating, exhausting, exciting,  exactly what I need.
But for the past week I haven’t been able to go to classes at all,  and just that quickly I can feel all the unhealed ruptures in my heart burning like new injury.  You don’t realize how dependent you are on a thing until you can’t get to it.  Separation from the dojo is my Kryptonite.

And meanwhile, it’s Christmastime.
I used to love the holiday season.  Glitter and twinkle lights and surprises are kinda my thing.  But this year every single thing about the holidays is a trigger that brings on nightmarish flashbacks.
For one thing, I work retail and we listen to Christmas music- all day, every day.  Christmas songs are all either lullabies about the birth of a special baby boy, or they are blues songs with lines like “I want my baby back for Christmas.”  Either way they are torture.  The song “Silent Night” alone is like a rusty ax through my chest every goddamn time it plays.
I’ve been trying to get “in the spirit” by doing things for other people… trying to stay busy and energized at the dojo… but just right now, just this week, everything just sucks.

I miss him.  There’s no other way to say it.  People close to me ask me “what’s wrong” sometimes and seem genuinely surprised when I mention I’m still grieving.   Hard.   That was my son.   My baby.
Yes we will “just try again”.  But people need to understand that I miss him.

I’m the only one who knew him really.  To everyone else he was a concept.  A happy idea that people were looking forward to but now it’s time to move on and simply replace it with another happy idea.   To me he was very real.  To me, he was all the fire and hope and creative energy I have ever experienced literally personified into a living boy who danced when I danced,  jumped and kicked when I was angry or anxious, and wiggled when I laughed.  He was my other heart.  My other soul.
Two weeks before finding out I was pregnant, I had a dream about him. I saw his gorgeous face and we laughed together, and I fell in love then.   Which is why, after more than 3 years of trying, I wasn’t surprised when I found out he was there. I knew the whole time it was a boy and what his name was.   I knew him with every cell of my self  and I loved him fiercely  in some ancient mystical way that I didn’t think was humanly possible.
Hearing his heartbeat and seeing him dance around on the ultrasound screen was something that brought me endless joy.  Seeing him after  he was “born” is something that will  never stop breaking my heart.
That’s all.  I just needed to mark this occasion, validate my own sadness, and get some of this silent ache off my chest.  No inspiring ending this time, maybe next…

I love you always, Orion.  You will never be forgotten, and I’ll get you that black belt I promised you very soon.
See you in the stars.
Til then,   Sleep in heavenly peace.

fighting back

This country is getting itself all riled up over politics like the audience at the Jerry Springer show. Drooling and hissing and viciously hating  like a crowd watching gladiator sport.

Meaningless chatter about politics lately just makes me sad, and there is so unbelievably much of it.
Makes me just want to run back to the dojo and kick shit til I’m ready to pass out and dream about kicking more shit.

Then I get this random 80′s song stuck in my head:
“World, shut your mouth, Shut your mouth/
Get your head back in the clouds and shut your mouth.”

—-
Ahh, the dojo.
There are 3 main things that have kept me going beyond the atomic blast that happened mid-December.
First and most obviously:  The endless support and unconditional love of my Superman of a husband who is constantly on standby ready to catch me when I need to fall apart.
Second:  This weird little kitty named Sheena who gladly plays the role of surrogate baby and absorbs all my excess mommy energy.
And now third:  Sweaty, intense Mixed Martial Arts classes 4 or 5 times a week or as many as my schedule allows.  I would truly go twice a day every day if I could.

It’s my new obsession, my love, and most importantly my anti-depressant.
I love it so much it freaks me out a little bit.
People have completely forgotten the fact that I am still grieving- hard and constantly- and it’s still an effort to relate to the world and care about the things other people want me to put my limited energy into.

When your heart is still lost in space over a big thing, everything else is like noise in another language that you resent having to deal with.   It’s hard to give even the smallest shit what they said on Fox News today when you are literally trying to figure out the meaning of life and death and time and space.
It’s as if the rest of the world is the apartment upstairs where the noisy neighbors are having a rowdy party complete with unnecessary fights and obnoxiously bad music while I’m trying to rest and get my head together.  They keep inviting me up to that party… and I keep smiling politely and wondering why they can’t all just settle down and go the fuck to sleep.
It’s exhausting feeling that way about the whole rest of the world.

The dojo is where I can snap out of that funk.   It’s where I’m safe.  It’s my power source.  It’s where I am grounded, inspired, excited, and alive.
It’s where the only thing that matters is how high I can kick (not very, yet), or how many push-ups I can do in a minute (not many, yet).   It’s where I know my own strength, and I see can it growing.  It is grueling,  empowering, and it is exactly where I need to be.

I think it’s where Orion wants me.  I think this is kinda his thing that I’m doing for him or that he’s doing through me.  Well, sometimes I let myself think that,  when I need to believe he’s still around. So I have promised him (and myself) that I will have the Black Belt one day.  And that will be …you guessed it… Orion’s Belt.

Early in this process people kept telling me I needed therapy.  I thought about it, but it never felt like what I needed.  I didn’t want to lay on a couch and talk about what happened.  I knew what happened already.  I didn’t need to rehash it with a stranger, I needed to fight.   I wanted to fight everyone and everything.  I wanted to fight God or The Universe or whoever “let this happen” to me.  I wanted to fight all the people who said the wrong thing at the wrong time.  Any time someone told me “You can always try again!” or “Just adopt!” I was actively imagining beating their ass into the ground behind my watery eyed fake smile.  I wanted to fight myself for failing to keep my son safe. I even wanted to fight him for leaving me and ripping this massive black hole in my spirit.  I just wanted to fight and fight and fight.   That need to fight is what kept me going.  It was the only “energy” I had.
So now, that’s what I’m learning to do.   Learning to fight is my therapy.
But I’m not fighting any of those things anymore.  I’m fighting the depression.  I’m fighting the weakness.  I’m fighting the pathetic sense of defeat and powerlessness.   I’m fighting the grief.  And slowly, gradually…I’m learning to kick its ass.

All thanks to this amazing place called the dojo- Elite Martial Arts of South Austin, to be exact.
Thanks, Elite , for teaching me how to dominate, conquer, and survive.
You’ve got my heart.

My Favorite Place

gravity

Sometimes being an alien makes you feel special.  Sometimes it just makes you lonely as hell for a place where people understand you easily without putting you on trial or making you feel crazy for feeling your feelings or being your being.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”   Sometimes you just want to be around people who hear your fucking music… and know how to dance to it.

Sometimes being an alien makes you feel like a star:  otherworldly, unique, shining .  Sometimes being an alien for too long just makes you feel like an alien.  People tend to want to reject that which they can’t figure out.  Sometimes that sucks ass.  Sometimes it just makes you want to fly far away from the place where you’re treated like a stranger.

But then sometimes when your brain is  being a melodramatic teenager and thinking “nobody in the whole world understands me”, you remember that  pretty much everybody feels that way at different points… and so how can you be an alien when you’re just like everybody else?  But how can you be like everybody else when nobody can figure you out or dig your groove?

And then you just get fed up and want to strap yourself to a missile and shoot yourself into the stars…
cuz they’re pretty…
and it seems quiet up there…
and gravity is seriously getting you down.

name

I never shared my son’s name with anyone.
Partly because  it was a way to be in denial about the whole thing.  When we were at the funeral home and the giuy asked us his name I got furious and all I could say was “There is no name!” so the paperwork just said “Infant Boy Glick”, which also made me pretty furious.
But there most certainly is a name – a great name that’s been echoing around my head like a ghost because I haven’t let it out.

I also think I’ve been holding onto this idea that he was going to “come back”, and I should “save” his name for him.
But we spoke to him with this name,  we said “I love you” with this name.   It was his.  Sometimes when I would close my eyes and sing it into myself,  he’d respond with a little dance.
I need to release it now.

I have been calling him Starchild or Starman…and I’ve been extra obsessed with space travel lately.  At night I can’t look at the constellations anymore without feeling the break in my heart.

My son’s name was Orion.

That’s all.  I just needed to say it out loud for the first time in 6 months.

when life hands you shit….

…make Unicorn Poop!

(originally seen here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Unicorn-Poop/#step1 )

here’s my version:

Step One:  Mix that shit.  
(Easy sugar cookie recipe , blah blah blah…)

Step Two:  Ball up and prepare to dye.
I recommend gloves at this point cuz shit’s about to get wacktacular.

Step 3:   Color your balls

Step 4:  Let that shit chill…

Step 5:  Drink.  
(Gloves optional.)

Step 6:  Make more balls, and then make some poop snakes.
Though it looks like play-dough, it’s nearly impossible to roll, so I had to kind of pinch it into shape.
That’s right… pinch out some turds….

Step 7:   Shape your shit up.  Then bake that shit.

Step 8:  After baking and cooling,  polish the turds.
Make that shit shine.

Step 9:  Add sparkles and stars and shit.

Step 10: 
Check this shit out!
Now eat that shit.

That’s some goooood shit.