(this is just for me)
Main Entry: blaze
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: fire
Synonyms:
bonfire, burning, combustion, conflagration, flame, flames, holocaust, wildfire
Main Entry: blaze
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: flash of light
Synonyms:
beam, brilliance, burst, flare, glare, gleam, glitter, glow, radiance
Main Entry: blaze
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: torrent
Synonyms:
blast, burst, eruption, flare-up, flash, fury, outbreak, outburst, rush, storm
Main Entry: blaze
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: burn brightly
Synonyms:
beam, burst out, coruscate, explode, fire, flame, flare, flash, flicker, fulgurate, glare, gleam, glow, illuminate, illumine, incandesce, jet, light, radiate, scintillate, shimmer, shine, sparkle
Main Entry: burn
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: be on fire; set on fire
Synonyms:
bake, be ablaze, blaze, brand, broil, calcine, cauterize, char, combust, conflagrate, cook, cremate, enkindle, flame, flare, flash, flicker, glow, heat, ignite, incinerate, kindle, light, melt, parch, reduce to ashes, rekindle, roast, scald, scorch, sear, set a match to, singe, smoke, smolder, toast, torch, wither
Antonyms:
cool, extinguish, put out, quench, smother, wet
Main Entry: burn
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: be excited about; yearn for
Synonyms:
be angry, be aroused, be inflamed, be passionate, be stirred up, blaze, boil, breathe fire, bristle, desire, eat up, fume, lust, rage, seethe, simmer, smoulder, tingle, yearn
Antonyms:
stifle, subdue
Main Entry: conflagration
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: large fire
Synonyms:
blaze, bonfire, burning, flaming, holocaust, inferno, rapid oxidation, up in smoke, wildfire
Main Entry: declare
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: make known clearly or officially
Synonyms:
acknowledge, advance, advocate, affirm, allegate, allege, announce, argue, assert, asservate, attest, aver, avow, be positive, blaze, bring forward, certify, cite, claim, confess, confirm, contend, convey, demonstrate, disclose, enunciate, give out, inform, insist, maintain, manifest, notify, pass, proclaim, profess, promulgate, pronounce, propound, publish, put forward, reaffirm, reassert, render, repeat, reveal, set forth, show, sound, state, stress, swear, tell, testify, validate, vouch
Antonyms:
deny, disavow, retract
Main Entry: display
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: public showing; spectacle
Synonyms:
act, affectation, arrangement, array, arrayal, blaze, bravura, dash, demonstration, example, exhibit, exhibition, expo, exposition, exposure, fanfare, flourish, for show, frame-up, frippery, front, grandstand play, layout, manifestation, ostentation, ostentatiousness, pageant, panorama, parade, pedantry, pomp, presentation, pretension, pretentiousness, revelation, sample, scheme, shine, showboat, splash, splendor, splurge, spread, unfolding, vanity
Antonyms:
hiding
Main Entry: disseminate
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: distribute, scatter
Synonyms:
advertise, announce, annunciate, blaze, blazon, broadcast, circulate, declare, diffuse, disject, disperse, dissipate, proclaim, promulgate, propagate, publicize, publish, radiate, sow, spread, strew
Antonyms:
collect, gather
Thursday, December 31, 2009
word for 2010: blaze
this is year 3 in the word department. 2008 was complete, 2009 was thrive - 2010 looks as if it is supposed to be BLAZE.i don't know where that is going to take me. thrive went places i never could have imagined. hope blaze doesn't burn my house to the ground.
here's what it looks like in the visual thesaurus: BLAZE
thesaurus.com shows me that this is going to be a dangerous year.
it started with a piece of art that lisa samson posted to her facebook. it was of a tree in all four seasons - the fall season (where it feels like i am in my life) said BLAZE. this connected deeply with an ah-ha i had years ago at linwood house when i participated in "the path" with many blogger friends. we did an exercise that asked us which of the four elements we resonated with - earth, wind, fire or water. i knew immediately that i was fire. that metaphor has been one of the best tools i have ever used in understanding of self and my journey.
blaze called to that and i have been pondering it for the past few months. like thrive i tried to shove it away, but it just keeps coming back and nothing has arisen to replace it - and because i have run out of days it seems as if, like an unwanted cat that insists on following me around for the next 365 days... so welcome blaze. for all the good and the bad that you are i embrace you - teach me things about myself and my relationship to god and those around me please.
the secret life of termites
so much richness in the comments of my last post. thank you. i have missed this online give and take very much.
sonja mentioned that it sounded as if one of the legs of that 4 legged stool had termites - that made me laugh out loud! god bless you sonja! we have been apart intentionally from these folks - as we all decided as a group to disband - it was the "re-banding" without us that hurt so badly. but termites is exactly the metaphor for this situation - i do feel hollowed out from this - and i know that a 3 legged stool will stand on its own - but how i long for that healthy new wood to be formed and brought into support the other three.
patchouli said ""pissed" has some power; peace has life." - peace, perfect peace. elusive peace...
i realized after typing the last post that i had taken on a new unhealthy addiction - the compulsive and obsessive thoughts around these relationships were not letting me go. writing about it took away some of their power - but it has taken a very intentional effort to not let this keep consuming me.
can i say again how very sick and tired i am of this morphing my addiction does? how unidentified it slides its way into my day like a seed into a crack and begins to innocently grow until it needs fed and watered and starts to take hold in uncomfortable places. SO BLOODY SICK OF THIS.
feed me seymour...
i am handling this like i would handle temptation to obsess about sex or food - when i realize my head is in that space i take it captive and evict it from my head. just wish i could figure out why that crack is there in the first place and spackle it up... maybe a mosaic patch would be more artistic?
anyway - i'm keeping the lights on and calling my orkin man and we're going to deal with these termites once and for all :D
sonja mentioned that it sounded as if one of the legs of that 4 legged stool had termites - that made me laugh out loud! god bless you sonja! we have been apart intentionally from these folks - as we all decided as a group to disband - it was the "re-banding" without us that hurt so badly. but termites is exactly the metaphor for this situation - i do feel hollowed out from this - and i know that a 3 legged stool will stand on its own - but how i long for that healthy new wood to be formed and brought into support the other three.
patchouli said ""pissed" has some power; peace has life." - peace, perfect peace. elusive peace...
i realized after typing the last post that i had taken on a new unhealthy addiction - the compulsive and obsessive thoughts around these relationships were not letting me go. writing about it took away some of their power - but it has taken a very intentional effort to not let this keep consuming me.
can i say again how very sick and tired i am of this morphing my addiction does? how unidentified it slides its way into my day like a seed into a crack and begins to innocently grow until it needs fed and watered and starts to take hold in uncomfortable places. SO BLOODY SICK OF THIS.
feed me seymour...
i am handling this like i would handle temptation to obsess about sex or food - when i realize my head is in that space i take it captive and evict it from my head. just wish i could figure out why that crack is there in the first place and spackle it up... maybe a mosaic patch would be more artistic?
anyway - i'm keeping the lights on and calling my orkin man and we're going to deal with these termites once and for all :D
Saturday, December 26, 2009
living with the lights on
i really don't know how to title this post - i usually have a better idea of where my writing will take me - so far this one is called "pissed" - it might not end up there - but it's the best i can come up with at this point. it's more "injured" or "wounded" - but the grief is turning into anger and a rage has taken the place of the weakness i have been feeling.
i make a point in my recovery to have structure built into my life so that i am not left to my own defenses. i have intentionally planted and tended seeds that should be bearing fruit in my life and instead of harvest i am left with famine. it makes me angry, and oh so sad.
i have found that therapy, support groups and some kind of what people from my background call "fellowship" (hate that word, but too fried to try to think of something else to call it) give me a good 3-legs when added to my fourth of working my program have a structure and stability that makes for serenity and sanity in my life.
i have been working my program, but my meeting has become incredibly frustrating as 3 of the 4 of us are in major relapse and while their words say they want a meeting what they mean is that they want ME to maintain the meeting so that if they ever work up any semblance of desire to play at recovery i'll be there to support them - but if anything is actually required of them they really don't want to bother. (see, it's called "pissed" for a reason)...
my "fellowship" has been a community of couples and families who have met together for the past 2 years to share a meal and our lives together. since the fall this has collapsed. you see one of my best friends had been "virtually" cheating on the other of my best friends (the couple i talked about being enmeshed in codependency with in the last post) and he did it on my computer - yes MY computer - asshole. this isn't just the run of the mill guy trapped in addiction (previous to this i had no evidence of addiction at all) - he is a senior programmer for a major corporation, a bible professor, fighter for womens rights and a father and husband who to most accounts is quite stable - come to find out that the "womens rights" thing is really mostly a pick-up line and the cross-gender friendship i had been building was mostly a sham to get me to fill in the gaps for attention that his wife - my other best friend didn't seem able to do.
this happened right before our two families were to go camping together this summer. i didn't trust my gut enough to cancel our involvement in the trip and it was the most uncomfortable situation we as a family have ever participated in. we got tarred and feathered for their inability to live in the light and i am still trying to get the shit off me.
i would have NEVER attempted to have a cgf with another sexual addict. NEVER. it is why i kept getting triggered and could never understand the cause. it fed a deep place in my soul to have a male computer programmer care about me spiritually - and validate me spiritually - the call on my life and the education i was participating in - my computer programmer father was never able to and has actually been vehemently opposed to my spiritual life and has never voiced any pleasure or approval, let alone pride in my accomplishments or life choices. his validation was a narcotic to me and somehow he knew that and it took me far too long to figure out. his brain works like my dad's and he understands things like my dad does. we had an easy shorthand in conversation that seemed so natural.
i was accountable to my husband and three of my friends who know me better than i usually know myself for the duration of this friendship - i did not want any of this to stray into dangerous territory - i was so determined to have a cgf to prove that i was not an animal, that i was not dangerous - that it was possible to live and peace with all men - and myself - and it has blown up in my face.
because of my desire to not tell anyone elses story i have kept the real cause of the falling out to myself and it now looks as if i was the obtuse one - as if i had done something wrong. see his wife - my other best friend - liked the role i played with her husband - i did all of the heavy emotional lifting - he had never been so stable and easy for her to manage. what a fool i am.
now i am ostracized while the lot of them meet and eat together and we're left outside of the invitations. the irony in this is that THEY (the couple) keep inviting, they keep trying to rebuild the broken relationship (not a new, healthy one - but the old broken, co-dependent one) - but all of "our" friends leave me out - and i have NO idea what they think. i am crushed and sad and getting angry. i want to shake them all and clear my slate.
but i won't because it would hurt her. i can't expose her pain and shame. i won't do it. it's not my story to tell. but the pain of being ostracized is overwhelming as this is such a small community and i am not leaving it. we are settled here - it feels like a test of all of the glorious rhapsodizing i have made about community and singing it's praises - those words feel like ashes now and i bear the burn scars.
liam tells me that it's easier to leave us out because we live "with the lights on" - we don't tolerate dark corners in each others lives, don't keep our eyes averted from the ugly places - and so we're the constant reminder to the things they'd like to pretend never happened. what they don't understand is that we know that those dark places are there - are willing to sit with them and still love and accept. it is the denial of the darkness that we hate - not the corners.
i make a point in my recovery to have structure built into my life so that i am not left to my own defenses. i have intentionally planted and tended seeds that should be bearing fruit in my life and instead of harvest i am left with famine. it makes me angry, and oh so sad.
i have found that therapy, support groups and some kind of what people from my background call "fellowship" (hate that word, but too fried to try to think of something else to call it) give me a good 3-legs when added to my fourth of working my program have a structure and stability that makes for serenity and sanity in my life.
i have been working my program, but my meeting has become incredibly frustrating as 3 of the 4 of us are in major relapse and while their words say they want a meeting what they mean is that they want ME to maintain the meeting so that if they ever work up any semblance of desire to play at recovery i'll be there to support them - but if anything is actually required of them they really don't want to bother. (see, it's called "pissed" for a reason)...
my "fellowship" has been a community of couples and families who have met together for the past 2 years to share a meal and our lives together. since the fall this has collapsed. you see one of my best friends had been "virtually" cheating on the other of my best friends (the couple i talked about being enmeshed in codependency with in the last post) and he did it on my computer - yes MY computer - asshole. this isn't just the run of the mill guy trapped in addiction (previous to this i had no evidence of addiction at all) - he is a senior programmer for a major corporation, a bible professor, fighter for womens rights and a father and husband who to most accounts is quite stable - come to find out that the "womens rights" thing is really mostly a pick-up line and the cross-gender friendship i had been building was mostly a sham to get me to fill in the gaps for attention that his wife - my other best friend didn't seem able to do.
this happened right before our two families were to go camping together this summer. i didn't trust my gut enough to cancel our involvement in the trip and it was the most uncomfortable situation we as a family have ever participated in. we got tarred and feathered for their inability to live in the light and i am still trying to get the shit off me.
i would have NEVER attempted to have a cgf with another sexual addict. NEVER. it is why i kept getting triggered and could never understand the cause. it fed a deep place in my soul to have a male computer programmer care about me spiritually - and validate me spiritually - the call on my life and the education i was participating in - my computer programmer father was never able to and has actually been vehemently opposed to my spiritual life and has never voiced any pleasure or approval, let alone pride in my accomplishments or life choices. his validation was a narcotic to me and somehow he knew that and it took me far too long to figure out. his brain works like my dad's and he understands things like my dad does. we had an easy shorthand in conversation that seemed so natural.
i was accountable to my husband and three of my friends who know me better than i usually know myself for the duration of this friendship - i did not want any of this to stray into dangerous territory - i was so determined to have a cgf to prove that i was not an animal, that i was not dangerous - that it was possible to live and peace with all men - and myself - and it has blown up in my face.
because of my desire to not tell anyone elses story i have kept the real cause of the falling out to myself and it now looks as if i was the obtuse one - as if i had done something wrong. see his wife - my other best friend - liked the role i played with her husband - i did all of the heavy emotional lifting - he had never been so stable and easy for her to manage. what a fool i am.
now i am ostracized while the lot of them meet and eat together and we're left outside of the invitations. the irony in this is that THEY (the couple) keep inviting, they keep trying to rebuild the broken relationship (not a new, healthy one - but the old broken, co-dependent one) - but all of "our" friends leave me out - and i have NO idea what they think. i am crushed and sad and getting angry. i want to shake them all and clear my slate.
but i won't because it would hurt her. i can't expose her pain and shame. i won't do it. it's not my story to tell. but the pain of being ostracized is overwhelming as this is such a small community and i am not leaving it. we are settled here - it feels like a test of all of the glorious rhapsodizing i have made about community and singing it's praises - those words feel like ashes now and i bear the burn scars.
liam tells me that it's easier to leave us out because we live "with the lights on" - we don't tolerate dark corners in each others lives, don't keep our eyes averted from the ugly places - and so we're the constant reminder to the things they'd like to pretend never happened. what they don't understand is that we know that those dark places are there - are willing to sit with them and still love and accept. it is the denial of the darkness that we hate - not the corners.
a beautiful picture
my friend patchouli left the nicest comment on my last post - she read between the lines of the pain and frustration i was voicing and painted this beautiful picture - it moved me deeply and i didn't want it to get lost in the comments so i am posting it here:
These are the words that I believe describe you. What a beautiful picture they paint.
"it's taken away a lot of the need i had to vent here"
"only know that this place rarely feels like home anymore."
"this is new ground for us and we are growing up and taking responsibility for ourselves in new ways, but but it can be terrifying at times and we have few crutches left in our lives to lean on"
"all is not lost"
laugh
leisure
new friendships
healthy, whole
art
creating
soothed
confidence
happy
proud
beautiful
gift to myself
embraced
possible
imagine
THANK YOU PATCHOULI - i really needed to hear my words put that way.
These are the words that I believe describe you. What a beautiful picture they paint.
"it's taken away a lot of the need i had to vent here"
"only know that this place rarely feels like home anymore."
"this is new ground for us and we are growing up and taking responsibility for ourselves in new ways, but but it can be terrifying at times and we have few crutches left in our lives to lean on"
"all is not lost"
laugh
leisure
new friendships
healthy, whole
art
creating
soothed
confidence
happy
proud
beautiful
gift to myself
embraced
possible
imagine
THANK YOU PATCHOULI - i really needed to hear my words put that way.
Monday, December 21, 2009
3 months, 6 months, 12 months...
it feels like a year since i have really written anything of note here. actually probably more like 13 months. i couldn't post that last piece without some update so that those of you who might still have my rss feed in your readers would fear that i had my own descent into madness. nothing like that, although these past few months have been more difficult than i'd care to admit.
13 months ago i began journaling every night before bed - one page - and minus one night in the hospital w/ buck when he held onto life by a very thin thread last february i have not broken the chain. it scrapes off the crud and has been the best tool i have ever used in my recovery. i am usually quite incoherent lately when i am scrawling that page, exhaustion at the end of the day depletes any real journalistic beauty - but i sit on the edge of that bed and force myself to write - and it works. i guess it's taken away a lot of the need i had to vent here. or maybe it's gotten me to a deeper place where even an anonymous blog is too open to air my life? i'm not sure - only know that this place rarely feels like home anymore.
buying our home was a true high point this year, but dealing with trades and finances has been brutal. it has only been in the past few weeks that we have had any semblance of normal back. many of the weeks/months were marked by much fear and anxiety as neither liam or i are from financial backgrounds that had any stability or training. this is new ground for us and we are growing up and taking responsibility for ourselves in new ways, but but it can be terrifying at times and we have few crutches left in our lives to lean on.
living without finances, food or alcohol to ease the pain and fear is a very ragged place at times. our margins wear thin quickly and the edges cut and bruise easily. i had fallen into a strange codependence with a couple and was the buffer for their relationship. it got weirder and uglier and i was so enmeshed into their lives very little of my own was being lived. i guess i take my addictions where i can when limiting my regular options. the pain was just too real to bear alone... that is gone now too and the bleakness of the longest day of the year presses in on me.
looking so forward to the days getting longer, even though winter must be weathered in the midst of this personal storm.
but all is not lost. we four laugh and leisure well together. living far from extended family is difficult during the holidays though. community has crumbled as i stepped away from the codependency and while new friendships and interactions are arising to take their place in healthy, whole ways the vacuum is still quite real and present and sitting with it today brings tears and grief.
i have been pouring myself into art and creating these past couple months. it has soothed my soul on the days where nothing else could or would. i am awakening an artist within and finding beauty and long lost confidence amidst the lies and tapes of old. i am ready for the holiday preparations to be over so that i can return to my paints, markers and pencils. i created two gifts for my children and i am so happy with them. they are framed and finished and beautiful. i also made a gift for myself with mixed media - an old forgotten 1/2 painted dollar store canvas, a favorite christmas card saved, rhinestones, vintage letter stickers and acrylics turned into a dark, moody holiday painting that i am truly proud of. it was a gift to myself for st. lucia day.
i never imagined that my word for 2009 would end up being about lack instead of abundance, but thriving even amidst the famine is truly where thriving becomes thriving. i have embraced that word this year in thought and deed, and although friends are few and far between i am finding that thriving in solitude is more possible than i had ever imagined.
13 months ago i began journaling every night before bed - one page - and minus one night in the hospital w/ buck when he held onto life by a very thin thread last february i have not broken the chain. it scrapes off the crud and has been the best tool i have ever used in my recovery. i am usually quite incoherent lately when i am scrawling that page, exhaustion at the end of the day depletes any real journalistic beauty - but i sit on the edge of that bed and force myself to write - and it works. i guess it's taken away a lot of the need i had to vent here. or maybe it's gotten me to a deeper place where even an anonymous blog is too open to air my life? i'm not sure - only know that this place rarely feels like home anymore.
buying our home was a true high point this year, but dealing with trades and finances has been brutal. it has only been in the past few weeks that we have had any semblance of normal back. many of the weeks/months were marked by much fear and anxiety as neither liam or i are from financial backgrounds that had any stability or training. this is new ground for us and we are growing up and taking responsibility for ourselves in new ways, but but it can be terrifying at times and we have few crutches left in our lives to lean on.
living without finances, food or alcohol to ease the pain and fear is a very ragged place at times. our margins wear thin quickly and the edges cut and bruise easily. i had fallen into a strange codependence with a couple and was the buffer for their relationship. it got weirder and uglier and i was so enmeshed into their lives very little of my own was being lived. i guess i take my addictions where i can when limiting my regular options. the pain was just too real to bear alone... that is gone now too and the bleakness of the longest day of the year presses in on me.
looking so forward to the days getting longer, even though winter must be weathered in the midst of this personal storm.
but all is not lost. we four laugh and leisure well together. living far from extended family is difficult during the holidays though. community has crumbled as i stepped away from the codependency and while new friendships and interactions are arising to take their place in healthy, whole ways the vacuum is still quite real and present and sitting with it today brings tears and grief.
i have been pouring myself into art and creating these past couple months. it has soothed my soul on the days where nothing else could or would. i am awakening an artist within and finding beauty and long lost confidence amidst the lies and tapes of old. i am ready for the holiday preparations to be over so that i can return to my paints, markers and pencils. i created two gifts for my children and i am so happy with them. they are framed and finished and beautiful. i also made a gift for myself with mixed media - an old forgotten 1/2 painted dollar store canvas, a favorite christmas card saved, rhinestones, vintage letter stickers and acrylics turned into a dark, moody holiday painting that i am truly proud of. it was a gift to myself for st. lucia day.
i never imagined that my word for 2009 would end up being about lack instead of abundance, but thriving even amidst the famine is truly where thriving becomes thriving. i have embraced that word this year in thought and deed, and although friends are few and far between i am finding that thriving in solitude is more possible than i had ever imagined.
painting my fear
this artist, lee price, has captured the madness of eating disorders so powerfully i felt naked and sucker punched while looking at them. it has been over a decade since my own descent into this hell and they took me back instantly. it was visceral.many are titled "self portraits" so she knows this pain personally.
Lee Price: American Figurative Realist Oil Painter
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