My December

Yeah, I'm keeping up with the Linkin Park theme like I did for yesterday's post. Yet I can't seem to help it.... A good part of yesterday and all day today I have had this stuck in my head....

credit

"My December"

This is my December
This is my time of the year
This is my December
This is all so clear
This is my December
This is my snow covered home
This is my December
This is me alone

And I
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I
Take back all the things that I said
To make you feel like that
And I
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I
Take back all the things that I said to you

And I'd give it all away
Just to have somewhere
To go to
Give it all away
To have someone
To come home to

This is my December
These are my snow covered trees
This is me pretending
This is all I need

And I
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I
Take back all the things that I said
To make you feel like that
And I
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I
Take back all the things I said to you

And I give it all away
Just to have
Somewhere to go to
Give it all away
To have someone
To come home to

This is my December
This is my time of the year
This is my December
This is all so clear

Give it all away
Just to have somewhere
To go to
Give it all away
To have someone
To come home to

Give it all away
Just to have somewhere
To go to
Give it all away
To have someone
To come home to

The music without the lyrics is cathartic. Yet the lyrics really add to it... It's one of their deepest songs that I know.


To me, that song meaning is about regrets, loneliness and sadness.....

It's hard for me to put into words what I feel with this song.... There are days that it would be so easy to think back and wish we had done this and that differently. That we wished someone loved us better, or that we loved them better. That we wished we had never given up on a person or that we wished that someone had never given up on us.


For my life, it's always been broken promises, which some of that I allow, likely. You see, in my thirty something years of life, the only one who has not given up on me in any sort is my husband. (I don't count my kids in that yet. Too young.) Yet sometimes over the 17 years we have been together, (Married 13 years) I'm surprised he hasn't. Everyone else I have ever known has, at least at one time or another and many of them forever. I say I got used to it but really I didn't. It just made my heart harder..... Made me more angry, more co-dependent in that I wanted to control everything that went on around me, or at least know everything that was going on and why it was. I'm still like that..... It's worked well in some cases and not so well in others.

My most lonely years were the years I battled the worst depression I ever had. It was honestly a good thing I didn't have depressing music to listen to at that time or it would have been even worse.... I felt loved by nobody. Not even my beloved grandpa. He couldn't see us very often and we could only go to him every so often. Even after he gave me my first flute and I went into band, that happiness only lasted so long before the tentacles of depression and despair took over.... Again. I was twelve. Yet even today you see in the news and social media kids as young as eight killing themselves.... I was eleven when I got the first note in school saying that I should just be dead. Now it hadn't been the first time I heard it said to me but it was the first time I saw it written about me by someone who then pretended to be a friend. It's a good thing I didn't trust her much anyway but still....

I told my daughter just tonight, who is ten that if she learns nothing in life, to please never give up, no matter how bad it gets...... NEVER!

By the time I was her age she is now, the depression had not started yet but it wasn't far off. Yet I had seen more in those ten years than many would in a lifetime..... It's kinda ironic now how my kids have seen more than many kids have by this point yet I look at them and see how much better they have it than I ever did. They never have to doubt love, compassion, trust and hope.... I pray that as they get older, they never will either. Though, life will bring heartbreaks, I pray their foundation is better than mine ever has been.

I still remember when I was nearly fourteen, going into my last group home looking out the bedroom window that first night, seeing the moon and thinking about my destiny.

credit

I sat by the window that night looking out honestly thinking about so much..... Of course twenty one years later, I don't remember all of it. I do remember figuring at first that it was just another hellhole to survive. Well I did! Often that's what life can be. Good and bad, perceptions change following different things and times in our lives.

Do you all remember the movie Forest Gump? Remember the scene where Jenny was wanting to jump and all she did there is sit and cry? That's where I was....

I had been there so many times before.... Yet in that moment at the group home, I decided never again. It was time for me to heal, to finally be what I could be, and do my best for it.
By the time the courts decided it was time for me to go back home, I didn't want to. A part of me hated living with thirteen other girls but at least I was doing pretty good in school, was doing pretty decent in band and was finally relatively happy. I was safe.... I was in a place where I was heard. Where when my grandpa died, the one solid rock I ever had in my life, in one of my weakest times of grief, the staff there had my back. The teachers at my high school had my back.

I was forced to go back to a school district that had a history of not. Of kids who knew of my past cutting, my last few psych placements, and into a place where I had never been accepted or wanted by anyone prior., but for two girls I was in band with when I first started that.


Now I have listened to music often that compelled me to write. Yet after a long while of not having heard My December, somehow in the passing of Chester, this song has brought out much more... It's like the older I've gotten, the more deep I have gotten but also the more my brain runs away with me.... The older I have gotten, the more my eyes are opened to the world yet also to so much deep stuff in people's lives. Maybe that's because I have hardly any social life but still.... ;)

As I've gotten older, and as a mom, the more I have also spoken up about things. I don't know how much of that is "healing" or just as being an advocate or just simply that I like to talk. (Obviously... lol) Yet often I will find my heart aching and or yearning for more. Sometimes it yearns for unconditional love by family. Sometimes for people to have more compassion and less judgment. Sometimes for my heart to feel the joy that I see in others during times of worship. Sometimes for me to see life the way my three year old son does and not as a thirty something year old woman who has seen way too much in those years. Sometimes it yearns for truly feeling the love that God promises and I believe but often don't feel it....

I think to some degree, everyone struggles with this and more. Yet it's kinda ironic that I fight that stuff over 20 years later after accepting Christ.... Is that normal? That I don't know... I don't doubt my faith, it's not like that, it's just there's so much deep stuff to think on in life, that sometimes I can't help but to think the way I do, you know? I remember that night though. Days before we went to state for our marching band show (We won first in our class) and I remember looking out at the full moon sitting in the big van our group home had and staring at it. At first I figured salvation would bring the "easy life" where everything wouldn't be perfect but all would be smooth. Yeah, I'm laughing at myself too. I remember looking up and wondering if I was really forgiven for all the crap I had done and said all those years. If I would ever be truly healed of my past and what all had been done to me and said to me.

Yet even now I have healed from much yet I still have more to do. I still have questions, I still have doubts. Not doubts in my faith but as I said earlier, I think it's more questions than anything. Sometimes even jealousy/envy for where others are. Yet if not for where I have been, I wouldn't be able to relate to so many who I know my words can help. So then there is that. If it had not been for all the "hellholes" and stuff, then those who hurt, I would not relate to, and they may suffer in silence as a result.


So what will you do with your pain? What will you do with the past you had, no matter how bad? I am not ashamed that I am in Celebrate Recovery and probably will always be a part of to some degree. It proves to me that I'm not alone. It shows me that I can emerge victoriously, even if it takes a while. As the lyrics in the song Live on Forever says, 

"Dark days are gonna go away
They won't have the final say
These bones were always gonna fade
'Cause we were made for another place
The moment of our final breath
When all our fears are put to rest
Every tear will disappear
Heaven is real"




Hang in there, those of you who are hurting...... Listen to this....

"If they say
Who cares if one more light goes out
In the sky of a million stars
It flickers, flickers
Who cares when someone's time runs out
If a moment is all we are
Or quicker, quicker
Who cares if one more light goes out
Well I do"


~ Special Momma ~

In The End......

Yesterday left me with many thoughts in my head.... Some of you will know why that title is what it is, some of you won't, yet. All of you will by the time this post is done. And sorry for the long hiatus....

Last night leaving Celebrate Recovery, it was towards sunset, bright orange sun on the west, pink sky with rain-bands to the north and a very faint rainbow facing east against a purple sky. So beautiful..... I wish I could have gotten pics yet I couldn't. The view was one of the most beautiful......Yet somber... I was in shock..... I was in disbelief, yet so many memories were flooding into my head.... The rainbow kept fading in and out. I could feel God telling me "That fading in and out is you. Your rainbow shines sometimes, and sometimes it does not. And other times it's only able to be seen by a few. To really let it shine, you have to allow more light in." in that moment.......I'll get more into that shortly.

I went to bed with this stuck in my head....

"It starts with
One thing I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time

All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away

It's so unreal
Didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on, but didn't even know
Or wasted it all just to watch you go

I kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To remind myself how

I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I'm surprised

It got so far
Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me in the end

You kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter"


I saw this said today and I can totally agree.... Hearing Chester could be best described with how he described his dear friend, Chris Cornell, "your voice was joy and pain, anger and forgiveness, love and heartache all wrapped into one.."

That's what Linkin Park was for me....... Linkin Park is music I related to right after high school, going into college years and still do to some of the top hits..... In The End, Numb and One Step Closer are just three..... So many memories yet too reminders I wasn't alone...... The main albums I knew were Hybrid Theory and Meteora. (I had to double check release dates because I thought One Step Closer single came out while I was IN high school but it was right after. Hey, I had the year right at least!) No it's not Christian music but it is where I was. It's like Chester and LP were singing to me through much of those but especially those three.

Suicide doesn't rid the pain, it only explodes it...... It ends your suffering but it takes your pain and explodes onto everyone around you, starting with those who love you the most, even if you don't see it.... Chester's wife and six kids now have to deal with that loss the hardest.

Yet as the days go by, more and more will forget about this, they will move on, it will just be another celebrity lost. Even many have already moved on from Robin Williams.... (Best actor EVER!) Yet to those closest to Chester, his children and wife, they will never move on from this. Yeah, the days may get easier but it will never be the same.

Some have called Chester a coward, some have called him a POS, some have called him a pathetic person for doing this. Others have felt sorry for him... I have read comments on YouTube of fans saying that they too want to commit suicide now, yet so little do we realize that what we do, affects the people we would think of the least.

This was the best thing I saw today:

credit

So the question then is, "why suicide?" There's so many things that can lead up to it..... For me it was that all my life up till that point, I was taught by almost everyone that I wasn't worth anything, that I was just alive to be abused and mistreated, that I was alive because it was a mistake made, that I was worth as much as a piece of used toilet paper that should have just been thrown away. And the rare ones that believed I was worth something, I didn't believe them. Even today, almost 21 years after accepting my faith in Christ, I still struggle with my value. Though, it's nothing like it was. My darkest times were at 11-13. That's when I wanted to die, and I don't mean just wonder what life would be like if I wasn't here. I mean seriously wanted death. I prayed for it, even though I didn't believe in the faith then. I wished for it, I thought of the ways I would end it..... Most painless yet quick..... My days in school of bullies only added to it, especially when the staff at the school didn't want to do anything about it. I've shared my story on here before.... Mainly here and here.

Isolation, depression, anger, bullying, substance abuse, cutting, etc. is not limited to any race, gender socioeconomic class or anything. Nobody is immune. NOBODY!

We are all one trauma, one tragedy, one life changing event away from the potential of depression and or anxiety sticking it's slimy tentacles on you and refusing to let go no matter what...... No matter what your religious beliefs are, nobody is immune......

"Every story had the same message: what was deep inside could only be deciphered by someone who understood how easily a heart could be broken."

― from "Faithful: A Novel"

It's so much easier to feel accepted and loved in a place where you know others are on the journey with you, no matter what that journey for you is. For me it's like when I'm in Dallas yet it's also easier there to really share the journey, step out on faith that you will be accepted because you know those around you are where you are. Yet even for those who deal with depression, that can feel like not enough. Not because they are ungrateful or whatever but because it's truly not..... The pain, sorrow, anguish, anger, bitterness and whatever else feelings are being felt by the person facing those demons scream every single moment of every single day..... Those voices and feelings are so loud that they can often drown out everything else, even the words from those we love and who love us the most.

Remember me saying "I could feel God telling me "That fading in and out is you. Your rainbow shines sometimes, and sometimes it does not. And other times it's only able to be seen by a few. To really let it shine, you have to allow more light in."in that moment."

I need to work on allowing the rainbow within me to be seen more often..... To shine brighter, to not allow life to snuff it out or even to dim it. Perfection? I wish.... Yet something I could strive to do better.

Now to share some honesty and raw truth, especially for those who have not seen my posts here before.

I will admit I have always struggled with being loved and even "good enough" For so many and for so long, I was never good enough, and for some I'm still not. Nothing I say or do is good or perfect enough. Yet I have to remember that they are not what matter, what should matter to me is God. First and foremost. The next opinion that should matter is my husband. That's it. And even him I can sometimes disagree with but stay civil. For so long, my worth I was keeping in how good of a parent I was, how good I was at doing the "right thing" no matter what, at doing all I could to fight whatever battle was next and to always have the armor on, ready to fight. There are times I still must do that, yet maybe it's time to sometimes take that armor off too..... I just hope I don't wind up like the poor knight in Knight in Rusty Armor, where it won't come off. I still like that story, all these years later.


I just want to get to the point where I can feel and experience unconditional love and acceptance without conditions or at least perceived conditions from God.


Someday I'll get there.... For now I suppose I just have to keep going. There is no other way..... I know the story isn't over though. Though no matter how dark or light or everything in between life is, people are watching us. People are looking for others who are where they are. They are looking for someone who they can either help or be helped from.




                  Where are you at?
            What are you willing for?
                  What will you do?

"Without pain, how could we feel joy? Without regret, how could we cherish pride? Without sadness, there's no use in being happy. Without death, what value is a life lived?"

~ Unknown ~

"What beauty dwells in the heart of those tortured, 

That feel love so deep but hatred stains. 

Sadness upon there brow. 

Theses tortured once bright. 

Will almost never return to the light."
~ Unknown ~

“People grow when they are loved well. If you want to help others heal, love them without an agenda.”

— Mike McHargue"

That is how to help the hurting.... Who do you know that is hurting today? Who are you going to talk to and commit to being a true friend to?

Now, go do it! You never know what it might do for them.... You may prevent a suicide and not even know you did....


~ Special Momma ~