live through this and you won’t look back

healing. she/her. queer. light. love. living. spiritual. everything and nothing all at once. the dichotomy of being. abolish all systems of harm. courage to imagine something better.

[kosmogrl]

we got august this week

[heartonthefloor]

It's my 16 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

Wowwwwww

I have a whole lot of posts to write but let’s just leave this right here for whatever the internet archive this may be.

[heartonthefloor]

Realizing how abused and neglected you were is a boulder of constantly having to remind yourself it was that bad, yes that’s why you’re this way, it’s ok, and you get to have peace now. You don’t have to fight any more. That’s kinda it, what healing is. Just figuring out how to accept that, every fucking day. Despite what your brain shouts at you about not needing anything, you should be doing more, why aren’t you better, etc…it’s an every day battle to simply live and not make yourself, smaller, less than, and do more.

It’s ok to be. It’s ok to live.

“Value” and “worth” are for objects.

People and beings and aliveness doesn’t have a price or an output amount to get to live life.

We are here and that gets to be it.

No price to pay, no trade off.

Despite what they all make us think, there’s no tolls to pay for living.

None of us asked to be here.

It’s ok to be. It’s ok to stop proving yourself. To stop spinning. To stop being whatever you thought they needed you to be.

Because now it’s my body that must come first and everything else second.

And that’s how it is. Despite what I learned as a child. The rules are different now, because the rules never were what I was taught.

So I get gentleness and sweetness and coaxing to my own self.

Now.

Because I spent decades tip toeing around monsters.

[heartonthefloor]

it’s been a min

It’s funny how life happens and how you begin to see yourself

This may be the longest stretch of consecutive time I’ve gone without writing or blogging or micro blogging documenting my life via words. I have instagram but it’s not much of anything lately.

The idea of that makes me smirk so I must be doing something right by myself. I was never really private, that’s for sure. And this isn’t so much privacy as a lack of words, which is even more strange. And it’s not even a lack of words as my brain is constantly talking to me, it’s a lack of energy. I don’t have the spoons to communicate like I used to, and so. I’m quiet, even in my more “private” places, I’m not even writing in a journal. I am making art and that’s better anyway.

Spoons, I’ve given into the lingo because it’s what’s available and understood. I don’t have the spoons to create and explain something new.

Some life updates: I’ve been “discharged” from PT for my head/neck “upper crossed syndrome” issue. I got to ring the bell! I never got to ring a bell before! My range of motion in my neck/shoulders is much improved, and getting back the hour 2 days a week is needed. It was a lot for me. But I have to keep up with it. I’m just so tired all the time.

FFB has built a gym in the garage and that helps motivate me to keep up with the exercises. He’s wonderful. We have had a lot of 1on1 time and dates lately. I’m soaking it up. I’m leaning into fun and pushing myself a little especially since gaining some functioning in PT and being in some less daily pain.

I completed another year of art classes and spent the last 6 months in an independent studies class where I worked on my own ideas along side other artists working on their own ideas, and I’ll tell you what, it’s been so cup filling. And my mentor showed me how to take proper photos of my art and I have every piece in sleeves with glassine and in an artists portfolio, all pieces together I’m really proud of how I’ve grown and the collection I created. And I now feel more confident in my “voice” as an artist and what I want to work on next.

FFB and I are going to a BBW “lifestyle” event in Vegas in July 🤣 and tbh I’m so excited. One night is “y2k” night. He’s wearing pucca shell necklace and popping polo collars, I’m going to do layered tanktops punk sk8r grll w a tie and wrists full of rubber bracelets

I’m tired and in some kind of pain a lot of the time but I’m curbing the pain here and there, and we love that. I’m saying yes to fun and I’m trying to stay in the moment.

[heartonthefloor]

Latest WIP

[heartonthefloor]

I need a break from doctors appointments and pain and being exhausted.

[heartonthefloor]

The morning I started this piece, a teenager had jumped in front of the redline.

I had told my art class instructor, in case anyone was late. Trains delayed. Ride share surges. I saw it on Alderman Maria Hadden’s ig, or I wouldn’t have known.

I remember she said a teenager. Prayers to their family. Prayers to them, too, I thought, several times, wherever their soul is.

I remember learning about the phenomenon of jumping in front of the train to commit suicide. I hadn’t been in Chicago long, definitely was 18. It became my fantasy “out” for a long time. My just in case plan. My uncle had been killed in a freight train wreck, what an homage, I thought. Oh to be remembered, to mess up so many people’s day, I would think, at least I’d get their attention for a moment, their prayers for a minute. These were my thoughts years ago. When life was simpler-darker. Not complex-dark.

The composition on this piece got all wrong, it was supposed to be more of “looking through” the tree, and that’s not what’s happening. It’s ok, it’s my first attempt at something so structured and industrial with oil pastels. I typically stay very nature-y. I did almost all of this free hand and cleaned it up with a straight edge, but the front proportions aren’t exactly right. I tried using some color trickery to give it the curve, but I’ll be making more with cta cars soon, I like what’s happening here. In the original photo I took, I could see the orange stocking cap of the train driver, and there’s a bit of a nod in there.

The day I finished this piece was the day after the disastrous and embarrassing MET gala. One of my classmates had been to see Bruce Springsteen the night before, and she was showing me clips of him and the whole crowd chanting “ICE OUT” and I said, this is a hell of a lot better use of artistic platform and your Monday night than anyone at the Met gala, and someone else brought up Spirit airlines going under, and I said something about how we’re all doing the very best thing we can do during collapse: make some art in person with other humans and talk about it all. One of my classmates is working on a project of archival footage he took from the AIDS Quilt/March on Washington in 1987. And sometimes I’ll look over at what he’s working on and the weight of the single image from that day and the joy and fight and hope and fearlessness because we have each otherness you can sense in those photos…there’s something about it all that keeps my cup full enough to continue to show up and make art again and again and again.

[heartonthefloor]

Three sessions and a week into doing neck and shoulder PT and I can already tell this is going to be a big unlock for my body. I’m not feeling good or relief of my pain yet, but I am feeling…a bit more energy? A bit of “loosening” a bit less stiffness each day, maybe? I can tell it’s working, and it’s not causing more pain. Head and neck PT are crazy, the smallest movements do so much. It’s also balancing out what I’ve been doing for my lower back, like no wonder it wasn’t all feeling “right” because I was truly unbalanced in my strength and now I’m working on building it all back up together and I know I can do it. I’ve done it before.

My body has finally adjusted to FFB being back home. Sleeping together again is still rough but everything else is adjusted back to comfortable or enjoyable or neutral. He’s gone again this weekend, and tbh that helps. He has a bunch of travel this year and it works out. I get I space and rest. We get fam time (w Buck) when he’s home.

Medical expenses keep stressing me out, and I got my first CDR (continuing disability review) I’m very much consistent with treatment and see so many doctors and do all my follow ups and follow treatment plans, I’m not super concerned but it was a fight to get here & it’s so hard to not slip into a paranoid loop.

[heartonthefloor]

Me and my best boi in my place of zen.

Really like this one.

[heartonthefloor]

Went back to PT and I have “upper cross syndrome” a lot of us iPhone generation have it

So now I’m back in PT 2x a week working to correct all of this bs. I know it’ll help, I’m in so much neck and shoulder pain. I’m just so very very tired all the time. Getting the help, doing the things, because eventually it’ll lead to an easier and less painful life over all. It’s PT Monday and Thurs. Art Tues. Therapy Wed. Rest the other 3 days. Disabled life pacing, still doesn’t feel like enough rest.

But the smartest thing I did was schedule PT at a new place somewhere walking distance to my house. I don’t have to drive or take a car, less spoons.

[heartonthefloor]

FFB has been home a week and believe me I’m happy he’s home.

And my body? Well my body is in rough shape and she’s stuck in a survival cycle and she’s just afraid all the time so it’s a lot of talking myself down out of panic spirals because I’m triggered so often.

I am so tired.

Therapy was great today, I saw her in person to help myself ground. I cried most of the time, and I talked about how sick I am of the crying. It’s always been there, the crying, bubbling under the surface. She asked if it’s new with this round of being upset or grief I said nope, same as it ever was, the feelings are so much and just a few heavy feels away from bubbling over and then I told her about the Reddit post.

One of my neighbors posted in AskChicago Reddit about my crying on my patio and how loud it was and how long I went on and asked if they should say something to me.

My therapist busted out laughing. We spent the next 10 minutes bawling laughing about the whole absurdity of the whole thing cuz I realized I hadn’t even told her about it all yet, I hadn’t told anyone about it.

It was good to laugh in a room with another person.

[herssian]

deepen the shadows bro. it'll be ok

[herssian]

i meant art-wise but if any dark sorcerers see this. you do you

[heartonthefloor]

A few finishing touches next week, but I really love how this one is turning out.

[heartonthefloor]

Number one thing I’m learning about being in love and having a CPTSD brain: I can’t trust anything I initially feel.

[heartonthefloor]

I hadn’t intended on going tonight, I wanted to give away all these games as I figured it would be too cold and too hard to my body. Yet it’s magically a random 70 degree in the evening March day and my seatmate who I haven’t seen since October was at the game. I got him a sheet of 383 parking passes. If you live in Chicago, our parking system just to park on our neighborhood streets is a labyrinth of stickers and parking passes, especially in my “zone” the coveted cubs zone. The daily parking stickers to park on the street here in their neighborhood are like gold and the alderman’s office rations them out by household and I’m not even joking, I had to show my id with my address and I could only get 3 sheets. (Listen, I am all for discouraging car dependency, and tbh I barely use the passes, but wanted to do the favor for my seatmate). I approve of this system I just think it’s funny. I wouldn’t have a vehicle if it weren’t for my dad’s old truck. Anyway, I spent the game catching up with Tom (name changed) and his new retirement life. He just sold the business, took his family all the grandkids on a trip to Cancun. We complained about all the same cubs things but were happy about all the same things. I got to tell him all about the drama with my bfs surgery. I’m so glad I ended up going to the game, because they also played a great game, won 7-2. Tomorrow I have art class again, a fresh 10 week session. And then Wednesday my love is finally home. I can’t wait. It’s been too long.

[heartonthefloor]

I feel like this next phase of life is kind of relearning things outside of the voice of my mother because I think I’ve finally got to a point where I don’t hear her in my head all the time.

I didn’t realize how bad it was, or even that it was so present.

It’s been good, the falling apart time, grieving time, the boundary enforcing time. I just don’t want to always live in this so very vulnerable toddler like space forever. I already see myself growing.

[heartonthefloor]

Equal parts YES COLLAPSING IM SO GLAD I CAME TO SEE IT FALL and fuck it’s collapsing why did I choose to come here during this bullshit