Don't worry... I fixed the panel myself

 I am the necessary interference…

The harmonic anomaly…

Tonight, as I sit to write, I think about all of my NOW moments.
I think back to sitting here one year ago, three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago… shall I keep going?

The woman I was ten years ago was so confused. I was definitely on autopilot. I pushed myself hard to get a grip. I was exactly where I thought I wanted to be, but something was off. So off the electric company could have been paying me—the switch was tripped.

What do you do when the lights go down?

I waited. Patiently.
I could always feel in my soul that something big was happening. I just didn’t know what that something was. I was thankful for what I had and I made the most of it.

The woman I was five years ago was terrified.
Just a year prior, I had married the man who consumed every part of me... from conversations with people who didn’t give a shit to daydreams and aspirations. I lived and breathed nothing but him.

I should have been standing in an ocean of elation.
Instead, I realized that saying I do changed nothing.

He would stare at the ring on his finger and mutter about how special he felt that someone would choose him. I had always chosen him. He didn’t always choose me. He still fought to win, not to understand. He still stomped around like a toddler who didn’t get his way. He still said some of the cruelest things to the person he claimed to love.

Nothing had changed.
And I was afraid I had made a terrible mistake.

But I waited.
Some of the best wines get better with age. A wing and a prayer…

The breaker wouldn’t stay on.

Three years ago, the woman staring back at me in the mirror finally said, You deserve to be happy.

So I went looking for the things that made me happy. I realized I had placed all of my eggs in the basket of him... of us. I stumbled into an opportunity to hang my art in a gallery and worked for months preparing for it.

On the day of the opening, he stole that too.

I sat on my deck, smoking a cigarette, about to leave early. My parents were taking the kids so I could participate in my own life. He showed up just before I finished... armed with excuses, explaining why I shouldn’t be mad.

He made it.

I listened to him manipulate the truth, and this time my eyes were wide open. Every other time this had happened flashed before me. He had been spinning stories like this for eons.

I felt gullible. Foolish.
How did I not see this before?

The circuit was fried.

Still, I waited. I assumed it was me. Maybe motherhood. Maybe I couldn’t focus. Maybe I couldn’t communicate clearly.

I pulled my energy way back... not because I wanted to. I wasn’t built for that. When I love you, I love the f*ck out of you. I often restrain myself, afraid I’m too much.

My dad has a saying: “The worst kind of alcoholic is the one with a head full of AA and a belly full of booze.”
That was me. A head full of understanding and a blown panel of fuses.

The woman I was a year ago wasn’t surprised.

If I’m honest... even with all the hurtful things he did and said at the end... I know it had to happen that way. He had to be the disrupter. The one who caused the system I had been operating under for 27 years to revolt.

And I was grateful.

I was scared.
But I was free.

Today, as I write to whoever reads these words, I understand this: everything is frequency. Everything is a symphony. When all chords... even the ones that sound like nails on a chalkboard... are played long enough, they find other chords and create harmony.

And when harmonies meet somewhere out in the universe, they create the most beautiful symphony you’ve ever heard.

Nothing is a mistake.
Nothing is right or wrong.
Every possibility is a strike of the string of life, aiming to become part of the whole.

And I understand now:

I am the exact dissonance this symphony was missing.

Every avenue, wave, frequency, chord would have brought me exactly here... just as I will ride out of here in whatever shape or fashion comes next.

There is no right or wrong.
Just chords bumping into each other.
Chords tethering. Tying.

Chords freeing and releasing...

My lights are on.
I fixed the panel myself.

           Poem 1246

“The minute I heard my first love story

I started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.”

—Rumi

Burn the Map!

Ah! A new year…

12 new chapters…
365 new chances… (I saw that on NYE… Totally stolen goods.)

Burn the map.
Life isn’t what you thought it was.

Yet here I am… spiraling in my past, examining every detail, trying to unearth the one answer that explains why I’m sitting here, where I am, and not where I thought I’d be. I thought I took all the correct steps. I thought I took all the right turns.

Instead, I kept adding more grief and shame to my bullshit sandwich with each discovery.

I’ve decided that this is the year I cut that out of my life.

Maybe I wasn’t made for straight lines.

It started with a handful of memories. Moments where my ex would casually bring up my “faults.” The ones I was already hypersensitive about. Dropped at random times, almost as if to remind me that I was damaged goods. Not quite right. Not perfect.

I learned to operate from that sense of self he so graciously handed to me.

Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that.
Be that.
Enjoy that.

Because I had extra hair on my body. Or a flat ass. Or “mosquito bumps” for breasts. Too many children. A faulty communication style. I did everything wrong.

My mind spiraled, briefly brushing up against all the things I could have criticized about him but never would. Because that would have been cruel. Hateful. Pointless.

So why did I accept it from him?
Why did I believe it was okay?

I did everything in my power to change myself to make him happy… and caught myself, just last week, still doing it. Still trying to be acceptable. To him.

I changed my clothes four times in a row, making sure every perceived flaw was hidden from the world. And in the end, what stared back at me in the mirror wasn’t really me at all.

What he did wasn’t accidental. It was a control tactic… one designed to keep me small, self-loathing, and disconnected from who I truly am. I think he believed that if he could dim my light, I might stay in the ditch with him. That way, he wouldn’t have to be alone.

Misery loves company.

I started noticing it in my daydreams. Those little glimpses of a future life. Every possibility bumped into his imagined disapproval.

He wouldn’t want me to do that.
He’d start an argument over that.
He’d make me feel terrible for wearing something like that.

As if his opinion of me still mattered.

What is this even about?

I thought I was healing. Letting go. Moving forward.

So where was this coming from?

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Yes, I am healing.
Yes, I am letting go.

But for twenty-seven years, my identity was intertwined with this man. He was my mirror. My witness. My measuring stick.

And my brain… my subconscious… is still running old programs in a brand-new life.

It’s like trying to tighten a screw with a wrench. When you’ve been programmed the same way for nearly three decades, it takes time to learn new tools. To exchange how you see, how you move, how you operate.

Subconscious reprogramming starts with nervous system regulation. I need to feel safe in this new life. I need new patterns. New thoughts. A new mirror… one that belongs to me.

A new witness.
Maybe that witness is only myself.
And the Universe.

A new measuring stick that says, Baby, you’ve always been enough. Always.

I have to stop choking down that old sandwich… the self-blame, the belief that I must keep carrying the burden of fault… when there are clearly patterns of manipulation woven into this story.

Now, when these old thought patterns surface, I meet them differently.

Ah, I say. This is a reorientation moment.

Because the question underneath it all keeps circling back to one thing:

If he didn’t exist at all…
what would this moment be about?

What would I say to myself?

So I wear the dress that shows off my curves… because I like it.
I skip leg and butt day because I’d rather watch a movie with my kids.
I don’t shave my legs every day because it gives me more time in my life.
I do what will bring me joy, right now, this moment without thinking for one second if he would approve.

And my peace is now intentional… not something I maintain for survival.

I get to be the cartographer now.

I don’t have to follow societal expectations or inherited ones passed down through generations. The roadmap is aflame, and I’m warming my hands by the fire.

I am being witnessed by life itself.

And I know it delights in me.

Turn Right 500 Feet from Here...

What I truly want to place in your hands,

beloved,

has no shape.

There is no jar to hold it,

no sentence to ferry it from my heart

into yours.

Still...

I keep cupping my palms

as if light might finally agree

to sit still long enough

to be delivered.

You ask me

which turn to take,

what words to speak,

how to stop your heart

from arguing with itself.

And I smile,

for I know that secret ache:

the map you want

is folded somewhere

inside your own breath.

I cannot unfold it for you.

God knows... I’ve tried.

I’ve spent lifetimes trying.

But every time I lean close

to hand you an answer,

it dissolves into incense,

and all you smell

is your own longing.

So I point instead.

Here,

five hundred feet from this moment,

turn toward the place

where your courage stirs.

Then walk

until you hear

your soul knocking

from the inside.

Do not ask me how to open that door...

you were born with the hinges

already in your bones.

Yes, I know...

it is strange that so many

wander to me for counsel

as if I am some lantern

that has figured out

how to tame the dark.

I laugh sometimes,

because I am only learning

a half-step ahead of them.

And some days...

not even that.

But I do know this:

Every time I try to give

what cannot be given,

Love leans in

and whispers,

“Beloved…

your presence is already enough.

Your gentleness is instruction.

Your listening is a balm.

You guide best

by never pretending

you know the way.”

So I sit beside you

in the dust of this world,

offering nothing

but my company

and the quiet faith

that the path

will glow beneath your feet

the moment

you dare

to take the next step.

And somehow...

that becomes the gift

I could not give

by any other means.

~Mme. Pamela McCreight~

(The gal who was incredibly inspired by The Great Sufi Master, Hafiz)