Posted on by Wise Sass

The Promise of Tomorrow 

Today was a hard day. But that’s okay. I will survive and keep going because I have hope. 

The Promise of Tomorrow

Bukra, inshallah: 

Tomorrow when I wake,

I’ll have the expectation of joy.

Tomorrow when I wake,

A smile at my lips will toy.

Bukra, inshallah:

I will remember these things:

Someone said that I am amazing. 

I will remember these things:

Someone said that I am deserving.

Bukra, inshallah: 

When my foot hits the ground

I’ll rejoice in the weight it holds.

When my foot hits the ground 

I’ll strike a dance like 20 year olds. 

Bukra, inshallah:

I will remember that love exists.

I will remember holding my children tightly. 

I will remember how laughter feels. 

I will remember the promise of tomorrow. 

Xoxo,

Stef 

Posted on by Wise Sass

Imma be me

You’re not my type

From the moment we met
I knew it wasn’t you
No way, not even on a bet
But what’s a good girl to do?

You see, the odd thing with me is
I’m not just what you see
Not just white & blue, but reds too
Not beige, or silly taupe, imma be me

Raised right, moral fiber strong
I know very well right from wrong

Wild streak? Not that brave
But my precious wants crave
For the challenge of your metal
I want every bite; I won’t settle

I don’t maim, kick, or ridicule
My heart bleeds … but imma be me

You’re my Mount Everest, baby
I gotta climb; hit that peak
Oh honey, I’ll be your lady
Come, give me what I seek

Be my right now, my today
But not tomorrow, okay?

You’re not him, I don’t think
You’re fire to this kindling
It shouldn’t be, there’s no link
Except this flame is not dwindling

You’re not my type
Never gonna be
But come kiss me
’cause imma be me

—————————–

Proffered without comment. *sigh*

-Stef

Posted on by Wise Sass

A Haiku for You

I have a cold. A stupid, mind-numbing, frustratingly incapacitating cold. I had some fun things planned this weekend. But in lieu of on-the-go, I stayed in and probably worked a little too hard Saturday, but convalesced like a champ most of today (Sunday), by watching White Christmas and football. My team lost, but Bing Crosby still got the girl. Thank heaven.

I need love & light on the regular these days. I’m not going to talk about the f!&ing election, but suffice to say that,for the next four years, love & light, hope & prayers, and warriors for all that is good and righteous, will be working overtime to keep our asses, our sanity, our morality & our constitution intact! Dammit! I feel a rant coming on so I’m preemptively going to veer back into the left lane & floor it ……

I’ve been doing that a lot in the last 12 days. Come to the edge of the pain, skirt the side and then veer off before it’s able to suck me in. The grief is real, but it’s not my grief. I’m so scared of all the fear; fear does terrible things.

…… veering left again, hitting the gas ……

I took the boys their dad’s tonight. I felt too sick to drive but my ex is not kind to me. (Side note: he hasn’t been in a very, very long time; will he ever recognize his culpability, do you think?) So I knew I’d have to suck it up and drive the 20 minutes to his house & back, regardless of my health. A friend called, concerned, said I needed a hug, and please don’t drive. A friend who has never loved me but who feels more compassion for me and his dogs and other soldiers and his mom than he feels for most anybody else in the world.

Side thought: Why is it, do you think, that I collect wounded men? My mother hen complex pushing out invisible tractor beams? Look HERE! A sucker for heartsick, hurt men HERE! I try to do what I can, because I try to love big, and sometimes I fall hard and I am then discarded, but sometimes, and more often, I’m able to recognize what is not for me and walk away. I don’t search for it. Honestly. I want kindness, compassion & understanding, and they usually have those things, but equally I want independence, responsibility, & ambition. I want it altogether, in one package, and then I want that person to also think I’m the f!&king bee’s knees.

Because sometimes I don’t know how to accept flattery, or help, or friendship without embarrassment, distrust and various protestations. I am learning. Keep trying.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, I took the boys to their dad’s with a mix of relief & regret. Always both. Tonight more relief because I’m sick and it’s hard to be mom & patient concurrently. (Mom, I’m sorry you don’t feel well! Please get better! What’s for dinner?) I came home to my quiet home and watched a little of my comfort tv – shows so predictable they are soothing in their routine – and then I soaked in a bath with so many thoughts swirling around my head I got cold and pruny.

The net result, and the subject of this post (yes, I’m finally getting to it) is that I’m more able to process the world and all her quirky machinations when I allow my brain to unabashedly skinny-dip into the pool of creativity. I so commonly stick to pragmatics: that which can be researched, substantiated & proven is logical …… but logic never moved hearts. Logic doesn’t allow for emotional influences that are so important to human functionality. Therefore in order to function optimally I must allow creativity to flourish.

I’ve held my poetry for ransom. I’ve shut down my craft table. I built a wall around the comfort of pragmatics and I’ve stayed there. But over that wall I could see glimpses of fireworks & rainbows, a glow of light that changes colors and is enchanting me nearer.

I soaked in the bath tonight and I rebuilt a bridge. A small one. A footbridge. I started with a few haikus, and they are for you – because my love language is acts of service:

********************
1

Troubles carried far

Pinballing across vast oceans

Of thought in my mind

2

And when shall thou be

Mine; tis but a slip to know

But through wretched time

3

Suffer not, want none

Though times are treacherous

Compassion speaks most

****************
I actually wrote six, but I went deep and intimate with the other three and I think this is brave enough tonight.

Let us sleep now. I pray for compassion, unfettered love, and creativity in abundance for you. Let it flow; we need it now more than ever.

Xoxo,

Stef

P.S. If my two readers actually get through this rambling journal entry of a post then please raise your hand for a gold star. 🙂

Posted on by Wise Sass

Some days you’re the bug

I’m 40. I’m divorced. I’m a mother of two fantastic sons. I have a good job. I’m learning how to date. Those are the basics.

I once didn’t know if my life would ever grow beyond my small circle, the family and friends who care and stuck with me. It’s a small group, most who don’t live near me. Some of the people I love and miss the most aren’t in my life anymore. But that’s okay, I’m learning. Because my life is GROWING. And those people who once loved me and were my everyday don’t have to be a part of my future. At least not an active part. I’m trying to let that go.

So today I offer you two perspectives. A bad night and a wonderful night, and I’m so happy to have experienced both.

A Bad Night

Repose for a dream
Of sunlight and daffodils
Not a nightmare of loss, death,
and aching despair
Sleep there, where it died,
Driven by silence, it kills
Sleep there, the bed that you made,
It’s yours to bear

Gnashing against the sheet
Soaking wet, tears trickle in waves
She wants substance, she said
But you had it
You ignorant, feckless fool
You simpering, selfish
Worthless girl
Flagrant flaunting of your worth
Ego run amuck
Destined to fuck it up

File it away for a later day
Give it to God, they say

Give it to God
Give it to God
Give it to God
Give it to God
Give it to God
Give it to God

__________________
Give me my sin again

It’s sprung from despair
At my urgent breath
Tingly, crackling air
You; accept no less

The penultimate moment
Panting, arrive in the knick
Filling the air, happy hint
Dive in, sweet caress, a lick

Sweetness, a divine embrace
Coming home, my familiar place
Leave me not, your loving face
Within your hand I’m forever laced

Pull me tighter, oh sweet love
My head tucked up in your neck
Chuck my face up, reach above
Tenderness in your soft peck

It’s the sun after a gloomy dark
The crash of a wave upon the shore
Genius start of an artist’s first mark
Your lips, metal too, I demand more

Let us walk, take my hand
Wind down this hall, hands blended
To bed, to sin, within my den
Oh give me my sin again

My lover’s embrace is merely the start
It takes faith, love, and a willing heart

_______________

I wish you all the love your heart can hold. Even in loss there is love, and stripping down to the soul of exactly what you need to carry with you.

xoxo,

Stef

Posted on by Wise Sass

Feel it (Alive) 

A poem:

Lifted up the gun and fired the shot
Hit wild, ricocheted (in my head)
Turning, swirling, stomach in knots
Reaching blind, pulling, fall out of bed

Adam Duritiz is lonely; I know
The difference between lonely
And just being alone, not low
Feel it always, up & down, so me

Fallen on the floor, hard wood
Because that’s what you do
Feel it, the pain hurts, so rude
Are these nightmares true?

Crawl to the window, low moans
pull up, feel it, with all my might
Feel it, soak the rain in my bones
Realise, know it, I’m alive all right

Xoxo,
Stef

Posted on by Wise Sass

Literary comparison: a sad story

Once upon a time there were two people who fell in love. They met, they kissed, and they knew the other was “the one.” Bride & groom walked down the aisle, had babies, and their life rolled on with good times, and a few bad times … but then more bad times. And more after that. Pain, hurt, and resentment grew. Then came separation and, 2 years later, divorce. 16 years, beginning to end; 15 years married and two wonderful children to show for it. 

The bride … she often misses the good. She misses her best friend. She misses the man who made her laugh. The man who held her perfectly when she needed to be held, and often held her when she didn’t know she needed it. She misses his silliness, his kisses, and their shared history. She misses the man she still sees in pictures holding their babies. She misses that man with an ache that rattles her soul and makes her shake with pain, sadness & regret. 

But then there’s the bad. The yin to the yang. The flip side.

You know the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde story? Dr. Jekyll was good, kind, benevolent. Mr. Hyde … well, he wasn’t. Mr. Hyde prioritized his hobbies & friends over his family. He willfully chose to live separately, and to live with minimal responsibility. Mr. Hyde shrugged off financial concerns, to be handled solely by his wife; he saw the burden this caused, the pain & stress, and increased it rather than trying to ease her burden. He ignored repeated pleas for engagement, involvement, for partnering. Mr. Hyde stayed up until all hours, raged with drunken belligerence, and terrified his kids & wife. Mr. Hyde was not a family man. 

Nobody would ever guess that the public Dr. Jekyll was so often controlled by the narcissistic Mr. Hyde. Preening & posturing for his audience, selfishly focused on his appeal to others rather than any recognition of his loving needs at home. 

Poor Dr. Jekyll, he missed out on so much; Mr. Hyde guaranteed that. 

A sad story, isn’t it? The bride is sad, disappointed, angry & resentful … but she still often misses her Dr. Jekyll. The man he was before he allowed Mr. Hyde to guide his life. 

Lesson learned, time to move on. A new chapter is dawning for Mrs. Jekyll, a blushing bride no more. 

Xoxo,

A former Mrs. 

Posted on by Wise Sass

5 things about me, today 

Short & to the point, my lovelies. 

1. I don’t make friends easily & I never have. That’s why I tend to hold onto and treasure the friends I do make, going back to them time and again, even after they’ve broken my heart a little. Breaking with someone completely and willfully is probably the hardest thing for me to ever do. 

2. Can I be blunt? I never cheated on my husband. In my marriage, I never had a boyfriend. I never met up with some dude for a weekend romp. To be even more explicit, there was no sex outside of my marriage. For anybody who thinks or has heard otherwise I’d advise you to open your mind to other possibilities. 

3. This year, to date, has been the worst year of my life. I’ve lost 3 people I deeply cared about, my dream of marital bliss has seen the final nail in that coffin, and my work has been pretty damn brutal this year with no relief in sight. I’m exhausted from the constant loss.

4. I have nightmares now and I never used to. Most of the time they are nightmares of betrayal; seeing people who I thought loved me yelling, screaming, and humiliating me. Hurting me until I wake with my heart racing. 

5. And yet … 

I have hope, still. 

I believe in love, still. 

I believe I have a purpose. 

I believe there will be light. 

Plus this, this is real: 

I’ll take equal parts of awe, some for me & some for him.

He’ll love me not for my svelte figure (because I don’t have anything svelte, except maybe my hair), and not for my money (duh) but maybe for the liveliness of my mind instead. (As Jane Austen says). 

HOPE. 

  
Xoxo,

Stef 

Posted on by Wise Sass · 1 Comment

On Being Mr. Darcy

Mr. Darcy, arguably the most swoon-worthy character in all of literature, stands up as a god among men. There’s a reason my ASD son’s middle name is Darcy. My J-man doesn’t like it though. He says it’s a girl’s name. That he’s embarrassed. That kids will make fun of him for having a girl’s name.

He said, “Mom, when I’m an adult I’m changing my middle name to Theodore. You know, like in the Chipmunks.” LOVE HIM.

Of course, this is my ASD guy. My Autistic little dude. He, like many Autistics, want things to fit into routine little boxes and, to him, it doesn’t make sense to have a “girl’s name” within his full name. His first name is very masculine but the middle name ruins it all. Poor guy. I advised him for now to keep his middle name a secret. He can say his first & last name without using his middle name.

But . . . I’m on a campaign to change his mind. I want him to understand why Mr. Darcy is a worthy namesake. Maybe this is too much for a 10 year old to imagine, but I hope when he’s 24 years old he’ll wear it like a badge of honor.

Mr. Darcy is no less than these things:

  • Intelligent and witty.
  • Financially solid.
  • Straightforward and unabashed in speaking his mind – sometimes imprudently, but he learns his lesson on that count, which means he’s . . .
  • Teachable. He learns to humble himself and be understanding without compromising his beliefs.
  • Loyal and caring to his family and friends. Those who have earned his trust.
  • A good listener.
  • Becomes self-aware, and has a further awareness of others and human nature.
  • Good reputation.

When we were trying to come up with our second son’s name we focused less on family names, as with our first, and more on relevant and meaningful names to us. To me, it was always Darcy. Had to be Darcy.

Trust, little man, trust your momma. You’ll grown into that name. You’ll wear it proudly one day. Theodore isn’t bad, but it’s no Darcy.

XOXO,

Stef

Posted on by Wise Sass

For I am just human

For I am human,
She said, with sadness.
Hands twisting hands,
Confused, mad mess.

What do I know of this?
Tumbling, falling blindly;
Is it a swing and miss?
Broken, hands hang idly.

I was slow, she said,
I was unsure, scared.
It took time, she said,
With a push, I dared.

You’re human too;
Mistakes are made.
Forgive in lieu,
Of anger & pain.

But I need love, she said,
And you are a true man.
Attention, touch, she said,
For I am just human.