Suicide

Journal entry, September 14, 2013.

One hour.

This past week has been National Suicide Prevention and Awareness Week. And an acquaintance (and friend of a Goddess) and a dear friend of another Goddess took their lives. Too much of this happening lately and really, at any time.

I do not think they are cowards. I cringe each time I hear or read someone saying this as I have some serious empathy. How awful things must have felt for them that they would commit the ultimate act, for they are leaving confusion, grief, guilt, and “why did they leave me/us…was I not worth their life?” to their loved ones.

At sixteen, after a traumatic event, I did not want to live. I had suicidal ideation. All I wanted was to go to sleep and never awaken again. That next year was horrid and I felt no support whatsoever. (I now know that family did the best with what they had at the time.) Yet having said that, by the time I was seventeen, it was either die or do something because I couldn’t stand.

Then I met Lou Fant. And started interpreting. And my interpreting practice started off with a bang, but still…my twenties were despair driven.

And then came my thirties, all about the exploration of who I am with my Sherpa therapist. And my forties? I have loved my forties. I have found I stand taller, making no apologies for who I am. Even with my brain bleed, it has irrevocably changed how I see things. I am not yet totally grateful for the experience but I’m getting there. And still lovin’ my brain earrings.

Please do not misunderstand. I vividly remember the terror, that unwanted companion of my brain bleed…and how I realized that I DID NOT WANT TO DIE. I do not want to die. Suddenly, I remembered how I desperately wanted to exit this planet earlier in my life. And now definitively I do not want to die. The lesson I learned from those hard and cold teachers and classrooms of the hospital, ambulances, CT and MRI machines, and the neurosurgeons’ office.

And I am so glad I am here.

As I reflected on all of this with my Sherpa yesterday, I said something, which he pointed out to me as something incredibly remarkable about me that I overlooked. Something that has taken decades for me to say.

“I really love me today. And though I wonder what might be had I had counseling years ago, the truth is that my me-ness, I truly me love today, and that includes the past that is still within me.”

~

~

What makes me wickedly wicked happy

~I begin my run through Manito Park’s Duck Pond once again. I deeply feel each step of my stride, as I connect with Earth and collect beautifully shaped acorns…the seed for the mighty Oak Tree and for Goddess Carol and her art and jewelry.

~my run today is PERFECT.

~the jig Ingrid had me dancing with her yellow blossoms of zucchini, pumpkins, and winter squash. I practically gasped when I spotted them as I loped, in my pink running skirt, to their table.

Are you selling these?” I felt like I was begging.

She said yes. To which I exclaimed, “On my runs through my neighborhoods, how tempted I have been to surreptitiously grab a few blooms…cuz, well, zucchinis and gourds are so prolific that I am sure that their garden tenders would not notice! You have saved me!” (I love filling the flowers with either goat or cream cheese and some herbs and then sauté them. Yummolicious!)

And get this, Eden Urban Farms is tended by Goddess Sagi’s Aunt! How cool is that!

~remembering Lou Fant. My very first mentor in life and interpreting.

~brains and skulls. I am on a mission on behalf of skulls as I believe they are misunderstood. For me, they do not represent death but protection of my brain. I carry a small bag of colorful skull beads in my purse, my bag of fairy magic as mini-Goddess Aria says, from which I spontaneously invite friends to select one.

Next Goddess Gathering, skulls for everyone!

~Goddess Mindi-the-Magnificent’s laugh. OMGoddess…it is a total smiley laugh on feet!

~

So suicide.

It’s a difficult subject to talk about, but let us talk about it. In mental health (I’m a mental health interpreter), the more we talk about it, the better we all are.

The organization To Write Love on Her Arms has a campaign going this month…”I cannot be replaced because…”

Mine?

“I am their only mother.”

“Only I can sparkle and send brain glittery light to everyone, from the Goddesses to the checkers in markets in the Goddess Lynne flair (my MHIT cohorts call me Miss Sparkle Sprinkles).”

“The intense empathy and love I have as an intuit for all I come in contact with. I work with a lot of people in trouble, and yet I still see potential in each individual. I see that each person is worthy of love, honor, trust, dignity, and respect.”

Please share with me yours.

~

I am so f*#%ing grateful I am here. Cuz at 16 and 17, I came so close to prematurely exiting.

And to my beloved Goddesses as you process your own losses, as Goddess Julia said, “In this moment, I feel very quiet. My head isn't bowed...my eyes aren't closed but I'm staring out into space filled with wonder...filled with this sense that we must live truer....we must devote ourselves to our fullest becoming for the sake and well-being of others...”

…and I send nothing but understanding, tenderness, gentleness, and holding all in love and light.

~

When Death Comes
Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~

GL, 9/14/2013. Prevail.