I’m so sick of myself. I read my own complaining and scowl. And this is the NICE version. This is me with more self-love and forgiveness for my foibles than before.

Still, yuck. I don’t know how I’m supposed to make room to create when my landscape is filled with my failings. This, this, and this need your attention. And here is the way you’ve failed, once again.

So I write. A very long time ago, a wise man told me that writing, making music, playing an instrument, that when I did these things, this would save me.
“You’re way too hard on yourself,” he said. Then he said it three more times just to make sure I’d heard him.

You’re way too hard on yourself.

You’re way too hard on yourself.

You are WAY too hard on yourself.

Basically, he said, only when I am creative do I silence the inner critic at all. And then, then, she only nods her head and taps. It’s total peace for those moments and the ones that follow as well. But when I don’t make time to be creative, well she rips me to shreds.

Hello, are you listening, the one who was ready to tear me a new one?

“Hmmm,” she says, chewing on a muffin and tea and listening and forgetting to gnaw on my ass. “Hmmm.” She really likes it when I write.

I played music with Christopher over the weekend. The people at MOSS liked my vaccine song with his guitar. It’s an anthem. My music comes alive with my beloved’s added magic and expertise. Still, it’s my song, and they recognized it that way, and they liked it. And instead of wanting to ride that horse fast into the horizon I say What the Fuck? My bad habits are like a posse of lame horses.

I make us all some tea over the fire. After all, it’s not like I’m supposed to leave them to die. They might be lame, but they’ve served me, or at least they’ve tried. This death is supposed to be gentle, after all. I’ve tried kicking their asses and murdering them in their sleep. They come back harder. They come back with more weight. They come back like albatross around my neck.

No, we must make peace somehow with what holds us back. Take the book I’m reading now. It’s called “What’s in the way is the way.” I look at what I really feel and it’s an embroiling cauldron of passion and frustration. I don’t understand why it’s taking me so long to get what I want. I want to ride in fury off the edge of where I can see. And then I might see where I can go. Yet at the same time, my body feels weary. She’s fighting another virus. And then there’s my ever-present fear. She’s perennially about 8 or 9 and white knuckled with terror. She’s the horse with eyes wild with fear. I can’t do anything without the whole herd. I think it’s my daughter who holds me back. This morning, I ran with Captain, her dog austensibly, who has become, primarily my responsibility despite so many good works and intentions. I raged as I ran. And this rage healed me so that, by the end, actual happiness sprung forth in my heart for the first time in weeks.

I have felt the past several weeks an incredible burden stretching out in all directions. Being there for Sasha while stopping controlling her has meant heavy, heavy lifting: Rides everywhere until we find out whether she’s safe to drive or having mild epilepsy. Doctor after doctor visit. The new dog. An albatross. And she watches TV instead of studies. And I’m supposed to let her, not because it’s a wise choice she makes. But because this soul, my daughter, must discover her own intrinsic motivation rather than doing any of it for me or for her dad. I think maybe it’s my karma. I know for sure she’s been a slave and I’ve benefited from slavery in our past lives, whether directly and together I’m not sure.

I know when we agree to parent someone we agree to walk through hell with them if that’s where they decide to go. I can hear God telling me to lighten up. I’m terrible at that. A true “four” I’m the artist arsenic depth of despair writer. It’s just this way. I haven’t known whether I’d or we’d make it through. But it feels at long last like the clouds are parting. And part of that is that I’ve finally beginning to forgive myself all my countless mistakes, and at long last, love myself anyway. I’m finally letting go and trusting that Sasha will do or not do or live or not live happily ever after and I can’t help her anymore by trying to force my will or agenda onto her.

I feel so lonely and alone. She’s been my sidekick for so long, and for better (not for worse) it’s time to let her go. Whether I’ve “succeeded” in parenting or failed, she will and must find her own way now. I steep in my own failings. In this bitter brew is the elixir I most need. I must quaff down all my decisions and still stand. Still love me and her and still embrace the whole. But I don’t feel good. I don’t feel even ready. I don’t know really whether I have been okay or done well or not. And it’s so difficult to love myself here either way. And love her, again, no matter what. To love a winged bird you set free, not knowing whether it can fly but hoping it can, well, it seems to require more trust in God and trust in myself then I can muster just yet. Is it okay to do the right thing and to feel terrible doing it because that’s what is? To love myself is such a bitter brew. I never realized the depth of my self-loathing until I stopped trying to fix my daughter, and in so doing, myself. What if we are enough? What if we’ve always been good, all along. I don’t know if I’ve messed it all up but I know I love her. To love me in the rubble is to love her too. God, will you help us? I thought I’d come so far only to realize the bevels on my perfectionism were hard as glass. They’ve created a bed of nails. And to rest, to finally rest, I must heal all the sharpness out of my own salvation. We are not saved, in the end, by our goodness, though it matters, and God appreciates our efforts. No, we are saved in the end through our failings. To accept our hopelessness and somehow find redemption and mercy and love there… that is how we are saved.

I thought I had it down. I thought I’d figured it out. Instead I cry admitting the way I’ve failed my daughter…by thinking I could outdo my deep sense of being not okay, by nailing every trick and sticking all my landings. And what she needed seemed always to be something different than my thoughts of perfection. I’m sorry, Sasha. We can always ever be exactly who we are and where we are. It’s not your fault that I come to into this horror now, when you’ve almost grown. In the end, all that ever matters is the people who love us and their kindnesses. That’s all I’ve ever had, really. I kind of want to apologize to anyone I’ve ever interacted with pretending to have more than that, to know more than I know. And in this total despair stirs the very first seeds of grace I’ve ever known. Thank you. Thank you for undoing me yet again so I could fall to nothing and find in this bitter darkness, small light.