My Coping Mechanisms

I think it was a little over a week ago that I let people know I was going to start the screening and testing for MS. I chose that moment to say it because I felt I was ready for it, I was coping I thought even though I had much longer to get used to the idea....I was wrong. The moment I said it out loud to everyone else other than just in email conversations it became a reality....I was flooded with so many feelings, and so was everyone around me....odd isn't it we already deal with all my other illness' and have for as long as my children have been alive and as long as I have been with my old guy, but add this one that seems to make so much sense and explain so much and the boat tipped. Yes one of the feelings I had was relief, and while I thought that would tide me through the unknown again I was wrong. I really struggled with this, I think partially because I feel in my heart the testing is just a formality, my entire health history points to it, never mind points it screams it out loud! I still struggled....and I struggled hard, those that have the inside track in my life knew it, they felt it even though I didn't say much, I guess that is how they knew I was struggling I went quiet.....I started to post pictures, pretty flowers are everywhere, moments with my old guy, happy little snippets of a life that seems idyllic and filled with happiness and sunshine, if you know me you know what that means, if you don't then you only see the surface of rainbows and unicorns.....my truth and life is much harsher than that.....so am I lying when I am posting all the happy stuff? hell no, I am coping!

I am sure my day starts like many others that suffer with chronic conditions, you know we open our eyes and wait to see if something is hurting today that is new from yesterday, we get out of bed gingerly and hope that it will be a good day, we will it to be so many times before we even get up....positive thinking it has a huge impact on our lives, we work hard to keep it strong and alive, sometimes though with chronic illness it is difficult, the pain, the reality, the limitations sometimes make it completely impossible not to slip into that dark pit, but we give it a gallant effort everyday even when we just decide to sit in our pj's, every moment we go on is a little victory.....wouldn't it be great if when we were in our pits we could see that? I just spent about a week in there, mucking around in how I feel about everything, trying to rest and prepare myself for what I know is to come....my way to cope is to feel the magic of the natural world around me, I let it sing to me, carry my soul around and show me the beauty that is all around...those I love take on an etheral look to me, I see a glow around them that makes me feel like someone that is literally walking on cloud 9....I fill my Spirit and my heart with love and I try to share it....at the end of the day I am still in pain, sometimes I can walk better sometimes I have pushed myself too far and can't think of doing anything else....I create, I let the energy of the Gods flow through me and revitalize my energy, I create pieces of beauty and they fill me with magic and wonder.....someday's I can eat, others I can't, the pain, the nausea and other issues get in the way...still I post love, I feel love, it helps me swallow the bitter jagged pill of intolerance I face, judgments....I write, in the face of those that criticize me, put me down openly and behind the scenes......people who don't know me, think they did but haven't followed along assume my life is a ride on a wave of glory and gold.....truth is my old guy is in his early 50's and I am fast approaching my 50th year and we just moved cross country a very hard thing to do for us but necessary because in the four years we lived in New Brunswick we faced soul crushing, bone breaking poverty...no matter what we did we could not break the cycle, until we left the entire province and started over in Ontario....my reality is harsh, my critics are assholes and the magic saves my life.....still I have moments, ones where I need to reach out, the pressure becomes too much and I have to let it go, I have said before my pressure valve goes off....that was the result of the the blog the other day, Fuck Judgments, it makes me angry and sad at the same time that I even feel a need to write that.....I knew there would be reprecussions and there were, still I wrote it and I would write it again if need be.

This move came with alot of outside help, people who came out of the woodwork to help us get here, push us forward, I am really grateful of them, they had no prior obligation to help us, I believe heavily inspired by the Gods to do so. Everyday I hold hope I will get a text telling me that our home there is sold, that we can finally put NB behind us, move forward, pay back our debts and start with a clean slate here, but no everyday it hasn't happened yet, people start to get antsy. reading my posts thinking I am living on filet and prime rib, when in truth I am simply happy that we have a full fridge for once, that for the first time in 4 years I can have more than one meal a day instead of just making sure that there is enough for the boy, we may have gone without and still do at times but he never does...our lives are dedicated to him in every way. All these things and more tumbled around this amidst emails and threats, requests and more threats, the MS thing, along with the pain in my ribcage, the falling down randomly, the lack of strength in my arms and legs, the stiffness in my fingers, the blurry vision, and of course we cannot forget the nausea....but yet still Nature, the Gods, magic and the love around me propped me up, I kept going, I kept reaching for something in each day to keep me positive....if you think I can't handle pressure you don't know me, I help my son cope with his brain tumor, my young one cope and learn how to deal with his ADHD and other behavioural issues while I homeschool him, I help my old guy deal with little business and customers, I help my daughter deal with her mental health issues, my mother with whatever she needs daily and my other daughter with my granddaughter whenever she needs me and of course I cannot forget my shop and page, pressure has never been my issue, mine has always been an issue of poor health, which makes for a hard life. Until now we had medication costs of over $5000 a year with no help, housing costs, food, fuel, heat, the list went on and on.....I am very grateful to be in Ontario and once the past is done in NB, the road ahead is covered in sunshine.....and even if it's not I am sure the Gods will help me by showing me the beauty that others miss, and I promise I will share, and so goes the way of magic and how I cope with my stressful, chronically painful life.

Find your ways to tap into the magic around you, believe in your own magic, hold it to your heart and let it fill you with love, hold your ground, be honorable but don't let people push you around....be kind but remain true to you and your path.....these are my words of advice....and when you need to have a meltdown just let it happen, cry your eyes out, then get back up there and figure yourself out and always remember to love yourself.

Fuck the Judgements

The last while has given me lots to chew on, analyze as I love to and carry around with me....yes that is right I have been people watching again, everywhere I go, I see it, people not caring for people....making comments at each other and about each other....sad.....and these days it doesn't seem to matter even if they are being paid to do a job for you or not, or even if they are in any one multitude of jobs that cater to the customer they still seem to think it is ok to mistreat the people their employers hired them to care for. I shared on Witch's Chamber a link about a young girl that went into a store and heard two girls that WORK there discussing the shorts she was wearing and trying to body shame her, shake my damn head, if I shake it any more I will literally break it off my neck! What exactly is going on in this world? and when did it become acceptable for this shit? Well you best settle in for a long read because I am sick to death of the judgyness of the world!

Last week I took my little one to a specialist, his now former doctor felt he must have a lip tie because of his speech, even though as his mother I knew it wasn't; I knew it was a family thing that they work out as they go, with help and speech therapy but yet they still have a certain way to say things, as my husband does and my daughter, my little witch is no different....but no! what could a mother actually know....so I went to the appointment, which went fine and of course within the first 3 minutes the doctor stated no lip or tongue tie, wonderful that bit was great, until he opened his mouth again to ask about schooling. My little one is home-schooled, it is no secret he has some behavior issues, this was not the problem, that started when the specialist judged me on my appearance and assumed he could not write, count, do mathematics, or any of the other things that come with conventional schooling....I was floored, when did Universities start giving classes that showed you what someones appearance tells you about their level of intelligence? he judged me because I was sitting crumpled in a chair, did not ask me why I was sitting like that, why I was not too fussed that my hair be coiffed, or that I wasn't wearing a stitch of makeup....I guess I was far from polished, and he was far from having a good bedside manner.....my little one can count to almost 100, he can do his alphabet, he can write his name and the days of the week, and he is learning how to read.....he can do mathematics that can make your head spin, he is a numbers kid and it shows, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division AND he is only 6 years old! He understands about gardening, soil, plants, he can reason and has a vocabulary that would make you take a seat and listen to his ideas, he is definitely a problem solver and an inventor, but that doctor knew none of that, he just judged. Like the one that sent me there with him, not one question about how we do things, how he copes, how I cope with my health and never ever having a day off, nope not one of those asked me those questions, nope just judged me on how I looked.....I have to wonder if I had done the makeup, dressed up and didn't have all this excess weight if the treatment would have been the same, I highly doubt it.

Everyday each one of us is fighting a battle that those we run into know nothing about, yet because we are so disconnected from each other no one thinks this way, instead they snicker, and comment, laugh and shame each other all in the need to elevate themselves to some unseen, unnecessary platform of bullshit that they feel they deserve. That day I was in so much pain I could barely walk, my elder son had to help me often get to and from the van, that day I was coping with the realization that I was just about to embark on a very painful and long diagnosis path to finally get some peace and be diagnosed with MS....he had no idea I had stumbled in the morning with the rash on my face, the burning nerve endings under my arms, that it took me an hour to work on my hands long enough to be able to open and close them without tears, nope he had no idea......He had no idea that just a couple of weeks before I sat in another specialists office and listened to them discuss my elder son's brain tumor like we were just bystanders, he had no idea that every day I have to take care of my mom whether I can physically or not I go. Everyday I get up no matter how I feel and make an effort to clean my house, create some crafts for my shop, home school my child, make dinner, do laundry, garden, and still function with all the issues I have health wise I make the best of everyday, still he judged me without knowing any of that....my battles are many just to keep going day by day, but I am not respected for that, no I am shamed, because I may not look up to someone else's standards.

Well you know what? I like myself, who I have become, and I know I will fight this next battle how I always do, my head held high and onward! I like me, but I do not like you or anyone like you......I am normally kind, compassionate and caring about everyone but I do not feel like people like that doctor or those girls that shamed the girl in the shorts really deserve my kindness, maybe we have been kind too long.....maybe we should be sharing the outrage, flooding the net with pictures of ourselves, us regular everyday people that push through all the nastiness in the world to still shine at the end of the day as beacons of hope and strength.....like me I know there are many out there that deal with this on a daily basis too and have no voice.....they don't have a blog, a Facebook page, and for some they don't even have the personal freedom to be able to express themselves without reproach, so for all of them I say this to all the body shamers, the better than you because I have an education, I have money you don't, and especially the oh honey you need to see a nutritionist obviously I say FUCK YOU! and I will keep saying it till the last one of you wakes up and sees we are all ONE....that's right that girl you just made fun of because you felt her ass was too big, that's right she is a part of you and you are a part of her! that young man you put down because he didn't meet your standard of good looking, yep he is a part of you too!

Our biggest problem in this world is not money, drugs, war, politics, NO it is NOT! our biggest problem in this world is our disconnectedness from each other!

Let's fix this shit!

Social Media, Body Shaming and stopping the hate

I have started this and erased the first line three times now, none of them seem to be right, so here it is......I am angry, disappointed and upset with humans....not all humans but a very distinct portion of them, and if you give me a few minutes of your time I will elaborate, the last thing I want is anyone getting lumped into this undeservedly so....let us start with Social Media, the animal that it is, the "waste of time" as some label it ~ even as they update their pages ~ the truth of it is that Social Media is here to stay, like or it or not. For many that use it like me, either empath, witch, spiritualist or others it is where we follow world happenings, having given up on traditional news casts years ago, we read and learn about it all there, in this way it serves a great function, of course keeping in mind to verify the stories you see, since there are many of pink alligators that have grown wings as well.....Social media has become something that is a mainstay in most lives these days, in one form or another most humans do visit any number of sites weekly or daily.....this week on it I witnessed one woman come out in support of the freedom of all to be who they are, while another completely humiliated an innocent unsuspecting woman in a gym shower...social media of course spread that picture far and wide, some blamed the beast, others rightly so blamed the person that actually did such a vile thing......for me the truth of the matter was that social media didn't create this environment of divisiveness, arrogance, disregard for the rights of others, total lack of respect, and even the lack of empathyf...the ability to see our fellow humans as worthy, that is gone, no it was not social media that created this condition....no that my fellow humans was US!

We have among us those that feel that we are mere objects, each of us to dissected, chided, commented on and discussed, not in a positive light but in an effort to body shame those of us that may not measure up to some yardstick they must carry.....which from what I can see must seriously be up their ass! Let me be clear here for the record I am not discussing fat shaming, no I am discussing body shaming and the larger issue it really points to, well at least in my opinion. I am a larger woman, I always have been, it seesaws and moves from one extreme to the other, depending on where my health is floundering and when it is better, right now I am possibly needing the addition of a cane soon, because my knees cannot handle the pressure, yet my diet is not problem.....no for me it is chronic pain, a body that does function internally in a normal way and problems of mobility. I am body shamed often, people gossip, comment and snicker....family, strangers, friends, enemies, it matters not it matters that I am not perfect by their standards of what is beautiful so it opens me to all kinds of ugliness....I have watched other women scan my grocery cart and look amazed with the contents and being who I am I have heard those thoughts as they race through their small minds.....no my reason for my size has nothing to do with what I eat or how much of it.....but you wouldn't know that by now you will have judged me by my exterior and I have been found to be considered substandard, the victim of body shaming both from strangers and even family....that's right it happens from strangers and those closest to you....then we have my daughter, she is tiny, she eats well, let me tell you. As a child I had people tell me I should feed her more, she was all elbows and knees....bones really but such a healthy apetite, well those people that said it to me when she was a child now say it to her, they comment on her weight, say things about how they wish they could look like that, or wow do you ever eat? Again shake my damn head! 

My daughter and I  ~ Copyright Witch's Chamber
07172016

I wonder how many of them have stopped to find if there is a health reason for this, how many know her doctor is actually monitoring her weight as it is getting too low? yet she eats well and plenty, she worries about this, doesn't find it a compliment or a cute little joke when others comment on it either, but yet because she is not large, she is tiny it seems to be ok to comment. I know when she has tried to express how it makes her feel it is shrugged off as being too sensitive...is she being too sensitive? fuck NO! and is it ok to make comments? NO it is NOT! all of these things are body shaming, all of these things are damaging.....all of these things hurt a real live flesh and blood human being....in this case my beautiful daughter.....This is her and I, a rare picture, and one that shows we are one, distinctly part of each other and yet distinct individuals....each with our problem on two very different ends of the spectrum. 

Somewhere along the line we lost the ability to really see our fellow brothers and sisters as important, worthy and as even simply our own...many look at each other now as competition, unworthy, it is all about eat or be eaten.....step on or step out....well I step out, this is not who I am this is never who I will be....body shaming, mental health shaming, bullying, so called warped "honor" killings, mass shootings, rapes, disaster after disaster that loses amounts of human souls the list of the ways we are all killing each other goes on and on, and if you think body shaming is a frivolous subject considering all that is happening in the world then you miss the entire point....there is no frivolous subject when it comes to we treat each other and what we deem to be up for poking fun at......what Dani Mathers did to the woman in the locker room was by no means frivolous, in her own apology she showed the disconnect where she felt sorry she had shared it publicly not that she was sorry she felt privileged enough to feel she was entitled by what she deems to be her perfect body to take that picture AND in her implied words it would have been ok if she had known how to use snapchat properly enough to only send it to one friend....ummm.....hold the fucking phone! ummmm WHAT THE FUCK??? really there is no sorrow there, there is admission of its ok to do this to another woman.....and in an instant the truth of her character is revealed.....sadly for many of us the moment where our critics are so openly lambasted and caught in the middle of their dastardly acts....still all that said it comes back to our disconnect....she is a clear example of a larger problem.....we have be desensitized to each other, and our plights.....we strive to be more than our neighbors rather than elevate them with us.....and I fear where we will all end up.......and that my dear witches was not Social Media's fault nope that was all her.......

Somewhere we need to stop the hate, the devalue of our brothers and sisters and remember we are literally all one.....what hurts one hurts all....one change in one human can illicit a responsive change in all......start with you......be kind, be generous, look at someone and feel their energy and see their joy.....when they are in pain, elevate them, comfort them, be human and be kind.....remember to consider the feelings of the person you are commenting on, better yet don't comment, share their successes, create safe space for each other.....care about each others feelings, when you see someone fall, for fucks sake lift them up, don't stand above them criticizing how they got there....sure fire way to see that boot come your way, energy return is a grand and blessed thing, depending on which side of the boot you are.......

Let us try this week to recognize where and how we may be body shaming ourselves and those around us and then change that behaviour one moment and encounter at a time....let us try to reconnect with our fellow humans on this one little huge thing this week and next week we will try another step, and so on and son and maybe we can lead ourselves back to where we knew we were all one....at least this empath and witch can hope....

Blessings all!

Venting is good for the Soul

I find myself wanting to write again, a form of venting and letting go for me that I realize I have been doing as long as I can remember. Even with my fancy shmansy Alien laptop available I seem to gravitate back to the old archaic desktop with an actual keyboard that for some reason is reminiscent to me of the old typewriters, as I press each key it takes me back to the moments in my little sweat box closet of a room in downtown Toronto in the 70's....most kids were asking for balls and toys and I wanted so badly a typewriter, something to cling and clang on late into the night as my little black and white 12" TV chirped away in the background....I think that is how I learned the US anthem so well, listening to that thing hum.....years later I found myself, yes I am Canadian but I found myself singing my daughter to sleep, and yes it was the US anthem, it gave me some sort of feeling of security I realize, a feeling of the day has come to an end and now it is time to rest and prepare for a new one...anyway totally off track! When I was a kid in that room, I wanted to be a writer....I wrote all kinds of little short stories, some days I wish I still had them but as I finished them I would hand them out to people I knew, friends only, and well I never got any back....there were stories of twins that were separated at birth, stories of families torn apart by betrayal and lies, there were stories of mystical creatures, the fae and mermaids always not far from the center of them....all of these stories were my way to cope with the havoc that at times the daughter of an immigrant went through in a city like Toronto.

Today I write because my mind and heart are reaching to try to create some sort of balance in my world.....today the only thing I can say is I really need to vent, and yes I am somewhat known to be outspoken and clear in my words, but this vent will cause a ton of butt hurt to many people.....this vent has been coming for a long time......since before I came back to this place I call home. I love being here, I love being able to extend help to my loved ones...I do what I can when I can and always hope they know I love them, both blood family and non blood family....and then there are the ones that make me shake my head and wonder why I left the security of a home I owed nothing on to come to a place where I owe so much monthly just to have a roof over my head....I suffer with SLE, Fibromyalgia, Celiac, IBS, GERD, COPD, TMJ, Meneers and Glaucoma, I am literally all manner of fucked up physically! ah yes I remember why I came because even though we owed nothing on the home we struggled every day to make enough to keep food on the table and the lights on, something most people that know us cannot even imagine the severity of the poverty we lived through in New Brunswick. There really is little to no work and especially for one of their own sons that left over 30yrs ago and came back to a chilly reception, his crime of course so simple; he was married to a Portuguese woman that was raised in Ontario, of course that made her considered "olive"; as hard as it may be to believe racism is alive and well in NB and her double sin of being from Ontario made her outspoken, her clear support of her husband considered rude. How dare a woman have a brain and not settle for what she knows is not the truth, and of course let me make this clear by no means NEVER EVER come to my house to speak to me about your opinion of my husband, I don't give a flying fuck who you are, I live with him I know! so yea, oh yea that is why we left! Poverty, bone crushing, soul sucking Poverty, nothing else excuse me while I roll my eyes! 

I have a roof here, I have help with medication that I have not been able to afford for 5 years, I no longer worry about how I will get my husband's meds and keep him alive, because the Ontario government offers Trillium.....I came here and I was able to register Witch's Chamber to a real business, something I could not do in New Brunswick because the cost difference is astronomical....we have food, we have a future, albeit a shaky one still as we try to rebuild a life, it is still a future ......rebuilding, that is hard, it becomes even harder when your support system changes the rules, or becomes tired of the wait to see you get back on your feet....people assume many things, they see you wearing something different and think oh look! yea a great Sally Anne special.... or you share something with them about a little victory that you faced as you pull yourself out of that black hole of poverty and strive forward for a little bit of sunshine and somehow it makes them think well then and  there you are you have arrived so my work is done....and you are blindsided.....that is where I am, blindsided not because I lack the ability to see what comes next, not because I didn't see this coming either, but because my trusting heart believed in the goodness of humanity....something I am sure I will do again.....it is just who I am....

For all the good things that I love here, there are equal and upsetting things that make me wish I could still live as far away as 18hrs.....in my little trailer in NB it was easy to forget that I spawned a hateful child that treats me as if I never wanted her, if that were true I would have aborted her as my then husband wanted.....in that little trailer I didn't have to see the broken face of my stepson that trudges through life thinking no one loves him and just can't see that he doesn't love himself enough to stand tall.....and all the way there if I saw something on my ex's profile that bothered me it didn't make me want to jump in my truck and drive two hours only to tell him great job asshole! you eat 3inch steak while I struggle to feed ground beef still at times to the children we created and then he walked away from without a second glance....I wonder sometimes if his new friends know the truth about what he did....yes I have come to peace with what he did to me but every so often when I look at them I think you couldn't even think that they might need something all these years? Nope that was me and my old guy that took care of them, held them when they cried, wiped their brows when they were sick and told them we loved them every night, ya that was us...even now we still do.....it's sadly funny that the culture I am from or maybe it's just the family I am from; for me that gets a little blurry because so much of what we do and live through is tied into our cultural norms: for us what we did for the kids yea that is not looked on as an accomplishment, nope that is a failure because we were poor, because we couldn't do what others did.....when you are poor like me you are ridiculed, they snicker behind your back, gossip and discuss how you just couldn't manage your money, what a failure you are, a disgrace to your family name....your health is never taken into consideration, and when I fell out of the back of that van back in 2006 and my whole world came crashing down because I literally did, all those people that purported to love me suddenly ran away faster than scattering cockroaches.......so please don't get butt hurt now when I don't make overtures to form bonds you incinerated.....no don't worry I am by no means well off or rich right now so you don't need to worry you are missing out on reaping rewards for being supportive now, no we still struggle just that the struggle is different now because there is governmental help that isn't welfare but still alleviates the burden of the health issues in the family with all my conditions, parathyroid disorder for the old guy, the brain tumor for my middle son and the behavioral spectrum disorders for my youngest son.....amazing what a little proper support can do. 

I am very picky and choosy about who I let into my life now, I live very openly and publicly on my page and I share with you how I find my peace, I know I have my own brand of crazy going on, and I live with it, I manage it by letting nature fill me with her wonder....when I am upset I walk barefoot out there, when I need uplifting I tend to my flowers, in the gardens and in the house....I teach my little one about the natural world along with his daily school lesson....I create and bend wire, I burn wood, I paint, I pour candles, craft soap and cook a dinner from simple ingredients every day you would think was gourmet, simply crafted, but always crafted with love....our family has taken alot of hits through the years but we are still here, it has been almost 20 years for my old guy and I, we thank the Gods everyday! he thanks his Christian God and I thank my Pagan ones.....we are a bi-racial, bi-spiritual and multicultural family and we like it that way.....we are happy that way....who made you judge of what is right in my world? 

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I died, flat lined, gave up and was pulled back, I was mad then when they saved me, I wanted it to be over, today as I prepare for tomorrow's celebration of life I am so glad they did, I would have missed all these years, all this love and I never would have found myself hidden under all the superficial bullshit that I had been led to believe I needed to be, when all I ever really needed to be was me.....ME! I am proud of ME! I love ME! I believe in my OWN MAGIC! try it for yourself you might like it! 

ok vent over, let the butt hurt cyring begin!

Gratitude and Love

Life is hard....it is damn fucken hard! and yes that fuck needed to be in there! I have not written in so long, for so many reasons that I tell myself but when in truth I know it is because I was overwhelmed with things to say, feelings that have been raging inside for a while now.....anger, disappointment, sadness and oh yes even more disappointment.....it becomes even harder when most of those feelings are directed at myself.

The month of June gave me loads to think of so much angst and ugly happening in the world and when it started one morning that I got up, took one step and came crashing to the floor, it was over the top for me.....there were suddenly of course hands outstretched to help me get up and get back to my bed to sit and recollect myself, but the scare was there for them and for me.....the reality of my mobility becoming more challenged prevalent in all our minds......this made me angry at my body once more, another failure for me, another moment of how do I cope with this?  The list of my health issues grows worse per year, there is less and less that I can enjoy that others take for granted, this made me sad.....I kept going and then my beloved Witch's Chamber was attacked, comments were vile, and the ugliness deflected behind the scenes enough to make my toes curl, this made me disappointed. My reality became a messed up body, a bruised spirit, and a crying heart. Some of you knew some didn't, some cared some never will and that is ok too......I kept going.

Yesterday I put up a little giveaway on my page, all I wanted to know was what everyone enjoyed about the page, I simply wanted to see what if anything you all would like to see more of, improvements and such but the replies floored me, the giveaway continues and I continue to read each comment as you write it....as I read I find this strange rain falling from my eyes, it is not a sad rain, it is a smiling, the Sun is shining and the Moon is glowing kinda rain...Today I am grateful that when I was young I found a way to find that Sunshine in the midst of the rain....that I found a way to dance in the rain even when it clouded my eyes....Today I am grateful to the Gods, to my supporters, to my family, my brothers and sisters, to my magic...I am grateful for Spirit that fed me when I needed it most and nourished my soul even as my flesh fought it tooth and nail....most of the pain has subsided now, and I am left with a dull aching remembrance that June was a very painful month.

July has been iffy but still holds promise....after all the anniversary of my death and rebirth comes in just 3 short days....reminders are good ways to keep us focused aren't they? Life is damn fucken hard so fill it with love and gratitude....it really is the only answer.