I’m Still Here
I’m alive. I think. Life has been very chaotic this year, with a move after 12 years in one (rental) home to our very own home. It’s a good thing, but of course it has come with stress and overwhelm. It all caught up to me in June and I was sick for most of the month. I still feel like I’m catching up to the rest of the world.
It has been interesting to feel relief in the midst of the stress and overwhelm that our housing situation no longer feels tenuous. I have long been experiencing the health challenges related to sustained stress and trauma, and I can feel a release of some of it with solid ground beneath my feet. And how fun is it to get to do whatever we want in and to our own home? Well, what we can afford, that is. It’s a cute little mid-mod ranch with basement that we were able to afford because it was largely original to 1963. We did quite a bit before moving in, and we’ve got a list that will last us for years, but that’s okay because it’s ours and we’re doing it together.
Before I got sick I had the opportunity to trade some work with the lovely Carrie Miller of Aspen Imagery, and I’m so happy that I got some updated headshots in one of my favorite places, outside “my” library in Denver’s Northside, since the move has taken me out of the neighborhood that I am so rooted in. Carrie is so grounded and friendly, and was more than willing to document my connection to the land and building where I spent so much of my growing up years. Thank you, Carrie!
I’m gonna be so real—I have a really hard time right now seeing myself with loving eyes, because that sustained stress and trauma, PC/MOS, a brain injury, periods of poverty, a pandemic, peri/menopause have all added up to inflammatory havoc in my body that has led to significant weight gain. I am SO body positive for everyone else, and I am so grateful for the creators and influencers on social media who model loving kindness for themselves, because it helps me do the same, but udoing a lifetime of conditioning is hard work. Combatting my inner critic is a constant battle, but moment by moment I’m getting there.
I am not fishing for compliments. I know that I have privilege in that throughout my life people have told me that I’m beautiful. I have just experienced firsthand being seen, admired, assisted, and desired when thin, and being invisible, pitied, ignored, and repulsive when fat. (Years ago, before I lost 100lbs, a young woman told me that, “You should lose some weight, fattie.” I’d be lying if I said that shame wasn’t partially motivating in my subsequent journey.)
Then there’s the added layer of feeling guilty for having so much of my brain power going towards self-criticism and worry about losing weight when we are living in these times and really I should be out in the streets fighting fascism. My life is pretty darn good, yet I am extremely cognizant of the fact that life is not good in these not at all united states for many, many people, especially my immigrant friends and neighbors. As things continue to settle down for me, I will be getting back to my helping and fighting work in the world.
I will be at my library this coming Tuesday, July 28, 6:30-7:45pm for our next Death Cafe.
Woodbury Branch Library, 3265 Federal Blvd, Denver CO 80211. The library is wheelchair accessible and an elevator provides access to the basement community room. We hope to normalize discussions about death and dying as we celebrate the richness of living. Join us for a lively chat about death.
(Not sponsored by Denver Public Library. Please direct any questions to beth@bethleyba.com.)
