November Gratitude List - Haven turns One!

I have a one-year-old. It's a little strange thinking that my sweet girl Haven has been with us a whole year. But I really can't imagine my life without her. A few years ago I reluctantly received a gift from someone that allowed me to fully see this path through. I'll always be grateful for that.

I'm grateful for the duality of life, specifically the community of people I had supporting me while I planned her first birthday (it was a beautiful, playful event and completely Marxist coded) and readied myself to prepare a celebration of life for my Dad, the latter of which is now less than two weeks away. I am appreciative of the moments I am able to step into lightness of being, because it makes the heavier times a little easier to bear. Having the most supportive network of humans around me while I do that helps immensely.

I'm grateful that I am closing this blog soon. It's been good for me, and for a time I really needed it as an outlet. But it has served its purpose now. That said, I encourage you to follow the journey if you want to stay connected. Google The Tender Rebellion sometime in the New Year if you're into something just as passionate, somewhat more literary and political, but a little less confessional.

I'm grateful that I have a lively inner life. Sometimes I feel so stuck by external factors and social constructs... but being able to retreat into the realm of imagination has been a saving grace lately.

Living with the Everyday Sunday Scaries

White knuckling it through life over here, hbu? Apologies I haven't had much content to share, but right now, I'm struggling to even stay above water. Losing my dad has been the gut-punch that I wasn't ready for, and I am struggling to let myself fully feel the pain, anguish, and regret that comes along with grieving the complicated relationship I had with him. I suppose it's self-preservation, but I just can't let it happen right now.

Every day feels hard. If it weren't for my kids, I probably wouldn't be much inclined to get out of bed, to be honest. The last time I remember being genuinely happy in the past week was on my daughter's first birthday when I was pushing her on the swing at the park. She was giggling and letting out little squeals of joy, and I was in it with her, you know? I wish I could say I've had more of those moments lately, but I haven't, and that's not for lack of trying. I just... I'm really struggling with anxiety since my dad died, and yet anxiety feels better than complete and total sorrow. It's the beast I know. All in all, I guess you could say I'm not coping very well, and I'm not able to fully grieve or address the gut-wrenching pain of it, simply because I have to parent, and I have to be strong right now.

That doesn't mean I don't feel it. I just have to stay a bit more numb than usual or I'll completely break.

Rest-assured, I'll find my way again. I'll let myself process and feel and I'll hold myself through. I just need to get through November first.

Is This What You Wanted? To Live in a House That is Haunted

You said time would heal us—that viewing the body was unnecessary. Everyone grieves in their own way, I suppose. You dust memento-laden shelves as if tending a grave, all while secretly killing time at the cemetery. I stayed too long at that funeral. That’s just how I’m built—to feel things to the marrow, to place shimmering coins on the eyelids of the dead. I fixate on every detail just to bring myself back through.

Spectres don’t stay disenfranchised forever. With time, they integrate—even if it takes years. I’m back in my body again. Eventually, I put my best white dress on, and nobody could tell the difference. You were the only one to see me crumble, like I always said I would when I warned you not to hold me up.

And yet…

We’re not supposed to be here—not supposed to summon those things. In this long-neglected house, ghosts graze past in some other life, haunting each other behind one-way screens. Orbs float on the periphery like dead lovers separated in the cemetery. Footsteps echo in corridors of yesterday, the air thick with smoke from a fire long extinguished. You’d deny it, but some would call it unfinished business.

I wouldn’t try to tend to it now. You really wish I wouldn’t, anyhow. But I’ll revere it, even as I feel the chill. It’s not warm here anymore; the heat’s been off for some time. Rooms empty, left unfilled—no tiny footsteps reverberating like we sometimes pretended. Nowhere left to wander except an attic to store things meant to be preserved but rarely touched.

You keep me there for a reason—hidden behind a door you rarely unlock, pacing just outside. Occasionally, you press your palm against the wood just to make sure I never left, like a ritual. Sometimes I call out when I sense your presence lingering beneath the cobwebs in the door-frame. My fragility always betrays me. Part of me needs you to remember that I’m still alive in there—a living, breathing thing, not a pretty relic made for silent worship.

It’s only lately you whisper back—tone flat and static—so it’s not an incantation. Is that all you’ve got to say? I don’t blame you. I know why. Residual magic. Residual pain. But what we had is gone, save for the memories. I can’t do anything to hurt you now. I won’t exhume the body. I just had to fully grieve before I buried it. Maybe that’s the wrong way—I don’t know—but I accept it now.

It took time, but I made sense of the death. That’s all I wanted.

And still, there’s a girl inside me who makes art on tombstones—reminders that dead things were once beautiful. I don’t ask if they still are, because now I know that epitaphs don’t lie.

This is what it’s like to live in-between—to be able to let go and still accept the lingering presence of a ghost. Everything crumbles and is eventually swallowed by the earth. The most rotten parts feed themselves to the worms. Where it used to cut to the bone, now there’s only empathy and reverence.

This old house creaks and groans with it.

And sometimes, faintly, footsteps still tap on the floorboards outside the door.