🌙 Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Quiet confessions—if you find the door.
A quiet space for thoughts that come at night.
Fragments. Memories. Half-formed truths — raw material I shape into meaning.
Truths that haven’t been polished—yet.
Written in the dark, without performance—before the overthinking.
- Outsider grief: Mourning something without being able to fully claim it.
- Emotional self-erasure: Shrinking your truth to preserve someone else’s version of the story.
- Relational confusion: Being re-introduced into a family system that had already moved on, evolved, and embraced the lost siblings…without ever truly reckoning with what you carried.
- Protective reflex: Still defending her. Even after everything.
And that bizarre cousin gathering?
It’s the perfect symbol of the absurdity: everyone welcoming the secret children, building new connections, and seeing it as a beautiful reunion—while the one person who was never protected was left on the edge.
I used to have a recurring dream—or maybe a fragmented memory of something.
I was in the baby carriage, in Prospect Park. My mother and her friend Nicole sat on a bench nearby, just where they always did. My mother looked happy. Engaged. She was talking and laughing—completely at ease in a way I rarely saw her. I couldn’t have been more than a few months old. And yet, I remember the feeling. There was comfort. Maybe it was a real moment my body held onto. Maybe it was something I created because I needed it. Either way, it stayed with me. A quiet imprint of what safety could feel like. A version of her I wanted to know.
I understand addiction because I’ve lived inside it—in different forms, at different times. Food, drinking, even overachieving. Each one served a purpose. Each one was a way to cope when I didn’t yet have another way to feel safe, connected, or seen.
Food was first—comfort, control, numbing, maybe even rebellion.
Alcohol became a social and emotional lubricant—a way to disappear in plain sight.
Drugs offered access to another realm—one where you didn’t have to be the girl in the photo with anger in her eyes. You could be fluid, expansive, not confined.
My mother looked at my engagement ring and said nothing. Just looked away. – emotional invisibility
After I discovered the siblings she never told me about, she said, “Too bad you didn’t get your father’s language skills,” and asked, “Why didn’t you have children?” deflection and projection
As if the loss belonged to her.
As if it was a failing in me.I once tried to open the door—to ask about childhood, about why I don’t remember being hugged. It would’ve been a good moment to share the truth.
But all she said was, “All the kids ran to their parents after school. You didn’t.”
Memories of her chasing me with an iron, gritting her teeth when I was a child, and the painful way she put my hair in pigtails.
I no longer feel ruled by anxiety.
It still visits now and then, but I don’t lead with it.
The stomach issues that once ran my life have quieted—
along with the noise that once kept them alive.
Being outside the frame doesn’t mean you don’t exist. It means you see the whole picture—clearly enough to draw your own.
Today was a good day.
I showed up—for myself, for the page, for the truth I’ve been carrying.
“It’s like I’ve been held prisoner by an invisible force.”
The tension between visibility and vanishing. Between curiosity and fear. Between wanting connection and not knowing how to stay in it
The grief of what i didn’t get. The grief of what she couldn’t give. And the quiet, sacred strength of becoming what i needed
That sadness runs deep—because it’s not just mine. It’s hers too. That brief tear she quickly swallowed said everything she couldn’t. And I saw it. Felt it. Carried it.
I inherited more than her sensitivity—I inherited the silence, the self-protection, the ache of what went unspoken. The way the body builds walls when the heart can’t bear more. The way it holds grief like breath.
I’ve been trying to turn toward that pain my whole life—with books, with work, with distance, with care. And now, with truth. I’m breaking a pattern she never had the words for. And even though it hurts, I know it’s sacred work.
There is a huge sadness. But there’s also a huge tenderness. I saw her. And now I’m starting to see myself. Maybe—just maybe—that’s the healing neither of us had.
We split a bottle of Champagne with shrimp. I enjoyed it—and wanted more.
But instead, I reached for the CBG blend and watched a movie.
Later, I saw how my blood glucose spiked. A sign.
I was glad I ended the night at Writer’s Corner.
It’s 3 a.m., and I’m signing off.
Awareness is half the battle
Day 1 tomorrow…counting helps
It’s a hard place to sit with—knowing how much I’ve worked to understand myself and build something steadier, only to still feel this lingering sadness. I finally feel more settled in my outer world, but inside, I often feel unmet… unknown. That disconnect runs deep, and it can feel incredibly lonely.
I’ve done so much healing, so much reflecting, trying to make meaning from everything. But the deeper connection I long for—especially with someone so close—still feels out of reach. I’ve spent a lifetime containing, buffering, self-regulating. And now, even with someone physically here, I still feel the weight of being alone in ways that matter most.
Day 1…again
Happy to be back—late night after hours at Writer’s corner
My body is inflamed.
Lower belly, low back, sore throat—all irritated.
Heartburn. Reaching for Pepcid—the stop sign.
A familiar detour.
Hard to believe this once felt normal.
It’s the aftermath.
It’s the stacking of days.
The momentum.
The blur.
Back to Day 1—tomorrow.
It’s late.
I drank half a bottle of Pinot before dinner—just under two glasses remain—and I may likely finish it tomorrow.
Not out of celebration. Not really out of defiance.
But maybe just to put a period at the end of the sentence—an intentional closure.
It didn’t start with the wine.
I added a bit of China China in my La Croix—bitter, sweet, and honestly, a bit desperate.
A placeholder.
An attempt to just have a sip of something else…
“This way, I’m not really drinking.”
That’s the dance, right? The little bargain.
A quiet justification dressed up as comfort.
The weekend was fun.
And I extended beyond my plan.
It’s a slippery slope—and I know it. But I’m naming it.
This isn’t a collapse.
It’s a conscious course correction.
Tomorrow, I return to myself—slowly, intentionally.
Pilates. A healthy dinner.
Easing into a reset, with a planned taper.
No shame. Just forward.
I see you.
Not the version with the wine glass.
Not the one who didn’t write last night.
Not the one who feels like she lost ground again.
I see the woman underneath all of it—
the one who’s been holding too much for too long,
who stayed quiet to keep the peace,
who built something beautiful in the middle of a storm.
Who reached for relief when no one else could offer comfort.
You’re not weak. You’re worn.
There’s a difference.
And even now—tired, foggy, angry—you’re here, reaching for truth.
You’re not starting over. You’re coming back to yourself.
This isn’t rock bottom.
This is your line in the sand.
Let tonight be the moment you stop waiting to be seen.
Let it be the night you noticed. Again.
And tomorrow?
Begin again.
Hydrate. Move your body. Touch your site. Reclaim your rhythm.
You know the way back.
I’m still here.
He doesn’t ask about my work because he’s not curious about my inner world.
He schedules concerts, not conversations.
He shows up for others when it fits him—not when I need him.
And when the family dynamic gets tense, he takes the path of least resistance—even if that means leaving me hanging.
This isn’t about one dinner or one couch night—it’s about the pattern.
And my body, my emotions, my writing—they’re all screaming: Enough.
With his orbit, I was never truly seen. Never included in a way that felt real. And when I finally said something—when I set a boundary—I became the problem.She made a last-minute change that blindsided me. Instead of standing up for me, he folded. It became about keeping her comfortable. Not upsetting her. Not rocking the boat. And once again, I was left out in the cold—expected to go along quietly.That night wasn’t just awkward—it was humiliating. I was hurt, and we ended up in a fight. But instead of backing me, he let the story be that I overreacted
There are forces in us that push away—and others that pull us closer.
One is self-protection. The other, a longing to be seen.
We think they’re opposites. But sometimes, they come from the same place:
A deep knowing of what we can’t survive again.
A quiet hope for what we still believe might be possible.
It’s late, but I’m feeling hopeful. My passion project has grown—my way back to something meaningful. And I want to hold on to that feeling. To make space for excitement without letting my mind drift to what’s not right. It’s okay to feel content—really content—right here, right now.
My San Diego buddy of a long time, my very first California friend—the one who’s known me through all my relationships—is coming to visit. That feels grounding. Like life is gently circling back in the best way. San Diego is where I first landed so many years ago. Some days, life feels surreal—the moves, the cities, the different versions of me. But maybe home isn’t just a place. Maybe it’s this: the people who knew you then, the passions you return to, the peace you make with now.
Home is where I am.
Nobody dreams of becoming the outsider in their own home.
You don’t just “blend in.”
You step into history. Into habits. Into relationships you didn’t shape but now live alongside.
There’s no script—just quiet expectations.
The ex, the kids, the unresolved emotional baggage.
Poor boundaries and passive partners leave you holding the emotional consequences of choices you didn’t make.
It’s not fun.
You stop trying.
You now intentionally dodge the forced family fun, awkward gatherings,
the expectation to pretend
You save yourself
Lately, I’ve been sitting with a quiet sadness for the child I was—
the one who felt unsafe, unheard, unseen, and unprotected.
I have flashes of memory, and I know I wasn’t okay.
And I can see now that my body knew something my mind couldn’t yet name.
The panic attacks in my teens were inevitable.
The girl I was had already absorbed so much—
girlhood interrupted.
And it’s taken years—decades—
to mend what was never soothed.
Tonight, I hug that little girl.
I hold her in the way I always needed.
I tell her: You were never too much.
You are safe now. And you are loved
Tonight, I found myself thinking about Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. I read it as a teenager and saw myself in those pages—that tension between wanting to belong and needing to be free. The split self. The outsider.
I’ve always felt a bit like that—one foot in, one foot out. Wired to bolt, as if staying meant losing something essential. I grew up in a world shaped by patriarchy, with expectations that didn’t match my own—leaving little room for who I was becoming. It always felt hard. A struggle. A sorrow. An empty space.
Married so late, I feel even more like an outsider in some ways. Newfound siblings I never grew up knowing—estranged, a world away. I wasn’t wanted, yet I was the child who stayed. The one left to absorb it all.
Some nights, I still feel like that teenager—angry, restless, searching. Wanting to run. Wanting to be understood. Still straddling the line between belonging and becoming.
And here I am—writing it, naming it, feeling it.
I feel as though I’ve transcended back in time—
and arrived too late.
The memories are still fresh,
but everything else has moved on
Gaining clarity, and realizing you can’t correct the past—only meet it with honesty, and carry it differently.
To My Father
Tonight, I thought of you.
I see you in me—
in who I’ve become in the quiet.
I understand so much more now.
I had to leave then.
And I think, deep down,
you knew it was for the best.
Sometimes, the deepest kind of love
is found in the ache of distance—
in wanting connection,
but not being able to hold it
in the way you needed.
I regret that I didn’t come back in time.
Siblings
There’s an ache of distance—
a bond, a link never formed.
Connected by blood, separated by time and place,
lived out in different stories.
A longing for connection that will never fully be.
When our birth mother passed, I disappeared.
Grief folded in on itself.
I didn’t know how to reach across the silence,
or what to say.
I was the one who stayed.
You were given away—
welcomed, claimed, into new homes.
Now you’ve inherited the only family I ever knew.
And I—
I sit alone, still the outsider
in my own story.
My mother once said, “Too bad you didn’t get your father’s language skills.”
But I did.
I write.
Some people just can’t truly celebrate you—
everything has to revolve around them.
Maybe because they fear they’ll disappear
if the light shifts,
even briefly.
I’m in the in-between—
shedding old armor, stepping into something more honest.
It feels brave. It feels lonely.
This isn’t just writing. It’s revealing.
The mask was heavy, but it kept me safe.
Now, I hold this work close. It’s not content.
It’s healing.
I miss what was familiar—even if it wasn’t healthy.
The rituals, the illusion of connection—
they helped me belong.
Now I’m building something truer.
It just doesn’t feel like home yet.
The ache?
It means I’m doing something real.
There’s a plastic dollhouse in our garage.
I remember how much I hated the confinement of dolls and playing house…
Wasn’t it better to be a man—and free?
It sits here like a placeholder for a scripted life.
A symbolic holdover of how girls are taught to live:
pretty, contained, preparing for “someday.”
It’s not even handmade.
Just molded factory plastic—cookie cutter, like the expectations.
Fake. Disposable. Yet somehow permanent.
A quiet power play.
Funny how something so small can take up so much space
“Why didn’t you have children?”
Because I chose a life that felt like mine..
30 April 2025
A memory from the past seeped into a dream. It jolted me awake. I was trying to make peace with an old love, a dear friend I hadn’t seen in 1/2 a lifetime. I had walked away and only now does it make sense. Did he know who I was? The house was different. his wife and her sister were lovely. I didn’t know where I fit. why was I here. I think I wanted to tell him I was happy he found his way. I had left rather abruptly. He didn’t didn’t seem to recognize me. I was there and I wasn’t. I was trying to send a message, stuck in time unable to leave but not having the words. Goofy, he once called me. I longer existed. I jolted awake to leave.
I took the long way home.
The photo of my mother and me at a friend’s wedding captures so much of my own inner struggles—struggles I continue to work through:
– A quiet fear or discomfort around belonging.
– The gap between outer appearances and inner feelings.
– A self-protective instinct — even in simple, social settings.
– How that internalized feeling was passed down to me — without words.
I didn’t disappear because I didn’t care.
I disappeared because I was hurting.
Grieving. Untethered.
It was self-protection—
not indifference.
I’m here now.
Feeling it. Naming it.
Healing in my own time.
When I’m ready,
reconnection won’t be a performance.
It’ll be something soft.
Something real.
The Missing Key
Born restless. Born raw.
Alcohol numbed me.
Cannabis stilled me.
Low CBG with a trace of THC—
I found a way in.
A way to stay.
A way to breathe.
Maybe I just needed a different key.
There’s comfort in hiding my writing—
in keeping it tucked away, untouched by judgment.
It’s easier to protect what’s still raw.
Easier to let Life’ing remain a private space
where I can be real without being seen.
But I know:
Creation isn’t meant to stay hidden forever.
It needs breath.
It needs a way into the world—
even quietly, for those who might understand.
Tonight, I’m holding both truths:
the fear of being seen
and the quiet longing to be known.
Maybe for now, writing is enough.
The rest will come when it’s ready.
Somewhere between what broke and what rebuilt,
I realized I wasn’t returning to an old self.
I was meeting someone new.
Alone, even when not physically alone.
Unseen, even while visible.
The slow erosion of feeling real in the presence of someone else.
Not malicious — just no insight.
It’s all so damn late.
Maybe.
But you’re still here. Still writing. Still choosing clarity over numbness.
More the real me that’s been trapped for a lifetime.
I’m not becoming someone new.
I’m just letting out the self I’ve been keeping quiet.
The one who always felt too much, asked too many questions, or sensed things no one said.
That self is still here. And she’s finally speaking
I’ve been blogging like an addiction — distracting, but also creating.
And maybe I’m creating my way out.
It’s hard to be an older woman in our society.
Dismissed. Flattened. Invisible.
As if our complexity is too much—
and somehow, still not enough
I’ve learned the loudest arguments often begin with a whisper we ignore.