Johann Peter Hasenclever (1810-1853) - Young Woman At The Open Window Looking At The Full Moon

“... I'm a nobody. I can't even remember anything. Nothing. Not even my name.”

My aunt died two days ago and while we were not super close, I feel her loss so profoundly. I have experienced so much death in my almost 30 years and it never gets easier. I got to the hospital just as they were taking her away and I wish I had arrived a few minutes later. I wish I never had to see them unwrap her like a mummy so I could say goodbye. She was cocooned and buckled in and all I could do was shake. Because even though I have been to too many funerals to count, I had never been around someone who just took their last breath. All I could think about was my dad in that moment and how the last time I saw him he was basically a vegetable in the bed. I begged him to move on so that he and everyone else would no longer be suffering. At that moment, all I could think about was how is just dust in a tomb somewhere. The thought of someone just leaving this universe as if they were never even here is so unfathomable to me.

Death scares me so profoundly and sometimes I feel like it is looming over me. That at any moment my life will be taken from me and I will be just a memory for everyone around me.

OK, I feel like I need to make a list because the point of this whole Tumblr was to stay on track and I have done nothing to stay on track. I have not started working out, I have not started eating better, and I am messier than ever.

I am going to make a weekly chart and hopefully, I can stick to it.

Again, hopefully, by posting it here, I will be able to stay on track!

Wish me Lucky!

16 Shadow work prompts/ideas:

You can keep a journal, write and distroy it, or meditate on those questions and prompts.

Write an apology letter to yourself.

Why am I injured?

How do I honestly believe I am?

What does my childhood me need the most?

Am I hiding something from myself?

What are your self-sabotaging habits?

recognize those bad patterns.

What are my red flags and green flags?

Why do I struggle with ------?

Do I judge people?

What are the things I judge people for, but I do the same for myself?

Did you regret something?

What are your deepest fears and how have they held you back in life?

What is your love language and destructive act?

What is the worst feeling?

Do you recognize your feelings?

In the garden and Summer, 1890s

Thomas Wilmer Dewing

Day 4:

If you could get rid of one bad memory, what would it be and why?

The one memory I would get rid of is from the hospital the day my dad woke up after losing his voice. Not to make a horrible situation that happened to my dad all about me but that day was so very traumatic. I remember that they had told us that he had cancer from smoking cigarettes but I did not think it was going to be as bad as it was.

It was nighttime when he finally woke up and the room was packed to capacity with people checking up on him. But he woke up so frustrated and angry and all he was doing was grunting and trying to write. He was trying so hard to tell us what he needed and nothing would come out. It was the saddest moment of my life because he was a man who filled any room with his loud voice and laughter.

I remember that everyone around me was crying and that frustrated him even more. Every time he saw someone crying he would start banging things next to him. So instead of crying like everyone else around me, I stayed stoic. I tried my hardest to be the person he needed at that moment. I tried my best and I succeeded, but at what cost?

I mean here I am more than 10 years later and that memory still haunts me. The guilt still lingers.

I feel guilty because before he lost his voice he used to scream all the time. He used to scream so much that we thought his voice was hoarse from the yelling, not cancer. But it was too much for me; I remember I used to pray for him to stop screaming. I used to pray for some peace and quiet and when I finally had it, it was mortifying.

I can't remember his voice, I think that is the worst part.

He died in 2020 after they amputated both of his legs and told him they were going to have to take his arm too. He lived such a miserable life that I was so happy when he finally passed. He no longer had to suffer and neither did I. And while the death certificate is only 3 years old, I truly believe that the day he lost his voice is the day he died inside.

Day 12:

How do you feel about “love”?

Based on the toxic loveless marriage my parents had while I was growing up, I am very cynical when it comes to love. I believe that love might exist but it will never be the fairytale love that I have dreamed about since I was a child. I used to dream of finding someone who made me feel protected, wanted, and safe. But where I am now in life, I do not believe that that kind of love could exist.

But I wish it were different. I wish I was quick to fall in love and that I could see a future with someone but at the rate that I am going, I think that I will never find that person. There is still an inkling of hope that I will always have but I am more realistic when it comes to love.

I always say that I never want kids but that is not true. Somedays I want to be a mother so bad but I know that I will never be able to do it on my own. And I refuse to bring children into this world if they are forced to grow up in the same conditions that I did. I refuse to have kids with someone who will not take responsibility. I refuse to be with someone who was just like my father.

So, for now, I will continue protecting my peace until someone comes along who can change my mind.

Day 15:

How do you deal with criticism?

It truly depends on whether the criticism is constructive or destructive. If I am in a work or school setting and someone is correcting something that I've done or giving helpful tips, I appreciate it to my core. And that is because I am a firm believer in always learning and if I am doing something wrong, I will never know until someone comes along to help. In essence, I welcome constructive criticism when it comes from a good place.

On the other side of that coin, there is destructive criticism which I will cry in private about later. These are instances when someone will acknowledge something I am self-conscious about in a negative way. Not to sound like a broken record but I am bigger and overall I am considered fat, so when someone criticizes me based on size, food, looks, etc. it truly does hurt. I will act like it does not bother me but deep down it shatters me. I am trying to hard to find self-love and to love the body that I am in and all it takes is a couple words to set back that progress.

Am I hiding something from myself?

One of the main things I’m hiding from myself is how badly I want to be loved and to find a man to spend the rest of my life with. I joke around and say that I’d rather be single for the rest of my life but I yearn for someone to love me wholeheartedly. And don’t say that I shouldn’t rely on someone else to feel love and that I should love myself because I do!! I love myself so much!! But what is it wrong with me that people don’t want to be with me romantically? I want to be a mother, I want someone to spend the rest of my life with, I want someone to do life with.

But I don’t want any of that with the wrong person. I refuse to subject a child to the same life I had to grow up in. So as bad as I may want it, I can wait for my time a little bit longer; I’ve already waited this long.

I believe that the universe truly has something beautiful waiting for me and I look forward to the day that it’s finally my turn. Until then, I’ll continue to hide my urge to be loved behind jokes.

Why am I injured?

I’m not physically injured which I think makes me feel all the worse about myself. I am able bodied while people are struggling yet I can’t seem to heal from the wounds I’ve received growing up. I’m an adult and I can’t get over everything that I’ve been through. I don’t know how to heal. I’m afraid that I’ll be like this forever.

Forever closing myself off to opportunities and people because I’m scared of opening old wounds. I’m turning out just like my parents and I hate that about myself. I wanted so much more from my life but i genuinely feel like I’m cursed or making up for some kind of past karmic bullshit from a previous life.

Every time life is good and I’m in a good headspace, things go crashing down and get 10x’s worse. I feel like I’m caught out in a storm and I keep getting pushed out to see. I’m so tired all the time and I don’t know how much longer I can keep swimming. Some days I just want to sink and let it be done with. Have my next self deal wihth whatever karmic justice they need to make up for because it’s too much for me in this life.