Tag: Vulnerability

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

The Vice Grip In My Chest

RaeAnna

I don’t exactly know what I’m trying to write, what the point of this is, if there’s a point at all, where this will even start, or end. 

I love old and forgotten things. Broken. Worn. I see myself in them. 

All I know is that it feels like my lungs and heart are slowly being compressed in a vice grip I can’t shake. I can’t stop crying. But I can’t seem to start breathing. Every time I almost get a breath in my lungs, the vice grip clamps down even harder. My body feels like it’s slowly dying, and I actually know what that feels like. Though, I know this time it’s just emotional pain corporally manifesting rather than internal organ failure. I’ll take one over the other, and it’s not the one I’m struggling with right now.

My pain is so interwoven with one another. Start pulling on one string of pain, and all the rest start to twinge. Trauma. Survivor. PTSD. Love. Anxiety. Failure. Depression. Abandonment. Worth. I can handle them all. I’ve done it over and over and over again for so many reasons. I fight those demons daily, and I’m still here. I’ll be okay, but I’m crumbling right now.  

I can’t sleep. And food, just, yeah. I’ve been exercising like my life depends on it. In a way maybe it does. The mind needs sleep more than the body, but both have learned how to survive on all but none. I run and do yoga every day. I never stop moving, trying to find something to take my mind off of this pain. Pushing myself past boundaries I hadn’t known existed so the physical pain can, at least, match the emotional. 

I couldn’t sleep last night. So I took to the woods at 3:00 am with my dog to run until my legs couldn’t go on. Truly. I ran until my legs couldn’t, so I sat down and cried. I focused on my heart beat. Feeling my heart condition being pushed to its most extreme limits so my heart would feel like it could explode at any moment because the physical pain made the fact my heart is imploding on itself over and over again a little less poignant. I crawled back in bed and never found sleep. So I laid on the bathroom floor and sobbed until the sun came up. 

I left my room and chose to use my rare free time to chase happiness, doing things that bring me joy. REI, the zoo, a carousel ride, walking Hermann Park, a train ride, dinosaurs at the Science Museum, art at the MFA, more walking, writing at one of my favorite coffee shops. I’ve managed to make my feet cover 26 miles in the last sixteen hours. Yet I’m not tired. I’m not happy. Nothing I do allows me to breathe or dry my tears. 

I’ve been told my entire life I’m horrible at being vulnerable. Vulnerability has always been dangerous. Surviving doesn’t allow any room for weakness, mistakes, failure. I can. With a chosen few… The few who chose themselves to put in the work, to push. To not take ‘no’ for an answer.

It’s the common complaint from friends and partners. They don’t know me because I don’t show them the parts I’m scared of. I’m scared because I can’t change them. I have no control over them. I’ve been met with callous cruelty far more than loving empathy. I make jokes to distract from the agony of so many things. If I make them laugh, they won’t see the silent desperation in my eyes or the tremble in my voice or the way my body language gives nothing away. I have no problem putting down these feelings here, sharing it with the world. Ask me to crumble in front of my people, I can’t. 

I can, but they have to push. They have to demand, leave me with no other option. They have to keep showing up and saying they want the broken parts. They have to see the shine in my eyes and the stoicism take over. An absence of feeling usually means only one thing: They’re on to something. I’m not okay. I’m falling apart. Quickly. I will leave and disintegrate if they don’t just ask the one question: “Why?” Then make me answer it, no matter what. Don’t try to dry my eyes or let me make jokes. Don’t even try to hold me or make it better because they can’t. Not until it’s come out. Then simply exist with me as I lose it. 

The moment I know something is off, wrong, different, emotional, I steal myself. Compartmentalizing every single feeling except kindness and empathy far away from the surface so I can be there for them without needing a single thing in return. I’m a great friend, but I’ve had a hard time letting others be friends to me. So they’re left wondering if I ever felt anything at all. 

I’ve been told I have no feelings; computer programs have more emotions than I do; psychopathic tendencies; cruelly unfeeling. Surviving meant keeping emotions at bay until there was an appropriately solitary moment to deal with them, the shower, before holding my chin up to keep on keeping on. The truth is, I feel everything. All the time. So deeply. So viscerally. I take everything personally. Over-analyzing every conversation and interaction to find out what I did wrong, what I could have done better, how I could have been better. I just don’t show it. 

Someone spent eleven years loving me without knowing I’m sensitive. 

I compartmentalize to survive. I hurt people with my compartmentalization, which only makes me hurt more. 

The fact is, my inability to be vulnerable means I have so few people in my life. I know this to be true. I’ve known it for a long time. But people keep leaving without ever trying to push past a single boundary I’ve erected purely for self-preservation. I can give help without ever asking for what I need. 

So I’m thirty and broken. 

I’m going through it. 

I know I’ll get used to this new vice grip in my chest, and I’ll breathe again. I don’t know when. I know because I have a few I’m already used to, but this one feels different. Bigger. More real. 

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Miscarriage: It’s Funny How Life Works Out

RaeAnna

It’s funny how life works out. I’ve spent the better part of thirty years telling people I don’t want kids. Those closest to me knew I wasn’t being honest with myself. If I’m telling truths, I knew I was lying to myself the entire time. I finally found the missing puzzle piece. I’m full gay, and the idea of having a baby or two with a woman doesn’t make me nauseous or feel like the world is collapsing in on me. On the contrary, I really would like that someday with the right partner. Wow, no nausea.  

My life would not be what it is if I had become a mother, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get sad sometimes.

Today is the seventh anniversary of what should have been my due date had my body decided to keep my baby instead of yeeting my baby. (I’m really proud I know that slang term, and yes, I giggle every time I read that, so you can too.) I’ve written about the grief and the opposing feelings of grief and relief going along with my miscarriage. There’s a new feeling starting to creep into my soul on the topic. Anxiety. Which I’m probably going to talk about at some point, but that’s not really where I want this piece to go. Nothing but time to let those feelings marinate.

Life is funny. In a deeply dark and very rude way.

Shockingly, my baby was not an immaculate conception. Though, I was on birth control at the time. I got pregnant with a man, Rob*, who I was very much in love with at the time and still love to this day. That being said, he was an absolute ass hat when he put me up the duff. He would be happy to tell you exactly the same but probably less nicely.** He and I had met four summers before while I was vacationing in San Diego. We kept stayed in contact via Facebook and text. I visited a few times. We went in and out of touch. The games life plays. After I graduated college and he’d gotten out of the military, we both ended up in the teensiest bumfucknowhere town an hour south of Chicago. Long story short, we got drunk separately and ended up at one of two bars in town on Fourth of July 2014. Longer story short, he dropped me off at my home the next morning, and I basically never saw him again. What a dick! 

Three months later, oopsies, I was in the family way. And very much alone. Past the point of being able to take care of my problem. I was a mom. Motherhood was not in my plan. Especially not in my 23 years old, just graduated from college, had a big-girl job in the city, finally ready to live my life, single plans. What the fuck, birth control? Call me Myrtle. I was fertile. But, I embraced this new life plan. Fully. I was on board with what was on board me because the baby was conceived out of love and being grown with love. I started dreaming and planning and preparing. Then I miscarried. Grief. So much grief. I drowned in grief for months. There’s still grief. Also relief because again… 23, new college grad, corporate job, single. Did I mention I was 23? I was relieved. Sad but relieved. I also went through it alone. At the time, there was no possibility in my mind of including or even telling Rob. 

Here’s where life gets funny. A few months ago, Rob reached out with an apology letter. A real, hand-written, sent in the mail letter. I was bowled over. The thing about our story is that we were very much in love without having ever been together. He may know me better than just about anyone. Still to this day. He knows my heart in a way very few people do. We fell in love at a distance, but we were only ever best friends. If life were a Hallmark movie, this would be our moment to create the family we almost had seven years ago. But I’m gay! And he holds far too much guilt over what he did to me. 

Suffice to say, his letter rekindled the friendship we once had. Instead of me in Iowa and him in San Diego talking constantly, I’m in Texas, and he’s in Illinois. We talk frequently, almost daily. It’s going to take some time for us to go back to what we once were. What was so amazing about the aftermath of the letter is the conversation we were finally able to have about my baby. Our baby. Which is a really fucking weird thing to say after almost eight years of referring to the baby that never was as mine. That baby can now belong to us both. We can share that grief in a way we couldn’t eight years ago because he did find out about my miscarriage in a really fucked up way. This story is long and great fodder for the writer in me. So buy the book at your local bookstore… someday. 

I just had to stop and message him to tell him I’m writing this because holy shit after nine years (our timeline is weird), I am finally able to text him freely again. I have one of my closest friends back. That was the thing. Tied up in all the grief over losing my… our baby, I was also grieving over the loss of my best friend and a man I loved deeply. Losing him was physically painful. I wrote so many letters. I kept copies, and to this day, I can’t read them because of the pain I can still feel in my chest. My baby was ripped from my body, but I felt like my heart was too. I lost two people. I grieved over someone I would never get to know, and someone I knew all too well. 

Knowing someone as deeply as we knew each other, I knew exactly why Rob left me. I knew exactly what he was thinking. I knew in my core that one day he would reach out. I knew that even though he treated me like shit, his heart, as misguided as it was, was doing it for what he thought to be all the right reasons. The years faded the pain of both losses. I stopped glancing around corners in the grocery store. I stopped listening for his name when I saw mutual friends. I stopped pretending to be happy when I passed him at the gas station. When I moved across the country, I left the last connection we had. I stopped hoping he would reach out, which turned into a faint possibility that had no actual impact on my life. When I talked about him, it was always with warmth and love because I could never let the bad ending (we’ll call it a hiatus now) tarnish the great years we had together and every wonderful thing he did for me. Rob, the best friend, was always separated from Rob, the baby daddy, in my mind. 

Then he did reach out. Exactly one month after the seventh anniversary of my miscarriage. And my best friend walked back into my life. 

Miscarrying was one of the most emotionally taxing things I’ve been through. It has long and lasting repercussions; some of which I’m just starting to grasp. As I look to my potential future as a mother, I know my relationship with miscarriage is not over. I know I am going to have to confront my feelings and anxieties if and when I get pregnant. I know when I do get pregnant, it’s going to be a choice with a partner who I will love beyond measure and trust to hold my hand through every step of the way. I never faulted him for leaving me because he didn’t know how that night would end, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt for years. 

But today will always be the day I honor the baby I’ve never held. For the first time, I’m getting to share today with the man who helped me make that baby. In a way, today is easier because I have him back. I know how hard it was for him to send me the letter in November… I have always known his heart. He put words to his vulnerabilities, and I took a chance. I am grateful for the baby I wanted to raise. I’m grateful for the man who gave me those thirteen weeks. I am grateful that I get to call him a friend again.

*He specifically asked to be named, so Rob is his real name.
**He was the very first to read this before it went public.

bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

What Self Worth?

RaeAnna

Worth has always been a concept I struggle with. Showing up and bolstering friends through their self worth journeys is easy. I can see how worthy they are of every amazing thing life has to offer. Applied to myself. No. Maybe there’s an alternate reality where I don’t struggle with mental health issues. We’re obviously not in that one.

Baring it all is easier physically than emotionally, but I wouldn’t be a very good writer if I didn’t try.

Existing in the world, all I want is to make every single person I come into contact with feel seen and respected, worthy of dignity, even if it’s for the briefest moment in passing on the street or the internet. If I let people come into my life, I love them so hard and show it in every way I physically and emotionally can. I will give until there is nothing to give. Part of this is genuinely who I am. The other part is because I don’t want anyone to feel the way I feel all the time. 

Worth was not instilled in me, ever. If anything it has been actively undermined for as long as I can remember. The only worth placed on me was in my body, my face, my aesthetic, but I’m thirty and have officially reached my expiration date. 

I came into adulthood having only been treated like an object to be used, abused, possessed, fought over, shared, showed off. Trotted out like a trick pony with an impressive resume. Fuck, did I work hard for that resume. I was a very impressive high school student, but it’s all shit from there. 

Throughout childhood and adolescence, my existence was a reflection of my mother (I can’t include my father because he didn’t take part, he didn’t stop it if he even noticed, but he was not like this). If I was anything less than exceptionally perfect, my existence was ignored, and I was quite literally locked in my bedroom until I could come out and be exactly what was expected. It wasn’t about teaching manners or behavior. It was about complete control, policing my identity, mind, opinions, and existence into a tight box meant to glorify her impeccable parenting and public/self image. 

The first time I heard ‘I love you’ from someone who wasn’t saying it to a carefully curated version of myself was the first time I was raped. The physical, psychological, and sexual abuse was constant and inescapable for two years. He shared me with his friends because I was just such a good lay. There was no escape at home. There was no escape at school; I was so isolated, I had no friends. I had no one I could trust, let alone to protect me.

At twenty, I finally escaped my parental control for the roomier box of sex work. Stripping was a means to an end, a way to pay for college and not be homeless. It gave me the freedom to explore my sense of self and learn to reclaim the selves that had been stripped away by my parents and my rapists. It simultaneously served as empowerment and solidified my existence as deserving of abuse, possession, and gratification to others. I can’t speak to stripping today or outside of my bubble and experience, but it was rough. To survive and succeed, being tough and a bitch was the only way to make it through. And I did it sober without dropping out of college or giving up a single major. 

I say my romantic relationships have been wonderful and healthy, but that’s not the whole truth. That’s the version of the truth I wish existed. They are wonderful men. They did their best under remarkable circumstances, but my relationships have never been healthy. Not perpetually toxic, but there was toxicity. Some stood firmly on the boundary between toxic and abuse, though that was never their intention, the line became very blurry at times. The problems were abundant and varied, but the fault was usually placed at my feet. I’m no innocent, but it took me a long time to accept that a majority of the blame was not mine to apologize for. 

I am the partner people search out when they want to be fixed or at least have a hand to hold while the fixing happens. Platonic and romantic alike, I am the support: emotional, financial, physical. I show up consistently as the same person without wavering or asking something in return. Leaving the person and the place better than when I arrived. I give everything I have emotionally and physically because if I have it and someone else needs it, it is now theirs. I cannot be disappointed or hurt if there are no expectations of receiving anything at all. I’m the embodiment of “I’m just happy to be thought of.” Not even included. Thought of. 

I want someone to love me and see me as I am. Just me. I want me to be enough for once.

My worth was always in my body. Never my mind, and I am acutely aware people do not look at me and think: smart. They will get to know me and still not think, ‘Hey, she’s intelligent.’ Fine, but I will be valued for more than the appearance of my body, so I compensated. I took on all the love languages and those that do not have names. I give them out as if they are as plentiful as air. I created a self worth contingent on the things I could offer.     

When everything in my life has always been treated as transactional, it’s hard not to internalize that. I started using my body, my time, my capabilities as currency to buy a shred of importance in the eyes of someone I care for. If I wanted love, I had to be a certain thing. If I wanted to not get raped, I had to do certain things. If I wanted to avoid a punch, I had to tread carefully. If I wanted the barest minimum of respect, I had to go above and beyond to be and provide perfection. Unproductive days where I put my work or, God forbid, my own mental health first, letting the house go messy; not making dinner; leaving a pile of laundry unfolded; not reorganizing the pantry for the seventeenth time while managing to care for the necessities of surviving and working two full-time jobs is shrouded in a thick layer of guilt because I’m not doing enough. If there is something to be done or a feeling out of place, I have not done enough and my worth is nonexistent. 

The problem is, transactional worth based on what I can do and give people is still objectification. It is still a lack of worth. My value is still rooted in possession, neglect, usefulness, and just a new trotting of the trick pony. I did this to myself. I needed to feel like I was worth something other than another beautiful body decorating the world. I grounded my worth in what I could provide to others, but no one stopped me. No one told me I’m worth anything just as I am. No one told me I could sit in silence without makeup on in sweatpants and still deserve dignity, autonomy, the right to exist, love. 

Internally, if I’m not giving everything I have all of the time, I feel like I deserve to be abused, raped, neglected, and unloved. Do not construe this with searching out those actions, I have spent my life avoiding them. But when people or partners treat me poorly, I feel like I deserve it. I don’t blame them. For more than two-thirds of my life, the world taught me I existed to be abused. A human punching bag. A vessel for sexual gratification. A lump of clay to be molded into whatever novelty the day and moment required. If I wasn’t perfect, I didn’t deserve anything at all. Even if I was perfection, abuse and rape were just around the corner. So much of who I am is firmly based in trying to scrounge for any infinitesimal amount of love I can get whether it’s love for me or an idea of me because at least I’m being thought of. I desperately want to love and be loved as I am. I want to be seen and respected. I want to exist without fear. 

I have spent my life alone surrounded by people who have shown me I can’t trust them entirely. I still feel so utterly alone. The battle to reclaim two and a half decades of a life stolen from me is exhausting. I’m doing it alone. At this point, it feels like there is too much to tell, too much to show, too much to explain, too much to defend to let someone else be with me. It feels like an unnecessary burden to ask anyone to take on even if all they’re taking on is bearing witness.

Thirty is still young, but I have lived a somewhat extraordinarily full life. Not full in the ways I once hoped it would be, but they have been experiences nonetheless. A shell with not a lot left to give. I feel like I’m too old, too bitter, too used, too mediocre to be loved, let alone valued. 

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Happy 168th Homecoming, Cornell College

RaeAnna

It was Homecoming weekend for my alma mater, Cornell College, in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.

I’ve been to more homecomings than I haven’t since graduating—only missing this and last year, due to COVID. I loved Cornell while I was there, and love it still. Though, as does everything, it had it’s faults and shortcomings, it was the place I needed, as much for classes and maybe even more for the people it brought me. I still wear my Cornell clothes. I don’t follow the sports teams, but I didn’t do that while I was there either. I read the newsletters. I’ve donated money. I follow them on social media. I continue to sing its praises. I have a Cornell Alumni sticker on my car. I’m, what you may call, a die-hard alumna. Since I couldn’t be there, I celebrated in my own way.

High school was not my space. For a high school, my high school was amazing, but still, I couldn’t wait to leave and find my people in college. And find them, I did. But I also found myself. 

I grew up in Iowa. I wanted nothing more than to leave. Be away from Iowa. Live in cities in new places with lots and lots of different people. I wanted to touch the world outside my bubble. I applied to big schools in big places. And Cornell College. College. Not to be confused with University. Twelve years older, located in Iowa, with 23,000 less students, and named for William Wesley Cornell, a cousin of Ezra’s, it’s easy to confuse the two. I applied to Cornell College because a) it was a good school b) I could create my own major c) if it had to be in Iowa, at least it looked like the East Coast. Long story short, I ended up at a small school, in a tiny town, in Iowa. Exactly what I didn’t want, yet everything I needed. Maybe not the Iowa part, but the other two were definitely what I needed. 

Cornell is a strange place. A tiny liberal arts college in Iowa with a one-course at a time curriculum. It attracts the weirdies from all over. By weirdies, I really mean weirdies. From tech nerds to book nerds to gamers to LARPers. All inclusive weird. You name it, Cornell has it. For only 1,200 students, you can and will find your niche of nerd. We even had some token Republicans on campus. 

I quickly learned that even smart people don’t talk about smart people things all the time or even half the time. I found out it was not only fine but good to not take myself seriously all the time… or ever. Being smart doesn’t mean being boring and intellectual every moment of every day. PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO DRUGS! Y’all, I truly thought a skunk lived outside my dorm my entire first semester. Not even a tiny bit ashamed over this level of naïveté. I also learned it’s good to think outside the box, to question authority, to push back when I knew something was wrong, to speak up with questions and answers, to fail, to ask for help, to be vulnerable, and so many more things. I also learned Russian and German and how to diagram a sentence and furthered my French and English and a lot of applicable knowledge that I use every day in my career, life, and relationships. Yes, it was worth the money Karen. Yes, I do use that expensive piece of paper in my career, Stewart. But college is more than classrooms and textbooks. It should be a safe space to explore, fail, learn, grow, and become the people we were then, are today, and will be someday.

Home is what I think of when I think of Cornell. It was the first place I felt whole. A space that gave me acceptance, love, family, friends, pain, recovery, poverty, plenty, adventure, respect, happiness, anger, truth, and peer review journals. That last one I put in there just because it was unexpected and funny.

I met my people. 

I met my person, who has stayed my person despite moving cross country and living apart for seven out of our eight year personship. She’s doing amazing things, and I could not do life without her. She’s a special kind of human, and I’m so glad she’s mine. Homecoming my senior/her freshman year is really where we started bonding. It’s when I met her family, who would become my family. Cornell gave me a home for four years and led me to the family I chose for forever. 

I found the love of my life at Cornell. My first semester freshman year, I fell for him. Actually, I fell on him. The happiest and saddest moments of my life were shared in our home by Cornell. It was and has always been the earth shifting, head soaring, heart fluttering, belly laughing, eyes shining kind of love that turns into soul shattering, heart wrenching, inside hallowing, eyes filling, life altering heart aches. Cornell is where I lost him. Whether it’s our liberal arts education teaching us to think outside the box, our love, history, respect, or a combination, I still call him my best friend, my partner, my most favorite human .

So many people came in and out of my life at Cornell. I made friends in the dorms, in classes, through walking across the Ped Mall. I spent time with my partner’s fraternity brothers. I became an honorary member of a sorority. I was president of the French club. I had friends all over. I learned stillness and solitude are equally as important for me. I felt a part of something even when I took time for myself. 

I came into my own life at Cornell. 

Life was lived because it had to be suffered through. Then I went to college, where I met people who let me be whatever I was. Happy, sad, angry, passionate. Feelings were welcomed. I found a man who challenged me to love and be loved, demanded I allow myself to break in every way I needed to so I could recover. Cornell gave me permission to enter my own life authentically and with complexity. 

The hardest years of my life played out on campus and in Mt. Vernon. When I think of Cornell, a shimmering sadness plays across my heart. A foundational four years filled me with as much sorrow as happiness. I think I’m still catching up on the sleep I never got back then. I also really wish I hadn’t recycled all the paper handouts and copies from my classes… I’d give a lot of things—not the dogs— for all of those now. I would not be who I am without Cornell. I would probably not be at all if it weren’t for my Cornell family. I miss it as much as I am happy to have moved on. 

No matter the hardship, I am and always will be a die-hard alumna. I really didn’t like purple until I realized I had to embrace it at college. Purple and white are the school colors, and I’ve definitely acquired a collection of Cornell pride clothes over the years.

2021 is the 168th anniversary of Cornell’s existence. It’s old as shit, considering the state of Iowa is only seven years older than my beloved alma mater. Missing out on this year’s celebrations, although most were cancelled due to COVID, was sad. So I decided to fill my house with flowers in Cornell colors all week. I even did a photoshoot with a bouquet, hair comb, and corsage to celebrate. Flowers just make everything more fun, especially Homecoming. After the shoot, we went for coffee and sweets; I definitely felt like I was off to a school dance with my corsage. 

I made the corsage in markedly not Cornell colors but still in honor of Cornell. Red and white. My partner belonged to a fraternity, Mu Lambda Sigma, better known on campus as the Milts. This year marks their 150th anniversary. As any and all Milts will tell you without provocation, they are indeed the oldest organization on campus. Starting out as the Miltonian Literary Society and founded by Dean H.H. Freer in 1871, it evolved into the fraternity I know and love. I had really hoped to spend the Milt’s 150th anniversary on campus, but alas, I did not. 

Not only was my partner a Milt, he introduced me to actives and alum, many became close friends. The fraternity is and was important to me because these were men who created a space for me to exist with the knowledge that I was safe. They protected me and nurtured me. They taught me men could be good, kind, and gentle. I didn’t have to fear these men. I was able to reset my gut and learn to trust it for the first time in my life because of these men. Truly, I have been able to go out into the world and trust men directly because of my partner and the Milts. I am forever grateful to the goofiest group of dudes. So the corsage is as much in honor of my partner as it is in honor of each Milt who loved me at Cornell. Goodness, do I miss them. So much. 

Happy Homecoming, Cornell. I miss the good times and am thankful for the bad. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Blog + Dog, In My Own Words, Lifestyle

On Anxiety: Getting Lost in the Woods

RaeAnna

If this isn’t your first time here, you’ve probably noticed I have anxiety. That would be because I talk about it A LOT. It’s a huge part of my life and dictates a good portion of how I live and my internal musings. Lately, anxiety has been dousing me with an extra helping or twelve, and it has really been affecting everything from sleep to productivity to mostly sleep.

Beau looking back at me… Neither of us knew where we were or where we were going.

I’ve never been a big sleeper. Part of that comes from my natural circadian rhythm: I just don’t need tons of sleep to feel peppy, focused, and productive. The other part is my eternal FOMO. I have had a fear of missing out since I was an infant, which is long before that term entered the patois. My parents will be the first to say that I would not sleep if there was even an inkling of something happening. I remember being about three years old, hopping out of bed during my nap to have a listen at the door because I wanted to know what was happening: Mom was watching a soap opera, but damnit I was not going to miss out on what was going on in Susan’s third husband’s love child’s second marriage (I just made that up, but I’m sure that’s come up at least thrice). The longer I sleep the more I miss out on: time to work, time to play, time to be awake and do nothing but at least I won’t miss anything while I’m awake doing nothing. 

As much as I don’t want to sleep, I do, in fact, need it. Anxiety keeps me up more than anything else. This isn’t new. I remember being eight and having a borderline anxiety attack (although I did not have the words for it then) about growing up and having to file taxes and also decide what my major in college would be. I ONLY HAD ELEVEN YEARS TO FIGURE IT OUT. Yeah, I was a weirdo then. Nothing has changed. As an adult, my anxieties are a bit more grounded in reality, but in eight year old me’s defense, those are real things to worry about… Just maybe not at eight years old.

Three weeks ago, I was in the midst of an anxiety spiral over some very real problems. Some of which have since been solved, yay! I couldn’t stop. It started on Sunday and reached its zenith Tuesday night. I hadn’t slept much, which was fine. I was nowhere near a psychotic episode, although anxiety said differently. Tuesday night, I did not sleep a wink. Not one bit. I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, stewing. I eventually did a bunch of reading, writing, working, and then in a desperate attempt to dumb my mind, hopped on TikTok. Beau was snuggled between my legs, content with the consistent inconsistency of her mother at nighttime. 

Beau’s got this. She led the way. The way to nowhere helpful.

By 5:30 am, I had sufficiently given sleep my every effort and failed. The only failure I have been able to accept with out personal devastation. With the energy of a sleep deprived human—it’s actually quite a lot; after years of sleep deprivation, I am one of the most energetic and positive exhausted people in the history of the world—I literally skipped into my closet, put on running clothes, dressed Beau in her running gear (aka harness), woke up Dylan, let the puppies out/fed them, and ran out the door. 

Exercise is one of my least favorite activities. I loathe it, but it is something I do with regularity because it is incredibly good for our bodies, brains, emotions, and overall health. COVID halted that, but I’m trying to slowly work myself back into life. 

Running is at the tippy top of exercise I hate, which is exactly the reason I turn to it when I’m dealing with inordinate amounts of stress and anxiety. It takes equal parts determination and pain to start and keep going, making it the perfect mental distraction. Beau has come to look forward to times of high anxiety because she gets lots of walkies. 

My neighborhood has tons of walking trails and parks. Beau isn’t the easiest dog in the world to walk. She wants to sniff all the things, chase any bird/leaf/squirrel, and zig zap like it’s an Olympic sport, but I like getting the alone time with my OG (Original Girl). She knows the drill, we head out the door straight for the walking track just down the road. We did one lap before a walk on the woodsy trail. 

I decided to confuse Beau and do something different: Head onto the dirt trails deeper into the woods. The Iowa girl in me loves exploring nature. Living in Houston, there is a stark lack of hills and woods, though we have amazing parks and walking trails. My neighborhood has some unexplored woods, and this was the day to dive in. 

Beau lead the way. She loves getting to zig zag without Mommy holding her back. Every fork in the path, Beau chose the direction. I was doing a good job tracking each turn… at first. For, maybe, the first two or three forks. A gazillion forks in… I was starting to think there was a potential of being lost. An hour and ten minutes into our walk-run, I decided it was time to turn around. As we made our way home, after several turns… I realized we were lost. For realsies lost. I knew where I was adjacent to my house, but getting there via trail or off trail was a completely different story. 

At one point, I found a nice little, green sign nailed to a tree at one of many, many forks, denoting the paths: Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. I let Beau choose Creekside because I truly had no idea which one to take… or if we’d even seen that on our adventure in. We followed the path choosing another fork. Next thing I knew, I was back at the intersection of Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. Frustrated, I took Rabbit Pun. Obviously Beau’s career as a Sherpa in Nepal is looking quite grim. After choosing another two forks, we were ONCE AGAIN facing Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. I looked at Beau, who looked at me, who looked at the sign. My future as a Sherpa in Nepal is just as grim. 

My anxiety had found a new and far more tangible outlet. We were officially lost in the woods. 

In a desperate attempt to navigate homeward, I pulled up Google maps. Not helpful. It gave me directions from the nearest road. From the nearest road, it was a two and a half mile walk… According to Google we were about a mile, as the crow flies, from that road. My blue dot showed me standing in the middle of green space. 

Luckily, there were beautiful scenes to see.

Off we went, once more on Rabbitt Pun. It felt like the right choice. About twenty minutes later, with no familiar physical indicator, we ran into a man and his two dogs. Beau was excited for company, and I was excited for directions. 

We managed to find our way out of the woods… Nowhere near where we entered them, but out we were. What was going to be an hour walk turned into a two hour and forty-five minute walk, nine mile walk. Not at all a fast pace, but there was a lot of confused twirling in the woods. 

Beau was thoroughly exhausted and over the moon with joy. I was tired and running late to work at Amanda’s shop, luckily, she didn’t care. My anxiety had found a realistic outlet. Between the utter lack of sleep and long walk, I was able to sleep later that night. 

Anxiety’s a bitch. I’ve found my ways of coping with it. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Due Date-Versary

RaeAnna

If my body had done what it was supposed to five years ago, I would be throwing a quarantine birthday party for my five year-old son or daughter right now. 

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Instead, I’m cuddling my new babies. | Texas Shirt | Yoga Pants | Earrings | Chair |

Having children has never ever been a part of my life plan. Being a mother is not something I have ever craved. It has been something I’ve avoided like the plague. When I am sexually active, I obsessively avoid getting pregnant by using birth control and condoms. I’ve even gotten Plan B when condoms break because NOPE. I have enough money set aside to take care of problems if need be. I’m that kind of person. 

I was that kind of person when I found out I was thirteen weeks pregnant in early fall of 2014. Miracles happen, I guess. It was too late to do anything about being pregnant. I was pregnant. I was going to be a mom. I was very much alone in my soon-to-be-parenting party. It hit me like a truck. I started planning and dreaming and getting excited because that was the only option, so I embraced it. Then, I had a miscarriage. I was mostly devastated. Relief came several weeks later as the tears slowed and the dreams faded.  

As the years go by, the feelings are less poignant; the hurt is less sharp; the dreams are hazier. I still get sad. Sometimes, I even cry when I watch kids movies. Every once in a while, I think about what my life would look like had my body not failed at one of its main biologically female tasks. As ready as I was financially, in my career, and at that point in my life, I had never planned on being a mom. Five years later, my feelings have not changed: I’m sad and relieved. Those feelings can go together. You can be sorrowfully content with a miscarriage. You don’t have to have just one feeling. You are allowed to feel all the feelings whatever they are, no matter how at odds they may be with one another. It does not make you less of a woman. It does not make you less of a mother. It does not make you less of anything. It makes you a complex human, who is coping with a really difficult physical, mental, and medical situation. 

Miscarriages are rarely talked about. That is starting to change as women speak about women’s issues more and more openly. Thank you to all the women on social media who are deciding to be vulnerable and honest about the crap we go through. When miscarriages are talked about, it’s usually about how overwhelmingly sad and painful they are. They are. I’m not going to lie to you about that. It’s true. It sucks. It’s sad. It’s the worst. There can also be some real positives coming out of miscarriages. They’re not apparent at first, but over the months and years as your mind and body heal, things start to look and feel better. 

The majority of miscarriages happen because, for whatever reason, the body knows the baby shouldn’t come into the world for one biological reason or another. You can do everything right starting months before conception and still have a miscarriage. (Granted that was not me. Accident baby. Although, I didn’t really do much wrong.) Miscarriages happen. They happen for almost always good reasons. All babies are perfect, but not all babies are meant for this world. 

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Loving the babies I have on this sad day. | Texas Shirt | Yoga Pants | Earrings |

Positives of miscarriages differ from person to person. One thing I can say for everyone, the life we have in this moment is not at all the life we would have had had that baby come into the world. For some of us, that’s a bad thing. For some of us, that’s a good thing. For some of us, it’s just a thing. I have an incredible life. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I would, under no circumstance, have this life with a five year old. 

I would not…

  • have the boyfriend I have now.
  • had the freedom to quit my corporate job, the stable paycheck, the benefits. 
  • be a freelance writer and blogger.
  • be able to sit on the couch and do nothing for hours on end. 
  • live in Houston.
  • travel as much or the way I do.
  • have Beau in my life.
  • have been able to pick Tess up off the side of the road.
  • have the time, energy, or money to take care of thirteen puppies.
  • have found or reconnected with my truest passions in life.
  • be chasing my wild, crazy, unrealistic dreams.
  • have the friends I do.
  • walk around pantless all the time.
  • read as much as I do.
  • stay up late doing whatever the fuck I want to whenever the fuck I want to.
  • have the body I do.
  • have a savings account with money in it specifically for travel (which happens often) and/or buying things I decide I need right now (which never happens, but it’s nice to know it’s there). 
  • be me the way I am right now.

I have no idea what my life would look like had Paeton Rae been born. I know I would have a corporate job with good benefits and a salary high enough to pay for everything she/he/their needs and wants and for us to go on a family vacation once a year. I know there would be a bedtime, healthy snacks, play dates, trips to the park, time outs, library trips, tantrums, snuggles, bedtime reading, dance parties, messes, and a lot of other things my life does not have right now. I would have loved that life for what it was, but that was never my dream. I never had to make the decision to not be pregnant, to not be a mom; my body did that for me. I was sad. I am sad. I miss the life I could have had and holding the baby I never got to hold. 

But. 

I love my life. I see the blessing the sadness of my miscarriage was. I see all the opportunities and possibilities my life still has in store for me that would not have been possible as a single mom to a five year old. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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