The Kitchen Window

I have always felt the heart of a home is the kitchen.

Not just because meals bring families together or that food is generally common ground for the ages. It’s because that’s where happiness settles.

Living rooms are places we watch TV.  Bedrooms are where we sleep, rest when we are sick, or sulk when the world is mean.  My kitchen is the focal point of our home. It’s full of light, open and welcoming. I have always loved my kitchen.

The kitchen window faces my backyard. It’s above the sink which is beautiful because I can watch the kids in the yard, stomping on marigolds, or as a football launches into my tomato plants. The large stock fence was never painted and is weathered from years of storms, snow, sun and gardening. I could look out that window to see the fruits of our labor as the cucumbers grew up the netting vine, the cantaloupe spread out as it grew flowers.  The rich green grass boasted of the love, tenderness and attention we spent growing it.

Where the kitchen was the heart, the yard was the soul of our family.

I was standing at the kitchen sink, admiring the fresh red spots I could see from the window indicating I had tomatoes ready to pick. The juiciness would mean a thick, savory sauce would be on the menu for dinner tonight. I was counting the number of red spots I could see from the window in the sea of green plants when the phone rang.  I sighed as I dried off my hands on the dish towel and took one more look out the window before I answered.

When you hear the words "your child over-dosed on heroin and is at the emergency room, come now because she might not make it" your life changes forever.

I spent countless days, nights, weeks and months trying to chase recovery for my daughter. By the time I realized that the one that should be chasing clean time, and a better life was my daughter and not I, my utopia in the yard had changed dramatically.

The tomatoes perished without the loving hand to water them and pick the ripened fruit. The mint grew wild, taking over and strangling the cilantro and basil. The cantaloupe's flowers wilted and died, not producing buds to grow into melons. The cucumbers shriveled and hung limply on the vine. The eggplant curled, and withered. Cooking with them now would produce a grainy, bitter, taste, much like the way I viewed my life.

Looking out the window in my broken-hearted kitchen, into the backyard with the tattered soul, was a reflection of our true selves.

My daughter would never be the same. My life would never be the same.

The love and attention I had put into my garden, I had also put into raising my daughter. No amount of love or begging would be bring either her or my garden back now.

Melanie Brayden 

Melanie lives in Danvers, MA with her life partner, her three kids, 
his two kids, two cats Diego and Blu and their dog Bud. 
Her oldest child, her daughter, is a heroin addict. 

Melanie began a blog, The Addict in My Basement, 
to chronicle her struggles as the mother of an addict. 

Suicide Surviving to Life Thriving

It was this morning eight years ago my knees gave out and I hit the ground. 

The concrete was the only thing strong enough to support me after the words landed in my life.  My brother had just walked toward me with his head held low.  I could see he was searching for something.  He took me gently by the arm as I asked him “John, what’s wrong?”.  He hesitated for a brief second, while I stood staring.  Then he lifted his gaze to mine and he said “Tara…..Dad killed himself”.

That’s when I crumbled to the ground.  I was half holding on, half begging for it to swallow me whole.  It’s the moment I heard my spirit break and shatter into pieces.

I don’t often let my mind wander to that string of seconds.  It’s too difficult to relive.  The powerful impact, a swift and violent punch to the soul, is still something I physically feel as if it’s happening all over again.

In eight years I’ve learned to revisit this moment sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.

As I look back, I recognize massive shifts in my perspective and awareness.  Time is now measured by before and after.  Dad’s suicide the harsh beginning to a brand new reality.

In eight long years I’ve learned (the hard, bumpy, bruised knee and bloody knuckled way) of navigating Grief, living with Depression and managing two full-blown assholes called Anxiety and Panic.

In this time I’ve also learned how to patch my broken spirit back together into a mosaic puzzle I’m growing proud of.

It’s no secret that my family and I have experienced a great deal of loss that didn’t stop after Dad.  Tragic loss.  Unbelievable loss.  Too massive for our minds and hearts and souls to absorb.  Too big to hold on to and too heavy a burden to carry.

So what do you do with it all then?  If you can’t carry them, hold them or tuck them all away...where does it all fit?

Eight years ago I was certain I would drown in the murky water of it all.  I had no clue what my tomorrows would look like under all this heartache.  I had no space big enough to store it all.

Fast forward to today, after a tremendous amount of hard work and digging deep, the one and only thing I know for sure is that letting go of it, bit by bit, is the only option.  It’s not about storing it.  It’s about releasing it.

Release.  What an epiphany (when I allowed myself to have it).

Talk about true grit.

Each day I work at it.  I supplement the dark moments with memories that are lighter, happier and healthier.  It’s not always pretty.  In fact, it’s a hot mess.  Emotions swinging around like Kettle Bells, me doing my best to focus my energy on the positives and not feed the gluttonous negatives that wait anxiously in the wings.

I study.  I read.  I try my very best to be understanding and have compassion.  When I can’t do any of the above I turn the kindness onto myself and soothe the parts of me that ache.  In time, the gift I’ve been given in return for my hard work is Belief.

Belief that letting go is the gateway.  It’s where I will find the shift from surviving suicide and tragedy to thriving, one day at a time.

Each day I apply this practice I can feel myself healing.  My clenched fists begin unfolding, my sadness slowly lifting, my resentment tasting less bitter and my anger simmering.

Somewhere along the way I realized that surviving simply wasn’t enough for me.  I wanted more.  Thriving, in the face of it all, was my only true option.

So with that I decided I would let go, piece by piece, and set all those experiences ablaze on a trail of a life well lived.

Tragic loss, great love, mosaic soul patches and all.

:: Always from under the same sky ::

Tara

Tara Mazzeo Jackson

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective, 

Curator for Bohemian Living, Owner/Artist of Bungalow Wilde 

and Blogger at Bits & Pieces.

Tara is a lover of yoga, bleeder of words and a bohemian city-kid who has a knack for rescuing stray animals.  

She has a mean case of wanderlust and you’d be hard pressed to find her without these things:

a journal in her bag, a camera in-hand and sun kissed shoulders.

Tara writes from experience, pain, truth, triumph and that place, 

deep down, where the words simmer in emotion.

Uneasy Conversations

It's never an easy conversation to have, to let someone know you have a mental illness. I often wonder, do I have a mental illness, am I living with a mental illness or do I suffer from a mental illness? And what will people think of me if I tell them? Or worse, how will they treat me? Will they treat me differently? Will they treat me like I'm CRAZY???

Because, contrary to popular belief, I don't feel that because someone has a mental illness, they are crazy. It's just something, another thing, I have in my life that I have to deal with. I deal with it on an everyday, pretty much every moment, basis.

There may be times when I have stress in my life that I handle it a certain way and immediately, in the back of my mind, I question if I'm getting sick. Maybe it's the way I react to something or if I'm being overly emotional about something. It sucks that I have to second guess my emotions and wonder if I'm getting manic.

Those around you make it difficult too. Either they know nothing about the subject and think you're harmful and don't want to let their kids play with yours or they are your loved ones, who think they can read all the signs and diagnose you as sick when, in reality, you may just be excited about something.

STIGMA. That's a powerful word. And it's so true. I wish I could live in a world where I could just randomly talk about having bipolar disorder and not be judged and to not have people compare me to psychopaths.

Do I sometimes get sick? Yes. But I'm responsible about it. I immediately tell my doctor, tell the people around me or if it comes down to it, go to the hospital. Not everyone with a mental illness is a psychopathic criminal.

I have 4 children who I love with all my heart. I would never, ever harm any of them or anyone else's. Yet, I can't tell other parents about my illness in fear that they won't let my children play with theirs. It also hurts, sometimes, when people think that, because they can't see my physical scars, it's just something you have to work harder to get through or that it's not even a real disease. When you manage it so well your loved ones sometimes forget you have it to begin with, when you speak without thinking or are moody or go from one extreme to the next, they get annoyed with you.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, it's hard enough to have bipolar disorder and it sucks more having everyone else around you making you feel worse for having it.

-Anonymous

Claws. . .

17 right, 39 left, 5 right.  

I open my locker and take the books I’ll need until I come back again at lunchtime.  Ding, ding, ding, ding … our High School bell was a series of seven “dings.”  By the seventh bell, you had to be in your seat or you were late. Thankfully, during freshman year, my first period class was Algebra and it was directly across from my locker.

Mrs. D. taught Algebra and she had an unbelievable resemblance to Dr. Ruth.  It was truly uncanny.  She was all of five feet tall and always dressed in red or colored business suits.  Her lapel or shoulder was adorned with a little jeweled insect, usually a ladybug or a bumblebee.  She had a huge collection of them and they changed according to her outfit.  I found them beautiful and intriguing.  She used to tell us that on weekends she would do math problems for fun.  It was beyond my comprehension that anyone would do that.

She would begin to do roll call and I could feel the knots in my stomach starting to build.  As she worked her way towards the letter “N”, my anxiety would take over and so would the nausea.  “R.N.?”  “Present!” and then he would look over and leer at me. 

R. had one purpose in high school and that was to make my life a living hell, in every way possible, every single day.  I would pray every morning that he would be absent but that was seldom the case.

After first period, I would make my way to the other classes throughout the day.  I would strategically plan the best way to avoid him.  Yet, like some sort of a plague, he was always there, usually with the other “macho” guys in school calling me a faggot every chance they got.  When verbal slurs wouldn’t do, he’d follow me into the bathroom and kick open the stall and then laugh.  I would always go into a stall, using the urinals would be just asking for them to stand around and try to pick a fight with me.  To date, I almost always choose a stall over a urinal.

When the guys weren’t bothering me, their girlfriends were. Passing me notes in class telling me that they found me “hot” and asking if I would want to go out with them.  They’d laugh hysterically while I read it, and would then try to exaggeratedly “flirt” with me to see how the “faggot” would react.  I was a daily source of amusement for them.  As if beginning the day like this wasn’t bad enough, I also had R. and all his gang for last period, an all-male PE class.  

I would do everything within my power to escape PE class and the changing room.  We’d have to change out of our school uniforms into our PE shorts and tees.  I hated this part of the day more than any other.  As a norm, it started with insults and ended with socks, shoes, and dirty clothes being thrown at me.  I hated it so much that at one point I tried to go to the guidance counselor, Mrs. F., and explained what was going on in hopes that I could be excused from PE all together.  She told me that I needed to grow a tougher skin and stop being such a wimp.  She was the same guidance counselor who, when reviewing my Career Aptitude Test, told me I would only ever be suited to be a florist, flight attendant or dog walker.  “What a waste of a good education”, she said.

There was also Mr. L., our religion teacher. Part of his syllabus was to tell us that being gay was a guaranteed acceptance to hell.  He preached this often and forcefully during his teachings.  

I wish I could say that I endured this only in High School but nothing could be further from the truth.  My earliest memory of abuse was in 3rd grade, Mrs. C.’s class.  My mom picked me up from school one day and I said to her “two boys called me a fag at lunch.  What does that mean?”  I remember her face turning red and her getting nervous.  She said it was a bad word and asked why they called me that?  I replied “I don’t know.  Is it a really bad word?”  She said “Yes, very.”

As the taunting went on through grade school, so continued to grow my anxiety and depression.  By the time I made it to high school, I was a very unhappy person.  Year after year of being treated like this leaves an indelible mark on your soul and your psyche. I didn’t come out until I was 19.  My self-hatred was that strong. 

Fast-forward twenty years and countless hours of therapy later and I’m an openly gay adult.  My family is completely accepting of who I am and I am blessed to share my life with my husband, Oscar, whom I’ve been married (not legally though thanks to Florida’s laws) to for the past 5 years.  He has been a never ending fountain of support and love for me.  I thank God for him daily.

I was having an argument with my sister once and she said,“Why are you so angry, it’s like your claws instantly come out!”  Ahhh, my claws, ever ready, always sharp.  The thing is that not everybody should be experiencing my claws.  For that matter, they should always be retracted when it comes to my family and friends.  I wish I could put them away.  Moreover, I wish they didn’t exist.  

It is said that “anger only consumes the vessel that contains it.”  I don’t like being an angry person.  Frankly, it’s rather exhausting.  I’m thankful to have the life I do today and I’m proud to be the man I’ve become.  I do my best to lead a positive and meaningful life.  However, when anything goes wrong, when someone irks me, when I feel mistreated, ignored, or even looked at the wrong way, my claws come out.  I’m not proud of them but they are an intrinsic part of me.

I’ll be forty in a few years and ironically I received the invitation to my twenty-year High School reunion just a few days ago.  Will I go? Probably not.  Yes, times have changed.  Thanks to Facebook, I’m friends with a few of the people I went to High School with.  It’s interesting, many of them never looked at me twice when we physically knew each other.  Now, they “like” pictures of my husband and I on vacation or having a romantic dinner.  Yet, I think I’m quite content with never having to walk into my High School again.

This is the age of the, “Stop bullying” and “it gets better” campaigns.  What I would have given for these campaigns to have existed when I was in school.  We are formed by our experiences.  My experiences created these claws.  I have written this piece in hopes of being able to begin to declaw myself and to realize that I no longer need them. Yes, one must always be able to defend oneself and those one loves.  I continue to work on constantly being a better version of myself.  My life has been a series of transformations and reinventions. These claws are heavy, cumbersome, and get in the way of all I do.  It is my hope that I will continue to grow and that soon these talons will cease to exist.

Santi Gabino

I have the pleasure of knowing Santi, personally.  

He was a beacon of light and guiding hand on one of the most important and cherished days of my life.
Santi & Family open the doors to their farm, inviting the world into a space worthy of fairy tales.
What's more powerful than the scenery is their cornerstone:
A family that loves so purely it's palpable to all that get to bask in their presence.
A celebrated Executive Chef, Santi will wow you with a dining experience 
making sure your moments are savored for years to come.
(bio written by Tara Mazzeo Jackson)

The Hardest Month

Hey July. 

I’m psyching myself out for you and I need to be ready. Somehow I’ve managed to lose more people in you and I will never get why.

Certain dates, forever seared into my mind, haunt me like a dark room after a scary movie. I know there is nothing in that dark room but the fact that I can’t see what is there is frightening.  

I can’t see what you’re up to this year and it’s quite possible you may be nice to me. I really hope so. But the not knowing sets the paranoia off every year since you started wreaking havoc on my life.

This year is worse than ever, for July, you must know about my possible at bats. The ones I will worry about even more now that you are here. My positive thinking will be harder than ever. But I will try.

While I have learned to cope with all the losses, not one day has healed me and never will. Please, July, be kind to me. Please, July, don't take anyone else that I love.

Please, July, please.

Melissa Sue Vieira

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective

Melissa wears many hats.  
Some are super colorful and some are dark, just like her stories.  

She is a mother, friend, writer, survivor, warrior, yogi, listener, talker 
and a lover of all things art.