Today is October 27, 2017. I am alive and well.

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My blog is delayed. I actually wrote a blog on Monday to post but decided it wasn’t appropriate. It was about my friend who lost her 93-year-old mom and my relative who attempted suicide by trying to slit an artery in her leg. Her attempt was fueled by alcohol.

I love these two people. It’s not always easy to know what to say. The best I can do is to say I love you. Which I’ve done.

We leave this world in all different ways. Death greets us fiercely. Except for near death experiences, death is blind; we don’t know what’s beyond it.

Some doctors feel like we’re not honoring death because we’re treating it like a disease. Doctors try to cure it no matter what. Keep the patient alive no matter what. Sometimes I believe we simply, or not so simply, need to let the person go so the suffering ends. As hard as that may be it can be the kind thing to do.

Sadly, my grandmother ended up feeling bad and responsible for my grandfather’s death. My grandfather broke his neck. He couldn’t swallow with the halo, so then they gave him a feeding tube. Then he got pneumonia. It was one thing after another. When they took off the halo, they discovered the bones had not fused together because of osteoporosis. By then he was too fragile for surgery. My grandmother decided to put him in hospice. The hospital had a floor for hospice patients. His room was nice. Warm. Even cozy. There was no medical equipment and he was in a regular bed, dressed in his own pajamas with a quilt as a cover.

My grandmother didn’t realize that they weren’t going to feed him. I do believe he died from starvation. He went peacefully. My grandmother was with him when he took his last breath.

My grandfather always raked the leaves that had fallen from the trees in the front yard. The morning after his death, I raked these leaves. Raking them allowed me to feel the presence of him.

Today I have a healthy fear of death. That was not always the case. I have many times sought death to no avail. It hasn’t been my time to go.

My last suicide attempt has been at least nineteen years ago. Since then, I have lived much life. My relationships with friends have deepened. I had a fourteen year relationship with one man who I loved with the whole of me. I completed an MFA and had a book published. A short memoir piece of mine is being published in the Delmarva Review out in November and currently on-line.

I have breathed life. My breath is steady like the clip clop of a horse in cantor. The raven soars with ease. I soar while having my boots keep me heavy to the earth.

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Today is October 16, 2017. I am alive and well.

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The coffee was so strong it snarled as it lurched out of the pot.  Betty MacDonald

That is how I like my coffee; strong Recently though, as of a week ago, I have decided to let go of coffee. Typically I was drinking 12 cups a day. Now, I’m down to 6 and am thinking soon to make it 4.

I am seriously addicted to caffeine. The first time I decided to stop drinking coffee was because someone had told me it would help lift my depression if I stopped. That was over twenty years ago, and then I stopped cold turkey. I was so sick. For two weeks I sweated at night to the point of saturation. I could ring my t-shirt out. I also had terrible diarrhea. After two weeks, I was still suffering with the side effects of no caffeine and my depression was no better. I said “fuck it” and began drinking coffee again.

This time I know not to stop cold turkey. I tell people I am giving up coffee. They’re like “why would you do that?” I’m doing it because I am tired of being slave to my addiction. I am doing it because I will save $80 a month.

I drink coffee morning, noon, and night. If I know I’m not going to have the opportunity to drink at one of these times, I buy chocolate covered espresso beans.

I was addicted to alcohol. I was addicted to nicotine. In 34 years, I have had one night of drinking. That was 24 years ago. It has been 26 years since I smoked cigarettes.

Addiction is cruel like a busted radio cranked to blasting in a small room that can’t be quieted until the batteries are removed. It’s like being shot in the head by your own hand and not dying but being left permanently disfigured.

By the grace of God, I have never been addicted to food, gambling, sex drugs (other than alcohol, caffeine, or nicotine), or shopping. I don’t live in extremes today. Maybe some would consider my life dull. I don’t. I find it refreshing. I find it peaceful.

I will give up coffee. I will not be slave to anything. I hear the saxophone. The vocalist sings of freedom.

Today is October 9, 2017. I am alive and well.

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Exclusion is always dangerous. Inclusion is the only safety if we are to have a peaceful world.      Pearl S. Buck

There are three things I learned from someone to never talk about amongst people I don’t know. They are religion, politics, and sex. I am a spiritual being. I am a political being. And I am a sexual being. Yet, I don’t really address these things in my blog. Why not? I ask myself that often. Is it because I’m afraid of losing followers of my blog? Maybe. Is it because these things are deeply personal? Maybe, even though I write about things that are deeply personal like suicide, mental illness, and alcoholism.

My first time practicing exclusion happened when I was 18-years-old. I attempted to harm everyone close to me so that I had no one who loved me. I wanted to be free to die. Somehow, in my mind, I couldn’t take my own life if people were loving me.

I did reach the point of not feeling responsible to anyone. I did attempt to take my own life. I ended up in an intensive care unit. Upon awakening in ICU, there stood my grandmother and grandfather beside my bed. I will always remember my grandmother’s face. In that moment, it was one of absolute love. I had not been condemned by my decision to die.

Present day, I still exclude others from my life. I don’t mingle with people that hate. I don’t want to expose myself to that soul depleting practice.

Can I love these people from afar knowing we are all of this world? We all struggle. We all experience pain. We all dream. We all have people we care about or have cared about.

Can I love the man who just murdered 53 people, injuring 500 more in Las Vegas? No. I judge him. I am horrified by him. Can I forgive the likes of him? Big question. Answer, I don’t know. Although, I do know forgiveness is in my best interest. I don’t want my heart to harden.

I hope Democrats and Republicans and people of neither party can hold each other in loving thought and with respect while still believing vehemently in what they believe. I hope that all people are touched by a bit of the divine. Even petting a dog or loving a cat is simply divine. Certainly, praying to a deity who is not understood and cannot be defined is divine.

As far as sex, well, I’ll just say have fun, feel deep, and don’t get pregnant unless you want to. This includes everyone from heterosexuals to the LGBT community. We can all have some part in pregnancy.

Today is October 1, 2017. I am alive and well.

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I’m sending this a day early. Tomorrow is so busy.

Excerpt from Mind Without a Home written by me, Kristina Morgan

When my hands are locked at the knuckles, I cannot plant alfalfa. It is things like this I think about in the psych hospital. What alfalfa has to do with anything, I’m not certain. I think about the goat my grandfather bought to eat the grass and weeds in the corral. The goat refused to eat these things and instead wanted to eat only hay. My grandfather wasn’t about to keep the goat as a pet and pay for its food. The goat got sent back from where it came. I was sad. I liked the goat.

It is cold in my skin. In two hours my shadow will appear obvious. It will reach the outer door before I do and find it locked. I send my shadow in to meet the doctor. I do not want to appear too bright. Too bright, and he thinks I need to lessen the amount of Wellbutrin they give me. The antidepressant has saved my life many a time. I would rather my mind be too stimulated than have to deal with depression. Depression is a blanket that folds itself around my head making everything muffled and far away. I cannot see to walk forward into a life that is worth living. Depression will steal life every time. This I know.

I have little to nothing to do with the other patients. I don’t know how to talk to them about picnics on the lawn. They embrace one another. Share feelings back and forth. My feelings are a Frisbee I don’t throw but keep clutched close to my chest.

I sit at my post, in the chair at the table to the left of the nurse’s station. I write with pens my doctor said I could have. No other patient has a pen. They have little golf pencils. I wonder it they know they too could ask their doctor for a prescription to have a pen. It is good they trust me to not write on walls or stab someone with ink.

Every time I check into the psych hospital they take my pens from me until the doctor writes an order. I cry every time. Once, Charley, one of the case manages, came to my rescue as much as he could giving me full-length pencils. His gesture was kind. I still wanted my pens.

Today is September 25, 2017. I am alive and well.

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I committed blog suicide with my last blog. I painted myself as a selfish, self-centered woman with no time for personal relationships. I was brutally honest, yet I’m not all of that person. What did I intend to say? I have no idea.

There are two things I value most:  love and truth.

I am loved beyond the edge of language and I love beyond the edge of language. I have a large family mostly made of friends with a few blood relations added to the mix. God and my family provide me with the oxygen to get through a day. God in the abstract. My family in the non-abstract.

I love God like I do the rising sun or the humming moon. Like I do the energy passed between me and another. I love God like I do electricity or running water; all things beyond my understanding. I am a light in a lit world. Seemingly my own, yet belonging to something large, something brighter.

People are bowls of fruit, oven baked bread, the proud sunflower. They are radios, televisions, and cell phones. People are smiles, frowns, and hard stares. Reaching arms and planted feet.

I love people like I do warm towels, down pillows, two scoops of chocolate ice cream. I love people with an intensity that matches the acceleration of a Lamborghini.

Keats wrote “truth is beauty and beauty is truth.” Truth/beauty are necessary to my life. I once had a friend tell me I shared too much. She was trying to protect me from adverse reactions to what I said. I talk freely about mental illness, alcoholism, and suicide. These things I have come to terms with. They currently don’t keep me from an amazing life. I told my roommate last night that there is freedom in having as long a piece of dental floss as I want. In the psych hospital floss is limited. I have not been to a psych hospital for eight years.

Telling the truth is not hard for me. Nor is accepting the truth of others. I am taught how to be in this world gracefully by others who have grace. I know when I do wrong and am able to right it most of the time. Life is sensational and intriguing. Thank God for standing in green grass.

Today is September 18, 2017. I am alive and well.

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Mortal love is but the licking of honey from thorns.   Anonymous

Does that quote mean that my basic being and your basic being is created with thorns and then covered with honey? I don’t feel thorny, nor do my friends. When meeting someone for the first time I don’t feel that I might get pricked when the honey of their being melts away. I believe in the kindness and goodness of people.

Does the quote speak to the presence of my character defects? I do have character defects. People love me despite them. I will write that my worst one is selfishness. I am extremely selfish with my time. I crave time not spent with others, but rather time with myself. Worry is another character defect. I can worry about everything. Worry is a flower I plant knowing that it’s going to die and leave me petals. Worry is a baked cake that falls in the middle but still tastes great. It just doesn’t look like how I thought it ought. In other words, many of my worries are legitimate and do happen but I’m always left with something good that comes from mess.

This past week my garbage disposal stopped working and my truck wouldn’t start.

My garbage disposal was doing nothing. I worried that the sink was going to clog and spill over. Guy told me about a restart button. It was there! I pressed it and now all is fine.

I dreamt my truck wouldn’t start and come morning, my truck didn’t start. I was worried I’d have to spend most of my time waiting for buses, riding buses. It turns out that I simply needed a new battery. My dead battery was under warranty. I paid nothing!

So, I speak to having faith that all will work out. It curbs my worrying.

My love for others goes deeper than honey and I am not pricked by and do not worry about thorns. If a person’s short comings are too much for me, I step away with love. If a person doesn’t like me, I think “good.” I all ready don’t have enough time for those I love. Having one less person to pay attention to is a blessing.

On another note, I celebrated 24 years of sobriety yesterday. Coming from the daily drunk that I was, this is a miracle. God has blessed me in many ways. Sobriety is just one of them.

Today is September 11, 2017. I am alive and well.

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Please take a moment to think of those who died today and their survivors.

I hoard books. They are people who do not leave.    Anne Sexton

Yes! So true. My house is full of people and yet I still have room to move. And these people don’t need my attention until I flip open a book and there they are, caught in the pages. My time is selectively interrupted.

Not to say that I mind being interrupted by actual oxygen breathing people. Typically, I don’t. But there is something to be said about having quiet conversations from which I can leave to get a cup of coffee without being rude. All characters in books ask of me is that I follow them faithfully. They do not take me hostage. I can swiftly leave them to feed my cats and then return to them right where I left off.

I’m a book lover who works in a library. The combination can be problematic like a diabetic working in a pastry shop. I can check out 35 books at a time for three weeks. How in the world do I read 35 books in three weeks? The three weeks is long enough for them to gather dust. In these dust bound books are people whom I will never meet. I will leave the book like I would a rental property that is too far away from a gas station. My tank remains empty until the next set of 35 books attract me.

Walking away from an oxygen breathing person is not as easy as closing the cover of a book. There’s goodbyes to be said, hugs to be given, and promises to meet at some future date. I don’t have to plan in advance to read a book. I can reach for a character at midnight or 1 a.m. The character will not have done things without my knowing and she will be in the same red pajamas I left her in. These are people who never leave. As a result, I am never alone. There is comfort in this.

I must say, though, that oxygen breathing people are necessary, are absolutely desirable. I am alive because of those who love me and those I love. And because of a God who I can treat as a non-fictional character; a character who has no physical being in this world but who is always around. God is not a person. God is God, books are books, and oxygen breathing people are oxygen breathing people. I am blessed to know all three. I am blessed to have all three in my life.

Today is September 4, 2017. I am alive and well.

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There ain’t no use in dyin’ ‘fore yer time. Lots of folks is walkin’ ’round jes as dead as they’ll ever be.   Alice Caldwell Rice

I know what’s it’s like to walk around dead. I remember clearly waking up from a night’s sleep, from a nap, from several naps and having nothing to look forward to, nothing to feel joy about, nothing to love.

I was a vessel with no oars, adrift. I didn’t know I could swim to shore at anytime. Getting wet was painful. It reminded me that I could take a towel to dry off. I could get into clean clothes. Neither thing appealed to me. Both things required too much energy.

My grandmother was afraid to leave me in the house alone. She was afraid of what I might do….I might try to take my own life. A balloon will pop if too much pressure is applied. The latex that is left afterward is trash. I was certain to leave trash. I was certain to leave a life not lived. Harsh, but true.

My grandmother had to go to the mountains to close up the cabin for the winter. She asked my mother to come and stay with me. My mother did. She created a space for herself in the family room in front of the TV with sheets, an ashtray, and a bottle of vodka. Mom whose petals have long since fallen off leaving only the unblinking face of a sunflower.

I didn’t mingle with her when she was there. We were both dying in our own ways. Maybe my life greeting her life would cause a silent flame that had no place to burn. A candle wick unlit saves the candle from melting. Maybe we thought melted wax was too messy and impossible to clean from the carpeting. Our lives were not messy. They were stale.

I don’t recall the day I began to walk back into the living. But I know that I did because I am here and have been here for quite sometime, unafraid of leaving little messes in my wake. I try to clean up as I go and am usually able to wipe the water spots from the mirror leaving a sweet reflection of a kind smile.

My mom didn’t fare so well. She died at the age of 58 from alcoholism; her liver stopped working.

I regret the love that went unshared between us. I believe the most valuable thing we have to offer is our time. I didn’t give my mom time. So, today I hope to spread kindness in this world. Walk into life with a smile for others. Corny, yes. Necessary, yes. I reach out today and am offered a bouquet.

Today is August 28, 2017. I am alive and well.

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The words! I collected them in all shapes and sizes, and hung them like bangles in my mind.   Hortense Calisher

Words are like shoes on the hooves of a horse, created by a blacksmith, marking the earth as she gallops, the earth a ready piece of paper.

Sentences propel me forward. I walk a mile with the word love on the tip of my tongue. I love the way the sun circles my chin. I love the way light lets me see the little Shih Tzu ten yards in front of me. Love mixes with my saliva creating a wet kiss. I kiss the cheek of my friend than wipe at it with my index finger leaving only a bit of residue. When it dries I kiss my friend again!

The word God rests in my palm, relayed to the bark of a tree I touch. I imagine gnomes in the trunk tunneling beneath the roots mining for ore. I shake Christy’s hand. God rests between us. God rests inside us. God brushes my ankle like a lizard looking for shade beneath my pant cuff.

Words are bees. They can produce honey or sting.

They make names and reference points. My friend Pat lives with two cats, TIkka and Lily, in a one bedroom condo below a Spanish tile roof. The three of them watch the moon from the patio, steady in the sky, winking in response to their stare.

Even if wordless words will still attach to me. A person says of me, “she toppled to her left landing on the grass a foot away from the picnic table.” Words later will feed me potato salad and slices of cheese.

I am glad for the scratch marks produced by my pen and the Times New Roman that marches across my monitor as I punch the letters of my keyboard creating, yes, words, sixty six words a minute.

Today is August 28, 2017. I am alive and well.

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The words! I collected them in all shapes and sizes, and hung them like bangles in my mind.   Hortense Calisher

Words are like shoes on the hooves of a horse, crafted by a blacksmith, marking the earth as she gallops, the earth a ready piece of paper.

Sentences propel me forward. I walk a mile with the word love on the tip of my tongue. I love the way the sun circles my chin. I love the way light lets me see the little Shih Tzu ten yards in front of me. Love mixes with my saliva creating a wet kiss. I kiss the cheek of a friend than wipe at it with my index finger leaving only a bit of residue. I will kiss her again when it dries!

The word God rests in my palm, relayed to the bark of a tree I touch. I imagine gnomes in the trunk tunneling beneath the roots mining for ore. I shake Christy’s hand. God rests between us. God rests inside us. God brushes my ankle like a lizard looking for shade beneath my pant cuff.

Words are bees. They can produce honey or sting.

They make names and reference points. My friend Pat lives with two cats, Tikka and Lily, in a one bedroom condo below a Spanish tiled roof. The three of them watch the moon from the patio, steady in the sky, winking in response to their stare.

Even wordless words still attach to me. A person says of me, “she toppled to her left, landing on the grass a foot away from the picnic table.” Words will later feed me potato salad and slices of cheese.

I am glad for the scratch marks produced by my pen and for the Times New Roman that marches across my monitor as I punch the letters on my key board creating, yes, words, sixty six words a minute.