When the World No Longer Makes Sense
Humanity Has Lost All Sense
I’m angry and I’m sad. I’m looking for someone to blame, and yet I prefer the company of my cats to any human right now. I’m trying to make sense of a world which has lost all sense…and maybe it did long before now, but I kept a flicker of hope alive they’d find their Humanity before it was too late. That moment has passed. To allow our country to fall into such a shameful state of ugliness, hate, and disrespect is beyond my comprehension. My flicker of hope is dying for lack of fresh, clean air.
My cats are especially clingy, sensing I’m in distress. My body is misbehaving as well with rumbles and groans deep inside playing background music to my thoughts in turmoil. I’m keeping to myself because I can’t trust my mouth to stay shut rather than lambast some of the people I know helped this travesty come to fruition. I’m in grave danger of allowing myself to become one with them, and hate for no good reason. Human beings are better off avoiding me at all costs right now. I’m definitely lousy company.
The idea of going out in public is about as appealing as walking knowingly into the pivotal scene of a bad horror movie. I see distorted faces, and reaching hands with long, distended fingers at every turn. I thought about texting a friend, but there wasn’t anyone it felt right to text, either to share my anxiety with, or who I felt safe with any more. Either I know they’re busy with their own life traumas, or they’re what I’m beginning to think of as “one of those”; the ones who helped the horror story we’re quickly moving into come to pass. As such, they’re no longer a safe place for me to share my thoughts, hopes, fears, or even successes.
The World is No Longer My Oyster
The short version is, I’m unable to navigate a world which has swung so far away from anything which makes sense. I can find no path to navigate which isn’t fraught with perils and pitfalls. So I order food in, cancel my walk when my intestines go on the warpath, and binge watch Hallmark Christmas movies with a cat or three on my lap. It’s simple, but at least, in my tortured mind, it makes a simple kind of sense.
Oddly enough, it’s my cats who keep me from selling everything, and running off to a small, semi-deserted island right now. They’re the only things which keep me tethered, as my work can be handled anywhere there’s a decent internet connection (so I guess I’d best choose my island wisely).
My dreams are filled with contradictions; with my life being out of control, yet, when offered something simpler, I’m unwilling to settle, in part, because doing so means giving someone else control over my life in a way I walked away from 11 years ago. As much as I see this country, and everything it touches spiraling out of control right now, it’s especially important to maintain the slim threads I have on my own life. Soon, it may be all I have tethering me to a reality I’d much rather detach from entirely…if only there was a way to do so while giving my cats the love and care they deserve.
Revisiting Trauma in a New and More Horrifying Form
In a way, it reminds me of the night I sat up watching the news, my heart filled with horror and dread as the story of a lone shooter in what was once my safe place unfolded. Now, I’m watching a lone madman, but this time backed by a lot of rich, greedy, power-hungry, immoral henchmen raze the world I’d grown up believing would outlast me, my kids, and my grand kids. Now, I’m not so sure it’ll last out MY lifetime. That, alone makes me unbearably sad because despite his madness, a lot of people I know continue to believe he’s actually good for this country and the world!
I want to shout: “Wake up people! The Emperor has no clothes!” but I know my voice won’t even carry past my own mouth, much less will it reach ears who will actually respond; who will actually help change the bullet train of unfolding events. The volcano that’s erupted will leave no one unscathed.
Nowhere to Go, Nothing Left to Do
I know sitting here in my isolation, pounding on my keyboard won’t make a bit of difference…not even to me. I’ll still be angry, sad, frustrated, and horrified. Though I’ve left Social Media, and never turn on the news, there is no sand pit deep enough to bury my head and escape what’s coming.
I’ll just say this, to all who thought bringing an angry, hateful, disrespectful, misogynistic, lunatic back into a place of enormous power, “thank you very much for destroying everything many of us held dear in your selfish attempt to make the rest of us live as YOU see fit; for your entitlement in being as angry and ugly as humanly possible (and given humanity’s history, that says a lot), and for allowing yourself, and the rest of us with you to be dragged down into a world which will soon be a gigantic, rotating orb of toxicity. I’m sure your own children and grandchildren will thank you for failing to preserve a world where they could live, love, and thrive.”
Finding Gratitude in an Ungrateful World
My gratitudes today (and yes, I still have some) are:
- I’m grateful for still having a place where I can retreat from all the toxic human waste.
- I’m grateful for Sundays playing with kitties.
- I’m grateful for Hallmark Christmas movies.
- I’m grateful for my ultra-comfy, cat approved, new sofa and loveseat where I can cuddle with my cats and shut out the world I now wish to avoid at most costs.
- I’m grateful for the strength I’ve found to detach from social media, and most of the rest of the world while I’m too angry, horrified, and frustrated to keep from saying things to peoples’ faces I know won’t do any good, and will taint my own karma.
About the Author
If I ever lose sight of the many blessings in my life, things like yesterday’s 6-week, post-surgery doctor visit jump up and down, waving their arms to remind me how much I have to be grateful for. Having lost a number of family members, and members of my dance community to cancer over the years, the best news of all was mine hadn’t gone further than the parts they removed, so no radiation or chemo would be necessary. Sure, I have 2 years of regular doctor visits ahead of me, but that’s is a minuscule blip on my life’s radar compared to what would have happened had my body not firmly rejected the foreign cells in a way which I couldn’t ignore, nor rest until I had a diagnosis. Not everyone gets so lucky.
The funny thing is, I seemed to be happy sitting around, eating myself obese while I was married. Granted, “happy” is used loosely in this case. I was probably at my least healthy just before I realized I deserved to be truly happy, and ended 11 years of a soul-sucking marriage. (that seems to be a theme in my past life. Soul-sucking jobs, soul-sucking relationships…and finally getting fed up enough to end the cycle). With those memories still fresh enough to be frightening, I may be overly obsessive about weighing myself every day, but it keeps me from going back to that sedentary, unhealthy life. Maybe it thwarts the soul-suckers too. There are definitely less of them these days!
health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. 
It wasn’t always that way. For years, I looked at closed doors as a personal affront. I failed to recognize the lesson in their action, nor their right to protect themselves from my toxicity. Most of the doors that were closed in my face occurred before I learned to lower my walls and act like a Human instead of an emotionless robot.
how far down I could sink if I allowed that part of my personality to take hold again. Knowing it’s still lurking somewhere deep inside, and that it comes out to play every time I get angry or judgemental serves as a reminder to keep focusing on kindness and compassion, and on the people who exude it freely and naturally. I’m still working on evolving to that point permanently.
health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.
I get constant status updates about my physical and mental state via my gut, my head, and my body. The ones best addressed as soon as the reminders arrive are those which involve absorbing other people’s energy and problems. When I fail to acknowledge and act on the first, more subtle reminders, the voices and physical effects become worse until I have no choice. I prefer to avoid having them reach such levels, but occasionally, I get so self-absorbed or otherwise focused I forget what will come from my lack of appropriate attention.
insidiousness are the core of their tool chests. Like a poisonous gas, they seep in beneath the defenses, and often choose Empaths whose compassion and natural willingness to help lend themselves to a Narcissists insatiable need for attention, adoration, and fulfillment.
learning. Nonetheless, each new experience; each new game I fall for teaches me how to avoid another kind of trap. In the meantime, I’ve learned to recognize the traps sooner than I used to, and I can tell when there’s a game being played whose rules are unfamiliar to me.
Families are messy. Some are close, some, not so much. Mine is mostly in the latter category, both extended, and even my immediate family. Yes, I’ve formed a family of close friends to fill the gap, but that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes feel a little lonely and forgotten by the people with whom I share blood.
to have a relationship when communication is limited to occasional text messages. I didn’t even know she’d moved out of state until I learned through her sister after the birth of her twin boys. In fact, the text I received announcing their birth the day before, when I learned their grandfather had been present was the final straw. But I mistakenly assumed he’d driven from Arizona to California to be there. Inasmuch as she’d lived a mile or so away from me for several years, I had no reason to believe anything had changed. Yet it seems things had changed…significantly.
My circle of friends isn’t immune to the challenges of maintaining relationships within their own blood families. Some have strained or non-existent relationships with children, siblings, and even parents just as I have.
even myself. In the case of the latter, I’m learning the best options are to write or talk about it, as holding it in and pretending things are fine means letting it fester and grow. I’m still working on cleaning up the toxic dump I created by holding everything in for years.
Unfortunately, it meant a lot of isolation until I learned to release my strangle hold on walls and masks, because until I did, I didn’t feel welcome anywhere. It wasn’t until I felt like I was losing the only person in the world who cared whether I lived or died that I realized I had to make some changes; I was meant to make some changes. I had come here to break family patterns, and though I’d already unconsciously broken some, the important ones, and also the most painful were yet to be broken.
my daughter who might benefit from my experience with twins. In the case of my daughter, I know she has people around her who are helping her manage. She’s chosen her own family, just as I’ve chosen mine. I respect her wishes and choices but there are still times I have to have a good wallow over it. I truly wish things could be different, but after waiting almost 15 years, I’m done waiting for Godot. She is who she is. I am who I am. We’re both stubborn, but she’s a “my way or the highway” kind of woman. I have to choose the highway on this one.
In my long trek through Western medicine’s non-answers last year, one diagnosis came up, but was cast aside as unimportant: fatty liver. But is it really unimportant, or do our doctors simply not know what to do with it?
Barr virus, and a dozen other seemingly insurmountable woes. Instead, I focused on all the things you can do to help your liver get out from under it’s seemingly insurmountable load of toxins. As it turns out, a number of things I’m doing are actually taking me in the right direction. Granted, I need to do more, but at least I’m doing things to help rather than adding to the problem with every step or bite I take.
I’ll admit, when I first turned to the chapters on food do’s and don’ts, I expected to find I couldn’t eat anything I really liked. While I learned (at least according to Mr. William’s research) that things like eggs, cheese, and dairy make my liver work harder, I also learned a diet rich in the fruits and vegetables I love, a limited amount of healthy fat like avocados, as well as things like potatoes, bananas, apricots, and cherries were beneficial to my liver in the first place, and could, given time and a few other not-so-onerous actions on my part, clear up my fatty liver, and even help me release those sticky pounds I seem to keep rediscovering.
L-Lysine, Vitamin C, and Vitamin D₃. While I’m not doing everything right at the moment, I’m certainly not on a fast slide into more serious problems. Still, I do need to alter my eating habits more before I see significant results.
Somehow, without realizing it, I’ve trained myself to deal with what may not even be a problem I started. According to Mr. William, you inherit a lot of your liver issues from our parents. In fact, in many cases you’re born with your liver already impaired by things like heavy metals and toxins which came from the bodies of your parents. It kind of reminds me of original sin. You pay for issues affecting your health through no fault of your own.
deeply into the liver unless they find something major like cancer cells or cirrhosis. Unless fatty liver is severe, they brush it off. Their training doesn’t teach them to delve further into the things which cause things like fatty liver, or how it could be indicative of the need for dietary changes and supplements to help the liver do it’s job more efficiently. They aren’t well-versed at the thousands of functions performed by the liver, or how excessive need for its services can cause it to bog down. They also don’t seem to get the connection between viruses, the liver, and how dependent the human body is on proper care and disposal of toxins, much less, what constitutes a toxin.
eyes, or maybe a cauldron of putrid slime. Instead, they look like normal people; someone you could trust to treat you right and never pull the rug out from under your feet just when you’ve begun to take for granted you’re on stable ground.
It took me awhile, but I’ve finally learned there will always be people who decide to dislike me; some at first glance, and others after we hit some kind of snag in the fabric of our friendship. I know I’m an acquired taste, and no longer take it personally. Most people, including me sometimes make negative comments about others. I’m not proud of it, nor do I deny my own culpability. It’s neither right nor kind, and is one of those qualities I’m still working on.
I was recently reminded how past experiences can attach themselves to people, places, and things coloring our perception without realizing it.
particularly sensitive to the ones who thrive on drama, and even after a long hiatus, have once again attracted and unwittingly fed another one. Of course, they wear different disguises, so it takes me awhile for deja vu to kick in and tell me I’ve been here before. Still, each time it happens I seem to rebound more quickly and with less damage to my own psyche.
I suppose I’m a rich feast for drama addicts, having been well-seasoned by my youngest daughter and quite a few others over the years. I’ve been sucked in by my own need to be helpful—to be accepted, all too often failing to recognize the tell-tale signs of someone who lives for the drama they cause. Fortunately, I do eventually learn as this particular lesson never ends well. Invariably, I’m the one who gets hurt, though I’m usually left thinking it was somehow my own fault.
painful memories with a single place, even though, in the years I spent there, it was a refuge and a sanctuary. Somehow, I managed to leave echos of the pain and frustration which colored those years in the very walls of the place without even realizing it. Now that I’ve made the connection, I can start banishing the memories so I can put an end to what’s been preventing me from joining my friends and doing what we all love most—dancing our way into joy and letting all life’s crappy parts pour off us like water off a duck.
I go through life forming some attachments and breaking others. Some are meant to last only a short time, others, for longer. All are meant to teach me something, even if sometimes, it’s how to walk away. Some of the lessons return over and over in different forms. I see it as a test to determine whether I’ve truly learned the lesson, or only learned it for one set of circumstances.
the world’s…whatever they can get. They’re not bad or evil per se. They simply need a particular type of high. For some, it’s extreme sports. For others, it’s volunteering their time to help someone less fortunate. For these folks, it’s drama.
Sheri Conaway 
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