Epistle

Brothers and Sisters,
I love you. Thank you for your loving kindness. That last post was a difficult to write. I am very insecure at the moment and in those times it is very hard for me to admit my weakness and let others in, because I am very afraid of the possible consequences (is it once bitten twice shy?). I have revisited those lovely comments time and time again. And every time I breathe the wisdom and support in and it goes deeper into the most sincere part of me.
I suppose I have a lot to say right now. And in this moment it feels like I am all right enough for this confession. This admission. This resolution.

1/15/2008-- I have recently begun a personal journey that, though perhaps perceived by others as rather minute, to me is very large, very all-encompassing. I have been a bit timid sharing the details of this journey with others for its subject is a sensitive issue among many. The subject is a sensitive issue to me, and those closest to me. However, I believe in asking the Universe for help, and the All Encompassing does answer, I've come to find these past difficult times.
Also, writing has become an avenue of self-understanding for me and therefore I have decided to write about this journey in this form as a plea for help from the Infinite that cradles me daily.
Since as long as I can remember I have felt things very sincerely, very deeply. The smallest joys leave me euphorically 'high' and in return the most minor woes would cause me to plummet into a depth of personal mourning that I did not understand. As I got older and more emotional situations became more prominent my hyper-emotional state increased.
Through a series of event, much too complex to go into right now, after graduating high school I found myself in a very unhealthy place. This place consisted of a premature marriage between two very self-destructive people (I, myself being one of them), a desolate spiritual plain, and arid social network of support. I found myself slowly fading in every possible way and became very seriously depressed. The darkness of this time in my life was incalculable. If it were not for the constant love and support of my family and a few true friends I shutter to think where I would be now.
Through the dense fog of that depression my mother's love and voice was heard and I chose to seek help outside of myself. I chose to visit a physician that I trusted, I chose to open up despite the pain and receive help. My physician helped me come to terms with the idea that because of a possible genetic predisposition and situational elements I had entered a depressed state. Due to the severity of this mental state and the situation I was in she suggested that I take a prescription anti-depressant. I complied and found that the effect of the prescription gave me enough mental clarity and inner calm to work towards solving the situational aspects of my life that had contributed to this state of depression. That was October of 2005.
---
My life changed drastically in incredible brevity. As I said, I was married a year out of high school. I was divorced a year later. I was lost enough to get married in the wrong time, after it was over I was even more lost. At twenty years old I found myself divorced and learning to live some sort of semblance of a whole life. It was hit or miss, it still is hit or miss.
Anyway.... Recently I have been reevaluating my life. The adaptation is astounding. I find myself more whole and more broken simultaneously. And my understanding of mental health is ever expanding and evolving and in the dead of this horrible grey winter my heart lead me down a narrow winding path of cessation. An inner voice encouraged me to look toward a new direction concerning my mental health and I began to walk slower on an unsteady way. I began weaning myself off of the prescription anti-depressant I was taking. I told my family that I was doing this, and they supported me the best they could. I made sure my lover knew, and my best friends. And they supported me. I found information about this new journey and I tucked it into my heart. Thank God for these people supporting me and this information.
Weaning myself off of these psychotropic drugs was quite possibly one of the hardest things I have ever done. The withdrawal effects were prominent both physically and mentally. Everything seemed to glare with such hard light, I was quite sensitive to sound and light. I began to feel emotions that had long been muted. I got angry and agitated easily. While I was dealing with withdrawal symptoms it was almost easier to deal with the intensity of the emotions I was experiencing, because I could chalk them up to my mind readjusting to its new chemical levels.
Now, as I no longer feel the withdrawal symptoms coping with my new emotional state is challenging, because there is no longer a scapegoat. These are my feelings, they are a product of myself-- physical, mental and spiritual. It is really difficult to accept that responsibility at times.
Here lately I have been feeling angry and fearful. The biggest manifestation of these two emotions is anxiety and depression. When I choose to turn my anger inward and swallow it back into myself a depressed state comes. And when I choose to allow myself to be ruled by fear I suffer from serious bouts of anxiety. I am recognizing that I can make active choices that can change these manifestations of emotions. I am learning how to deal with my anger more constructively. I am also learning how to let go of trying to be in control, because that is where the majority of my fear comes from.
I recently came across a book that I have been reading. In fact, sometimes the only times I am able to release and relax is when I am reading it, one thing that I have written down from it, that is an anthem of this time in my life is this:

Creativity flourishes not in certainty but in questions. Growth germinates not in tent dwelling but in upheaval. Yet the seduction is always security rather than venturing, instant knowing rather than deliberate waiting.
-- Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits

I am waiting. Constantly, persistently and it is so so hard. But I find reassurance in this:

Contemplative waiting is consenting to be where we really are. People recoil from it because they don't want to be present to themselves. Such waiting causes a deep existential loneliness to surface, a feeling of being disconnected from oneself and God. At the depths there is fear, fear of the dark chaos with in ourselves.
--When the Heart Waits

So basically, darlings, I am a mess. But! I love you and I am here now. Blessings to you and yours. You are beautiful and I wish I could kiss each of you on your forehead.

Yours completely,
Maggie Ann.

The wallpaper on my computer right now.
Photograph by Josh, just the other day.
It says so much.

A letter,

Hello Love,
Hard times are coming on, huh? They're coming on and they have been coming on for quite awhile now, I suppose. When I look back to see where this all began I understand that these times of trial haven't always been with us, it just feels like they've been around for quite awhile. Really though, its only been a few months. These cold months. Really, I would attest that it all started getting bleak as the temperature dropped, as the sun decided not to shine quite as much. And the cold itself, it makes everything harder. Living, just living, has been so complicated. I have to have a rousing pep-talk with myself before attempting to attain the smallest of goals-- getting out of bed, doing the dishes, figuring out dinner. I'm not sure about you, but I have the sneaking suspicion that things carry this tinge of heaviness for you as well.
We don't laugh like we used to, giggling on the bed before sleep, giggling in the middle of a crowd because of an inside joke. It is hard to laugh now, it is harder still to find the joy in life. Surely amidst its harshness there is still joy there. Surely? There must be a way for us to laugh again. A way to escape the woes of this world and be happy in what we do have. We do have each other, and that is monumental.
Last night when we were walking out of Taco Bell, stepping quietly through the loud gaggle of sorority girls that had just invaded. As I was walking past their perfect white mouth, golden tan skin, and bleach blonde hair, as I was walking past with my dreadlocked hair, my dark-rimmed glasses, and the critical eye I look to the world with I felt confident. Truly, confident. That may not seem to be that major, but let me assure you, it is. Major. Confidence has never been my fortitude. I am meek, that is my strength. I speak quietly, and I observe. I appreciate those things about myself. However, in meekness it is often easy to acquire a bit of insecurity, and I have struggled with that my whole life. Thinking others have it more figured out than me, thinking others are better than me, almost always. But then last night, in the middle of a crowd of women the world so often labels as beautiful, and moreover, the right way to be, I glided by with an internal peace in who I am, in how I am beautiful. This is largely due to you, and the way you have loved me. At first, for what you saw in my eyes, and then for what you knew lay behind my eyes, and now as I journey through the depths of finding who I am you still love me. You still say that I am beautiful, though I have changed externally the way I look, though my views are evolving. You still love me so wholeheartedly and I am not sure you know what that means to me.
As I walked past those girls last night, with you following me. I felt such confidence, and security. You, my husband, following me, always with me, even if in spirit, offered me such a sense of where we are truly at. During these difficult times, when every single thing seems up in the air, where as of now we must find a new home by April 3rd, and we don't understand pretty much anything about our lives or this world, we do have each other. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, we are one. Last night, I was able to speak the statement to you concerning how tired I am of feeling insecure, and now I realize that my security has never been in jeopardy. Yes, the house we are living in has been sold and we must move (yet again), yes the world we are living in is in shambles, yes our country is in a rattling state of turmoil. Those things though, they are so temporal, they are so flippant, a drop in the hat compared to what really matters. Love, really, is all that matters. And we are rich in love.
I will find my security in love. The love we share, the love of our family/friends, and ultimately the love of the Infinite Invisible.
And now, this is for you:

Sky full of birds in a flying V moving down through Tennessee they look a little like you and me you know. Car full of gas on the Natchez Trace changing lanes in the same old race to find some kind of warmer place to go. I don't know what we're running from but look how far we've come anyway.
Todd always says it better than me anyway, and this song in particular has always helped. Remember those times my anxiety gripped heavy and the whole world started disappearing, and Evan put this song on? Things slowed down. And the times when those attacks would come and you had to physically touch me and audibly speak to me, and things would slow down? You are my rock. We've been traveling our whole lives. Now we are simply traveling together, how lucky is that? I am convinced it is more than luck, we are blessed. And I'm not ever sure what we are running from, or, moreover, what we are running towards. But I know that our hearts are good, and we've come a long way. And I have faith that the warmer place we seek is in front of us. We just gotta keep moving.
Hey baby I ain't afraid to be your girl. I don't need a destination, I'm not waiting for a plan. Let's get out of here, I'll go anywhere with you.
I just want you to know, it doesn't matter to me what our life looks like. Where we make our home, or even how we make our home. I told you all those days ago, when you talked of living a nomad life-- I'll go with you. Wherever, however. I am yours and you are mine that is our home.
I've heard people say they had it made back some place where they wish they'd stayed, I'm still not afraid to take this chance. I've always thought there was something wrong with hangin' around one town too long workin' the same old worn out song and dance. I wanna dance to any drum we choose, we ain't got shit to lose either way.
I want to dance to any drum we choose. I don't want our lives to look like what the world tells us they're suppose to look like. I want our lives to be a manifestation of our hearts. I'm not afraid anymore. And really, we don't got shit to lose, I'm in it for the long haul baby. Wherever you go, I go. Just so you know. I love you.

Most Sincerely,
Me, your adoring wife.

For those who don't know. The italicized words are Todd Snider's and can be found in the song Anywhere.

A letter--

Hello,

Friends, lovers, strangers. Here I sit. It is Monday evening and I am finally able to take a breath. It seems like from as long as I can remember things have been whirl/winding all around us. My little nuclear pod of a family. Where not much, but we are all we got and so I will hang on so damn tight to them that I make my hands bleed with my fingernails pressed hard and fast.
The term grasping at straws come to mind. How life has been. Texting my brother to say, "I feel like I'm going to lose it. My chest feels tight, my hands are sweating, and my breath is short." He says to me, "Chill man." Stop thinking about it, thinking about it makes it worse. The spinning of a world going going. Gone are days of complacent mind. Now, I am here-- thinking constantly about how to live life. How to have peace, how to listen to my heart and to the Universe. I feel so much more, and there is much more pain in feeling. But, I am here now!
Then I was a sheep. Listening to the outside voices. Those voices of doubt, self-hatred, denial, religion, guilt. Wolves in sheep's cloth. They have tried for as long is hard to steal this light I have burning in my soul. They have whispered seductively, they have shouted with arms raised, they have been in the silence, they have been in the screaming. I am drowning them out.
Tonight, they are deaf to me. As I steal these few moments to write. My ears hear Dylan and my heart hears itself.
I am married. I am Mrs. Maggie Ann Bishop. I am married to my best friend. Hello, lover. Our day was magical. Up to it was a struggle. But! There were brief interludes of magic. Picking our shoes-- Chuck Taylor All-Stars, Black. The shoes we both wore at our wedding. We found them on sale, that made things all the brighter. The day my mom and I stopped along side the road, to collect cattails and grass, for centerpieces. Those centerpieces became fantastic individual works of art as on the day of the wedding, my mother, Josh's mom, and my dear friends Maurine, Tara, Amelia, Michele, as well as myself gathered to make them. Laughing, talking, and creating together. See? Magical.
There are a plethora of other magical moments that I am going to collect in words so they will last. And perhaps inspire. So darlings if you stay tuned you will be part of the oral tradition of my wedding!
Since our wedding day quite a few people have asked me if I feel any different. Do I feel different, well yes and no. I feel so freaking lucky, every single moment. I feel very much in love, I feel like I am being fed like a plant in the sun when I am in Josh's arms, I feel an eternal bond. Yes, I feel those things, but I felt them before our wedding day. I feel them all the more now, but there is a continuity of this bond that I feel, that carried through our first meeting, our wedding day, to now, and tomorrow, and the next day, and forever. Thank God for that.
Our bond is there, we are forging ahead. We are learning every single day how to live. All the while choosing to do things another way. Of course, it is harder to do things differently. Sometimes the brunt of that work weighs heavily upon me. We do not buckle though. We may bend, but but we have each the other for support and we will not buckle, therefore we will not break. We are going to make this thing work. This odd life.

..To be continued

Ps. Interesting side note. I am in every increasing pain due to my wisdom teeth deciding, on there own accord, to continue to push on. A dull pressure pain is radiating from my jaw bone to my ear, throat, and the roof of my mouth. It is an interesting sensation. I'm not very fond of it I do not believe. Think happy thoughts about my teeth... I go to the dentist on Thursday.