Tag: Growth

Self-care

Posted on by Warren Dalton

I got my hair done on Tuesday and it feels great. You know that feeling where  you don’t feel like yourself unless you’rein your favorite sweatshirt or jeans or everything just isn’t right until your make up is done? Well that’s me. I love my braids. When I picture myself as a successful person/writer it’s with braids. Maybe it’s weird but, it just makes me feel at home in my own skin. For me having them in is self care.

I have spent a lot of time this year on taking care of myself. Trying to lose a bit of weight, incorporating a skincare routine and, even bought a watch for trying to work through the ADHD time slippage. I want to come out better from this terrible year.

Self-care is so important. I know myself and without it I kind of just subsist in the world. The depression hits and I just spend all day playing games or something just to try to relax. I’m not saying videogames aren’t effective self-care but, I think for me and just the types of games I play there just isn’t always that same sense of accomplishment I get from just making sure I did two face masks this week. I’ve realized besides writing it kind of just makes me feel like I got something done and I am overall better for the ten minutes I took to do it.

I began throwing out a bunch of the old mess in my room leftover from a previous person and donated some clothes too. It’s odd sometimes what throwing a bag of trash out will do for your mind. ( I should probably clean up more often. It’s not gonna happen but, I probably should.) I have been feeling a little freer in this past week and I’m hoping I can keep up the momentum. Keep changing enough small things to make me a stronger more well-rounded person. To me, my self-care is trying to improve minuscule things over and over again to eventually create a chain reaction of positive change.

Your Truth

Posted on by Warren Dalton

They starved you at a feast.

Tied to a chair and watched those around you

Stuffing faces and

Having over full bellies,

Rubbed.

While you cried,

 

Died,

Wasting away until you couldn’t even be tied with ropes.

 

Hopes,

Put on someone who could save you died

On dried and cracked lips

 

Hips

Only thing you thought you were good for was cock rocking and moaning

And groaning you did away with their pain

 

Rain

Came down torrential

Unintentional but, it’s all your fault,

Right?

 

Plight

Goes on unanswered everyday,

everyway you asked and pleaded

They stood up and retreated,

defeated you cried,

died felt the pain,

the rain,

and like a current you were dragged again and again.

They weren’t enough, much too rough.

They got cut,

And you were the one to bleed.

Their need the same refrain.

 

Remains,

You gathered them up in fragile arms.

A magpie in the wild,

A raccoon in the woods,

Collecting and erecting the skeleton of a life you could love

 

Shoved

Down, drowned in rivers of your own fears

Gasping for air

 

Hair,

You cut just to divest from the stress of a world closing in,

Hoping that a change on the outside

Will rearrange you inside

 

Ride it out,

Breathe it in,

Quell the storm that rages within,

 

Kin

Never loved you,

When you needed them they abandoned you too.

Shamed and Blamed you too

 

Withdrew,

Into yourself,

Into your art,

Into your head,

To your core.

 

Ore.

You found a prize behind the pain.

Didn’t get better,

You got even!

Decided to soar higher than anyone’s expectations

You believed in you,

Got through.

Thrived.

Striving to be more,

And greater.

You smashed the ceiling

 

Unfeeling,

As the glass cut you

Because you learned long ago,

That success didn’t happen without a little discomfort.

Your life started out tough,

But you know that terrain.

Here’s your refrain.

It’s all uphill from here.

You’ve kissed the sky.

And Helios touched you!

 

Used to be a victim of your own mind,

Reflect, directed it back and

Now…

You know your own truth

 

Spark

Posted on by Warren Dalton

I feel at times like a dark room

Full of possibility, promise, and a hint of threat

A match struck

and revealed in me something

I wasn’t aware I needed.

The red light seared my weakened eyes

And then I beheld it.

 

Dimension, volume, and purpose

And when it left

I’m left with more woe than was ever known before

As if light itself was always meant to be…

Fleeting.

 

With just one flash it solidified my walls

threw away nebulosity

and because of that,

I feel,

I can’t return to the void again.

 

Should I wait

Hold my breath and suffer

or am I subsisting on nothing more than a blank promise?

And if were to come another time

instead of merely beholding it’s quenching glow

I will find my own light switch

and shine the light that was always meant to be mine.

Father’s Day 2020

Posted on by Warren Dalton

So Father’s Day was teed up to be pretty problematic. To set the stage, I had tried my hardest not to see my Father at least until it was absolutely necessary. It was made much easier due to COVID and his state being especially bad with it. So then I find out that during the week I had taken off, he was in the area and dropped in because of a wedding. My brother, who has always been the dadbuffer can’t come down to meet us halfway. I am really in it.

I dreaded the long march to Sunday. I had in my head all these stipulations like how I didn’t want to be there all day, especially if he was just going to drink. I had made up in my mind how much it would suck. I’d blown the whole thing up in my mind.

I used to say that I was a realist but, truthfully, once my wheels get going I tend to list towards the overdramatic. I just can’t help myself I get this feeling in my gut that I just seem to back my every fear and then I’m pretending that it’s prophetic. Like somehow my gut has never been wrong about anything ever especially my feelings towards women.

When I arrived at the place I was actually in a good mood. Considering that I had protested the week before and had that time off of work to just really enjoy my time recuperating from what has been a crazy season. COVID and Black Lives Matter are happening at the same time. It’s a tumultuous time for not just my people but, the whole of society. Things are changing and it feels good to be apart of that.

I will admit to having been turned around a few times because I’m literally no good with direction even with a GPS. (Yes, my people, I’m absolutely hopeless. I’m still hoping we’ll get built-in AR displays and I’ll get a minimap.) When I saw him a smile came to my face that I wasn’t expecting and most of my lunch went by without caution but, then he asked me.

“Is there anything I’d like to say to him I haven’t yet.” We’d had a nice lunch we talked about light things and serious stuff too. It was almost what I must assume other people’s relationship is like with their parents.  But, he just had to ask and it was like a lead ball in my stomach. I looked around for exits but, there was none and the waitress was talking animatedly with a young kid. There was no way out.

It took me a while to speak. There was a long time there when I anxiously bounced my foot and messed with my hands. I felt like it ruined a rare and perfectly good time. There was a lot that I hadn’t said. Stuff that I didn’t really even know I needed to say but, I think he needed to hear it. I think it was less about me and more about him.

I told him that what he did, created a lot of my nervous ticks like not quite being able to look people in the eye or my loathing for confrontation. I think he needed to hear that I’m not sure what will I would say that would pop him off next and that it made talking to him hard. That definitely seemed to open his eyes a bit. That I was suffering from severe depression and that just made doing what he asked of me even more difficult. I was afraid most of that time and my memories of that time are more than a bit hazy but, what I will never forget is the fear.

I used to try so hard to find what little happiness I could find on the edge of despair. I did often wish I was dead. I don’t know how close this was or is to be suicidal but, it was how I felt. I never attempted but, I did wish for it a few times. It’s not something I try to bring up too often but, I know what my rock bottom feels like I’m not ever letting my self get there again.

He looked like he finally got it. Like a whole lot of things were put into perspective and he finally understood the whole picture. I think for him this was a wakeup call and for me, it was a release of a lot of the weight I was carrying around. I’ve felt so much lighter since and it has done wonders for my mental health. The years of deep introspective thought seem like they were finally worth it. Just being able to say the things I wanted to.

I don’t know what my relationship with my father will be like from now on but, I do know that now I can let some of this go. I’m better for finally being able to say my piece and maybe I’ll get a little closer to moving on.

 

Happy Birthday Jacob!!!

Posted on by Warren Dalton

Happy Birthday Brother. I know it’s probably late coming and I’m hoping this finds you well and happy. How have you been? What’s the weather like? I know I’ve never been good with small talk but, I’d I didn’t ask I’m sure Mother would get mad…

I miss you. There’s no easy way to say this cause you’re gone an I’m not. But I miss you. Just because it got easier to say your name and what happened without it sticking in my throat doesn’t mean I love you less.

It’s been eight long years and so much has changed. I don’t go to where we buried you often enough and I hope my silent eulogies are almost as good as vocal ones. I’m sorry if I don’t feel you there. It’s way too quiet for you. You were loud and vocal. In a place where vocal wasn’t always great. But you were great. You were visible when sometimes I wanted to hide away. And you loved like only children can unconditionally and radiant. Being loved by you was such a great feeling.

I’ve changed a lot and I hope that you’d have been proud of me. I learned to lean a little over into loving the way you do and it’s made all the difference. I’ve drawn people towards me that I’ll love for a lifetime. I’ve learned to be vocal. To stand up for the things I believed in and in a world on the cusp of changing, I wonder would you have been there with me? I stopped being nearly so lazy and I’m working and at a much better job than I’ve had before. I’m writing and maybe not the things I always should be but, I’ll work on procrastination later.

I’ve decided to visible to be heard and I hope you’d be proud of me. That you might again look up to me as your older brother. I’d be filled with the most sincere happiness I could imagine.

You were everything to me. It wasn’t easy picking up my pieces after you left but I hope the man I am now will be enough to for you to smile upon. And as I hastily write this before work, I hope you know aftershocks of your kindness are still felt all over. I’m thankful that you have never come to me in my dreams as anger or sorrow. It’s always been one more game, one more show, one more movie and one more hug. It wasn’t easy losing you and I wish I’d seen you in your final moments but, you have given me all that I could ever ask for.

Your Brother,

Warren