Off you go. To the writing retreat. To finish your memoir. Because your story needs and deserves to be written, and bc some of us are waiting for it to set us free. I’ll beg if I have to but don’t make me.
Thank you for taking your precious time to write in the midst of this monumental move in an actual tornado on a few hours rest. I wish I could travel back in time and tell that precious little Ally who wrote that apology letter to her mom just how amazing she is. I would give her a big hug and tell her that she is not a burden, that she is so easy to love. I would tell her that she is beautiful and creative and so fucking smart. I would tell her that it’s OK to make mistakes and even make a mess sometimes. I would tell her that the world is so much more beautiful with her in it. I would tell her that her feelings make sense. I would emphatically tell her that she is one hell of a writer, and that one day she is going to impact the lives of so many people just by being herself.
Well, here I sit crying into my coffee. Not sure what I would have done without you all these years, but I'm so glad and grateful I don't have to figure it out. I love you so much my sister from another...well, you know how that ends. You're my ride or die.
Hi Ally - From my 'what on earth is going on is this really my life' world to yours. As always thank you for putting into words so much of what I feel. I've had the same thing the last few weeks with dealing with the depths of crisis/functioning to do what needs to be done to then look up and see the news and just stop in my tracks. You are a special being. Just thank you. Sending love from my heart to yours.
Oh Julia, I know you are on this same untethered trajectory through time and space and childhood memories and sandwich generation impossibilities and I am sending you all the love. I am here anytime you need support. There simply isn't enough conversation about any of this. Hugs through the ether, friend <3
The rage- I have simultaneous rages going on. One stream of rage at my father who passed on over a year and a half ago and left a horrible dark secret for me to deal with and rage at the men who seem to thrive on cruelty, causing chaos and the lack of justice and attention to their abuses. I have residue of the rage I felt at being assaulted by a boy I liked at 16, rage at all the men who doubt things are “that” bad for girls and women (and even boys and young men), rage at what breaks inside a human being to make them choose victimizing another instead of getting help in some way, rage that people would rather believe in a death cult and shrug as the world burns cause they have a mansion in heaven and hope to burn it all to the ground rather than take care of it, and ask for forgiveness later.
I’m glad the moving of the stuff is over, and I hope you’ll get a breather, Ally, despite our part of the world being run by shit weasels. I’m making lots of art, drawing, painting, poems, putting the rage into something where I can make ugly things and beautiful things. The beauty, the sorrow, the joy rides shotgun with the rage.
Oh- and tornadoes! I went thru one at 8 in a trailer. The “hand of god” indeed scary. Glad you are ok.
I think rage works like grief. Kind of like a new loss breaks the dam of your grief river and all the sorrow of past losses start flowing through…and with rage it’s like a new violation or insult to your heart is like the spark that sets your heart ablaze again for some amount of time. I think we need new words. I had years when I wasn’t this furious with my dad anymore so I feel like I am refurious now on the other side of losing my mom because I didn’t just lose time with her, I lost the her she would have been if he hadn’t bashed her heart and turned her into someone hard.
Anyway. I am so sorry. I relate very much to everything you wrote and I know it’s hard. It’s tiring. The rage is exhausting. Be sure you find those pockets of joy. I know I don’t need to say that to you, just in case you needed a reminder. And I’m sending you a lot of love, Jen ❤️🩹❤️❤️🔥
Grief, especially complicated grief, is like someone took your map and had you backtrack at super inconvenient times- yet we follow it. We go thinking it will lead to somewhere called resolution and peace, but honestly- I just want the stops and the sites to get me to where I appreciate the damn journey more at this point. Hug my sons, relish painting the walls of what was my dad’s home a completely different color and feel, and understanding I am still alive because I feel all the sorrow and rage of it. And all the joy that comes along.
Keep on truckin with the writing, Ally. If I join you on the highway of words, I’ll give a truckers honk to say hey.
Ah, Ally. You must have been born with a medically undetectable enlarged heart, because I don't know how anybody stuffs all of this in and still has room to keep adding more love. That's how this piece reads to me: an accounting of the big boxes of heaviness you've had to make space for in there, and then the blankets and pillows and plush toys and insulation you've tucked in around all that to soften how it hits when it slides around in there.
I hope you are getting some extra rest this weekend. I hope little Ally is better able to see, through adult-Ally's eyes, that she was not the one who should have been apologizing. I hope, through some twist of karmic mystery, that people who willingly/knowingly inflict pain on others will have to spend a second lifetime making up for it through acts of service. And I hope you know how special you are.
Welcome home, Ally. Thanks for writing this. I'm so sorry about the loss of your mother. It's a deep time, losing your mother, archetypal. I lost mine in 2006. We talked about everything before she died. We were clear. Then I visited again, one more time, and she took it all back. Except she couldn't because I keep the parts that are real and press them to my chest. It's a long road, in the air, on the ground, and fighting the insanity in our culture. I'm with you.
Thank you for this, Susan. It’s true, finding some of the “artifacts” was like salt in the oldest wound I have, but I’m sort of okay now, or else I’m too exhausted to realize I’m not 🙃 I’d love to meet up now that I’m back, I’ll message you. Thank you for these comments ❤️🩹🙏🏼🥹
Oh Ally, this brought tears to my eyes. I think you're amazing. You've been an incredible daughter to both of your parents and now an incredible sister to your brother. It can't be easy for you, I could only imagine. But I also imagine that you don't know any other way. You always do what is "right" in your eyes. I hope they all appreciated {and still appreciate} you. Sending hugs.
Thank you so much, Debra. My brother and I had a lot of laughs considering how insane the entire week was, and how little sleep I got. For thirty-plus years now, my stepdad has not been able to remember I am vegetarian. It just will not go in, and now more than ever. There really was no time to stop and eat, so a number of times he offered to go out and bring us food back in. I'd ask for a salad or smoothie or pretty much anything without meat. He'd come back with chicken gyros, roast beef sandwiches, egg, cheese and bacon bagels. Then he'd get upset that I wasn't eating. I couldn't bring myself to say anything because his memory is not what it once was. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches more in the last week than the last ten years! It got to be a running joke, we were placing bets on what he'd bring back. Veal Picatta? Lamb Chops? Anyway. They do appreciate me. There are all kinds of layered things like there always are in families, and some things for other essays on other days. Thanks so much for your kind words, and for being here. I appreciate you so much <3
Glad you made it back home safely and that huge task is over. I cleaned out my Mom's home and found some letters too. My Dad had basically written a letter to the grandchildren he never knew to let them know how much he loved my Mom even though he divorced her after 22 years to marry someone 22 years younger on the same day of the divorce and then died 5 years later and left everything to the young bride. I guess he thought his 4 children didn't need anything. My Mom's letter to Dad while they were dating doesn't even seem like the person I knew as my Mom. Oh well, speaking of the current news I never thought my husband and I would be spending our golden years in this effed up nightmare we all get to try to sleep in without constant worry. My cat Jack starts on insulin tomorrow. We had an appt today to learn how to give him injections. Hope your stepdad and brother get settled in and enjoy their new place. Get some rest. 💗🤗
There is this whole conversation amongst writers (as I'm sure you well know) about whether to burn or keep journals and letters later in life, especially when grown children will be the ones to sort through them. I will say that all of this has given me a lot to consider, as someone who tends to hold onto letters and cards and old photographs. There are probably things my children don't need to read.
And uh. Your dad, wow. Thanks for the letter to the grandkids? Jeez.
I know not what to say about this chapter we're existing in anymore, Mary. I woke up one morning last week and thought, Nancy Guthrie. I guess we are going to accept that she disappeared and that's it. I know they're still investigating, but it all just feels like this incomprehensible timeline where things happen, and any one of them ought to stop us in our tracks, but there are just so many horrifying things and what are we supposed to do? Your poor cat Jack needs insulin. I have to get laundry detergent today and make dinner for my daughter later. We bombed a girls' school in Iran. I just don't understand anything. But I still believe in kindness, you know? I still think it matters.
Seems like my brother and stepdad are settling in, yes. Thanks so much for being here, Mary. You're such a keeper. Hugs and love <3
Ally this essay is so powerful and moving and sad. And I can relate to packing up your childhood home- I had to do that in 2021 in the midst of the pandemic with my brother and sister and it brought up so many emotions in the midst of all the grief we already had about our mom passing (our dad passed about 20 years earlier). And part of that packing up involved journals and diaries from when i was a kid. Not sure what i am gonna do with them but there are likely time periods that will be destined to be shredded after I have a look at them!
Thank you so much, Sarah. And it really is a thing, packing up the childhood home. It’s so layered. All the photo albums from my childhood, the baby pictures and pictures of me and my mom and and dad and grandma and aunt and uncle and cousins — everything before my mom married my stepdad were in the basement storage cage. And I really cannot imagine that’s a thing he asked her to do. I always felt like I didn’t quite fit anywhere. My mom, stepdad and brother all had the same last name, etc. So you might imagine that tripped an old wire. There were so many things like that, and no time to process, really. So I am exhausted but okay. Glad to be home. Anyway, I appreciate your comments so much. Thank you, and so sorry for the loss of your mom ❤️🩹
Wow that is all so complex and upsetting and overwhelming. My heart goes out to you. ❤️ Do whatever you can to take care of yourself. Here is a video from my YouTube channel - that is mostly videos of calming techniques for working with animals but this is for people. This is a 10 minute guided set of hand positions that can be so incredibly calming and centering in my experience. https://youtu.be/M2kDTUCw5e0 PS your story at the slam was so powerful as well!
Several things here--forgiveness, what we have control of--make an appearance in the essay I just wrote a few days ago. Haven't decided whether or not to publish yet. It's always sticky. (Every time!) I'm so glad you're done and on your way home. And so sorry for the painful parts of this visit. And the roots of the past that created that pain. But I'm also so glad you're here and you're you and that you're in my orbit. I'll see your sweet face tomorrow. x
Not at all surprised we're on the same page, we usually are :) Oh! I found something in all the letters and papers you are not going to believe and shipped it home to myself. Sorry for the cliffhanger but I'll take a pic when it gets here. And forgiveness, yes. I'm always a fan of freeing ourselves, of not being stuck in an old story, or plagued by the repercussions of someone else's actions. For me it's never a thing of saying "what that person did was okay" or feeling like you have to have them in your life if they're alive. It's more that you don't want your current life to be clouded by past bs someone did that was a reflection on them, not you. But when the repercussions affect someone you love/d and had an impact on your relationship with them that you can never change, it's tough. Definitely grappling with that one. I'll let you know how it goes, I'll circle back on that in 5 months or 5 years haha. Love you madly.
Ooooh, can't wait for the rest of the story! And forgiveness--yes. All of that. I think we need a new word for it, because my understanding of forgiveness is a clean slate, and it's never that. Lym2!
You have packed a lifetime into this essay. And I agree that it takes a long time to learn we can’t change other people. Life gets a bit easier when we realize this.
It is a wild and piercing thing packing up your childhood home, maybe I am not telling you anything you don't know. There's so much I left out, but that's okay, that's what memoirs are for, ha. And I think it took me decades to figure out the "can't change other people, can't control how people will feel or interpret things or what they will want, etc" but that's okay, too. Glad I figured it out eventually. Thanks so much for being here, Alice. Hugs and love to you <3
Another excruciatingly beautiful essay. Rage on.
Thank you so much, Robert. And so I shall. After coffee ;)
Off you go. To the writing retreat. To finish your memoir. Because your story needs and deserves to be written, and bc some of us are waiting for it to set us free. I’ll beg if I have to but don’t make me.
I will not make you, I promise. I am on it.
Thank you for taking your precious time to write in the midst of this monumental move in an actual tornado on a few hours rest. I wish I could travel back in time and tell that precious little Ally who wrote that apology letter to her mom just how amazing she is. I would give her a big hug and tell her that she is not a burden, that she is so easy to love. I would tell her that she is beautiful and creative and so fucking smart. I would tell her that it’s OK to make mistakes and even make a mess sometimes. I would tell her that the world is so much more beautiful with her in it. I would tell her that her feelings make sense. I would emphatically tell her that she is one hell of a writer, and that one day she is going to impact the lives of so many people just by being herself.
Well, here I sit crying into my coffee. Not sure what I would have done without you all these years, but I'm so glad and grateful I don't have to figure it out. I love you so much my sister from another...well, you know how that ends. You're my ride or die.
Hi Ally - From my 'what on earth is going on is this really my life' world to yours. As always thank you for putting into words so much of what I feel. I've had the same thing the last few weeks with dealing with the depths of crisis/functioning to do what needs to be done to then look up and see the news and just stop in my tracks. You are a special being. Just thank you. Sending love from my heart to yours.
Oh Julia, I know you are on this same untethered trajectory through time and space and childhood memories and sandwich generation impossibilities and I am sending you all the love. I am here anytime you need support. There simply isn't enough conversation about any of this. Hugs through the ether, friend <3
❤️❤️🩹❤️
That's a lot for one heart to do/process in a week. Take care of yourself, Ally.💜
Thanks, Mary Beth. It is/was and I am bone tired. Definitely going to rest as much as possible this weekend 😌 Hugs and love x
The rage- I have simultaneous rages going on. One stream of rage at my father who passed on over a year and a half ago and left a horrible dark secret for me to deal with and rage at the men who seem to thrive on cruelty, causing chaos and the lack of justice and attention to their abuses. I have residue of the rage I felt at being assaulted by a boy I liked at 16, rage at all the men who doubt things are “that” bad for girls and women (and even boys and young men), rage at what breaks inside a human being to make them choose victimizing another instead of getting help in some way, rage that people would rather believe in a death cult and shrug as the world burns cause they have a mansion in heaven and hope to burn it all to the ground rather than take care of it, and ask for forgiveness later.
I’m glad the moving of the stuff is over, and I hope you’ll get a breather, Ally, despite our part of the world being run by shit weasels. I’m making lots of art, drawing, painting, poems, putting the rage into something where I can make ugly things and beautiful things. The beauty, the sorrow, the joy rides shotgun with the rage.
Oh- and tornadoes! I went thru one at 8 in a trailer. The “hand of god” indeed scary. Glad you are ok.
I think rage works like grief. Kind of like a new loss breaks the dam of your grief river and all the sorrow of past losses start flowing through…and with rage it’s like a new violation or insult to your heart is like the spark that sets your heart ablaze again for some amount of time. I think we need new words. I had years when I wasn’t this furious with my dad anymore so I feel like I am refurious now on the other side of losing my mom because I didn’t just lose time with her, I lost the her she would have been if he hadn’t bashed her heart and turned her into someone hard.
Anyway. I am so sorry. I relate very much to everything you wrote and I know it’s hard. It’s tiring. The rage is exhausting. Be sure you find those pockets of joy. I know I don’t need to say that to you, just in case you needed a reminder. And I’m sending you a lot of love, Jen ❤️🩹❤️❤️🔥
Grief, especially complicated grief, is like someone took your map and had you backtrack at super inconvenient times- yet we follow it. We go thinking it will lead to somewhere called resolution and peace, but honestly- I just want the stops and the sites to get me to where I appreciate the damn journey more at this point. Hug my sons, relish painting the walls of what was my dad’s home a completely different color and feel, and understanding I am still alive because I feel all the sorrow and rage of it. And all the joy that comes along.
Keep on truckin with the writing, Ally. If I join you on the highway of words, I’ll give a truckers honk to say hey.
Honking at you from my couch back in Santa Monica 🙋🏻♀️ Message me anytime if you need a little support ❤️🩹
This was beautiful. Sending you love, Ally ♥️
Thanks so much. Sending love back to you ❤️
Ah, Ally. You must have been born with a medically undetectable enlarged heart, because I don't know how anybody stuffs all of this in and still has room to keep adding more love. That's how this piece reads to me: an accounting of the big boxes of heaviness you've had to make space for in there, and then the blankets and pillows and plush toys and insulation you've tucked in around all that to soften how it hits when it slides around in there.
I hope you are getting some extra rest this weekend. I hope little Ally is better able to see, through adult-Ally's eyes, that she was not the one who should have been apologizing. I hope, through some twist of karmic mystery, that people who willingly/knowingly inflict pain on others will have to spend a second lifetime making up for it through acts of service. And I hope you know how special you are.
This is so beautiful. Thank you, Elizabeth, from little me and current me 🥹❤️🩹🙏🏼
Welcome home, Ally. Thanks for writing this. I'm so sorry about the loss of your mother. It's a deep time, losing your mother, archetypal. I lost mine in 2006. We talked about everything before she died. We were clear. Then I visited again, one more time, and she took it all back. Except she couldn't because I keep the parts that are real and press them to my chest. It's a long road, in the air, on the ground, and fighting the insanity in our culture. I'm with you.
Thank you for this, Susan. It’s true, finding some of the “artifacts” was like salt in the oldest wound I have, but I’m sort of okay now, or else I’m too exhausted to realize I’m not 🙃 I’d love to meet up now that I’m back, I’ll message you. Thank you for these comments ❤️🩹🙏🏼🥹
Looking forward to it.
Me, too ❤️
I’ll rage.
But I’ll always choose compassion & forgiveness.
Best way to be ❤️🩹❤️
Raging right alongside you, Ally. ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
I know you are and I love you for it ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
Oh Ally, this brought tears to my eyes. I think you're amazing. You've been an incredible daughter to both of your parents and now an incredible sister to your brother. It can't be easy for you, I could only imagine. But I also imagine that you don't know any other way. You always do what is "right" in your eyes. I hope they all appreciated {and still appreciate} you. Sending hugs.
Thank you so much, Debra. My brother and I had a lot of laughs considering how insane the entire week was, and how little sleep I got. For thirty-plus years now, my stepdad has not been able to remember I am vegetarian. It just will not go in, and now more than ever. There really was no time to stop and eat, so a number of times he offered to go out and bring us food back in. I'd ask for a salad or smoothie or pretty much anything without meat. He'd come back with chicken gyros, roast beef sandwiches, egg, cheese and bacon bagels. Then he'd get upset that I wasn't eating. I couldn't bring myself to say anything because his memory is not what it once was. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches more in the last week than the last ten years! It got to be a running joke, we were placing bets on what he'd bring back. Veal Picatta? Lamb Chops? Anyway. They do appreciate me. There are all kinds of layered things like there always are in families, and some things for other essays on other days. Thanks so much for your kind words, and for being here. I appreciate you so much <3
Beautiful and gut wrenching as always. So totally there with you re the rage!
Thank you so much. And yes. The rage is real, sigh. Hugs to you.
Glad you made it back home safely and that huge task is over. I cleaned out my Mom's home and found some letters too. My Dad had basically written a letter to the grandchildren he never knew to let them know how much he loved my Mom even though he divorced her after 22 years to marry someone 22 years younger on the same day of the divorce and then died 5 years later and left everything to the young bride. I guess he thought his 4 children didn't need anything. My Mom's letter to Dad while they were dating doesn't even seem like the person I knew as my Mom. Oh well, speaking of the current news I never thought my husband and I would be spending our golden years in this effed up nightmare we all get to try to sleep in without constant worry. My cat Jack starts on insulin tomorrow. We had an appt today to learn how to give him injections. Hope your stepdad and brother get settled in and enjoy their new place. Get some rest. 💗🤗
There is this whole conversation amongst writers (as I'm sure you well know) about whether to burn or keep journals and letters later in life, especially when grown children will be the ones to sort through them. I will say that all of this has given me a lot to consider, as someone who tends to hold onto letters and cards and old photographs. There are probably things my children don't need to read.
And uh. Your dad, wow. Thanks for the letter to the grandkids? Jeez.
I know not what to say about this chapter we're existing in anymore, Mary. I woke up one morning last week and thought, Nancy Guthrie. I guess we are going to accept that she disappeared and that's it. I know they're still investigating, but it all just feels like this incomprehensible timeline where things happen, and any one of them ought to stop us in our tracks, but there are just so many horrifying things and what are we supposed to do? Your poor cat Jack needs insulin. I have to get laundry detergent today and make dinner for my daughter later. We bombed a girls' school in Iran. I just don't understand anything. But I still believe in kindness, you know? I still think it matters.
Seems like my brother and stepdad are settling in, yes. Thanks so much for being here, Mary. You're such a keeper. Hugs and love <3
Ally this essay is so powerful and moving and sad. And I can relate to packing up your childhood home- I had to do that in 2021 in the midst of the pandemic with my brother and sister and it brought up so many emotions in the midst of all the grief we already had about our mom passing (our dad passed about 20 years earlier). And part of that packing up involved journals and diaries from when i was a kid. Not sure what i am gonna do with them but there are likely time periods that will be destined to be shredded after I have a look at them!
Thank you so much, Sarah. And it really is a thing, packing up the childhood home. It’s so layered. All the photo albums from my childhood, the baby pictures and pictures of me and my mom and and dad and grandma and aunt and uncle and cousins — everything before my mom married my stepdad were in the basement storage cage. And I really cannot imagine that’s a thing he asked her to do. I always felt like I didn’t quite fit anywhere. My mom, stepdad and brother all had the same last name, etc. So you might imagine that tripped an old wire. There were so many things like that, and no time to process, really. So I am exhausted but okay. Glad to be home. Anyway, I appreciate your comments so much. Thank you, and so sorry for the loss of your mom ❤️🩹
Wow that is all so complex and upsetting and overwhelming. My heart goes out to you. ❤️ Do whatever you can to take care of yourself. Here is a video from my YouTube channel - that is mostly videos of calming techniques for working with animals but this is for people. This is a 10 minute guided set of hand positions that can be so incredibly calming and centering in my experience. https://youtu.be/M2kDTUCw5e0 PS your story at the slam was so powerful as well!
Awesome thank you, Sarah ❤️
Several things here--forgiveness, what we have control of--make an appearance in the essay I just wrote a few days ago. Haven't decided whether or not to publish yet. It's always sticky. (Every time!) I'm so glad you're done and on your way home. And so sorry for the painful parts of this visit. And the roots of the past that created that pain. But I'm also so glad you're here and you're you and that you're in my orbit. I'll see your sweet face tomorrow. x
Not at all surprised we're on the same page, we usually are :) Oh! I found something in all the letters and papers you are not going to believe and shipped it home to myself. Sorry for the cliffhanger but I'll take a pic when it gets here. And forgiveness, yes. I'm always a fan of freeing ourselves, of not being stuck in an old story, or plagued by the repercussions of someone else's actions. For me it's never a thing of saying "what that person did was okay" or feeling like you have to have them in your life if they're alive. It's more that you don't want your current life to be clouded by past bs someone did that was a reflection on them, not you. But when the repercussions affect someone you love/d and had an impact on your relationship with them that you can never change, it's tough. Definitely grappling with that one. I'll let you know how it goes, I'll circle back on that in 5 months or 5 years haha. Love you madly.
Ooooh, can't wait for the rest of the story! And forgiveness--yes. All of that. I think we need a new word for it, because my understanding of forgiveness is a clean slate, and it's never that. Lym2!
You have packed a lifetime into this essay. And I agree that it takes a long time to learn we can’t change other people. Life gets a bit easier when we realize this.
It is a wild and piercing thing packing up your childhood home, maybe I am not telling you anything you don't know. There's so much I left out, but that's okay, that's what memoirs are for, ha. And I think it took me decades to figure out the "can't change other people, can't control how people will feel or interpret things or what they will want, etc" but that's okay, too. Glad I figured it out eventually. Thanks so much for being here, Alice. Hugs and love to you <3