Part One: The Kids Aren't Alright...But...[A New Year's Prequel...]

I've been holding my breath since November. Historically, I don't do the holidays well. It's almost as if November through January 1st is my own personal tornado alley...

I have half-written blog posts sitting in limbo. But mostly they are words stuck in my throat, dying on the vine with every sad, half-hearted smile. Because tornadoes.

Little snapshots of wreckage has been strewn all around me...

And quite honestly I am still trying to understand the mess of it all- and the still frames play in my head, spinning 'round like the rings of Saturn, or better still a 1980's 3D View Master- click, focus, click, focus, click, focus, on and on and on.

Click. Focus. Click. Focus. Click. Focus. Click. Focus. ...

November fell into December and it played on repeat...

"...Sometimes I just want to sit around and gaze at my shoes, yeah and let your dirty sadness fill me up just like a balloon; And in the end, I'd do it all again, I think you're my best friend. Don't you know that the kids aren't all right. The kids aren't all alright..." [The Kids Aren't Alright, Fall Out Boy]

Sick. And tired. My faulty heart. Pericarditis. Again. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

We're driving to my favorite LA diner, talking about this and that, and then she asks if I really signed up for Christian Mingle. "I want to hear more about your dating life." ... It was an innocent enough conversation that women tend to have with each other. But mine isn't the kind easily traded over that 90's playlist in LA traffic. And so I dodge the question, while a grenade hits me dead center in my heart. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

I stand there in the porch light, frozen for a moment in this play, in the walk on part that I have just been handed. She's tipsy on her feet. A light-bright pop 80's icon of color. Bursts of words too fast, collapsing into one and other, letters blurred at the ends with a cherry on top. I take her hand and ask the question, "How much doll? How much?" And she smiles, and shakes her head and says to me, "Just enough to take the edge off." I close my eyes. Just enough to take the edge off. Indeed. I invented taking the edge off- it was my signature move. She's sitting there in her yoga pants and her over sized Notre Dame sweatshirt and my god she looks just like me, that girl I was. And for a moment, I feel lost in this reverie- the snapshots of my lonely nights that no one knew of, that sad and small creature, sitting in her pajama's, a bottle in her hand, tears rolling down her face, '1, 2, 3 drink- 1, 2, 3, drink; Keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause I'm just holding on for tonight, help me, I'm holding on for dear life, won't look down, won't open my eyes, keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause I'm just holding on for tonight...' I come back into focus and I take her hand in mine and say, "Coffee, love, we need some coffee. - It's going to be okay. I'm not going to leave you." [...] She's been in the bathroom too long. Too long. Much too long. I feel sick. Because I know. I know what you know when you know this. And I know this. I know this. And I push the bathroom door open and the needle hits the ground and it's so loud. And I hit the floor beside her. And scream. And in the end, I leave. I leave her there. Her sponsor comes but still, I leave her. And it breaks me in two, the leaving. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

It's 11:49 pm on a school night and I should most certainly be asleep, counting sheep in some obscure pattern that is neither here nor there- but I haven't slept in days. I am haunted by the past. By the death in her eyes. The death that was mine. And it tears at me. That cold, black, lifeless stare. Breathe. Just. Breathe. My head circles back to a recent text message whereupon the word strong was draped over me like a superhero's' cape. I smiled, you know, when I read those words, a sad kind of knowing smile that tears little shards of glass into my soul- because truth be told, I am not strong. And in this bed time story, I am no one's heroine- no one's superwoman, blazing forth in glorious wonder while the lesser mortals look on in awe at her feats of strength...No, not that, not that at all-maybe I am just an ordinary girl, small and scared and polished enough to smile when she's told well done, look at you being oh so strong. Good for you. He meant it though, those words, he meant them- that I was strong. I know that and I am trying to measure up to what he sees in me, to what so many people seem to see in me, truly I am- I wonder if that counts for something? [...] But still, my skin itches with the burden of the girl that used to be mine and suddenly it all just feels like failure. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

I am standing in the middle of the Wayfaer and I am asked for the umpteenth time to snap a group photo as I am pointedly alone. It wasn't suppose to be this way. But the 'it's definitely in my calendar', the 'I am pretty sure I'll make it', and the 'I think I should be there'- they all ended with me, party of one, looking around a crowded room, feeling horribly out of place. Wishing that I'd never even bothered to come. The crowd is halfway through "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and I feel the sting of tears on my face, bleeding out streams of sorrow laced saline. And I walk back to my car and cry the whole way home, feeling like a mistake. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

I walk through the door and she starts screaming at me. I know these words by heart. They are nothing new, just variations of the tired one liners in her narcissistic, borderline, narrative. Mental checklist from my mother's loving words: You're so fucking ungrateful. I mean how selfish can you be. You are a mistake {never actually stated but heavily implied.} All you are is nothing but drama, drama, drama. {Drama is code for the fact that my adult life has been spent in a consummate struggle for recovery.} Why can't you be normal. I am so tired of you. Why don't you just die. Really, why don't you just die. Because I am sick of this. You broke my heart. I can never forgive you. Get the hell out of my house. I love you, you're my daughter. Why can't we have a normal relationship. You're just too much. You ruined Christmas. I am done with you. Sometimes I think you're trying to ruin my life. Various other antidotes sprinkled in-between. But for some reason, out of all of it, all I hear is, "You ruined Christmas." And it seems to sink me. More than anything. Those 3 words seem to cut me deeper. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

I am leaving a Christmas party. There is wrapping paper and tinsel strewn across the floor, underneath the restaurant table. It bothers me. It feels wrong to leave it there. And so I begin to try and pick it up. I am met with off-handed criticism. The waitress was tipped very nicely don't you know. I am dismissed. Just leave her to it, it's Jillian's deal. And I am glued to the hardwood floor, grasping the wreckage in my hands and I can't clean it up. I need someone to help me. But all there is, is retreat. And silence. And I sit there on the floor with aching hands, unable to articulate it. I need to be able to clean it up. I need to be able to clean the mess up. Why can't you see that. I need to clean it up. But there are no words. And I swallow back my tears and stand up and my hands let go of the mess and it hits the floor in a soft woosh and I walk out of the restaurant and sit in my car and cry. Because I couldn't clean it up. I can't seem to clean it up, this mess. And as I drive myself home, I seem to give up the ghost. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...


Christmas comes. And goes. I kept myself held together with nothing more than a worn out smile and a faulty heart, and a body filled with the collected debris of little tornadoes.

In the days that followed, I packed a suitcase and drove myself away from this place. I watched as it all grew smaller and smaller still in my rear view mirror. I drove for 244 miles. I slept in a borrowed bed. And let the heaviness of the days past finally settle into my body. And maybe it was just enough to breathe again. Just enough to pick up my camera and see beauty through the dusty lens.

I was still. Just enough to remember how to keep my head up. I was quiet. Just enough to hear myself. Oh my darling, it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. Really, I promise.

And when I packed my suitcase and drove home, I took a pause. And I stood on my own two feet. As tall as my 5 feet, 3 inches could stand. And I closed my eyes as the sun hit my face. And I felt the wind through my hair and I said it out loud. You. Are. Going. To. Be. Okay. I promise. And maybe because I needed to hold onto those words, I snapped a photo. And as I drove home, I felt the spark, that small little spark of something other than disaster. And while it was perhaps nothing more than a poor-man's hope, whatever it was, it was there, rising up inside of me. And it was mine.

It was mine.

And it seemed to speak the words, no, the kids aren't alright. But they will be.

You will be.

You. Will. Be.

And so, I will be. In time. I will be.


-Jillian Nichole, it's going to be alright...

Black & Blue, And A Canvass of White Noise...

[Author's Note: Due to the sensitive nature of this subject matter and being mindful of potential safety concerns for both the people and places represented in this post, I have made an intentional decision to protect all parties and entities with anonymity. -j.n.]

"Now there's gravel in our voices and glasses shattered from the fight; In this tug of war you always win even when I'm right. Cause you feed me fables from your head with violent words and empty threats and it's sick that all these battles are what keeps me satisfied; Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, well that's alright because I like the way it hurts; Just gonna stand there and hear me cry, well that's alright because I love the way you lie; I love the way you lie..." 
[-Skylar Grey]

October marked my skin with the reminders of the past. In ways that I didn't want nor in ways that I did not need. It was everywhere, at least in my world. Buzzwords and articles and even billboards announcing, 'Domestic Violence Awareness Month.'

An endless field of landmines.

It was a lifetime ago when I met her. She was a patient, as was I. We shared a room. We didn't sleep, she or I. It was the monsters underneath the bed, you know, the things that go bump in the night. And so we talked those hours away, chasing our demons away with words and lessons learned and sorrow upon sorrow, and the resolute promise of never again. Never again.

I admired her. She was a strong woman. Hers was a story that would break you. But as she would tell it, it broke her, yes, but it also built her.

Even in writing this, it seems strange to me that we have been friends for years but it is a quiet friendship, void of social media, no Snapchats, no Facebook banter, no Instagram pictures. They are her rules, not mine. And while she knows that I am writing this, she has imposed the rule of anonymity- one of which I would have followed just the same.

I remember in the early days of my sobriety journey last year, those horrific moments, face in the mirror, the bruises, my hands frantically trying to assure the woman staring back at me that it was all finished now, those were merely the phantom ghosts of Jillian Past.

I called her on the phone, "What did you do?" "How did you get through it?" "Am I going crazy, I swear I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind."

And she was calm. And steady. "I talked about it. I talked and I talked and I talked until my voice was louder than his hands. And I did not stop talking. And no love, you are not going crazy, you are getting well, one fractured memory at a time."

But I do not talk about certain chapters of my life, that is my rule.

****

A few months passed. I was a little stronger, not as easily broken by the memories. But I was not her. And I did not have her courage. Nor did I want her courage. No thank you, I do not want what you are selling. My account is overdrawn. End of story.

Only it's never really the end. Not for her. And certainly not for me. And not for the women like us.

Years earlier, after the hospital, she started her own version of a women's shelter and support group. She asked me to come. I politely told her that I didn't do groups. She said that she understood. But then she asked one thing of me, there is a girl, a little slip of a thing, she doesn't talk much, she reminds me of you, if not for your own healing, would you come for hers.

It would be a sentence, one of many, that would haunt me for years.

"If not for your own healing, would you come for hers."

****

Present: January 2017

It was in the cold of January this year present that she called me and asked me to come again. She has a fierce heart for her girls as it were and as we've maintained our connection, there was a part of me that always knew that one day she would call and she would ask of me the one thing that I could not give. Not ever again anyway. I told her that it was not a good time, that I was not as grounded as I would need to be, that my sobriety was fragile. And after the long line of other things that I listed out for why I could not come- I steeled myself against the memories and I said there was no way in hell that I would come. And furthermore hell would freeze over before I willingly step foot in that place again.

As it turned out, hell froze over like an artic tundra. And we all felt the ripple of the ice on our bodies...

"J, she came in last night. She's so much like her. I need you to come. We all have that one person that pulls us off this ledge, I know you know that- she needs you. Please"

She needs you. Just like the she that came before her.

I read those words and threw up on the sidewalk outside of the local Sprouts with a small trickle of curios stares passing by.

And I got into my car and drove. I drove for two hours and forty-seven minutes until I was sitting in a cemetery a few cities away. Thinking about a girl who is now six feet under. And a time that was a lifetime ago.

When they laid her in the ground on that October day a few years back, I swallowed down the dirt of guilt and buried the words in my mouth and sealed my lips shut like a mausoleum...

****

Past: August 2007

It was a warm August day. The sun hung high in the sky against a backdrop of marbled blue. The smell of fresh cut grass. Bright, cheerful flowers. An ordinary house, in an ordinary neighborhood, on an ordinary street. It was all so normal. A Norman Rockwell slice of suburbia. A clever facade to evade detection. It was just like long sleeves on arms that had been gripped to the point of breaking. It was a mirage. Because that is the trick of it all, smoke and mirrors and bright smiles. It is all so normal...

Crossing the threshold, it was filled with thrift store couches and tables and lamps and this and that; and thrift store hope that lingered over strong black coffee.

She really was a little slip of a thing. Nervous. Quiet as a church mouse. Her ivory cream skin still bearing the tint of yellows, blues, purples- the fading relics of the life she was running from.

I sat across from her, holding a Garfield mug that said "I hate Mondays."

To this day, I feel sick if I see that caricature.

Her hair was dark and long and a tangled mess of curls; Her eyes set wide, a brilliant green.  I always marveled that she was like a living doll. If I'm honest, I will tell you that there are times that I swear I still see her in the faces of other girls.

I talked. She listened. We cried. It was a strange dance.

I would spend countless hours with her over the next few weeks. Drinking coffee and courage.

In the years that have followed, what I came to understand is that you do not get to control the outcome.

It was a little over two months when I would get the call that came in the dead of the night.

I did not go to the funeral. There would have been too many questions and not enough answers.

****

I did not want anything more to do with that place and I said as much.

I know she understood. She wasn't immune to the pain. But as I said on my way out the door for the last time, it was her mission, not mine. It was never mine.

We didn't speak for awhile. I was a merry-go-round of disaster. And she remained this clam, solid, determined force to pull her girls from the burning fire as it were.

Have you ever lived in hell, I wonder? It is no easy feat to reach into that pit and pull body after body after body out. It will at some point burn you. Or incinerate you.

Looking back, I could see the singes on her tired fingers, the smoke in her lungs, the soot in the dark circles of her eyes. I could see the burn.

And I thought of the woman that I was then. And there she stood, ash to ash and dust to dust, a cremated surrender.

****

Present: January 2017

It was surreal driving up that street. Walking up that driveway. Knocking on that door. Sitting at that table. Drinking coffee in those thrift store mugs.

She really was so much like her. It hurt to look at her. I told her that I could not save her. I told her that only she could save herself. I told her that silence was her enemy and words were her strength.

She asked me questions. And I answered in no particular order. It was a painful stream of consciousness:

Document everything.
If you go back, please understand that it could be the last time.
I told her about the other her. It was her last time.
Love does not hurt, and fear is not love.
It's all so fucking cliché.
He will first break your sense of self and when he does that, he will move on to wage a war of isolation and image.
He will take everything away from you and you will drown in aloneness while from the outside looking in, you will be the perfect couple.
And you will tell yourself time and time again that he really loves you, he does. And it's your fault, you should know better than to say that or wear those clothes, or not do that, etc.
The first time his hands strike you, you will blame yourself because the shock of it will be too much- and by this time he will have broken you to the point of doubt, confusion, and fear.
He will almost never hit you in the face and when he does, the bruises that confront him will only make him angrier and more sorry just the same.
He will apologize, he might even go as far as putting his hand on a bible or a gun to his head while he apologizes and begs you to forgive him.
He will always find a way to blame you even when he is apologizing.
It will only ever get worse.
One day he might even try to kill you.
Because it will go too far.
Because history and experience will tell you this- once this starts, if you do not get out at the first signs of danger, it will go too far.
IT WILL GO TOO FAR.

I looked her in the eyes and I knew that she knew; she knew what I knew and I in turn knew what she knew. And we sat in that space together, both of us on fire.

We talked a few more times after that day.

She asked me if I would make her a promise so that she would always know that someone was fighting for her; she asked me to promise to not stay silent. She said that she heard how I was asked to come before, you know not for your own healing, but for hers, and she said to me it was because you came back that I am listening- please, she said, please promise me that you won't stop speaking.

I promised with certain stipulations. It was the best I could offer.

And she accepted.

It was in February that I would find out that she moved to a town in the mid-west, close to her extended family. I smiled. And I cried. She got out.

She got out.

It was a bittersweet circle.

****

Present: November 2017

These days that ordinary house, on that ordinary street, in that ordinary neighborhood is quiet. She made arrangements for the girls that she was looking after to be referred out to different shelters and such. Her past came calling. And she has had to move out of state. Mostly she has made herself into an ghost these days and I don't hear from her at all save for the exception of a random unmarked postcard. I think of her and I imagine that in her own way she is still full of moxie. Still searching out the burning houses, still waiting to be a rescue when called upon. She has taught me a lot in that respect. But again I am not her. Mine is still a house yet burning, at least in memories.

****

I am disinclined to discuss the details of my experiences with domestic violence. Because while the memories will always live inside of me, I do not want to live in the memories.

Once in awhile if I step on a landmine, I will talk. Mostly to my journal, at times to my therapist. I try to conjure up a wisp of her fierceness and in my own way talk about it, talk until my voice, my words, is/are louder than his/their hands.

So, what can I tell you of domestic violence?

It is emotional abuse in the highest form. It is a complex game of psychological warfare. It is a dirty little secret and an elephant in the room. And it can happen to anyone.

It can happen to ANYONE.

You will never forget that first moment when that one person that you trusted, that one person that you thought you knew, that one person that you felt safe with, that one person that you thought you loved- you will never forget the impact nor the imprint of his hands when all of those things lay shattered at your feet on the floor in a sea of broken glass. And you never saw it coming.

YOU NEVER SAW IT COMING.

Some women leave, never again to return. But most stay. And the world will always ask why, why did you stay?

Because domestic violence at it's core is a systematic indoctrination of guilt and shame: I did something wrong, I deserve this, This is all my fault.

And it works.

And it takes extraordinary outside and inside influences to break free.

And when you break free, there will almost always be apart of you that is one foot in and one foot out.

I can tell you about this, this strange and terrible duality-

There will be triggers. And you don't get to control the triggers.

One day you could be standing on aisle 3 in the supermarket and the couple at the end of the aisle are having an argument and the man raises his voice- and it's just the right tone and pitch- and suddenly you're a millions miles away in another place, on another day, wearing different clothes, and you hit the floor and your groceries fall and you're waiting for it, for that sting of his hands, and you lose time waiting- until suddenly you're back in your own body and you feel the hand of the store manager on your shoulder as he's asking you if you're okay and do you need him to phone 911. And you'll shake your head and run as fast as you can out of the store and get to the car and throw up on yourself while you cry.

I did not return to that supermarket for a good three months.

And then there is the loophole of all of your future relationships with men, be they friends, or significant others.

You will learn to trust these men. And you will tell yourself that you do trust them. Because you will have observed them carefully and engaged with them cautiously.

But the catch, the loophole is that when you are alone with them, you will always look for the signs. You will look for anger, you will measure it, you will watch closely the body language, you will listen intently for the tone, you will wonder to yourself, what will I do that will make this man hit me.

What will I do. WHAT WILL IT TAKE.

And it will break your heart. Because these men are not those men.

But you will wonder just the same.

It won't always be as pronounced and there might even be times when you can feel 99.9% safe with these men. Because you do know them and they are good men- but you don't get to control the trigger.

One foot in and one foot out...

****

We do not fight this war with our hands. We fight this war with our words.

We fight in little rebellions everyday.

We speak. Louder. And louder. And louder still, until our voices are stronger than their hands.

This is how we survive.

This is how we heal.

And this is my voice, small though it may be, standing with my sisters, fighting on.

And as I promised her, I will keep speaking in time.

-Jillian Nichole, speaking...

#MeToo; When Good Men Do Nothing...

Part One: #MeToo

I want to say something.

I want to say something out loud.

I want to scream it.

I want to open my mouth and let it all fall out.

And never stop speaking it.

But hey, I'm just a nice girl who doesn't make waves don't you know.

And let's not forget what you told me, what all the people that came before you have told me- "Maybe you shouldn't dwell on it. It's in the past, move on. Stop being a victim..."

Well hey there sexual abuse and rape culture- you're pretty clever because the quickest way to silence a woman is to shame her. And it sure does the trick nicely, wouldn't you agree?

So here we are...

#MeToo

I waited for awhile to publicly stand with a sisterhood of women that were brave enough to say it out loud. I thought that because I have generally been pretty open that maybe it was better to refrain for once. After all, I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings- and by and in large, I would and have protected other people's feelings before my own.

And yet the fact remained that I kept seeing the hashtags- the stories- the pain- the deep ache of wounds that have been stitched up only to be ripped wide open again, and again, and again- so many times that that you loose count. And I kept seeing the invitation- that if EVERY woman would post their #MeToo story than collectively our voices might be heard and the men in our lives would be able to see and understand the sheer magnitude of this issue.

I thought about what I would say if I said anything at all. I wrestled with it. I lost sleep. I didn't eat. I relived my own #MeToo montage and I could not find the pause button. The weight of it intertwined itself into the depression that I've been fighting against. And it was relentless. And I started to think about all of the people in my life who have called me brave and surely this was a moment that demanded I be brave and so I closed my eyes and took a breath and wrote some words down.

I read my own words and wept bitterly for that woman as if she were not me and I was not her. And when the weeping gave way to that old familiar dry and thirsty longing, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that I did not find any value in myself, that I was as used up as a rusted car in an abandoned boneyard. And it hurt. It still does. Beyond any words that I have in my lexicon. And it made me sick, and I fell to my knees on my bathroom floor and vomited out the poison of my truth. And when I was done, I stood up and washed my face and I owned those words and I told myself to be brave for that woman, the woman that I was robbed of.

And in the wake of my words came the apologies. The "I never knew that x, y, z, about you. And if I..."

If I. ... If I. ... If I. ... If I. ... If I. ...

Not I am or When I or For the....

Do you see where I'm going with this?

There was a sentiment of hesitation as if to say I do not think that I have done anything wrong but I feel bad about what you said because hey I didn't know-

It was a curious thing to ponder, that had they never known, would they have ever felt the need to even bother with their half-hearted, semi-apologies, I wonder?

The transference of guilt was inevitable. Victimology 101- when a woman has been a recipient of trauma, she will at some point succumb to 'it was all my fault'.

And the apologies marched into the tangled web of my daily psychological warfare and suddenly I was responding with vigor- no, I know you didn't mean to, you're not that bad, it's okay...etc.

And then came the bounce back, you know that sudden burst of anger, the one that you suffocate because it burns so deep in your bones that it scares the hell out of you because you just know that you are ANGRY. SO FUCKING ANGRY. But hey, you're still a nice girl, so here's some polite anger.

And so it was that I found myself writing out more words for public consumption. I didn't want another apology. I couldn't stand another "If I"- What I needed as a survivor of this wreckage was for one man to own his actions, even just one. Because quite frankly the parade of "If I's" was only furthering the damage.

The backlash came. Little boys pretending to be men threw rocks and called names and took their toys and went home.

And I collected myself and curled up in the pain of it all. And tried to cry out the guilt that wasn't mine to own, but mostly, it remained. And that worthlessness filled me up and sunk me like the Titanic.

Wednesday found me wide awake and having a 3am party with PTSD. And so I did the only thing that I know how to do when I need to let it out, I wrote. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote until it flowed like a river, my broken heart.

And this was where I stood at 4am:

"Waiting"

Close your eyes
Take a breath
Tell me now how you’re sorry for
The words you said
Those things you did
The way you never saw me as anything more
Than
A good time
A little fun
No big deal
An easy one
And oh so convenient-
Now here we are
We’ve turned the page
And did the writing on the wall make you think of me
And did you try to justify your way around it
And tell me this,
Does it hurt you at all to think about it
Because here we are
I’ve never the turned the page
And it went round and round and round inside my head
How I was nothing more than a Barbie doll
That little boys could break or bend
But hey, it was just a good time
And wasn’t it fun
No big deal
Cleary a girl like me is just an easy one
And oh so convenient-
Because life taught me well to shut my mouth and play along
And I close my eyes
And take a breath
Because darling it hurts me to think about it
And once upon a time I dreamed of white dresses
But after all these years
And these hands
And these words
And these things that I don’t speak
Maybe now all I know is how to clean up messes
That were never of my own making
Now here we are
Looking at these pages
And I wonder if you had never read my confessions
If I were still just a girl that was in your once upon a time memories
Would you have still thought that maybe what you did wasn’t right-
And even still
The words are weak
Because if you, and if you, and if you, and if you, and if you-
And somehow it still falls back on me
And once upon a time, it was a long time ago
When I was just a little girl
There was a darkness whispered into me
And year after year, it would not give way to another ending
And so I am who I am
And I stand where I stand
And don’t you know, I’m still waiting for
A good man to be a good man
Because don’t you know
For me it’s not over
After all the apologies
Because I still let you make me guilty
Isn’t that funny, how it works
But darling, I don’t expect you to understand
Because hey, you didn’t know
And maybe even so, it doesn’t really matter what you know about me-
And darling, don’t you know it hurts to think about it
The truth between the lines
And close your eyes
And take a breath
It’s just the way the story goes
Now here we are
And I meant it when I said
What needs to be forgiven, I forgive
But tell me this,
And please look me in the eyes when you say it
So I can see your truth-
After all the writing on the wall
Does it hurt you at all to think about it
Because it hurts me to think about it
And we’ll turn the page
And you’ll walk away
But darling, please know for me
It still hurts to think about it
And if you are who you said you are
Who you want to be
Than please know
I’ll be here still waiting
For a good man
To be a good man
And I’ll keep writing on this wall
Until it crumbles and it falls
And maybe then we can all begin again
Because here we are
And maybe now, I think I’d like to begin again
And don’t you know, I'm still waiting for a good man

To be a good man.

Part Two: When Good Men Do Nothing

By Thursday, the emotional toll of the last few days fell down on me like bricks. And I was at the end of myself. Like the END. Like I tap out. Like I'm going to go close my eyes and not wake up. How's that for real talk?

When you live with the weight of the kind of trauma that I have walked through, there is not a day that passes where you are not having to deal with it on some level. What no one tells you about sexual abuse or rape is that it is a life sentence. PTSD will be your new bff- and you'll never be able to break up because whereas you want nothing more than to walk away from it all, it will never walk away from you. Some days will be easier than others. In my case, I medicated 30 plus years worth of trauma, after trauma, after trauma, after trauma- and I never faced it until last year. I have been a woman set on fire and it is still burning, that fire, with no end in sight. Because it will take time to settle. So much time. Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day.

But sometimes there is a weight that is so heavy, you want to call a cease fire. Because you cannot take one more day of this.

I didn't want to fight back against it anymore.

I sat in my room on the floor curled into myself. Nothing was safe. I was afraid of myself. I was afraid of that ringing in my head. I was afraid of the calmness. I was afraid that it didn't matter anymore. I was afraid that I didn't matter anymore. I was afraid to move. I was afraid to breathe. I held my phone in my hands. I didn't want to exist. I didn't want to...

But a wise friend once told me when you are ready for the jump, always take a pause.

And so I found myself reaching out to one of the only people that speaks truth to me in a way that I can hear it. And I drove down to Dana Point and met Rick, one of my former Solmar Recovery treatment counselors at Harbor House.

And we talked, and talked, and talked.

And he listened intently and intentionally.

And he spoke some truth into me. And he told me of former patients, their stories similar to mine and of their healing.

And he spoke words that I have heard several times before- Jillian, it was not your fault. It was not your fault. Jillian, you need to forgive yourself. Jillian, you will get to the other side.

And I heard it, those words. I heard it.

After our goodbyes, I drove to Dana Point Harbor and watched the ocean. And those words remained. And they seemed to echo in the crashing tides. It was not my fault. It was not my fault. It was NOT my fault. And I allowed myself to let those words be. I let them sit with me in that quiet space, on that solitary rock and that ocean filled with the voices of broken & brave women, myself included.

I stayed until I could taste the salt on my skin and the torrent of grief on my lips. And then I drove home in the company of a quiet fragile hope.

Friday found me sitting on the brown couch across from my therapist, Heather, and as we talked about the events of the week from the #MeToo post and subsequent fallout and my time with Rick and my ability to finally begin to hear the message of "It was not your fault," there were a few things that rose up...

As I have watched my social media accounts fill up and overflow with these #MeToo stories, I was waiting for something to happen, I was waiting for the good men in the room to stand up, to speak up.

And yet it has been a silent, barren landscape.

And that silence is loud.

And that silence is disturbing.

And that silence conveys a message.

And whether it is acknowledged or not, that silence is damning and damaging to each and every one of the women who have said #MeToo.

I spoke of this silence with Heather. I told her that for me, it was sad and painful that the men in my life, men that I know to be generally good guys have stayed silent. Because their silence has caused me to question if they are in fact good men? Because their own silence on this matter, says that it's no big deal, that it doesn't matter, that it's not valid, that it's not their problem.

As women we were asked to be brave and stand up and up and speak out against the violations that we have endured in our lives. And we did. And the echo rippled across the ethos, long and loud. And we waited for the echo to circle back.

I wonder how it is that a good man could read these confessions and not be bothered by them?

I wonder if they were even paying attention?

I wonder if they read these posts and told themselves, I'm a good guy, this doesn't apply to me.

I wonder...

Because the truth of the matter is that age old adage:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." 
[-Edmund Burke]

For. Good. Men. To. Do. Nothing.

I wonder if the men in my life know how much I desperately need them to do SOMETHING.

Because I am waiting for them, for those good men to be good men.

You know, I spent some time thinking about this earlier and what I have been longing for in this whole #MeToo conversation is that men would engage in this- Because ultimately they are the ones that have the power to make or break this- And here's the thing, it doesn't even have to be an apology- sure maybe you haven't been one of those men- but you could be the man that stands up and says publically- "I have read your words. I am grieving for you. I am grieving with you. It was not your fault. I hear you. I am listening. I will strive to be a better man..."

It's a simple enough script. One that would take less than five minutes of your time. But one that would potentially leave an lasting impact on that one woman who needs to know that her story matters and that you are standing up for her.

While in session, my therapist Heather pointed out something significant to me- that during my conversation with Rick- he was sitting in the mess with me-

And doesn't that make all the difference- to be in it with someone. I think so.

The reality of this beautiful and messy #MeToo movement is that as with all hashtag movements, it will eventually fade away and be replaced with the next latest and greatest cause.

But for all of us, for all of the #MeToo's, it will not be over.

I want to say something.

I want to say it out loud.

I want to scream it.

I want to open my mouth and let it all fall out.

And never stop speaking it.

Because I need you to hear me.

I need to know that you are listening.

We are your mothers. We are your daughters. We are your sisters. We are your girlfriends. We are your wives. We are your colleagues. We are your friends.

Do you see us? Do you hear us? Do you believe that our stories matter?

Because we are waiting for you. And we need you. We need you to sit in this mess with us.

How much healing could begin if good men would but stand up and speak into this abyss of evil.

So here's my question, will the good men in the room please stand up?

Because we are waiting.

I am waiting...

-Jillian Nichole, waiting.

Boston...

"In the light of the sun, is there anyone? Oh, it has begun...Oh dear, you look so lost, your eyes are red and tears are shed, this world you must've crossed; You said you don't know me, and you don't even care, oh yeah, and you said you don't know me, and you don't wear my chains; She said I think I'll go to Boston, I think I'll start a new life, I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name..." [-Augustana]

Dublin International Airport

The customs officer is looking at me, my hands are trembling, just slightly. Less nerves. More emotion. His eyes are a soft cornflower blue, and his accent, like a familiar song to me by now- he smiles as he hands me back my passport and says to me "And did you like our fair city now, Jillian from California?" And my voice is a whisper, "Yes, very much so. I should very much like to come back someday." And he nods his head and as I pass through the gate he says "We'll be here to welcome you back when you do. Safe travels now."

It was all only ever suppose to be a dream.

This, Ireland.

Ireland.

But here I sit at the Delta gate in the Dublin Airport, waiting to board a Boston bound flight to carry me back home to the States. Here, I sit saturated in the flesh and bone reality of living this dream these two weeks last.

And I know now that I cannot go back.

I cannot go back to that woman that I was before this moment.

I can no longer be the woman that felt herself content at the thought of settling for a dream.

I can no longer be the woman who as Dumbledore might have said of her, dwelled on dreams, forgetting to live.

Because she woke up, that woman, she woke up on a Saturday morning, on the 2nd of September and she boarded a flight bound for Amsterdam which led her on to another flight that took her to Ireland.

And after years of sleeping, she woke up.

And it changed her, irrevocably, this waking.

It changed her.

I am pondering the sheer enormity of this thought, it changed me, this changed me, when I hear the boarding call for my flight.

For a split second, I can't make my feet move.

My body is crying out, no, no, I can't go back.

It feels as though once I take that seat, it may very well erase the woman that I have awoken to.

I close my eyes. I breathe. In. And out.

How different this moment than that of the one two weeks prior.

How different indeed.

And yet the collision of that moment and this moment is found in the same echoing of baby steps, get on the plane. Breathe. Baby steps, just breathe.

And so I do...

****

Boston Logan International Airport

After an 8 hour flight, I am in for a 5 hour layover and the only coherent thought that I am capable of at this moment is that of, I need coffee.

I am tired. I am emotionally spent. And I NEED coffee.

I am standing in line at Starbucks wishing for something that might remind me that it was real, Ireland. Because the tired has set in. The cold has descended. The heaviness of this life that I live present day has been roused and I feel it gnawing at me, this life where I feel like a constant mistake, and it begins to pull at the fabric of that treasured tapestry that Ireland built into me, as if this layover is some kind of litmus test to the vitality of my seemingly new narrative.

And when the Starbucks kid condescendingly informs me that I cannot have a cappuccino freddo because it's like this, we're not in Europe yo and like welcome back to the States, so what else are you having because I've got a line lady? I feel my hands clench while my heart sinks and I say, just an ice coffee, while a tear slides down my face and think to myself, well, there you go, you failed...

I walk away with my ice coffee, aimless.

My body is a solid weight of nervous kinetic energy. I walk in circles. And when the circles give way, I walk in disconnected patterns. Down the escalator, past the long passenger corridor, up the escalator. Past the Sabarro Pizza. Past the Boston News Store. Past the drinking fountains. Past the West Jet gates. And I turn around and walk back to where I started from. I walk this loop about five times. And somewhere along the way, I finally take notice of some large white wooden rocking chairs and I simply collapse into one.

I close my eyes and the world becomes still. And for a moment, I am caught up inside a memory, well a montage really, a broken stream of moments, all of the moments that led to this moment:

I was 17 years old crying myself to sleep for the umpteenth time, the hallmark of my fractured childhood- and as I lay there in my bed, staring out at the moon, I closed my eyes and transported myself to Ireland.

Shadows of my tumultuous 20's. Always holding on to this wisp of a dream in the blackness...

And then there was that ultimate dark night, Arizona. Keep holding on, that is what I told myself through those first few years.

That night I woke up in the detox unit at Hoag Hospital after severe addiction complications.

The 172 days of treatment that followed.

The days and nights of putting myself and my life back together that came after those 172 days.

And that Wednesday- it was 3:37 in the morning, when my fingers pressed the confirm button for a round trip plane ticket from Los Angeles to Dublin.

To that April afternoon where I sat in a doctor's office hearing the news that my heart was really sick, that I was really sick.

At the crux of it all, I had every reason to not go.

But then again, at the crux of it all, I had every reason to go.

It was a paradoxical tug-o-war inside my head up until the night I was packing my suitcase.

I had wondered if I was merely running away from my life because I am a runner after all.

But life happened in Ireland.

And life beget life, beget life.

And for the first time in my thirty plus years, I lived the most authentic version of myself that I have ever known.

I lived.

And I lived it well.

And so maybe sitting in this rocking chair in Boston, what I know now is that I was not running away from something, I was running towards something.

I was running towards myself.

And with that seemingly significant thought, I walk back to the Delta gate.

And I feel a resolve building inside of my fragile being, that this is not the end of that woman that Ireland built, no this is not the end.

And I close my eyes, and put my headphones in and sing out softly, "I think I'll go Boston, I think I'll start a new life, I think I'll start it over..."

I hear the boarding call for my flight. 6 hours to California. Back to where I started from.

It's not the end.

And I take my seat and watch Boston fade into the clouds and think, no, no, it's not the end, it's just the beginning.

Somehow, someway, I will keep this woman alive, one breath at a time.

I promise.

-Jillian Nichole, it's just the beginning.

Everything Rides on Hope Now...

"When my life is like a storm, rising waters all I want is the shore; You say I'll be okay and make it through the rain; You are my shelter from the storm; Everything rides on hope now, everything rides on faith somehow; When the world has broken me down, your love sets me free; I'm not my own, I've been carried by you all my life..." [-Addison Road]

I am walking up to Malahide Castle on a seemingly picture perfect day. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, I pause myself mid-step and breathe in some kind of lightness that I have never known in myself before this very second. And I stand here, a thirsty girl, drinking in this postcard that I should like to write to myself years from now about this moment, on this day, when all the world was safe and warm and dripping in the holiness of ordinary miracles like that of a girl who stood in the glow of the sun while the wind danced around her as she smiled for the pure joy of smiling and I will say to that girl, you were here my darling, you were here. Because years from now, this, all of this will surely seem a dream that I will rouse myself from, only to wish for it for the rest of my days. And so I stand here, committing this all into the marrow of my bones, inking these very coordinates where my feet stand, 53.44494'N, -6.164586'E- into my veins, so that I will never lose the infinite joy that I feel right here, right now.

I walk through the day with an awakening unfolding in my soul. Because at the end of this road that I have been walking, what I know now is that these days and these nights have been reviving me, bringing me back to life with each step off the beaten path and while I am keenly aware that tomorrow will find me on plane back home to an uncertain future, in a life that I am still trying to own, today is for the living, today is for hope and so...

I sip tea as if  am entertaining royalty.

I sit in the old butterfly greenhouse on the Talbert Estate at Malahide Castle, forgetting to keep time, mesmerized by the stunning grace of fragile wings.

I trace the old stones beneath my fingers as if I am learning a new kind of poetry.

I find that there are moments where I click the shutter frame on my camera, looking through the lens, as if I had never seen beauty before.

I seem to listen to the world in a new way as if I am discovering a new song, one that I will love for my whole life, the one that I will come back to and play again, and again, and again, and never grow tired of hearing the beat because that beat will be timed to the beat of my own heart, of that much I am certain.

And as the sun begins to fade over this technicolor postcard, I make my way down to the old marina wall in Malahide Village, and I walk in step beside the quiet solitude of the Irish Sea, heart cast out into the water deep, vowing that I will learn to be a sailor of these tides, that I will know them one day as sure as I know my own name.

As I am walking back to my cozy little room in my Marina Village Air B&B, the words girl in me begins to unravel a thread of her complex thoughts:

I carried this dream for over 15 years, Ireland.

And I've spent the last two weeks, walking it out, flesh and bone.

Each part of this strange and wonderful journey was it's own thread, weaving into the existing tattered fabric of my being, building into me some kind of sacred tapestry, a living, breathing, waking, Ebenezer that I will carry with me as I walk forward:

Dublin was grit: Dublin said to me, come my darling, let me show you what you are made of. You were made for something more than safe and sound, you my darling, were made for standing on the edge of a wild and fierce world, yours is a strength formed of fire, a fragile, unyielding grace, that's whispers of brave, messy, stunning grit. Yes, my darling, grit, carry this thread and let it remind you that come what may, you will stand your ground and hold your own. Always.

And Cork was heart: Cork held me in her arms and whispered, come my darling, break, break wide open and grieve for the things that grieve you but do not go into that dark night alone. She said to me, your heart is broken but oh my darling, you are not, drink from that cup that runneth over inside of you, that tender place that aches for belonging, lean into that my dearest, for that is the heart that beats inside of us all, a connected beat wherein strangers are merely friends that you have yet to meet; I know that once upon a time that part of you was so deeply damaged, forgive that wrong, and let is be so again, that you should walk through this world, heart wide open, able to give the best of yourself and to receive in full measure and with each step, allow it to fill you up; Heart my darling, this broken, aching, beautiful, redemption work of the heart, this is my thread, carry it with open hands, and let it remind you that even our broken pieces matter. Always.

Edinburgh was magic: Edinburgh was an ancient incantation pulsing through my veins, oh my darling, up! Wake up! Believe in this ordinary magic that is all around you, ever flourishing. Let yourself let go of who you think you ought to be, I dare you. Be that playful girl with messy hair, the one who jumped in leaves and stained her clothes with puddles of wonder mixed in every splash of mud, that girl who laughed until she was clear out of breath, the one who did all of these things and then did them all over again, losing herself to this magic. Color outside the lines that you have drawn yourself into and set free that captive, wild child in your soul, let her out into the sun again, free to cause merry making and mischief, but above all my darling, set her free so that she might live her life wide awake, believing in the magic that she alone can create. Always.

And Malahide was hope: Malahide was the pulsing resilient beat of this rising song in my blood that sang out to me, oh my darling, it is a beautiful redemption, this story of yours, take my hand and hold on tight, hold on my darling, just a little bit longer, this is a good story, keep walking. There will be days in the days ahead where storms will surely rage but remember that this hope that has been ignited in your bones is eternal, darkness no matter how dark cannot be obscured by the light, so hold on tenaciously to this thread, this audacious hope of yours. Always.

Grit.

Heart.

Magic.

Hope.

And it was all so much more than I could have ever imagined. It was all so much more for a girl like me, who used to fall asleep at night, dreaming of a spot on the map, of this place that to her was her own little lighthouse in the dark of her life.

The lights are flickering in the window by my bed. My eyes are heavy and I find myself marveling at something that I had said two weeks prior to my therapist Heather, it was all only ever supposed to be a dream, I told her.

It was all, only, ever supposed to be a dream, Ireland...

And I fall asleep, holding the depth and with of it in my arms thinking, what a lovely dream, this, what a lovely dream, and hope rises in me as I let go and give in...

-Jillian Nichole, everything rides on hope now...

When Life Hands You Lemons...

I am standing at the Ryanair desk reminding myself that love does not express itself in violence and I love people, truly, I do- but I do not love this...

I force myself to exit the curricular and frustrating conversation that I'd been attempting to have with the Ryanair agent and I sit in a daze at the Edinburgh airport watching suitcases and children and flight crew and rain.

Think, I need to think...

After about twenty minutes of this kind of dazed, anti-climactic thinking, I stand up with no particular convictions on where to go but I walk until I find someone that looks infinitely more official and human than the lady I had been speaking with. After a brief review of my current predicament, I am pointed to the Swissport desk as they are the big brother so to speak of Ryanair.

I am having more annoying arrhythmia issues, still battling a fever, my anxiety is absolutely tapped, and I am done. I am done with this. So. Done. And I take a deep breath and march my little 5'3 inches of doneness up to the Swissport lady and I launch into my tired spiel of "Please for the love of god, help me..."

It's rather like a volleyball match...

Swissport lady: "I can get you on the Glasgow flight tomorrow at 8:30a..."

Me: "Okay, yes, I understand that but how am I supposed to get to Glasgow?"

Swissport lady: "There's a bus service that can take you to the Glasgow Airport."

Me: "I can't take a bus, I don't think you understand, I have a heart condition, I am not doing very well, and I. CAN. NOT. take the bus..."

Swissport lady: "I have five seats left on this flight, so do you want me to confirm you?"

Me: "Is that really the best you can do for me?"

Swissport lady: "I'm afraid so..."

Me: *Sniffling* "Fine, just do it. I guess I'll be taking the bus. But please, I'm really very ill and I can't spend the night in the airport, please, I am literally begging you to help me, please..."

At this point, we have been volleying for almost forty-five minutes because in between words, I have been gripping the desk whilst trying not to cry- so each one of these exchanges are timed between deep breaths and silence...

I don't know what it is but as that small, strangled please rolls off my tongue, the Swissport lady looks at me and says resolutely, "Okay, let me see what I can do. Come back to me in an hour."

I walk to Starbucks and order a coffee. I resign myself to the 3 hour bus ride to Glasgow and a very long night at the Glasgow Airport.

As my favorite boss Joe used to say to me, suck it up cupcake. Because when life hands you lemons, you take the bus to Glasgow.

I console myself with the fact that at least I'll be on the morning flight to Dublin.

I walk back to the Swissport desk, infinitely more clam than when I left. And as I see the Swissport lady, our eyes meet and then she disappears and I think to myself, this is not good, she's running away from me...

But to my surprise, she actually meets me where I'm standing and tells me her good news. "I have arranged a stay for you at the Travelodge at Glasgow Airport and I have secured you a private car hire and you have dinner and breakfast vouchers at the hotel."

I am so overcome with gratitude that I throw myself at her in a very undignified display of emotion, the Scots are not a hugging lot mind you, and she pats at me in the most utterly amused fashion while I continue to utter, thank you, thank you, thank you...

My Swissport angel walks me to the car hire and I am off to Glasgow.

It is a quicker 2 hour drive sans the bus and before I know it, I have arrived.

I am a bit sad that I am missing a day in Malahide but even so, I find that I am grateful for this unexpected detour.

Edinburgh taught me a few things, and while I am not quite ready to fully articulate the lessons, I know that in the series of near disasters over the last four days, it seems that I have learned something important about myself that I had not known before, something that speaks of an inner capableness that I am quite sure that I never knew existed in my being up to this point.

All in all it is a strange detour, this quiet day in Glasgow. A long day. A day I chose to interpret as the gift of rest.

As the night draws to a close, I am packed and ready for my early morning flight back to Dublin and I crawl into my borrowed bed at the Travelodge at the Glasgow Airport, grateful for the lemons while dreaming of lemonade...

-Jillian Nichole, making lemonade in Glasgow...

Blow It Up & Burn It Down...

"All my hopes and memories are blowing in the wind, I started off with nothing and I'm back here once again; The little things in life are free, the simple things, like you and me; Like love, like love; It's okay to start again cause change is gonna come, nothing ever stays the same, it's not like we're still young; Let's blow it up and burn it down so we can stand alone, fear of change, no fear of the unknown..." [-Amy MacDonald]

Thursday, September 14th, 2017...

It is a wild and untamed land, something out of a Burns poem, the highlands. It is magic in the most complex manor. It is a people that still carry the weight of folklore and superstitions. The Loch Ness Monster, the river horse, the fairies, the bend in the trees, the light in the shallows, the depth of the black- it is mountains that peak into a kingdom of clouds and roads that stretch forth into a world not yet see by the eyes of men...

I stand in the rain staring out into the black of Loch Ness, my heart skipping beats, a fine mist of rain falling around me- there are words that I want to speak that seem to rise up from the core of me and yet those words remain unspoken because quite frankly, they are words that have yet to be invented. And so they rest in the worn out corners of my soul, unspoken, and yet I know them just the same.

The day is a blur of color and rain and cold and awestruck wonder at the works of the hands of the God in which I have believed in since the summer that I turned seventeen.

It is a wrestles kind of wonder that I wrestle with around the corner of each bend in the road as we ascended into the highlands and so too, as we descended back down.

And when the day comes to an end, I walk back to the Paradise Palms, quiet, and full.

***
[Blow it up. Burn it down. A detour...]

Earlier in the day, I had realized that I did not have my wallet on me. I figured that I'd just left it in the room. I had decided to have dinner with some of the people that I had gotten to know on my tour, and so I walked back to the Paradise Palms to retrieve my wallet and as I searched my belongings, it was no where to be found.

Cue massive panic...like apocalyptic panic...I tore through my room like a hurricane, desperately searching for it and when it was clear that it was not there, I sunk to the floor, like a Raggedy Anne doll, folding into myself.

I was in shock for all of thirty seconds and then I was a hyperventilating, crying my mascara off, rocking myself back and forth kind of disaster.

I am in a foreign country with no access to money. I am alone. I am terrified. I don't know what to do.

Perhaps you are more situated for these kinds of things but I assure that I am most certainly not...

I begin to dial numbers in my phone until I realize what time it is in the States. But I make one more call to my mentor Vicky and she answers and I am almost certain that I am not making coherent sentences but she is able to decipher me just the same.

She is a pillar of calm. Breathe Jillian. Breathe. Call the bank. Call your credit card company. And breathe. Keep breathing.

I start with the credit card company, Sarah from Capital One did not train for this, for the girl in Edinburgh who lost her wallet, who can't breathe, who is choking on tears, whilst saying that she knew she ought to never have come here abroad by herself, because everything she touches falls apart, that she's scared, really scared, and that she doesn't know what to do- what does she do, can you help her, you have to help her, please, please- at that last please it was as if I had lost the will to move forward and it came out a breathless, broken, sob.

We go through the motions. We check the boxes. We breathe. And as Sarah gives me the last bit of necessary information, I hear it in her voice, she's crying too. And that somehow makes me cry all the much harder.

The dial tone echoes so loudly in my head. And I sit there in the pulsing lights of the street life below, a fragile piece of a burnt down courage.

***

Interlude: 2 hours after the fact through what is now an amusing exchange with my mentor Vicky, my wallet is found. Truth be told it had never been lost at all, I merely hid it between the mattress that first night at the Paradise Palms because I had not the security of a door with a lock as I had when I was staying in hotels- and I was so afraid, so afraid that my wallet would be taken. Strange how in retrospect it was my fear that ultimately took it from me- Thinking about it now, I don't exactly know what to do with that, I only know that it somehow feels significant...

***

It's almost midnight and my phone lights up with a text message, I read the words and the thin rebound of courage that I had, blows up into little pieces of shrapnel... "We regret to inform you that your Ryanair flight has been canceled..."

WTAF (and for delicate readers, I will leave it at that...)

Let's review for the record the series of events that have taken place in the last 48 hours:

A. I am a girl with a broken umbrella in a city that is drowning in rain...

B. I lost my wallet. And while it was found, it locked my bank account and shut down my credit card and the only useable income that I have is on Apple Pay with my new credit card information- and literally nowhere takes Apple Pay here, except Tesco, and I have developed an unhealthy bond with Tesco at this point...

C. RYAINAIR CANCELLED MY FLIGHT TO BACK TO DUBLIN...AND I AM NOW STRANDED IN EDINBURGH WITH A BROKEN UMBRELLA AND THE USELESSNESS OF APPLE PAY...

Let the capitalization reflect the state of things...

I don't sleep. I stay awake trying to figure out how not to need a rescue from this...I don't want to be this version of myself that always somehow feels as if I am a walking princess in a tower. And my god, it seems at every turn, with every exhaustive step I try to take forward, it all blows up and burns down- and maybe I never feel as though I am able to extinguish the flames on my own...

***

Friday, September 15th, 2017...

I am laying awake in my bed- the alarm has been ringing- it's a surprisingly un-rainy day. I wonder if I should bother to go on my adventure for the day or if I should resign myself to this bed, cursing my ineptitude at adulting-

Jillian, get the fuck up. And yes, this is how I talk to myself- Sometimes it's needs be...

Jillian get the fuck up. NOW.

RIGHT NOW.

And while it is slow and clumsy and mechanical even, I put on my clothes, I paint my face, I pull on my boots and I grab my backpack and step into the cold Edinburgh morning.

Years from now, what I will remember the most of this day is Mike the driver from Liverpool, who told us stories of his Glasgow days and that pretty little Glasgow girl that he married, of his favorite tour participant to date- the elderly lady from Beijing who loved sheep so much that he made a special stop just for her so that she could take photos of them and how she was so happy that she actually chased after them in circles for a good fifteen minutes, I will remember the jokes that he told, the ones that were passed down from his father and his father's father before him-

I will remember walking over the Tweed River crossing into England. How I stood middle ground between two worlds and looked out over the lowlands of Scotland and clear into the empty road leading into Northumberland.

I will remember standing still in the archway of Alnwick Castle- a.k.a. "OMG, I'M AT HOGWARTS!!!!!"

I will remember the sun on my face and the rush of the wind and the childlike joy in my heart as I yelled to a broomstick, "Mount!"

I will remember laughing as though I had never laughed before. With an unbroken, untamed, uninhibited spirit, running to and fro across a lawn, on an otherwise ordinary Friday afternoon in the courtyard of Hogwarts with my fellow first years.

I will remember the warm camaraderie of this particular tour group. The couple from Utah, the grandmother from West Virginia, the newlyweds from Reno, the sisters from Japan, the father and mother and son trio from South Korea- the way we chatted in beautiful weaves of yarn, how even the silence seemed a new brand of friendship.

I will remember walking back to the Paradise Palms watching the sunset set over the North Bridge as a gentle rain began to fall.

I will remember how there seemed a sacred albeit simple kind of magic to this day that despite my broken umbrella, my lost and found credit card, and my canceled flight- despite all of that, this simple, undefined, near scared magic flourished up in between the ashes and the rubble.

And I will remember that I knew it, that magic, for even but a moment, in my heart I knew it.

As I crawl into bed, I tell myself that I can face tomorrow, cancelled flight and all, I can face it, I can look it in the eyes, I can feel the fear, blow it up and burn it down, and I can stand in my own right, and face the unknown, and isn't that a magic all it's own, I wonder...

-Jillian Nichole, let's blow it up and burn it down...