Bonnie’s Beach 🏖

My Life. My Experiences. My Love. My Words.

Nov 6

No Longer Stuck in Why…

by oceangrrrl

Dear reader, I want to share something a bit raw with you.

A year ago I was stuck mentally, physically, and emotionally. So much growth and healing has happened since then, that I hardly recognize the person who wrote such depressing words.

I will be 45 soon, and let me tell you, the 40s are a fucking whirlwind of stupid. I’m not even going to get into that, but the ladies in my life will understand, and I am positive that crazy train is partially responsible for the sad shell of a woman I was just 12 months ago. Don’t get me wrong, the ride is just beginning, but at least I am enjoying it with my increased cynicism and idgaf attitude. With that being said, know, my dear reader, that life will always be a bit insane, and sometimes you just have to put on the straight jacket and go have some fun. My journey is ever evolving, and I am no longer the sad, unsmiling, hermit of a woman I was last year, but I still have some work to do.

The draft below was written in November of ‘24, and it amazes me how much has changed since then:

Stuck In Why…

It’s been a long time since I last wrote anything of substance or depth. I’ve shared a lot through my blog: thoughts, feelings, experiences, morbid, limerick styled poetry (if you can call it that); each post a wave of highs or lows, of good or bad, and everything in between. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write anything over the past year+, it’s been more of an internal struggle to force myself to take the time needed to sort through my thoughts and actually begin jotting things down. Forcing yourself to write is counterproductive for me. I’ll start. Then I’ll stop. Then start something new. Than stop. The number of unfinished drafts of thoughts are ridiculous at this point, and I need to just type and hit publish. It should be a simple task, but alas, I have my doubts even as I finish this last paragraph.

I can no longer seem to truly live anymore, and if I see it as a problem, I’m certain others can too. It’s one thing when life affects only you, but when it begins to affect others negatively, something must change, and soon. On top of my current mental instabilities there’s also my present state of physical health. At 43 (almost 44) I am in the worst physical shape of my life. For someone who has worked out and maintained some level of fitness most of her existence, I am the heaviest and weakest I have ever been. I am proud to say I have made some changes this past year that have helped tremendously, I am stuck with old knee and back injuries. The knee has improved, but the back. Man, the back is letting me know I am not in my thirties anymore. It’s stupid. But it is something I know I will improve as I continuously work on myself, physically and mentally.

With all that, let me venture back a bit to help me share how someone who once loved and lived life to the fullest has retreated into the reclusive cage she built for herself.

For those who have read my blog, you know the past few years have been quite a journey. A journey through love, abuse, sadness, and healing, which has culminated into my current set of life’s circumstances. With so many pathways to choose from, I feel like I am stuck in the middle of a desert, that no matter which direction I choose, the continuing journey will be more difficult than I can truly understand. Scorching sun in each direction, no promise of water, every creature and plant waiting to inflict pain, freezing cold nights, and no guarantee of reaching sanctuary. So which way do I go? I know that just taking one step in any direction is at least a start, and yet I stand in this one spot, stuck, as if I would rather sink slowly in the quicksand I created that seems to have cemented my feet and my mind.

I have been stuck here a while now. I can see the vast openness of life laid out before me, but I stay. I long to go outside, but I stay. I yearn for love, but I stay. I crave adventure, but I stay. I ache for laughter, but I stay. I thirst for life, yet I stay.

For those who have never experienced this, it’s easy to say, “Just take a step!” Yes. It’s easy to say to myself. I tell myself to just do something, anything, every single day. Yet I remain stuck. Stuck in my mind. Unable to focus. Incapable of motivating my body, let alone my betraying brain, to just do what I want it to do. I hope that getting some of this randomness written down and out of my head will help, because once it’s out of my head and shared, it’s real. It’s no longer a nightmare trapped inside myself. I’ve mentioned in the past that writing is a type of therapy for me. There’s a reason why those who seek counseling or any type of self help are told to keep a journal and write something everyday. Even just a blurb of randomness scratched into paper is beneficial.

So I will try scratching on this electronic piece of paper I call a blog. I will try. And I apologize for the drifts. Like riding the waves of my life, the troughs sometimes blind me from the point I am trying to reach, but the crests will bring it back around for clarity. Please bear with me. The hard part first, then I’ll get to the harder part.

My sister passed away a year ago October, and although it wasn’t a shock, it was still a shock. I have only lost one other person in my life with whom I was close to, and that was my grandmother in 2008. Her passing feels like a lifetime ago, and I still miss her. I wish I was able to spend more time with my grandmother, to ask her questions, to hear her stories. She was a woman who had lived life. Like really lived life. I wish I knew more about her experiences, her travels, everything, but now those stories are lost and out of reach in this life. When something is lost that means it can be found, and I believe once I have passed from this plain of existence, I will be able to ask her all the questions and hear all stories. But for now, I am here, and wishing for things from the past is pointless.

My sister and I were close years and years ago, and it wasn’t until five years ago or so that we became close again. Life has a way of happening and can temporarily sever connections, but only temporarily. I am blessed and truly grateful that she and I reconnected, only to become closer. We shared our sadness, our secrets, our struggles, but we also shared some amazing laughs and when occasionally blessed, all the joy and happiness. My sister, like my grandmother, lived life to the fullest. She was a fighter, and even when life over the past year gave her nothing but sorrow and struggle, she never let it stop her. She was out there. She was in it. She was determined to find happiness and joy and adventure whenever she could. I envied her commitment to life. Everyday, even when she would call me crying and needing to vent, she would still wake up the next day and live. I wish I had her strength. I wish I had that drive. I wish I could get my shit together and just do what needs to be done. No arguing with myself or making deals with myself. Just do the things and stop putting them off until tomorrow, because we don’t know if there will be a tomorrow. My sister just did all the things. Even when her heart and mind were broken, she continued on. She kept going, every single day, until the day she didn’t wake up. Even now it makes me smile thinking she is giving Heaven some sort of hell. She was a force to be reckoned with. She didn’t give a fuck what others thought. She spoke her mind, and she wasn’t afraid to do it. She had a way of drawing some pretty amazing people into her life. She had truly incredible friends in her life. All she ever wanted in life was to be a mom, and she was a mom to everyone’s children. She has two beautiful children who will never truly know how much she loved them. She loved them with all the fierceness that was her, but life kept her from them. Life can be cruel, and I can tell you that life crushed her heart. After the death of one of her closest and best of friends in an accident, life dealt another blow to her heart. Her last year on this earth tested her everyday. Everyday was a battle for her, but still, she continued living. Then recently she lost her job. A job she loved and enjoyed, and she couldn’t find another one. To settle for work as a waitress or something less would have been admitting defeat, and she wasn’t about to do that. Still, she continued living. Until she wasn’t. I miss her so much. I don’t have any regrets. I don’t have any what ifs, and I am content in our final conversations. Every phone call that started with crying, ended with gut wrenching laughter, and I am happy with that. But I’m also a little mad. I am angry that she left me here. Who am I supposed to vent to now? Who am I supposed to share our secrets with? I am now the keeper of those secrets, but who am I supposed to laugh with through all the shit that life throws at me? What the fuck? She was not supposed to leave. If anything, I should have been the one. She was the one who actually lived! So this brings me to the harder part of all this.

Why am I the one who is still here?! She lived! She actually lived!! And here I am, the daughter/sister who hermits herself away from life. The daughter who lives selfishly, who avoids activities, who avoids going anywhere unless she has to, who silently hides feelings deep down in order to present a mask of happiness around others, the daughter who forgot how to live. Don’t get me wrong, I help and do whatever I can for others. I argue with myself to leave the house, even for grocery shopping. Hell! I argue with myself just to go outside and water the plants. I have built my own cage under the false pretenses that it’s safe inside it. I know it isn’t. I know it’s unhealthy. I know that I need to spend time with family and friends. I want to do all the things. I want to go hiking. I want to adventure. I miss all that life has to offer. I miss the closeness and intimacy that comes with friendships and relationships, and yet here I am, inside my cage. Is it fear? I know I enjoy life. I am fully aware that I am not truly living. I am fully aware that keeping everything hidden internally will slowly eat away at my soul, because it has been, and it is more and more visible. I see how it affects me mentally and physically, to the point where I have become truly unhappy with myself. If my sister’s passing has shown me anything, it’s that I am a shell of who I was. I have become a hollow being who changes masks depending on the situation. I know she would scold me for this. If she was here, she would drag my ass out into the world and remind me that living in a cage isn’t truly living at all.

So why me?? Why am I still here? Why did life take away the wrong daughter?? This is where I am stuck, sinking into the quicksand of why her and why me. What the fuck do I do now? Yes! I want to live. Yes! I want to make her proud and show her I can live again. Yes! I want to do all the things. And yet, here I am, in the same fucking spot. I can yell at myself, threaten myself, hear her yell at me, feel her shaking me to get out of this sinkhole of self despair. Because honestly, it’s all mentally self inflicted. I have created this for myself. I have built my own walls. I have built this cage. I can see life happening all around me, and yet, I stay stuck.

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Sep 6

The Choices We Choose…

by oceangrrrl

…all come with a price. The cost of doing business so to speak. The consequences of our inactions are just as consequential as the action itself. Everything comes in threes, right? You’ve heard it before. Celebrity deaths seem to happen in threes even if it’s more like five. Good things come in threes. Bad things come in threes. The Holy Trinity. Three strikes you’re out. Third time’s the charm. So why three? Fuck if I know, but I have a theory.

We may think the smallest number of things we could possibly choose from is two, right? Yes or no. Stay or go. Good or bad. Point A to point B. Left or right. Night or day. The list goes on.

If you are a lover of psychology you know it is all logical. A lover of philosophy understands that not everything can be solved by logic. Assume logically you have to choose A or B. You have to make a choice. You can only choose one or the other. This has always bothered me, and in turn I didn’t do very well in my college psychology class. Philosophy I aced. Go figure. I had been told do just that a good many years ago, and because I chose neither, or refused to choose one of the given options, I was removed from the question group and put to the side. I refused to believe that I had to pick one of two options I didn’t want anything to do with, nor did I think either one was correct. But in doing so and choosing not to choose, I created option C. Option C was not even an option, but I stood my ground. Once I chose not to choose, I opened up a door that in turn created additional “non-choosers.” So at least I had some friends in my refusal group. Woohoo!! We didn’t get to participate with the two groups, but we got to enjoy hanging out and discussing why we ended up in our own little club of outcasts.

And so it seems to go in life with other things. Life is not black and white. Those who truly see that life is full of inexplicable wonders, understand this third option. The trifecta. Life or death. Choose to live, or choose to die. We all know we will never make it out of this life that we know alive, and we also know that just because someone is alive doesn’t mean they are truly living. Even with the dead, do they not still go on living in our hearts, minds, and the energies around us? I’m not just talking about ghosts or things that catch your eye in the mirror as you walk past. If you have ever been still in a place of death, you can sense it. The air is heavy, the hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention, overwhelming sadness seeps into your skin. It’s the same with places of happiness and joy, where the living come together in order to feel good or smile or laugh. I don’t know many people who would choose to go to a comedy show to cry. Just like people who visit cemeteries don’t typically go there to laugh. Even day and night has an option three: an eclipse.

In all honesty I have no idea why this popped into my head to write about. I am obviously procrastinating from doing something else that needs to be done, but I guess it’s better than doing absolutely nothing. Maybe? There are times when I want to write but can’t. There are times I don’t want to write but have to. And there are times when I don’t plan to write but need to and do it while I’m able.

I guess to tie this in with my current life situation, I can choose to move on and live my life to the fullest, or I can choose to live in the past while not being fully present. But neither of those choices sound fulfilling to me in either way. Are we not told to learn from the past? Reflect on the past? Remember the good times? Are we not told to plan for the future? Set life goals? Look ahead? And while doing both of those things we are reminded to be in the now, be present, enjoy today as if there won’t be a tomorrow, because we truly do not know when our time has come to an end. When life makes the decision for us. Even when we are given choices, there’s that third option that comes into play. Sometimes the third option isn’t even ours to choose.

For example, why do we hear about the people who work hard their entire lives but always seam to be beaten down by life? The ones who give everything without question but never seem to get anything back? The strugglers? The givers? The weary? Aren’t we taught that if we work hard, are kind, good people, it will come back to us? Are we missing something? Look at people who seem to have it easy. It’s as if some can dance through life without a care, haven’t worked a hard day in their life, and things are given to them without being asked or even needed. What third option has come into play with these? Seriously though, if you know the secrets to this I’d really like to not have to work until I die. I sorta have a thought on this as well.

Growing up a good Christian girl, I went to private schools, read the Bible, accepted Jesus, went to church, and I asked for forgiveness of my sins. And though I don’t pray as often as others say I should, or go to church even for Easter or Christmas Eve. I swear more than the typical sailor, have a dirtier mind than most would care to admit, and seem to come off as someone who worships trees, and yet I can’t seem to forget all the things I had been brought up to believe. Yes. I believe in God (in a slightly different way). Do I believe the only way to connect with God is through church or being with others of the same belief? No. Does that mean I want to hang out with a bunch of assholes who murder kittens? Absolutely not! But that doesn’t mean I have denounced all the teachings and parables and songs and lessons. The wisdom passed from generation to generation is a guide, a gift, and a warning.

So why the hell am I talking about my spirituality? Because it is my influential third option. Because growing up I was taught that my entire life is already known. My plans have already been laid out. That somehow I still have a choice baffles the shit out of me. That even if I choose either A or B, it doesn’t fucking matter, because C was already chosen for me. I may want to spend the rest of my life with a partner rather than without, but obviously that doesn’t always work out. I don’t know, maybe my plan is to die surrounded by my cats who will eventually get hungry and realize that eyeballs are a delicacy? Maybe I will spend my life with someone only to have them die first? Maybe I will be involved in a head-on collision tomorrow, because someone wasn’t paying attention and had to answer a text and didn’t react in time when they drifted into my lane? I don’t know! The third option is a killer! Or it could be. Yikes!

Call it fate. Call it destiny. Perhaps it’s option C through option infinity? All I know for sure is that I won’t always be given a choice between one thing and another thing. Even the black and white becomes gray. The day can be dark. The night can be bright. I can choose to work until I die in order to continue living my life comfortably. I can choose to be happy or sad, but I gotta tell ya, it’s hard enough choosing to be ok. Being sad is exhausting. Being happy is exhausting. Being present can also be exhausting, but it’s a choice. Look, Yoda may have said do or do not, there is no try, but is that really all there is? I mean, if you don’t try something how do you know you’ll like it or even want to do it? What about practice makes perfect? Isn’t that just a better way of saying you’re trying to be better at what you are doing?

And again we see why I did not do well at all in psychology. I question everything. I learn something about everything I can. I start hundreds of projects and never seem to finish most if any of them. I am trying my best to live my life and pretend believing I am actually trying to live my life. I feel disillusioned. The more I learn, the more I see, the more I know I am not in control of anything. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it more difficult to live life as though I haven’t peeked behind its curtain. There’s no wizard there. There’s no control center where I can push a button and continue dreaming. There’s nothing there but another curtain. And once you peaked through the next curtain, you find another curtain. So you stand there and try to look up and see if maybe there are some curtain rods to count how many more curtains you have to go through, but you can only see the one you’re facing. You look down, believing the light and shadow from beneath the curtain gives a brief hope that there is something behind this one, only to realize the curtains beyond are moving to an eternal breeze, shifting light and shadow, and reinforcing an illusion you so desperately want to believe.

Options A or B or C are all inherently illusions, and life is filled with choices, as we all know. Do you choose to see the magic trick never wanting to know how it’s accomplished, or do you want to know how the magic trick works? Or, for your third option, do you choose to learn how it works but continue living as if you never saw it? That you continue to believe in the wonder and excitement even knowing it isn’t what it seems? The disillusioned are seen as being negative. That knowing how something works or why it works takes the fun and joy out of seeing it work. And all I can think is why wouldn’t you want to learn more? I don’t want to spend my life only learning about one, single thing. How disappointing that would be when there’s nothing else to know. And even though the more I learn the more I see comes into play, it doesn’t make me want to stop learning. It doesn’t make me not want to start yet another project I will most likely never complete. It doesn’t prevent me from adding more and more to my bucket list even when I know I have less and less time to do any of those things.

So I’ll continue living my life neither the good way nor the easy way, but more like whatever option three decides to throw at me. In reality, it isn’t even my choice to begin with, but I can still choose to see what it has in store. Bring it, option three! Let’s see what you got!

-Bonnie

No matter what my option three may end up being, I still stop to smell flowers and to watch butterflies flutter by. I smile at others and open and hold doors. I make my PB&J in two folded-over halves. I pause for those fleeting moments when a deep breath of the air around me and the view before me yearn for me to take them in and enjoy the present, and I am reminded that my choices are all part of how I ended up in that place, regardless that I did not opt for a flat tire to stop me in the middle of nowhere forcing me to stop for a damn second and let go of what I can’t control. Thank you Option C. I am forever grateful for your interference. Good or bad. And whatever is in the middle.

Self-Healing

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May 25

Be Like Sausage…

by oceangrrrl

As I sit outside on my back porch, drinking my hot toddy while watching my fat cat attempt to catch the June bugs that are beginning to come out, I get to enjoy the warm evening air and the chance to think a bit. It’s true, what they say, life is a precious gift. It’s definitely not something I want to waste, but I also know I have spent many wasteful moments. I guess it’s part of the learning process, and you’re never done learning. I don’t want to be at the end of my days longing for all the wasted time. All those wasted hours that I could have been doing something more than what I did.

I love those infectious people with the unquenchable thirst for adventure and living. You know the ones. They always seem to have energy and go go go every day, and you wonder how they do it. I know I do! I wish I had that energy! That unfulfilled yearning to do everything possible! The want to constantly be on the move. Hell! Even the capability of being constantly on the move. How do they do it? They make it look so easy. So fluid. So natural. Like there’s no other way to be alive. I wish I had that passion and that drive and that ambition. How does one go about getting those things?

There are plenty of motivators out there in the world. There are people whose callings in life are helping others with finding theirs. There are places that inspire greatness. There are experiences that excite the soul to be more. To become more. And yet, how do we even run across these things? We’ll use me as an example. Here goes. So, I love to make people happy. I love seeing and being the cause for people to smile and laugh and for a second, forget whatever makes them unhappy. But that’s not my job. I don’t do that for a living. Part of what I enjoy about my job is that I get the opportunity to make the people I work with smile and laugh from time to time. But that can take work too. There are days when I am far far far, extremely fucking far from my usual, sunshiny self. There are days when I can’t even bring myself to smile, and those days make me feel even more terrible. Because, like I mentioned, I love making other people laugh and smile. And yes. I know I can’t be happy ALL the damn time, but it’s so defeating when I can’t even muster a smile for myself.

So how do these people do it? Are they just that good at hiding any emotion other than happiness? Are they seriously like this EVERY SINGLE DAY?! You hear that happiness is a choice. I mean, I’ve read it somewhere. It is. Definitely. But it’s a hard choice to make every day upon waking. There has to be a conscious effort, right? Sometimes the universe can throw some serious shit your way! Sometimes it feels impossible to be happy. But you know what? That’s ok. We don’t have to be happy ALL the fucking time. We are human. We can have bad days. It doesn’t make it any easier for those of us who would much rather be happy, but we are allowed to be imperfect and mopey and blah.

OK. I’ll stop there, because now it just sounds like I’m on some crazy, emotional rant about being human. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m tired of having to work at being happy. It’s not that I’m unhappy. I truly am happy! Just some days are so much easier than others. And there’s got to be a secret. Those go go go people have to have something figured out, and I just wish I knew what it was. Sometimes I wish I was like my cat Sausage. She’s a cat. I know. But I could learn a couple things from her. She’s fat and yet still active, and she couldn’t care less that she’s a tad grande. She lets her true intelligence shine through, and she may poop on the floor, but does she care what I think? Nope. Sausage does NOT care about the opinions of others! She definitely enjoys her cat food, but she will only eat solid white albacore tuna as a treat! So she obviously eats fine and indulges from time to time. I think I have that one down! Yay! Let’s see, what else. She sticks close to her family and does her best to “protect” us when an unknown comes to the door. By protect I mean she growls. Like actually growls. That is the extent of her guardcat status though. Because she runs away as soon as she sees the unknown. At least she lets me know when someone is walking up to the door. I mean, that’s pretty cool. She proves her loyalty and love to me every day. She may not cuddle with me, but she’s always there. She waits for me outside the shower. She lays at my feet at night. She lays at my feet on the couch. She hangs out near the kitchen when I cook. I mean. Such a simple life. Not a worry in the world! Well, ok. One worry. If the food bowl shows any sign of bowl at the bottom it’s panic mode time.

But seriously. I should be more like Sausage. Why worry about what others think? Why worry about anything more than if I have food and water and love? Basic necessities for all creatures. We humans just found ways to make it more and more complicated. I need to be more grateful for the things I have. For the limited time I have. For moments I shouldn’t have to worry about wasting, because they weren’t wasted. For the rare love that happens in life as a second chance. For the smiles I see on other people’s faces and the ones out in mine. Maybe that’s the secret. Until I know for sure I’ll just have to see what happens next and not waste my time. Until next time! 😉

-Bonnie 💙

Sausage. Be like her. 😊

She’s squishy!

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