The Struggle to Write

 In high school, as most of you can imagine, I was a total dork. I was bullied for a lot of different things, and I was really mean to myself over it. It's taken a long time for me to fully come to terms with all of this and to be okay with it, but here I am in 2023, seven years out of high school, and I finally feel like a human being again. 

A couple of years ago I stopped writing. I felt like I wasn't allowed to, for some reason or another, and so I just closed my journals and notebooks, and cold turkey quit posting my shit on the internet for everyone to see, and gave up on the drive to write and create. Part of it had to do with the church I was attending, or the fact that I was attending church at all, and some of it had to do with time management and different family circumstances. 

I didn't have time. 

I no longer had the passion. 

Aaaand, so I just stopped. Why not, right? Nobody was reading it anyways. Who even blogs or writes anymore? Everyone is on TikTok and Instagram now and I felt displaced, over my head, and way out of my league. 

In the time that I've kept quiet and away from writing, I have experienced some great joys. I have some extraordinary people in my life and they care what I have to say, so I usually keep all of my quips to my immediate bubble and away from everyone else. 

Last year, and the year before, sucked. 

2020 sucked because of the pandemic. 

2021 sucked because I thought my dad was literally not going to survive it. 

& 2022 saw back to back traumas in January, February, April, and May. To the point where one night in July my husband and I thought I was having a heart attack and landed in the local ER. 

Turns out, the panic attacks I'd been having? I was having like the demigod version of one of them, and the doctor did a heart work up just in case, chatted with my about my options, and referred me to a new doctor. She's been awesome, and as of December I've been on meds for six months to help with my anxiety (my first time medicated since I was diagnosed... with anxiety and depression... in 2011, twelve years ago!) and it has changed me as a person in the best way. 

My degree path shifted. I got fired from a job. I have the coolest job ever right now, that has nothing to do with my degree path, and my life has so many options ahead and it's been really neat. 

I have some friends that are older than me (and when you are reading this, no I would never call y'all old, but you're pointedly older than I am and thus wiser) that drink box wine with me when they come into town and I have adopted them as my other parents. They gifted me a notebook for my birthday, and a week later, I sat down and wrote.

As of right now, I've been writing for some reason or another since August, and it has been really refreshing. I have journaled a bit, taking what normally would be housed here and airing it there, and this week I started DMing (Dungeon Mastering, for those not nerd-inclined) for my friends for the very first time in D&D. Work requires a lot of writing, and storytelling, even if it's over the phone with my coworkers after a shift with a drink in my hand. 

I'm around people that I never thought I'd be around, from all sorts of weird and crazy backgrounds, and I find myself being depended on and needed and it's been incredibly stressful and incredibly strange. At the same time, it has been overwhelmingly necessary, and has kept me alive. Bad mental health days now consist of messaging distanced friends for advice and memes, and jumping into another friend's car or riding along with my husband to spend money on food or trinkets. (Retail therapy is real, y'all. Don't knock it until you try it.) 

* * * * *

All of this above leads me to the point of typing this all out at 3am, when I could be reading a really good book that a friend has loaned me, and that is that I have reflected a lot recently on my words and on the words that are around me. 

People have really wrecked me with words in the past. Whether it was high school bullies, shitty coworkers of the past, strangers on the Internet, or even people in my family that I thought I could trust, people have spent a lot of time influencing how I feel and I have been taking shit way too personally. 

2022 was the year of me learning not to take everything personally. 

2023 is the year of me going back over the notes I took when people did treat me with the kind of disgusting ferocity that made me think about ending my life as a teenager. 

Being a young adult is weird and messy, and despite the crazy looks I get when I tell people that I'm married (because I'm "only 24" and that seems impossible), I feel like I have escaped a whole different hellscape of life by finding someone to love and be committed to this early on. Bless him, I can be a lot sometimes, so bless this man for taking my attitude in stride and understanding me at my weakest. 

Facing the past is odd when people around you keep screaming that you have never been through anything rough. 

[To be fair, I haven't ever faced an addiction or been to jail, so I guess that makes me lucky?? Or something like that?? I don't know. I lost a friend to addiction in 2019, the first person I'd ever been close to that died of an overdose, and so I will never view addicts or alcoholics or anything with less dignity than they deserve. The amount of medical professionals I see that don't acknowledge that medicine in the modern age defines addiction as a disease is so far beyond me, and I really could go on for ages about how people like that shouldn't be anywhere near modern medicine.]

But-- 

I was sick as an infant and as a kid. I didn't get to do normal things sometimes (like play sports) when I was younger because of illnesses or disabilities that I had. I played basketball in high school and was really bad at it, but that's one of the highlights of my life because of the lack thereof when I was like, a preteen. 

My parents have been sick. Dad was sick, completely hereditarily, and it took a toll on everyone around us for a very long time. Medicine has progressed so far, and I'm so thankful that he's still around with us, because at nine years old I didn't think he would be here anymore. For that matter, I didn't think either of my parents would be here. I did think my grandparents would be, but that is a whole different can of worms to be opened and reviewed at a different time. 

We were homeless, sort of. We didn't get to live where we wanted. Money, or rather a lack of it because of disease and illness, kept us within a tight grip and directed us for a very long time. Government benefits are not shameful to me, because I understand that wanting to feed and clothe and house your family means that you care and you are trying. 

I have a whole lot of religious trauma. From being asked to leave and shunned (not in a formal sense, but when it comes down to it, that's what happened) to being brainwashed and asked to give up the parts of myself that kept me safe and sane (like WRITING!!!) and so my relationship with religion isn't a good one. 

I was raised in charismatic churches that believed in supernatural things and lots of spirituality, but I watched so many people that believed you couldn't put something like God in a box, treat the people he created like absolute filth. Sunday was for dressing nice and learning about loving your neighbor, Monday was for being ignored at school by the people in my youth group because the only time I fit in with them was on Wednesdays, when I broke off little pieces of myself and handed it out like candy. Money bought you the trips and the experiences and the life changing retreats, and when you didn't have money, you met God in places like emergency rooms and funeral homes, begging him for healing and change and not understanding why he wouldn't send someone to help you through it all. 

"But he sent Jesus." They say. 

But if Jesus walked into churches, real Jesus, not whitewashed American Christian Jesus, I don't think that many people would recognize him. When he sits down with the people in the back of the room, choosing humility, whores, addicts, drunks, and "backsliders" to the finely dressed apostacies in front of him, what will people say? Will they rope off the back part of their sanctuaries to make services look fuller on Facebook Live? Will they talk about the one Spanish service they host once a month when America is becoming a country of dual language speakers, especially in communities that were once hailed as more conservative, and will they acknowledge the Gospel in every language... Or just English? 

I am plagued by these questions, by my upbringing, and despite all of this I do not think I was failed as a child. Religion and faith are incredibly important to people, and I genuinely believed in everything for such a long time, with deep conviction. I wanted to sing, and dance, and pray. But my singing was on my back porch sometimes... The dancing was done in my hallway. The prayer was done in emergent circumstances or when I sat wondering why I was even alive at all. 

So now, as an adult, I am searching for answers of my own. And that's okay with me. 

Some people clutch their pearls to them in mock horror when they find out my parents let my husband live with us before we were married. My mom lost lifelong friends because of it, but because her love for me, and for the man I love, was so strong, she just kept on trucking. And has found better friends now, anyways. 

In addition to that, there were people that I trusted and looked up to, that fumbled that badly. They breached that trust and ripped happiness out of my grip, and I can say looking back with 100% certainty that if I would have ended my life when I was fifteen years old, some of my blood would have been on their hands. 

Why wasn't I ever good enough? I was. 

Why did they want to hurt me so much? Because they were hurting, and as a literal child, I was the easiest target. 

What did I do to deserve that? Absolutely. Nothing. 

I recently learned about some things that sent me into a spiral, and that's when I came to all of this overzealous glorious bullshit about reclaiming what hurt me and using my newfound strength to go over the past some and realize that, you know? Some of that stuff? It really wasn't okay. 

And I do not owe anyone my forgiveness. 

And I do not owe anyone a relationship with me. 

Nor do I owe them kindness, my time, my effort, or the space in my mind that I haven't been charging them for now for almost a decade. 

So time's up, y'all. GTFO.

I deserve(d) better, and 2023 is about reclamation and good books. I don't have precious reading time to waste worrying about the opinions of people who have to shout to be heard. I don't have to shout to be heard, and maybe that's why this blog has been so healing for me over the past eight years. Just writing it down is enough for it to get where it needs to go, and be seen by who needs to see it. 

Anyways, if you read this far, thanks for picking my brain and letting me rant. 

It's gonna be a good year. I'm tired of being afraid of saying good things and thinking that saying them or thinking them is going to jinx it or bring ill-wishes upon me. Here's to a new era of me. 

Eight Years.

In November of 2014, my maternal grandmother ("nana") was diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

I was fifteen, I think? I don't feel like doing the math right now. I was young and old and a teenager and angry and happy and all of the other crazy, shitty feelings that come with just being a teenager. 

The insurmountable grief that I still felt from losing my grandad in January of the same year made the entire experience even worse. Not to mention, my extended family is full of some of the shittiest people you could ever come to know, and they were just everywhere. 

There were times growing up where my extended family would come to visit, while we lived with the aforementioned dead people, and my brother and I would be kicked out of our rooms to sleep downstairs or on a couch or somewhere not in our rooms because technically it was our grandparents rooms and technically our cousins were more important than us for some reason? I don't know. 

They'll tell you I was the spoiled one, and in some instances they're right, but I would go back and change a lot of it to see them treat my brother with more dignity and respect. He has grown into a man to be proud of, and didn't deserve half of the way that people spoke to him when we were growing up. His football skills were kick ass, and he works hard now to make a living, and I'm proud of him. 

I'm proud of my parents, too. They shouldn't have had to be the bigger people over.

and over.

and over. 

and over, again. 

But, they are full of integrity and kindness, and so they did the damn thing and I'm proud of them. 

(But, they still deserved better!!) 

Anyways, nobody really gave a shit about what I had to say, except for my immediate family. So I did what any other angsty teenager would do, and I took to the internet to share and air my woes with strangers, looking for answers or someone to grieve alongside me.

--and thus! This blog (or at least an earlier iteration of it!) was born!

Not here, of course. On Wattpad, with all of my other angst and fanfiction and shitty poetry. 

I shared stories about my life, detailed adventures and milestones, wrote about how I never wanted to get married or how I wanted to marry Patrick, wrote about God, wrote about elections, etc. etc. etc. 

Then I abandoned writing for a long ass time because I went to a church that told me that if I wasn't writing to further the kingdom of God that I shouldn't be doing it, and I agreed with them at the time, and if it wasn't from the Bible I didn't write about it. 

Which lead to a spiral about God, religion, and church. And I took a big leap away from it all [again] and found a lot peace in doing so. I discovered deconstruction, ex Mormon TikTok (I have never been Mormon a day in my life but they are full of good advice once they leave it all behind), and eventually stumbled onto ex-fundie TikTok. 

People my age, all sharing about their experiences in youth groups that didn't want them, or wanted them for their demographic or statistic equivalent but not as individuals with feelings/personalities/senses of self. Everything crumbled apart; purity culture, modesty culture, worship music tactics-- all of it was just laid bare and people shared their religious trauma openly and without much worry about who saw it or heard it. 

I typed a blog post and never, ever published it. It was about my experiences with everything. Maybe someday I'll share it, but now isn't the time for that. 

Why is this relevant?

Because the last time I felt so radically changed in my sense of self was when nana died. I didn't want anything to do with church or God. I didn't want to talk about my issues. I have dragged myself painfully through a season that used to be my favorite for the last few years feeling like I cannot get up out of bed in December because of the crushing grief in my heart and spirit. 

In June, I went on medicine. 

It's December 6th today, while I'm typing this. At the end of the month it will be six months on said medication, and I feel like a new person this year. My tree isn't up yet, but my heart is full, and I am fighting for my future and for the things that I love and believe in. 

To be honest, I don't know exactly how I feel about God or about religion anymore. I don't really think about it. At least, not the way I used to? I pray, and I hope that someone is listening. I think about the histories I've learned since deconstructing and what I've learned is fallacy that used to give me such hope, and try to find some meaning in it all. It's been enjoyable to view everything differently than how I did growing up-- viewing the Bible as a history book, allegory, figurative language. It feels more powerful as literature, but maybe that's just because I have such a high view of literature. 

I have seen the miraculous. I have experienced many facets of faith. 

But I have also been deeply wounded by people I considered family, that betrayed me because a deity told them to or told them I wasn't good enough, and I don't understand that. Maybe that's why thinking about religion breaks my heart so much. 

I am not backslidden. I do not desire your hatred disguised as prayers. I am simply unpacking the wrongs that I wish had been righted, and taking my time looking around to find the good. I have seen to many miraculous and wonderful things to throw it all away, but I will be mindful with my beliefs, and I refuse to proselytize the way I was taught to by people who were impressed by numbers and metrics and not at all worried about issues like famine and homelessness. 

If anything, I will try to demonstrate the Christ that should be demonstrated, by loving and understanding the people around me, and by running far from the people trying to sell me a get out of hell free card so that they can brag about my soul to their friends next Sunday. 

Anyways. 

Tomorrow will make eight years since nana died. 

How it has almost been a decade, I do not understand. The passing of time went from being measured in grief and hardship to being measured in trips, paychecks, love, and credit hours. I'm okay with it being like that. 

Sometimes? Sometimes I miss her. Sometimes I hate her. She didn't fight. She told everyone grandad wanted her to come be in Heaven with him, but anyone who knew that man knew that he was probably making bargains with Saint Peter for her to stay here as long as she wanted. 

I will never forget the way my family was treated (like shit) or the way that people viewed us. I won't forget how they didn't think I was important enough to have a voice, or any of us for that matter. We weren't important to them. Now I don't make their Christmas lists, and they don't make mine. 

There are people who think they are too good to speak to me and mine, even at funerals and weddings. Sometimes I type their names into Google to see if obituaries come up. (None have- yet.) 

I'm through with keeping quiet about the way that people treated me and my family. 

I don't care if they care about me or not. They aren't the kind of people you just call up to say hello to, and they were never that for me. Their names in my email inbox used to haunt me, and I would throw up worrying about being thrown out of the house we lived in. The freedom we felt when we finally escaped all of that garbage was like taking a breath of air in the spring after a bitter cold winter full of thin wind. The freedoms we discovered in a new house, with new neighbors, and new surroundings was amazing. 

Do I miss anything?

Well, of course. 

I miss the house my grandad built. I miss the concrete patio where I grew up singing and swinging, where my hands are imprinted beside of the outside toolboxes. I miss playing in the woods behind the house, or sitting outside there reading a good book. 

Now, I look around the two bedroom apartment I share with my husband and our pets, and I feel so safe. I love that I can drive down the road and visit my parents and brother. I love the freedom of having pets and sleeping in and never having to give up my bed unless I want to build forts with my friends in the living room. 

This year it's so much different than any year before, and for the first time since she died, I don't feel hopeless. I am looking into the future and I am excited for the things in front of me, and the people that surround me that I'm taking with me into it. 

If you read this at all, thank you. Sometimes I just need to vent, and this is my safe space. On the internet to friends, and family, and strangers, and people who secretly hate me but pretend like they don't. I never have time to do this as much as I would like, but I am glad to be able to write again. 

I missed it. 

-xo, Tori

My Tattoos

 Like most young adults, I have collected a handful of tattoos. 

They have meaning, some deeper than others, but I love the joy that they have given me and I will never understand people that think we don't understand that tattoos are permanent parts of us. To be honest with you, at least for myself, the tattoos and their meanings have been a part of me longer than the ink has.  

Anyways, no one asked for this, but I wanted to share about the ones I have now and the ones I want to get eventually. I'm working on getting back into writing for myself, and what better way to do it.

My first tattoo is on my upper back, toward my shoulder blade on the right side. It's of a cartoon bluebird. Of all the meaningful things I could say about any of my tattoos, this one holds the most emotion for me. Growing up my grandad was one of my best friends, and part of our friendship was sitting outside on the back porch of the house he built singing. We would sing together, and I would swing, and I continue to sing and swing into adulthood any time I'm near a park with earbuds. It's great therapy. 

Our favorite song to sing was Zip-a-dee-doo-dah. So, naturally, I carry a bluebird on my shoulder everywhere I go, to remind me that there's always sunshine heading my way. It might sound lame or childish, but it's a piece of my grandad that I get to carry with me forever. I miss him with all of my heart, and even though the grief doesn't really sting like it used to, it's still there. This was a very good way to heal the hurt initially. I think he'd like it. 

My second tattoo was on impulse. My friends and I had money, time, and the tattoo shop was taking walk-ins. They got the sun and the moon, and they're sisters so it makes sense, and then I got shooting stars. So we have little themed tattoos together. It's one of my favorite memories with them. They have kids now and it'll be cool to tell their kids about it someday. 

My third is my personal favorite. There's an author, Sarah J Maas, who writes adult fantasy books that take place in lavish worlds with extraordinary things taking place. The last few years have been especially difficult, and back when one of my close friends lived at the beach, she gifted me a trio of books that changed my life. If you haven't read A Court of Thorns and Roses, it's at the top of my list. Two more books in the series have come out since then, and they are remarkable to say the least. 

Anyways, there are tattoos in the book series that deal with strength, luck, and glory. The markings are black and exist to give warriors hope in times of great trial. Needless to say, I have one on my forearm, a sigil from a city in the books. One of the best quotes from the series is about not letting the difficult days win out, and so I use the tattoo as a physical reminder to not let the hard days take me out. I am strong, even when I don't feel like it, and sometimes I just need to be reminded. 

I got my fourth tattoo the same day as the previous one, and for similar reasons. 

During the beginning of the pandemic, I watched a lot of TV. I also broke my leg in 2020, which lead to a lot of time on my ass, and so I watched even more TV. One of the shows I watched was Star Wars the Clone Wars. 

The pandemic was also a time of great spiritual deconstruction for me. I don't feel like going into detail about it right now-- it really is a lot and I don't wanna info dump about something even I don't fully understand myself yet-- but Star Wars aided in a lot of the healing from some religious trauma I didn't realize that I had. 

Spoiler alert for the Clone Wars, but there's a character in it named Ahsoka, and in the last seasons she is accused of crimes against her people that she didn't commit. She is eventually found innocent, and allowed to remain a part of the Jedi order, but the pain caused so much harm that she didn't see any value in remaining a part of it. 

So, on my left leg, I have her lightsaber hilts tattooed on me. With the quote from Rebels that says, "I am no Jedi" above them. 

It's a personal reminder to me that I escaped on the other side with myself intact. That sounds really dramatic, but as I have shared things with my friends and family, I realize that some of the ways people treated me under the guise of religion growing up were incredibly wrong. I have found strength in separating myself from all of the dogma and bullshit, and obviously I use fictional characters to heal, and so yeah. Ahsoka's lightsabers. 

I have some cool ideas for more tattoos. I want tattoos with all of my friends. 

I have some incredibly neat ideas for Dungeons and Dragons/MTG themed work that centers around dice, lands, and line work. Nothing planned out yet but I'm hopeful. 

Patrick wants to get some tattoos of his own; we'll see when that happens. I think that he'll end the summer with at least one!

Also-- if I could convince my mom to get matching tattoos with me? That might be the coolest thing ever. (Mom, if you're reading this, you really should consider it. Haha. Just kidding. Sort of??) 

- - - - - - - - - - 

If you read this, thank you. 

I haven't felt like myself lately and some friends of mine, bless them, recommended writing and journaling to work through the big stuff. I used to do that all the time, but stopped, but now here I am again ranting online to strangers and friends and people who care and people who literally could not care less. 

It feels great! 

I don't know when I'll write again, or what I'll write about, but I'm glad that I feel safe enough in my own head to write again. I want to write a book, something lavish and hardback that I can sell at truck stops in WV because I live here and that's what you do when you write a book here evidently, but we'll see what comes of it. 

Thank y'all a bunch. 💜

Grieving a Situation

 As someone that became familiar with grief at a very early age, not the grief of loss but rather the grief of a situation, it's strange to be faced with it again as an adult in a different way. 

When I normally think of grief, I think about the chunks of time in December, January, and July that I permit myself a peek out from under the umbrella that I regularly carry around into the pouring rain around me. Sometimes I even shut the umbrella, choosing to walk in the storm and face some things that are easier dealt with under the shelter that the umbrella provides. Sometimes the storm arrives without me having time set aside to clean and open my umbrella, and so I end up windblown and in need of warmer weather.

All of that to say, I am deeply familiar with grief. The grief of loss. I have lived a portion of my life without some of those dearest to me and as it inches closer to being half of my life, I learn more and more how to deal with it. Deal with it of course, because it never goes away. Someone, I cannot specifically find who, compared grief to a ball in a box. It might get smaller, over time, but it never fully goes away. 

Grieving in 2020 was different than it was before. I lost some more people in my family. I attended at least two funerals. I know of at least three people that had miscarriages. I watched one of my dearest friends go through a situation that tore me apart to watch her endure, but I had no real way to help other than to just offer her my hand and a hug. My dad has been denied a hip replacement a handful of times, mostly because hospitals were too full because of the pandemic to help him. 

December this year was weird. Patrick and I put up our tree (I put up our tree), and decorated it simply, and then didn't even celebrate Christmas. Money was tight because of being laid off, so we opted for celebrating with family and friends without exchanging gifts in the traditional sense. I loved it. I think that every Christmas should be spent like that from here on out. Our Christmas tree is still up, mostly because for a while we were too busy to take it down, and now because of the grief I think I will feel if I take it down. 

December also made six long years since I lost my nana. Six long years since teenage me started a blog on a random writing website (that I eventually transferred to here) to give a middle finger to the "family" members that were treating my parents like dog shit. I didn't use words like shit back then, at least not around anyone other than my immediate friends, but now I do. Tough. I have a pretty neat vocabulary, but sometimes nothing hits as good as an f-bomb. 

Anyways, that week I didn't have time for grief. I ended up exposed to COVID-19, with a high fever and inconclusive test results, and in quarantine with Pat. My mom delivered NyQuil and chicken soup to our door in a box because we hadn't been able to grocery shop, and that was that. We were both sick for a little over a week, and then finally started to feel better, but I remained laid off while Pat safely returned to work. I didn't see my parents for almost three months, and I live fifteen minutes away from them. 

January, like clockwork almost, brought a similar set of circumstances. This time I was spared from the exposure, and was able to see my parents. However, monetarily circumstances went to shit, and I had technical issues with getting unemployment, another lay-off, bills that loomed with due dates too close for comfort, and too much time on my hands. School started back, and the stress of attending classes and turning in assignments swept in to save me from the stress of worrying where stuff was going to come from. It also prevented me from grieving terribly for my grandad, but I spent a lot of that week listening to music and feeling generally lost. 

Something's gotta give, right? That's what I told myself as I planned some time off to go and see my best friend and her little family. Pat and I had been COVID tested, they had all been tested, and we took off to see them. 

As I've become an adult, going to visit my friends has become more like visiting family. Someday when I'm blessed with children I hope that they feel the same way, and understand that family brings so much more than an obligated blood relation. It's about relationships with people that want to have a relationship with you. It's about communication and boundaries. 

Anyways, we arrived in Maryland and I got to spend some much needed time reading, working on homework, and seeing my favorite baby of all time. I call Em everything from my god-baby to my niece, but she'll always know me as Aunt Tori, and that makes me smile to think about. Bethany is a good mom and I'm proud of her. I'm also glad she didn't die last August, but that's a story for a different time. We ate some good homecooked food, had a party for Pat's birthday, went to some bookstores, and even went to this really cool little pet store. 

At the end of our trip it snowed and we got stuck in Maryland for a day later than we'd intended to, and then after we got back into town, it snowed and iced for days on end. Literally. We would both wake up early for work just in case we had to allow extra time to get out of our driveway, and a couple of times couldn't do that. As someone who normally loves the snow, I'll be glad to see the end of winter. 

The following Friday was the Valentine's Day party at daycare, and so I went to Dollar Tree the night before and got all of the stuff I needed to make sixteen treat bags and enough little cards or treats for every room. I took a lot of pride in putting them together, Pat even helped me, and the following morning in my classroom I made bigger treat bags for the kids to put everything into. They were to little to understand exactly how to decorate a box or a bag themselves, so everyone that didn't bring one from home got a normal paper bag with their name and a heart painted on it. They were cute. 

The following week was not cute, as not even a week later I packed up my room and left with a pink slip in my hand. Do not make sacrifices or investments in people or situations that will not make them for you. It's not worth it. I should know this by now, but evidently not, so here I am. 

It's been a few weeks, and several people have reached out with kind words and great big hearts and lots of hugs. I have been working really hard to aim my focus elsewhere, to look ahead and not behind me, by putting more effort into school or by reading more books. I've applied to several jobs, I accepted an invitation into a National Honor Society, I have held my tongue, I have opened my mouth, and I have learned to revert back to what I taught myself while wading through drama in middle and high school. 

Two major things. 

One, what other people think of me is none of my business. Whether it was personal or professional, another person and their thoughts and opinions should have no direct effect on my happiness, even if it has an effect on my situation.

Two, I like myself. I do not hate myself anymore. After about a decade of loathing looking into the mirror, not wanting to crawl out of bed at all, and thinking about dying on a regular basis-- I can say with certainty that, aside from having bad days because depression is a real thing and the battle is one that you have to choose to fight, I don't feel like that. 

The low low came to visit me today, and I have banished it from my presence. As an alternative to staying in bed for the entire day, I chose to get up after Patrick went to work. I turned in all of my homework on time, even got an A on a quiz, and wrote out my schedule for the next couple of weeks. I fed the animals, walked Luna, took a bath, and did some reading. 

And then I decided that I wanted to write about situational grief, so here I am. 

This lapse in my happiness is a result of situational grief. A loss of something that I was caught off guard by, and though I cannot see the immediate other side, it has given me some time to look at my long term goals and reevaluate where I am versus where I want to be. 

Depression has made this hard. I don't want to make it sound easy. Patrick and I actually went to visit his parents and brothers last week because I was low key concerned about slipping into something dark and not being able to get out of it. North Carolina all these years later is still my home away from home, and going to visit my in-laws has become one of my favorite trips to take. Getting to see everyone, and getting to spend time with Patrick in old familiar places, was really good for my mental health. I didn't want to leave. 

So here I am, at this grand (and also not grand at all) impasse in my life, this fork in the road that feels a little bit painful, and I have not the slightest idea of what to do. I have put in applications, made phone calls, applied for unemployment, filed my taxes, read three books, and turned in at least two essays and four tests. I have questioned my own integrity and character, and have decided that this time everything checks out, despite what anyone else wants to believe. 

The death of something familiar in my life that brought me joy will not also be my demise. I refuse to have come this far to let something like that have such a hold on me. It's not like someone has died, or like I have lost a love or a limb, but rather I have been given a (somewhat forced) fresh start. I think I might just take it. 

If you got this far, thank you for following my rant about grief and my life right now. 

Maybe I'll write a book, with all of this free time. I'll at least write here some. And for my English class. It clears my head again to write for others, even if no one wants to read it. It'll be here for me to read later, and for now I'm good enough for me. 

<3 

It's Been a Minute, Huh?

Welcome back to the writing home of Tori (formerly Wickline) Foltz. 

It has been almost three years since I've written here. I miss writing so much, but life happened and adulthood took over and working became the priority-- far more important at the time than writing. I thought about making a new blog, because I have grown and changed so much from some of the things I've shared here in the past, but after pruning some old posts from unkind and harsh words, I want to continue my writing journey. Here. Where it all started. 

However, despite changing my mind a million times about what I want to do when I grow up, one thing rings true: I want to always write. 

I didn't actually stop writing altogether. I just stopped sharing what I had to say. I was tired of always arguing in my writing, and wanted to write things that were beautiful and different and fictional. I've dabbled with poetry. 

Amidst the pandemic, I've started trying out other forms of art. I discovered that I'm decent at painting, and enjoy doing it to calm down and relax. Last year I also got back into reading regularly, and have become more active on Instagram, where I review books and make friends that share the same love and adoration for fictional worlds that I do. 

This August will make two years married to my dear Patrick. We were engaged from March-August of 2019 and married on my late grandmother's birthday, August 8th. 

The world is brighter as Mrs. Foltz. The world is brighter being married to my best friend. 

After almost two years of teaching at a daycare, I find myself a strange and unexpected impasse. As of this week, I have a lot of free time on my hands, and am preparing to crack my knuckles and throw myself into searching for something new to occupy that empty space. 

It's a very hollow space, with little to no room to breathe if I spend too much time looking around, but the vacuum of space is very much the same if I think about it. Space seems to function and move forward with perpetual endings and rebirth, and so I will take lessons and do that same thing. 

I am back in college, working hard to keep high grades and learn. I'm officially pursuing teaching, which I should have done from the start, but I want to write a book. Maybe I'll have time to start doing that. I have enough credit to be considered a Junior, and I've received now numerous invitations to several esteemed honor societies for talented collegiate learners. (Yes, I am bragging. I have deep pride in myself for how much hard work I have put into school to be where I am today. The non-traditional route is proving to be so much better to me.) 

I am surrounded by people who love me. I don't feel like I'm in limbo with friendships, nor do I feel the need to ever be again. Growing with people is so much easier than growing alone. I love the family members that choose to love me, and have cut ties with the nasty ones. Weeding out the garden, if you will. I also find myself married into one of the neatest families, where any outing requires a minimum of three tables pushed together, and where the laughter is never ending. 

The last year has been insane for everyone, and I want to just write about some stuff that I've experienced. Everything from the shows I binged during lockdown, to having a broken leg and needing physical therapy during a pandemic. Joint experiences promote personal growth and can help people to feel like they are not alone, and coming out of a season of my life where I felt very alone, I want to help in any way I see fit. 

This Author is glad to be sharing her work again. I won't be consistent. I might not post again for months and months. But for now, I wanted to share that I'm still kicking. Still reading books and throwing them when they make me mad. Still writing, all the time, about everything. 

Some things haven't changed, though. Just a couple of weeks ago I dyed my hair pink, after bleaching my hair at home for the first time with the help of my best friend. Zero regrets. I also have a few more tattoos than I used to-- maybe I'll write about those, too. 

Anyways, long time no see, right? 

I hope to talk to you all again very soon.

-Tori  

(I also did not proofread this, nor do I plan to. Sorry in advance for any errors.) 

Stories with Tori: Extraordinary Means

Welcome to my first ever book review on this blog! 

In 2018 so far, I've read over fifty books. I really want to start sharing the stories in those books with people, and this is by far the most efficient way I've found to do that. 

I hope that you guys enjoy the books that I review, and if you have any recommendations, feel free to reach out to me and let me know so that I can get to reading them. 

-Tori

While on a trip to Indianapolis with my boyfriend, we dropped in on a bookstore on our last day visiting because I cannot resist the urge to be around books. Although we have bookstores relatively close to where I live, none of them were on the scale that this particular store was on. I walked in with no intentions of purchasing anything (which, let me tell you, is impossible for me to do in a bookstore.)

I walked the length of the store and around. I looked through fiction and romance, and grimaced at the section for westerns. I don't understand westerns, and I like cowboy movies and feature films that star Chuck Norris. I just lack the appreciation for the genre of books. I'm sorry in advance if you are obsessed with novels set in the wild west, full of cowboys and twangy damsels in distress. You can have that genre all to yourself- I won't say a word about it. 

Anyways, after picking out a Harry Potter themed change purse and a couple of tote backs, I headed into the Young Adult fiction section. I've really been trying to expand my horizons into, you know, normal fiction. However, authors penning and publishing young adult stories are incredibly talented and well-versed, and are more often ahead of the times than ordinary fiction writers. 

One of my favorite authors of 2018 has been Suzanne Young. I follow her on Twitter, and think she's a visionary writer that understands the minds of teens and young adults, and eagerly reaches out to them to let them know they aren't alone. She also regularly tweets funny things, and is one of those people that makes having social media interesting. Anyways, I usually look for her series (the first of which is entitled the Program, that will have its own entire review at some point, when I finish the series!) just to, you know, be proud that good books made it onto the shelves at the store. 

Near it, I found the book Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider. The cover really popped out to me- having been through more than a few complicated medical situations in my lifetime- and I bought it without much of a second thought. 

I finally sat down to read this book yesterday, and read it all in one go. I could not put it down, that's how much it held my attention. 

It was one of the most interesting and down-to-earth books that I've ever had the pleasure of reading. At the beginning, you're introduced to the main protagonist. His name is Lane. He's one of the smart kids, an overachiever, gifted and headed to any Ivy League of his choice- until he goes to the doctor and is whisked away to a sanitarium with an incurable strain of Tuberculosis. 

In Schneider's world, herd immunity is almost a thing of the past. Strains of diseases have become resistant to vaccines and preventative medications, and the world seems to always be searching for a cure to something. Eerily remnant of dystopian novels surrounding plagues that wipe out whole countries and continents, this book approaches the situation from a different angle. 

The kids in this book are privileged. They live in Latham House, a sanitarium that regularly monitors their vital signs via a device like an Apple Watch. These devices record and report heart rate, temperature, and location regularly to the house doctor. This doctor then meets with every patient at least once a week, while also sending their information to researches that are studying for some kind of cure. 

Latham House is a place where clinical trials, miracle medicine, and means above medicine are all embraced and discussed. The teens and young adults taking up residency there are not the ones living off of the system, but ones that had the family background to afford such a luxury. Other places referenced in the book embrace herbal and holistic living, or that dying is the only reality. 

The kids are given plenty of free time, for rest and relaxation, or to get to know each other and understand their own human experiences better. Lane befriends a table of teenagers that, let's face it, are born to stand out. They go on several (mildly illegal, in some cases) adventures in and away from Latham, encounter obstacles that normal teens encounter on a much more embarrassing scale, and struggling with the realism of death, dying, and the grief associated. 

I don't want to spoil the book for you guys, but the characters really make the story what it is. Schneider shows you that even if you are young, and even if you are suffering, you can still have dreams and find love. 

As a person who has gone through life being (mis)diagnosed with a somewhat terminal illness, and raised around people with debilitating diseases, this book hit home over and over again. In elementary school, I wasn't allowed to sit through the fire drill in my classroom because the sudden shock of being scared might stop my heart. 

Now, one of my favorite things to do is scare people/be scared. Haunted houses and creepy shows are always on my Hulu list. My mom has MS, and my dad has several different cardiovascular problems and has been through numerous surgeries to help him/fix the problems throughout my lifetime.  It was wonderful to crack open a book and read someone else's goofy commentary about what it feels like to be in that position. 

Robyn Schneider is also the author of The Beginning of Everything, a novel that tackles similar issues with popular characters struggling to find their places in the world. 

I would definitely rate this book an 8/10 for adult reading, and 10/10 for teenage reading. It does contain some more adult-themed language and typical coming of age situations, so if you believe in the atrocity that is censorship, or you just are a mild/soft nature of a person looking to avoid the harsh realities and associated dark humor of life, I would recommend softer reading. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green would be an excellent way to ease yourself into reality.

My favorite quote from this book:

“There's difference between being dead and dying. We're all dying. Some of us die for ninety years, and some of us die for nineteen. But each morning everyone on this planet wakes up one day closer to their death. Everyone. So living and dying are actually different words for the same thing, if you think about it.” 

You can purchase Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider by clicking here, or by visiting your local bookstore. 

Thank you guys so much for reading this! Let me know if you have any specific book recommendations of your own that you would like for me to read and review, and I will happily seek them out and do so.

Happy reading! 

Church Hurt: A Reflective Post

I'm really tired of the "too blessed to be stressed" shirts and the "WWJD" bracelets. 

I'm tired of all of the presentation and drama that goes into productions on Sunday mornings. 

Whether it's the music, or the lights, or the coffee bars. 

I'm tired of production value, attendance numbers, and bragging to the congregation about how much money last weeks offering brought in.  

I used to almost live by the saying that 'hurt people, hurt people.' 

Now I think that hurt people try to keep other people from getting hurt, especially when it involves the ever-cliched, blogged about mess that is "church hurt." 

You see, people want to talk all about 'church hurt' and the toxic 'church hoppers' and people who never find joy in anything. The people who sit piously back on their pew seat and complain about the music, the praise team, the worship, about tithing, about offering, about the prayers, about the pastor, about the altar call- and then get up, spread lies, and move on to another church to do the same. 

However, every person I've ever met that has actually been hurt by a church or someone in it, has a different story to tell. 

Some people will tell you about how they sought help and were met with laughter and emptiness. 

One of my mom's friends will tell you about the local church she called for prayer when her grandchildren were taken into an abusive foster home that said, "Oh, we don't do that anymore!" and hung up the phone on her. 

Another friend of mine will tell you about how his friends abandoned him in favor of false indoctrination, and accused him of not being 'in the Word' enough. 

Some high school friends of mine got saved at a big production, and then were so alienated by the youth group at the church that they decided not to go back at all. It was easier to be in their new faith alone than it was to be surrounded by the believing peers at the church. 

One of my friends got radically saved and couldn't wait to tell me, only to be told by her family that she wasn't saved in the 'right kind of church' and that it didn't count. 

A local church near me is charging $3.50 for community children to come to Vacation Bible School. 

~ 

You guys know where I'm going with this, so I guess I'll get right into it. A couple of years ago, I posted one of my most shared blog posts ever. It contained a slam poem that I wrote regarding some people who really just broke me. They broke my heart. They challenged what I believed and wanted me to alter it, and when I stepped up and said no, and shared about it online (Hi, I do that, I'm a blogger, nice to meet ya!), and gained support, I lost friends and mentors and people in general. 

I never got right down to the nitty-gritty about what happened, so I'll tell you guys briefly right now. A couple of different stories about how I've been treated by people in church. 

When I was little, I was bullied in a couple of churches I went to. Girls put gum in my hair and teased me, teachers were unkind to me because I was a little bit different, and I was told to deal with it and not take a stand by those who liked to say that they had "spiritual authority" over the situation. 

("Spiritual authority" is a phrase that Christian leaders like to use right before they do something stupid, like tell you to drink the Kool-Aid, but we'll come back to that!)

Another time, some girls were picking on me at a youth retreat (I think I was nine?) and I stood up for myself. Told the bigger girls that they didn't get to be mean to me just because I was little. One of them started crying, and I was reprimanded for not behaving like the Lord expected me to. That confused me a little bit at the time- did Jesus want people to bully me? Were their actions justified? 

One time, I had this little TracFone that my dad had given me. I was so proud of that little phone, it was my first one and so I took it everywhere. I was much more into carrying purses when I was little, big purses with a lot of different crap in it, and so I added my little phone to the mix. It didn't even work as a phone, to be honest with you. I just carried it to feel cool. 

I always carried my little purses to the bathroom with me, because at the time I carried sprays and lotions. Just girly things, you know? I was a kid! This teacher told me not to take my purse to the bathroom 'because I might drop my phone in the toilet,' and when I told her that I was going to take it anyways because of everything else in it, she asked me to hand her the phone. I said no, because I was raised to have autonomy over myself and my stuff. She threatened to tell my parents that I was acting 'ungodly,' and humiliated me in front of the whole class. This is another person who justified the bullying that took place, and made me question if Jesus actually cared about me at all.

The biggest issue happened when I was in high school. I was, in some ways, a Jesus Freak. I wrote Bible verses on and in my journals, on my hands, talked about Jesus, went to church all the time, worked in church childcare, worked church camps, helped feed the community- and I loved it! 

Well, then all of my grandparents passed away. 

When my Grandad died, I was met with false sympathy and pious platitudes. 

When my Nana died later that same year, I was met with 'this was the Will of God' and 'Jesus must have wanted this.' So, I turned my back on God for a little while. I didn't want anything to do with the Bible, or with people in Church. 

I actually went to youth group a couple of times, and ended up at Winterfest in Tennessee. My life radically changed, at least a little bit. I got back into the swing of church, participated in a large scale production on Easter Sunday, and made some friends that I considered my family. I was on a drama team (aptly named), I worked this summer camp for foster kids, etc. etc. 

Y'all get it. In the words of Offred from the Handmaid's Tale- I was very pious with my actions. 

My Grammy passed away that following summer, and the last thing I ever told her about was that I lead a little girl to the Lord at summer camp. She was five, and that experience changed my life in a way too. She was so solemn and serious, and said the little prayer with me, and it blessed my socks off. I was told by leaders in that situation that she was 'too young to understand,' and that I hadn't really lead her to the Lord. 

I was saved when I was four. 

But anyways. 

I switched schools, and had a government class that also radically challenged everything I believed in. I think it's important to mention that my teacher was a Christian man, but he was also very adamant about teaching us to form our own opinions and arguments based on the factual information provided to us. My mind was blown by facts, and I sat on the liberal side of the classroom. We didn't vote for Trump, we were pretty liberal, sang emo anthems sometimes, and one girl spent every day recounting the latest episode she'd watched of Game of Thrones. 

These are important details, because these people encouraged me to think freely. Some of them were religious, some of them were atheist, and some of them didn't identify with any religion but had considered it.  

I went back to my church friends every week, and sometimes I shared about my newfound beliefs and passions, but usually kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to challenge anyone else's beliefs. I was raised to not be confrontational in the church. (I don't think my parents raised me that way, but someone along the way taught me to be quiet in church, and it stuck. For a little while, anyways.) 

I feel that it's important to mention here that I have two uncles. They are happily married, and I love them both very much. That's another thing that my granola corner taught me- to not judge people. The church never taught me that. 

Anyways, one night at church, a bunch of us were lumped into a room together. It was boys, girls, men, and women- ages eleven to probably twenty-five or twenty-six. The message that night was on sex, and mostly about women and their role in the church, and how sex played into that. The message was basically about how a woman is defined by her purity, and once it's gone, she is of no real interest to the church or to a future husband. 

Everything in my body came to a screeching halt.  

Like, there are children in this room.  

Impressionable children.  

More importantly- impressionable young women. 

That someone just shoved into two boxes: worth-it, and worthless. 

Everything that makes them unique had just been diminished into what was between their thighs, and more importantly, who had been there. 

Nobody talked about the spiritual side to sexuality, or even about how it's meant for more than just procreation. I mean, read the Song of Solomon! (Also, remember that Solomon had many wives and concubines, and then reread the Song of Solomon with that mindset. It's a different sort of experience!) 

Forgiveness wasn't really discussed as an option, just encouraged. But only for those that had been tempted, not for those that had given in. 

Because fuck those people, am I right? 

(This is massively pun intended, if it upsets you, I'm really not that sorry about it.) 

Anyways, I posted on Facebook. You know Tori, I always have to say something to piss at least one person off! That actually wasn't my intention at all. My intention was to alert parents about the topic that had been discussed, and to inform the younger girls who had been there that there was so much more to them that has nothing to do with their bodies.

Within an hour, I had one friend left. 

My very best friend at the time had texted me and told me that I needed to pick up a Bible. We have since discussed this issue, at length, about a year after it happened, and are friends again. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. 

The person in charge of our drama team had made us sign a little agreement at the beginning of the month regarding how we post online. She didn't want us to show the church in a negative light, or do anything that might bring scrutiny or ridicule to the church. 

She texted me, after having texted me during the whole sermon that night agreeing with me, and told me that we needed to have a conversation about the paper that I signed. 

I believe that this is an important time to mention that contracts involving the signature of minors are not legally binding, and I hadn't mentioned any names or the name of the church. 

I know how to be professionally anonymous online, and I understand fair use laws that allow me to do otherwise.

The actual person who had given the message that evening also texted me to confront me about spreading lies and Bible challenging fallacies, and I still didn't change my stance. 

I spent a lot of time crying after that. I haven't been back to church since then, not really. Maybe once or twice. I read my Bible, and I love people. 

I give to those people on the streets that hold the signs. I don't care what they spend the money on. 

I give of my time to the community, just not if it's church involved. 

And to those people who say, "if you don't go to a church because you were hurt there, then you're worshiping the pastor and not the Lord." 

Hop down off of your soapbox, and go read about the false prophets in the Bible. Or false prophets like Jim Jones, who started out in a Pentecostal church as a faith-healing pastor, and then convinced his entire congregation to move to a random place in the middle of nowhere, and then convinced them all to kill themselves. 

I'm done drinking the Kool-Aid. I'm tired of the religious arguments, and people telling me I need to go to church. I will no longer be a sheep to the slaughter, because I would rather be under the care of the real Shepard, and not the ones who leave the 99 to worship the one. 

"Spiritual authority" does not mean that someone gets to dictate your life to you, from start to end. True spiritual authority comes from those who pray for you, read the Bible with you, and stand with you when you need them to be there. Not the ones who hang up when you call a church for prayer, because they are too busy to intercede for you. 

Surround yourself with people who will intercede for you!!! 

Also, going to church makes you a Christian about as much as standing in a garage makes you a car. 

 

 & I am done pretending and covering up the lies and misdeeds of those who call themselves Christians. I'm not here to judge you, but I will pick my figs and grapes from different trees and vines. 

Remember that faith-based isn't always a good thing, and that church-based is an even worse thing. There are so many alternative groups of people who are kind to children, families, and the like. Most of which don't discriminate against you if you are a single parent, gay, transgender, or just a weirdo like me. 

Seek them out, and love people regardless. Let Jesus change them, and you worry about loving them, and taking care of yourself. 

Next time you want to judge someone for being church hurt, think about all of the reasons behind it. Some people have years of pain that they hide behind because of things that "Christian" people have said or done to them, and I'm sick of people justifying their hatred under the guise of righteousness, and in the name of Jesus. 

Anyways, that's all I have to say. Feel free to comment, share, or message me about anything. 

Thank you for reading.