#the little thing as horrifically irritating and stressful as it has been will eventually work itself out

[nancywheeeler]

hanging on by a thread*

(*flat out refusing to acknowledge just how bad this day has been)

[fcrtune]

character summary 

Orphaned at the turn of the 20th century, Norton Campbell spent his youth in the darkness of the mines, working tirelessly in hopes of lifting himself out of poverty. The otherworldly provocations of a mysterious meteorite and a desperate desire to change his fate become the catalyst for a horrific mining accident of which he is the only survivor, badly burned and pulled from the rubble two days later. With pieces of the mind-altering meteorite now willingly kept upon his person, he continues to pursue his fortune, only soon after to receive an unexpected invitation that tells of a game with a tempting reward...

personality traits 

Norton often sought to control the impressions which he left on people, to prove himself trustworthy and reliable, convey his dedication, and show himself as worthy of respect. In the months following the accident, however, the effort he was willing to commit to his persona dropped substantially. The gloomy underbelly to his personality came creeping through: aloof and moody, opportunistic and self-serving, he has spent his life driven by a desperation to change what he saw as a decrepit fate. The meteorite magnets he keeps on his person have an effect on his personality, encouraging greater bouts of avaricious behavior and worsening the emotional instability he already struggles with. He has a tendency to keep people at a distance, and is particular about what, and to whom he devotes his time. His teammates have eventually come to describe him as a loner, as someone who’s hard to get to know and sometimes difficult to deal with.

Cunning:    Observant and opportunistic, Norton has taken great care in the past to craft an image of himself which best suits his immediate purposes. He keeps an eye on his surroundings and the people around him and knows how to use his understanding of others to turn a situation in his favor. He is quick and eager to learn; despite his background as a miner, Norton’s geological knowledge allowed him to change his career after the accident and become a prospector without any formal training. 

Determined:    Above all, Norton is determined and unwavering in his pursuit of his goals. His persistence is his proudest virtue. Whatever he can give, he will, in order to see his ambitions realized. Because of this, he is stubborn but no less reliable when it comes to seeing things through, so long as they are of some importance to him. 

Moody:    Norton is prone to mood swings. He is easy to irritate, although he won’t often show the extent of his emotions to people he’s not close with. Alternatively, when angered, he can find himself overpowered by them and may occasionally lash out at the people around him. Because of his emotional volatility and somewhat gloomy disposition, he can seem less approachable than many of the other survivors at the manor. 

Avaricious:    Greed continues to be a force that drives him, born from desperation and the urgency with which he works to change his impoverished lifestyle. Since childhood, he has struggled to connect with the people around him, and the ‘separateness’ he feels has reinforced his self-centered way of thinking. He will go to extreme lengths in order to further himself, and desires money above all else. The effect of the meteorite material with which his piercing is crafted helps to encourage these avaricious tendencies. 

Unstable:    Especially following the mining incident, Norton has shown himself to be mentally unstable. Partly because his habitual method of dealing with challenging emotions is to repress them, periods of little sleep and high emotional volatility continue to come about once his subconscious can no longer withstand the unresolved, and vastly unacknowledged, feelings that accumulate.

physical traits / origins

age:   28 years old height:   185 cm / 6 feet tall weight:   173 lbs / 78 kg wide frame & broad shoulders. ‘muscle, skin and bones.’ continued malnourishment has left him thinner in certain places while hard labor has lent him an imposing and muscular figure. he is agile and resilient to injury as a result of his active lifestyle.  well-defined facial features, cheek bones and jaw line. eyes are sunken, irises a very dark brown. black hair, parted in the middle and usually half-covered by an old mining hat. slightly tanned, skin somewhat darkened by the sun following his change in career. burns most notably spread across the left side of his face, but also his left shoulder, extending upward toward his neck, inward toward his collar, and downward toward his chest. some smaller spots on his left arm and hand as well. the burns regularly cause him discomfort or pain, especially at night.

his father was latino, his mother western european. both were american immigrants. following the death of his father, norton adopted his late mother’s surname. he initially continued to speak spanish with a few friends of his father, but stopped during adolescence. he does not have an accent when he speaks english, and has not spoken spanish to anyone in years. 

mental health

suffers from claustrophobia and nyctophobia, both grounded in the trauma of the mine’s collapse. nyctophobic episodes are not constant, but rather come about in times of great emotional stress. may experience a blurring of the line between the present and the past. should his head deceive him further, he can become panicked and begin to reexperience aspects of the initial trauma. nightmares also become more frequent during times of stress, as a result of habitual emotional repression, and may leave him sleepless, depending on the severity of the imagined experience. regular sleeplessness worsens mental instability and may culminate, in extreme cases, in auditory or even visual hallucinations.

( more to be added )

headcanons / etc

unenthused about writing in his journal and tends to be very brief about the day’s events. careful, scratchy handwriting. makes occasional spelling errors due to poor literacy. although he was taught to read by the elderly miners, he is not especially well-read and did not have access to a formal education. 

may drink when liquor is available to him, but generally prefers to drink alone. occasional smoking habits from his youth have been abandoned due to poor respiratory health after years of underground coal mining

( more to be added )

[evendanstevens]

41 “I feel like I can’t breathe.” !!!

will I ever be able to keep my prompts relatively short? Nope, I don’t think so

41 – I feel like I can’t breathe

It was mid afternoon on Joyce’s Tuesday off and she wascurrently enjoying a much needed moment of quiet and clarity. Feeling oddlynostalgic, she had dug out her old record player and stuck on an old OtisRedding record. She was now sitting there on her couch, staring blankly at thewall, letting the melody of ‘It’s Growing’ echo through the living room. Itwasn’t the most soothing of songs, but god did she love it, taking her back toa simpler time. She had purchased the record in ’67 when she was pregnant withJonathan. While she didn’t quite feel she was ready for a child, she wasexcited and he was due in two months. She couldn’t wait for him to arrive, forhim to grow up and for her to show him the music she loved, the music that hehimself would hopefully love someday. It was indeed a simpler time, and afterthe week she’d had she craved simple.

A week to the day, Joyce had found herself in bed with JimHopper. Something she thought had been a just splendid idea at the time. But inthe end it turned out to be a mistake, a truly terrible mistake that shecouldn’t take back. It wasn’t that the sex was bed, no that wasn’t the case atall. If anything it had been some of the best sex she’d ever had. But after itended, she lay there and looked at him. She waited for him to say something, tosay anything, but he had just staredblankly at the ceiling, eyes unblinking. She had shifted herself to a positionso that she could see his face and her heart dropped into her stomach when shesaw his expression of pure horror. Not being able to stand it any longer, shesprung up and began to frantically search for her clothes.

“I’m sorry, Jesus, fuck I’m so sorry, I’m gonna go,” she hadrushed out an apology as she hastily pulled her shirt over her head, notbothering to put her bra back on.

Her voice and sudden movements had been enough to snap himout of his trance. “Joyce, wait, no…” he had softly protested as he sat up inhis bed.

“No, it’s okay, Hop, it’s fine we don’t have to do thiswhole thing,” she had insisted, shaking her head and holding up a hand to himthen proceeding to pull on her jeans.

“What thing?” he had looked at her with furrowed brows ofconfusion.

She had huffed as she sat on the edge of the bed to quicklyput on her shoes. “That whole thing where we awkwardly offer the other coffeeor say that we’re going to call when we know that we won’t. This was a mistake,I’m sorry,” she had rambled, she didn’t tie her laces either and instead stoodup and soothed her hair.

Hopper didn’t speak for a moment, and Joyce couldn’t bringherself to look at his face as he dipped his head and propped his arms on hisknees. “Okay…” was the best he could respond with.

“Look, let’s just forget this ever happened, okay? I don’twant it to be awkward with us and the kids, y’know?” she had sighed defeatedly,pulling on her jacket. She didn’t think she’d ever gotten dressed so fast inher life.

Hopper nodded slowly, not looking at her. “Right, yeah,totally…”

After awkwardly saying goodbye, she had rushed out of thedoor and into her car without ever looking back.

The past week had been full of awkward run-ins, if Hopperhad to come into Melvald’s or one was dropping their kids off at the other’shouse there was a very obvious atmosphere. She had tried to brush it off, pretendlike it never happened, but every time she saw Hopper’s face she was remindedof the horrific expression on his face after they’d had sex. She had thought itwas something they’d both wanted, but Hopper had clearly regretted it and it hurt. She tried to reason with herself, of course he didn’t want her, what was thereto want? But it hurt nonetheless. And every time she saw Hopper all thathurt came rushing back.

Eventually, she started taking steps to avoid him,disappearing through the back when he’d come into the store, leaving anotherclerk to see to him. Asking Jonathan to take Will to Hopper’s whenever they hadplans, and straight up refusing to go to the door when Hopper would drop El off.It was driving her crazy, because Joyce soon found that she missed him, but atthe same time she couldn’t bare to be around him.

So she had planned to take this day off to gather herthoughts, think about the best solution to the utter mess that she was in. Sofar it had just consisted of her scolding herself for being so stupid forruining her friendship with Hopper, calling herself a silly teenager all overagain. But then the record switched to ‘Cigarettes and Coffee’ and with came awhole mix of emotions. She felt tears spring to her eyes as her insecuritiestook over.

He doesn’t want me. He’llnever want me. I’m not the same girl he loved in high school, I’m a mess. I’mtoo broken. Why would he ever love me now…

She tried to even her breathing and sniffed. She felt patheticand she hated feeling this way, she hated how she’d once again let a man havesuch a significant hold over her emotions. Damnyou, Jim Hopper.

Just then the doorbell rang. Joyce let out a groan, she didn’twant to see anyone right now and contemplated not even bothering to answer. Butshe knew whoever was at the door would hear the music and see her car and knowshe was home. She dreaded to think it was someone from town and it would openup a whole new window of potential gossip. Not that the gossip bothered herthat much before, after the week she was having she didn’t particularly wantany further stress.

With a defeated sigh, she got up from the couch and wipedher eyes. On the way to the door she stopped by the mirror in the hallway and primpedher appearance to make it look like she hadn’t just been on the verge of abreakdown. Her eyes still looked glassy, her nose still a little red, but itwould have to do. She ran a hand through her hair as she opened the door with asigh. When she looked up she was met with the pale blue eyes of the last personshe’d wanted to see that day.

“Hopper,” Joyce breathed out as she dealt with her initialsurprise at seeing him there. It quickly washed away and she couldn’t look athim again and her eyes went to his shoes. “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk, Joyce,” he said determinedly as he walkedpast her and into the house. Her eyes widened in brief astonishment, her jaw thenclenched with annoyance.

“Please, come on why don’t you?” she grumbled as she closedthe door and turned to face him, bracing herself for what was to come.

She took him in as he didn’t respond to her snide remark. Heclearly wasn’t working today, his usual police uniform and hat replaced withhis regular blue flannel and jeans. His head was uncovered for a change, andhis hair looked rather dishevelled but that was nothing new. But the ruggedlook about him screamed to her that something was wrong.

When he still didn’t say anything she took a hesitant steptoward him, crossing her arms nervously.

“Well, you wanted to talk. Talk,” she shrugged, eyes onlymeeting his face for a second.

Hopper sighed and reached up to scratch the back of hisneck. “I can’t keep doing this,” he said, almost helplessly.

“Doing what?” she shrugged again, still refusing to look athim, this time scuffing her foot on the floor.

She didn’t have to look up to see that he had taken a steptoward her. “I can’t kee- Jesus, Joyce can you please stop staring at yourshoes,” he grumbled. Knowing that not looking at him now would simply bechildish. She looked up and saw just how tense he was, his entire body stiff, hisbrows furrowed into an intense frown. But when he caught sight of her face, henoticed she’d been crying and his expression immediately soften and he swiftlymoved towards.

“Joyce what’s wrong are you alright?” he asked, gently yeturgently grabbing her hands in his. She didn’t protest to his touch.

She shook her head and looked at her shoes again. “It’s nothing, honestly,” she letout a slight laugh to assure him but when she looked up his expression wasunchanged.

“Joyce…” he murmured bringing his hand to her cheek. Sheshould’ve shrugged away, should’ve stopped the contact that only added to heremotional confusion. But there was just something so comforting about his warm,calloused hand lightly pressed against her cheek that she couldn’t resist.

She gave him a small smile in return. “I’m alright,honestly,” she squeezed the hand that still held her own. He still lookedconcerned but she could see in his face that he wasn’t going to press her anyfurther. “What was it you can’t keep doing?”

“Oh, yeah, um,” he cleared his throat and this time it washis turn to look at his shoes. “I can’t keep pretending that nothing happened.”

That was enough to break the spell Hopper currently had herunder and she tore away from his grasp with an irritated groan. “Yeah, welltry!” she moved around him and through to the living room. “Lord knows I am.”

He scoffed then, a surprising sound but not uncommon ofHopper during arguments. “Oh really? Cause sitting around crying and listeningto your old records sure looks like trying to me,” he followed her through tothe living room with a defiant expression. It didn’t change when she shot him aglare.

“That has nothing to do with you,” she hissed at him, hertone as venomous as the look she was currently giving him.

“The hell it does.”

“Yeah and how would you know?”

“Because I’ve been doing the same thing!” he raised hisvoice and threw his hands in the air, ever so slightly startling her.

She blinked at him. Watched as his  face contorted from one of angered desperationto one of complete defeat. He sighed, ready to run out straight out of there,feeling like a fool when Joyce momentarily stunned him by letting out a laugh.The kind of laugh that put him completely on edge.

“Oh no, no, you donot get to do that!” she jabbed afinger at him accusingly. “You do not get to sit around and wallow over whathappened. Not when you were the onewho made it pretty damn clear that it was a mistake!” she stepped toward him asher voice continued to rise in volume, but he caught the sound of her voiceever so breaking at the end of her outburst.

Nevertheless, his face tightened into a confused frown. “What?”

“You heard me,” she sneered at him.

“I’m sorry but if I remember correctly, it was you that said it was a mistake and racedout of there before we could even talk about what happened,” he shot back ather.

She opened her mouth then snapped it shut again. He wasn’t entirely incorrect, she was the one who saidit was a mistake. But even still. “You didn’t see the look on your face,” shecountered with a sigh, her body slumped as her chest tightened, the way helooked after they’d had sex was enough to make her want to crumble right there.“It was pretty clear to see that you knew it was a mistake.”

Hopper appeared to recall, and pinched the bridge of hisnoise in frustration. “Yeah, alright, for a split second I was scared shitless,I’ll admit that,” he brought his hand away from his face and met her eyes. “ButI never once thought it was a mistake.”

Joyce blinked. “What?” her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Hopper heaved a sigh, put his hands on his hips, turnedaround, glanced at the front door then back at his shoes. Looked up at her, letout another embarrassed sigh and made another ten movements of uncertaintybefore finally speaking. “That’s what I wanted to come say. I wanted to saythat I don’t regret, not at all. It’s something I wanted for lord knows howlong, and it’s something I still want,” he looked up at her, a cautious hope glimmeredin his eyes. “And if you want it to, then I want to give it a shot. For realthis time. Just say the word, Joyce.”

Joyce couldn’t speak. She just stared at him in pureastonishment, a million thoughts racing around her head. Her heart was beatinghard against her chest, time seemed to come to a halt. The soulful sound ofOtis Redding the only thing reminding her that she was in fact present in aroom, with a man she never knew she’d wanted for so long, and he had just toldher that he wanted her. Despite everything, despite all her flaws, all herdemons and instability, despite all the things that made her feel she wascompletely undesirable, he wanted all of it. He wanted her.

“Joyce,” his voice cut through her thoughts and brought herback to reality. He looked completely hopeless, his fists clenched at hissides. “Please say something. I feel like I can’t breathe.”

Taking a deep breath, Joyce opened her mouth to speak.

[swimmingwolf59]

Baby Makes Four

(A/N) Accidental baby acquisition is one of my absolute favorite tropes EVER so I had to write it for today's prompt! XD There are no warnings here, just pure teeth-rotting fluff. Also, this takes place in the same universe as Of BMWs and Cadillacs, in case you were wondering c: I hope you guys enjoy!!

P.S. I will be writing something for day 8, but I probably won't be able to get it up tomorrow so it'll be there for you guys on Sunday :') Until then, happy pynch week! It's been so much writing for it this year~

Admittedly, Ronan has been thinking about this for a while now.

The idea had wriggled into his head a few years ago, when he’d been coming to terms with the fact that Opal would be going off to college soon. It was like the situation with Adam all over again, except Ronan felt especially ill-equipped to handle it a second time. Four years of undergrad and two years for a master’s degree away from an integral member of Ronan’s family was enough to last a lifetime – Ronan had no idea what to do about the fact that he’d have to do it again.

It was almost harder with Opal, really. She’d been around as long as Ronan could remember, assisting him in his dreamscape and protecting him from his nightmares. While he was guiltily a little excited about having the entire Barns alone with Adam, he found the idea of Opal being gone for so long unbearable.

But he didn’t want to be in the way of her dreams either, so he knew he would have to let her go.

So then he started wondering what could possibly fill the void of Opal’s absence.

And then he started wondering what it would be like to raise a child for real.

Opal is his daughter, they’d signed the papers to make it official a while back, but she had come out of his head mostly functional and already fiercely independent. Once they’d taught her to stop gnawing on sticks and how to walk in boots to hide her hoofs, she pretty much didn’t need them anymore. She was more like another adult living in their house than anything. (Ronan had even taken an amusing snapshot (amusing to him) of Opal and Adam both hunched over their respective homework at the dining room table, sticking their tongues out in concentration in comically similar fashions.) She just needed to be calmed down from horrific nightmares as often as Ronan did and sometimes a harsh reminder not to eat the wrapper on her granola bars. It had been easy, once Opal had adjusted to the waking world.

And all of it just made Ronan wonder what it would be like to start from scratch.

For a long time, Ronan hadn’t thought he wanted kids. But hell, he’d thought he’d be alone for the rest of his life, and look where he is now. He’d just been worried that he’d never be able to control his dreams, that eventually people would come after him and attack him and destroy his family, just like his had been destroyed so many years ago.

But nobody came. Ronan and Adam have lived off the grid as far as the magic business goes for years, and no one has bothered them since the Gray Man had contacted them a couple of years back to say that he was successfully diverting attention away from Henrietta.  

So now Ronan feels safe to ponder the idea of children. He’d loved growing up in a big family, with his two brothers to tumble around with, and he likes the idea of having a big family again. He also kind of wants to prove that he can be a good dad, or at least a better dad than Niall had ever been. He’s finally old enough to acknowledge that his dad had been a shit dad, though he still holds his intense love for him, and he wants to make it up to the next generation. He doesn’t want anyone feeling neglected and insufficient just because they weren’t a dreamer, like Declan must have felt. He doesn’t want anyone to sit around and wonder if their dad will ever come back home, and then have to find out one day that he won’t ever be coming home again.

And, for a more screwed up reason, Ronan kind of finds the idea of Adam as a dad stupidly attractive.

But it’s Adam himself that makes Ronan hesitate about bringing it up. It’s no secret that Adam’s worst fear is that one day he’ll wake up and find that he’s turned into his father. It’s why he still hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol besides the occasional glass of wine Ronan forces on him when he’s especially tired and stressed. It’s why Adam still flinches sometimes when he touches Opal, like he’s afraid he’ll somehow accidentally hurt her.

Ronan doesn’t want to make him feel pressured to overcome that fear just because he so badly wants another child. He and Adam decide things together, with no one’s opinion meaning more than the other’s. He figures that the safest option for now is to just leave things be. Their life is good right now – there’s no need to add a sudden change.

Which is great, until it suddenly escalates out of his control.

The way it starts is rather ironic, as they do have sex right before. Adam had gotten home late and angry because someone on his team had made critical mistakes in their math and he’d had to stay late at the office to correct them. He has deep bags under his eyes, his usually perfect tie is crooked, and he’s in a horrible mood.

Ronan has learned that the best approach to dealing with an angry Adam is to say nothing at all. Probing at him only makes him explode in his face. So he just wordlessly slides a cup of black coffee over to him when he sits down at the kitchen table with an irritated sigh. Adam downs the whole thing, wordlessly demands another, and then launches into an hour long rant about how shitty everyone at his work is.

“And don’t even get me started on that fucktard Scott; he always does everything wrong and yet somehow still gets away with—why are you looking at me like that?” Adam’s eyes are suddenly piercing into Ronan, who realizes he’d been unsuccessful at hiding his amused smirk behind his cup.

He quickly wipes the smirk away, leaning back against the counter. “No reason.” And then, against better judgement, “You’re just hot when you’re mad.”

“Of all the—!” Adam looks about ready to detonate, but after a second his shoulders loosen and he rolls his eyes. Ronan would be richer than he already is if he had a dollar for every time Adam has rolled his eyes at him. “You’re impossible.”

Ronan grins wolfishly. “At least I’m better than fucking Scott.”

It’s the right thing to say. Adam grins before standing up, abandoning his half-finished coffee and walking over to Ronan. He stops when their chests touch, wrapping his arms around Ronan’s neck and leaning in for a sweet kiss. Ronan hums, settling his hands on Adam’s hips as he kisses him back.

He’s survived this round.

“How was your day?” Adam asks between kisses.

Ronan shrugs, moving down to kiss Adam’s jaw. “Fine. Just farm stuff. Set up at the farmer’s market. Sold some shit. Nothing eventful.” He raises his eyebrows suggestively at Adam. “Yet.”

Adam snorts, but he also tends to be in the mood for sex when he’s had a bad day at work so he leads Ronan up to the bedroom anyway.

Once they’re done, spent and happy once more, Adam gets up to let the dogs into the room before trotting back to the bed and opening his book. He always reads before bed, so Ronan, as always, tucks his arm around his waist and rolls onto his stomach, getting comfortable for an attempt at easy sleep. He goes to bed earlier now than he did as a teen since he has to get up early for farming work.

Just as he’s sinking into his pillow and Adam’s warmth, however, their three hounds climb onto the bed and immediately flop onto his back.

“Fucking…! Your dog-children are suffocating me!” Ronan groans under the weight. Misty, their Australian Shepherd, licks at the back of his neck, making him shiver violently. He tries half-heartedly to roll her off of him, but Ray the golden retriever and Chip the husky have dutifully pinned down Ronan’s legs.

Adam snorts and doesn’t even look up from his book as he reaches out to scratch Misty’s ears. “They’re your dog-children, too.”

“So when a gay man and a bi man love each other very much…”

Adam chokes out a laugh and shoves a pillow into Ronan’s face. “Apparently they make three dog-children. But the real question is: who gives birth to them?”

Ronan laughs so hard his sides hurt. God Adam is the most amazing human being he has ever met in his entire life. Pushing the dogs off of him, the action easy now with his sudden surge of motivation, Ronan scrambles over to tackle Adam down onto the mattress. Adam lets out a surprised yelp, his book tumbling onto the floor as Ronan nuzzles into his neck. “Hey! You made me lose my page!”

“Oh please, you have the whole damn thing memorized anyway.” Ronan rolls his eyes and leans back to press a soft kiss to Adam’s lips. He lets himself smile a little, lost in the shining amusement in Adam’s blue eyes. “I love you.”

Adam reaches up to stroke his cheek. “I love you too. Even if you did give birth to three dog-children.”

“Hey, who’s to say it wasn’t you?” Ronan growls, but he’s laughing again as he rolls over to lie next to Adam. He watches his husband, mesmerized by the way his dimples show when he laughs.

Adam smirks and shoves his cold feet in between Ronan’s legs. “Because I think I would remember something like that.”

“They say some women don’t remember the pain of childbirth,” Ronan says as he wraps his arm around Adam’s waist and pulls him in tighter.

Adam raises a playful eyebrow. “Yes, but they don’t say that some men don’t remember the pain of dog-childbirth.”

“God I fucking hate you!” Ronan laughs, but he’s happy and warm and still hopelessly in love. He falls asleep staring at Adam’s smile and rubbing lazy circles into his hip.

As usual, he falls into a dream. With all of the thoughts and discussions of children and birthing lately, Ronan is only mildly surprised when he walks around a tree in Cabeswater and stumbles across a crib. His breath still leaves him though, and for a long time he just stands there, staring at it. He knows he shouldn’t go over to it, that if he does he won’t be able to stop himself from doing something irreversible.

And yet he finds himself walking over anyway, like something is drawing him forward. There’s a soft crying now, and Ronan can see the gentle flailing of tiny limbs over the lip of the crib. He catches a glimpse of one of the baby’s limbs before it falls back down again.

A pale, freckled arm.

Ronan curses his overactive brain for doing this to himself, but by now he’s already standing next to the crib. He tries not to look in, he really does, but the freckled arm had attracted his attention and now he can’t not look in at it.

Just one peek. That’s all.

It’s a mistake.

Ronan doesn’t even remember grabbing the baby, but when he wakes from the dream there is loud, shrilling crying in his ear and a hand violently shaking his shoulder. “Ronan, Ronan! Ronan, wake up!”

Ronan is awake, but he can’t do anything to prove it. He can’t move a finger, his body paralyzed from bringing the little bundle in his arms out of his dream. He wishes he could move, though, because he can roll his eyes around and see that Adam is panicking and that the bundle in his arms is actually what he thinks it is and that he has royally fucked everything up.

When he can finally move again, he rolls over with a groan, clutching the bundle tighter in his arms. Adam can most definitely see what he’s brought out now, and his eyes are as wide as saucers as he stares at Ronan like he has three heads. “Ronan, that’s—!”

Ronan closes his eyes and heaves a big sigh. “A fucking baby. Yeah.”

-- 

Adam is mad.

“I can’t believe you didn’t consult me about this!” he fumes, though the effect is immediately canceled out by the little baby boy cocked on his hip. Ronan is melting.

“It’s not like I brought him back on purpose!” he whispers back, not wanting to alarm the baby as he steps forward to ease a bottle of milk to his lips. The baby drinks eagerly, to Ronan’s relief. “I was going to talk to you about it! I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately, and when I stumbled across him in my dream…”

He trails off, still uncomfortable with stating his feelings outright. About how he’d fallen in love with the baby on first sight. About how he’d seen Adam’s blue eyes and his own curly hair on that little baby and couldn’t just not pick him up.

Adam scoffs and rolls his eyes, but his expression is softer now, more understanding. “I know you didn’t bring him back on purpose, but I would’ve still liked to be part of the process. You should’ve told me when you first started thinking about it.”

Ronan looks away. He should’ve, but he’d thought Adam wouldn’t want to. Adam has trouble seeing how good he is with Opal, no matter how much Ronan tries to show him, no matter how well Opal has turned out because of him. Adam obviously loves Opal, and Opal obviously loves him, but it’s apparently not enough to fully dissipate Adam’s fears. Ronan hadn’t brought it up with him because he hadn’t wanted to get into a fight over it.

The idea seems stupid now.

“I…I didn’t think you’d want to…” he admits, rubbing a hand over his head. It’s still a habit, even though he actually has hair now to get caught in his fingers.

“You’re an idiot,” Adam says bluntly, and Ronan flinches. For a moment, he feels angry. Why does he always get in trouble for trying to do the right thing? It’s like he’s just one big fuck-up no matter what his intentions are.

But then Adam walks closer to him, shifting the baby into Ronan’s arms. Ronan hugs him tightly, so he won’t fall. He’s staring so intensely at the little boy, awestruck, that Adam has to place his hands on Ronan’s cheeks to force him to look at him. It’s the first time in over twelve years that Ronan has to be made to look at Adam, and the idea amuses him slightly.

“The truth is, I’ve…been looking into adoption,” Adam says quietly, running his thumb down Ronan’s jaw.

Ronan just stares at him. “Adam, I love you, but we have three dogs already – you seriously want to get another one…?”

“No you idiot,” Adam snaps, but a smile is twitching at the corners of his lips. Ronan grins back. “Human adoption. I’ve been thinking about getting a baby too, Ronan.”

For a moment, the words don’t even process. Ronan just blinks at Adam in shock, convinced he hasn’t heard right. “Wh-what? But I thought—?”

Adam suddenly seems embarrassed as he stares down at the baby, a small smile gracing his lips as the boy reaches for him. Adam hands him a finger in return, and when the baby grasps at it with a cry of delight Ronan nearly explodes from the cuteness overload. “Look, I know I’ve been…hesitant for a long time about this, and God I’m still terrified, but…You’ve always wanted kids. You love Opal, but she was never going to be enough for you. So I thought…I thought we could give it a try… And before you say anything, I want this too. I want…I want to try having a family with you, Ronan.”

Ronan is gaping for a completely different reason now. He never realized how…known he is. He always seems to forget that Adam can see right through him, that he doesn’t even have to learn to be comfortable with stating his feelings out loud because often Adam just knows. Ronan can do the same for Adam, but now he’s starting to realize why Adam was always so freaked out about it.

It’s scary being so transparent, even to the man he’s been together with for ten years.

Adam is looking at him again, and he looks so terrified that Ronan wants to wrap his arms tightly around him and never let go. “You’ll stop me if I ever try to hurt them, won’t you?”

“God, Adam,” Ronan murmurs, shifting the baby to one arm so he can cup Adam’s cheek with his palm. “Listen to me – you will never be like that piece of shit, alright? I’ve seen you Adam, we’ve lived together for ten years; I’ve seen how good you are with Opal. Who was the one who sat up with her and helped her with her homework? Who was the one who made her a makeshift sling and called the ambulance while I did nothing but freak the fuck out when she broke her elbow? Who was the one who toured colleges with her, made sure she had all of her shots, made her wear her safety gear when we went spelunking, combed and braided her hair all this time?”

“Me,” Adam says quietly, but it comes out cracked. He leans into Ronan’s palm and reaches up to cover it with his own; Ronan can feel his hand shaking. “But just in case—”

“You would never hurt them,” Ronan says firmly, leaving no room for misunderstandings.

But Adam is still shaking his head, looking very much like he’s trying not to cry. “You don’t know that—”

“I do know that,” Ronan interrupts. “And you wanna know why? Because I’ve been staring at your dumb ass for twelve years and you have never hurt anyone. Because you love Opal so damn much that you flew all the way to Seattle just to help her move into her dorm. And you hate flying.”

Adam laughs a little before that beautiful small smile comes back onto his lips. A stray tear runs down his cheek, and Ronan swipes it away with his thumb. “I can’t believe you’ve been staring at my ass for twelve years.”

Ronan scowls before playfully swatting at Adam’s head. “Be flattered you shit.”

“Thank you, Ronan,” he murmurs quietly, suddenly serious.

Ronan hugs him tightly with his free arm, and doesn’t even comment on the tears he can feel soaking into his tank. “You’re going to be the best damn dad anyone has ever seen.”

-- 

“Daddy, I wanna lick the bowl!” Ken Niall Lynch-Parrish, barely 5, says, holding up his chubby arms towards Adam. Adam is more the baker of the family, Ronan prefers cooking dinner-type foods, and he stands at the counter mixing a cake. It’s Ken’s birthday, and all of their friends and family are coming over that night to celebrate. Even Opal is flying home from Seattle, though her quickly approaching finals means she can’t stay for more than two days.

But it’ll be alright. Ronan is just happy to have all his kids in the same place again.

“It’s bad for you, Ken,” Adam chides, but when the toddler’s face falls he rolls his eyes fondly and stoops down to pick Ken up in his arms, holding him so that he can reach the bowl on the counter. “Only because it’s your birthday.”

Ken squeals with delight as he reaches for the bowl, grasping the spoon and licking from it eagerly. Ronan, seated at the table, can’t stop grinning. It’s been five years of raising their boys, and he will never get tired of watching Adam be a dad. It’s his absolute favorite thing.

“Papa?” A small hand suddenly tugs at Ronan’s pant leg, and he looks down to find their dream boy, Jerome Noah Lynch-Parrish, also 5, staring up at him. His fist is clenched tightly, as if holding something in his hand.

“What’s up, squirt?” Ronan asks, pulling the boy into his lap.

Jerome looks down shyly before opening his fist and offering the object to Ronan. “Papa, I think it turned out right this time…”

Inside the toddler’s palm is a toy car, one that suspiciously looks like Adam’s Cadillac. When Ronan spins the front wheel, a familiar song begins to play: “Squash one, squash two—”

Ronan quickly stops the wheel, muting the tune. He glances sharply up at Adam, but his husband is too busy helping Ken clean off the rest of the bowl that it looks like he hadn’t heard anything. For once, Ronan thanks the fact that Adam is half-deaf.

Grinning, Ronan places a messy kiss on Jerome’s temple. “It’s perfect. Why don’t you go give it to your Daddy?”

“Okay!” The toddler grins before carefully climbing down from Ronan’s lap and running to Adam.

Jerome is unique in the fact that he is both a dreamer and a dream. Ronan hasn’t noticed anything other than that that differentiates him from non-dream babies, like his brother Ken who they had adopted from Japan, which had been a relief for both him and Adam. While they would’ve loved him either way, it’s just easier on Ronan not having to dream up all of his pairs of shoes and such like he has to do for Opal. He also hopes that someday he’ll be able to work with Jerome to improve Cabeswater and find a more permanent solution for dreams that no longer have their dreamer.

It’s of even more importance now that they find the answer.

But that’s a long ways away. For now, Ronan is content to sport a shit-eating grin as he watches Jerome tug on Adam’s pant leg. “Daddy, I dreamt this for you!”

“Oh?” Adam has to set Ken down to accept the car from Jerome, and Ken crowds next to his brother to also get a look at what he’d presented Adam.

“No fair Jerome, where’s my dream present? It’s my birthday!” Ken whines.

Jerome, a surprisingly gentle-natured child considering he’d come out of Ronan’s head, smiles and says, “I already dreamed your present! Papa just won’t let me give it to you until Aunty Blue, Uncle Dick, Uncle Henry, Uncle Declan, and Uncle Matthew are here.”

Ken sulks, but the answer seems to satisfy him. Ronan counts it a mental win that his son had called Gansey ‘Dick’ instead of ‘Gansey’, but he doesn’t bask in the glory of it for long. Right now he has more important things to witness.

Adam smiles as he inspects the tiny model of his own car, obviously touched. It makes Ronan feel a bit bad for what he’s about to do to him. “Thank you, Jerome! It looks just like our Cadillac.”

“Spin the wheel!” Jerome chirps, a huge grin on his face. Ronan has to bite his lip to prevent himself from barking out a loud laugh.

“Alright…” Adam, obviously having no suspicions whatsoever, spins the wheel.

“Squash one, squash two—”

Adam stalls the wheel on his palm immediately before whirling to face Ronan, comically furious. “Of all of the beautiful and innovative things you could be teaching our son how to make, why did you decide to teach him how to make this?! This song died ten years ago!!”

“That song is a fucking classic!” Ronan barks, leaning back in his chair and roaring with laughter. Adam looks ready to strike back with a scathing retort to that, but their son interrupts him.

“You don’t like it, Daddy?” Jerome asks, the poor boy sounding absolutely crushed.

Adam falters. “No, Jerome, it’s great! Thank you. You’re getting so much better at controlling your dreaming.” Ronan snickers at the fact that he got Adam to admit the Murder Squash Song was great, and Adam points at him in a scarily accurate imitation of Gansey. “This isn’t over, Lynch.”

“That’s Lynch-Parrish to you!” Ronan says cheekily, and just laughs as Adam throws a dish towel at him.

Later, when the rest of their crazy family is all together and watching Ken open his presents, Ronan is suddenly struck with how amazing this all is. That he, Ronan Lynch-Parrish, is lucky enough to have stumbled upon such an incredibly strange and incredibly amazing group of people who make him feel loved and accepted every day. It’s a long cry away from where he was as a teenager, and honestly it’s a goddamn miracle.

He even has a soft smile on his face as he watches Ken unwrap the little stuffed animal that Jerome had dreamed for him, one that lights up like a night light in all sorts of fantastical colors. Ken absolutely loves it, and he’s grinning from ear to ear as he tackles his brother in a hug.

As if reading Ronan’s thoughts, Adam squeezes his knee and leans over to whisper in his ear, his breath warm on his skin, “Can you believe this is our family? Our family??”

Ronan breaks his gaze from their sons for a moment to grin fondly at Adam. He cups his cheek gently before leaning in to leave a quick peck on his lips. “Not at all, no. It’s like a goddamn dream.”

Adam grins at him, happy and awake and finally filled out in his form, and kisses Ronan back. “Well, if it is, then I never want to wake up.”

[pocharryfics]

Can you do a Drabble where you fight with Harry and you go to bed angry and you hear him crying but he tried to play it off? 💕

You had been sitting on the couch for hours and the lumps in the cushions no longer provided adequate support or comfort against your back. Wiggling your hips and fluffing up the throw pillows again and again gave no relief either. The Golden Girls marathon had long since ended and infomercials were ticking by one after another. To your mild surprise, you’d discovered that if you sat and watched infomercials at 3 a.m. long enough, the same five advertisements played constantly on a loop.

It had occurred to you faintly that you should have been in bed hours ago in order to be reasonably well rested enough for your morning classes tomorrow (really today), but that information didn’t completely register until around half past midnight. Any chance of you going to class was shot to hell - and it was just as well considering you wouldn’t have been able to show up to your classes with red and puffy eyes anyhow.

Harry had gone to bed hours ago - or rather he had gone upstairs hours ago - and has not made an appearance since. You could just make out the Golden Girls theme playing from upstairs as well, but it had ceased a few hours back. Either way, you knew that he wasn’t enjoying a restful night’s sleep and that he would have to trudge through tomorrow’s (today’s) rapidly impending meetings and recording sessions red-eyed and irritable.

Good. Let him feel just as fucked up as you were.

Fights between you and Harry were very few and far between, but when they did occur they were horrific and frightful to behold. The one and only time that you had one of these blowout altercations in the presence of other people, it had escalated to the point that these bystanders had to physically grab the two of you apart. Those who were there and knew you both best had agreed that they had never seen that type of anger manifest out of either one of you and it had scared them shitless. Frankly, it had scared you and Harry as well. You had to spend a long while apart from each other after that and even when you did reconcile, relationship counseling was something that you both had to agree up on if you were going to make this relationship work again.

Some dark things came out of therapy. Both of you had been saddled down with the weight of some earlier in life issues that hadn’t been resolved: his parent’s divorce and the baggage that came with it and your own demons that had yet to be resolved. It was hard, most anything that’s worth doing is, but you both came out on the other side much better for it.

None of your arguments after that had escalated anywhere near as bad as that time, but that didn’t make the pain any less real or the subsequent anger dissipate any faster. To be quite honest, the main contributor to this argument was stress. You weren’t doing too well in your political science class and another strenuous exam was close on the horizon and the chances of you doing well were slim. Add that to the fact that Harry had a deadline coming up and was suffering from massive writer’s block and something as simple as not taking out the garbage had ignited into anarchy.

The diet pill infomercial ended and the shamwow one had began again and you couldn’t stand to watch the loop run its course again: it was time to go to bed.

You trudged up the stairs and walked into the bathroom, feeling around the wall for the light switch. Hair wrapping already was a process in and of itself, but you took extra care this time, meticulously sweeping the brush around to ensure that each hair was in place and starting over completely if something looked even slightly askew. However, you could only stall for so long, and eventually, you tied on the scarf and dragged yourself out.

The bedroom was cold when you came in. You were met with the sight of Harry’s back when you came in and the sound of shallow breathing. The blankets were pulled up on your side of the bed, but for some reason your pillows were missing. Maybe if you can just reach over him and…

“S’that you, love?”

For just a moment, your heart stuttered a beat. It was so good to hear his voice after so many hours in solitude that you almost smiled.

“Yeah. Just wanted to get my pillows back.”

All of your pillows were on his side of the bed, and you noticed, heartbreakingly, that one of them was clutched to his chest. Now that you could get a better look at him, you saw the damp spots on the pillowcase and the red puffiness of his eyes that wasn’t dissimilar to yours.

Fuck. You were angry before but you certainly didn’t want him to cry. Emotions were something that you were easily ruled by so, of course you had wept, but Harry was much more conservative with his tears so it was a good indicator to you when things had really gone to shit.

“Oh, Harry.” Your heart was absolutely breaking.

“Are yeh gonna stay?” Harry croaked, keeping his eyes downcast to the sheets.

“Of course I’m gonna stay! What are you talking about? Just because we had a fight…”

“Yeh left last time.”

“We agreed that we needed a little time apart to cool off.”

“I don’ want it to be like last time. Can’t take it if yeh leave again,” Harry whispered, cracking at the end.

If your heart was breaking before, it had completely shattered now.

“Come here,” you breathed, holding out your arms for him. He’d crawled over and grasped at you like he was drowning, burying his sobs into your neck.

“We’re gonna be alright, Harry.”

[ceraphin-blog]

Anergetic Warmonger

               I was traveling by plane and landing in my favorite state (which happens to be Washington state). I love the smell of the rainforest which somehow makes me feel even more connected to myself. I had a 5-month-old baby girl, my first and currently only child and my now ex-girlfriend. We were going to be miles apart and I knew that this time would be stressful for her. I did worry but I knew I needed this. A retreat into the depths of the Puget Sound. Compared to my prior high desert living this place felt so alive! I was breathing deeply for the first time. The air that wraps like a blanket across chilled skin, the sky that now reflected my soul, and the greenery to show my lust for hope. All things made new, I think to myself. On the flip side my greatest distaste is revealed when I look around. I’m confronted by the cars and traffic that make the highway feel like reserve street at 5pm. My cab driver is a local and seems down to earth, full of life, young and upward bound. I vicariously soak up his vibes and resolutely turn my back on all worries. I foolishly think that this kid must have no stressors compared to what I have. This predisposition was probably wrong, but I’ll never truly know and maybe I’ll never learn. We drive down the road talking about his successes, hopes, and dreams. I bounce back with words of dishonesty. His joy drags me out of the mire, at least for now.  I’ll keep focusing on where I am and not where I was because nothing else seems to be working. We drive what should have been 30 minutes for another hour and 15 minutes. We begin to pull up to the grounds, the grounds where I’d still find myself barred.

Most of my stories seem dismal but that isn’t who I am, it’s just how I was made. When I arrive to the office; to which the name of the place I’ve still omitted, I feel like I’m back in Virginia. The cultural diversity was real, and I felt like I was about to get issued a uniform. Thank God, none of that happened as I have a mental sigh of relief. I feel down to my packed bag full of clothes that would help me blend. I’ve always been a plain guy. There are a lot of people at this ‘resort’ of sorts. They all have different backgrounds some more intimidating than others. Little did I know that I would meet some of the most profound people in my life. I get to my shared room and try to find a bed with enough privacy to feel secluded. I don’t want confrontation or feelings, I just want freedom. It’s funny when we say the sun brings joy but why is it that depression just feeds dopamine when the skies are grey? The weight of the sky, the blanket of those staggering trees that look like they could lift you like feather. It’s mysticism, a realm of my childhood perhaps.  I believe its true that men are supposed to be adventurers and something about getting lost inspires me. “Get Lost!” is more of a warm welcome than a deliberate provocation in my experience. When I finally settle down I put at least some of my things in their spot, not wanting to appear a slob around others. I pull out my 2011 MacBook Pro and, in my futility, spend hours trying to install a ported version of Skyrim on my laptop. As someone I overheard has said, Skyrim is the depressed persons dream, and I don’t think he was wrong. I had few passions left and all were quite selfish in hindsight; I still avoid this person from time to time as he comes back to rudely take the seat. I get a phone call and answer it, my ex was checking in. I wearily respond with great disinterest, and I hated that about me. I tell her I’m fine, wish the best, and sporadically inquire about how things are, knowing they hadn’t changed much in a days’ time. We say our goodbyes and I look around the room. I decide it’s time to meander to find something to eat.

The food they served was good and since we were on the west coast the fish was pretty good. Most others were complaining about how they could do better initiating the memories of my middle school life. Kids would poke and prod at their food and say the cafeteria food sucks and bluntly throw out everything except the main course. I laugh looking back because the main course was what they had complained most about. I grew up very thankful, we had very little then. My mother was my sole supporter, and to this day a couple of my brothers and sisters are those little kids she still cares for. I’m turning 27 in a couple months and I’m the youngest, if that means something. After taking in this memory most of which I had spent by myself trying to ignore the groups of people that walked past, I realized I had finished my food and began my short walk back to the dom. We had a group meeting led by the others in our group who had been there longer. They would talk about how we need to keep better care of ourselves and others. They also had a chant which Thank God, I’ve put out of my mind. As the reader you may have presupposed where I am, or maybe not. I call it therapy, or simply where the crazy people go and I’m not crazy. I don’t belong. Days would go by at this place and I would go to therapy groups to learn about depression, anxiety, or PTSD. Therapists seemed to have learned something because they seemed to understand that although they direct the group they shouldn’t be the leaders. They would ask a question and either everyone fired off wanting to put their two cents in or we’d sit there staring at each other afraid, or even unwilling to respond. A simple question can be so daunting or even unfair and I didn’t fit. Anger isn’t an emotion, it’s a reaction. When I would see people put up these defenses I became cautious. I am quick to make judgements, perhaps too quick, a fatal flaw of mine. I just knew one thing, I didn’t belong.

I like to believe I am well rounded, and I make connections to experiences like any other human. I mean just look at an advisor’s office, when you see all those little toys or momentous they do serve a purpose. Those trinkets serve to jog your memories and hopefully to make association. Comfort is found in the eyes of a good first impression and my impression of those around me is very mixed. In the rough stratification in our social groups some lead, and others are left to believe they are wanted. It seems the group really drew to me trying to connect with our very different experiences. At least until I started hearing of another who knew displacement, Adam Posadas the ‘Anergetic Warmonger’. Never had I felt so dim compared to another. When we met we had some free time upstairs. Another acquaintance who became a friend Nancy a mother of four always said she never felt free and happy as she did around me and thanked me many times. The traits I often miss about myself are the youthful and explorative side of me. When trying to think of positive experiences I’ve made it’s like I’ve hit a brick wall or better yet a devoid space.  For some reason others will see it and I’ll accept the praise, but I’m confused the whole time. We talked for some time and he gladly showed me how a tesseract worked on a white board to which I was still confused by the end. All I knew was that one point was always moving. He also sang for us while playing cards later that evening to which I was very impressed that he was so operatic. When he caught wind of Nancy and I’s praise his mood shifted and he quickly left the room as if irritated by our response. I thought that was weird and way brash, but I was accepting. Besides, I still hardly knew the guy. Why turn away praise when you deserve it?

As time unfolded I began to share my experiences with others in the groups to which some of the most deserving affirmed my seemingly tedious trauma. I started to feel better about who I was though that would never change or take away the pain that I dealt with. Adam like me had PTSD, we struggled from similar events, and both of us had far reaching negative internal beliefs cemented in our souls. It was no wonder we connected so quickly as the days went by. We both knew what it was to feel hopeless and without belonging. We both had done things to disable our lives going forward. Hopelessness and longing are best friends with depression. I was only to be at this dom for 30 days and my time to leave was coming up. I had met Adam just 7 days in. We spent a lot time talking about things and trying to reaffirm each other in hopes that we would become better people. Adam as I had later learned had developed romantic feelings for me past my chosen barrier. I would often try to show that I cared deeply about him as a person but that I just didn’t feel that way.

This didn’t constrict our last days of conversation on my end but for him it would turn our conversations into an uncomfortable grey area. I eventually left the facility to return to Montana and found that I had lost much more than I had gained, much more than I have space for here. I grew so much in this sheltered place to realize I didn’t have the capacity to practice my new tools with the real world, but with what I returned to who would? For a time, I lost contact with Adam which led to a horrific end. Adam got out shortly after I left and like me he came home in Seattle to find that he lost everything. His boyfriend was sleeping with another man. He tried to reach out to me, but I didn’t have iMessage turned on, our only form of communication at the time. He had sat on a bridge all through the night and eventually threw himself off, and in his misery wrote one of his last letters to me. Today I live with the realization that I could have helped him if I knew. I occasionally read his last messages. He was a professional writer and had a lot to say. He became the biggest inspiration in my endeavor to writing. I keep looking back hoping to find a new piece to find what he would say now. I just wonder why he felt so alone, yet like him, I don’t. I know exactly what that feels like. Just maybe I do have belonging and perhaps if he had just waited a little longer he would also know that.

As an excerpt I’d like to take time to include a writing that he had made. Given that he mostly wrote children’s books they wouldn’t be as personal but his blog had much more to say. This is an early writing (January 7th, 2011, “It begins with blood”, Adam Posadas)

What is the price of things as they used to be? A single phrase. A single gesture. Even just a single drop of blood. That is all I need to know that magic hasn’t deserted me.

This late at night, desert heat still fills my place. I squat in an unfinished basement unit of a condemned apartment building. The air conditioner pumps in air that is only slightly less hot; it just makes my sweat-soaked shirt heavier. Three days have gone by since the moon was full. Every night as the moon grew I lit the candles and held the image in my mind: I stand tall and confident and I glow with inner radiance. In that vision I am powerful, and I am not afraid. Every morning since I started that visualization I wake with the dread knowledge that it didn’t work, that it’s still gone. It should’ve been better by last night. I should be better right now. Magic as I have always known it can’t be lost to me forever.

Source

https://adamposadas.livejournal.com/ Adam Posadas January 7th 2011 “It begins with blood”

[whatmyheartsaw]

What My Heart Did

Chapter 5, Episode 1 The Power of Full Circle

Present

It’s been six months since I was standing on the roof of a building in downtown Staunton I called home for six years, gazing at a spring full moon. It was the morning of the Buddhist New Year, and the activities of the day seemed precisely planned. But they weren’t. I was moving out that very day, and as I basked in the moonlight, the symbolism wasn’t lost on me. New year celebrations, moons, and moving may seem routine and insignificant occurrences to some, but in the context of my personal journey, changes such as these are laced with meaning.  The seemingly random symbols of larger cycles that have punctuated the passages in my life are what I’ve come to call “The Power of Full Circle.”

We sometimes overlook the cycles in our lives that have tremendous importance, and as I stood staring up at the same moon rising above the tree line in front of my new home just two nights later, I was keenly aware I had truly come around to the beginning in one of mine. This place isn’t far from my old downtown digs—just a few miles north – but despite a great love for living in the country and a strong intellectual sense of safety, as soon as the sun set that first night, my body went on high alert. For no logical reason, I was frightened and anxious in ways I had never felt living in the city. Being immersed again in a rural setting triggered a whole range of difficult memories and reactions. Terror. Isolation. Despair. And even though the dangers of those memories are no longer present, my body, being the evolutionary machine that it is, automatically responded with the mechanisms it developed to protect me all those years ago.  Hypervigilance. Sweating. Nausea. Sleeplessness. Nightmares.

The reaction upended me for the first few weeks, my mind trying to logically walk through the response. How were the panic attacks back again? I had worked so hard, developed the tools, and still I couldn’t shake the response. I felt betrayed by my own body. Was there something I was missing?

I tried to focus on the beauty of my new window on the world. The trees were beginning to burst with life. My office window view of the sun rising may not be a spectacular as the views from the sixth floor, but there are bird calls and sweet smells to accompany, and I can step outside and wiggle my toes in the grass without navigating stairs and elevators and city streets. The trade-off seems more than fair.  

Some would try to pass of my panic as a natural fear of being alone and vulnerable in my new digs. Many have told me they could never live the way I have – they would never feel safe. A few have asked why I don’t own a gun. They asked the same when I lived in the city. I always thought that was an odd question, and now I know why. Granted, I am fully aware that I have chosen a more solitary life than most. Some would call me a loner, and people often ask me if I’m afraid to do the things I do. Living alone in spooky old buildings or rural places, traveling, camping, adventuring, being an entrepreneur, reinventing myself. I’m not what I would call a huge risk-taker, but I am confident in my ability to take care of myself. I don’t shy away from many things. My fears are not of being attacked or targeted by strangers or criminals because I am a woman alone. No, my fears are of anyone I consciously allow inside the perimeter. They can do, and have done, the most harm. In this solitary space that I have carefully closed off to any known “internal” threats, I am initially perplexed by the reemerging anxiety.  

But after a few weeks of working with the problem, I began to get it. What I hadn’t considered when making the move back to the country was that I was returning to an environment similar to the one where the original abuse, memory loss, and subsequent malfunctions of childhood trauma had happened for me. And even though I’ve methodically worked at untangling the mess of depression, anxiety, and physical symptoms that occurred from the mishandling of a developing brain I described in the first book of this series, What My Heart Saw, the memories and reactions are still deeply embedded in my body as if the danger is still eminent. Each night, it relives the terror as if to convince me that this place, this scenario, this circumstance is critical to avoid so that it all won’t happen again. My brain is trying to force me to run.

The difference, however, on this repeat of the cycle, is that I am aware and armed with great emotional tools. I am aware of how hardwired we are for survival and how what we learn as children and young adults is so darned difficult to rewire. And I am equipped with strategies for combating the effects of my trauma-remembering body.

2013

The heady euphoria of holding the print version of my first, and to date, only book, back in late 2012 was not what most people imagine. I wrote this on my blog that day:

“The panic is back. After a six-year effort to write this message of healing and recovery, I’m now looking at a box of 100 copies, afraid to open it. Pandora’s box. Everyone keeps saying “HOW EXCITING!” Well, not really. I’m terrified. Mortified. So afraid people will think I’m a freak. A friend told me upon looking at the proof (which I hold here, because I can’t open the box) that I made a rookie mistake in the formatting. Ouch. What else is terribly flawed about this attempt to get this story told? Too late to worry about that now. I got the first “this happened to me too” email yesterday.”  

By early 2013, I am in full freak out mode. Again. The recovery and sense of relief I thought would come with finally telling the story has into an elevated sense of failure and vulnerability. To combat the anxiety, I threw myself into work. Shortly prior to publishing the book, I quit my job and launched full-time into my consulting business, which had morphed quickly into responsibilities for two businesses and a small non-profit. I was drowning, but the idea of failing after putting the raw reality of traumatic stress out in the open made me drive all the harder towards some sort of “normality.” Surrounded by people, I felt so disconnected from everything and everyone I could hardly breathe.

The year rushed on with business-building activities. Events, networking, talks, meetings. I was mustering all the creative energy I could to succeed, and every night going home exhausted and increasingly racked with physical pain I didn’t understand. The busyness kept the panic at bay, but it did not solve the nights. I spent many of them doubled over in pain, sobbing, pacing the floor, unable to eat or sleep. Soon I was immobilized with body pain. A hip that would not stay in place. Horrific pain in my legs that radiated and pulsated throughout my body. I couldn’t sit or walk or lie down without significant discomfort. Some days I rolled myself off the bed and crawled until I could slowly stand, then barely walk. The volcano of bile and anger and sadness I had capped off all those years ago began to erupt in ways I had never imagined possible. The toxic waste of my early life was working itself out of my body.

I spent months trying to get a diagnosis or some sort of help for the physical difficulties. There were tests and medicines. Special diets. Physical therapy. More psychological counseling and alternative therapies. Eventually the doctors called it stress- and lifestyle-related irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux disease, and anxiety, and sent me on my way to manage it as I could. Thankfully there was no systemic disease, but the lack of real answers made it all the more difficult to manage. I worried, after all the work I had done to recover and revive my life, I would still fail because my body would give up.

People told me to relax. Don’t take things so seriously. Stop worrying about money so much. Sure, I was struggling in that undercapitalized and confusing place that most entrepreneurs find themselves during years 1-3 of a business. But in my heart, I knew it was more than that. The deeply embedded shards of childhood trauma were still speaking to me. My body was blossoming into a veritable megaphone of symptomatic storytelling. I knew I would be compelled to tell the story of how mental trauma inevitably become physical, and clearly, sometimes many years later.  But first I had to understand the process.

In September 2013, I started this sequel. Here’s what I wrote:

“It’s the first cool morning of fall. As a coffee lover preferring the dark taste of a strong brew upon waking, I’m not thrilled to be nursing a cup of ginger tea as the sun turns the corner of the quirky penthouse apartment I occupy in downtown Staunton, Virginia. But my disturbed gut demands the herbal substitute. The old wood frame windows are fogging up as the morning tiptoes between red brick, alleys and black and silver roofs. As I watch it set the autumn colors afire on the hillsides of Mary Gray and Sears Hill, I let the burn of the spicy ginger slide down my throat. The irony that something innately spicy is supposed to soothe a disturbed gut raises the edges of my mouth in a slight smirk as does the silhouette of the giant neon Stonewall Jackson Hotel sign rising above the carefully restored historic buildings of this storybook town tucked in the mountains of the Shenandoah Valley. Perhaps that’s why I’m such a fan of this place. It cradles a sweet irony that makes the details of my life a little less difficult to swallow.

The odd fact that more than eight years since my flight from a life I am just beginning to see clearly, I once again live in an enormous building filled with history and intrigue and errant energies that jostle and soothe me. I began a loosely autobiographical novel about that first experience in the bed and breakfast in Florida not long after moving to Virginia, hoping that I could purge my demons with fiction. It sits waiting for an ending.  The urge to tell the rest of this story, one of history and intrigue and ghostly whisperers that have prodded me along through a troubled life remains. So I try again. Here.

I attempt to savor the aroma of the tea, allow it to do its work on my second brain—that mysterious destination of food, swallowed emotions, tightly held beliefs, energetic entanglements. I was flipping the channels on the car radio yesterday and landed on a NPR story about how scientists are just beginning to discover the real impact of intestinal bacteria on our moods. Like my personal discoveries about the power of the unconscious to make decisions without our awareness, I realize I have also intuitively discovered the direct relationship of gut to brain.  If one is out of balance, the other isn’t far behind. My path to recovery has led from brain to heart to gut.

As the city begins to vibrate with sunlight, I feel myself tighten at the thought of writing about this. I breathe into my abdomen, feeling my heart ache with pressure and discomfort.  My belly clenches. As with the writing of my first book, the prospects of throwing myself out there so openly still hurts. I don’t want people to know how broken I’ve been. But the commitment to letting the light of recovery to shine out from this tale is greater than the fear of revealing. The irony of ginger tea, neon and old buildings and the core of personal happiness being dependent on very basic bodily functions is not lost on me.

We are, after all, a tangle of contradictions with moments of clarity that burst upon us like a crisp fall day. The sunlight and color is brilliant. But the leaves can make a mess. It’s taken me some time to understand messes are an inherent and beautiful part of life.”

I didn’t know before I started this chapter that it has been almost exactly four years ago that I began. But given the topic of this segment, the synchronicity of the cycle is clear. The power and growth that comes from “full circle” examinations can be palpable. When we return to old patterns, especially when the repetition seems like total failure, slowing down and stepping back to see what’s really happening is invaluable. Next steps of mindful action that can make a real difference cannot be formulated without considering where we started.

Looking back now, yes, in some ways the return of the panic attacks was me circling back to the beginning of this story. But the tale has progressed. I’ve mostly healed my gut. The body pain is still here, but it’s a small part of my life. I just celebrated my fifth year in business and am pulling ahead financially. I came through the latest series of panic attacks with less distress and more insight. The physical fallout of the attacks was a fraction of what has happened in the past. I have taught my trauma-driven brain and deeply troubled body to see and react differently.

Today I’m watching the sun rise just beyond the ridge on the conservation easement across the street from my new home. Fall has arrived with a subtle touch of crisp air and transitioning color. There’s a mist coating the lawn with cool wetness. Rain is eminent, and I think about the spate of hurricanes that have traversed the country this year from Houston to Florida to Puerto Rico. I think about the families dealing with the losses of our most recent and most deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas, and of those that escaped the bullets. I think about the second torch-lit march of white supremacists in Charlottesville just months after a young woman is run over in a clash of similar hate demonstrations and counter-protests in the same town. I wonder how the thousands of victims of natural disaster trauma and deranged terror attacks navigate their experiences post danger.

I remember from my research for What My Heart Saw how a secure and well-supported child is more likely to overcome difficult developmental challenges than a child without a safe place to process the trauma, and wonder if the loss of family, the deterioration of communities, the slip of our society into what many people describe as a disconnected and impersonal existence, will cause events like these to create more long-lasting scars than they have in the past.  I wonder how we will deal with a growing population touched by trauma that have no safe place to talk about the losses and recover.

The leaves falling from the massive oak trees are creating a slippery mess down the sloping bank of the front lawn. I make a mental note to avoid them when venturing out for a walk. I’m not quite ready to rake.  The quiet is punctuated with the call of crickets and crows. I am thankful that the fear reaction my body produced months ago is long gone. A remembering of a new kind has taken its place. It’s the memory that just like nature, even when ravaged and torn by trauma, we can come full circle. Changed, yes, and hopefully wiser and kinder and more compassionate to ourselves and others, but ultimately equipped with the ability to shed our withered leaves, drop deep into the dark nights and hard sleep of winter, then rise again with fresh, new growth.

The power of full circle is remembering that even though we are wired for survival in sometimes the most troubling and horrible ways, we are also wired for the possibilities of rebirth and growth. Just when we think we’re hopelessly repeating history, the opportunities to see and act differently are at our fingertips. There are solutions to the ravages of trauma. Personally, culturally, historically. They begin with understanding we quite often come full circle. Just because we haven’t vanquished the pain or the hate or the fear,  and find ourselves facing down things we thought had long been removed, doesn’t mean we haven’t grown and evolved along the way. It just means we need to roll up our sleeves and get right back to the important work of healing ourselves, our world, and each other. 

                                                      ***

What My Heart Did is a sequel to my 2012 memoir, What My Heart Saw. It is being written in episodes, published here first, raw and unedited. You can read previous episodes HERE.