Day 13: Capture

Day 13: Capture
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

Day 12: Counting

Day 12: Counting
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

Happiness is the best facelift

Happiness is the best facelift
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

so says my friend Joni. It's day 11, still early in the game, but man does this kid make me smile.

Day 10: Right Intention

Day 10: Right Intention
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

Putting Sad to Sleep

Day 8: Saturdays are the Worst

Day 8: Saturdays are the Worst
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

Day 7: 23 years ago.

All that reminiscing about when Michael Stipe was my Super Cool Boyfriend sent me hunting through some photo albums to see if I could find reminders of those happier days. Task accomplished. My self-portrait project for today will be about how good music can make you feel. And also about how knock-off Ray-Bans make people look like bugs.

it's easier to leave than to be left behind

I was browsing around this morning and came across this post on the wonderful Liv's site. We clearly have the same stuff on our iPod. I am lifting the REM video and posting it here because I think Michael Stipe may have been my First True Love and so I might as well lump him in with all the heartache.

Just kidding. He only left me because he digs the dudes.

Too many cases…

I found this on this past Sunday's Post Secret; what's bothering me the most is that I could apply this to more than just a few people.

Day 5: spooner-ish

Day 5: spooner-ish
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

I know I said I was going to give this blog a rest for a bit, but I never can seem to shut up for long, so I'm blogging through photos for now. I've been challenged with a project highlighting my depression and recovery, so in addition to photographing sweet little kids and their dogs, I'm also shooting the darker side of things. Enjoy, perhaps....

Day 4: Is it working yet?

Day 4: Is it working yet?
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

Day 3: Patience, Courage, Peace

Day 3: Patience, Courage, Peace
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm

Day Two

reloj sobre mí con la noche

reloj sobre mí con la noche
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

I want you to notice

I want you to notice
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

universally disconnected

universally disconnected
Originally uploaded by lkgilbert.

As a Matter of Fact…

enough of all of this. I think I'm going to shut down for a bit. Thanks for all of your support and comments and emails, etc., but the lassitude of keeping up is too much.

I'll come back when it's over.

Enough of that

I believe I've purged all the nasty stuff from my brain. Thank you for your patience. Now check out some Sweet music. Rebirth Brass Band out of New Orleans, I just saw them a few weeks ago with some friends and they are HOT.

How Therapy Is Helping!

I despise being lied to.

I don't care if you're trying to spare my feelings.
I don't care if the subject matter is technically not my business.
I don't care if you don't think you owe me any explanations.

Just don't write me off as gullible, because I'm much more clever than you think, and I find stuff out. I just do.

I hope you step in a huge pile of dog shit in your good shoes. Liar.

Twelve Steps Lite.

Recovery, recovery. Some of the paths are easy to tread. Some not so much. Asking pointed questions I'm not sure I want to hear the answers to is scaring me to death.

But it's the only way to freedom, right?

I want to believe that.

Limb to Limb

"Ignatius, all at once you're your old horrible self. All at once I think I'm making a big mistake."

"A mistake? Of course not," Ignatius said sweetly. "But watch out for that ambulance. We don't want to begin our pilgrimage with an accident."

It's amazing what you can avoid when you REALLY open your eyes.

On the Way Back

Sometimes I can't believe he's mine =)

I'll take Vitriol for $300, please, Alex

Dear person who would know this is about him if he were to read it:

You are an immature, opportunistic, weak, spineless ninny. Your pathetic attempts to wield your TEMPORARY power over me will come back at you tenfold. Karma is a bitch.

And it's "you're" — not "your" — FOR THE NINE THOUSANDTH TIME.

Mightily,
Lisa

Dichotomy

SEVEN????????

And yet, sunny.

For now, I'll take it.

Hi, my name is Lisa…

relapse
verb |riˈlaps; ˈrēˌlaps| [ intrans. ]
(of someone suffering from a disease) suffer deterioration after a period of improvement.
• ( relapse into) return to (a less active or a worse state) : he relapsed into silence.

Each day at the beginning of my outpatient program, we fill out a brief questionnaire asking about our mood, how we slept the previous night, whether or not we’re taking our meds, and if we had a relapse in the past 24 hours. Half of the program patients are substance abusers, so I always assume the question is for them, and I skip it. All of my attention is focused on getting ready for my court date, getting back my son, being his happy mom again. There’s nothing to relapse into, is there?

Why can’t you love me?

I’m working. I’m trying to be the administrator of my own rescue. I’m taking on my demons as if it’s the fight of my life, which it may just be. I’m trying to learn my way around loneliness, learn about solitude, work on the skills I know I have at my disposal to shake this emptiness. Reaching out to the people who keep me safe, who talk me down from the ledge. I’m doing ALL THE RIGHT THINGS.

I love you even beyond my ability to find words to express it.

Except that every single day, I do relapse. Not to a bottle or a needle, but to hope. Hope for something that isn’t there for me to hope for. This is my emotional landscape, a horizon line a long way off, with everything empty and flat, like a long dinner table set for one. The frustration of my impulses has become habitual, and whether I act upon them or not, they’re interfering with my ability to understand my despair, to find its root. One would think that with all of my upcoming legal battles and the (temporary) absence of Calder in my life, I would be able to do do nothing but cry for my losses, but ironically, the relapse I fear the most is that of hoping again.

How messed up is that?

Runaway

There are sparkles of rain on the bright
Hair over your forehead;
Your eyes are wet and your lips
Wet and cold, your cheek rigid with cold.
Why have you stayed
Away so long, why have you only
Come to me late at night
After walking for hours in wind and rain?
Take off your dress and stockings;
Sit in the deep chair before the fire.
I will warm your feet in my hands;
I will warm your breasts and thighs with kisses.
I wish I could build a fire
In you that would never go out.
I wish I could be sure that deep in you
Was a magnet to draw you always home.

—Kenneth Rexroth