We're Not Supposed to Do It Alone

​I believe you need to be strong. I believe you need to love yourself. And you have to fight for yourself and what you deserve. I believe you should be able to tuck yourself into bed at night, with no one next to you, and fall asleep in love with your life. And wake up hopeful for what's still to come and grateful for what you already have. I believe you should go to the movies by yourself every once and a while. I believe you should laugh loudly when watching something funny alone in your house. You need to be able to stand on your own two feet and find happiness whether you are in a crowd of a hundred, or stranded on a deserted island. I believe you should be able to break down hard and wipe away your own tears, or scream loudly to yourself about the struggles of life in your car. 

But I don't believe we are intended to do it all alone always. Our lives are a group project, and everyone we meet, good or bad, plays their part in creating the lives we are destined to live.

I have met quite a few people lately with this 'survive it all alone' mentality. And sure, we all die alone or whatever. But every day you get up and every moment you experience you make a decision of whether to face those things by yourself, or to grab onto the love and light in the people around you and amplify those experiences through shared emotion, inspiration, and support. It's not always about having someone there to push you through it, some times it's just having someone there to watch you succeed. To celebrate your victories, and to grieve your losses and failures.  We don't need people in our lives to make us whole, but we need people in our lives to make it count.

I love big. I love so big that I get my heart smashed into bits in front of me more than I like to admit to. But could you imagine the alternative? I love so big that when I do need help, I have an army of people behind me moving mountains to help me get to where I need to be. And when I accomplish something amazing for myself, I am surrounded by hearts as full as mine that I did something great. It has allowed me to be apart of the most crucial moments of other people's lives as well. Moments that they will look back on forever and my smile will be engraved in those memories as strongly as theirs are engraved in mine. 

I have a blog from years ago titled "Who's Standing Next to You When All Your Dreams Come True?" and it's been a resounding theme in my life for years. Because imagine it, imagine you get everything you've ever wanted in your life tomorrow, but no one was there. Not a friend, no family, no LOVE, how does it feel? Not to say your successes are for other people, but it's the pride and joy and love you receive from the world around you that makes your success real. Makes it alive. 

You can keep the world at arm's length from your heart. That is a sure fire way to make sure no one ever lets you down, disappoints you, or even worse, leaves you. But you make a choice to live a life less fulfilled when you block yourself off that way. 

Live with an open heart. Know that the hurt you feel when your vulnerability blows up in your face goes away. Because in my experience the hurt is always temporary. And the love, even the love of those I have lost, is very permanent. And I wouldn't change that for the world. 

We're not supposed to do it alone. 

The Art of Being Nice

We live in a society that praises Beyonce smashing car windows and artists walking around with both middle fingers raised in the air. There is an expectation to find your #squad and get into group texts so that you have an army of people to trash the people you don't like with. We want to be mean girls, because we want to fit in. And the easiest way to bond with someone these days is to help take aim at someone or something you both don't agree with. We can't wait to capture that one threatening screen shot to hold as ammunition. We are constantly walking around with claws out perceiving every interaction as a challenge.

This is exhausting. And I will be the first to admit I used to love being apart of all this noise. I was good at it. But something has shifted in my adult years, and that girl that foamed at the mouth for confrontation shudders at Facebook messages when they come in because I don't even want to be privy to the drama that is occurring around me. I don't want to be mad at someone's friend's ex boyfriend. And I don't want to dislike that girl that posted that thing about that show she was at. It's all too much to keep up with, and I can't battle the negativity that all these situations seem to be dripping with. 

I feel like we spend so much time and energy beating the shit out of ourselves, that we should want to give it a rest when we can. And even more so, if we acknowledge that we are all struggling with insecurities, self-doubt, the crushing realization that this life can be real fucking heavy sometimes, we should be responsible for taking away the bad from each other's lives. Not adding to it. I haven't figured out yet how to be nice to myself, but being nice to someone else? I can do that like falling off a log. Because if you look past the passive aggressive memes about fuck bois, I think we are all still doing really well. We are still creating, inspiring, sometimes merely surviving. And that in and of itself is something worth celebrating.

I am sure there is great satisfaction in landing a punch into someone. I am sure in that moment, finding those perfect words that cut into what someone is wearing, who they are dating, what they are looking for - you did it. You hurt someone. Good job. But what I've found is that the power behind being kind is 100% stronger than that of being hurtful. Because people take shots at me every day. I shed them quickly. The man who came up to me and told me my laugh turned his night around, that's the one I remember.

I can't change our mean culture. I can't break apart covens or stop all the subtweets. But I will remain active in creating as much positive in the environment that I can control. So I have started making it a point to pay 5 compliments a day. To anyone. Friends, coworkers, strangers. Sometimes it's just noticing someone's shoes, and sometimes it's a bigger reminder that you're good enough. Because I don't know about you, but I need to hear that more often than I'd like to admit to. Maybe if we start putting it out around us, we'll learn how to do it for ourselves. And in the meantime, we'll all have reminders that none of us are in this alone. 

Katie Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Part 2

It was the first time I had actually laughed since being checked into Good Samaritan Hospital on that Friday morning. I was lying in my assigned bed, on a paper thin mattress, trying to wrap my head around where I was and how I got there. But all I could hear, getting louder and louder as I focused in on it, was the sink of the bathroom a few feet from my bed. 

Drip. 

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

They have removed all the art from the walls, put metal bars across the windows, and we weren't allowed to have drawstrings on our sweatpants, but no one in this mental institution thought to check the leaky faucets?  I was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown as it was. On a good day the sound of this sink would make me contemplate ending my life. But here I was, actually voluntarily in an insane asylum for wanting to kill myself, and I am forced to sleep next to a dripping fucking faucet. You can't make this shit up.

I laughed to myself, actually making note that I would have to write this down somewhere some day as it seemed too rich to be forgotten. I wanted to say something to the girl lying awake in the bed next to me. But she didn't talk much. I mean, she didn't talk at all. Not only did she not have anything to say when it was just her and I in the room together, but she didn't ever leave the room. Not for group therapy or meals. It was my understanding she was going through some form of electric shock therapy that left her exhausted and unable to get out of bed. This would be the first time I had heard of electric shock therapy still being used, all my memory of this going back to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or "Running with Scissors". It seemed insane to me that it was still being practiced, but gave me some perspective of the variety of diseases the other patients were dealing with.

The wonderfully broken and inspiring people that occupied the dozen or so rooms on our floor were a colorful cast of characters. There were older women dealing with grief from losing their husbands. And younger women suffering from postpartum depression. There were men dealing with addiction. And there were young adults (roughly my age) that just couldn't deal with living anymore. And no matter how different we appeared to be in the varying lines in our faces or the wear and tear of our clothes, we all had the darkest most vacant looks behind our eyes. We were all lost. And it didn't matter what brought each of us there individually, we knew that our eyes matched. And we knew that our stories were of different lives and different paths, but all of them would very intentionally meet at this point, in this hospital, together. 

Even when I am going through the deepest thicket of my depression, I still feel an obligation to make people happy. Probably even more so when I am depressed, because it gives me some sense of control when I can't find a way to make myself happy. In this particular environment, I had the ability to vocalize the absurdity of it all in a way that was relatable to every one. Whether it was poking fun at our daily goals ("if I could just feel slightly less suicidal, that would be make it a banner day for Katie") or quietly showing my table mate that I had snuck my cookie from lunch up my shirt sleeve to eat later in clear violation of the floor rules. I could tell people were starting to warm up to me. And in turn I began warming up to them.

So we starting talking about what it is that makes us so unhappy. How you don't feel pretty or lovable. That you genuinely feel it would be less of a hassle for the people around you if you just ceased to exist. And you come to find these people, these strangers, can't understand how. How you could see that in yourself, when they are seeing you for the first time and already understand how lovable you actually are. The therapy, the medicine, the counseling, it all mattered. But how these then strangers began to see me, no make-up, puffy eyes, messy hair, how they began to see me would turn out to be exactly what would save me. 

Katie Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Part I

​It was this time last year, on a Tuesday night, I drunkenly stood ​on the front step of my house smoking a cigarette staring at a list of suicide hotline numbers. I wanted to dial for help, but I also didn't know what I would say to them. "Hey, my name is Katie. I don't know why today is different than any other, but I am pretty certain I am over being alive. Any suggestions?" 

I chose one of the many numbers listed at random and waited until what sounded like a middle-aged white woman picked up on the other line. She started asking me questions, rather aggressively. It seemed like she just wanted to hear me say the words, "I am going to kill myself" so that she could move forward with dispatching a police officer to my home. Before I even started to express what I was feeling, I very quickly started backtracking to avoid it going any further. "No. No. I guess, I guess I'm just depressed. I am not going to kill myself. Thank you for your time." and I hung up the phone. Fairly certain I convinced her I would be okay, but definitely not convincing myself.

The thing about the depression this time, unlike I had ever felt it before, was that I didn't think about whether or not I wanted to kill myself. I didn't think about who it would effect or what I would be missing. It wasn't a decision to be made, it was more or less the accepted end game for me. That night I took six Xanax and six Tramadol. I knew it wouldn't kill me. It was merely an exercise for what I would eventually do to turn it all off for good.  

When I woke up the following morning, hungover and nauseous from the cocktail of drugs the night before, I made the decision to burn it all down. I knew come Thursday morning I would either be dead, or I would absolutely have to go to the hospital.  Because I was scraping at the bottom of something I could not get myself back from on my own. I knew this. It was time for fight or flight. And I frankly didn't care which one it was, as long as something broke. But I had one more day to fuck everything up before it ended, whichever way the end would present itself. 

I called off work shortly after Ryan had left for the day, drove to CVS and bought 3 bottles of champagne. I drank alone on the couch all afternoon until I passed out for what I assume was the rest of the night.  I don't remember that day. The only memories I have of that day are through cryptic tweets and Instagram pictures alluding to me celebrating the end of everything. 

I woke up on Thursday morning. Alive. Very much alive. And very much at the mercy of my deepest depression screaming in my face that the previous day had changed nothing, and it was time to make my move. I didn't call off work. I didn't call my family. I didn't do anything but get into my car and drive to urgent care. When I approached the counter, I felt a lump form in the back of my throat, and my feet cement themselves to the ground in front of the charge nurse before me. "I want to kill myself."

I was expecting alarms to go off. Men in white coats jumping into the waiting room with nets to bring me down, and tie me up to keep me from myself. Instead everyone was eerily calm about it. "Okay, ma'am. If you could just take a seat, the doctor will see you shortly." 

I don't remember what time it was when I first got to the hospital. I don't remember if it was day time, light out, dark out. They brought me from urgent care to a separate hospital for a psych evaluation in an ambulance. I laid strapped down on a stretcher in an ER hallway for hours waiting to find out what they were going to do with me. I didn't know what time it was, where I was, or when I would be outside again. I didn't look at a phone. I didn't look at a clock. I laid on my back, staring up at the florescent lights, suspended in time, knowing only that I wasn't going to die. And that alone was progress. 

Do You Have a Moment to Talk About Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

For Brian: Thanks for not letting me dip a toe in. 

Something tells me this will be one of my less popular posts. As I am not going to dwell on heartbreak, laugh through embarrassing one night stands, or call out the people around me for doing things I don't like. What I am going to do is talk about my relationship with God and how it has grown and changed over the last 3 years; as I have transitioned from a very angry atheist to a slightly less angry Christian.

I was born and raised Catholic under an agreement with my parents that I would be baptized, communionized (right?), and confirmed. After that us kids were allowed to decide where we stood in our religious beliefs. By the time I had gotten confirmed, my belief was that the Catholic church made me feel like an awful person for everything I liked doing, was doing, and was planning on doing. So I spent an awkward teenage summer attending a few churches of different denominations of Christianity and reading a few books on Buddhism before I ultimately decided that none of it made sense. That I liked the idea of having religion, but I needed tangible evidence or who we were and how we got here. One that religion couldn't provide - hence the word "faith". Didn't have it, didn't understand it, and I became pretty intolerable of those who did.  In hindsight probably out of jealousy more than anything. 

When my father got sick I started to question a decade of outward opposition towards religion because I hated the idea that when he did pass he would just die. That he would be worm food and that's it. I needed to know that I would still feel his presence, that he could still hear me when I cried out to him, and that he would be able to see me grow up, get married, have babies - all the things I was so torn up about him missing. Even though I was beginning to consider finding a God, or a spirit that I could grasp onto, I was so conflicted about believing in something that would give power to taking my dad from me in the first place. I needed that power in my life - but fuck that power if it's real, ya know?

Once he died it became easier for me to pray. It became easier for me to let go of that anger and start looking at what I really needed out of faith if I was going to utilize the benefits of it like talking to dead people. I remained in this spiritual gray area for the last 2 years as I discovered what life would be now that my father was gone and I was to begin moving on. 

Over this spring/summer I began visiting my friend's family church. Her father is a pastor there. And even before I had seen him speak, he had come down to visit me in Aurora to pray with me and discuss religion. His candor and patience was the first glimpse into a religion I understood, because he didn't claim to have all the answers. And he didn't rush me into feeling or believing something. We talked about things that I will always disagree with the Christian community about, and how you can still fit into that world without sacrificing those beliefs. It started to become clear to me that I have this amazing presence in my life, that has always been there, regardless of how hard I worked to suffer through every bad experience on my own. 

The one realization I had that really opened the door from curiosity to starting to feel like I understood what faith was was this: I wasn't scrappy and resilient in life because circumstances had made me this way. I was made scrappy and resilient in life so I could survive the circumstances that I have. God wasn't fucking around when he made me. He made me sharp as a tack, quick as a whip, and gave me a heart that is probably two sizes too big, but can believe and fight it's way through anything. 

My friend's father used to tell me that I couldn't just dip my toe into religion. That once I was going to believe, I would jump in head first. You can't partially have faith. You have to decide it's what you believe and let it change the way you face each day - not only because you know you are loved and have something amazing in your back pocket. But because you have found something special and it gives you the strength to give back more and do more for others than you ever thought possible. 

Last Sunday I stood in front of a church and prayed that I was done living for me. That I understand where my heart is and what it's good for. And I am going to trust in God's plan and do everything I can to love the people around me as much as I can for as long as I can. This faith has given me strength. This faith has made me less afraid. This faith has restored a heart that was very heavy with hate and anger. 

I am still me. I am still Katie Mother Fucking Keller until the day I die. I will say outrageous things, I will get too drunk, I will make people uncomfortable sometimes. But no matter what happens I will never be as sad, as heartbroken, and as sore as I have been made to feel in the past. Because I am not alone, I have something amazing in me, and I will be okay. 

Exes, Engagements, and A Case of the Eric Slendermans.

This past New Year's Eve, I sat a table at a bar surrounded by friends, drinks, and the best love I have ever had in my life. My boyfriend and I kissed at midnight, and then he drunkenly confessed that we would be engaged by the end of the next year. My heart was overwhelmed and everything felt right and I knew I was going to be okay. 

Two weeks passed and everything had completely turned around. He was sleeping in the guest room, and barely speaking to me. He had become very insecure about a relationship I had with a great guy friend of mine. He was scared I was going to cheat or want someone else. I said, wrote, and gave him every word I could think of to assure him that it wouldn't happen. It wouldn't happen if said guy friend was Robert Downey Jr. I was in love with him, and was holding on to the names we had picked out for our future kids and the song we slow danced to in the living room practicing for our wedding. I wasn't going to give up on us without a fight. 

I knew from arguments that we had had in the past that his coping method was to have space and time to sort things out. This is the complete opposite of how I operate, as I will argue until I am blue in the face and have a resolution rather than letting things simmer without being addressed. But he had told me time and time again, that him taking space didn't mean he was leaving or giving up on me, he merely need to cool down before we could more forward.  I assumed he was just cooling down for the few weeks he had distanced himself from me, and didn't think it meant either one of us walking away for good.

My world, as I was giving him space to breathe, was falling apart. I was just put on a new medication for my fibromyalgia that caused some terrifying and risky side effects. I started to feel like I was being crushed under the weight of my depression, which was growing by the minute. On a Wednesday night, alone, scared and confused, I took 6 xanax and 6 tramadol and waited. I don't think I really wanted to die, but I knew it was a cry for help and that if it was 12 pills this day, I wasn't sure it wasn't going to be 20 pills the next. So I went to the hospital.

I was given the runaround by one facility that didn't think my situation was dire enough to be admitted. But I wasn't about to leave, left to my own devices, and hope that outpatient treatment would be enough to keep me safe. I went home to gather my things, and go to another hospital that would admit me for treatment. The whole day was a dark, heavy and foggy one. It felt like someone else was in my body and taking me where I needed to go while I watched it all happen through my own eyes. When I got to the house to get ready to leave, Ryan walked out of the guest room and stared at me silently. I could tell by the look in his eyes that something was wrong, but couldn't even really process it at that time. I was in motion for my survival. 

A long silence broke when I asked him if it was over. There was no yelling, no drawn out conversation or any skirting around it. He said he didn't think he could trust me and he was done being with me. I started to cry and sat down the couch to continue on my way to getting help. I called my mom and asked her to bring me to the hospital. Through tears I collected my things and tried to push down whatever I was feeling in reaction to his decision to leave me. The last thing he said to me was "Don't tell people I am the reason you are going in there" and I left.

This is where I have gone from confusion to anger to bargaining and am trying to find acceptance from in what has unfolded since that night. I spent a week in a mental facility trying to sort out my medication, my mind, and my heart. It was the best place to be following a break up. Something you ladies should consider. While locked away you can't set anyone on fire. I knew the hardest thing would be coming home to him being gone and starting to live all over again in a completely different life. THIS guy had apparently used the week I was in the hospital to leisurely move his things back into his parents house. During that week, he proceeded to use my house like a bachelor pad. I came home to find that he had been staying there, watching tv, drinking beers, and living the good life until the night before I was released. 

Here's what kills me: even if he had decided he could never truly trust me and wanted out of the relationship, do you have no respect for the 2 years we spent together to the point that you have no care or regard for the fact that I am in the hospital, sicker than I've ever been in my life? How do you cut someone out that fast, and not look back? How do you not care even a little about the friendship that was established in all the time we spent together? I went through the normal breakup motions for the next few months. Sent him a few emails, some angry, some pleading, some expressing my shear confusion on how we had gotten to that point. He seldom responded, and if ever it was simply to say that he had no intention of talking to me or seeing me ever again, not even for the sake of explaining himself. He was happy and wanted me to move on. So I have been trying to do that ever since.

Timehop is an asshole of an application as it reminds you of the happiness you felt in years past about people and relationships that are no longer in your life. There should be some sort of filter that only shows you things from interactions with people that you still like. So every morning starts with the question "How could we have been so happy doing this together exactly one year ago?"

This past Labor Day I scrolled through pictures of our trip to Wisconsin together last year with his family. As my heart began to ache, I wandered over to his facebook page to find him with his new girlfriend at the same places as we were photographed together the year before. This girl was a long time friend of his, who he told me time and time again not to worry about as he had no feelings for her. (The irony). After reliving that weekend with him, planning future vacations with his family, and making love on a golf cart in the middle of the woods, I flipped through a picture of his vacation to find out that he had proposed to his girlfriend on this trip.  Only a short 8 months after we had separated. 

I've tried to understand how all of this happened so quickly. If he had always had feelings for her. If his insecurity about my feelings towards my friend was merely a reflection of what he was feeling towards his. I questioned if she was around the week that I was in the hospital, in my house. And the worst of all the questions, did he have the money saved up for a ring while we were together? Is she wearing my ring? At least he wasn't lying about being engaged by the end of the year. I just didn't know it wasn't going to be to me. 

If 8 months is enough time for him to move on, get engaged, and become future step dad to this woman's son, than it is enough time for me to move on. My heart is still sore. This one hurt. I have never considered my future more seriously with any other relationship. And I needed him the most when things ended. He wasn't there. I am sure that warrants me painting him as a bad guy, but I still can't even do that. Because who he was when we were together we genuine and real and the biggest love of my life.

The fact of the matter is, at 28 years old, I am the happiest I have ever been on my own. I am dating. But I am not jumping in to anything too serious until I find solid ground in this new person I am becoming. I have kept quiet about this situation outside of close friends, because I don't want to tarnish the memory of the time we were happy together. And I do wish him the best. A part of me still wishes it would have been me. But I rest easy knowing that I was the sparkle in that relationship. The "poof" if you will. The girl that gave him a reason to dress nice and go to wine tastings, comedy shows, concerts, hotels, and incredible dinners. I was also the girl that would sit around in his t-shirts singing loudly to Tenacious D drinking beers, or cooking together. I did that relationship right. And I will do that again someday and that guy is going to be the luckiest bastard on this earth.

I Get Attached

I don't know when I lost my ability to not get attached to men. Somewhere here in my late twenties I suppose. I guess it's because it takes a lot more energy for me to be with people these days than it did when I was spending countless nights at bars, and going home with someone was the same as going home alone only slightly more awkward in the morning. 

When I am with someone now, which is far and few between for me these days, it means I really want to spend time with that person. Outside of being with them physically, I am willing to compromise my Netflix time and share my couch with them. This usually entails cooking a meal for more than just myself. And in most cases I even muster up the energy to not crawl into pajamas immediately after coming home from work. I understand that I am only 28 but I have a good job, a nice house, a car, responsibilities, all the fucking bills. I don't spend money like I used to, and that means a lot more time spent at home. And I am more than okay with that.

I guess I wouldn't want to be the love em' and leave em' type anymore any ways. But you open yourself up to more hurt and heartache when you genuinely care about the person you are spending time with and that person may not be looking for a relationship with you. I struggle constantly with whether or not to allow myself to be with a person, knowing I want more but still enjoying the time I spend with them. Or considering the alternative to cut them out of my life since we are clearly on different pages.

It's probably clear I am referring to a specific relationship in this. One that has been in the background of my life for about 4 years now. I am crazy about this kid. And even after all this time, adult me gets nervous butterflies every time I see him. His kiss is still electric to me, and I never tire of the time we spend together. But after 4 years we are still not exclusive. And I know I am keeping myself from meeting other people or being in other relationships when I become fully engulfed in our relationship like I have been the past two months. And I can't figure out if I am cheating myself out of something better, or if I am just doing what feels good for now knowing it isn't exactly what I am looking for. 

I keep telling myself to manage my expectations with this one. That I know what we are and what we are not. But when you fall for someone, removing those feelings is not all that easy anymore. And I think once you fall for someone, it's hard to ever go back to a place where maybe you could feel unattached. I keep trying, and I keep coming up short. 

I know what I want. Better yet, I know what I deserve. So maybe the question shouldn't be whether or not I can keep myself unattached from someone - but rather should I be with someone who doesn't want to get attached to me?