The Many Sides of the Sweet Siren of Sadness

To my Dearest Sweet Pancetta,

I know how you feel. I was there too, but I tend to like myself, well, actually when you are quiet, like even when my weight is lowered by two pounds, and if I just feel okay about ourselves. So, stop thinking you’re Big, Fat & Ugly-or a Big Fat Pig, think of the Who’s Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy album from 1971. You used to say that when you felt okay not being skinny, because you were sexy & adorable back then, and well even now. Enough Sweetie, enough. Time is not waiting for another pound, or a bathing suit contest. You know I love you. Even that first time when sis was trying to force that hand me down shirt with the buttons in the back, its not your fault that it wasn’t your size. It just wasn’t yours. Being forced to stick in your 9 year old tummy on Thanksgiving and pretending was just not fair. Jack misses you; You haven’t been out of the inner house. Time is not standing still.

All our love,

DreamJak

Dear DreamJak,

Please tell Jack I miss him and his leather jacket, and his dancing. But don’t let him know I am stagnated, stuffed and feeling claustrophobic. I just need to lose sixteen pounds and maybe I’ll feel better to get that Mani- Pedi. But not now, I am too fat.

I have tried my whole life on this roller coaster of weight. But why DreamJak when we look at old pictures of ourselves, I was adorable, a cutie! A nice Italian from the burbs. My lust for boys and life and fast cars was never ending! I was a healthy young woman who danced wearing punk clothes and dark sunglasses at the nightclubs. I had my fair share of dance contests, kisses and fun secrets. Despite the huge disappointments in my life that weren’t in the forefront of my world as I shuffled them into locked drawers in my head, I was damn happy. So, what do you want me to do? Why am I always feeling incompetent due to my weight? We have a damn Masters, I know I am good at what I do, but my ladder to mental health success and peace is always because of this self-image, the scale, and those dirty words that are forever talking to us.

That may be F’Angry. She is nuts. Ever since he went into the hospital a few years ago, she has realized her rage, her anger, and his drinking that caused him to be in a coma. I get it, but she needs to let it go. If she gets less mean, maybe I can forgive myself and appreciate our body. Damn, DreamJak, maybe talk to her. You are the reasonable one. And she needs to dress better. I hate when we look like a soccer mom. There is still so much lusty beauty in us. Like Elton’s Amoreena; Living like a lusty flower, running through the grass for hours Rolling through the hay like a puppy, like a puppy child (Writer/s: Bernie Taupin, Elton John). F’Angry and Self Righteous Bitch need to chill.

My love to Jack and Jake,

Sweet Pancetta

Hey Sweetie Pancetta,

Well, all I can say is look who’s calling the kettle black! YOU need to let go and let God! You need to remember how lusty we were! It has nothing to do with weight! We gave birth to two beautiful boys, and they are wonderful young men now, because of us.

And especially Jake.

Remember, I would take him out and the boys would talk to him through me; secrets that no one else could hear, or just playing, bringing their stuffed animals to play with Jake. The talks were invaluable. The good news is our sons do not need Jake to talk and we are very close.

I miss Jake, I haven’t seen him, and haven’t heard his British accent. He is still troubled by others inability to understand rules, which, maybe that’s where our Righteous Bitch came to be. I’ll ask her if she’s not on someone’s soapbox, being cranky at how people lie cheat and steal! But Jake is all about my fantasy side too. My collection of sexy-ish faeries, not the stupid cute ones. They are all around my rooms like secret icons to pray to. Them, gargoyles, Jesus and my mermaids. Not the cute ones on a tea towel…the Sirens that sing and show themselves to the lost sailors. The Jake part of us is the fun loving, wild naughty bratty side. Jake used to wait in the background and would come alive when I could squeeze out a happy thought, when I could scream during a Dave Matthews concert and feel real, or dance like a tree in the very windy hours before a treacherous storm. Funny that Jake himself is the owner of the rules as well as my fantasy side- perhaps it is easier to break them if you own them.

Maybe this is why we haven’t seen him.

We have not been true to ourselves. You think we are useless and fat, F’Angry think she’s never wrong, Jack, who I think is our inner child, just wants to wear his blue jeans and black leather and drive to the beach to quell his voyeuristic, erotic wild child side, and then there’s me. I know, Me, DreamJak: I know who I am and who I want to be always. I am beautiful in a fresh windy off the cuff way. I am a rock & rollin air guitar playing bitch, who rides fast and desperately needs it. I want to unlock the many fantasies we have in that locked box of drawers in our head. But I do not know which drawers are fantasy ones or the nightmares, those bad experiences that were endured to make us feel like we are useless and fat. I guess we’ll just have to open each one.

I’ll be in touch. I’ll try to get to the others. Please be well and love yourself,

DreamJak

Dear DreamJak,

I connected with F’Angry and now she is mad at me. But I said, please be rageful, let it out and move on. I am tired of being so stuck in my weight. I really think it is her, she is not only angry with him, but look at what happened when we were young.

Nine or ten, the same age or so when I had to wear someone else’s clothing to look good for company.

It was Friday night and Mom was smoking a Benson & Hedges while she was making the frittata. She was mad, she kept complaining about her hands feeling so cold, and her feet too. We said put some slippers on!

I loved watching her make the frittata in the cast iron pan. She was perfect. Monday morning our world ended as we knew it. Mom had her first of nine strokes. I was home sick with laryngitis. I heard crying, or whimpering. Slowly, I walked towards their bedroom door. There she was: lying on her right side, reaching out to me, drooling, smelling of urine, crying, gasping. I screamed the loudest I ever could but only silence came out. My oldest sis came running and grabbed me. She made me go downstairs into the den. She said, “Don’t look out the window.”

Remember, we looked out the window. There she was, being taken out to the ambulance on a stretcher, a white sheet covering her cold hands and feet. Remember, we also walked to St. Francis of Assisi church every day to ask God why He did this. Aha, F’Angry Bitch was born.

Hey, so this may be why Jack is nowhere to be found lately. F’Angry hasn’t connected with him either. DreamJak, if Jack is our inner child, then he and we haven’t grieved for the loss of our Mom, as we knew her.

Jack may be trying to tell us that we need space to grieve the unprocessed emotions that are literally weighing us down and carrying the trauma. You know it was heartbreaking. Maybe Jack is pleading with us to finally work through it. It’s time to stop pretending that everything is okay. Let’s get together through our prayer contact and let this sadness come out.

Love you,

Sweet Pancetta

Hey Sweet P,

Look at you! Masters and all. I think you are right. There are many reasons why we are not great at loving ourselves. Losing our Mommy that way may be the first big one. There are many others, like the crawlspace, but that is another letter. I will contact the Crew.

But what do we do? How do we all grieve? If we do, will I lose you? Who will truly come through? How will we be redefined? This scares me. Maybe it’s best to go back to the crawlspace. I’m supposed to be the head the lead, but my scars tell me different. I am afraid to lose myself, and worse lose you all.

I’m signing off. I’ll call the meeting.

Dear All,

I thank you all for coming together. A lot has happened since we were all one. Splintering off has caused us to stop loving ourselves, our body, our decisions, and our choices. I believe we are all searching for harmony and peace, for determination and courage. And time is of the essence.

Our splintered selves need to speak out on the first real trauma that suddenly defined us. We grew into our own personalities that helped to keep us sane if you want to call it that. But what it did was force us into silos that untamed our thoughts not in one mind but in many.

We repressed the sadness of losing our Mommy. She still lived until, well, the day she died, loving her grandchildren and living pretty good for the most part. Thirty five years we didn’t grieve for the loss of a mother who became very ill, around 1970 or so, then kind of grieved when she passed in 2005.

How do we do this? How do we let our shadow selves come out and cry, and hit the counters, and scream out loud? What good will it do now? Please tell me. I am afraid. I am afraid of losing all of you and losing myself. Ok, so let’s start with Sweetie.

From Sweet Pancetta

I miss you all, but I miss Her/Us. I miss that joyful little girl who thought her bike was a horse, I miss that college girl who was so happy go lucky and quite thin, having boyfriends and loving her body. I miss the one who was a DJ at college and interviewed the Ramones, Hall & Oates, and danced to the best of Punk dressed in safety pins at the Palladium and CBGB’s. When we were young, I was afraid about the clothes I had to wear, about how that person forced me to eat in secret, I was ashamed. I think that is where I began feeling fat all the time. Even though I was thin and happy, the other side of me said, “Oh, this happened because I am fat.” Irrational? Yes, but burying your grief can do a lot of stupid things.

I remember Mommy would come home from work, from Meenan Oil company with a yellow manila envelope stuffed with vending machine goodies! What can I do to celebrate my Mommy and mourn her with respect? Wear a little black dress, listen to Sinatra, and enjoy sipping a Manhattan. Then visit a vending machine and buy whatever I want!

From Jake

Oh Dear, dear, dear, dear. My dear Madeleine. You broke many rules while living in the nursing home. I have two to mention. As a wheelchair user, and before cigarettes were banned inside buildings, you wheeled yourself into the chapel and lit a cigarette. Now we knew that the sprinkler system worked. You were smoking away with the rain pouring down. I saw Jesus laughing. Then, another time you managed to give the middle finger to Sister Peter as she yelled at you for such an act. Again, there was laughter in Heaven. To celebrate, I will hold tight to being an active listener to all. She loved her religious statues, so that is why we have the Pieta, and St. Teresa everywhere. I will pray too because that is what she would do before bed. Hold her own stuffed animals that our beautiful sister Marie gave her and pray.

From F’Angry

Hey y’all. Sorry. Just so damn mad. One day she buys us bodysuits at the store, and the next we give her a shower. We were too young, damnit. I was mad at that person who forced me to eat, mad at Daddy for not coming home, and mad when Marie got married in the chapel at C.W. Post and drove away to Florida that very day. I have every f*g reason to be mad. Especially when the father of our sons lost it with alcohol and nearly died a few times. Mad, yes, but sorrowful, lonely and scared. I was in denial when I pretended not to be angry when I had to come home from college, give up my world and take care of her because she had yet another stroke. But honestly, after we had the boys, and when life was good, she would come to our home and be happy as a family with us, the boys named her Gramma Wheels for obvious reasons. I do believe we reconciled a bit during that time, I was happy to have the boys enjoy her and vice versa. To celebrate Mommy, I am going to continue to be a good Mom to our sons, pray, and try to be joyful more, because she had it tough but still kissed her grandsons and still loved life, even half blind, fully deaf and then having a leg amputated. Thank God she’s at peace!

From Jack

Hey.

You haven’t heard from me in a while. True, but I am always with you.

Yes, I am your inner child. I am grieving, crying, scared, searching for a better crawlspace to hide in and be safe. Ain’t gonna happen. The weight on the world is on my shoulders and Sweetie you are literally carrying the weight.

F’Angry, you need to refocus that amazing energy. It’s really time to get out and walk, exercise, whatever we can do to release the pain. Restructure our environment, it is horrific and shitty. Time to go. Start feeling other emotions, lessen that damn anger girl.

And DreamJak. The caregiver to us and our parents, our brother, the jobs you held with the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled, and now your medically frail partner. Enough. Steady yourself. Create a life where there is self-care, fun hobbies, and a less stressful line of work. Do more, stop swimming in your head. You are drowning. It is time to move the needle. It is time to take action. Mommy was always proud of you, and I do believe she forgives you for signing the consent for amputation. She would have died a worse death if you let the gangrene take over. Process these memories we are all speaking of. Try EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) again. Remember everything that came out, it was all about our childhood home.

Let’s shift our beliefs to nurture ourselves. Hold me, feed me well, walk with me. Kiss me goodnight when I fall asleep. Keep me safe. Read books to me. Dress me in comfort.

I am you. We are one.

From DreamJak

Thank you. I love you all.

Let’s nurture our inner child and begin the healing so we can celebrate as One.

Till next time.