Melissa Roth -- Freespeak Blog

It has been an emotional, eventful, evocative brutal beast of a month.  I began November by staging and performing a wedding at my home.  It was lovely and I was happy to be a part of dear friends joining their lives.  At the same time I was starting a new business.  I was super excited about it and ready to roll as soon as I could get a website going and let the universe know I was open for business.  Feeling stressed and anxious but focused forward.  And then, the Election – devastation and pain.  It had been stressful and anxiety producing for months.   The result was a plunk into depression, sadness, grief, anger, fear, and hurt.  I was in a fetal position for days.  I am still raw and consistently seeking peace.  I think the hardest part is realizing my sense of reality – my sense of who we are as Americans and what our country stands for and is about, is not real.  I feel unmoored, scared and unsure.  ...

It's sort of my worst nightmare come to life—to be back in the psychologically and physically abusive home I grew up in.  After 40 years of working my way out, here I am.  Those of us who come from that world are survivors.  We survived and I survived at tremendous cost and using whatever tools we could find.  I know that the compulsion I feel right now is to go back to those habits and patterns that got me through the first 18 years of my life.  I was a moving hiding target.  It is hard to hit a moving target and hard to be attacked if someone doesn't see or notice you.  So, you try to blend in and hide and stay out of sight.  And when you are in sight, you are quiet, you make yourself small.  Because when the person with all the power and authority in your life is erratic, raging, vengeful, and screaming you live in fear.  And if you can, you run.  Having that kind of person with all the power in my life now brings back a...

I am going to buck a popular premise here.  Hillary Clinton didn’t lose because she was an establishment candidate.  She lost because Donald J Trump was the only person who could’ve beaten her.  Hillary Clinton could have beaten  any other candidate.  She would have mopped the floor with Kaisch, Bush, Rubio, Cruz, Christie, or Walker with her experience, her policies, her knowledge, and her strength.  Hillary came out stronger for improving the ACA, college affordability, tax code fixes, overturn Citizen’s United, women’s rights including equal pay and family leave, overturn Hyde, protect Roe vs Wade, gun safety laws, protect the environment and go to clean energy, fix the voting rights act, make registering to vote automatic and appoint liberal Supreme Court Justices.  None of the rest would have elicited the same enthusiasm from the swathes of white voters and the fringes of the alt-right, in addition to mainstream republicans.  I am s...

Donald Trump gave us his view of America last night. My view of America differs.   I don’t think America is a dark, dangerous, downward spiraling country. I think we are filled with innovation, imagination, opportunity, and promise. I acknowledge we have problems, big ones. A broken Congress. Racism in our streets and institutions, inequality of income, inequality education. Our women are denied equal pay and in many states autonomy over their own bodies. Millions are denied the opportunity for a good education due to reduced funding. The LBGTQ community is discriminated against routinely.  This home of America is like a old fading yet beautiful building.  Maybe the foundation is a cracked, the carpets are worn, the gutters need cleaning, and a new paint job would help.  But it can be fixed.  The building is solid.  The lines are there and we can do it. I believe in America, the America of our highest ideals. I believe we can tackle ou...

If I had a fractured bone and ignored it I would be in constant pain, it would heal incorrectly, cause indirect repercussions in my life such as missed work, crankiness, and no doubt would bother me the rest of my life.   I had that happen once, I had a hairline fracture in my collarbone from a motorcycle accident.  The EMT's never checked my neck or shoulder as they were all worried about my ankle (which was not hurt).  At any rate my shoulder, arm, and neck kept hurting and I kept taking aspirin and going to the doctor who used a tens unit, gave me muscle relaxants and said use heat.  Finally, after 6 weeks he sent me for an xray.  Sure enough, I had a fracture that had healed incorrectly.  There was nothing to be done without rebreaking the bone so I wore a sling for a couple of weeks and rested the area so as not to exacerbate the problem.  It still pops and cracks with great regularity, it hurts often, and my arm does not lie at my side...

"That's unfair!"  I keep hearing that refrain from people.  It is as if the concept is new or unexpected.  Life is unfair.  To be clear, fair is not the same as equal. An unfair situation is often interpreted as one in which someone is being taken advantage of when the reverse is equally likely.  I know I have had my share of opportunities because I had an unfair advantage.  I got to go fly in a biplane once because my dad worked with someone who flew one.  That was unfair – everyone else doesn't get to do that because they didn't know that person.  People get jobs, make friends, meet lovers, go to show openings, and all sorts of things because of who they know or who their family knows or works with.  I don't hear anyone complaining about that side of the unfair coin.  There are people who get goods and services simply because they are in the right place at the right time.  Any of this could be construed as "unfair". ...

Three years ago I purchased health insurance for the first time in almost 20 years thanks to the ACA.   I had moved to Austin the previous year and had to find a new doctor that was in my network.  I did my research and found a great doctor.  First of all she was a she, which mattered to me.  Her approach to health care was holistic.   She had even done You Tube videos explaining how she treated the whole person.  She was younger than I, which boded well for long term care.  Even though it was a long drive to her office, when I met with Dr. Bell, I was sold.  Dr. Bell was conscientious, respectful, and informed.  She listened to my history, validated my knowledge of my own body and explained everything she ordered to my satisfaction.  Her staff was extremely helpful and friendly.  I heaved a huge sigh of relief.  I saw Dr. Bell several times that first year because I was having some back, hip, and neck is...

Time for my annual physical.  I am anxious.  I guess it is the holdover of physicians as "authority" figures in my life.  Doctors were in that category of people you must obey.  When I was growing up no one questioned doctors, police, ministers, or teachers.  They were in charge and you did what they said even if you didn't know why you were supposed to do it or it did not feel right. I have learned to question doctors as well as other authority figures.  I do my own thinking and, when it comes to health care, my own deciding.  I research as much as I can, check in with my own intuition and my knowledge of my own body and then I follow a course of action or treatment.   This works best when I can partner with a doctor who respects the autonomy of my body and my decisions.  Unfortunately, due to the ACA and private insurers being my only option, I have had to change insurance companies three times in the last three years which ha...

I feel harborsick.  I am not homesick because I don't really feel a sense of home anywhere.  I read books about people who are so comfortable and familiar in their towns, homes, work, and relationships and I don't feel that right now.  I do feel that there are familiar harbors – people and places that I feel comfortable and "at home" with.   But, I don't have a spot I long to put anchor.  There is not a place I belong . I want to claim my familiar harbor.   A feeling of belonging and purpose and where I know I am always welcome and I can be completely comfortable and myself.  I want to feel there is a place I can return to and feel I fit.  A port where everyone speaks my language.  A Cheers vibe if you will. I was talking to my sister this morning and she brought up some ancestral ties to other countries and where we would like to visit.  There are a few countries I would like to visit.  Italy, especially, has al...

Lost in Green Lost in green leaves wet with dew muffled sounds masked in stillness. Lush foliage Grass viridescent and soft Breeze twittering through the trees, Forest sounds and smells Pervading in peace Lost in green. I was feeling this way today looking at the world outside my windown in my back yard.  The trees and grass and everywhere in my view is green, green, green.  I feel as though I am in a forest because all I can see is treetops with the occasional swooping blue jay.  It is spring.  It is the week after a heavy rain and it is beautiful.  I always feel comforted by trees.  As a child, I climbed trees and read books up there and I always felt safe in the trees.   I could be alone, quiet, and lost in whatever world my stories could spin.    I don't climb trees anymore.  I love living where I can look out and feel as though I am sitting up on that high branch looking around at the leaves ...

I have always admired fictional characters and historical figures of strength and courage.  I devoured biographies about people like Queen Elizabeth I, Harry Truman, and Joan of Arc as a child.  I still read novels with central characters showing those qualities.  I have recently come to see that I am also drawn to characters who show the qualities of acceptance, patience, wisdom, self-trust, and practicality.  Does that mean that I have any of these qualities?  Or does it mean I want them? I believe it means both.  I have come to see that I have courage and strength.  I am still here and still trudging the road.  I know that my life may not look like it takes courage to face, but there are challenges every day that take a straightening of shoulders, a deep breath and forging on.  I think the trials of the last 4 years have brought new life to my willingness and ability to be brave.  I also believe I have learned to be more ...

I know, intellectually, that movement, stretching, an exercise regimen will make my life better on every level.  I want to be healthier.  Yet, my ingrained habit is to detest exercise, to dread it and to look at the difficulty instead of the benefit.  It seems out of reach emotionally and spiritually. So I don't do it.  Or I go through so much agony trying to figure out what to do, when, how and the effort seems overwhelming.  Why am I doing this to me?  When it comes to challenges I can apply my willingness, my questioning mind to "why not try it".  When I have difficult tasks to do I can do just one minute.  Do just two minutes.  Do 5 minutes, ten minutes.  It always works and then I usually can get into the job.  Even when I am only able to get through the 10 minutes I make progress.  The thing is I make so many things hard for myself.  Harder than they need to seem and harder than they actually are.  I ...