Sunday, July 06, 2025

I The Coloring Book, Revisited

You colored me in soft blues and greens,

Hard purples and reds.

Little black specks, to accentuate my most precious places.

You blurred the colors together. . .

so it is hard for me to see...

who it is,

I am,

anymore. . .

The edges of my body,

the outline for your work.

The insides forgotten

as you busied yourself coloring. . .

If only it were beautiful.

If only you had just torn out this page.

 

But He—

 

He saw the smudges and the bleeding edges,

traced every bruise like a sacred map.

He didn’t tear the page—

He turned it.

 

Where you left chaos,

He brought color.

Where you broke me,

He began to rebuild.

 

With golden light,

He lifted the shadows,

stitched the torn canvas

with threads of purpose and flame.

 

Ashes gathered in His palms,

and from them,

He painted wildflowers.

He made beauty bloom

in places I thought were only

wreckage.

Now—

these lines,

these wounds,

they speak.

 

They speak of survival,

of a hand that never let go,

of a love not built on pain

but on promise.

 

You called it the end,

but He calls it the beginning.

And I—

I will rise,

a masterpiece still in the making,

formed by fire,

carried by grace,

and alive with purpose.



 


Saturday, June 28, 2025

Customer Service Voices

 As most know my current role involves clinical quality assurance. Essentially I listen to crisis calls and provide feedback, education, support to other counselors.


I also have had humans in my own world be frustrated with me when I use my “customer service voice.”


I can tell you with 100% certainty that a counselor, or myself, are never ever using that voice or tone out of anger, spite, frustration, or anything negative. 


I can also tell you with 100% certainty that when I hear this tone I know this person feels overwhelmed, exhausted, scared, unsure, lost. They are fighting through heartache, exhaustion, and tears to show up anyway. They want to be kind when the world is not kind to them. They want to be a place of rest when home and peace are lost in that moment to them.


They are trying. The alternative is allowing those awful feelings and moments to take over, to be sharp, unkind, unloving. And so they take a deep breath and say hello and pray the next syllable hides their brokenness.

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Nothing is Black and White

   Nothing is black and white.

Everything is a concept and in context.
I can love you and grieve who you should have been.
I can attend therapy over what you did and ache for what you could have done.
I can know who you were and be in hysterixs over who you could have been.
I loved and hated you.
I avoided you at all costs and hoped someday my Pappy would come.
Please come.
But you didnt.
I watched you love others.
I know you were capable.
I know I was never enough to see that man.
You died with me settled on Easter after hot dogs, on ignored collect calls, on ketchup packets that should have not happened,
on do not engage in those activities, and what the fuck Is wrong with you.
You left and I’m broken, and grateful .
You cant hurt anyone anymore.
But am grieving because you also will never come home.

Nell Ditt

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Pieces

 Over and over again in my world I have found myself in pieces.

Fault is irrelevant when the pieces cut me.

And I’m a master craftsman. I can take the ugliest and smallest of pieces and make them beautiful, or at least I could. 


Monday, December 16, 2024

Compliments and Confusion

 Something happened this evening and I’ve struggled a bit whether to mention or not, but here we are.


I am one, someone with major social anxiety, and two, who absolutely hates the ambivalence and cruelty that has become so normal. 


My absolute preference is to avoid humans, but I know that isn’t healthy, or helpful, and so I have made a rule of sorts for myself that when I do go out I will find one person to say hello, something positive, something encouraging to. 


It is absolutely not easy. But I’ve done it and met some beautiful humans who end up sharing some of their story and I leave grateful I was brave. Grateful that this one day I saw and felt seen.


Today, I’m in a local store it was crazy crowded and my anxiety awful, but I reminded myself I needed to find someone. And so I did. A lovely older lady who had this shirt on that just made her complexion glow. She seemed distracted, stressed, and so I stopped and said, I love that sweater, it looks beautiful on you.

(It’s super hard to give specific compliments to strangers, so I typically stick with I love those shoes, that shirt, great job mama, whatever).


She kinda snickered and talked with the person with her about it being weird.


At first, I kinda spiraled, but then I thought how right she was. Yes, kindness, acknowledgment, communication are weird. It’s weird but doesnt mean it should be. 


And so my hope for this person is that today, and every day after, she is surrounded by people who see her, who encourage her, who don’t let her forget that in the midst of so much darkness, goodness exists.


Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Fathers Day

May your words and actions as a father define and consume you today and everyday. May every failure to love and protect be amplified when you need love and protection. May your every moment be filled with the terror you instilled or ignored. May the chaos you caused drown you. 

I rest knowing my children will be better.

Tuesday, April 09, 2024

It’s Not Glitter

 No one warns you about how dried blood flakes and glistens like glitter that you just can’t seem to get off. 

No one tells you how fingerprints and hands slide over the surface paint desperation and fear that refuse to be ignored..

No one tells you how it all smells like metal or makes your stomach turn. 

No one tells you it will eat into the enamel on your vehicle.

No one tells you. I may never tell anyone either because it hurts my heart so much to say out loud. 



I The Coloring Book, Revisited

You colored me in soft blues and greens , Hard purples and reds. Little black specks, to accentuate my most precious places. You blu...