Movie Date

I’m dating myself for a while

Before I feel ready to date other humans

I dress for how I want to feel

Cool powerful playful sexy free

It was everything everywhere

All at once

I laughed out loud 

More than twice

Piercing the contemplative silence

Seen

By some bold invisible soul traveler

Ideas articulated in perfectly ordered chaos 

Communicating through screen

Color light space and time

Silent tears in buttered popcorn

Salty pinot noir lips quivering

It was exquisite

About people

Playing their roles

Ignoring instigating possessing lying numbing

Pressuring attacking hiding controlling hurting 

Doing what hurting people do

Utterly uncontrollable

Utterly lovable 

About breaking out of roles

Shedding expectation

Loosing the grip

Opening eyes 

Hearts

Bodies

This body 

This moment

Choosing what to do next

The greatest honor of the living

Growing 

Deepening

Softening

Hardening

Stretching

Showing ourselves that we are trustworthy

That we will have our back

That we contain multitudes

That there are those we’ll find and choose eternally

That maybe we’ve always been 

Everything everywhere all at once

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | April 2022

Believer//Believeher

A word, for Christians, whatever that means anymore, but in case it still has something to do with Christ:

Guess who listened to women? Guess who protected women?

Guess who believed women? Guess who trusted women?

Guess who relied on women? Guess who revered women?

Guess who loved and uplifted and respected and admired and honored and blessed and healed women?

That’s right. Just like in Sunday school, the correct answer is: Jesus.

Not just the women in his own family and community, and not just the admired and beloved and well-behaved and attractive and well-off and religious and esteemed women of high societal standing, and certainly not just white women, of whom there were likely very few, if any in his orbit. He respected, cared for, and spent time with the beggars, the prostitutes, the dirty, the poor, the hated, the “foreigners”, the witchy, the old, the sick, the slutty, and the disabled. He was not above them.

He was with them. Emmanuel.

The other men thought he was crazy. Their insecurity and fear and social conditioning had them believing that Jesus was insane and reckless, and worse, a heretic. They accused him of breaking the law of God by associating with these women. They believed they were above women. They believed they had every right to possess, dominate, and rule over women. They believed in hierarchy. A hierarchy that conveniently had them at the top.

Jesus terrified them with his message and teaching. They were so terrified, those holy men, of losing their power, their position at the top, that they viciously crucified him. They crucified the feminist.

If your version of Christianity enables you to habitually shut women up, dismiss or diminish or mock or interrupt or gaslight or overtake or sexualize or shut down or coerce or deceive or intimidate or cut off or take advantage of or pressure or take for granted or neglect or distrust or overpower or silence or manipulate or use or smear or control or casually discard women,

Then whose disciple are you?

Who is your God, really?

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022

Wendy

Discovers

Her

Own

Magic

She leaves the nursery and everybody in it

With a kiss for Nanny the only one who sees her

A love-filled hug for her brothers whom she’ll always visit with stories of her harrowing adventures in the real world

A long embrace for her mother, whose own magic never stood a chance

Though it’s never never too late

One last gaze at her father, the saddest lost boy in the room

And consequently the most dangerous

She’ll remember Peter as the one who had the honor of witnessing the rebirth of her magic

Who saw her splendor

Who fell in love with her

{As much as a narcissist can}

But he and Tink can go fuck themselves have already found

Some new pretty thing to toy with in the Bermuda Triangle of their depravity

She will never forget how many times they risked her

Safety and even deliberately tried to harm her

Their callousness born of their obsession with their bottomless egos and insidious insecurity

Wendy stands on the threshold of that fateful window with a serene smile upon her lips

Grateful for all of it

A heart on fire with love and longing

A soul at peace

She says goodbye to all she’s known

And steps off that ledge into the soft light of dawn

She soars

With the serenity and power of a woman

Who knows who she is

In full view of the passersby below who gawk

And shake their heads in disbelief

At the woman flying solo

She catches the twinkling eye of a little girl below then

Wendy winks and blows her a kiss

Freedom ever after

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022

I will survive

At what age did you finally realize that “It’s not like it’s going to kill me” and “I’ll survive” were bullshit metrics for your decision making?

When did it occur to you that “I’m fine” depends very much on what one’s definition of “fine” is.

When did you decide that you might be interested in living in such a way that didn’t require actual imminent death for you to make changes, to seek help, support and resources?

When did you start boldly prioritizing your needs?

When did you begin to feel your worth?

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2022

I do what I want

I do what I want

Because I trust me

To do right by me

I do what I want

Because I’ve healed myself enough

To know 

That I’m only dangerous/in danger

When I’m doing 

What I’m told

I do what I want

Because nobody else

Knows 

What they’re doing 

Any more 

Than I do

I do what I want

Because I’m the one inside 

This body

I’m the one in this place

At this moment

I’m the one with these passions and 

Gifts and ideas and aches and longings

I do what I want

Because I’m the one with these 

Wounds these scars these memories

These needs these sensitivities 

These superpowers

I do what I want 

Because I’m the one 

I’m the one

To do right by me

So I will do 

What I want

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022

Thirst traps + toxic boyfriends

Like the toxic boyfriend he is, IG shuts me out the more I engage, and showers me with attention and adoration when I pull away. He doesn’t love me for me. I am just a means to an end. He will use me for his egoic purposes, to assuage his insecurities, until I no longer play by his rules or decide to leave the game altogether. 

He tries to convince me I’d be nothing and go nowhere without him, but I’ve been me and I’ve been going places all along. I was there before he lost his soul, before he got obsessed with money and success and fame at whatever cost. I could have lost mine too. But instead I found it. 

My more *mature* (with a hard “t”) lover is my website, where I have freedom, autonomy, and spaciousness to express the fullness of me. Where there are no trolls or ads or marketing hooks. Where I am free to bring all of me, and find myself held and embraced, seen and witnessed. My website lover just holds space, and can handle anything I bring or reveal. They aren’t threatened by my fullness. They want to see me radiant with light and burning with passion for my own sake and for all who feel my heat. 

Toxic IG boyfriend had me on edge, watching my every step, afraid of doing too much or not enough. Never knowing where the bar was, because it was constantly moving, by design. It was never enough with IG bf. 

With website boo, it’s whatever and whenever, anything and everything. I am welcomed and embraced. Which makes me open up even more. There are no red hearts of approval or blue stars of hierarchy and importance- just honesty. 

Honesty is the reward itself.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022

Adjustments

Two isn’t much less than three. Except when it is. 

Cooking for this version of us looks different from the version which is no longer and I’m still adjusting. For a long time I kept cooking too much oatmeal, too much pasta, and buying too many groceries. 

This morning I cooked the perfect portion of Irish oats and allowed the bliss of that to accompany each spoonful, lightly drizzled with maple syrup, a pinch of salt. 

I still sleep all the way on one side of the bed, which I believe is to better reach my books, my daughter’s books, my glasses and phone and water and hand balm and lip balm and lamp and essential oils- you know, the essential bedtime everythings. 

It also leaves room for my sleepy star to climb in at twilight.

The space that’s created with loss can feel agonizing, and did, but not always or in every way. Not now. 

There are pangs. But they were there before too, to some extent. So many of my most painful losses have been about what I’d hoped to have, what I’d convinced myself I did have, what I’d hoped something would become, and then finally facing what it presently was and making a choice. This is a particular kind of loss I think- not better or worse than any other- just particular. 

Letting go has been the bravest, most awful, and truest thing I’ve maybe ever done. It has taken at least a year and I’m still adjusting to the negative spaces- some of which felt like an immediate relief and others that still squinch my face with pain. Still others are revealing themselves over time. Like a butterfly cracking open its cocoon, discovering the strength of its own wings to break through the shell, which now needs to be left behind, back to the earth. 

A time will come for stepping lightly forward, with wonder, curiosity, and courage, toward the edge of the branch, looking out at an expansive, mysterious sky, rather than the solid ground it had known. 

How does it know how to fly?

The butterfly doesn’t stop then, at the branch’s edge, to weigh all of its possible future outcomes. She doesn’t walk back down to the dirt to find caterpillars to consult with, or creep to the next branch over to ask another butterfly for advice.

She is quiet. Still. Then she feels, she senses, she hears from some internal place that it is time. She trusts that she will know what to do next because in fact her body is already leading her forward. Her wings are already softly opening, then closing. Opening, closing, feeling the sensation of the air, feeling the momentum she creates with her own energy, with what she already has within her. 

She steps off the branch now, trusting in nothing but what she feels in her own depths, and in an instant her wings meet the air and she is gliding. It’s as if everything that’s happened in her insect life up until now was preparing her for this moment. She is serene, exultant, and splendorous. 

Those still on the ground look up at her with awe and admiration, witnessing her flight, unaware of the slog through the dark that preceded it. She will glide, dance, and twirl a while, learning the ways of her new wings as well as a brand new environment, the sky. Eventually the wind will pick up, the rain will come, the sun will beat down, a chill will pierce her body, and with these challenges she’ll once again adjust, sensing into what she needs, for rest, for protection, for sustenance, for which way to go next. 

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022