Life gets noisy.
Everyone has an opinion,
a warning, a demand, a version of who you should be.
But don’t let the noise
Decide who you are.
-Mandy Ricks
Tag: self care
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Life gets noisy
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Crawl
If all you can do today is crawl,
know this:
your heart will still hold you together
and guide you
like an ancient faith that never fades.-Mandy Ricks
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The story doesn’t
Sometimes, like last night, trauma resurfaces in dreams.
The monsters are disguised as other people, but they always end up hurting and abandoning.
Faces change.
The story doesn’t.Different voices.
Different places.
The same ache.The mind revisits old wounds not because it wants to suffer,
but because some part of us is still trying to understand what happened.Morning comes.
The dream fades.But the truth remains:
I survived every monster I ever met.-Mandy Ricks
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Running
I spent years trying to outrun myself.
Racing, panting, hiding.
Taking the back roads,
creating hollow shadows.Grasping at survival.
Moving fast enough
that the ghosts
couldn’t quite catch me.But what I didn’t know
was they were wearing my face.And sooner or later
every road ended
with me.-Mandy Ricks
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Peace
Peace doesn’t always arrive as happiness.
Sometimes it arrives as nothing needing to be fixed for a little while.-Mandy Ricks
(with Willow)
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Shelter
Peace isn’t always found in grand places.
Sometimes it’s a small shelter, a familiar view, and knowing you’re safe enough to watch the world instead of run from it—learning that not every battle has to be fought.
-Mandy Ricks
Inspired by Willow, (my cat), Chief of Security, Keeper of the Coffee Table Fortress, and Watcher of All Things.
Willow -
Fear is not always right
Time arrives uninvited,
bringing fear and too many questions.
It feels as if the love in your heart is cracking, splintering.But before you crumble,
look up one more time.There are still things reaching for you:
hope, strength, small impossible moments
that refuse to die quietly.Grab onto them.
Clutch them like a lifeline.Because fear is loud,
but it is not always right.And sometimes love carries us
through one more night
than we thought we could survive.-Mandy Ricks
This poem is for my daughter Samantha and her precious cat Pebbles. She has had Pebbles for sixteen years, since she was a child, and sadly today he is very sick.
We’re all hoping for the best and clutching onto all the love and hope we can.
-Mandy
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Get back up
Life is hard,
cruel.
Scars never stop aching.
But a point in time comes
where survival hardens into something dangerous —
something that gets back up-bleeding,
smoke in its lungs,
determined to set fire
to anything that tries to bury it again.-Mandy Ricks
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Listening counts
Some take risks without hesitation, others don’t dare.
It’s cold enough, my legs ache again. Maybe I just can’t stand it today.
This morning I sang along to American Pie. That counted for something.
Dancing in the gym sounds fine to me, though I haven’t decided yet.
When it’s the end, does it still count if the fat lady took Ozempic and isn’t fat anymore?
Listening counts. Being heard matters.
-Mandy Ricks
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Today
For the first time in decades
I sit in my house, empty, alone.
It feels okay.
No distracting chatter,
or thoughts.
Just quiet.
Who’d have known this peace
would finally arrive today
of all days.-Mandy Ricks
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Those steps
You don’t have to feel ready to take the next step, a big step, or even a small step. You just have to be willing, for a moment, not to step away from yourself. -Mandy Ricks
Mandy Ricks 