Crossroads

There are times in your life when you find yourself at a crossroads. The roads you see before you have nothing in common except that they will cause your life to change. Some of these changes are drastic while others mean only learning to adjust. None of them are pain free. If you’re lucky, the pathways ahead are clear. You know what you will find there even before you decide to set off. More often than not, what you see all around you is shadowed and dark. Covered in blankets of fog so thick that you can’t tell what hides within. In these times you have only your instinct to guide you. Do you sense danger? Perhaps a dead end somewhere? Or is it the opposite? Maybe your gut knows that you will find everything you were looking for once the fog has lifted. That peace you’ve longed to feel? You can only find out by taking a walk down that road. Enduring the fear of the unknown may be the difference between living and just existing.

So where do you go? You may find that you are tempted to just stand still. Go nowhere until something new happens. Hoping someone else will decide for you. Hoping that a new path will present itself somehow. I can tell you that in these times, none of those things will happen. Only you can make the choice. It is unfortunate that others will be affected by which way you go. But there is no way to avoid that now.

It has been twenty four hours from the time I started this post to the present. I’m so confused by what I should do and what path to take that even writing about it makes me worried about what will come. Knowing that I can only be true to myself is the thought that will give me the courage to finally put my choices into motion. I am comforted in knowing that there is a person who’s life and situation parallels my own. While this person may have a deeper level of pain than I could imagine right now, the stories are similar.

Speaking to this person is bittersweet. I hate that they are feeling the stresses of such a major crossroads, however I am comforted that there is someone out there that can relate. We are both going through our own situations, choices, and pain. Somehow it makes it a little easier knowing that no matter what happens for us individually, in the moments we feel most alone or afraid, we have a friend to turn to. Good luck to us both, and anyone else who finds themselves at a crossroads. I hope the future finds us all happy.

Fear

Sometimes everything seems so clear. I know where I’m going. What I’m doing. What’s expected of me. I know how my decisions will affect others. But not today. Today, like most days, I feel like a little girl, wondering how she got in this grown up world. I look in the mirror to find a child looking back at me, wanting nothing more than to cry out for Mommy to come and save me. I just need someone to understand these feelings and be there to help me find that adult again. But for some reason I can’t ever see things the same way long enough to feel comforted by even those with the best of intentions. I’ve been treading water for so long now, that I am physically and mentally exhausted. Every part of me just wanting to give in and drown. Dare I accept help from someone and risk driving away the only things I’ve grown to trust?

I struggle with demons of my past. I never know when they will choose to rear their heads and try to attack me. Everyone who ever knew about these things is gone now. I’ll find no peace from them. Will I ever be able to know peace again? Perhaps when my mind calms down and this fear that is consuming me melts away I will better know what to do. Until then, all I can do is pray for some relief. And take it in whatever form presents itself. Without it, who knows if I’ll be strong enough tomorrow.

Longing

I think the easiest way to lose something is to want it too badly. So here I sit, trying, trying like hell, not to want this to badly. When everyone in this world fails you. When the people who promise they’ll be around all just give up on you. When you don’t have it in you to pick yourself up off the floor and try one more time. How do you do it? I am so full of fear right now. So many things can change at any given moment, and I really don’t know what’s going to happen to me. But I’m even more afraid of not being true to myself and what I know I need. If you find that one thing that can give you peace, even if it’s only for a second, go for it. I can’t bear the thought of losing this. Losing what I haven’t even found yet. When will my world stop spinning? Will I ever remember to forget those things I know I must? Will I ever be able to just let go and get to that place of consistent happiness? Things are always so dark for me. Except for in this place. This one place that I’ve come to value more than anything I know. My dearest friend would tell me it’s not good to value things so much. That’s easy for him to say. He’s never seen what I see when I look at him. I just want to be normal…but somehow I know that will never happen. I would settle for a lifetime of crackheads and cockatoos. I thank him for bringing me such things.

My Safest Place

“How Can I Put Myself In Someone Else’s Shoes When I Have Trouble Getting My Own To Fit?” That has been the quote that has stuck with me my entire adult life. I figured that I can barely manage my own life, situations, and ideas… how can I deal with someone else’s? Much less manage a meaningful connection with someone. I just don’t have the time or energy to make something like that work. And even if I did, how can someone possibly be willing to put up with the one woman circus that is my existence? And so I was happy in my solitude. As happy as someone like me could be. Never letting anyone see me for what I am. What even I have yet to see.

And then he came. I don’t know where the lines are shifting, but they are. Somewhere between random comments on a web page, to messages between strangers. As the weeks passed a bond slowly formed. Something neither of us knew or were even ready for. Until the day came when I was ready to see him face to face, and what I saw I could not stop coming back to. I can honestly say that he is my safest place to be. So maybe the answer is in this wonderful person I see staring back at me most days? I never knew someone like that existed…

Maybe when I stop trying to get my own shoes to fit, or even put myself in someone else’s, I can find the answer to all that I have been trying to find. I am myself when I am with him, whatever that is. And I’m alright with it. Things make sense. Or at least aren’t so cluttered. I feel almost normal, at least half of the time. And even when I’m not, I can smile about it. We can fall on each other and relax a bit. Comfortable knowing that there is at least one person on this fucking planet that understands what it’s like to be like we are. And life continues.

Finding Reality

I’m a girl living life in her own illusion.
I come into the world from time to time,
but really I’m just a dreamer.
I think I have found the perfect balance between truth and lies.
Reality and fiction.

I am not perfect.
I’ve made mistakes.
I’ve learned what is safe and what is not.
I push boundaries.
I have fire in me.
I evoke emotion in me.
I will make you feel, perhaps too much.
I will never take no for an answer.
What is real to me, is real, even if you disagree.
And you always disapprove.
Perception is always reality.

I will eventually find my voice,
although I’m sure you will complain that it is too loud.
The resilience you loved about me,
will eventually be worn down until there’s nothing left.
So I stay safe inside my four walls.
In this life I’ve built for myself and my own.
I know not to go too far.
Not just yet.
But to wait.
Gasping, struggling, fighting.
Never giving up.
Able to emerge one day,
With a voice ready to be heard.
Finally making my illusion, my reality.

A Life I Knew

While going through a rough patch in my life I took comfort in a close friend. I turned to him recently and asked, “Do you ever wonder how you got here?” We talked, and agreed that we often trace events back through our mind and see that had we done even one thing differently we would not be sitting in the places we are today. In fact, a random event from years before may very well be the reason I was having this very conversation. Suddenly, I was sad. My whole life I’ve been wondering how I got to a particular place, and more often than not, when I reach significant milestones in my life I reflect on how my whole life’s actions have been leading up to this one thing. But in tracing those moments back, I realize that those times that once made me so happy are now distant and distorted memories. So many times I’ve thought THIS is the moment I’ve been waiting for, only to find that once again, I have been wrong. Will I ever find that thing that all of these events have been leading up to?
Now, more than ever I need something to believe in. It seems that over the last two years I have slowly been stripped of everything I value in this life, and within a week I will literally have only one thing left. It scares me to think how close I am to losing my grip on reality. What is there to keep me going at this point? What is there for me to put faith in? I fear that faith is overrated. I can only hope that when the dust settles and the world stops spinning, that I can find some trace of the girl that I know I found not so long ago. Does anyone out there remember who she is? I’m not sure I do anymore, nor do I know if I even care at this point.
The reality is, regardless of what you think you know, nothing is constant. All you can count on is yourself, if you’re lucky. I will try, somehow, to rebuild that life that I used to know. To make right the many wrongs in my life. To those of you I have personally hurt, I can only offer my deepest regret. I hope one day, you can accept this. I don’t know where I go from here. I hope my next post finds me in a place where I remember the girl I became. Until then, I remain somewhere between here and there. On the bright side, at least that’s a place to be.

My One Regret

You never make the choices you do knowing that they will lead you to places you’d rather not visit, and yet it happens often. I knew once what it was like to feel like I was home. Having things most people could only dream of. Yet somewhere, over the last ten months, I’ve shattered that. Now I cling to fragments. Snapshots in my mind. Waiting. Waiting to put these fragments back together, or waiting to tuck them away and move on? At this point I cannot say. As I write this, I am alone in a room. So many thoughts come to mind. There is that suffocating silence I’ve written about in the past. But somehow it’s no longer heartbreaking. Just pressing. I find myself asking questions I’d rather not know the answer to. So I ask others instead.

A recent conversation has led me to think, where would we be without our mistakes? Things we as humans learn from and try to avoid doing in the future. I have made a lifetime of mistakes. But I have only one regret. That regret is saying the word “Go.” If I’d only opened the door when you knocked, trying to talk to me. If I had only said, “I’m upset, but stay and we’ll work it out.” But that didn’t happen. I said “Go,” and I sat in this room with you and never said a word. And you went. I cannot blame you. Nobody could. But I will never regret anything more.

Just as we are not human without our mistakes, we are nothing without the power to forgive. To see that there has been too much time, too much happiness, and too much pushing through to stop now. I remember the promise we made. It’s never over. A million memories that I would never erase. And whatever is left of us now, it’s not too late. It’s never too late. I have gained so much insight these last two weeks. I only pray that insight hasn’t come too late.

It’s been only you for almost six years. It will be only you for all the lifetimes I have. Even if I have to wait until the next time around for your forgiveness. I love you, Jack. Thank you for being my somebody.

Truth

So I’ve been struggling for 3 days with a follow up to my last post. So much is going on right now I really don’t know what to write. I guess I should say the previous post was written in a moment of confusion, hurt, and pain, and I don’t want it to be misconstrued. So let me explain. It was no fault of anyone else’s that I was feeling the way I was. I have made many decisions and had actions I had carried out that led to the situation of the ‘Goodbye’ entry. The last three days have felt like a lonely spiral that I just want to correct, and I don’t know how to do that. When I said I had nobody here for me and I needed anyone to hear me, I was forgetting the fact that I do have that one person here I can always depend on to be here and hear me, regardless of what happens…all I have to do is tell him what I need. I have been very bad at telling the person I love most in the world what I need lately. For that I am sorry. I know that I put myself in this situation and that the road back to the days of June 14th may be a long one. But I hope I get there. I love you Jack, and I hope you know how much I need you. Always.

goodbyes

What is there to say. Goodbye I guess. I never wanted it to end this way. I don’t know when we started hating each other like we do. Words that won’t come…Trying to say anything to make this pain stop. I can’t stand to even look in the mirror anymore. I hate what I have become. What you have made me. What I have made you. So now go…forget me. Don’t look back. I’ll think of you, even if you don’t think of me. It feels like all those years ago. Waking up without you near me. I didn’t hear your voice anymore. Now those days are back. The silence is coming. I can feel it. I need someone, anyone to hear me right now. I’ve never felt such pain. But as I said before, true sadness is the day I forget your name. I know you’ll forget mine. Am I so easy to forget? Not even friends anymore. I wish there was something I could say…anything I could do. But it’s too late now. Too late. So go…take all your shit. I don’t need you in my life. I’ll be fine. I can make myself believe these things. But who, I ask you is going to be here when I fall down? Who is going to care if I cry or not? Who will be there to tell me that nobody can hurt me anymore? Not you. Not anybody. I am truly alone now. Said goodbye to my best friend. And pretty soon I’ll be some girl you used to know. Cliche I know. But sometimes it’s the truth.

My Way Back Home

There are some things in life you just can’t predict. My life has taken me from the amazing highs of my last post to the fear and loneliness of being without certainty of anything in this world. But one thing has remained the same. I have not lost that girl I found, and for that, to you, I say thank you. My last 48 hours have taken me on a physical journey as well as the emotional. I have traveled, trying to ease my minds constant stream of noise that never wants to just let me rest. I’ve spent time with friends, alone, and in the company of strangers. While this has helped for moments, my thoughts always go back to the source of this pain. The one thing that I know has changed so many things, for a number of people. I don’t know what to do with that right now. But I know that everything I knew before just seems so empty in comparison to the week I have had. If this should go away, I could search my entire life and never find it’s match. So to you, whatever happens. I wish you the best. I would remember everything as the best moments of my life. I love you and all you have meant to me. And as for my trying to find my way back home…I guess I’ll get there when I get there. There’s just something about being in the world with all it’s pretty lies that makes me able to forget how much I need you in the moments when I want you here most. I hope I can figure out reality soon. I’m always here.