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.