My mind is everywhere tonight. It's been a long few months since I've been gone...or back...depending on which way you look at it. Glass half-empty or half-full? Pessimist. Optimist. Scoundrel. Betrayer. Fiend. Bitch. Fighter. Lover. Sweetheart. Enigma. Outrageous. EXTRAORDINARY.
Words are amazing. Some so small, yet so powerful. Without words, where are we?
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
Today
A year in recap.
One year ago, you broke my heart. Shattered it into a million tiny pieces. You took my world, my familiar, and pulled that rug out from under me so fast that I barely knew what happened, and with it you took away my home, my family, and whatever small pieces of my broken heart were left. I walked away from it all bruised, beaten, bleeding, defeated.
One year ago, I learned the true meaning of chaos. I learned the real meaning of despair. I learned how it really feels, physically and emotionally, to have a broken heart. And I would rather have been stabbed.
Ten months ago, I thought I realized acceptance. Those circumstances I thought I had control over, I gave up. I believed in my head that I was moving on, but my heart knew better. But, ten months ago, my head learned how to ignore my heart.
Nine months ago, you broke my heart again. I wanted to curse you out, kick at you, scream at you, and wish upon you all the hell and damnation that God himself could conjure up. And then I almost wanted to die. Almost.
Seven months ago, I achieved success in my education. I contributed some of that success to you, I believe. I take it back. It was all me.
Six months ago, I thought I would never find a job that I would like. I spent days with my best friend, and together we raised each other's spirits and gave each other encouragement. I thought about you less and less. My mind was still ignoring my heart.
Five months ago, I made a mistake that cost me a dear friendship. I cannot take back what I did; I can only continue to ask forgiveness in hopes that one day things will be made right.
Three months ago, I did not consult my doctor. The panic returned, the anxiety, the fear, the raw emotions engulfed me until I finally heard what my heart had been screaming at me for quite some time. "Please, let go." (By the way, the letting go part is the point during which more emotions than seem humanly possible come screaming out of you, all at once, for days at a time. It's a freakshow).
Two months ago, I made a decision to stop. Stop hurting myself. Stop hurting those close to me. Stop holding back. Start over.
One month ago, I struggled with the stopping thing. I began to teach myself how to change my line of thinking, how to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts. I tried practicing not thinking about you with so much animosity. Sometimes it worked.
A week ago, I realized I had not cried for my loss in a while, because, as it turns out, it wasn't a loss after all. It was freedom. Freedom from being a second-rate version of myself, the version I turned into when I was with you. When I left you, she stayed behind. It just took me a while to figure that out.
Today, I am me. I am not second-rate, and I am certainly not the person you always wanted me to be. I am becoming the person that I have always wanted me to be. There are still difficult days, still days when I wonder what I did or what makes the next person better than me, but then there are good days. Great days. Days that I realize that I am in a better place now, even if it took mountains of hurt to get here. Those days make me smile.
One year ago, you broke my heart. Shattered it into a million tiny pieces. You took my world, my familiar, and pulled that rug out from under me so fast that I barely knew what happened, and with it you took away my home, my family, and whatever small pieces of my broken heart were left. I walked away from it all bruised, beaten, bleeding, defeated.
One year ago, I learned the true meaning of chaos. I learned the real meaning of despair. I learned how it really feels, physically and emotionally, to have a broken heart. And I would rather have been stabbed.
Ten months ago, I thought I realized acceptance. Those circumstances I thought I had control over, I gave up. I believed in my head that I was moving on, but my heart knew better. But, ten months ago, my head learned how to ignore my heart.
Nine months ago, you broke my heart again. I wanted to curse you out, kick at you, scream at you, and wish upon you all the hell and damnation that God himself could conjure up. And then I almost wanted to die. Almost.
Seven months ago, I achieved success in my education. I contributed some of that success to you, I believe. I take it back. It was all me.
Six months ago, I thought I would never find a job that I would like. I spent days with my best friend, and together we raised each other's spirits and gave each other encouragement. I thought about you less and less. My mind was still ignoring my heart.
Five months ago, I made a mistake that cost me a dear friendship. I cannot take back what I did; I can only continue to ask forgiveness in hopes that one day things will be made right.
Three months ago, I did not consult my doctor. The panic returned, the anxiety, the fear, the raw emotions engulfed me until I finally heard what my heart had been screaming at me for quite some time. "Please, let go." (By the way, the letting go part is the point during which more emotions than seem humanly possible come screaming out of you, all at once, for days at a time. It's a freakshow).
Two months ago, I made a decision to stop. Stop hurting myself. Stop hurting those close to me. Stop holding back. Start over.
One month ago, I struggled with the stopping thing. I began to teach myself how to change my line of thinking, how to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts. I tried practicing not thinking about you with so much animosity. Sometimes it worked.
A week ago, I realized I had not cried for my loss in a while, because, as it turns out, it wasn't a loss after all. It was freedom. Freedom from being a second-rate version of myself, the version I turned into when I was with you. When I left you, she stayed behind. It just took me a while to figure that out.
Today, I am me. I am not second-rate, and I am certainly not the person you always wanted me to be. I am becoming the person that I have always wanted me to be. There are still difficult days, still days when I wonder what I did or what makes the next person better than me, but then there are good days. Great days. Days that I realize that I am in a better place now, even if it took mountains of hurt to get here. Those days make me smile.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Skeletons in the Closet
We all have them, although nobody likes to or is even willing to admit it. Well, here I am. Here to throw out a skeleton I've been hiding, gathering dust, shoved to the back of the closet, as if not seeing it would make it go away. Well, this skeleton can't just disappear. It needs to rot first, decay. And it does just that, except it's not in the right place. It should be buried, but instead it sits in my closet, stinking up the whole place and leaving me wondering why I'm keeping it around letting it ruin my day with its stench. So today's the day I'm going to take it out, dust it off, examine it a little, and then BURY it under mounds of dirt where it belongs.
I am a cutter.
I say "am" not because I still engage in the behavior, but because I see it as how a recovering addict sees their former drug use. No matter how long I have been free from it, there is still a tiny part of my brain that will always think old thoughts, recall old habits, remember what brought me to this behavior in the first place. I keep these memories not because I want to go back, but because they remind me of where I once was, and of the person I was trying to escape - myself.
I had so many crazy, irrational emotions then, which is what led me to cut the first time. After the first time, it gets easier and easier to do it, to justify the behavior that, self-injurious and dangerous as it is, allows me freedom from my emotional uproar, if only for one minute. It is in that minute that I transfer the inward pain to a tangible outward pain, one I can see and feel and be in control of. It's all about control.
When I lose control of my emotions. That's when I cut. It starts small. The first few were no more than scratches, really. It started on my arm, but I threw that idea out when people would ask, What happened? Cat scratch, I told them. Safer places to cut are the legs because people see them a lot less, especially if you're not into wearing shorts. My shin. It starts on my left shin. One night I lose that control, I hate that I am crying, I hate that I am in pain, and I want it to go away. MAKE IT STOP! I take a straight-edge razor and lightly press it onto my skin. Sharp. I push harder, and begin sliding the razor across my shin until there is now a two-inch open wound on my leg and what have I done, I didn't mean for it to be so deep. I am kind of grossed out now because it's bleeding. And it hurts. Hurt. It has distracted my brain from the emotions I was feeling just a minute ago. And I realize, I can do this. I can make my insides stop hurting. I can transfer that pain to something I can control. I can control when it hurts, how much it hurts, and how long I let the hurt continue.
The second time I cut, I went deep on purpose. It hurts worse when you go deep.
I am a cutter.
I say "am" not because I still engage in the behavior, but because I see it as how a recovering addict sees their former drug use. No matter how long I have been free from it, there is still a tiny part of my brain that will always think old thoughts, recall old habits, remember what brought me to this behavior in the first place. I keep these memories not because I want to go back, but because they remind me of where I once was, and of the person I was trying to escape - myself.
I had so many crazy, irrational emotions then, which is what led me to cut the first time. After the first time, it gets easier and easier to do it, to justify the behavior that, self-injurious and dangerous as it is, allows me freedom from my emotional uproar, if only for one minute. It is in that minute that I transfer the inward pain to a tangible outward pain, one I can see and feel and be in control of. It's all about control.
When I lose control of my emotions. That's when I cut. It starts small. The first few were no more than scratches, really. It started on my arm, but I threw that idea out when people would ask, What happened? Cat scratch, I told them. Safer places to cut are the legs because people see them a lot less, especially if you're not into wearing shorts. My shin. It starts on my left shin. One night I lose that control, I hate that I am crying, I hate that I am in pain, and I want it to go away. MAKE IT STOP! I take a straight-edge razor and lightly press it onto my skin. Sharp. I push harder, and begin sliding the razor across my shin until there is now a two-inch open wound on my leg and what have I done, I didn't mean for it to be so deep. I am kind of grossed out now because it's bleeding. And it hurts. Hurt. It has distracted my brain from the emotions I was feeling just a minute ago. And I realize, I can do this. I can make my insides stop hurting. I can transfer that pain to something I can control. I can control when it hurts, how much it hurts, and how long I let the hurt continue.
The second time I cut, I went deep on purpose. It hurts worse when you go deep.
Monday, November 22, 2010
And yet...
The things that I want to forget about the most are the things that I will always remember.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
I Can't Remember
As a child I was disillusioned by the belief that if I wished hard enough, my stuffed animals would come alive. I especially wanted a certain little stuffed dalmatian puppy to be my very own real dalmatian puppy. But as hard as I wished - with all my might, even - nothing ever happened, and yet I still just kept on wishing.
Then one day I got it in my little naive head that, Aha! They do come alive - when I'm not in the room! So after this I stopped wishing and resorted to sneaking into my room as quietly as I could to catch them in the act. Of course, this never worked; they were always too fast. Those little rascals.
Some years later they came out with a movie about that very same thing - toys that "wake up" when no one is looking and go on adventures and drive cars together. Wow. I never knew my stuffed animals did that.
I have many memories of my childhood. I mean, I should, considering I'm still technically young, and I don't have dementia. They haven't faded or diminished, although there are some things I'm sure I've forgotten about. But that's okay. Why be disappointed over something that I can't even remember I've forgotten?
Sometimes, looking back, my childhood seems more like a dream than anything else. One of those dreams that is so realistic you have to sit and ask yourself if it really happened . Was I really ever a kid? Did we really have a dog named Cocoa and a no-name kitty who lived in our basement? Did my brother really tell me people were coming to take me and hide me in the closet? Some of life's toughest questions.
But of course I had a childhood. Of course we had a dog named Cocoa, and the kitty - well, that I don't recall, but I saw a picture of me with a kitty once. And as far as the brother-hiding-me fiasco, well, my mom tells me she doesn't remember, but who's to say it didn't actually happen? Regardless, my childhood was real. Every single part of it, even the parts I don't remember. Like the kitty.
People talk about their "first" memory as if it was the first thing that ever happened to them, or as if they're so sure it really was their first memory. How are we to know what we thought happened first really happened two weeks after some other memory? It's possible.
I once questioned a friend on this subject of first memories. She told me that when she was two, her sister was born, and that's when her life began. Interesting. I don't know about you, but my life began when I was born and I still can't put a finger on a memory I would deem the "first." Life back then was a blur. However, I guess if you could beat one out of me, I do remember breaking my wrist when I was little; but even now all I really recall - all I can picture in my head - is my little hand stretching up into my mom's as she attempted to help me up from the floor so I could finish my breakfast. Or something like that. So I don't think that people remember things as well as they say.
Or maybe I just have a bad memory.
Then one day I got it in my little naive head that, Aha! They do come alive - when I'm not in the room! So after this I stopped wishing and resorted to sneaking into my room as quietly as I could to catch them in the act. Of course, this never worked; they were always too fast. Those little rascals.
Some years later they came out with a movie about that very same thing - toys that "wake up" when no one is looking and go on adventures and drive cars together. Wow. I never knew my stuffed animals did that.
I have many memories of my childhood. I mean, I should, considering I'm still technically young, and I don't have dementia. They haven't faded or diminished, although there are some things I'm sure I've forgotten about. But that's okay. Why be disappointed over something that I can't even remember I've forgotten?
Sometimes, looking back, my childhood seems more like a dream than anything else. One of those dreams that is so realistic you have to sit and ask yourself if it really happened . Was I really ever a kid? Did we really have a dog named Cocoa and a no-name kitty who lived in our basement? Did my brother really tell me people were coming to take me and hide me in the closet? Some of life's toughest questions.
But of course I had a childhood. Of course we had a dog named Cocoa, and the kitty - well, that I don't recall, but I saw a picture of me with a kitty once. And as far as the brother-hiding-me fiasco, well, my mom tells me she doesn't remember, but who's to say it didn't actually happen? Regardless, my childhood was real. Every single part of it, even the parts I don't remember. Like the kitty.
People talk about their "first" memory as if it was the first thing that ever happened to them, or as if they're so sure it really was their first memory. How are we to know what we thought happened first really happened two weeks after some other memory? It's possible.
I once questioned a friend on this subject of first memories. She told me that when she was two, her sister was born, and that's when her life began. Interesting. I don't know about you, but my life began when I was born and I still can't put a finger on a memory I would deem the "first." Life back then was a blur. However, I guess if you could beat one out of me, I do remember breaking my wrist when I was little; but even now all I really recall - all I can picture in my head - is my little hand stretching up into my mom's as she attempted to help me up from the floor so I could finish my breakfast. Or something like that. So I don't think that people remember things as well as they say.
Or maybe I just have a bad memory.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
A Fresh Start
I have a bad habit of starting journals and only filling them up about a quarter of the way. This is the first entry from one of those journals.
September 10, 2006
There's not much in the world that compares to getting a fresh start, to waking up in a new day. Or, in this case, to finding a new blank book on sale at Target that, immediately when you look at it, makes you feel like you could write the next greatest Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. It's really a great feeling, however fleeting it may be, considering I'm only a paragraph into it and already I think it sucks. Oh well though. The fact is I'm not trying to write an outstanding novel; just attempting to sort into words that which is my life. Besides, this book wasn't even on sale.
I sometimes wonder how I've come so far in my life without accomplishing anything. Oh sure, here and there I've done a few things. Well, okay, more like just there...the very, very, far-away kind of there. But collectively, the 23 or so years of my existence so far have just been kind of blah...nothing too exciting, nothing too tragic; if it were a picture, you'd look at it and go, "Eh, it's okay." Now I'm not complaining. Well, not technically. There are plenty of things I would never change about my life. Hell, I'm not even regretting, not trying to anyway. Regret is a bad way to try to go through life because you'll never move forward. Anyway, if I'm not technically complaining and trying not to regret, then what exactly am I doing?
I am stating facts.
Facts like I know this is a crappy bit of writing and it'd never make it into the Reader's Digest, much less win me the Pulitzer.
Facts like I like to waste money on over-priced books that I'll only fill up halfway and then leave on the shelf to collect dust and cat hair.
And facts like at this point my life doesn't exactly feel like a big ball of accomplishment, but that's okay for now because it gives me something a bit more interesting to write crappily about than if I had actually done something like become a biochemist. Boring.
September 10, 2006
There's not much in the world that compares to getting a fresh start, to waking up in a new day. Or, in this case, to finding a new blank book on sale at Target that, immediately when you look at it, makes you feel like you could write the next greatest Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. It's really a great feeling, however fleeting it may be, considering I'm only a paragraph into it and already I think it sucks. Oh well though. The fact is I'm not trying to write an outstanding novel; just attempting to sort into words that which is my life. Besides, this book wasn't even on sale.
I sometimes wonder how I've come so far in my life without accomplishing anything. Oh sure, here and there I've done a few things. Well, okay, more like just there...the very, very, far-away kind of there. But collectively, the 23 or so years of my existence so far have just been kind of blah...nothing too exciting, nothing too tragic; if it were a picture, you'd look at it and go, "Eh, it's okay." Now I'm not complaining. Well, not technically. There are plenty of things I would never change about my life. Hell, I'm not even regretting, not trying to anyway. Regret is a bad way to try to go through life because you'll never move forward. Anyway, if I'm not technically complaining and trying not to regret, then what exactly am I doing?
I am stating facts.
Facts like I know this is a crappy bit of writing and it'd never make it into the Reader's Digest, much less win me the Pulitzer.
Facts like I like to waste money on over-priced books that I'll only fill up halfway and then leave on the shelf to collect dust and cat hair.
And facts like at this point my life doesn't exactly feel like a big ball of accomplishment, but that's okay for now because it gives me something a bit more interesting to write crappily about than if I had actually done something like become a biochemist. Boring.
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