How did I allow myself to go so long without joy? Why did I suffocate and hide myself while saying I didn’t know who I was? Poor, lost me?

No.

I played some pretty foolish games of pretend to “blend” when I needed to be living. I cultivated distance with a numbness chaser to forget why my heart kept demanding that I change direction.

I accepted defeat at the hands of my own wrong perception while my heart burned inside me like acid.

Constantly. Burning.

Why haven’t I worn shorts, or relaxed poolside, or been dancing in the past TWENTY YEARS? Why haven’t I stepped up, shown up, spoken up or grown up before now?

I was a coward. Now I’m not.

I drove away from a non-life, made a home for myself, and do whatever work I need to do to strengthen the woman I now admire for her balls and heart.

I don’t need to choose between the two, and I won’t.

I spent this last weekend with a childlike joy after a shitty disappointing week. People I love die, friends let me down and work can sometimes do its part to suck the life out of me.

But I didn’t let it kick my ass.

I gathered with a few who love me and rode a Spiderman scooter (against their express wishes). I played on the playground and basked by the pool in the sun. I ate pizza and drank wine while we pondered world issues and told hilarious stories until 3:30 a.m.

I cooked for my parents and wrote and taught a 7 year old how to rock her new hula hoop because THAT’S how I roll.

That’s who I am.

I don’t need everyone to like me. I don’t want or expect anyone to be me. I don’t need anyone to save me.

I’m happy to have a big enough heart to hurt when I’m not valued or appreciated. I’m not afraid to cry when someone I love doesn’t see me as I am. I’m not ashamed to be angry when someone shits on me in their misery.

I don’t cop to any weakness when I forgive all of these things.

This is who I am. This is how I roll, and if you don’t have room for me it may be a loss to both of us, but at least I’m smart enough to see it and alive enough to feel it.

You?

Not so much.

I don’t want to

love you now or feel

that long hot slide of desire

that flames

when there is no

fight left in you for

the only hope

that should matter…

I don’t want to

hold you now

when I can feel

the weakness of your

heart and it’s fickle

loyalties to the truth of me

that I’ve gone to war

to preserve and

defend…

I no longer dream

of the touch

given to so many

with so little regard for

the power it could

hold,

the heart it could

heal,

or the woman

willing to illuminate

your life like lightning

in a midnight

storm…

I’ll no longer allow

myself to break

my heart against the

stone wall of

the past you relive

every day,

blinded to your killing

of the future

you say you wish

you had…

So I will either

stand here watching

you remove your walls

stone by stone,

or you can watch me

walk away and

then climb them to scan

the horizon

hoping that someday

I’ll return.

You are such a lover

of the world

they told her…

Such a giver and

caretaker

of those around you…

You have such a gift

for making life

better

surrounding others

with a love

they aren’t accustomed

to feeling…

You are a mother

to the world

around you…

And while knowing

these things filled her

with the brightest joy…

She burned  and

yearned from the darkest

heart of herself

for the one

who saw past

everything she did

and all those she healed

to demand from her

the woman

she gave to no one…

The one who would not

merely let her

hold him…

The one who refused

anything less

than watching her

burn…

for him alone.

I remember more than

I should, and less

than I want to…

The mesmerizing green

of the eyes that

held me

Spellbound…

The smile

that my heart

tripped over, curving

the mouth that

took my breath away…

The way I trembled

when you stood

so close behind me

that my heart

thundered desperately

in my chest…

Anticipating the storm

you so easily

created

inside me…

I remember the fire

the magic of

the hidden pathways

you discovered,

but I grieve the loss

the fractured

memories that I can’t

recall  of what

being loved

felt like.

I remember now why I write.

I write when I hurt and am not heard. When no one is willing to shut up long enough to listen, learn and resolve conflict or misunderstandings.

When I’m faced with a pain too huge to keep inside and an ego unwilling to make room for my words…I write.

When my fury is great and my compassion feeble…I write.

When I love too intensely and desire too strongly…I write.

It has saved me from screaming, committing unforgivable offenses and losing my pride and dignity.

It has, thus far, kept me sane.

I think writing is a secret super power given to those of us who feel everything more intensely than the rest of the world. Those of us who throw ourselves on the sword of “I love you” while others are cautiously pondering their options. The brave and foolish willing to drive thousands of miles on the power of a dream while the world shakes it’s head in disbelief.

We are the ones who turn sorrow into song, and pain into poetry. We say the words you can’t find and are too afraid to speak aloud.

Writing is the magic that changes the writer and the reader by challenging the truth of what is to transform us into a better reality, a stronger wiser self.

There are those of us who were or are charlatans; writers of beautiful words that we weren’t or aren’t strong enough to walk in.

I was one of them.

It hurts me to recognize those who still are, but as it did with me, sometime the magic has to build longer and stronger to be effective.

I’m grateful for the power of the words and their magic. I honor those who allow it to change them.

I remember now why I write.

Tonight I’m not walking in the dark. I don’t feel sad or hurt, thinking to accept what is and let it pass through and fade.

Tonight I am the dark.

I’m sitting with the fortunately small slice of me that is mean. My tolerance for bullshit is as nonexistent as my willingness to accept excuses for poor behavior, including my own.

Tonight I’m giving myself a “come to Jesus” talk, so thanks in advance for understanding that no additional input or advice is needed at this time.

I’m just a little angry right now.

It would be interesting in a traumatic sort of way for all of us to be unable to lie for the next 24 hours. No lies to each other, no lies to ourselves. To be forced to pull our heads out of our asses and deal with reality. To admit when we aren’t loved, or don’t have love to offer someone. To say when we’re hurt or angry, and why we are those things. To quit making excuses for others and let them own the responsibility for their own downfalls.

To take ownership of our own.

I’m tired of myself and the habit I have of putting a pretty face on situations that aren’t pretty…painting a kind face on those who are hurtful to me…making excuses for lack of respect and straight up dick behavior.

I’m fed up with being the coward angry at the cowards for not stepping up with how I/we truly feel at any given moment.

I think about how impossibly simple that would make things with the same stunned astonishment I felt when I drove away from my home for the last time. The absolute comprehension I had that I could have done so at any time.

But I didn’t.

I’m right there again. Infuriated with myself for my lack of willingness to see the truth, to accept it when it flat out announces itself. I don’t want to live in the past, and I certainly don’t need to waste any more of my time with anyone devoted to living in theirs.

That’s not a life. That’s a rerun.

No, thank you.

She loved him. With everything she had ever held sacred in the most hidden part of her kept in secret for the moment she saw the heart she recognized in a man she didn’t know.

She knew the parts of him holding that beautiful heart were damaged and raw, barely scarred over, injuries still seeping pain. So she loved him.

He was drawn to the warmth of her in moments he considered weakness, and held her love tightly to himself until the fear of it caused him to toss her away from him like a small boy would cast a favorite teddy bear into the far corner in a fit of rage. And there she’d remain, quietly loving him until he’d reach out  and pull her back to him in remorse.

He hurt her. Over and over.

So she loved him.

He would call her heart into the open with glimpses of the truth of him so deeply buried. Then he would mock her, cutting at her to prove to them both that she wasn’t strong enough to stay. He would rant at the softness of her that surrounded him and paint for her pictures of all the women before her of greater beauty, fame and perfection that he’d held before her and cast aside. He told her she wasn’t special, that there was nothing between them worthy of mention.

So she loved him.

He spoke of his accomplishments and his place in the world so she would see she had no place with him. He thought he was using her when in fact her eyes were clear and her heart and time were freely given. He thought he was on top of the game she wasn’t playing. He needed her to love him and made every effort to prove to them both that it would not be.

So she loved him.

He kept her in her place so he didn’t have to let her in. He built walls with words to destroy any hope of true connection. He used her emotions against her in an effort to turn her away.

But she remained, and she loved him still.

He made himself distant and uninvolved so she could feel her lack of importance to him. If he accidentally showed his true heart he would place a distance between them until he was sure she wouldn’t acknowledge it aloud. Her love for him made him uncomfortable and distressed. He didn’t want her to love him but he needed it in a way that frightened him for the potential of further injury.

So she just kept loving him, giving the best parts of herself that she had to offer.

She refused to budge from her position of uncompromising devotion to the gold in the heart of him. And there she remains, unshakeable in her courage to love a heart defended by the lies he tells himself to remain safe in his fear of disillusionment.

She remains, immoveable in her commitment to the heart he guards from the world.

She remains.

And she loves him.

Still.

Today my head and heart are not in a good place. This isn’t a blog discussion, or advice column, or any kind of a call to arms or solidarity.

This is just me writing. 

As I said, I’m not in a good place today and my soul and body are both tired. I was able to sleep finally from 3:30am-5 or so. I’m sad and disappointed. In a lot of things that I normally don’t allow to drag me down. Things are hurting me today that usually bounce off of my composure. I have tears in my eyes.

My heart hurts today.

I can’t remember why I feel like I have to hide the effect of being hurt from others and even myself. I can’t remember when I began to do so. I only know that I’ve always done that, and today I’m not.

The tears are here. I don’t feel like a warrior, I feel wounded.

I would have fought against this a few months ago. I would have hidden it, busied myself with trivialities, and made excuses for who or whatever had caused my pain or sorrow. A lot can change in four months, and it has. Inside me.

I call myself on my own bullshit.

Cognitive Therapy is a game-changer for me. It doesn’t just give me the ability to speak freely to another person without fear of judgement, it helps me hear myself. I listen to my own story, identify the things that are no good for me and come up with a plan to change everything. The belief I have (or don’t) in myself, my reactivity to those around me and the choices I make for myself are all within my ability to change.

No more “someone done me wrong” songs allowed.

I have said and done many things lately that have terrified me. I have admitted some things, accepted some and trashed a few. This has saved me. I have hope now.

Breathing and feeling the darkness of today is part of saving myself.

My therapist told me last time we spoke that there was nothing wrong with me for the tears I was trying not to shed, the sadness I was trying not to feel, the anger at myself or someone else or the circumstances. I told him I thought I was losing my mind because a broken necklace had thrown me into tears and then fury.  I admitted that on the way to see him, when I stopped at a red light I heard a man screaming at his wife/girlfriend and my hand reached out to roll down the window and scream to her…

“For god’s sake, RUN!!”

Apparently I’m not crazy, I’m human. I will have days like these where I learn something that hurts me and I am heartbroken, weepy and need to be alone. He told me I needed to sit with my shit and feel it. Just feel it and let it pass through.

I’m not losing my mind, I’m living my life.

Finally. In color.

Even if today the color is grey.

Today I’m fragile. My usual joy stands on trembling legs. Despair simmers underneath sorrow, but do I really need to go there? I don’t know yet. The day is not over, the sun hasn’t set yet. Maybe I just need to dress up in black and be emo for a few hours…

See? There I go again. I call bullshit. That’s my humor trying to hide the cuts that are deep enough for the scars to be permanent. I’m hilarious. The more I hurt or feel discomfort of any sort, the funnier I am.

Today I’m a riot. I’ll be here all week.

I don’t need advice. I don’t need saved. I don’t need sympathy…but thanks for listening…

Where ever you are.