#YOU

Where ever you go- there you are. 

Even more so.... where ever I go- there you are. You seem to follow me. Hide in shadows. Lurk on corners. Follow me home. Leave me in the lurch. Leave me alone again.

You clever you. You take on different shapes. Different accents. Different smells and shoes sizes. You spit different rhymes and reasons. But you still get me in the end. Get my heart. Get a little piece of me, what little there is left. Get me to my scabbed knees. Get me telling myself that I can take one more hit. Even though I know it isn't true. I know this one may just have been one too many. And this, this, is my greatest sadness. Because in my heart and mind I really think that this one may have sent me to a place from where I can't get back from. This one hit too low below the belt and too deep into my gut.

This is their way, this is your way. Get me to believe that my walls no longer need to be standing. Trick me to think that I need no more protection, now that you are here. Get me to tell you about my life- my real life. The life barely anyone knows about. The life that looks beautiful on the outside, but on the inside is cold, empty, damp, used, broken, battered, the real me. The me that cowers in corners and talks myself into getting up again for another day  that I can bet is going to be terrible. The me that knows better to believe anything you say. Believe what anyone says, really.

But you challenge that voice, and I am too tired to fight it. Too tired to believe my life is meant to be spent alone and miserable. So I bite. 

I spent time listening to your fear. I spent time making you dinner. I spent time compromising on baby names. I spent time hearing you say that you only sleep right when I am next to you. I spent time telling myself that this may just be an end to the life I knew before you. That is until I discovered you are just the latest of all of them. Where ever I go, there you are. And here you are once again. 

I spend a lot of time trying to reconcile that the life I dreamt of will never be mine. Nobody will ever love me in my 20's. Nobody will love me when I am young and beautiful. Nobody will ever know me not being someone crippled- in my heart, mind, and body. Nobody will know me without serious trauma. Nobody will have kids with me by age 30. Nobody will know me without doubt, fear, and having to convince me that I can believe anything they say. That will never be my life. This will never be me.

I spent a lot of time thinking if I could believe you when you talk. I spent a lot of time hoping that when I reached out that you would take my hand. I hoped you would already be there- hand extended- waiting for me. This is not what happened. 

Just at the moment when I let you in. Just at the moment when I felt I could tell you that I needed you then. Just when I took enough bricks out to see over the wall. Just then you took the air out of my lungs and broke my broken heart. I never ask for help, or support of any kind. But I asked this of you. I asked because you asked me to. And you dropped it. Dropped the ball, my faith, dropped me.  There I was. Feeling the wind go through my empty chest. Feel nothing at all because I am already so far gone. More than I let on. More that I really knew. And there I was again. Alone. Alone again, Naturally.

And now, now that you used me up and left me with nothing but more pain than before, I wonder. I wonder if that little voice in my mind is right. Maybe I should just give up and call a dream just what it is, a dream. Maybe I should just come to realize that I am really too far gone. That I am too much. That I have too much damage. Too much to take on. Too much for anyone else to bear. And this makes me more sad than I can possibly say. This is my greatest sadness. 

I wish I could say that I had a good time acquiring all of this baggage.  But that just is not the case. These are marks given to me over three decades. These are bruises taken, not earned. In the end, no matter how I got them, fair or not fair. This is what it is. This is a great sadness, because this is what I am and what I have. No matter if I want it, deserve it, or not. This is what I have to carry. No matter how far I move or how light I color my hair. Where ever I go, here I am. And there you are creeping up behind me.

I would never go out to hurt anyone. But perhaps by getting involved with you- I do. I do hurt you- and I hurt me more. I think I just need to come to terms with a life that is mine. A life of looks from a distance. A look from men who go home to women less complicated. A life too broken to be fixed. A life spent without tan lines on my left hand. A life with a heavy heart and swollen eyes. A life that is mine, far away from my dream. Far away from you. A life missing what I never had. A life feeling sad for myself, wide awake in a world where I build walls. This time not to be taken down. No matter how handsome, charming, or lovely you seem in our two weeks, they stay. They stay. You go.

Stollen, Once Again.

"Live by the moment; after all, life is a series of moments." -- Trent Woodard

This quote has become my life, unfortunately. I have lived inside many years of darkness with very few days of light that can be counted. Most of this life has been a battle, a heart breaking uphill battle, with few points of love. Few points of mercy. Few moments of happiness in my life only to be ripped back and stolen from me. Always with the words- you don't deserve this- but they do it all to me anyway. 

I don't care to have a series of moments. I am seeking for consistency, continuity, stability. I don't know these things in my life. But I know it exists in the lives of others. I've seen it. I know it is real. And now, now I am terrified that it won't happen for me. I'm simply terrified. 

Just a few weeks ago another man entered my life. Well, re-entered. He and I knew one another many years ago. When I was young, beautiful, blonde, and still hopeful. Seeing him again made me feel hopeful once more. He got me thinking about fate. How we found one another 3,000 miles away from home in a town where we had no real roots, but one another. He made me think that perhaps the reason I have been alone for so long was because we had to wait for one another. We had to become the people we are now in the place we are now. Thinking that way made the years of loneliness almost alright by me. Because we were here. I was alright, and maybe, that time was over. I was mistaken.

He was just another.  I was blinded. I was stupidly trusting, even though nothing in my history says I should have been . I thought this was different. I was different. This was different. I was mistaken.

Tuesday was the two year anniversary of my attack. I told him I didn't want to be alone that night. Instead, I wanted to feel appreciated, safe, happy. He said he would be there and make all of that happen. And he did. Until he didn't. He just had to tell me that very evening that he 'wasn't sure' that he wanted to do this. Wasn't sure that he could do this. This- on the evening when I asked to feel special, wanted, and safe. I couldn't even get my wish granted before midnight. I couldn't get it, even though I know this exists every day in the lives of others.

This is my heartbreak. Again.

Just a few days ago I wrote about him. That he made me smile by doing nothing. And now, he makes me cry by doing the same. I have had my life dangled in front of me. Then he snatched it all back away. This from someone who told my mother I was special. This from someone who told me his favorite baby names. This from someone who said he sleeps better next to me. This from someone I have done nothing but try to be a good person for and with. 

I just wish I could say that I did something terrible. Slept with his brother or got him fired. Spent all his money and lost his dog. But, no. I have never and would never do something to hurt him. All I would want for him is happiness. All I want for me is that too.

But now, in this moment I feel as I have my entire life time. Frozen. Broken. Dead Inside. Crying. I got a close glimpse when he was around. I could almost see my future, the way I wish it would turn out. And having this person pull back and run, it left a dent in a place I didn't know existed. The pain and sadness is something I just can't explain. It would have been better if he had just left me alone. Left me to my loneliness. I didn't need the love me love me not game. I didn't need the reminder. I didn't need any of them, really. It would be better if they would have left me alone because this heartbreak will last longer than our two week romance.

Thaw

It is that time of year- just when the air doesn't sting you when you walk outside. But certainly not warm. It's a bit like Stockholm Syndrome- when it is 40 degrees and it feels like an Island Tropic Day. You feel like you have been in a prison, and let out in the yard for your weekly run. 

It's not spring yet. Not yet. But there are small signs of warm times coming. It makes you feel a bit stronger, getting through another brutal winter. It makes you feel jumpy and antsy and ready for a new phase to begin.

It's moments like these that remind you that there is a warm light at the end of this winter tunnel.

Instant Karma

My last few entries have troubled me. It is tough to admit that you may kinda like things that are bad for you. That you get a rush from it even. But it is true, and that is the point of my writing this. To have some Bravery.

I've had a slew of boys from Christmas past in my mind this week. Two in particular. Maybe it is because they are so much alike. Or maybe they both make me feel the same empty way. Probably a mixture of all of that really. One of them jumped back into my world this week completely at random. And I jumped too. The lameness of it all is even too much to get into, but let's say I fell back in a cat and mouse pattern of stupidity. 

The other has been skating around my brain for days. I heard a random song very closely associated with him twice this week- a never played barely known song. Twice. This is a person who very much took advantage of me. In a time of great sorrow and loss in my life, he used my hopelessness to his advantage. He used me in ways I thought impossible, then turned it all around on me in a perfectly crafted manner. It was quite a job he did. I'll never understand how you can know that the person in your arms is a victim and then go out of your way yo victimize them. My brain doesn't work that way I guess. 

Then there it was- his face in the newspaper. He had become a victim of violent crime. Just like me. His assault was not as vicious as mine, but it left him on the ground and bleeding. I immediately called him. And there he was. This person living in my mind as a bad memory on the other end of the phone. I told him that I read about what happened, and wanted to make sure he was alright. It was as natural to me as breathing. But I am not sure if that is so great. Do you treat people with kindness who have gone out of their way to hurt you? I just don't know.

The fact that he has been on my mind during the time of his attack is not lost on me. That it occurred a few blocks from my house, where my attack occurred also sat with me for a bit. What does that mean Universe? Is that a breathing Message? Am I beginning to unlock something of great importance or, am I locking myself into bad and dangerous habit? Do I hold the key to the answer? Or is something or someone else unlocking me?

Frozen... In Reverse.

It could be that it is winter. Or it could be something greater.

Yes, I hate cold and winter and all that comes with it. But I think there is something else to it.

My body, one year after surgery has a renewed disdain for the cold and ice. It makes me well, freeze. Freeze in ways I never did before. I can't move body parts or my mind at times. More times than not as of late. But there are other things too.

Just this past weekend I had a mind racing back to the boys I have known over the past year. All of them exactly the same. Same behaviors. Same results. Same builds even. Just the same. I had an urge to reach out to any of them. They are all the same really. Like a little devil on my shoulder urging me to put my hand on the fire. To be burnt. To be in pain. To feel something. But I didn't. 

Then, after a year, one of them got in touch with me. About 5 hours after I heard myself craving this kind of attention. Maybe he heard it too.  This person can't be considered a Two Week Romance. He would be more of a lagging connection to a part of me that surprises me exists. Does that make sense? He has a distorted version of me that I fit into instantly. It is aggravating and infuriating and weighs on my patience. But it is very much there. For some reason, he unlocks it instantly. And I don't know how or why. I didn't even know it was there until he showed it to me. The fact that I knew him as a child perplexes me more. Did he see something in the five year old me that leads him to behave this way with me now? If I thought he would honestly tell me I would ask, but that is useless.

The fact that I am totally drawn to him and his pull over me is crazy. It's worse than my nicotine cravings. Worse than the stab of cold air in the morning. Worse than I would like to admit out loud.

With this person creeping back into my mind and my day comes a big back slide. A slide back into old habits I wished never existed nevertheless were broken. It makes me feel well, frozen. Forever frozen in a place I never wanted to be to begin with. Which, makes me feel like being outside in this weather. I'm totally comfortable in the discomfort.  I'm used to the painful body and numb fingers. It's hard to think back to a time when I wasn't this way. And, seeing that this person knew me my whole life, I think I was always this way.

But maybe not. There were times in my life when I had moments like this

A time when I was free, warm, surrounded by light and feeling that I was near a place I was meant to be.

But now, and more and more lately, I am surrounded by this

What's worse, is that what surrounds me now is starting to get inside my skin and into my bones. I'm sliding backwards into frozen.