Long Time Coming

Hello once again. It has been far too long and things have gotten a bit too far. I sometimes can't believe I live where I do. That I live where I dreamt of being so many years ago. I can't believe that I forgot the old adage- wherever you go- there you are. Well, here I am. Perhaps deeper in it.

Somehow I managed to land a gig that is so unreal, I wait for the bottom to drop. I hope it doesn't, I hope about that a lot.

I fell in love, only to have my heart ruined. This time, I'm not sure I will ever be able to trust anyone. Not that I ever really did before. This latest just shows me I was right not to do so, and that breaks me even more.

This one, I thought he was the one I was waiting for. Really, he was just another one. This one though, this one, well- he broke me. Perhaps I had thought this was something I felt before. But, I never woke up from a nightmare calling for someone out loud before. This time I did. This time I know it is a deeper cut than any before him. Now I worry. I worry there will be none after him.

The year is ending and instead of looking to the future with bright eyes, I look with dread. What will this one do to me? Who will get to me this time? Why and how is it that this is what has come of me?

It is hard when you understand that the men who ruined you have run off with girls with beautiful lives. And these men just make their lives more beautiful. It's hard to understand that their lives are better than mine. They will know happiness I will never know, love I will never know. A life I know nothing of. I'm not quite sure why they decided to destroy me. Or why I let them. Why I didn't see it coming. Why this is how it is. But it is hard, has been hard. Has been something I didn't want to write about. Something I didn't want to document.

For some reason you still haunt me. Still taunt me. Still hate me.

I feel like crying a lot lately. I tear up sometimes. Then my chest sinks all over again. I'm fearful of the New Year. And that hasn't happened before. That scares me. So does more of this. This uphill battle with no end, no rope, no help, nothing but this in sight.

Keyser Söze

Perhaps I mistook you. Perhaps I looked beyond things. Perhaps I did not wish to see what was really there. That you are a shell. A fraction of a man. A scared little sap who is so frightened to handle the world that you run to the wilderness. You are simply pathetic.

I honestly can't even pity you for what you have become. Because really- you have done this to yourself. You have even managed to ignite my hatred. Which is pretty impressive. You have lost my kindness- which also is no small feat. 

You disappear and reappear- drunk, slurring, poor, stupid, weak, and ultimately unattractive in ways that far surpass your physical looks. Your lack of manhood is disgusting. Your lack of power in this world does not make it justified to try to overpower me. I can crush you with a word, and you know it. 

Take a hint from your past and disappear. Go back to your little sad stove, your sleeping bag, your fake country accent. Go back to being nothing. Go back to feeling worthless. Because all of those things- you are. My looking beyond things cannot get beyond the truth of you. The truth of you- you are nothing. You know. I know. Get Gone.

Go.

First Love Lies.

As I took my photo this week for Photo Friday, I felt a bit hopeful yet hesitant. I found a penny- heads up- lucky. I didn't post it on Friday. I wasn't feeling particularly luck, quite the opposite actually. But here it is.....

Friday was another day of me being sucked back into patterns I would rather leave behind. Leave behind junior high school girls hating me for no particular reason. Obnoxious gossip being ranted with no thought of the impact it could or would have on me. Another day for him to ignore me. Leaving me with the same feelings I had after my first heartbreak. Thinking of the boy, now 14 years later, I wonder how it would have been if he was truthful to me. Faithful. Honest. Mine. How it would have been different if he didn't mindfuck me. If he treated me like a lady. Treated me like love. Treated me as a girl having her first love should be treated. Love me like he said he did. Or just have left me alone. Looking back now- this set me up for the let down.

This perhaps is the beginning of my set up for failure. This, my first love's infidelity. Mind games.  Lack of telephone calls. His overflow of letters from me. My excessive phone bills. His love making with someone else in the backseat. My school girl ignorance, miles away wearing his necklace. Proclaiming my love while he secretly set me up for heartbreak, lies, and loss. 

The feelings echo now still to this day. Feeling lucky to have you- while being secretly betrayed somewhere in the darkness. Reaching out with a kind heart, only to be pistol whipped and ignored. All over again. 

Your lack of responsibility- for me- and of me- matches his. I can see that now. Now that I am older, a bit removed from the situation. A bit removed from myself. You both are so similar in your relationship with me. Lots of front end attention, followed with no follow at all. No follow through. Nothing. A big nothing. Just me, whip lashed. Wondering what the fuck. 

So I found a penny heads up this weekend. I hope it brings me some luck. Some strength. Some protections. Some change. Sometime soon.

#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.

I Give.

Alright. I am right on the brink of either jumping all in or jumping back fully. I'm right there in the moment of either way. And now, it depends on the breeze, the sun, the feeling in my gut, just which way I go. I'm right on the brink, I can see it.

I've been here before. I know what they look like now. And I know how to handle them. I refuse. I refuse to let my heart get into knots again. I just won't do it. For my lifetime I have had nobody but me to protect me. But in this life area I have been weak. Weak in the knees. Weak in my mind. Weak willed. But that was before.

So alright, I give in. I'll give up again on waiting to be asked, approached, acknowledged. Sure, I give in- this one more time. I'll tell you that I think you are amazing. That you are special in ways I didn't know existed. That no matter what you say- I see being amazing comes easy to you. It's as easy as breathing for you. Which is just so troubling. Because you don't seem to let yourself know that I see it. I see you. But me- I remain unseen.

Knowing a bit of my crust doesn't seem to matter. It doesn't seem to make you say anything. Make you say anything about or to me. It's incredibly aggravating. And hurts my feelings more that I can say. I feel as if I have to go out on ledges alone here- without any indication how close I am to the fall. I get your need for pace. I get your need for peace. I do my best to give you all that you need. But I am alone in this process. Even though I do my best for you. Give you support, heart, strength. I do not do what is best for me. I live on thin lines skating. Slipping back to what I know. Being unsure, unprotected, unaware of how close I am to falling without being caught.

So fine- I give. I will tell you again- tell you in writing. Tell you where you stand right now. I don't know what the future holds, where it will take us, or if we will know one another a year from this moment. I don't know. What I do know is that I connect to you, and that is rare in life, let alone my life, as you know. So fine- it isn't easy for me. And yes- it scares the hell out of me. And no- it doesn't make much sense. But here it is. Here we are. Here I am. Now, where are you?

Last Photo Friday of 2011 & Catch Up

So, 2011 has come to an end. I'm not happy or sad about it- because it has been a year of MAJOR change. Interestingly- my movement had little to do with my resolutions, and more to do with my Mondo. This year I dug down deep and made my dreams become my reality. Now, palm trees don't always make perfect- but they sure are lovely.

This year couldn't just go without one more 2 week romance, but hopefully he was the last. Hopefully. I'm grateful he showed his face- and his cards early. He reminded me that love is possible- even for me.

 

I hope that the New Year brings new adventure in this New place that I call home. I hope that my new job brings me joy. And that my special someone finally shows himself. 

I resolve to.... keep trying to see beauty in all things- even the things that break my heart. I resolve to begin to take better care of myself- inside and out. I resolve to LET GO- most of all- let go to all things that are not helpful to me. And hold on to all that is.

Happy New Year- and many more to come. 

A Friday ritual borrowed from i believe in santa clause. A single photo capturing a moment of the week. Feel free to make your own Friday moments or leave a comment here with a link to yours.

Crazy Heart

Dear Universe,

Ah, you do it every time.... as Mondo is coming to a close, I feel I need it more than ever. Which may just be the point- I guess. I didn't do many lessons, but I will... promise.

My life... hmmm... well........ I try to see the positives in life, even if they turn out to be negatives. I still try to see the sunlight through the rain. Even though sometimes- I gotta squint. Take Rex for example, the man promised to another, who said the most amazing things I have ever heard before (directed to me that is). I just had to know... did ya mean it?

And yea- he said- he did. And left it there. Now, sure, I could get sad on it. But like I said before- I just don't wanna. I really do prefer to see the positive in it. And so it is- Mondo in action. He said he could not believe that nobody ever said such things to me before.... and he's right. He's right!  

Beyondo Mondo- he's right. 

The positive in this, if you dare to dream of positive, is that here is this person- saying very loudly that I am all of these wonderful things. And maybe that, just that, is the gift of him in my life. Someone walking in and saying- jeez- you never hear these things- who do you hang around with?!

Exactly friend- Exactly.

So thank you Universe, thank you for bringing this person into my world, for even a very short while. He's right- I need to hear these lovely things, from someone free to say them (to me).

Gut Check

Ever since this happened this week, my mind has been a spin. My original reaction to the whole thing was goodbye to you- just to get out of it and avoid all drama. Just run. Run away that is. I felt a lot of loyalty to a person I do not know, putting her happiness and security and life ahead of mine. I bowed out. Cried alone and lonely, missing something I never had. Something and someone that was and is hers.

And now I just don't know. Here's why.... I have a theory. Do you remember the movie 'Can't Hardly Wait'? I know- random... But my theory is everyone in your life is someone in that movie. Me? I'm her. No, I am not a stripper. I'm someone with the random teen crushes and someone who believes very deeply in what she says: Fate. There is fate. But it only takes you so far, because once you're there, it's up to you to make it happen. 

And now we are here.  Is this my fate? Is it right in front of me? Is this love? Or, is this just drama and trouble? Is this just an illusion?

 I just don't know anymore. I want to know if he meant what he said. Or if he was just living some fantasy. I need to know what to do with this. And I just don't know the answer. Do I go after it, or respect the situation..... Anyone?

Its Just The Same Old Song

I am in a bad spot. A few bad spots really. I'm at a point in my life where it is all falling down, again. And it seems no matter how I try to treat people with kindness and no matter how I try to see beauty
in every day life- I am assumed to be this. And now, it has taken a step further.

If you know me, you know I am someone searching for real love. True and Pure love. I love love. But I am not so sure if love loves me. I've been told in the past that certain boys loved me- but they never loved me the way I needed. Not true- not pure. Not Love Love.

Which takes me to me doing a bad bad thing. I've said before that love has come out of the wrong mouths.... And now someone I spoke about before started speaking some more. He said I was 'a 10' (whatever that means), I am the 'exact type of person he would date' (whatever that means), that I am 'perfect' 'amazing' (etc. etc. etc). These are the things I dream to hear, the way I wished someone would treat me. The way I hoped someone would see me, finally. But he belongs to another, so much so.

And I feel terrible, I did a bad bad thing. He said I was 'a test' (whatever that means), and if you ask me- he failed it. I did a bad thing to a girl I don't know. I betrayed her, and I knew I was. I did a bad thing to a stranger. I'm terribly sorry.

I finally heard what I needed to hear, and I cried in the street hearing it. Because he should have been saying those things to another, not me. I am just the other girl, his fantasy girl, and he is going to marry another. I did a bad thing. And I hope that love doesn't hate me now and I hope I didn't hurt anyone but myself. I hope that love will visit me again, and speak to me through lips not promised to another. I hope love comes quick for me- Free Love Pure Love True Love. My Love, I'm waiting.

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.

Movement

It's the beginning of the New Year and I already feel a bit stuck. My body has been recovering from back surgery for almost one year now, and it is just now beginning to notice that it hasn't moved in three years. I feel the need to move, swing, MOVE. I just feel this great momentum in the past few days to get going. I had forgotten that feeling since all I have been feeling for the past years is mind numbing pain. Now my body, that had been tortured by nerve pain, morphine, and self-induced isolation, is beginning to break out of this shell. It wants to bend and stretch and jump. I had forgotten what that had felt like, to want to tone, strengthen and move instead of numb, curse and despise.

Personally, I have also been craving some movement. In perfect Bonita fashion, a ghost from Christmas past has been haunting me. Another boy from long ago creeping back in, doing all of the lame 8th grade boy moves I hated in the 8th grade. I am now 31 years old, and you want me to anticipate a text message? Seriously? I should get excited when you return a call? And totally expect it when you don't? Um,,,, no.

This year I made a resolution to get rid of my two week romances. And yes, skipper, this does mean you. I am completely sick of little boy games and those games making me feel like a chump for just trying to be open and kind. I simply refuse to let you change who I am, but can I change who I am... for the better? Can I move into a better head space and into a new pattern that better suits me? That, is quite difficult.

I began to quit smoking... again. And the best way I can equate this break up from these little romances is like trying to quit smoking. I know it is bad for me, I know it hurts me, I know it is ridiculous. But I still really like it. I crave it. And that is the hardest part to say out loud, let alone to myself. That I get something out of all of this. No, not the drama. But the rejection, that fucking sinking in my chest that I felt at three years old. The wanting to prove that I am worthy to someone who is not even worth while.

But I have got to MOVE. Maybe my body is speaking for my mind, maybe my mind is trying to tell my body something. Maybe I am now just 31 and have to get this life going where I want it to go. It is very difficult, not to get in touch with this person let alone go buy a pack of Camels, but I am doing my very best. It is day 4 without smoking, if I can keep my cigarette count as low as the no bullshit boy count, I think I am moving in the right direction indeed.