My Life in a Nutshell

"You get to this point in your life when everything that used to matter suddenly doesn't anymore and the people that once shaped your life in the most profound ways are now long gone. But then you blink and when you open your eyes, something new has come along and begun to shape your life once more."

- A Very Birdy Girl

Maybe it'll all be okay. Maybe it won't. At least this time fear will not keep me from seeing what might happen. Either way, at the end of this things will be different. I've grown a sense of self that you'll never be aware of and once again that says more about you than it does about me. But really, does anyone know anybody at all? Heavy legs two steps behind some ever dangling carrot, is all we'll ever be.

I couldn't see it. All these plans and events coming straight at us and I never once saw you being apart of them. It's surreal and unsettling. When you go... what happens to the ones you've left behind?

You're better! I'm sorry I can't be with you. I'm sorry I put myself in situations that make you wanna scream. But I'm eternally grateful to have you in my life. No one sees me quite like you do. Trust me. Believe me. And please don't ever leave me.

In all my life, I've never met a person like you. You're the Big to my Carrie and that's not exactly a good thing. But it's something and it's nothing.

‎

"People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it." -Eat, Pray, Love

One day, possibly much sooner than I can dream of, my life will be overtaken by books and photographs. And I will be in Heaven. My three new books came in the mail today. Yes, Mego I still have an enormous stack growing in my closet. But no, I will not stop buying them. I guess I've found my bad habit, right?

You do what you love and fuck the rest!

So the thing here is this. I don't always do what is good for me. Sometimes I kiss people I shouldn't kiss and sometimes I say exactly what I shouldn't say. It's hard to know what I really mean. Because maybe today I want you, but you're not promised a tomorrow. It's not like I ever want to say goodbye forever, but I also will not stand for anyone's shit. "So I need to either forgive or forget." If you hurt me, don't expect me to forget. It lingers around a while. I can forgive you though, with a generous amount of graveling. How interesting is it, the idea of either one or the other? Of course there is always a 3rd option, soak in your anger and discomfort and get absolutely no where. I usually take this option, for the others never sound too appealing. But today I sat and thought rationally. (This is another challenge of mine.) Really the 3rd option isn't an option at all, it's more like pressing pause at the worst part of the movie. You never get to see how things get resolved and you can't pretend like you didn't just see the first half of the movie. So all you're left with are the two F's. If you choose forgiveness, you have to face the facts and let go of all the rest. You have to decide to put yourself at peace with the situation. But if you choose to forget you risk erasing anything you may have possibly learned from the situation or movie if you will. So it's obvious right? Forgiveness is key. We have to let go at some point. It's realllllllly hard but I'm trying to keep reminding myself of this and stressing the fact that it's about forgiveness not forgetting. Any-who... I'm thinking I want to develop a bad habit like drinking coffee or buying shoes. Oh and I want to start collecting something so when I'm an old lady I'll have something to show my grandkidlets. I can't wait to be an old lady! I'm really glad I'm finally falling out of my funk. I thought I might be stuck there for a while. But not this time, I got back up on my two freebirdy girl feet and I'm about to leap again. The difference this time is this, I'm not expecting anyone to catch me. It's all me now! It's all free now!

Once upon a time... I was a very happy girl. Then I fell for someone who was right for me in all the wrong ways. Now I thirst for something that I never had and I've given up so much for essentially nothing. It's about time to move on now, but I'm having trouble finding which way to go. I'm worn out on being sad and I've out grown everything that's still around. But it doesn't matter if I'm here or there. It just doesn't matter, because I'll be the same anywhere.

"My life is a chaos of pointless acts and exploding emotions."So tomorrow I think I'm just going to wake up and decide to be happy. Just take care of me like everyone has been telling me to do lately. It's not worth it to live any other way. I'm going to treat myself to some shopping and a nice walk. No more of this mopey sad shit. I have so much more to live for. And that's it. Cross your fingers for me.

I wish you could have stuck around a little longer, it seems like you skipped out on all the things I actually needed you to be here for. So when I blow out the candles tomorrow on just another of the many birthdays that you were not around for, know that you should have been.

"Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that's not fair to say. To have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time - everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all of your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.
I do not relay these facts about myself with pride, but this is how it's always been."

It's a cycle of abuse and you can't fix it. And you can't take it back. The only thing that makes love stories worth telling is the pain that they leave behind. It's not the fresh, flawless beginning. It's the long, drawn-out, unbearable ending when you realize that the last five months of your life were more than likely wasted away. And you think about all the things you could have done differently and all the things you should have said. But really, it doesn't matter because what it comes down to and what shapes it all is every little thing that did happen. Retracing your steps or attempting to do it all over again wont change a thing. "It was here when you got here and it'll be here when you're not here no more." There's a reason things turn out the way that they do.

Just like Alice and her tears, I could fill the room but I'm only drowning myself.

It's just everything. All the little things. Jumping rope in the literal sense not just the kind that moves in a circular manner around your 3 foot tall body. Standing on top of tables or laying underneath them. It's like who the fuck have I become? I can't even remember where I started. Why do we always give ourselves away to the "we's"? It's just a means to an end. Or at least a hopeful end. Nothing is guaranteed. I broke it and you bought it. Stop saying no and start saying yes. Stop being someone I want to change. Stop letting me change for you. I fucking love this version of me and you have yet to know her. But that says more about me than it does about you. I'm not really quite sure what keeps me. I'm not really quite sure of what it is that I am doing or practicing, or who this person is. And I hate that. I need it still and it's not what you've got, I'm almost sure of that. But the problem, I feel, lies in the fact that I'm looking in you and her and him to find me and there's no logical reasoning for that. I'm restless. Literally without sleep or words to explain it. I keep planning and hoping and crossing my fingers and my t's repetitively. It's all worn out. No more planning or waiting. It's mine. It belongs to me and in my hands. I wanna be the fight. I wanna be the fire.

Is it better to burn out quick than it is to slowly fade away?

So it's probably going to turn out badly. And I know how great that sounds at the beginning of a blog post like this, it sets you up with the impression that I am about to ramble and rant about a shit ton of nothingness that makes little to no sense to anyone but myself. But you'll continue to read because you're curious about what it is that I believe will turn out badly. So here goes... I was sweetly awoken today, at a much to early hour, by the smooth and confident voice of my out-of- reach man. This does not happen very often and after an argument like the one we'd had the previous night, it came as a shock. He swayed me into a state of forgetfulness, which I might add, he is quite remarkable at. Short lived as those moments may be, I do thrive on them. My morning phone call was followed by a pleasant long walk along-side my loving parents and a refreshing drive home with the top down on my car in the 85 degree weather. The later part of my day was spent a few towns over with my dear friend and her boyfriend and his room-mate. We swam and played and munched on fruit and brownies and drank margaritas. Then took the dogs to the dog park and came back to the house to cook a delightful dinner together. Which I think may soon be one of my favorite summer hobbies. I want to learn to cook! The night settled down with good conversation and a few laughs with a few people that I'd love to get to know a little better. Then I headed home. And just when I thought my day was over, he called. Only this time it was not the smooth and confident voice of my out-of- reach man, it was a far different voice yet still smooth and confident and somewhat out of reach though not in the same way. Perhaps a more dangerous voice but still I answered the call and chatted away, I proceeded to boast about the amazing qualities of my out- of-reach man, purposefully forgetting to mention the not so amazing qualities. I've been here, what seems like a thousand times, before. I've played the game, I've fallen for love and been broken. So tell me why? Why in any state of mind did I pick up that phone and carry on an hour conversation with the person responsible for the breaking? Don't know and I don't intend on doing it anymore often. Some things never change. But what does that really mean? Am I destined to repeat this awful self destruction over and over every 6 months for the rest of my life? Or can I take that phrase to mean something else entirely? Maybe it's true that somethings never change, i.e. he will never be a better man and we will never have a functional friendship, but maybe, just maybe, I can change.

It's Gravity.

"You get back here. You do it slowly. Do it calm, now don't be so angry. I got something I've been chasing, every day since I started walking. It just sits there in the distance. It always flirts with the tips of my fingers. You thought that you could love it, until it touched you and now you just wanna stop it. Well I'm sorry. It's not likely. It was here when you got here. And it'll be here when you're not here no more. And then some days, I get lucky. I can focus and things are less shaky. And I scrape you off the pale moon and I slip you into soft shoes. And you tapdance to a jazz band, on a cruise ship, near an island. And your hair's up. You wear a short dress and a wide smile, your movements are careless. It's a daydream I keep having, to make the clocks move while I'm working or a bad joke I can't sit through and I smile because I feel like I have to. But if you'd look under the table you'd see I'm playing with my knife. I'm slicing stripes into my kneecaps and I'm struggling just to come off polite.
We could be a snapshot framed and hung like a portrait. What if that's true and I'm the only one who knows it?"

One Hundred & Twenty Two Days!
Days that I have dedicated to you.And now One Hundred & Twenty Two more...
Dedicated, solely to me.

"Don't you see it's wrong?
Can't you get it right?
Out of mind and out of sight!"

And somehow it still stings... just a little bit.

Remember Bird the Freebird?
Well, she's on her way back!
I will no longer give away my power.
"See it feels bad now but it's gunna get better."

I've been over taken with a terrible case of the hiccups. Terribley terrible. But I am finding that it's quite miraculous how well not running away works out somehow. I have taken messy in the brain to a new level and strangely enough, I made a little sense of it all. Not all of it though, unfortunately. A random man walked by me today and noticed my heavy head and uncontrollabley frowning mouth and you know what he said to me? "Smile! It's a beautiful day!" Literally! Word for word. It was like something you see in a movie, not something that actually happens to you in real life. And the second that those words leaked from his lips I thought, "What in the world possessed that man to say those words to me on this day of all days? When I'm at my worst? When I'm feeling broken and nothing has gone my way? What told him that those words were exactly what I needed?" I'll never really know, but the important thing is that he did. And those words shifted the rest of my day. I don't have it all figured out. I know too little, but really, what is enough? It's about being open to people and new things, about forgetting about the boundaries that have held you back. It's in the way that you carry yourself. It's in the way that you love yourself and everyone around you. It's faith. And my hiccups have gone away.

We might be giants!
We might be flees.
We might be the very thing
That will bring you to your knees.
Breathe.
Breathe.
And let the rest of it go.

Just a little farther...
Cuz I'm ready and willing and waiting!

We all want to be these shiny happy people. No flaws. Living the lives we were meant to live. We want to be satisfied and well prepared for everything headed our way. We want perfection and fairy tale endings. We want it all. Then one day you wake up and you realize that it doesn't last. That you get it and it's gone before you open your eyes again from that one single blink. You start to second guess your thoughts, your emotions, your every fluttery feeling. It was there, wasn't it? You couldn't have imagined all of that, right? And in that second guess you find all the reasons to believe it wasn't real. That your shiny happiness was nothing more than a euphoric blur. But in truth, there is a cycle to this madness. It's a roller coaster motion and we keep riding
because
it never fails to be worth the rush.

"And I'm not sure what the trouble was that started all of this. The reasons all have run away, but the feeling never did. It's not something I would recommend, but it is one way to live. Cause what is simple in the moonlight by the morning never is."

"Yeah when you realize it's a pattern
And not a phase.
It's what you've become
And it's what you will stay.
That's ballgame."

Hmmmm... I don't think this will be ending very well. I really want to cut my ties now. I read it. And it's blatantly obvious that I am very similar to her. I HATE THAT! I never want to be compared to another HER again. And there are secrets and mistrusts and the bird is being driven insane. I've got to stop it. I've got to run. It's getting repetitive and I don't do repetitive. I want out. No I want you to give me a reason to not want out. Because really. I just want you. It's not fair and I can't make you and this situation out to be what I want it to be. So I'll settle.

"The longer that I'm out here the better you sound

You're scrunching up your face in this picture I found and
I'm chasing after you, steadily losing ground
I don't wanna forget so I'm writing it down
Have you ever? No, never never?
I find that hard to believe
Now let's burn the furniture
To see how angry a fire can make me
And you say that there's someone that you need to reconnect with
Some scarecrow from high school that you loved but never slept with
A baby with a pipe dream playing hopscotch on your bandages
And I'm singing all his songs while I sleep on your couch
I'm coughing up a lung but I'm covering my mouth and
I paint you on the wall
Yellow, red, green and brown
I miss you all the time but I'm blocking it out
Are you better? No, never never?
What does that say about me?
Now let's break the smoke alarm
To see how scared locked windows will make me
So you say there's a stranger staring sideways in a deep freeze
A loner draped in ivy playing slumlord in his city dream
A faker with an art form pulling magic tricks on the weak girls up his sleeve
And I'm choking right along with the words in my throat
I'm falling back in love with the letter you wrote and
I think that I was wrong, but I guess I don't know
I figure that I'll wait until you tell me so
The longer that I'm out here the better you sound
You're scrunching up your face in this picture I found and
I'm chasing after you steadily losing ground
I miss you all the time but I'm blocking it out."

I have once again gone and made a mess of my life and tangled myself up in this interwoven mess of messiness. At times I wish and feel it would be much more easy to return to my state of little girlness and let my mother's hand guide me in the right direction. But in reality this is what I've been fighting all along. The fight to let go of her hand and be on my own.

I had a eureka moment today. Nothing major. I mean the whole world does not suddenly make sense, but something did become apparent to me. I spend an abundant amount of time worrying and planning and procrastination and holding myself to these standards that I cannot live up to. "Don't give in to what you want, it'll only lead to self destruction." "Don't say yes, they'll think less of you." "Don't let yourself be vulnerable, they'll walk all over you." I want to be vulnerable. I want to say yes. I want to go after what I want, even if I fail. Even if everything goes terribly wrong. It's what I wanted, once upon a time, and that has got to count for something. Yes, I'm afraid. But it's human to be afraid. I am a bird and I am soaring.

I'm going to kiss you. And you're going to taste of ashes and tar lungs. But it'll be okay, because I like you that much.

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come."

It feels sort of like you're lying.It's obvious I'm broken. But I don't need anyone to fix me.
I can take care of myself and that's exactly what I'll do.

This is how my world looks on the inside.

"Wind me up. Put me down. Stop me up and watch me go."I'm feeling different today. It's messy. I'm messy. My head is not on straight. My ears must be upside down. I don't know what I was thinking. It's a lot. I can't catch my breathe. And I don't know what to say or whether it is good or bad. I don't want to say anything. I want to wait it out. I don't know what I am doing. It's like I was a puzzle. Or I am a puzzle. And a piece had been missing. Not the last piece, but at least a significant piece that gave way to a bigger picture. So the piece was missing, then you came around. And it was no longer lost. I was one step closer. Certain things were beginning to make sense. Then you left. Or I left. Or we both left. But at some point that piece became missing once more. And now my balance is off. I've got a miss-y feeling for you. So please please please, let Friday come sooner and let me get to know that missing piece a little more.

It's not like the rest of the story, though it is a continuation. It's not the end of a chapter, but the beginning of one. It's not found, but it's not lost. It's not clean, but it's not tainted. It's not simple. It's not easy. It's not ideal, but it's exactly where I want to be. I know I can have anything I want. I know I can make it all happen, you remind me of this everyday. I'm inspired. I'm excited. I'm singing. I'm happy. I'm scared. But I'm willing to leap. This is everything I've been talking about, everything I've been wishing for. Just to know you is enough. I am a freebird, now and forevermore, but I'd love it most if we could soar together.

I'm a messy in the brain kind of girl. Do you know how much messier you're making it?

"Who lost who? Did I lose you? Did you lose me?... Well I gave it a lot of thought and I came to this conclusion. I didn't lose you and you didn't lose me. Not at all. Because on that horrible dark day.
We lost eachother."