Life as it stands cycles through seasons, year in and year out as if nothing has changed. Today comes after yesterday and fades into tomorrow without any notice and then all of a sudden yesterday was the first snowfall and cold Colorado air catching in your throat as you stand steaming mug of cocoa in hand in your snow boots on your large back porch first thing in the morning in beautiful silence and today the birds of paradise are in full bloom outside of your Hollywood apartment and the sun shimmers off the pool just outside of your only window in your new tiny studio where the new vivid life dances within your every inhale and exhale.
Here I find myself, 7 months into the year of 2012 asking what trickery of time travel is this. Yet this happens over and over again. Who I am is astounded who I was in what feels mere moments before dwelling on the knowledge that seemingly mere moments from now I will be reliving this same feeling. Does this deem I am living in the moment or just another passerby in this screening of a life.
"There’s a man with whom I went out on a single date—afternoon coffee, for one hour by the clock—on July 25th. In the two days after the date, he sent me about fifteen e-mails, scolding me for non-responsiveness. I e-mailed him back, saying, “Look, this is a disproportionate response to a single date. You are making me uncomfortable. Do not contact me again.” It is now October 7th. Does he still e-mail?
Yeah. He does. About every two weeks.
This man scores higher on the threat level scale than Man with the Cockroach Tattoos. (Who, after all, is guilty of nothing more than terrifying bad taste.) You see, Mr. E-mail has made it clear that he ignores what I say when he wants something from me. Now, I don’t know if he is an actual rapist, and I sincerely hope he’s not. But he is certainly Schrödinger’s Rapist, and this particular Schrödinger’s Rapist has a probability ratio greater than one in sixty. Because a man who ignores a woman’s NO in a non-sexual setting is more likely to ignore NO in a sexual setting, as well.
So if you speak to a woman who is otherwise occupied, you’re sending a subtle message. It is that your desire to interact trumps her right to be left alone. If you pursue a conversation when she’s tried to cut it off, you send a message. It is that your desire to speak trumps her right to be left alone. And each of those messages indicates that you believe your desires are a legitimate reason to override her rights.
For women, who are watching you very closely to determine how much of a threat you are, this is an important piece of data."
The same day I get a message which I immediately hit spam and refused to read due to someone speaking out of anger and/or pain which has resorted to calling me nasty names and implying awful things about my character I got the most lovely e-mail from my mentor, a father figure and a friend. Someone who I've been speaking in depth with about life, love and other mysteries such as the world, religion, sociology, psychology and ourselves for nearly a year now.
I know who I am. I'm so glad that there are those of you who have taken the time to get to know me as well as let me into your lives to get to know your wonderful selves.
I think it get's harder the older we get- to re-connect with old friends and to make new ones. We get hurt and hold onto scars to remind ourselves that things can hurt us and to be careful- not only in relationships but in friendships as well. I find it difficult to meet people out here. Everyone seems to be superficial- I doubt they all are, perhaps just putting up a front because it's hard to be real all the time and just have it overlooked. It's hard to make male friends- because initially they just want to bed me. I imagine for a male it's hard to make female friends because initially they think you just want to bed them? They don't even bother to get to know me before attempting to get me naked or bring it to the next level.
Anyway.. My point is- that it seems harder than it did at 19 when I moved to CO- I can't decide if it's that i'm older, that it's CA, or that everyone is working under more pressure to find the person they spend the rest of their life with that they forget the most important part of that person- I want to spend the rest of my life with someone who is not just my lover but my best friend. It feels as though if you skip the getting to know each other first truly and deeply you never get there, just get caught up in the physical.
I know that you're out there. Perhaps I know you intimately, the color of your eyes when the winter sunlight catches the flecks of gold in them, or perhaps I have not ever seen your smile. You're probably hiding in a book somewhere, wondering why I have not found you yet. Wondering what my mouth will look like when I'm laughing so much it makes my ribcage ache or if I like milk with my coffee in the morning. If my hands are always cold and need yours to hold them or if they'll get sweaty with anticipation when our fingers intertwine.
I don't care how much money you make. I don't mind that you use bar soap instead of body wash and that when meeting new people you always feel a little anxious and introverted. I care how much you'll make me laugh and how you'll always want to make sure I'm warm enough, that I'm full. I care that you'll think I'm beautiful when I cry but never ever want me to. I care what kind of person you'll be when I'm not around and that you smile at other people too just to make them smile. I care that you'll be my big spoon to my little dessert spoon and together we'll spend our days making each other smile. We'll write a story all our own that no one will believe could be real, that others could dream of in fairytales. I'll love you today and today and today and you'll love me more than yesterday but never as much as tomorrow. I'll love that you want a glass of wine when life get's too hard and you'll love that I get silent when I'm angry. I won't try to save you and you can't save me but somehow we'll save each other. Over every cup of tea, over every shuffle of autumn foliage we walk through, over the heavy boots the world gives us, and over the sky that never ends. We'll keep it from falling in.
I hope someday we're in a situation where you can prove me wrong- but more often than not I still see that is not what you want or wanted most- although it may appear via your words that you want it more sometimes, I'm still getting more feedback on the physical.
Which saddens me- because any man or woman on the planet can want that from me. They don't need to know me, don't need to care about me, to imagine my lips pressed into a kiss. They can want that from just seeing the way my hips move when I walk. I need you to value me more than that. It was never my first priority with you or with anyone, I want you to talk to me as if talking to me is all you'll ever be able to do, not waiting for the moment when your lips touch mine and you can finally achieve some form of physical satisfaction. Kiss me as though kissing is all you'll ever be allowed to do. I want to spend my days making you laugh. Making love to you is nice but I had to make a choice of one or the other I know where my priorites would lay and as much as I would hate that my fingertips were to never touch your skin again I'd miss your words more.
Perhaps this is because I am female, perhaps this is not your intent to make me think this at all, but I have our past, our present, and every other being on the planet that finds me attractive wanting that one thing from me until it's gone. Then they suffice for my words when it's clear I will not share my body with them. But they still see it as a sacrifice. But that feeling of love remains because what I can give verbally and emotionally is so much more than I could ever offer physically but no one wants just that. I have friends who accept the true me and what I can give, we love each other in and out and back again regardless of physical intimacy, I need you to love me more than that if we are to be happy together. If you had realized that my value does not lay in my body but in so much more of me, perhaps I could have given you all of me for every second of every day.
They don't realize that is the me, words, thoughts ideas, conversations, that actually means anything. That is actually worth a damn. That is what makes me different. They want my body pressed against theirs. Hip bones thrusting and hands pressed together, words whispered late into the night. They can't see it as love or a relationship without my body being theirs. Not my mind, not my heart, not my thoughts, not my love.
I could have been happy just feeling your breath on my skin as you told me of your days. Every day. All of my life. When I think about being happy with you I picture your collarbones when you hug me hello, your dimples when you laugh at my antics, the way you react differently to what I have to say than what I might expect, that sparkle in your eye when you are making me laugh. That there isn't anyone else in the world like you or even remotely close to what and who you are.
I happily wanted to spend the rest of my life getting to know you, your intricacies, your secrets, what makes you laugh, what makes you sassy, what makes your walls go up and what brings them down and so much more. That I was absolutely enamored of you. You, first and foremost wanted me, as yours, to be in your bed. It seems that if you didn't have a stake in my body, and ready access to it, it wasn't enough. It wouldn't be enough. I wasn't enough.
Does anyone else see what's wrong with this picture or is it just me.
I want someone who would never need that to love me, to be in love with me, but who would be grateful for the gift of sharing it with me as I would be in return. That conversation would be more important than flesh on flesh-- because one would lead into the other but not the other way around.
"And maybe, just maybe, her heart needed to be broken. Broken and shattered and stomped into pieces. Then she could finally look down at the pieces, study each one and spend some time getting to know the person she’d become. And when she finally had all the pieces back together again, a little crooked, a little jumbled but sealed firmly with love, she’d realize she was more beautiful than ever.Because this time, she would love herself."
How I would catch you smiling at the silhouette of my hand, the softness of my collarbone, the way I jump over puddles or into them. How my body moves so gracefully to pick out books from the library and so clumsily over even completely flat surfaces. Bemused at how a beam of sunlight caught on my face, can light up my whole day. The way my lips meet yours and you'd put your hand on my lower back and breathe in the moment. Admiring the way I dress up for a night out and I see it in your face that you find me lovely and a mixture of pride and tenderness will cross your face. That you adore I will always bury my head in your chest during scary parts of a movie, don't think I can't feel you chuckling at me. How you would catch the way I look at our hands as I enjoy your fingers laced with mine and how I my head fits so perfectly into the crook of your neck. How I will be always late to meet you but somehow I'd see you felt it was worth the wait.
You like many others can claim that you want to be with me, but when I'm yours, you will forget me. You will fight at the idea of my being without you though, and yet you can't see me when you have me. You will treat me as though I am the greatest thing since sliced bread, a new puppy that causes you endless laughter just tripping over a step and all you want to do is cuddle me and make me happy and get me excited and show me new things.
Eventually there will come the time where I will have to beg for you to take me for a walk, to go for a coffee, to remember that my skin is soft, to appreciate what you once were so startled by. Remember all those fun things we used to do, you used to talk to me and listen to me and do whatever you could to make me smile? Remember how excited we were just to have an afternoon together, to have just a conversation together.
I will have to swallow that at some point it will become normal for you, that I'll have a half hopeful wagging tail in my voice, wondering when was the last time we ate dinner together? When was the last time we enjoyed an adventure? Will you talk to me today? Really talk to me, not about your job, about the weather, about bullshit and drama. But about dreams, and plans, inspiration and knowledge, Be excited again. Turquoise, Magenta, and Fushia stuff not just blue and purple. If you don't understand what I mean- Give up now. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.
After a while you will just try to get me to hurry up because now "We're late", you're stressed, it's cold, you're tired etc. The beauty of what you saw in me and what I saw in you will get lost in the shadow behind your closed eyes. I will watch you stop noticing the little things, as things become everyday to you. Entitlement will have you settling in where it used to light up your eyes light like the fireworks on the Fourth of July. I'll still notice your profile when I peek at you from the corner of my eye while you vacantly watch t.v. I'll still remember that rush I feel when you trace your fingers over my shoulder, but you don't do that anymore do you? I'll reach out to you, for two minutes of your time, 10 minutes, 30 minutes- Because I love you, and you love me, right? Don't you have anything left to say to me. Don't you see me here? Then you are surprised when I'm not thrilled about going to bed with you at the end of your long day. But you're tired and you've had a long day and you're sorry you didn't have time for me today, hard day at work, feeling sick, stressed about family etc etc.. (Reading this I'm ashamed that I even do this- how I allow myself to reach out to someone who see's me as such a fixture in their life that I no longer am worth such small scraps of their attention and yet it is their right to my body.)
Soon I will notice that I get more positive attention from people who don't even know me, have never met me, have never heard me speak, have never felt my love or something as simple and soothing as their hand in mine. A lady at the grocery store pulling me aside and telling me I have the most lovely skin and I don't need those silly magazines. A fellow asking me why I am always alone at this swing set at the park, surely someone as beautiful as me has a man who wants to swing with her. A gentlemen I met in a bookstore stating I have a contagious smile with grin on his own face in return. That my friends whom I give up my time with for you still laugh with me and share their lives fully with me regardless of their long days. And they don't even get to sleep with me!
I will think that I have to leave you, that I will miss your smile but I miss mine more. Will you still remember that smile? I will still see that it brightens up everyone's face but yours now although it's still shined in your direction. Maybe it's something like staring too long at the sun, are you blinded?
.I am not a badge you can wear. A child you forget in the store. An unfinished ice cream that drips down the cone. A balloon you buy and then leave tied to a chair. A priceless painting collecting dust on the wall. I will not be a treasure you forget to cherish. I am irreplaceable, and belong to someone who remembers what I am worth every moment. Even if that only will ever be me.
How can you ask me to settle for less?
Is this the ending you will want in our story- Prince meets Princess- happily ever after ensues. That always sounded boring to me. More into the dark knight and a quest than the white prince and a castle. Up for our next daring journey, someone who does not forget what it is to live, and what it is to love and be loved by me
.
The trick is to know when it's fact or fiction and my only judge of that is my gut-- who more often then not now holds trial on the premise of guilty until proven innocent. There is no book of moral truth to raise your hand to- your code is that actions will always speak louder than words. Don't worry if you do not agree or understand this.
If it gets to that point, your actions will speak so loud I won't be able to hear a word you are saying.
This is why I am single. I read enough chapters to see the obvious foreshadowing. The tell-tale signs of how we will end. I'm emotionally unavailable and cynical, by choice and yet I try desperately at times to still find that glimmer of hope. I suppose if only to see that again you, yes you, looked right past me not even seeing and that sparkle in my eye that I always had for you, had every reason to fade out.
In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die. Where you invest your love, you invest your life. - Mumford and Sons
Sometimes someone elses words are so stuck in my head I have a hard time creating a better way to say it. So in the words of a book I tenderly read time and time again-
“I don’t let anyone touch me,” I finally said.
“Why not?”
Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn’t come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breasts, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs. It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn’t want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was three-bullet Russian roulette.”
—
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The way a man can look at me as if my body is his for the taking. Like rabid dogs in a bar, their hungry eyes follow my steps, and undress my limbs as if it is their right. Fear walking alone in the dark, leaving. You wonder why I don't want you, as you leap about my heels, tongue out, drool splashing on the pavement, at best like a puppy trying to knock me down and slobber my face. Humping my leg.
God forbid I don't want to be intimate with a man anytime he desires it again, as if by letting him touch me once I became his property to some or to any degree. As if that act was bought and sold in one misleading transaction and I'm left feeling shortchanged. Then it is a job, a chore, a menial task. It becomes expected of me. The expectation kills any desire I may still have had. Just one more position to fill.
Is this how you would treat a woman who you had not been with yet. Is this how you would have treated me when you met me? Why should I not expect through the middle and to the end what you promised in the beginning.
There is the feeling of expectation, the look of righteous ownership, the entitlement. Then when these looks are not accepted by me there is the guilt, for why wouldn't I want to give something that is already theirs.
You know that feeling? When you're just waiting. Waiting for the next ten minutes to pass, the next 60 seconds- for that elusive moment when day becomes night. Waiting to get home, into your room, close the door, fall into bed, and just let everything out that you kept in all day? Tell yourself you never have to get up again and lull yourself into sedation by your own heavy breath muffled into the pillow and the smell of your own shampooed hair. Let your smile slowly wash off your face and begin to lose the numbness you hid yourself in.
That feeling of both relief and desperation. Nothing is wrong here. But nothing is right either. And you are so tired. Tired of everything, tired of nothing. And you just want.. Just want someone to be there and tell you it's all going to be okay. You're so tired of telling yourself it's going to be okay.
But no one is going to be there. And you know that, again, you have to be strong... For yourself because no one can fix you. No one can fix what has happened to you, what is happening to you, what will happen to you.
You are waiting and you know you are waiting for nothing.
No one will take the leap and fall with you.
No one is at the bottom waiting to catch you.
You are so fucking tired of waiting.
Tired of having to be the one that fixes yourself and everyone else when shit hits the fan again. So tired of being strong. Your shoulder blades like wings just crumbling under the weight of the world that can only be trusted to be handled by you.
And for just once, for just one day, one night, one moment, you want it to be easy. To be simple, to be helped, to be saved. For someone to crawl in next to you, and not add pressure but take it away- with each breath the load lightens and the touch of their skin against yours eases the very negative energy out of your body into theirs because this once, they will take it on for you.
But you know that is a mirage, it won't happen, there is no dark knight on the horizon and as a matter of fact there is no white prince either. It's you and your rose petal soft skin and the thorns you have grown of cynicism decorated along handsome walls to protect the parts of you soft enough to still be punctured with a fairytale.
But you are still hoping, and praying, and still breathing with the very wish of it. That someday these breaths won't be wasted on everyone but yourself.
There is no happily ever after, it can never be the castle at the end of the story that is yours after you slay the dragon. The dragons are real and you will slay them- The happiness is the journey and your choice to make it.
Flashback after a quick rewind and I will drop a few lines of the bits of straw I can pick from my brain. What my head told my heart and what my heart kicked into my head. Build a nest and curl up tightly waiting for the starlight to guide me, the rainbows to enlighten me, and the sound of crisp leaves to dance to.
The taste of La Folie crisp from New Belgium Brewery hanging on your bottom lip with the lingering ache of deep laughter and the sway of hula hoops whisping on your hips and whispers of the wind and bluejays frolicking in your ear. The trees tell you their secrets and you tell them to the stars but root them deep in the dark terra firma. Dancing among the grass until it trips you up, and fall splashing through the thresh down a hill where green fades to long strands of gold and the silken strands stay left in your hair like a crown mother nature made just to frame your honeysuckle face and your knees are skinned and your nails full of dirt and you know there is nothing better than this. Nothing better than this life, this gift of the present.
"Guess I should have saw him coming, it still took me by surprise. A different man a different place but the same look in his eyes... His words won't mean a thing, when your waiting on a king, why settle for the jack of hearts. He kept me safe and sorry. I just had to take the leap, but in candlelight it's hard to see that the waters not that deep... "- Sarah Darling- Jack of Hearts
I read once "Sometimes, I want to climb trees. But I don't, it's not what grown ups do." Climb a tree love- there is no age limit to the scent of sticky sap in your hair and the way light filters through branches full of green rustling in the wind. Be it oak or pine the smell is incomparable and fills a heart with joy that many do not find after childhood. The clean air and the imagination of being Peter Pan with Tink's magic pixie dust leading the Lost boys. Is that why we are so unhappy, why we laugh so much less than the typical 6 year old at our "adult" age. There is a difference between growing up and growing old. Age gracefully. Take my hand and reach out for this branch- the sky is calling you- remember when we learned to talk to the leaves. Don't stop climbing until you reach the sun. There's something about climbing branch after branch getting scraped elbows and breathing hard- closer and closer to the sky. Like the possibilities are endless and we don't need to just keep our feet planted on the ground. Remember to keep your head in the clouds as well- the sun on your face and the world smiling with you.
Somewhere along the way, their personality shifted just enough; altered their life path a tiny hair out of the way of their soulmate’s. That one thing that happened to you, it changed you just enough to make you unlovable. At some point on the graph that is your life, your lines will cross and after that it’s nothing and no one.- Inevitability by elusivefrown.com
Cutting out paper snowflakes to decorate our windows where the sun beat inside everyday boiling us from the inside with a world full of cold shoulders and lukewarm handholding. Rain came home and sadness flooded from the bathroom stall regardless. Such seasons overwhelmed us, overcame us, and drowned us with fingers slipping out from in between each other, no longer being able to hold on against such a torrent slick, with blood pumping to the surface hanging on for one more minute, hold your breath, can we make it for two. Kiss me quick, it will soon be over and I don't want to forget your face. Chills even two years later, looking at those paper snowflakes, sitting in my coffee table drawer, made with such love, just looking at them and remembering the fathomless depths of your lost eyes that I barely pulled myself out of in time. I am so glad you taught yourself how to climb.
Scarf Assassin is here, choose your fate. Shall it be the wool or the cashmere? Your hot breath laughing clouds into the air as you continually took my breath away and I hid it so well. Your eyes shown with the sun dancing gold upon their expresso brown. Had to be expresso, no other color quite defines the caffeine high one gets just looking at you when your eyes flash like sun on the river. Full of pure excitement and enjoyment of the fulfillment of the moment. When your body exudes such passion and fights with life and your mouth dances with the expression of the many worlds inside of you I was so blessed to adventure in. You are a friend I wear proudly, one I am proud to call my own and you truly have a heart of the finest gold. I will always regret and appreciate what we have experienced in our lives as well as be glad I have learned so much with you and so much from you that I shall let you live... for now...
More for later-- Sorry for the randomness if it offends you- I only have my friend Michelles laptop and feel I have no choice but to choose what idea's come to me first as I sift through old memories and have some form of enlightenment- I can't wait to have my own computer again!
WOO(T)
"Ignorance is Bliss. And yet every day I set out to learn and to experience the world in a new light. Why would I do this if it will only make me unhappy?
I do it because even when I was ignorant I could tell there was something I lacked, something others had, even if it was only in stories. I knew it the same way a woman who had never drank would be parched of thirst yet not know water. I am immersing myself now in this sea of life and learning. A mermaid of knowledge and truths.
Knowledge and understanding underpin appreciation and enjoyment of lifes' astounding and incomparable breath taking beauty. I will never choose to return to ignorance because that would rob me of all I have become and all I have seen. Of all that I have won.
I pine for growth and to stumble and scrape my knees on paths unknown. I yearn for new pleasures and new pain. For new faces and ideas that do not correspond exactly with my own. For conversation that instigates connection and new understanding. It is such a beautiful life if you can only open your eyes.
Or baby steps and try out a few games of Peek-a-Boo"
Please know there are much better things in life than being liked or being cautious. Than being bitter or scared or self-conscious. Go love someone just because. Fall in and out of love. Don't keep your heart tied up in a box, let it roam free and acquire scrapes and bruises if that is the path you have laid out before you. You will get badly bruised and perhaps will feel as though your heart is breaking. You will break. It's beautiful and it's alive. You will always heal even if you don't want to. The heart heals with time and does not stop ticking even when smashed to bits with all of the cogs torn asunder.
There are the most fantastic, beautiful things, places, and people out there. I promise.
It is up to you to find them. Don't be late.
I’ve decided that I no longer want to have a hierarchy of value between my friendships and my love relationships: They’re both crucial, irreplaceable in my life, and I don't need to listen to anyone who wants me to choose between any of them. Not only that, but I’ve stopped classifying things as “love” or “friendship” according to arbitrary superficial details-the feelings I share with certain friends are so intimate, so beautiful, that it’s ridiculous that I don’t call them lovers just because we don’t sleep together. It’s absurd that sex should be the dividing line between our relationships, between which one take precedence, between who we play with, live with, sleep with, who we take care of first, who we die with at last.
I can close my eyes, but my skin creeps with life dancing up and down my arms. My head spins with ideas and my heart lifts with feeling, how can I nap? My mind can be spun out in a thousand different directions analyzing everything. What my eyes sift into my brain, what my hands sift into my heart and yet, I can easily file away pain. Nothing that has hurt me has been lost. I can still feel the burn vividly and the scars stand out sewn onto my sleeve only for me to see, I feel them every second of every day. My cataloguing system in this case, is impeccable.
In paler days, full of grays and blacks and blues; I sought you out beneath the waves. As your lips begin to brush across my shoulder blades and your fingers comb my mermaids hair, my eyes began to blur and stars appeared.
Dark and elusive with a touch that was both sweet and cold. I escaped being your lover that evening to catch my breath and wondered if that would always be something I would regret.
In my childish innocence I had learned I could be relieved of this weight I carry with your kiss.
Los Angeles, the big city. Coming from a place like Circle, MT to Fort Collins, CO- Well even that was a bit of a culture shock although I had traveled to every state on the west side of the U.S. wholesaling for 3 years prior to the move.
Circle, Mt (http://www.circle-montana.com/circle.html) is the farming community where I grew up mainly- From the age of 5 until around 12-13 I believe. A place where my adopted mom recently reminded me had articles in the newspaper such as "So and so family had the So and so family over for dinner. Their cousin So and So was visiting. They served Such and Such for dinner. A good time was had by all." I'll never forget the smell of the air first thing in the morning, especially when our 20 some lilac bushes were in bloom. The feel of the wind in my hair as I coasted down a favored sandy hill nearby with the wheat fields rushing past and my toes out in the air. The never ending exploring to do on the acres and acres of land and just.... the safety of it all. It was a great place to grow up. Could I live there now? Well yes, but I certainly do not want to.
Fort Collins, the people and the mountains, that is what I miss the most. I know, I know. You irate CA people can tell me up and down these are mountains- I'm prepared to eventually get harassed over this comment- but these are not my mountains. There is no Poudre river here a half hour drive with hiking trails and many great places to go cliff jumping, go tubing, bbq, get lost in the wild peace of it all and not worry about locking your car door. No Horsetooth Resevoir, nor falls, nor moonlight hikes. No smiling people wherever you go. Making eye contact will engage a friendly conversation- even if it's just your local Mugs barista. Silly new college hoodlums flooding the roads 1-2 times and all of the "locals" complaining they do not know how to drive. Old town, beloved old town, I will always miss the random dance parties and the hodge podge of people who all come out for an evening of fun.
But LA, I find I fit in here. I look out off the back patio and check out the skyscrapers and I do not feel small. Perhaps it has something to do with my ability to adapt well. Perhaps I am just growing and thus need a larger place to rest my head at night. (Insert Big Ego joke here) I have yet to explore you but I have discovered you. I find you beautiful in your own way and I am enjoying our budding friendship.
When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect.
Schopenhauer
And if the words you said to me, actually meant something.
Maybe we wouldn't be standing where we are today.
READING! Fuck you Reality.
You can't make the same mistake twice. The second time it's a choice.
“My mother sat me down and said, ...you are beautiful to me but must know that you are beautiful for yourself. You should also be aware that true beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which means that how beautiful you are to other people is always going to be subjective to who is looking at you at that time, and since you will always be looking at yourself first, you should find your own beauty and feel good about who you are.” She went on to tell me that I needed to take the time to identify those things that I found to be beautiful about myself but also celebrate what I thought was weird or unusual because those were the special things that God had given to me that made me different from everybody else. I learned how to appreciate, embrace, and enhance those special things so that they would shine rather than be hidden...We learned to love and identify with what made us uniquely beautiful.” BeNeca Ward (born 1976);
Everyone thinks I take pictures because I love it. Because I'm vain. Because I want to show off. Because I'm a camera whore. Because I want to model I really take them because I'm afraid. Afraid I won't remember any of this Afraid I'll forget who I was at this point in time. Afraid I'll be forgotten. I'm afraid I'll forget who I was with you in my life. Afraid you will forget me To remind me of who I was, who I am, who I want to be. I look at that photo and see my smile and know at that moment I was thinking about you. I was smiling about you. In that moment you had made blissful. That moment caught forever. When I was happy with you.. When we were happy together. Even if what's left in that photo is all we'll ever have.
I understand first with my heart, and only then do I rationalize what I know intuitively. Is this why my emotions are always being pulled back in forth. Or is either my head or heart just a bad judge of character? Learning to know when to say no seems to be my lifetime project and yet I never know if I have made the right choice until it is too late. I am continuously fooled by those whom I deem to be honest and trustworthy. Yet there are many who have been true. I fight hard for stability, for the strength and balance of some sort of purpose in my life, and I struggle with deeply hidden insecurities that most of you have never seen. Nor ever will for they live deep in the shadows and have for longer than I can remember. I fight for others in things in which I cannot stand up for myself in. I see life through rose colored glasses but do I really, when often I wonder if I am only fooling myself? I am no leader but I have been your guide, confidante, and friend. I can see the light in you that you may believe has been snuffed out or never even been kindled and I know how to make it burn brightly again. I see what is inside you. What you even hide from yourself at times and sometimes that may scare you. Like shining a bright light in the dark, it takes some time for your eyes to dilate and get used to being caught in the glow. I'm tougher than you think, and smarter, and I see what you think of me even though you keep it wrapped in smiles. I see the harsh judgments and smile because you can't see beyond what you are looking to find. To look beneath the surface scares you and that saddens my heart, for your life can never truly know any depth if you are to afraid of causing ripples.
May 12,2008 Broke down and layed it on the floorboards, the truth seeping through the seams. Found myself, turned around and she was gone. I saw a glimpse of her in the mirror the other day, caught that old look in my eye. That gleam used to be around alot more often then once in a while, but the jagged edges tore most of it away. It's in caverns and crevices and hides from the light. I don't even look for me myself anymore. I don't want to know what I would find.
We are all a combined effort of all those who have touched our lives- You are a a puzzle piece of who I am- and I hope I to you as well.
I am the first to bail on a relationships unfortunately- which is definitely not something I am proud of- But I have learned a thing or two that I stand by and I hope it helps to some degree- I've found that if I feel my significant other is not the right one for me than I in turn am not the right one for them- It can't be just half and half- if one is not a match than neither is the other- And I get out of the relationship because not only am I cheating them from the right person but I am cheating myself as well- And I will put myself first which usually also puts those I care about first as well.
If as life has grown and your pieces no longer match that just means you must follow the beautiful path to continue puzzling out who you have become and who you will be. Is it terrifying- yes. Is it lonely- to some degree but I have learned to find the beauty in getting to know myself (I hope you either already know or will re-find all the beautiful intricate details that fully make up who you are- Being alone doesn't mean being lonely) Does it seem hopeless-perhaps in the beginning. Will it be worthwhile- without a doubt: absolutely.
Life is at your doorstep every morning with it's arms stretched out to you full of new possibilities and miracles. I have a friend who helps me remember this, we text each other at least once a day with something beautiful we might not have otherwise noticed- frost etching on the windowpane- a dandelion struggling through the cracks in a sidewalk- the way freshly sanded wood smells- New leafs on the tree outside our front door- making a child smile- I encourage you to seek these things out as well- if only just to enrich your own life :)
You must forge your path to happiness- You have but one life to live- live it to the fullest- but most importantly live it for yourself- no one else will do it for you.
