Pain

Said that I wouldn't push it, but I had one last thought before I go to sleep.
I would take the pain of losing you, knowing I had been able to see if we actually work as well as everyone thinks we do, over the pain of not trying, of not knowing every day for the rest of time if we could have worked. Because it is already too late for me not to hurt for loss of you. It is already late enough that no matter what happens, what we become, we are tied together. 6 in one hand, half dozen in the other. I don't have a winning hand, but at least one seems to be less foul, less wrong.

I know I can't save you. My super hero days are long past, because it turns out, I am not Batman. I am not Superman. I am not the hero. I am merely a mortal, a girl who looks out for the one person in her life who makes anything seem possible, even as broken as he is. I am a woman who sees so much potential in a man who doesn't see it. I will love you until forever, as much good it does me, because for it, I will hurt forever, knowing that one day, you will give up, no matter what I do. One day, you will be gone, and the pain very well may kill me, regardless of if we try to be more or not.

I love you.

That doesn't change because you don't want to pull me down, or because you don't want to hurt me. No matter what we do, at some point I will hurt. This way it is constant, very near to numbing, without the hope of knowing until one day I will have that sharp, bitter painfulness of immeasurable loss. If we try, there is happiness, and one day immeasurable pain. There isn't a choice otherwise.
For not letting me save you, you're doing your damndest to try to save me from the one outcome that is not changeable. You will, one day, hurt me, by not being here any more. And you would rather I not have the happiness as a balm, preferring I take the bitter pill in the hopes of lessening the pain.

THAT is where your selfishness lies; in not understanding that happiness would make the pain more manageable. Because we would have happiness, rather than uncertainty. A thousand small cuts without the proper care will kill just as surely as a fatal stab to the heart, but will hurt much more in the meantime.

Simplicity

If only the boy were this easy to understand.

Dammit. I am still just as ridiculous.

Frenzied Peace

I never thought that I would find it again
that poetic voice that used to
SCREAM inside my head,
whisper sweet nothings in my dreams.

I never thought I would feel anything again.

My heads a mess of feelings lately

good, bad
anything but apathetic.

I watched you as you slept _{(creepy, I know.)}

and watching you sleep,
seeing you            
                            peaceful,
                                          vulnerable,
                                                           not pretending to be anything,
                                                           just being you,

looked like the most beautiful thing in the world.

I so rarely see you sleep,

and seeing you sleeping so soundly
awoke that voice inside me,
that hauntingly beautiful voice I hadn't heard in such a long time,
telling me to listen,
 to let my pen take over,
to write again.

You didn't do anything,
but
 (stupid as it is)
I love you more for that.
 I can feel again. I can put the thoughts and feelings in a place where my poetic mind can elaborate, can bleed poetically in a way it had been hiding itself. Elaborate words where simple ones would suffice. My voice was gone for so long, I thought it was dead. I thought that part of me had died, the part that expressed everything it saw with a beauty that words often make smaller.

Today, I have realized that I cannot stop loving you, but I also cannot dare to push for more than we have. To push further would be to break us, what we have. I would rather have this game of pretend than lose all of it.

Today, I understand exactly what you mean when you say you can't risk losing this. I thought that I understood before.
Life tends to be more complex than that, and without that voice, my own sort of soul, I had no way of really grasping it.

I don't know if you love me.
I know you care.
I know you want to make sure that I am ok.

You've done that for so long, I forgot how important that is.
I don't appreciate you the way that I should.

It has been a long time since a moment was so beautiful that I HAD to get a pen and paper and write it down. More than anything else, I am glad to have that back. I could watch you sleep all day. Your face at peace, brow untroubled.... it is who you are when you don't hide, who you are when you don't hurt. I'd never seen that before.

Today, I realized that I could spend the rest of my life watching you sleep,
or, at least,
as long as you would put up with me anyway.

I've never been as clear as anything in my life.

You remind me of who I m, and help me forget the dumb mistakes I've made.
You show me my best qualities, and help me get past my worst ones.

With you, I am so much better than I have been, because I know that you don't judge me for my mistakes, for my failures. You pick me back up, tell me not to be dumb and push me right back into doing things the right way.

I forgot how nice it was to have someone push me.
I forgot how good it felt to have someone believe in me.
And you did it without being mean about it, or even showing that you were pushing at all.

Now I hear your even breathing, a quiet comfort I had missed; its simple beauty so inspiring and beautiful that it almost brings me to tears.

I have found the voice through your care and kindness.

You say that you don't know what you would do if something happened and you lost me.
I don't think you have realized how much you have helped me find me again.
My book laid dormant, for want of a pen, of my thoughts,to come flowing back into it.
My hand has missed this feeling, the cramping from writing so much so quickly, letting my thoughts flow freely without blockage.

I can feel again,
         think again,
         breathe again.
This wonderful feeling is so much more than I remembered.
It takes me to a place of peace and clarity.
It shows me what my head refused to see,
because of the RISK,
the DAMN RISK,
of opening my heart again,
honestly and truly opening my heart,
rather than just getting past the gnawing loneliness.

For once, this isn't due to some doting suitor who is beneath me,
who doesn't deserve my attention,
or who putts me up so high above himself that I seem perfect.

This is finding my equal,
someone to walk with and grow with,
who knows my flaws and puts up with me anyway.

You've been a constant thought in my life since you came into it.
I've seen your pain and suffering, been there when you didn't think you deserved it.
You've done the same for me.
 Without you, I would still be fighting to get by, as I am now, but I would not be me.
I wouldn't be the person who feels,
and writes,
and cares,
and expresses all of those things.

You have awoken in me the girl who wrote for reasons other than pain,
I forgot how much I love that girl,
that part of me that ran away for lack of love.

I never imagined, out of anything that could ever be given to me,
that I would be able to have her back.
I thought that I would forever fight to write down my thoughts,
that I would forever lose touch of pouring my soul down through my pen, onto the paper.
I feel everything again,
the welcoming cramp of hand and wrist,
the tingling of pure bliss through my limbs.

It has been present more lately,
and seemed so unfamiliar,
so foreign, like a passing chill on a summer day,
or, more accurately,
a burst of warmth in a winter chill.
It was there the day I woke to find you standing over the hospital bed,
alarms going off because I stopped breathing.
It was there when you held my hand
as I drunkenly apologized for anything I could think of in such a drunken stupor,
and again when the events of Christmas broke my heart and tore me to tears.

I don't know how much you care about me for sure,
but I do know
that the chemistry,
and the teamwork
we have, is very rare,
 and very beautiful.

Today, I found out I am the luckiest girl in the world,
because I can watch you sleep,
and know you will still be here when I wake up.

3 years, and 5 days

It hit me today. My ex husband left me almost exactly 3 years ago.
In 3 years, I have made such outstanding strides, and rarely think about him.

Well....
no.

That isn't entirely true.


I still think about him. I loved him.
I loved who I was when we started off, who he was when things were easy.
I wanted to spend my life with him, and he shattered my heart into a million pieces as though it were the easiest thing in the world.

If you've known me for a while, you know that I am a much different person than I was when I was a 23 year old newly-wed, intent on taking over the world. I got kicked in the dirt a few times, and have the scars to prove it. There are times where those scars are almost visible, and I know that will be less noticeable as time marches on. I still have issues with trust, and I still have issues accepting compliments, and I still have a problem seeing myself as a capable human adult. Some of those issues are as old as I am, and some are just 3 years old.

For those of you who weren't around:

3 years ago, I wanted to end my life. For the first time since I was 16 years old, 3 years ago, I wanted to die, because I felt like I was worthless, like there was no point to me being around, when someone who said that they were going to love me forever decided I wasn't worth the effort 8 months in. Out of anything that I could ever have expected, that was the least likely on my radar, though it should have been plainly obvious. My friends showed up and talked me down, and got me to a safe place, and even took me in for a bit so that I wasn't on the streets. I hadn't had a job for a month, but I had an interview the day after, got the job and managed to find an apartment that I could not really afford, and suffered dearly for it.

2 years ago, I made it back home, and I got an apartment after minor couch surfing, which I was glad to have the ability to do, rather than have to go to a shelter or sleep outside. I barely ever had food, and I worked 3 jobs trying to support myself, but I got by with a little help from my friends.

Last year, the apartment that I lived in became the place I had lived the longest on my own, which was such an amazing feeling to me. I felt like I was actually doing something the right way for once. I still didn't do too well at keeping food in my house, but a good friend helped me on that towards the end of the year.

This year, I will be moving into a house. With a bit of hard work, I will end up with a job that will pay me decently, with a standard schedule so that I can also attempt to have a life, and I will prepare for my little sister to come live with me if she needs to next year.


I am so much better off than I have ever been, and if I didn't have my friends and family, I wouldn't be here. Because truth be told, if my friends had listened to me tell them that I would be alright, that I didn't need them to make the hour drive, I would have died that night. I came back from getting smokes, and my friends were banging on the security door in the middle of the night, trying to get someone to respond so that they could find me. I have never loved Kelsi, Tyler, and James more. Especially James. I called the one friend I knew at the time who did not have a license, and he STILL managed to get to me in an hour to make sure that I was safe.




I'm not perfect. I'm not even CLOSE. But I do have to say that for all the things that have changed in 3 years, I am glad that I still have outstanding friends, who care about me and who are there for me when things are rough, even if it is my own fault.

What do you want from me?

I don't express myself well in person all the time.
I don't want to say things that end up pissing you off or disappointing you,
but I'm tired of this game we play, the one where I never know if you are afraid to lose my friendship and won't risk happiness,
or if you honestly feel nothing more than friendship. I know you consider them the same feelings, but I can't.
I want to have a chance to see, to try, to do what needs to be done to have that chance. But if its all pointless, if it all ends the same way, then what the hell are we doing?
Playing a game of pretend, where no one wins for losing?
Ignoring feelings for the sake of comfort and ease?
Pretending that I don't care about you doesn't work, because you see through those easily.
Pretending that it doesn't bother me when you blur lines so thoroughly that my head spins doesn't work, because I can't read you like I can read most people.
I know you want my friendship, but I don't know if you want it only because you aren't interested in me, or because you don't feel you can be.
I have chosen not to be monogamous, because in the past, I haven't had someone who meets the standards I hold. Right now, the only thing you don't do that I need is cuddle randomly, which is because of the blurring of the friendship line, which I can understand and respect.
With you, monogamy would never be a chore, or a compromise. I know you don't believe that, but it is the truth.
The problem I have, is that I don't know what the hell you want from me....
And I don't think you do either.

Proximity bombs

Because you think it matters, you think I wouldn't feel if you weren't always here. But that's not really what I see as the main point. You being here isn't what makes me think of you. I've thought of you daily since we started hanging out, before you were ever here. You just stick in my head for being you. If you hadn't, I wouldn't want to spend time with you daily. If you weren't in my head often, we wouldn't have gotten to the point of not knowing the last time that I didn't see you every day.

Proximity doesn't make things worse for my feelings. It reminds me of them, yes, but that isn't the same thing. You being here doesn't hurt me. Only has once. And we discussed that.

I like having you around, because honestly, it makes things easier for me. It isn't all that complicated. When you aren't here, I still think of you, still worry about you, still want to spend time with you.

The issue is not our proximity, as much as problems in definitions. You consider a friend a higher regard than a love interest. I think of it the opposite way. You don't put labels on things of that sort, and I feel that is alright too, as long as everyone knows where they stand. And right now, I don't. Yes, you've explained you want my friendship, but based on your definition of friendship, I am confused. That is what we don't talk about. And we don't talk about it because I can't open up that much to be dashed down because you don't feel for me the same way, even if by a different name.

what I say, and what I don't

I told you I don't mind you here.

_{I didn't say that without you here, I am lost.}

I told you that we would manage to get everything to work out just fine with the apartment full.

_{I didn't say that I didn't know if I could manage living with another person if you weren't there to buffer.}

I told you that I knew what I was doing.

_{I didn't tell you that I value every piece of input you give me, even if you do so indirectly.}

I told you that I appreciate you being here, and helping me with so much more than you know.

_{I didn't tell you that your claims to be a burden are the dumbest thing I have ever heard.}

Even with everything I told you,

_{I have never told you that I would have given up a long time ago, if not for your presence.}

I am no good for you,

_{but you still stick around.}

You claim you're no good for me,

_{but I wouldn't run if I could.}

"The Dress"

THE DRESS, SALVATION ARMY STYLE





NOW. I have a lot to say about this one. On the one hand,(and I am going to just say that it is the biggest aspect of my thoughts right now) I think that this is a beautiful way to point out that abuse is going on, and women are just going with it.


On the other hand, I also feel like there are a lot of reasons that women to tend to stay in abusive situations, and it isn't the easiest to get out of them. A lot of this is due to how society and the government still tend to view these things. There are a lot of different reasons for staying that outweigh a beating here and there for a lot of women. In some instances, it is safer for them to stay, rather than have to literally give up everything in their life (family, friends, job), just for them to have to run from their abusive ex, who is likely to find them anyway. If you don't have documentation of abuse, it is very difficult to be able to get a restraining order, which in the long run is really just a piece of paper that doesn't protect you all that much. If you manage to get out, there are some resources to help you, but giving up everything in your old life is something that is assumed you will be ok with dealing with. Asking for help after staying in that situation for a long time makes a lot of people look down on you, though that logic has never flown well with me either.

I understand the point of the ad being to not let that be the standard. I do. However, to do it in a way that shames victims for their choices while abused..... I don't know. Maybe I am just not seeing this from a good frame of mind, since I have been awake far too long at this point.

Either way, I do enjoy that an ad made me think about something a lot more serious and important than a product, and about a social issue.

Living Through My Depression, and Learning Why

News flash: Depression sucks, and while some people use it for a fleeting emotion, for those of us who deal with it on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis, depression has a habit of changing who you are and how you respond to things.

This blog started off as my venting point, when the days were too tiresome, or the moods too intense. I vented, but still kept some of the pain inside, locked away from others out of a form of protection. When I have my really bad days, I would never wish the feelings on anyone, not even my worst enemy.

While I kept a lot of it inside, it was hard to really relate to anyone. Lenny doesn't really understand it, and when I recently had a bad week, I unintentionally took it out on him. He sat me down, and tried to have me explain what was going on. My attempt to explain that I didn't care about life at the moment didn't fly over too well.

I know there are a lot of resources out there, explaining depression and how it affects people, especially since the passing of Robin Williams. As a person with depression, I found them to be both helpful and inspiring, knowing that there are people out there going through the terrible darkness with me, knowing I'm not the only person who feels this way. Trying to explain that feeling to someone who has never felt it is like explaining the terrifying feeling of being stuck in that soul damaging blackness to someone with a flashlight. While my brain understands that the depression is a chemical imbalance of sorts, and that the thoughts I have are irrational and hurtful, I cannot help but have them. To explain to someone who has only had situational depression that there are days when getting out of bed is an extremely difficult thing, or where continuing to live seems pointless, even knowing there are things to look forward to to make what's going on a reason to continue living.....its like having third degree burns and a person who had a really bad sunburn once telling you just to put some aloe on it, that it will clear up real quick. While in that comparison, there's actual physical evidence that the 2 aren't similar, the comparison of the depressed vs someone who had a rough patch is just as ridiculous.

I have a lot to look forward to in my life right now. I have a good job, I'm working towards renovating a house that I will start renting from my grandmother, and I'm getting my life in order so that I can take care of the people who are important to me. Even aware of all of those things, on the bad days, my brain tells me that none of those things matter. In 100 years, who is going to remember that some ginger 25 year old fought through life's battles to make her own way? My brain tells me that nothing matters and life would continue on without me with barely a hiccup.

I am not suicidal. I don't actively want to die. But sometimes I don't want to be alive anymore. I have to force myself to do things normal people hardly think about: eat, bathe, clothe myself, go to work, sleep.

All of those things have taught me a lot about who I am as a person. They have become a part of me that, while making my life difficult, have also, in my skewed opinion, made me a much better person than I would otherwise be.

Even in the deepest throes of my depression, I have only been legitimately suicidal once, and it was that one time that truly helped define what I consider important in my life.

My Junior year of high school was the second most difficult year I have ever had. It was when my depression really kicked into overdrive and almost threw me over the edge into oblivion. Even with everything I have gone through since, I still cringe to think of everything that went wrong, and the one thing that could have gone wrong that went so very right.

I couldn't deal with all of the stress and how difficult my life at the time was, and started thinking of the ways that I could end my life. I had finally decided upon taking a bunch of pills, and was carrying them with me as I went through what I intended to be my last day. I went to my classes, did everything that was expected of me, so as to not arouse suspicion from anyone. I went to swim practice after school, where I was one of the coach's assistants. After school, I hung out with a friend, who had noticed something was wrong, but didn't press the issue. When I got home, I worked on writing a note to leave.

About halfway through it, another friend, who was having a difficult time at the time, called me, bawling her eyes out. I put the note and the pills in my backpack, consoling her until she had to get off the phone. She thanked me for being there for her, and said that she didn't know what she would do without me. Up until that point, I honestly didn't think that anyone would miss me when I was gone. I honestly didn't think that I made a whole lot of a difference in people's day to day lives. I went to bed and woke up the next morning, realizing that I had to make sure the people around me were ok before I could die.

I carried those pills and note around for 2 weeks. I stopped feeling the need to use them after a week and a half. I stopped carrying them around because a friend found them and demanded I flush them immediately. The suicidal urge passed, and even though I have not wanted to continue life many times since, I have always remembered that I am necessary in a lot of people's lives.

Going through all of that has helped me know a very important part of my character: I am always going to be more worried about other people than myself. My purpose in life at this point is to make sure that those around me are safe and cared for. Maybe that isn't the best quality to have, but it is who I am, and what got me through the hardest of times. It is what pushes me forward when things seem too difficult. It is what makes me awesome, and useful, and needed. It is what makes me, me. And I'm more glad to have that knowledge than a perfect, carefree life.

I don't wanna see tomorrow, but I don't wanna die

This week has been a lot of confusing, and heartache, and in general very difficult to get through. I had very few hours at work, I went to the last show of my favorite local band and I accepted that the guy I care about will never care about me the way I care about him. It wasn't all bad, though. I got to sleep for once, got to see a lot of people that I haven't seen in what seems like forever and I found someone who is willing to accept that I don't want to date, just have fun.

That being said, I also had 2 days this week where I woke up and honestly wished that I hadn't.

If you haven't paid attention to almost anything I have ever written, I have struggled with depression since high school. I've wanted to be dead a lot, and as morbid as it seems, I've thought of how many different ways I could die without having to actually kill myself. The past 4 years have been especially hard for this, because I had so much loss and what seemed like no gain at the time.

The last few months of last year, I didn't have more than a couple days where I hated life, and those days were based on events that happened those days.

I have found that I am worse at dealing with not wanting to live when I am alone in my apartment, seeing the way I live my life and not knowing why I still bother. I know that people need me, and I know that purpose helps me through a hell of a lot of the bad times, but when I am alone and don't feel like I am needed? Those are the worst times for me. That's when my brain goes into overdrive, reminding me that it wouldn't really matter if I overdosed on some pills, or fell asleep face-down in the bathtub, or starved to death, or had a heart attack, or fell asleep driving to crash headfirst into a semi. Those are the times that terrify me when they've passed, not because of the terribleness of those thoughts, but because of the calm clarity that comes with them, the realization that my life hasn't made a whole lot of an impact on the world as a whole.

Those are the times I have to force myself to see the small picture, to see that I have family and friends who would be, if not devastated or upset, at least severely inconvenienced by my death. I force myself to look through pictures of better times, even if those times are bittersweet now. I call a friend, or visit someone who matters to me, even if just to say hi, or not be alone.

The people who have helped me through these past 4 years know who they are, for the most part. They've seen the tears and heartaches I hide from most others. They've been there through all of it, and while some distanced themselves from what they couldn't deal with, all of them made life better just by being around.

This is something that I know I will always have to deal with. Even if everything were going perfectly, and I started up medication for it again, I would still have days where I don't want to live. The only difference between high school version of me and the present day version of me, is that the present day version of me is a lot happier on the days that aren't terrible because of the people I have found in the meantime, which honestly does make all the difference in the world.

Because I'm too chickenshit to say it out loud.

You're my best friend. And I love you. Those two things make everything much more difficult.

You know everything about me, and still put up with me. You tell me to suck it up when I'm just whining about things that don't matter. You remind me to take care of myself as far as food goes. You take care of me when I feel like crap, and you don't (seriously) bitch about me being so needy. You make me smile when I'm pissed at the world and don't want to smile. You hold my hand when I cry, and just knowing that you're there helps me feel better.

You say that you just do what you do because its what friends do for each other.

I don't want to lose you as my best friend, and that's increasingly difficult because I can't not love you. It isn't a choice.

I would rather spend a night in with you, watching movies or playing video games, than do almost anything else with anyone else. Hell, if I do go out, I spend most of the time wondering if you're ok, and trying to figure out a way to spend more time with you.

God it sounds so stupid to put it that way. It sounds like some stupid tween with puppy love. I can't accurately describe how it feels. The closest that I can come to it is that when you're around, I don't feel like I have to prove myself to you. I don't have to be anyone else. I can be me, and that is just fine. And when you're around, I realize how good it feels just to be me, no pressure.

Maybe that's incredibly selfish of a reason, but its better than the cliché that's also true. When you're around, I want to be better, to do better, because that's what you deserve. Even though you've made it clear you just want my friendship, I try my damndest to be a better friend.

That's why I can't actually say this to you, and though I know you will find it at some point, I just hope that point is later rather than sooner.

The time you stayed here was indescribable, mostly because it was all over the place. At first, it was just fine, then I got stupid because you were being stupid. I was happy for you as a friend, while at the same time it felt like it was stabbing me every time. You didn't like how Lestat treated me, and were very clear that you thought that it should stop. We both stopped being stupid, and that left us mostly with only each other for company. We didn't kill each other. We actually worked alright together, but my stress levels meant I snapped at you unnecessarily at times, and you just let it go.

People will probably always think we are more than friends. The truth is, I will never understand because you don't explain, or worse you explain in circles that just leave me confused.

To be honest, it isn't going to matter. Your feelings don't change mine. I attempt to keep them in until I feel I'm going to burst, then I have to vent them here, or somewhere.

To be honest, you are right that our friendship is more important, but friendships don't always get ruined because of feelings or relationships. Sometimes, it makes things better, and the risk is worth it.