Scared of sleeping

It isn't that I'm not tired: I'm so exhausted a lot of the time it feels like I should have died a long time ago.
It isn't that I get too distracted by silence: I always have music.

It isn't even JUST because I am kind of terrified of not waking up.

If I am being completely honest with myself and everyone else, I am afraid that I will die in my sleep,

and no one will notice.

It has been a long time since it has been as bad as it has been the past few weeks. I used to be afraid to fall asleep anywhere there wasn't someone next to me. I made some extremely poor choices due to that. And it sounds really stupid, so I don't mention it to people.

It wasn't until my ex-husband left me, and I lived completely alone for the first time ever, that I actually realized why I was that way, which should have been stupidly obvious.

My dad had a heart attack in his dorm room, and died. Alone. And wasn't found for 3 days. That is why I worry too much to sleep, and why I always sleep better when someone is next to me, holding me and reminding me that I am not dead.

I hate that about me, so I try to avoid it a lot. I hate needing people to remind myself that I am not dead, to remind myself that there actually are people who would give a fuck if I died. So instead, I avoid it, sleep alone, or stay up for days on end until I drop from exhaustion. All because I would rather do that then go back to what I was doing, and needing someone around to sleep, inconveniencing them, and making things awkward.

Lately, it has been difficult for me. I have been without physical touch more often than not, for reasons that are complicated, yet make things easier. I can deal without physical touch when I am awake, because it isn't that huge of a deal. I can live. But when I'm trying to sleep? That lack of comfort, of knowing that there is someone who will definitely notice if something starts to go wrong with my sleeping, that is to say, it is becoming the forever sleep, and that they will try to make sure that I don't die.

It sounds so stupid to say. I hate how fucked my head is. Between this stupid need, and the fact that I losing the fight to do anything on a daily basis, even though I want to care, I feel like I am losing my mind. I just am painfully numb, until I get yelled at, then I either get stupidly defensive, or I get so that I can feel the blood pulsing in my ears and I know that I am going to lose my temper if I don't shut my eyes, and focus very closely on my breathing. It isn't even that I feel like I should be angry, I just lose control.

And the worst part of all of it, is that even through the issues, even through someone trying to get me to explain what is wrong, I can't do it out loud. I can't say out loud that I'm afraid I will die if I go to sleep. I can't say out loud that I don't actually even really care if I do. I can't say that every time they try to make me explain, I can hear my pulse in my right ear, which is what happens when I am losing control of my temper and thoughts.

Saying any of that is insanity; but that doesn't make it a lie.

I never thought I'd be so fragile

I am bad at a lot of things. I don't always make the best choices. The way I feel so much, so often, makes the days that I feel nothing seem like blank sheets of paper, laminated so they stick out and make it impossible to mar the surface. If I do things on those days, it is a surface level emotion, not actually sticking proper in my head, if that makes any sense. Those days have, thankfully, been few and far between lately, and yet, that also makes those days seem worse when they pop up. It's almost as though they show up to remind me,
"Hey, guess what? You're still fucked up."

I used to deal with them by wallowing, by letting those days be wasted, even if I had originally had plans. I became the kind of person who would flake out at the last minute, the kind of person who never got around to things, the kind of person who seemed miserable for no damn reason. I hated everything about my life, for no reason. Things were never easy, but there are people out there who have it a lot worse than me. I would remind myself of that often. It never helped, just made me feel worse for feeling so bad for no real reason.

I started getting better at dealing with those days. I would force myself to keep plans, though if it got to be too much, I would say I wasn't feeling well and excuse myself from the situation.

This last one though? I don't know why I was hit so hard by it, except that it showed me that, as numb as I had been feeling, I wasn't the empty husk I had the potential to be when the days were really bad. I was empty this last time, and briefly considered cutting into my skin to see if I could feel anything at all. The only thing that stopped me was knowing that if I started, I probably wouldn't have stopped until I couldn't hold the knife anymore, and the guys would have come home to that, just another mess I would leave them with. 

I haven't had that bad of a day for no reason since I lived with my mother. I haven't felt so overwhelmed and worthless in almost a decade, and even then, I don't remember it being so jarring.

I don't like to actually talk about things of this nature. I can never figure out a way to explain it that doesn't seem over dramatic or like less than what it is. When I take the time to write things out, it is because I need to get it out of my head, to where it is possible for someone, anyone, to read and understand. I've always been bad at saying how I feel, because with my mother, that was always frowned upon. That's why I've never told someone I was saying that I loved them until I was sure, because the words wouldn't come out. Even if I could write it, it didn't mean the same thing until I could say it.

Maybe it was especially bad because I was home alone. Maybe it was bad because my brain started to go through every mistake I have ever made. If I had to guess, I would say it was bad because I don't feel like I have control over my life right now, but I never know why it's bad one day and not another. All I know for sure is that I can't talk or write about it until I've processed as much of it as possible. 

I'm still not 100%, but I will be at some point. That is the important part.

Bleakness

I hate my life. Honestly, it isn't even that the life I live is bad. I feel empty. I feel lost. I feel like I am pointless. I hide it as best I can, but alone, I feel like I'm drowning. I feel like no matter what I do, it doesn't matter. Everything's been gray for a while. All the fun I force myself through, the conversations I barely keep an ear on because I can't focus my attention pretty much ever, the smiles and laughter I fake...it works sometimes. It gets me through, a little more refreshed than I was before. It never feels right.

I'm trying to be less of a burden. I know that I'm not very good at it, hell, I'm a fucking bitch who doesn't do things very well at all. I don't bring up the bad days, and I do my damndest to not be a drag. Most days, I even do that poorly. Tonight, I'm just laying here crying. I don't even know why.

Fuck this. Just.......fuck it. I don't even know why I'm writing, apart from that it normally helps when I am alone and confused. But, not this time. I don't feel anything but scared, and I'm terrified, even though when asked about it, I'm going to say it was no big deal, just a bad night, because I don't want to talk about it, because it won't help at all. It hasn't helped to talk, and it doesn't help to sleep, and right now, it doesn't help to write.

I'm going to ignore it for now, and maybe I will want to talk about it later. I just.....hoped that this would help.

I'm not ok.

I can say it over and over again, but it doesn't change that I really am not.

I don't understand how it is that you can say that I am enough, and turn around and say you aren't.

If you could see yourself the way I do.....it would be so much easier to explain.

Hell, if you could see yourself like most other people do in regards to me, we would be better off.

My "creator" says you look at me like I am a princess, and you radiate such care and respect, it is hard for her to not like you.

My sister sees how we respond to each other, how we communicate, and is certain that we are each others people.

Your sister thinks we are better together than not. She pushes for us to be together so much because even she can see how well we work together.

So you saying that you're bad for me? Makes absolutely no sense to me. Doesn't make a damn bit of sense to anybody.

I can't change how you feel. But I know the issue isn't that you don't want to be around me, and I know it isn't that you think I don't want you around. The issue is that you are too damn afraid of what might happen if you stay. You're too afraid that it will go badly, and you will lose my friendship, lose me. And because you're so damn afraid, you push me away, so that it is your choice, for my "own good."

You don't get to decide what is good for me. For some reason, you have decided that it could never be you, even though you and I mesh well in every way, even though you push me to be so much better, even though you help me remember the basic needs of life, the things I oftentimes forget.

I worry that you would rather have your self fulfilled prophecy, that you will drag me down, than take a shot at starting your own new chapter.

You do have a future. You deserve to turn to a new chapter with someone who cares.

Being enough

I am not a tiny girl. Not just size wise, though I will never be a size 0, or even a size 6. Everything is big for me. I can't help it, it is all I know how to be.

Oftentimes, I find that to be an issue, because so often I still feel like I am never enough. I'm not enough of what people want of me.

I cried today. We were watching This is Where I Leave You, and it hit a lot of triggers. More than anything else, it reminded me that I put up with a lot that I hated because I loved my husband. It reminded me that for everything that I give, every day, I will not ever be enough. I will never be the girl that a guy falls for. I will never be that strange girl who grows into the girl that guys fall over themselves for. I am just an odd one. I give my everything for people who don't see it, or worse, who see what I am, but don't think they deserve it.

I'm so very tired of not being enough. I'm tired of fighting with nothing to show for it.

I'm so very tired of being alone because the one person who I want to be enough for sees me as too much, or more than he deserves, or not enough of what they want.

I'm so tired of it, but have become so resigned about it.

Because honestly, ignoring what you want doesn't make it go away. And life is too damn short to not take risks, and too damn long to regret mistakes.

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.