A New Year's Reflection

Before we get started, I feel like I need to make it abundantly clear that this is a reflection, not a resolution.

There are 3 days left in this decade.  And what a decade it has been.

I have lived in my house for 11 years as of January.  Back then, I was so young.  I didn't think I was at the time.  Chin deep in a bad relationship that continued on badly for another 7 years.  At a job that I didn't love.  My kids loved each other and were stuck together like glue.  Now, I'm in an amazing relationship;  albeit brand spanking new, but still working towards forever.  I love my job. My kids barely interact with each other which is to be expected.  I have a lot of barely scabbed over wounds that I'm still tending to.  Still tending to the rubble that has been the past 38 years of my time on this big blue marble.

Looking over the past ten years, one thing has been certain.  I have not lived.  I have floated through.   As a mom, I have always been a fan of boundaries.  With everyone but myself.  There hasn't been a "Don't drink that.  Don't lay around doing nothing.  Don't do the random dumb thing.  It's not fine that you have spend 3 days in Zombie-mode and haven't slept in a week."  I have spent every day just doing the bare minimum to get through it relatively unscathed.  I have not always been successful at that.  Hell, while I'm being honest, I've spent the better part of ten years of my life a fucking train-wreck that hit a dumpster fire during a tornado.  And there is only one thing that I can do to fix it from here on out:

Live intentionally.  For real this time.

It's all well and good to make a list of all the crap that will be different from here on out.  Stop letting the mail and the laundry and the bills pile up.  Never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.  Make the bed every morning.  Blah, blah, frickin blah. 

I just need to make every day count.  Never go to bed feeling like that day meant nothing.  That is my plan.  The only plan.

There comes a time where even the strongest person breaks.  And it usually comes when they have had a little taste of what it's like to be taken care of for once.  I couldn't pull myself out of bed because my entire being was so heavy.  I have been strong long enough.  I got tired of feeling like every time I make a wall four feet high something comes along to knock it down over and over again and I am tired of picking up the pieces, alone.  The world feels like it's one big spinster aunt who never got married so she has to make everyone else's life miserable by congratulating you on your milestones and then simultaneously pointing out everything that you've done wrong in your life to neutralize it.  Even I needed a break.  Even the bravest and most resilient one got tired of taking care of everyone else.  Yes, even I get tired of the independent life I have lived.  Of all the bills I have to pay.  Of the work that I have to do to make everything come together because without every ounce of energy spent on my part it would all fall apart.  Other people have always expected me to always be okay and never took the time to think that I may have problems that I need help solving.  No, this isn't about me not recognizing the people who are there on a regular basis.  If you understand what I mean by that, then you aren't a part of the problem.

I've said it before:  MY BIG GIRL PANTIES ARE PERMANENTLY WELDED ON.  I CANNOT PULL THEM UP ANY HIGHER.

I've always thought that calling someone my partner would be a fairy tale to me.    Love lived in a magical land, far far away.  Even the strongest person on the planet needs love and affection;  and man does it feel good to have that for real.  Something that isn't a part of my life that's just being used to fill my emptiness.  Sometimes, I don't want to be the hero.  It's nice to be the one who's been rescued.  Resuscitated.  A three page love letter in a world full of relationship status updates.

You see, "finding yourself" is not really how it works.  You aren't a ten dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket.  You are also not lost.  Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are.  "Finding yourself" is actually returning to yourself.  And unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.  

I remembered something in church today.  You read that right.  I go to church now.  Sam plays piano every Sunday and I actually enjoy it - though I still don't feel differently about religion than I did before.  Today in bible study, they were talking about how everything is tied together with the plan that God has for you.  I don't exactly believe that, but the more that I have been excavating my childhood and what has made me, I realized that I was always as much of a gnarled up ball of string as I am now.  I was born programmed this way.  One time, while worrying about something that I couldn't control, my grandmother took me aside and said "You're going to have a better time trying to push a cow sideways."  It's one of my earliest memories if that's any indication.  

And there I was sitting there, listening to the conversation both in my head and in the group of people in front of me and it dawned on me:  Accept what is.  

With the exception of a few people, the only real experience that I've had with love is learning what it isn't.  I have always pushed everyone away because I knew any amount of joy that I felt was about to be matched with the same amount of agony when they left, and I always knew it was coming.  And it always came.  When Sam went took the trash to the town dump for the first time I was like a baptized cat.  He took the damn trash out and I panicked thinking that because I was sitting back and letting him do it that he was never going to come back when he told me that he was leaving.  

But he didn't leave.  And I'm done leaving myself.

I need to slow down and recharge my spiritual batteries.  I have learned to be vulnerable on the fly because I've never been able to stop.  Just.  Stop.  I'm still learning how to ask for what I deserve without it sounding like an apology.  If I allow my past to consume me, I am never going to have anything good because, even though it might be right in front of me, I'm too busy worrying that it's going to end that I'm never going to enjoy it.  

Here's to living with intention for another 38 years on this big blue marble.  For real this time.

The Human Condition

I'm not always a human, but when I am I fuck everything up entirely.  Mostly my own well being.

My friend Amanda told me a few months ago that my blog and I are the one stop shop of the human condition.  We laughed really hard about it at the time, but I'm not sure how I feel about it.

She said that my blog should be a talk show.  I said that we could call it "I Already Did The Dumb Thing".  It would be entirely about the day to day stupid shit that people do that others can completely relate to.

Me.  I am people.

I experience emotions like a crash test dummy and I really need to learn how to stop.  The way that I cry at the slightest amount of sap leaves me feeling like I'm doing happiness wrong.  I've built more relationships with people by being open about my struggles than I ever could have pretending that I had it all together.   

So after the past two weeks that I've had, I'm now experiencing something called:

Has My Mental Health Actually Improved Or Is This A Manic Episode:  The Musical

Seriously....So much crying....So many feelings.....

I think someone should just post their therapist's advice on Twitter so I don't have to go.

I love Sam.  I feel like I'm holding a butterfly.  One wrong move, and that's it.  He matters.  I'm terrified about this notion.  I have come to realize that I am programmed to believe that I am always going to get the worst in everyone;  even though they've given me no reason not to trust them.  I keep finding myself in an emotional deer stand waiting for the fuckening to start.  I know, without a doubt, that if something were to happen - or not happen - it's going to hurt in a place I don't like to acknowledge that I have.

And yet here I am....

Note to self:  LISTEN and SILENT are spelled with the same seven letters, take that as a sign to shut the fuck up and pay attention.

Since childhood I've relived every scenario in my brain; this type of constant rewinding and analyzing is how I come to most of my conclusions and things to write about.   I have also taught myself that the idea of forgiveness is bullshit.  Deal with something, take it for what it is, and move on.  Or like in my family, deal with it but not dealing with it at all.  So naturally, it had become easy for me to consider this thought process to be a good thing to do - except the more I did it, the harder it became for me to separate the positive uses and the destructive.

To this day, I would rather roll around naked on a floor covered in Legos than give up on a scenario that I haven't beaten to death in the rock tumbler of my brain.

The first experience I recall having a full blown anxiety attack was in first grade.  I had spent all of Kindergarten learning how to spell my name, and looking at my work folder, my teacher had spelled my last name incorrectly.  M-a-c-Q-u-i-r-e.  And I proceeded to lose it. It ruined my confidence so much that my dad had to pull out his driver's license and prove to me the correct spelling of our last name.  There were days when I would secretly get into his wallet in the middle of the night just to double check that it hadn't changed so I could get some sleep.

Rumination will completely ruin your progression if you allow it to.  And there is no greater progression than forgiveness;  beginning with yourself.  I've learned that if you're going to stay on the path of self-improvement, there's no greater hindrance to your progression than self-inflicted pain.  I have got to stop this shit.  Protected sanity is more important than protected sex.  I'm learning - slowly, yet not really.  

Until I met Sam and something very strange clicked on in my brain that made me want him around, I have not had a man in my bed that I cared about since 2016.  I say that, because I have had a couple of meaningless one night stands, but nobody that I was scared to lose.  I was sleeping with someone for 3 years and he has only been to my house, briefly, twice.  I was thinking about this in great depth the other day and then something dawned on me.  I gave a shit.  I was so afraid of losing him that I didn't let him close to me.  I was dating another person for a year that, while I was close to him, was just a glorified best-friendship with someone who didn't touch me.  And I pretended that it was fine.  But shortly before we broke up he took the one thing that I said to him during the lowest point in my existence and used it against me.  "You asked me if I knew up front how stressful dating you would be, if I would have still chosen to date you.  Honestly, no.  I wouldn't have."  How devastating was that moment?  The truth is, I deserve the same energy and effort that I release even when I feel like a complete dumpster fire - which is most of the time.  And I'm done with half-assed anything.

But this time, honestly my life has been filled with all the things I somehow convinced myself that I would never have.  I deserve someone who wants to know about me.  It may sound silly, but I don't want to screw around with people who never ask what my favorite color is or if I ate today.  I can't wait for the next night that I get to roll over and see him peacefully sleeping in my bed that I was once fine with sleeping alone in.  The look on his face he gets when he is about to tell me he loves me makes my brain completely give up on the idea it was working on.  I can't wait to see where this life takes us.  He excites me.

I don't know why I do the stupid shit I do;  mostly to myself.  I have to treat every relationship like a crime scene and make sure that I collect all the memories as evidence that it failed for a reason to make sure that it's really done.  To make sure that there really is no sign of life left in the space I made for it in the back of my heart that is caving in on itself.

We all hang onto something we know we're better off letting go of.  It's like we're scared of letting go.  Like we're scared to lose what we don't even really have.  Some of us (*cough, begrudgingly raises hand) say we'd rather have something than absolutely nothing.  The truth is, to have something halfway is much harder than letting go.

And I for one, am done trying to swan dive down anyone's throat.  My ass is too big to fit.

Pep talk for the day:

Girl, you can't take a leap of faith when you've got a death grip in the tightrope you're used to walking on.

Just jump.  You'll always get back up.

~ Cynicallovebird
9/2/19 @ 10:26 am

Burning House, Part I

What do you do when your abuser is the abused?  What do you do you do when you're a broken child in the form of an adult who is parenting your parent?

Rewind to 2016.  At 2 am I got the call that I was expecting to get any day for 35 years.  It was my sister, and my mom is being taken by the police to the emergency room after a suicide attempt.  Fortunately 3 months prior I had taken her to that same hospital with a migraine and added myself as her contact so I was able to go in and talk with the nurses.  She was doing something behind everyone's back, it had been clear for months.  She was beside herself.  Her lover had another woman at his house and wouldn't answer his phone, so she took a handful of her medication after drinking all day.  She was incoherent and suicidal.  Over a man that convinced her he loved her and then dropped her like she was trash.

I barely recognized her.  It was jarring.  My brothers showed up.  My step dad showed up.  She refused to see him, he was angry.  I called my brothers to go to the house and remove the guns from the house.  In their search for the gun and bullets that weren't stored together, they found pill bottles of various medications squirreled throughout the house. 

My mother, the woman who shamed me relentlessly for even needing so much as an Advil for cramps as a kid.

The memories started crashing over me like a Tsunami.  Trying to make it coherently clear to the crisis worker that this was not new behavior.  Explaining to my brothers and my sister how I remember when my brothers were babies in carseats, going out in the middle of the night with my stepfather in our jammies to find her at whatever place he found her after she left us.  Recalling her standing there screaming at us, beating me over something that made her angry on a whim.  The crisis worker blue papered her. 

In nothing short of 36 hours, I was exhausted and drowing because the waves would not stop.  More meetings, still no tears.  Take care of it and move on with the day.  That's my programming.  It was nothing short of terrifying to see her laying there on the bed, broken.  The roll down metal door to the closet where her purse was stored was dented, those were not there the day before.  She had dismantled the bed rail trying to rig something to get into it.  My grandmother and aunt came to visit.  All of us agreeing that she needed to stay there.  My grandmother verifying the memories that kept hitting me in the face like a baseball bat.  After it was determined that she was going to be transferred, I am not going to lie that I was feeling nothing short of joy because maybe, finally, she was going to get the help that she has needed her entire life.

I drove, in my half awake stupor I drove on autopilot to my aunt's house in Searsport.  As I was crossing the bridge this song that I posted above came across the radio.  And it hit me like a bottle in a bar fight. 

I managed to keep it together long enough not to crash.  The second I walked through the door and saw her face, I started sobbing from somewhere that I can't even describe. 

She was transferred.  She didn't stay.  She lied to get out.  My stepfather lied for her.  He brought her home.  My sister flew to Maine by herself and jumped into action as the glue holding everyone together. 

That didn't last.  Mom left for the jackass she tried killing herself for.  My parents that had been together since I was 6 years old were divorced.  I had another trauma happen to me shortly after this catastrophe so I didn't really take the time to process everything until I had a complete breakdown 9 months later.

The only thing I have ever wanted - with every atom of my being - was a mother.  Instead, I've spent my life a people pleasing pain in the ass.  Trying to take what's bruised and broke and make it right.  My mother turned from someone that I talked to every day, and go shopping with at least once a month, changed to someone that I saw four times in a year. 

And that, even someone who abused me the way that she did, is not something that goes away from your life quietly.

Quiet Curiosity

My lips curve because you somehow know the best way to trick them into a smile.
I don't talk to you nearly as often as I'd like but when we do I feel like a teenager with her first crush.  Only I've never felt that way about anyone.
I have felt a fire that I can't stop dancing in. 
Every nerve ending tickled by the flame,
sending shock waves of fear and childlike wonder.
I need you close enough to hear my whisper. 
I'm curious about you.
I know that I am feral and wild.  
I don't mean to maim you on the jagged edges of my dried up, damaged heart. 
Please don't shy from my tsunami of emotion and the tornado of my brain. 
It was you who invoked this from me against my will. 
I don't know what else to do with it except give them to you with my shaking hands.
Be warned the strings that I have tied around them are strong enough
to have been able to keep the Titanic from sinking. 
I've always been the riot maker. 
Blowing up the spirit of anyone trying to box me in. 
Untameable. 
Uncontrollable. 
Now all I want to do is lay in your arms and curl up in your peace.
I can't promise I won't freak out and rebel against it. 
I don't know what a loving touch is.
I've shied away and you patiently waited until I didn't anymore. 
I've found myself in the role of abuser and abused more than any real human should. 
Quieting the voices inside that are booming over everything else is nearly impossible when self doubt settles in. 
But you,
you refuse to give in and somehow trick them into submission with your entire being. 
You're stealing my soul one fingertip at a time and I'm frozen by the warmth.

To The One Who Just Showed Up

You Showed Me Everything I Didn't Know I Needed

It had been months since the breakup. The breakup that left me hurt, confused, and guarded. But I was happy again. I was surrounded by the best friends and family. I  was being filled daily with joy and friendship and distraction.

I had zero intention of dating again anytime soon.

I was in my own happy world, focused entirely on myself, my future, and my happiness. Then you came along.

You were kind, protective, respectful, and goofy (I saw your stellar humor on day one). You were gentle and easygoing and mature. You were everything no guy had ever been to me. We clicked after a couple hours together. But I still thought nothing of it other than a new friendship. With someone really, really adorable.

I was focused on myself, my future, and my happiness. And after the last breakup, I was pretty sure anyone did not fit into that equation.

But you never left. We kept talking, sharing stories, morals, life goals, challenges, embarrassments, achievements; the walls I put up began to come down. I found myself confiding in you and you have become my best friend. Isn't that the best kinda love? Isn't that what everyone tells us? Fall in love with your best friend?

Well, here I was...quickly, unknowingly, falling for my best friend.

I know everyone's always saying "the best love happens when you aren't looking." And I know that can seem so cliché or unrealistic or hard to do and be patient about, but it couldn't be truer. Because when you're so caught up in life and friends and your happiness, you're allowing the universe to play matchmaker.

You put away all judgment and wishes and just live. And that's where the real magic happens. It comes out of nowhere when you least expect it, but at the perfect timing, because it was put into action - not you.

So to the boy who showed up when I wasn't looking - I didn't know every little thing I deserved in a guy until you were placed in front of me. I didn't know someone could be so handpicked.

I didn't know love could so effortlessly fix what love had so recently broken. But what I do know is, I wasn't looking, and I'm pretty sure you weren't either, but someone sure was. Looking out for us, the love we both deserve, and the things we're going to tackle together. I love you.

The Breakup

I once told him that icicles are magical 
and he left them to grow on the eves of his house 
so I could stare in wonder at them.
They were there all winter 
and grew as much as I was growing to care for him.
Love isn't always slowly melting.
Sometimes it's black and blue where it hurts the most.

Three years ago 
I said that I never wanted to write another breakup poem again,
yet here I am.
I loved him still on our last date at the shooting range
where I hit 23 targets in a row, 
and missed 40,
but he still looked on like I was an action movie heroine.

Little did I know that the poems were there all along 
but in a language I did not yet know how to speak.
But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say Grace
if I am sitting at a table 
where I am offered nothing that feeds my soul.
If I knew this wasn't a fairy tale meant for me
I would have smashed my glass slippers
 and created a stained glass window instead.

In silence, it's impossible to tell what the other person 
is thinking without looking them in the eyes
and him,
he was as still as a lake morning at 5 a.m. in June.
He asked if we could still be friends.
I explained how in no uncertain terms 
that a honeybee does not dream of kissing 
the wet, sweet lips of a flower
and then settles for its leaves.

I can remember arriving at his home 
and walking in to the scent of fresh baked brownies
on the worst day ever.
Holding hands on the couch.
I could see the rose petals falling from his fingertips
from the doorway to the bedroom like breadcrumbs,
or drops of blood in a crime scene.

I can't enjoy them now without starving for his laughter.
I'm hungry for his touch
yet my mouth tastes like the slow dissolve 
of the the last 'I love you' 
that refused to leave our mouths.

I can wait for him to:
finish never ending home renovations,
take care of his health, 
focus on his promotion,
heal.

I can't wait for him to:
Grow up.
Grow a pair.
Decide that I am worth having in his life.

I don't need any more friends.

Allergic

I am falling apartI feel the pain of the love I once had for you
oozing out of my pores and it's giving me hivesI feel feelings like an emotional peanut allergyAnd you were my Benadryl

~ Cynicallovebird

As It Is

I never said I love him,
But I can tell you how liked his food not to touch
Much like everything else in his life

Perfect sheets and a chaotic kitchen island
The same shows on repeat
Accommodating but never welcoming

I never said I love him
But I can tell you where he liked to be touched
And everywhere he didn't

Orgasmic connection
Tingling brain and bits
And an absent heart

I never said I love him
But those were three years that felt like a lifetime
And I wanted to keep it as it was

~ Cynicallovebird

Monday Night Superhero

If you wish to be a warrior prepare to get broken.  If you wish to be an explorer, prepare to get lost and if you wish to be a lover prepare to be both.  

~  Daniel Saint

  One day I'm just going to get straight to the point and tell you that you give me butterflies in my vagina. 

    ~ Cynicallovebird

I once fell in love with a fisherman who kissed me quickly
and threw me overboard as if I was one of many.
And then along came him,
a sailor who knew I was the sea.

I think about it all the time.  
What I want.  
How scared and intimidated I am to go after it.  
The embarrassment of fumbling through stupid formalities of dating.  
Can't they be bypassed altogether?  
I would just rather move past the banter that has no bearing on anything meaningful 
and communicate non-verbally and maybe talk afterwards instead.
I'm only easy once.
Once,
when I'm unfurling myself in the sun of their attentions.

What surrounds me is a disaster.
What's within me is a mixture of bliss and a hint of madness
but what's in front of me,
let's just say my walls shake at the mere thought of their eyes.
Sometimes I like it gentle and intimate.
Other times I need rough and animalistic.
And being able to decipher which I need and when is part of the art of being a man.

I laid in his arms while the stars bloomed above us.
"Greetings" said my former moon up high.
I smiled to my old lover and gave him the middle finger.
He stared down and made the tides roar in his jealousy.
I closed my eyes and I found peace at the sight of the waves
because I was no longer the one who was drowning in them.

All I did was let go, let it happen.
I let a soul who resembled mine treat me as I was longing to treat them.
So the beauty lied in how he touched my skin,
as though I was more than who I saw myself as.
I have never felt so exposed;
which also begs the question,
have I ever even allowed one to see me?
He has from the first second we laid eyes on each other
and every day for seven years.

At that moment, 
I was completely consumed by sensory overload.  
I wanted to touch every inch of him, 
silently celebrating everything I see as imperfections within myself.  
I tasted myself inside his mouth.  
We saw each other in all our existence;  
fears and desires, his lust.  
His hunger to bite my neck. 
I laid on my lovers chest that night under darkness.
I still hear his heart beat when I listen closely. 

Sexual release brings such emotional resolve for me.  
He comforted me by reassuring me that he'd found peace in my mania.  
That my anxiety is a riddle he doesn't mind taking the time to solve.  
We found familiarity with each other in his depression.  

I slept soundly for the first time;
a peace came and I didn't walk away as I do.
Control no longer on my list.
I'd now just rather be the open vessel to what the universe has in store.
What a release to let it all go
and invite the peace that only a tremendous foundational plummet can bring.
Oh, and it wasn't the beautiful waves of his body
or the cosmic touch of his fingers on my skin.
It was the way they fixed their gentle stare on my face
and melted the raging chaos in the very marrow of my bones.

So now with all this vast empty space shall I free fall or fly?
For him I'd sail to the stars,
blowing kisses to the earth below,
welcoming the most beautiful demise with an even more beautiful view.

Overpowering, it overflowed from me to him.
He bit my lip and held me closer knowing I am absolutely his.
Life was calling and it would never stop
but in those few minutes his presence healed me,

My Monday night superhero.

Over

I confess that I loved you more than I let on
but you weren't ready for it
and I wasn't going to pour myself into hands
that I knew weren't equipped to hold me

Some people exist to show you exactly what isn't right for you.
I understand now that I'm separated from the situation that I was never in love with you.
It was just a manipulation of the hope that I had developed in the back of my brain
from too many Disney movies as a kid.

When you truly love someone,
you accept them for who they are,
what they want out of life.
I knew from the second I met you that you were not capable of loving me
and I accepted that
and found peace in things as they were.

I stopped wanting to be loved by you.
I stopped putting that pressure on you;
and myself.
I stopped caring if I was perfect.
You acted like you accepted me as I am.
That was a big fat lie and I knew it,
what was I really going to do?
Time with you became the break from my life that I thought I needed,
but all I found was a black hole disguised as a rabbit hole.

I found solace in not being anything to you.
That became the entire point.
The only thing I ever had to be when I was with you was "there".

There was no pressure,
because it clearly didn't matter to you whether I was or not.
I became something I didn't recognize;
and maybe I shouldn't have bent the knee,
but I can't take it back now.

Although I swear that this is a new chapter,
it will always feel like it has the same old end.
Leaving me with more questions than answers.

The warrior in me is filled with disappointment.

Trauma

One day I just got sick of hearing myself tell that same fucking story again.
You know.
That one.
The one that changed me.
The one that blew my soul out like a candle.
The one I tuck under my pillow each night.
The one I scream to at street lanterns in the creepy midnight air
as I watch the silhouette of another person I love leaving me,
also tired of listening to me tell that same fucking story.
The story I let define me.
The one that lives my life for me.
The one that won't wash off no matter how many oceans I cross to run away from it.
The story that no man can kiss away completely.
One day came.
I opened my mouth to speak and out of it came nothing.
My tongue licked the inside of my cheek and no longer tasted blood.
That was the day I stopped arriving with a ready-made introduction.
There's no 500 pound label stuck to my head anymore.

A Dear John Letter

"Why did you guys break up?"
She laughed, almost painfully.  "One day he loved me, the next day he didn't.  Strange isn't it?  How fast someone's feelings can change and then there's nothing you can do but accept it."

I took a shower.  I paced.  I sat down.  I stood up.  I tried to shake the ghost of you from my every waking thought.  Tucked away in my head, in the dusty cobwebbed corners I try to avoid, I already knew - one day, I would.  One day, I will miss your face a little less.  That one day I would wake, drink my coffee, shower, and leave the house and you will have not crossed my mind.  Not even once.

Today was not that day. 

But does it even matter?  You've taken the last bit of trust I had for you, and washed it off in the shower you share with someone else.  You're way too busy to remember to remember me.  And how could you be there for me now, if you were never even there for me when you were here?

I have late night conversations with my dog.  He tells me how much he missed me when I was away and I tell him about you and how I want to take back the secrets I told you so I can decide now whether or not to tell you them again.  I want to take back the piece of me that lies in you, to see if I truly miss it.  I want to take back at least half the confessions, because I would feel safer knowing where my secrets are.  I want to shake you and tell you that you're an idiot.   

I was never a traveler, but my mind was always unsettled and wandering.  And then I met you, and nothing seemed as aimless as it was before.

If I knew that that was going to be the last time I'd ever touch you, I would have hugged you so much longer.  I don't think I would've ever let you go.  And if I knew that was the last real conversation we were ever going to have where we shared our dreams and laughed and were real with each other without a string of obscenities flying out of my mouth, I would have never stopped talking.  If I knew that you weren't coming back, I swear I would've told you that you were the only person I have ever felt connected with and that you were my home.  I would have told you that your face was my favorite movie to watch and that your voice was my favorite song and that I could listen to you talking to me always.  That your kiss felt like a resuscitation at the end of a bland day.  But would that have made a difference? 

I want to do silly things with you and not have to pretend that I know and don't care that your sun doesn't set for me;  just have fun and go with it.  Kiss a lot and hold hands and make fun of everyone in the movies because we're better than them and then take you to the other room and fuck you like there's nothing left in the world but you and I.  

I keep thinking back to a night on your couch when I had popped a raisin in my mouth and you watched with amusement as I tried to hide the look of disgust on my face;  I was trying to train myself to like them so I didn't feel so betrayed that they weren't chocolate chips. 

Long ago, I loved raisins; but once, in second grade I ate a box during snack time and I threw them up in front of the whole class;  and that was the last time I would even look at them until that day when I suddenly decided that I'd like to try to move on. 

I want to get it through my damn head -  all the things you said; and some you didn't have to.  More than anything, I want to show you how unbelievably contradictory you are. 

You told me that I was silly, and if I didn't like something that it was okay not to like it.  I said that's not how I work;  I made that same face again today but this time I wasn't eating a raisin.  And that's why I've written you this letter and that's why you're gone.  

I had called you a good person and you had already called me a cab and slipped the driver an address to the corner of Love and A Better Man. 

Because you can't be a raisin.  

I buried you.  I had a funeral for you in my soul.  It was quite lovely.  I had to, it was a matter of life and death.  Yours or mine.  And I decided that I wanted to live.  I think I've finally learned to kill the part of me that still wanted to save you after you walked away while I was drowning.  You were an ass.  You made sure I fell for you and you weren't even there to catch me.

Worst of all, you made me trust you.  You made me think you weren't like all the others.  And you know what?  You aren't like all the others.  You are so much worse.  The best feeling in the world is looking at the person who fucking destroyed you and not feeling a damn thing.  I pray with every atom of my being that this day comes sooner than later, it's really exhausting to feel the battle ax that you tore my heart out with sticking out of my chest almost constantly.

I want this up and down to stop.  Just Stop.  If you're going to push me away, I want you to truly be gone.  I want to punch you.  Hard.  I want this hurt to cease.  But I can't make it stop no matter what I do.  I made a promise to myself that if you can live without me, that I would live without you.  I deserve better than half measures.  And even more, I deserve better than my reaction to it.  I won't apologize for evolving past your comfort zone.   

And now that I broke, screamed, ugly cried and then fabulously am getting over you, I feel great knowing I'm sure our paths will never cross.  I had hoped the day would never come where I was only a part of your past, but now that it has I hope that the thought of me awakens the part of your heart you kept dormant when I wanted a home there and it kills you. 

I think it's finally okay if I never forget you;  that you'll forever be a puncture in my lungs.  When people speak your name I'll squeeze out the song of us like a dusty accordion and I'll tell them I don't know what became of you but that I can still feel your hands on my skin.   

I'm moving on.  It's not that I've stopped loving you, it's that I know eventually I'll stop wanting it in return.

Not Me

"Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason."
~ Fredrik Backman, Beartown

I know I should save my tears for someone who will catch them
As I try to ignore the memory of the way your scent makes my chest ache.
You're not in love with me.
You run around stealing hearts and confusing brains
Because it's so much easier to break another than it is to fix yourself.
And this is why my door for you is now closed.

If you truly believed that we had no potential of something special
It is either the most magnificent of lies,
Or heartbreaking of truths.
If this were a month ago,
I would have leapt off the edge of the earth waiting for you to catch me
If that's what it took to feel your touch one last time.

But I was never the reason you're dancing on rainbows
And sleeping with no rain clouds above your head.
My smiles didn't send butterflies to your stomach.
You gave your affection like the weather.
"It's cloudy and boring today;  I will give you what you need of me".
But on the sunniest of days,
There were too many other shiny,
Pretty things to give your attentions to.
I'm just an option,
Everyone else on the planet is the priority.
Funny how you remember my existence when they forget about you.

I loved you in pieces because that is all you ever gave me.
As if saying to yourself;
She's a good one but I don't want her right now
But I still don't want anyone else to have her
Because I know I'll want her eventually.
But I know how to insult the crap out of her intelligence
And it's really fun to watch her lose her shit over why I don't call;
So I'm just going to play with her emotions,
Mind fucking her into believing that she might actually mean something to me
And make empty promises so she doesn't leave.
I filled the spaces between with everything that I hoped you were.

My voice didn't make your knees tremble
And your heart sink to the deepest part of your soul at the thought of my sadness.
You may have made my heart sing,
But you can't even write a single line about how my eyes sparkle every time I looked at you.
You don't see me when you close your eyes.

I thought I loved you,
but it was only the guise of you.
And your performance is Oscar worthy.
I'm still clapping for the wonderful show you put on for me!
This is why I loved you the most;
And this is also why I hated you the most.
And why my wound where I've been cut the deepest won't heal.
But miss you?
Oh no.
I can't miss what didn't exist in the first place.

The message getting lost in translation from brain to heart is always the same:
I deserve someone who doesn't make me feel stupid for being loyal to them.
Darling,
You're not in love with me,
So do me a favor and let me be free of you.

Insomnia

Insomnia

It's 3 a.m.
I'm sitting on my porch chair that I have painted bright yellow
In an attempt to bring sunshine into my life
I can't get you off my mind
Maybe if I sleep for more than three hours
I'll forget the way your mouth felt
Or the way your eyes examined me
I keep forcing my mind to wander to a different subject
But like a boomerang here we are
Trying to put as many miles between you and my mind as possible.
We're in the same Hell
Just dealing with different devils
And coping in very different ways

Cowardess seems to be working out well for you

Even though you've always known exactly where and how to get to me
I'm sure you'll never read this
I can't help but think that the Universe sent you to me to teach me a lesson of sorts.
You are the only man who has ever said no to me.
Normally the thought of tearing a man apart would thrill me
But it doesn't.
You were different.
I am determined to make tonight the beginning of what I fear has ended
Without the "It's over" goodbye I need to move on from you
Even though common sense is yelling in my face like an abusive acquaintance.
So tequila and a good nights rest is my next attempt at letting this be.

All these fucking attempts are getting annoying.
Running in circles, chasing your tail.
This shit better work.
Was it three or four shots that did the trick?
I can't recall.
My first attempt was deleting every trace of you from my phone.
There really was no point.
Pictures;  your touch is burned into every nerve ending.
Text messages; the way you have about you when you're sweet talking me won't leave my ears.
Call history;  I cannot wash away the bruises left on my pride every time you've blown me off.
Your contact information:
Why does my mind have to remember numbers better now than it did back in 1990?

The view from my deck wrapped in my blanket
Looking out at the still river and the shadows looming
Thinking to myself
This is what horror films set in Maine are made of
How fitting for the nightmare that I'm in.
My barrier that I had up against you was the only part of me that was still whole.
How did I let you in?
Sometimes we just know things.
And no matter how much we know it's going to crush us we long for it anyway.
I never saw you coming

Reflections From My Driveway

4/19/19 @ 11:43 p.m.

It's very sad and perplexing at the same time;
when you're treated as though you might be a person worth getting to know 
by someone new.
It feels like a completely foreign concept.
It hits your brain in the most awkward ways.  
Like, it almost feels like they're wrong.  
Like you're doing them a disservice by letting them get to know your insides.
There's something about rejection that does that to us. 
We tell ourselves that we know better;
but knowing something and feeling something are always going to be parted 
by the great sea of rejection 
and all other things that have wronged and ruined us,
every single time.

________________________________________________________


"If they act like they don't give a shit about you, believe them."  Best advice I've ever received.  I'm done trying to swan dive down people's throats, my ass is too big to fit.

Sometimes the nicest thing we can do for ourselves is to accept that we're human.  It might be killing me to breathe, but I'm resting when I can instead of running around like a crazed lunatic pretending to be fine as usual.

_________________________________________________________________________________

I'm done saying "sorry" for things that I'm not sorry for.  I want everyone to be happy, but it's also not my job to dim my light to make others more comfortable.  Your opinion of me is none of my business.  I am a nice person.  I am a quirky person.  I love hard and I wear my heart on my sleeve if I'm comfortable with you.  If I'm not, then I seem cold and removed, but I'm really just shy.  I am me, and I won't apologize for that.  Just know that I'm a good person.
_________________________________________________________________________

I just wanted to thank you for making all the love songs mean something

____________________________________________________________________

With one look at my mother I'm overcome with an overwhelming sense of grief.

All I've ever wanted was a mother.  All I've ever gotten was an evil dictator, a boss, an abuser, an arch nemesis and a two-faced friend.

I seek to find peace for my world in pieces.
I need to find a way to relax.
All this stress from recent sadness and other life-insanity;
my anxiety cloud offering nothing but darkness, 
decompressing from my anxious mind that ending in something closely resembling Wile E. Coyote free falling 
- watching the boulder that was about to fall on him the whole way down - 
had me ready punch my microwave for beeping halfway through defrosting a steak tonight...

If you can't laugh at yourself, what can you do?

My 18 month journey into no longer reaching for familiar coping mechanisms has been tested greatly,
something that I've been trying my best to ignore.  
We all know how that goes.  

My white flag is flying for all to see.
It's not what I'm used to.

_________________________________________________________________________


The activity buddy
The something to do
I never intended to end up as something so lowly to a person
But what I allowed is what continued
And now here I am
Done with your shit and only myself to blame
Forever doomed with the purpose of showing you exactly how much I love you without the pleasure of ever saying it

~cynicallovebird

---------

Wrecking Ball was playing on the radio 
after we stopped spewing hatred at each other
For 350 days I never thought this day would come
The day where I don't know you anymore
I woke up this morning and the world looked like a completely different place
And it doesn't feel fair 
I saw a storm brewing but I never saw this coming.

You know that look that someone who once loved you gives you when you just became another person to them?

Yeah me neither.

It wasn't until I experienced true love that I saw that difference.

____________________________________________________________________

You don't get to make decisions for the both of us like I'm some invalid child who can't function and then wonder why I'm frustrated.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Laying on my bed in the sun on my day off I can't help but remember that this is the kind of day where you'd be here.  Making sure you implanted yourself in my world on a beautiful day so that I couldn't enjoy ever the slightest of joy.  Doing what you wanted, never what I needed.

_________________________________________________________

My name is Jessie, and I am a sex addict dating a man who wants basically nothing to do with sex.  Because it's better that way.
___________________________________________________________________

There's always a fork in the road.
The day comes when you wake up and decide that this isn't how you want to live your life anymore;
and you'll be fine with it.  
You can walk away from what isn't right for you.
No more breaking your nails holding onto what didn't fit for dear life because you couldn't admit you might be OK.
The fear is no longer overwhelming as as you own who you are and take the next turn,
you stare it straight in the eye and walk past it.
_________________________________________________________

I know that some things are better left unsaid
I just wish they weren't the same ones that needed to be
My mouth is full of Napalm and it won't keep quiet to meet that bar you've set  in your own comfort level
I'll blast through the bullshit you use as mortar
With your excuses and explainations
Brick by brick trying to keep me contained in your fairy tale of what fuckery really means.
_________________________________________________________________________________

My IQ is higher than the equivalent of the men I've slept with combined.
This is why I fell in love with you.
__________________________________________________________________

Good morning y'all.  Yes, I am posting a no makeup selfie on my way to the grocery store to fix my hankering for cookies.  Just wanted to throw out a reminder that if all you did was wake up and breathe today I'm still proud of you, and you definitely deserve a pat on the back for making it through by any means necessary.  I on the other hand, have put the bare minimum into my self care lately and I can definitely feel it.  And you also see it in my no fucks given, didn't even look in the mirror this morning as I quickly brush my teeth and ran out the door face.  Oh well, I'm just doing yard work.  Here's to hoping that everyone walking on the waterfront today has bad vision.
_______________________________________________________________

Why do single women take advice from other single women?  That's like Stevie Wonder giving Ray Charles driving directions.
________________________________________________________________________________

People like to coin the phrase
"My inner child is a drunken whore".
I don't have a demon,
I have a devil in a blue dress.
She likes to scratch herself at the windows from inside my walls
The word sobriety to her is a puppy dog to play with,
and she likes to curl up inside the swoop of the b and tickle my fancy.
She loves power and she knows just which heart string to pull

6/18/18

_________________________________________________________

3/26/18

I'm so tired of boys using their former emotional traumas as an out to be a douchebag.

Yes Eric, the years of cheating on your wife and the stress of everyone expecting more from you than you can give them;  and your willingness to share that fact with me, totally wiped out not calling when you said you would and not treating me with any amount of basic human decency.

You didn't keep my number in your phone for 3 years and not use it because it's romantic, like you are hoping I'd find it to be.  No it's actually quite weird.  I kind of think that only reason I want to meet up with you is so I can delete it._________________________________________________________

2/23/18

I've reached exhaustion level *Leave my keys in the fridge and then cry after looking like a mad woman to find them*.  I don't even remember going to the fridge since I got home.  I quit.

I woke up feeling more useless than the "G" in lasagna.  Going to the gym is going to kick my ass.

_________________________________________________________1/29/18

I'm pretty sure that I've discovered that a therapist recommending that you write in your blog because I'm very good at it is pretty much the equivalent of a grandmother trying to convince you to eat everything in the house.
_________________________________________________________________________________

1/27/18

Sometimes my mind is as serene as my camp on Toddy Pond.
Other days,
like this day,
it's Thunder Hole.
Filled with crashing thoughts so loud I can't hear anything else.
________________________________________________________________________________

1/13/18

I have been spending the past year assessing feelings.  Figuring out why I do the things that suck when I do them.  I was honest out loud the other day.  It was painful.  Letting someone I am terrified of leaving me see me as I am.  I am an addict.  Not drugs.  Alcohol, sex and one night stands.  Getting to pretend that everything is fine for a little while.  Ignoring the fires.  I got really good at it.  As a kid growing up in mental health chaos I had plenty of practice.

I've pretty much stopped writing and modeling.  Nothing feels right.  My skin is crawling in this exposed and vulnerable state I've found myself in.

I've been avoiding social events.  It's as if trying to be healthier mentally has thrown gasoline on fear...of what though?  Happiness?

Oh for fuck's sake.

Brain, get it together.
________________________________________________________________________________

12/17/17

I'm so tired of feeling like I'm constantly jumping through hoops just to stay capable of some resemblence of Ok.

I don't feel like I can breathe without something else going wrong.  It's overwhelming.
_________________________________________________________________________________

12/7/17

I'm stuck between a rock and the person I'd like to hit with it.
________________________________________________________________________________

12/2/17

Reighan's brain, example 5,000:
You know what I just realized?  That all the beer names sound like they were made up by someone who was drunk from drinking the beer.
________________________________________________________________________________

11/24/17

I'm pursuing other options because I feel like I have to.  If this was something, then it would be enough for me.  But it's not because it isn't.  I want ownership.  I need something tangible that I can talk about and not feel weird because I don't know what to call it.
_________________________________________________________________________________

11/15/17

Self care isn't always manicures and drinks.  Sometimes, it's going to bed at 8 or letting go of someone who didn't know how to be good to you.  It's forgiving yourself for not meeting your impossible standards and understanding you are worth it even if it feels like every male on the planet doesn't see it.  Self care isn't a luxury, it's a means of survival;  and tonight my self care is curling up with my fleece lined leggings, my afghan that my mom made when I was little, ice cream, Netflix and forgetting all about the stupid planet because I survived the day and that's all I need to know right now.
_________________________________________________________________________________

11/5/17

Let me get this straight for a second, you have absolutely no interest in dating me or getting to know me at all.  However, you have somehow managed to make it you lifes mission to sit back and watch my dating life with the eyes of a hawk, and judge the shit out of everyone who wants to....why is that?
_________________________________________________________________________________

9/16/17

Being in my shoes isn't hard.
It's terrifying.
And the creepy clown waiting in the gutter is knowledge that with one wrong move I'm going to fail at everything.
_______________________________________________________________________________

8/7/17

A beginning and an ending can't be in the same space and you already decided which one you were going to be before I could decide for myself.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Extended Family

My heart bruised
It's all relative 
that we're all relatives
Yet you treat me as other
DNA not the same
Some shared
But how can we laugh over the same 3 Stooges
My gifts revered
But I'm given half the gifts
But all the same hugs and kisses
You take
My heart
My love
And give half back
Not yours
Expectations high
Keeps my confidence low
A dark shadow looming over
As if I
A child 
Was something to fear
I only wanted one to revere
You
A hole I'll never fill

~ Cynicallovebird