Screw You

The thing is, I never tried to change your mind;  

I tried to open it.

And the same can be said for your heart.

There's a possibility I figured out it's love because I felt myself transforming alongside you and in your hands.

Suddenly, I was an escape artist without a trap door 

and a homemaker trapped in a place I couldn't make into a home.

I stopped being able to tell how much of that was you 

and how much was me.

"No" is the sweetest stance my mouth has ever tasted.  

It was once something I thought I didn't have the palette for.  

That moment hit me the hardest;  

the realization that I've got a sweet tooth for all the words 

I have been dying to say to you.

I found myself cradling an ache between my palms that has found its way out of me but I cannot bear to set it free in your direction, fearing my tongue be the sacrificial lamb.

Let's claw at each other tonight.

I want a memory tomorrow that will make me bite my nails.

Whenever you cross my mind the thoughts are of you are so palatable

I can still taste you on my tongue.

You're the first one who didn't need to convince me that being alone is not better than this.

I had hoped that those words would be an incantation 

that would change everything between us.

There were yield signs and flashing lights and yelled warnings,

and I ignored them all.

What a painful ache it is;

to want more than you are wanted.

To need more than you are needed 

and to be forgotten when all you can do is remember.

I don't know how to be rid of my love for you without losing you.

There's a frustration here 

- feeling like straddling a pinpoint that I can't pinpoint.

You have hung sweet touches and conversation

and memories like paintings and dreamcatchers

on every inch of the home you've made in my being

and then told me not to miss you when you were gone.

I am making assumptions when we ought to be making connections.

I find myself holding my breath when I should be losing it.

If these lackluster sparklers are all there is

And all this magic was only by chance a once in a lifetime accident,

please forgive me when I tell you 

that I wish you had left your lighter at home.

Screw you, and your false hope.

~ Cynicallovebird

What "Surviving" Really Looks Like

"You just do it.  You force yourself to get up.  You just force yourself to put one foot in front of the other, and God damn it, you refuse to let it get to you.  You fight.  You cry.  You curse.  Then you go about the business of living.  That's how I've done it.  There's no other way.  ~ Elizabeth Taylor

I'm finally at work after a failed attempt to get ready for the day.  I’m sitting here, writing this over the course of the past 5 hours, trying to think of something to email my boss to sugarcoat what I’m feeling, to really drive home the point that getting out of bed today was unbearable for me and that I don't see myself doing it tomorrow when I have to work either.  In my inability to get up after only sleeping for an hour I got out the door in 5 minutes;  my unwashed hair pulled into a ponytail, teeth unbrushed and no makeup on.  Thank the heavens that my room is still organized enough so that I can grab clothes and go and look good enough to leave the house.  You see, if it was the flu or a bad head cold this would be easy.  I would simply relay the symptoms and be excused with a general “feel better” and a hidden relief that I wouldn’t be getting anyone else sick.  To make a phone call saying I just had to take a breather on the side of the road in Searsport because my lungs felt as if they were collapsing and my body was shaking so badly that I had to pull over because I could hardly drive doesn’t do the trick.

Yesterday was great.  I had time to shower and looked great for work.  I went flower shopping with my aunt and made her cake for her elopement last night.  I took pictures, engaged in conversation like nothing was ever wrong.  I went over to my other friend's house (the one I'm dating) and watched some TV and hung out for a few hours.  For once, the battle that rages in my mind between functional and afraid was quieted.  

Every time I feel my chest get heavy, my hands get sweaty, my vision become disconnected, I tell myself to suck it up;  that it’s all in my head.  Maybe it is.  That’s certainly where this monster lives - this unwelcomed existential dread about nothing in particular paired with a fear of what's in the shadows.  Not able to shake the feeling that I'm being watched or followed;  telling myself that it's over now and it shouldn't ever happen again.  But tell that to my body when I’m home alone at the bottom of my shower, unable to move or think or breathe when I can't remember if I locked the front door and I heard a nonexistent thing creeping through the house - and I know how irrational I feel, but I can't do a thing to stop the wave from coming. Tell that to my ears that simply decide to stop hearing and scream with hollow ringing that disorients me to the point of defeat. Tell that to the girl who has sat on grimy floors in restaurant bathrooms who had to take a second to rest her overwhelmed mind and procrastinated the day away in bed because, for a few moments, she can’t remember how to exist.

I'm learning how to trust the world again.  It's really hard to do that when everything you thought you knew about those closest to you turn out to be less than ideal.  Yes, I'll put it that way for those who don't know.  Not everything is everyone's business.  In November when the "I'm fine" mask started to malfunction and pretty much quit entirely I took 3 weeks off from work to get help.  I started therapy, which has been my saving grace.  I am on medication as needed for anxiety and have learned to ride the waves enough to not take it every day.  Mostly out of my sheer refusal to do so.  I don't allow myself to take anything if I know that life is requiring me to be functional.  But I'm a single mom of 2 teenagers with 2 jobs....life is always requiring me to be functional....and that's the damn problem.  

My big girl panties are permanently welded on, I cannot pull them up any higher.

Things weren't always this bad.  I've always had some low lying depression throughout my life, but explainable by the circumstances surrounding me.  Over the past 18 months there have been a lot of changes and things going on that have thrown my mind into full blown "Can't take any more crisis" mode when it's something that I've always been able to take in stride;  no matter the situation or what "it" was.  They say there’s a science behind it.  That it’s just how I work now.  How am I supposed to love my mind if I constantly doubt its ability to decipher reality from fiction?  I don’t know how anyone enjoys that high.  It makes me sad, the lowest I’ve ever felt, feeling incapable of performing in my day-to-day life without an artificial aid.  But I’ve come to terms with the idea that sometimes there is no other option.  I hope one day I’ll be okay with that.
   
I fear having to tell the people in my life that I’m on medication because the second I do, I see my fears written across their faces.  The fact that I have to take a dose of something just to make me feel like I’m residing on some middle ground that makes me capable of mandatory human function, I fear, immediately sets off alarms that I am a lesser person; lacking independence and radiating unpredictability. All of a sudden I’m the crazy, mentally unstable girl completely incompetent and incapable of any mundane task in front of me.  I can't shake the notion that in the eyes of others, it makes me a liar.  Lazy.  Inadequate.  Delusional.  Crazy.  None of that could be farther from the truth about who I really am.  And then if I have enough strength in me to tell them what caused this mess, I have to relive everything through explanations (my "script" has been written in my mind and in the office of my therapist) and then suddenly everyone becomes either sympathetic or needs to tell me the story of the time it happened to someone they know.  There is not one person that I have told that hasn't been completely perplexed about how I hide it so well.  How would they know?  It's not like I walk around with a huge sign over my head.  Hell, some even suddenly become a doctor and tell me I'm fine, or want to know about meds and my treatment and therapy and what coping skills I'm using....they push for more information or shut down the discussion right away because actually acknowledging the fact that bad things happen is just too much.  And then there are the "detectives" who think that they need all the information about it, and try to tell me all the legal advice they picked up on television - thanks to CSI everyone is a forensic scientist.  Thanks for that, not.  Most of the time I don't bother to say I have a diagnosis because, frankly, society has been conditioned to think I’m either a deranged psychopath or I’m faking it because I’m simply too fragile to face life like a normal person.  Do they think I find this fun?

I’ve begun to believe it myself.  I can’t even convince myself I’m not insane.  I can’t get over the possibility that every trigger, every panic, is rooted deep in my overactive imagination who happens to be a spiteful little bitch that likes to see me squirm.  It’s in the calm moments I feel it most. When I’m finally content and that sharp jab of terror hits the sweet spot in the middle of my throat, closing in until I’m choking on what I thought I saw in the shadows. It’s so vivid I can see the muscles contracting, my body starts to itch as I fear…what? What is it that I am so afraid of? It’s the imaginary evils that sneak up and get me in the moments I least expect it.  It’s the seconds of doubt that turn into gut-wrenching reservations and claustrophobic mind racing that drives me right back under my sheets until a glimmer of light breaks through the shades and my alarm goes off for the fifth time after hitting snooze in avoidance of having to screw the smile on and place nice with others.  It’s the darkest days and the brightest nights because there really is no good time I can escape it.   
   
My only saving grace is that because I explained what happened to me, my doctor's believed me.  That I have a job that I've been at long enough to qualify for family medical leave so that when I'm have "a day" I can get through it and not worry about my job being something I don't have when I finally am able to snap myself out of it.  I’ve officially been categorized, embossed, labeled with the word, “PTSD" and "Situational Anxiety.”  I feel like a sick scam. Who am I to say I’m hindered when there’s nothing visibly wrong with me; when some days I function at 110 percent and nothing can hold me back.  I swear I am most productive when I am so exhausted that no other human would be conscience, let alone functional.  There are many who have it much worse than me, and because my vices cannot be seen from the surface (because I don't allow the beast out of its cage for all to see) they’re perceived as fake.  It’s a bittersweet sentiment knowing my flaws are something that I'm able to process in a way that allows me to pretend they don’t exist while someone is watching.  I thrive in the precious moments I spend being normal.  I cripple in the instances I must try to explain the place I’m coming from, the place no one will ever truly understand until they feel their heart stop beating in their chest only to accelerate far past a normal rhythm.  

 I'm getting better at deciphering/navigating/predicting what I need.  I refuse to let myself give in to the impulses that I used to follow without hesitation.  I have dyed my hair twice, once in November (I was hoping mid-way through my leave that it would help me feel better and of course it didn't), along with chopping 8 inches off and a couple of weeks ago.  I'm very much a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of person.  And aside from what happened, my life is pretty much the same;  but I'm not.  There just simply isn't calm in the familiar any more.  Despite being completely happy with the career that I have currently, I have applied for and accepted a job in the Oncology dept. of the same hospital I currently work at.  I hope to still stay per Diem where I work currently.  I thought that by keeping the same routine that things would fall back into place where they were before and that everything would be back to fine after a while.  I need a change.  As fearful as I am that it's not going to get better, I'm realistic that it's not going to be an instant fix.  Hope is more powerful than I could have ever imagined; and I have a lot of it.

I’m a fighter.  I hate the guilt I feel every time I have to plan my day around the amount of anxiety I've become programmed to anticipate and needing to to gauge whether or not I'm going to need something to get through it.  But I want to succeed.  I want to be truly happy without the after effects of it being more painful than exorcising a demon.  Every day I find something to be happy about and cherish;  and it's always paired with the overwhelming "what if?"  What if this never happened to me?  What if I am never going to be the same?  Then paired with "Do I even want to be the same?"  I'm done just doing the bare minimum just to get through the day.  I want to live, and not just in a shell of a body with blood pumping through it.  I would love nothing more than to get past this mess and be done with it.  That's my dream.  Here's to hope.

Disney Lied.

Disney is a farce,
And I'm kind of pissed.
I've been left wishing with my entire being 
That we had never kissed.
Love is dead.
No prince to swoop in when I fall and bump my head.
Heart is hurting.
My ego, bruised.
Wishing I could wear someone else's shoes.
No butterflies,
There's no eternal love story.
Only common sense in all its glory.
Alcohol is the only magic potion around here.
And it doesn't make one more beautiful,
More rich,
Or more dear.
If you grab and kiss the girl without permission
It's assault you're going to see.
A meet cute?
What's that?
You've got to be kidding me.
Acting like a floozy is trashy
But standards and an opinion, 
A horrible thing.
Wishing it was cute for me to lose my mind 
And randomly dance and sing.
No acts of kindness from random woodland creatures.
You were so beautiful to me,
You made me feel I was more than my features.
Falling for you I felt was rational,
But it left my sanity fractional.
The use of my brain I didn't forget this time.
But still allowed my walls to unwind.
Wounds gaping open I've never shown;
The pieces of my heart back together you had sewn.
Never needing to rush,
You always knew just how to make me blush.
You were always so understanding,
Accepting and kind.
But the Beauty doesn't get her Beast this time.
There's no magical carpet,
Not an ancient wishing well.
You sir,
Can burn exactly in Hell.

~Cynicallovebird

Well Shit...

The less you say,
the more deafening it is.
I intentionally aim my words to fall between the lines
you clearly don't know how to read.

Words are living creatures;
for if you leave them unspoken,
they will decay and fester.
They become a gory wound 
and they will never cease to gnaw the brain
and poison the blood until they are set free.

I struggle to choose them wisely.
The ones I know you don't want to hear from me, 
to avoid the ones that I know I can't bare the thought 
of hearing from you.

I guess I'll just keep throwing myself "out there"
into a trust fall,
mentally playing Plinko with my heart;
knowing you'll always be too busy texting to catch it.

~ Cynicallovebird ~

If I May...

If I may be so bold
as to interrupt the sanctity of the post-coital cocoon of silence,
I must say this moment is something I have become accustomed to craving.
This time the happiness has overwhelmed me to the point of silence.
There isn't much these days that stir my soul the same way your touch can.
It's as if your hug is my straight jacket on my worst of days.
My lips cracked and dry,
thirsting for connection.
For someone, anyone to understand me on my level.

"He gets me..."

What a tall drink of water those words are.
How satisfying it is to wet my whistle with such deep appreciation;
curling up in the curve of my lips.
A tangle of arms and legs.
Ears searching for breath sounds to ensure the other survived the whirlpool 
of simultaneous surrender and combustion;
of the push and pull of animal magnetism.
You sir, have calmed my calamity.

~ Cynicallovebird ~

Life/Mom Log #9

I find myself at the intersection of trying to live my life and trying to run from it.

I'm pretty sure after spending last weekend doing pretty much nothing but laundry catch-up from working for 2 weeks straight that I've come to the conclusion that the hardest part of doing it is resisting the urge to douse it in gasoline and set it on fire.

Last week was February vacation.  Let me just say this:  School vacation when you have teenagers is a vacation for no one.  They're bored out of their mind, but every time you suggest you all do something they don't want to because they're "busy" doing nothing.  They just kind of mope around, eating everything in sight and leaving a trail of whatever they were last holding in their hands that managed to be discarded to the floor in their wake.  The trash can has become a guideline rather than a rule for disposal.  You come home from work to your house smelling like a locker room because they forgot that the shower exists - like, the entire frigging contraption at all.  It's a part of your bathroom that doesn't exist anymore.  The laundry hamper?  What the hell is that?  Long gone are the days of being entertained by the snow;  now they're just zombies with electronics glued to their faces.

Thursday afternoon, I did my usual, sit in the car and play around on social media for a minute, while I brace myself to walk through the door and find a magical mess-making tornado had visited.  Because, you know, paper towels place themselves on the floor and food magically walks itself upstairs into the children's bedrooms where it doesn't belong....  I could hear them yelling at each other from my porch when I came home from work.  As soon as I walked through the door and got a pleasant "Hello Mom" from my son and my daughter yelled "thanks", I realized that it wasn't angry yelling.  They were giving each other tips on what to do and where to find stuff  in the video game on their tablets; that they were playing against each other, from separate rooms of the house.

Deep breath.  Mentally added to the things that if I did as a kid, I'd be dead.  Get over my generational outrage that they're interacting with each other electronically.  They're getting along.  If this is how it has to happen, then so be it.

Over the past month off and on I've been battling anxiety attacks that put me in a strangle hold and won't let go.  It has been Hell.  Hopefully things are turning around, I feel much better over the past couple of days.  I think it helps to take a minute and realize what I need to get through it and just go with it.  If your body is telling you "let's lay in bed and eat ice cream and watch New Girl on Netflix until your eyes feel like they're going to fall out of your head", and that's what you need to do to reset your mind, do it.  When there are times when your mind won't stop and nothing you do will reset it, leave your environment and do something else.

I've pretty much stopped taking selfies.  I don't know why.  It almost feels like my arm is missing and it freaked me out when I realized about two weeks ago that the last selfie that I took and posted to social media was on Thanksgiving....it used to be daily.  I chopped 8 inches of my hair off in November when I went back to work.  I had to, it was breaking off and falling out in clumps.  I've missed my hair.  It's growing back in stronger though, I'm glad for the reset.  On an observational note though;  when everyone freaks out about your new hair "because they really like it!!  It looks soooo good!!", did it look that bad before?

I deleted my POF account.  This time for multiple reasons, and not the same reasons that I did it the last time.  Frankly, I'm not in the market for pointless attention.  I don't need it anymore.  There was a point where I couldn't function without it and now I find myself not wanting attention of any kind unless it's coming from someone that means something.  Someone who calls when they say they will.  Someone who's actually met me.  And maybe a little bit because I don't want attention from anyone but the one person that my brain shuts off around.  Like seriously, I mean an actual, real, live, breathing person.  Whom I sit down next to, and the world literally STOPS.  One who, when they're around, I feel calm and calamity colliding all at once.  Trying to wrap my head around that one....

If you don't have goosebumps, you should.

Anyways, more on mental health and relationships to come.  Be good to each other.  Peace out!

Questioning The Questions

I woke up fully loaded with questions today and every single day for the past week about the same things.  Just thought I'd throw that disclaimer out there before you proceed.

Are relationships allowed to have existential crisis's too?  Or could it just be considered a reevaluation of what a person's existence in our world is.  Is it a good thing?  Are we bringing each other something of value to the table?  I think that if we can't take a moment and appreciate a person for who they are and what they bring to our lives, even if it's just cheez-it's, then we are doing the relationship entirely wrong.  And let's face it, cheez - it's are pretty damn great.

At what point do our shells crack?

You know the one.  The one that we put up around ourselves in self preservation to, for lack of a better term, avoid what we're really experiencing.  For some, it's the "I'm fine" statement, the "my life is perfect/great/wonderful" posts on social media, it's the "I can do it all, look at me doing it".  For me, it's pretending that what I'm experiencing isn't even happening.  That is, until it's impossible to ignore.  And here we are.....

When we're in a relationship that is clearly (and hopefully) not ending any time soon, at what point do we allow what they other wants to eclipse what we need?  When the hell did I become the soft boiled egg?

When my last relationship ended, I thought it might be better to be alone than to seek out what I knew fully that I wanted.  Not because I thought I'd be happy alone;  it was because I was (am) afraid that if I allowed myself to be in love and it fell apart again, I might not make it this time.  What if I drop my walls and allow someone in, and like it, and lean on it and curl up inside?  What if I shape my life around it and it all suddenly falls apart?  Losing something you love might as well be losing a limb.  The only difference between that kind of pain and death is that it could go on forever.  I'm pretty sure that I've decided that I'm through wincing in anticipation of it.  **as I wince while typing that statement...figure that one out**

I'm not the kind of person who can just run my finger down a person's soul and jump to my favorite parts of them.  It is my biggest pet peeve of human behavior.  Pigeon-holing.  Putting people in boxes.  I hate it when people do that to me, and I want no part in doing that to others.  I want to read through every chapter and take my time doing it.  Taking comfort in the dog eared pages of what inspires them the most;  hearing all about their favorite memories and creating new chapters.  I'm the kind of person that has a heart with a corner in it that's all yours once you're allowed access.  And I don't mean for now, or until I've found somebody else;  I mean forever.  What I mean to say, is that even if I fall in love a thousand times after you are gone from my life; if you ever are, there'll always be a small quiet place in my heart that belongs only to you.

Much to the chagrin of my ego/pride/heart/brain....I have caught feelings for someone;  but I fear that telling them may burn my world to the ground.  I'm cool as a cucumber on the outside.  Inwardly, I'm terrified by his ability to weaken me.  Why am I so scared that it's not the right thing?  That I'm putting too much pressure on them for there to be more.  Which I haven't put any pressure at all on them, because I haven't said anything.  Or maybe I've said things, when again, I can't not say what I'm thinking anymore.  Frankly, I think I'm ok at the moment with how things are;  at least for now, but I also can't get rid of this scratching in the bad of my mind begging the question to be asked if things could be better.  Maybe it's just the part of me that wants to wake up next to someone in the morning for a change.  To look forward to going home to.  I feel like a complete and total chicken shit around them and I have no idea why, yet he is the one person I have never been anyone but myself around from the second I met them.  That has never happened in the history of me having a crush on anyone.
I almost feel sorry that my feelings have invaded his personal space.  And then I get kind of angry because is that really the kind of thing that you should ever have to apologize for?  All I really know right now is that I'm happy and when it comes to them I feel...settled.  However, my brain and heart feel like a couple of break-dance fighting ninjas are having their way at the gates of Reason and LaLa Land.

If I've learned anything over this year of Hell, is that if I want the crappy things to stop happening then I have to stop accepting crap.  And yet, here I am;  not that I'm saying that I'm accepting crap, but I feel like I'm maybe accepting something that's less than what I want.  Or maybe I'm just not patient enough to realize that what I want is right in front of me.  That maybe, just maybe something really great could be experienced if I let my shell crack.  And maybe stop trying to hold it together with duct tape.  Maybe.

Fish Fingers And Custard

SINCE THE DAY I LAID EYES ON YOU

I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO BE SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

SOMETHING DREW ME IN AND I HAD TO KNOW YOU.

THE DAMAGE CAN'T BE UNDONE.

THIS FALLING FOR YOU AT AN ALARMING RATE 

SURROUNDED BY SILENCED SIRENS 

IS LEADING ME TO THE ONLY PLACE I WANT TO BE.

INSIDE UNENDING CONVERSATION 

AND REELING AT THE WAY THAT OUR 

UNCONNECTEDNESS FOUND EACH OTHER.

I DON'T KNOW HOW I MANAGED 

TO FIND MY WAY INTO YOUR EYES,

BUT I AM NOT EVER GOING TO LEAVE VOLUNTARILY.

IN A WORLD CONSUMED WITH BEING FIRST FOR EVERYTHING

I HAVE DIED A THOUSAND DEATHS INSIDE

WISHING WITH EVERYTHING I HAVE 

TO BE YOUR LAST.

-Cynicallovebird

Bridges

Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Just walk away.

You know me better than that.
Of course I'm going to look back at the bridge of ours.
Yes, that's right.
The one that's burning.

I stand there breathing.
Inhaling the scent of survival.
Exhaling your grip on my heart.
It's breathtaking.

-Cynicallovebird

2016 Can Suck It

Lately, my mind has felt like a junk drawer that's been emptied onto a trampoline.

I haven't written anything about what is going on in my life in quite awhile.  An actual blog post.  In fact, over the past year I've barely written anything other then poetry;  which in itself does share information, maybe?  I'm looking forward to a new beginning with this new year and that is why I think more so now than ever I've been so reflective.  I'm going to take this as an opportunity to sift through the rubble that was 2016, and hopefully cleanse the karmic pallet so that maybe, just maybe 2017 won't be such a cluster fuck.

Here's to hoping.  Have a comfy seat, this may take awhile.

This time last year,

I got a new car.  I also went out on a date with the car salesman.  That was also the same night I saw The Force Awakens and fangirled super hard.  After getting in a fight with my ex for following me and taking pictures of me on my date because I wouldn't tell him who I was going to the movie with, I was asleep for maybe an hour before I got a call from my sister.  Mom was being taken to the E.R. by the police.  Before I knew it, I was in the emergency room sifting through the rubble of my childhood and repressed memories as my mother was being involuntarily committed for attempting suicide.  Being the oldest and 2 years older than my sister and 5 years older than my brothers, I had to sit them (and several counselors) down and explain how I was fully aware that this behavior that she was displaying was nothing new to me.  They don't remember any of it, because they were babies.  That I remember going out in the middle of the night with all of us kids in our Jammie's to find my mother at wherever she disappeared to for a week to party and left us with my stepfather.  I remember him dragging her back home.  I remember her manias and projects of the moment that were all the rage until she got bored, like ceramics classes and making dolls out of raffia and crocheting.  Her fits of rage were only ever directed at me, that's why they don't remember them.  The constant control that she had to have over everything.  This time, she had fallen in love with (yet another) random guy who told her he loved her one day and then the next day didn't even act like he knew her and told her that she imagined it.  She was unhappy with her life, and this threw her into another mania and she was drinking and taking prescribed pills incorrectly.  This night, she was parked in his driveway as she texted and called him and he refused to come outside to talk to her.  She had been drinking for most of the day.  She threatened to kill herself to him and did take a handful of her medication in her car and he called the police.  For several months she had been sneeking off to see this person and lying to everyone and I would get random texts from her asking me to tell people that she had been at my house;  to which I would tell her that she wasn't and that I wasn't going to lie for her (I had no idea what she was doing).  To put it the only way that I can, the day that for 35 years I had been bracing myself for came.  In March she left my stepfather who had been in my life since my brothers were 6 months old and they divorced.  She moved in with the guy that she attempted suicide over.  She still lives with him, but she has cut all ties with our family.  She doesn't answer the phone when I call.  She quit a really good job that she had to be with this guy full time and be financially reliant on him;  a man that she has known for less than a year.  I have seen her about 6 times since she moved in with him;  we used to go shopping once a week, talk almost every day.  A week after my son's birthday I finally texted her and asked her if she was even going to acknowledge his existence and she said that she had been busy, called him and promised to take him somewhere for his birthday.  That was in July.  She never did.  In October I met this guy.  Only because I was being held hostage at the gas pump as they parked next to the one I was at and I made small talk with her.  She has this look in her eyes that she has only in her high moments, and others have said that same thing, it's like she almost stuck in a permanent state of mania.  She's almost entirely unrecognizable when you talk to her.  She looks the same, but she isn't there anymore.  My sister said that she has told her things and calls her when she's low and having a breakdown.  She doesn't come to me with it anymore.  I won't lie for her, and I won't tell her that her decisions are OK or healthy.  I would love nothing more than to have a relationship with her, but it's not my job.  I'm the kid, she's the parent.  And if the day comes where she ever wants to act like it, then I'm here.  You don't just up and abandon your entire family and life.  I won't get into the rest of my life or hers, but I can say that I think it's harder to be abandoned by a parent as an adult than it is as a child.  My entire life as I knew it is just....gone.  My aunt that she's randomly in contact with and I were talking the other day and it hit me and I just blurted out "I feel like I'm just waiting for the phone call that tells me that she's dead."  My adult mother, a mother of 4, grandmother to 6, who has been the pillar of her family, has been replaced with someone with the mental capacity of a 15 year old juvenile delinquent.

Oh, and my step dad are hugging now.  Yeah, it's a thing.  For the first time in 30 years.

I was catfished and stalked by my ex of 7 years.  We had been broken up for a year and had remained friends, only for him to lose his shit entirely after I started dating someone new and didn't hide the fact that I was happy.  I have a protection order against him.  I don't really have a lot to say about it.

The guy that I was dating turned out to be nothing more than an exploration into the depths of my soul.  I wanted things from him that I had never wanted from anyone.  Felt things that I had never felt.  We still talk from time to time, but it is definitely a closed book relationship-wise.

The only thing that I really can take away from any of that is this:  It's really hard to reconcile the difference between the person that you wanted them to be and who you thought you knew or the person you wish they were;  and the person they really are.  A person that I, at one point, trusted with my entire being and was going to spend the rest of my life with.

I went out a lot after that.  I drank way more than normal.  Being alone with my brain is a really bad thing sometimes.  There's some posts that I wrote about it all earlier this year:

There Might Be Life On Mars After All

I dated a little bit here and there;  nothing that really fit but I still talk to them from time to time.  I have written a few posts about my feelings about dating.  In other words, I hate it.

Dating Can Go Fuck Itself

I have been seeing someone, and I'm not quite sure what to say about it, not because it's a bad thing, but because things are different and it's almost like I'm afraid to.  I have things to say but I think they're best saved for a different time.  I have written this about it though,

You
In Between Normal

Things on the job-front are going well.  In July my boss was appointed regional director of our department and my hours changed, for the better.  I have Wednesdays and every other weekend off and only work 6:30a - 2p and am home by the time the kids get off the bus every day but Friday when I work 10 hours.  I also have a per diem position as Unit Secretary in the Oncology Department which I also love.

My camp was broken into by a bunch of jackass teenagers looking to party.  They had the nerve to write a note in our family journal;  things to the extent of "this place was too shitty to have a party in" and we'll be back, and listing all of the things that they took.  The place has no electricity and is basically a bare bones hunting lodge, but it's been in my family since the 40's and it's my sanctuary.  Nothing of any importance, like the handwritten letter my grandmother wrote or other things that can't be replaced.  My brother went down to the private beach and found the camp chairs that were taken left there.

The kids.....Oh parenthood.  The battle continues.  My daughter entered high school and I haven't cried.  She's still bugging me for a smartphone, which I refuse.  Not only is it going to bring my bill up $20/mth, she's still very irresponsible with her stuff and her room is disgusting all the time.  Most people I've run into seem to expect to be given full access to everything that they want right now with no expectations of responsibility.  Be responsible with what you have now and show that you can be trusted, and then I'll trust you with a $500 phone.  How does this not correlate?  Still honoring their privacy, but I have another post of about this entirely.

This summer was filled with working almost every day, and a few adventures thrown in for good measure.  Had a few really epic photoshoots and 1 grand adventure up in Northern Maine to see some abandoned trains that I hope to do again this year.

In November the stress that I forced away finally caught up with me and I ended up taking 3 weeks of short term disability to get a handle on my mental health and to sort out what it is that I really need in my life.  I started therapy.  It has helped, but then there's also the whole, "sharing my life" and sorting things out that always leaves my heart feeling like a squished grape.

During the time away, I dyed my hair.  Yes.  The one who stopped dying her hair as a coping mechanism.  I truly hoped that it would help me feel better.  It didn't.  So then I put it into a ponytail, and had my daughter cut it off.  8 inches.  I miss it terribly.  Not that it looks horrible now, I just got used to it being long;  that, and it looked really good.

People usually don't understand that there is a big difference between generalized anxiety and PTSD.  For me, it's not about what might happen.  It's about what did happen.  It's not about worrying, it's about flashbacks and remembering, and worrying that it's going to happen again, no matter how irrational.  It's accepting the fact that maybe I'm not the best mom on the planet, but I'm their only parent and at the very least even though I'm certain I'm screwing them up entirely, I'm not telling my children that they are ugly and that nobody is ever going to love them.  During my time out of work there was only a handful of people that I talked about it with.  And I got the same reaction every single time.  "I had no idea there was anything wrong with you."  And how would you?  For 35 years I have held it together because I've had to.  How would you know that I don't have my shit entirely together when I'm fine until I'm home alone and I'm showering and I can't remember if I locked the front door and I'm a terrified, weeping mess at the bottom of the tub?  You had no idea that I was functioning on 3 hours of sleep almost every night.  I still have to pull myself together and earn a paycheck and raise my kids.  I consider the fact that I showered AFTER taking the kids to school Wednesday last week and not freaking out to be a major victory.  It was first time I had tried it since the last time, in September;  because whether I realize it at the time or not I avoid normal, every day activities in avoidance of triggering my brain to go haywire.  And I'm sleeping almost entirely through the night without medication.  Go me.

I touched on it in this post:

Let Me Take A Selfie
and
There Might Be Life On Mars After All

Everything else in between for posts are pretty much crap I wrote when I had a random thought or a boy made me think of him.  He who shall not be named, or He who is shall forever be referred to by my friends as Satan.

It wasn't entirely bad:
My grandmother survived a heart attack in April.  I welcomed a new niece into the world just after Thanksgiving.

My new year was kicked off by attending a surprise wedding.  My aunt got married.  Everyone thought they were just coming over for a housewarming party and she got married in her living room.  It was hands down the best wedding ceremony that I have ever been to.  This month holds a lot of big things, like the fact that in 6 days my daughter is going to turn 16 and my dog will be 10.

Here's to hoping that 2017 doesn't suck.

Through

It's not when my mouth is going 100 mph 

And my eyes are running like faucets 

And the cliche Angels and Demons are racing the Indy 500 in my head 

That you should be worried if we're through.

It's when my heart and brain are finally are on speaking terms

And your voice feels like a sword in my ear. 

When the hardness that lives in the center of me has locked you inside it

And I simply have nothing more to say to you

That means you're screwed.

Because that is when I'm completely finished.

I never thought the day would come when we were just done.  

Where I would feel nothing in my bones for you at all.  

No more waiting for you to wake up and realize you miss me.

No more hoping you'll call. 

I just started living again.

Not everyone's kiss means the same thing.

Temporary feelings and fucking around

Create permanent memories and hurtful scars;

Remember that.

Sometimes the past is your teacher

And other times, regret is.

Come on over and suck on my last straw,

I dare you.

-Cynicallovebird

Love Monster

I will never forget how carefully you look at me when I'm describing 
the wreckage of who I am.
I have a exterior of strength and independence
and an interior that feels a certain neediness.
Much to my demise,
you seem to understand just the formula 
that is made solely to protect the fragile thing underneath;
Which is all of it.

I said I was busy
I was, but not in a way that most people would understand.
There is something inside of me that I've always been aware of;
a hollow core filled with all the emotions I could never let escape.
Then the day came when they found the key and I felt them all at once.
I've been lost in something scary;
My reality became nightmarish
and my mind was locked away and screaming;
my heart sobbing in the corner

Healthy?  Unhealthy?
Who knows.
I simply no longer had a choice.
In they crept;
Under my nails,
crawling beneath my skin,
forced down my throat to the pit of my stomach.
Sending me into a current too strong to control on my own.
And there you were.  
Just there.
In the one place that nobody has ever been allowed access to.

I was busy silencing irrational thoughts
I was busy calming my shattered heart.
I was busy convincing my mind that it was okay 
until it saw sunlight again.
Sometimes, this is my busy.

Don't be too quick to cuff yourself to my crazy
I'm a no-win situation
I need to be loved hard or not at all
Love,
Oh love,
it makes a monster out of me.

Thinking Over Coffee

You called me.
Your voice reeked of drama and desperation;
Even more so than usual. 
Telling me things I have no business to care about.
That was the part that was out of the ordinary for even you.
I guess we can just chalk it up to being another one of your testosterone driven attempts to wreak havoc upon my heart.
The disappointment in your voice 
at the realization that I wasn't buying was fascinating. 
And if I take a moment to admit it, satisfying, even.
Every time the story of us crosses my mind,
Little by little the importance you once held in me 
is chipped and falling away.
This morning I peeled myself away from my needy bed 
and brewed my espresso with gusto that today will be the day.
I sit watching the steam rise from my "Happily Divorced" mug 
and follow it to the intersection of hope and hopeless.
How am I supposed to forget you 
when even my morning coffee reminds me of you?
Hot and comforting.
Strong, bold, yet sweet.
Something that even I am convinced 
that I cannot get through my day without.
I might as well be squeezing 
my perpetually bleeding wound of a heart in my hands.
My nails dig in deeper and I gasp at the realization that I'm 
still waiting for the day to come where you cross my mind 
and I can't remember how long it's been since the last time.
The day that I stop worrying that I'll never be able to create art as beautiful as your curiously gentle grin.
Maybe I was selfish by begging you to pick me for once;
Just like a kid reacts when something they love 
is being taken away from them.
Bewildered that trying to make you gone from my head 
has made you even more present.
It's as if you can feel me saying goodbye to you. 
Just when I feel that I might be winning,
You seem to feel the need to reach out to prove me wrong.
I'll make you a deal:
You do the remembering for once,
While I do the forgetting for a change.
Maybe then our hearts will finally be even. 

Lust

I remember the first time I fell in love with sexuality.
I've been high off it ever since.
They carry it so casually;
As if you all have no clue my legs are threatening to give out beneath me.
I think that is what makes me so giddy.
That you have no idea how gorgeous you really are.
You are oblivious to what a girl would give to live wrapped in your eyes for just a day.
And the desire....

It's relentless.

My hands are on fire.
They ache terribly to reach out and touch
the stranger I've fallen deeply in love with.
My feet are planted firmly to the ground
And silently chastising the lesser of my being that aches to wrap myself around you.
I respect all that you are too much to pout or grovel or beg;
but to say that I was just as composed on the inside would be a flat out lie.

My heart is a graveyard.
Everything is buried in there as deeply and repressed as possible,
But when they talk about love,
I swear I feel them scratching at the back of my brain
Trying to make room for you.

I question.
I over think.
I insert fear into things that never carried any danger to begin with.
I leap off of sky scrapers built with my own mind.
Maybe this is nothing.
But what if it's everything?

So here I remain.
Planted.
Silently, painfully
Admiring the art of you, 

The stranger in the Hall.

Resignation

You always acted like you could live without me.
Why are you so angry?
I'm just helping you do it.

I somehow led myself to believe that you were much more magical than you really are.
I can't say who's at fault for that,
nor do I want to spend another millisecond trying to analyze and calculate blame.
I can't stand it when another person is unhappy
but they refuse to do anything about it in the interest of avoiding confrontation.
You cannot change what you don't confront.

Sometimes we make mistakes and when we do,
we aren't willing to just accept that maybe,
just maybe,
it's okay to admit that it doesn't work for us and move on.
Well, I have a secret to tell you:

If it doesn't feel right, it's because it's not right.

I never wanted wanted to be loved because I am good for you.
I'm not everything you have been looking for.
You made it clear that I'm not the one who gets under your skin;
Who made you unsteady.
You never questioned everything you've ever believed about love looking into my eyes.
The one you were infuriatingly and inexplicably drawn to;
Like I was to you, unfortunately.

You say you think this time you've found the one in one breath
and tell me how miserable you are in the next;
but we both know you still spend time thinking about me.
The love I felt for you in my hands can't be replaced with her touch.

Congrats.
You drove a really good person away out of her life
because in your testosterone filled,
so-called manliness you felt so insecure that you had to prove that you could do it.
What the fuck have you won??
How many lies does this make now?
Did it make you feel any better that you destroyed a friendship?
Our friendship.
Her friendship.
Guess what?
A real person who is an adult,
would have been honest with you about them being in their life in the first place.
Any person with any amount of respect for themselves
would never allow another person who cares about them feel worthless
or question their role in that person's life.

None of that would matter to you if you were happy.

You were wrong about him, by the way.
You're not the better man.

I felt betrayal and loyalty tangled up in my hair.
I believed in beauty looking straight into your ugly truth.
We became the best and the worst for and from each other.
And it's all over now.

The saddest part of all is that you're giving her less love and she doesn't even realize this
because she's settled into a bed with someone who isn't even there.
But you're refusing to give up on what doesn't work for you
and holding everything that will at arms length out of your own ignorance.
I've found my voice and my strength and I'm moving on from you
And you're stuck with a bitch who lied.
And none of it matters now,
Because I'm done.

"These are all of the things that I love about you.  You're so trustworthy and amazing. I want you to always be yourself;  but in this one case don't do any of that.  Lose your integrity.  Drop your morals about twenty notches.....nope, lower......there ya go!  That's it.  Now, keep your mouth shut.  It's not lying if you keep your mouth shut."
No I won't.  Yes it is.  Fuck.  Directly.  Off. 

Happy Anniversary

I'm in love with you.
It's as simple,
and as complicated as that.

Love is not something you can end on purpose.
I should know,
I've thrown myself off of emotional cliffs and into oceans of alcohol trying to.
I can swear I'm moving on or do my best to forget you ever existed,
but inevitably I'll still be thinking about you.
Somehow you've always had a way of showing up.

A poem like ours can never truly be finished in the soul of a poet like me.
I suppose that this is why I keep coming back to you for inspiration.
I can't get rid of the nagging in the back of my mind
that I'll finally be able to make peace with our broken pieces.

Are you free tonight?
Let's meet at that place we always talked about going back to.
We should have a drink.
I think our demons should have a chat.
Perhaps they can finally take their claws out of our backs.

Please forgive me for all the things my eyes are screaming at you,
My brain never seems to shut the hell up.

You were born of the earth and I of the sea.
My eyes the color of the tumultuous green ocean and yours of the calm blue sky.
I feel like I'm always struggling to keep up with your ever calm heart 
With my ever racing mind.
I that can't help but feel like if I crash into you persistently enough
your beach will give in and fall into me;  but it hasn't yet.
I should know better by now.

I have always managed to expertly maneuver myself through waves of emotion
Refusing to glance back at all the things that I know I would feel 
If only I had allowed myself;
But something has always been in the undertow.
There are days I've spent watching you,
Feeling like I have to throw myself off of cliffs to hold your attention.
I don't get why;  
I've never been one to beg like a puppy dog.
Hell, I've never even been loyal half the time.

The ghosts of what ifs haunt me quietly.
There's a small place in my mind without any cracks.
It's a place I always revert back to when love tries to creep in;
And here now with you as my thoughts cease in my quieted mind
My heart sinks at the notion and wonder yet again
That if love is supposed to bring us higher
Then why are we letting it down by not being in love with each other.

I've never met someone who saw the traits in me that i detest and ignore
Instead everyone falls in love with only the ones that I keep polished
When we met I was busy sifting through the rubble of my broken heart;
All of this messiness was right out in the open
And you accepted me as I was at the time.
And I can't help but wonder if loving me would be easier
If I would just accept the fact these aspects of me exist 
Rather than apologize profusely for it.

On Sticky Notes

I have a constant need to get what is in my head out of it.  I have a sticky note app on my phone that is filled with nothing but random thoughts, things that inspire me, and at times racing thoughts dictated while doing other things when I can't be near a computer.