Category: Uncategorized

Destined for “Almost”

Leave a comment

My quiet, slightly messy apartment on a Saturday afternoon looks like a picture of mild chaos. Nothing is really disorderly, but there are way too many empty bottles in the kitchen from nights and nights of drinking, the carpet is coated in debris and cat hair, and my bathroom counter is scattered with the careless rushing of half-assed morning preparations.

I’m “this close” to getting the things I want: returning all of the bottles and having a clean place to cook; dismantling the computer desk–but first, to find places for all of the things on the desk…

I’m “this close” to going back to the gym. What’s my excuse now? I’m done with my writing apprenticeship; I have the time. I’m “this close” to writing a new song on guitar. I just need my muse.

Do we all tend to live in a place between chaos and order? Is that what makes us thrive, ultimately?

When things are too good, it’s boring. When life is a mess, we break down. But when the sine-wave of ups and downs form to create a rolling pattern of predictability, we find reprieve.

We need just enough chaos to keep us moving.

If that’s the case, then why do I feel like I can never catch up? Why is my mind pummeled by inhibiting thoughts of “never enough”?

I took on a writing apprenticeship to hone my skills in editing and writing. This is the first time I have felt inspired to write since it ended a week ago. I applied to continue with the program as a teaching assistant and was not chosen; I contacted them about being a volunteer editor and heard nothing. I need to keep trying–but my initial reaction is: Why am I not being heard?

This is my calling…or so I thought.

Everything in life that I have ever wanted I have wanted so ferociously.

A thousand pages of script written manically with sweat dripping off my brow; My soul being pulled through my mouth thread by thread until a pile of invisible karma lay in my palms, as I present it to my lover; The pounding of musical notes and harmonies reverberating into the cosmos… Everything I do is with utmost passion.

And yet it never quite seems to do. Everything just sort of slips through my hands at one point or another.

I have learned to let go so well that I’ve reached Zen Buddhist Monk status by now.

All of these things haunt me to a degree, still, as I am only human. Is it possible to be both a respected writer and musician? Do I have what it takes? Am I lovable enough to be worth committing to?

The most painful aspect of all of this wondering is that I am really scared that I am just not destined to have the things I want. I don’t want much, really. I want my words to be heard, I want to be a good friend and thought of respectfully, and most of all, I really want to be loved. I want to be loved so much that they cannot imagine a life without my presence. I want to be that precious to somebody.

I always put others first and not myself. I negate the things for which I long in order to compromise or give happiness to others. And it seems, in life, that others are totally fine with this.

Totally.

I am told I am so special. I am told so many other things than that, too, and yet I feel I’m not enough. And I know, truthfully, that I am not enough.

I am almost enough.

Sometimes Things Just Suck a Little & That’s Okay

3 Comments

[Some adult language]

My life has been something out of a story book, lately, so of course, it was only due time before it partially came crashing down on me. Don’t worry, everything is fine; I’m a bit down and a little stressed. Things just suck a bit.

For about a month now, I’ve almost steadily been on cloud nine with perhaps a day or two where I’ve felt a little bit grumpy or hormonal. Why is that? Well, my life is becoming what I want it to be. I have a new roommate, and things are going really well. I got a raise at work. I even have a new standing desk and have been going for walks at lunch time with my girls, so I’m feeling healthier. I also have an amazing connection with a truly beautiful man. He says things almost on the daily that make me swoon like mad. I am doing my writing apprenticeship and loving it. All ducks are lining up in their pretty, little row. Well, until yesterday and today.

Sometimes, things just suck a little. I feel far away. I haven’t seen this swoon-worthy man in over two months. He’s facing some difficult things right now, and I can’t even help him. I’m powerless, in the dark, and alone. I worry for him, yet have zero ability to actually do anything about it.

My first writing assignment for my writing apprenticeship did not come out exactly how I would have liked. I wanted better than that for my first submission. I have a hard time keeping up with all of the social media postings I have to do each day, and I turn down plans to be with friends. I probably spend well over the prescribed 12-15 hours a week towards working on this class, and that’s on top of a full-time job.

Most of the time, I don’t even mind these things. In fact, I love the alone-time. I like the pressure and challenge of my writing apprenticeship. But some days, and today is one of them, I am just worn down emotionally, and I feel like sleeping until all challenges cease to exist.

I want to be in the arms of a caring man. I want to keep my past in my past, instead of where it’s been creeping in lately, and I want to be the best goddamn writer I can be. In dire need to purge my household of extraneous physical baggage, I am constantly in a state of anxiety until that task is finished. It’s all a process.

Everything will be okay. At least, I think it will. I just need to remember that sometimes I don’t feel my best, nor do I act it. This is a sometimes thing, not an indicator of who I am in perpetuity. I am not perfect; I am only human. I falter, I take things personally, I feel shitty, and I worry excessively.

And some days, I rain love and affection in inspirational waves onto those surrounding me. Just depends on the day. Each moment is a moment from which to learn, and sometimes, you realize that you just need to get through the moment.

I was driving not too long ago, and as I crested the hill at sunset, so, too, emerged the brilliant, red-neon sun. It was only there for a few seconds before I made my descent, but it caught me off-guard. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the sun look so delicious like a sucking candy mounted in the sky. And that’s when I remembered that this is just another day. Beautifully radiant in its own way. Some good, some bad, some cherished moments, and some I’d soon rather forget.

There’s always tomorrow to try again. Sleep does wonders for the soul, as it washes away today’s stains and renews faith and hope. I wish it for everyone: for my friends, family, strangers, acquaintances, enemies, and for the man with the handsome smile, when he actually allows it to grace his scruffy face.

I cannot make others happy, because that’s not how life works, but I can make sure that I am taken care of, and that, in turn, allows me to be the reminder to those who need it of those blaring red-orbed days when there’s too much beauty to feel completely lost.

Worth Its Weight in Gold

Leave a comment

They weren’t kidding when they said, “anything worth having is worth fighting for.” I feel like I’ve been fighting my inner monologue for months on this one. He’s just so damn beautiful that I can’t help it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, willingly: he’s gorgeous. Like, stop, turn your head and gawk, gorgeous. But that’s not what I mean when I say he’s beautiful. It’s in the way he so thoughtfully tells me that I am. The way he clings to my shoulder when we’re sitting on the couch and only have precious hours together. How he smells when I am pressed against his neck in a long embrace. He’s beautiful when he remembers to tell me goodnight or when he makes himself vulnerable. He tells me that he doesn’t want me to hurt the way I’ve been hurt in the past and will do everything he can to avoid it. He tells me I’m a goddess. He is so damn beautiful, because he truly cares.

Doesn’t make this easy, though, because, of course, I had to find him in a not-so-convenient location and time in his career.

Anything worth having is worth fighting for.

On days when my brain shouts at me that I deserve better–that I should be with someone I can relish daily in the flesh–my heart remembers that she was there not too long ago and it wasn’t all that great. When I’m afraid that he’ll lose interest, because there are so many gorgeous girls in NYC and the industry in which he works, he reassures me that I am so attractive to him because he finds my mind sexy, too.

When I am feeling positive, which is most of the time, I am astounded at how I have found a man so amazing; it is hard to believe he’s real.

One day, I said to him: “You are the perfect combination of sultry, dirty, sweet, and tender.” His response: “Just to you. I feel comfortable being all those things with you.”

It’s like I awoke from a long, wintery nightmare and walked straight into a Disney movie. It’s surreal.

He says perfect things to me. No one is perfect, and I sure wouldn’t want him to be, but about 85% of the time, he is perfect. Five percent goes to his foibles, and the other ten to the distance and time spent apart. I like him so much that I actually look forward to fighting with him, missing him, or being worried about him…because, I want it all. Eating all the frosting off a cake comes with a bellyache, sometimes, and I am fully prepared to take it all on.

He says that I say perfect things to him. It’s second nature to me. I cannot believe another woman has never said the things I’ve said to him! And yet, for some reason, he’s astounded that I tell him what I crave about him, what I want, and how I feel. None of it is fabricated, and it rolls off my tongue so easily, because when something is so real, how can it not?

That man is my dream fantasy. It scares me to even think about it in depth at times. Like, what? This is insane! He is intoxicatingly beautiful. It’s like someone handed him the secret code to turning me on. He turns me on physically, emotionally, and mentally…it’s a trifecta.

Most of the time, after talking to him, I feel like I took some kind of opiate. I am drugged. Relaxed, but charged. Singularly-focused. Hazed and foggy. Caught somewhere in a chimerical dream and reality. It’s hard to come back down to earth after immersing myself in him, at times. I don’t think anyone has ever quite had the affect he does. It’s uncanny.

It takes all of these “good feels” each day to keep my mind positive when there are days where we don’t get the chance to talk a lot or when I have no idea when I’ll see him next. I could just say no thanks to the whole situation, but how can someone let go of something real when real is what they’ve been searching for their whole life?

I Was Just As Bad

4 Comments

[some adult language]

I remember it clearly: me, sitting in our old apartment bedroom by the desk; he was on the bed, facing me. The lights were out, but it was afternoon. We were arguing.

J pointedly says to me, “I had all the money saved, but then you acted the way you did, and now the money has been spent.”

In hearing these words, I burst into frantic tears–he was talking about the money for my engagement ring.

That was probably about five or six years ago. Some things you will never forget.

To what he was referring (with my behavior) was something completely fabricated, because J had paranoia issues and was very manipulative with his words out of fear of abandonment. He thought that the next door neighbor and I were bumpin’ uglies, when I was not even remotely interested, nor had I ever been. I only had eyes for J. But because it was so real to him and he felt the magnitude of the indignant righteousness, all of the money put aside to keep his promise to me went to drugs and cigarettes. Maybe a toy for himself or some magazines. I don’t know what he did with his money.

That man knew how to bite hard. The term “mind bullets” accurately fits how he would fight, because he was scathing and unforgiving in his choice of words. But to say that we argued would be misleading. I never fought back.

As part of my healing process over the past three years, I have divulged a lot about his and my relationship that, previously, I kept a secret. I’ve needed to in order to accept that it happened and to realize that I was taken advantage of emotionally. However, I am no saint. Not perfect or all-knowing when it comes to relationships, in the slightest. Part of the reason for our failure was my fault.

I never fought back. I never stood up for myself. I let him whip me over and over with his nastiness and sat there silently, tears leaking from my eyes. Some days, after the pain had been too much and I no longer felt it, I shrugged at him with a straight face and walked out of the room.

I was inactive.

Part of it was because I felt as though no matter what I said, he would twist my words. I felt manipulated. That’s true. Yet, most of it was fear of losing him. What did I have to lose? I was naive and didn’t recognize that I had already lost my integrity and sense of worth. Without excusing him for his behavior, I see the magnetic attraction to someone abusing something that is cowering in the corner. That’s how it works. I never asked for it to begin, but I allowed it to continue.

Sure, I could play the victim role, especially since I experienced emotional abuse from multiple partners–some of the things that have happened in the past year, alone, are enough to garner sympathetic hugs from listeners. Screw that, though, because no one ever gains forward momentum or breaks out of the cycle by the mere recognition of victimhood.

I am an active party in my life.

Shortly after the breakup, J called, harassing and hurting me. Every time I tried to speak up, he would cut me off. I yelled into the phone, “SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” His response was one of glee: “Finally! I have been waiting years for you to say that to me. Good girl. Good for standing up for yourself. You tell me to shut the fuck up. Do it.”

What? Yeah, that’s right. Not that it was ever okay to begin with that he was controlling my emotions, but he respected me the moment I gave it back to him. Things were different after that day.

angry

I finally had a voice. I finally had nothing to lose.

Unfortunately, I had to lose everything with J to find my strength to stand up for myself to him. Sometimes, that’s how a lesson is learned. I was no longer afraid of him, because he wasn’t mine.

Since then, I have the integrity to fight back. I never play dirty, but I communicate, and sometimes, fervently or with anger. I express what I need to, and I don’t worry about the other person pushing me away, because if they do, then that is a demon within themselves. It says nothing about me as an individual.

To gain this personal responsibility, I had to accept that I was part of the problem. I contributed to my own abuse by letting a man destroy my happiness and mental state for five and a half years. I could have left at any point; I could have stood up for myself. I didn’t.

I may not have asked to be abused, but I have a voice and two legs. I can speak up and get out whenever I need to.

I Love You More

Leave a comment

Several months ago, as I was sitting at my desk at work and looking out the window into the trees and sunshine, I drifted into thought that, admittedly, had nothing to do with aviation or training manuals. I was thinking about the concept of love, more specifically, the difficulty of finding a fine balance of it in a romantic relationship.

With my ex fiancé, we’ll call him “J”, we used to always say ILTFOOY to each other, and because we were really silly, we said it like this: “ilta-fooey“. It stood for “I love the fuck out of you”. We loved each other fiercely. Both being Pisces (our birthdays were one day apart), we could easily conjure up a fantasy existence in our living room, holding each other so tightly that our bodies actually quivered.

Our love was real and very pure. The problem was that J was more possessive with his love of me. He refused to share me with anyone, and I don’t mean sexually, I mean, like, I couldn’t have friends, or wear clothes I liked; I couldn’t attend parties, and I couldn’t form bonds with other humans. Period.

In my last relationship, the words “I love you” never spilled from my partner’s lips. And I waited. Two and a half years. At first I thought he was hesitant or fearful to say it. The more time that passed, however, I started to realize that maybe he just didn’t love me. Maybe he didn’t know how.

Being pulled into a disproportionate relationship, where all the love was on my side, made me miserable. It hurts more than anything to constantly feel like you want to express yourself with all of the affection welling up inside of you, but you can’t. I was ball-gagged and bound in my own relationship, which resulted in a skewed perception of myself and the constant wondering of what was wrong with me?

I’m terribly afraid that I’ll never find that balance. It seems like such a delicate thing. Any gust of wind can just swoop it up and carry it away. At any moment. That’s what relationships feel like to me, because I was involved in so many wrong ones. Will I ever get it right?

In the short period of time that my gaze fell upon the glistening snow, as we were deep into winter in New England, I realized that I am used to loving more. J’s love may have been more exclusive and intense, but I loved him so unconditionally that I still do to this day and always will. My love for the last guy was ineffable in the truest sense, since I could never express it to him.

Would I rather love more or be loved more?

Thinking about it, I had decided that I’m probably always going to be the one who loves more. I just made myself content to believe that. But, in revisiting that thought today, I really want to know what it’s like to be loved with the same level of compassion and respect as I give. A mutual, reciprocal connection. I never want to fear that I am being loved less. Thought of less. Fantasized about only occasionally.

I want heavily-panting, passionate, heart-exploding love.

I’m always going to love intensely. It’s up to the future love of my life to ascertain whether he can step up and match me.

Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way

Leave a comment

[some adult language]

I was speaking to a friend the other day, and she said something to the effect of, “Change sucks!” It made sense that her sentiment was as such, since she had recently broken up with her boyfriend.

Normally, I am not a big fan of change. Having a lot of anxiety naturally, I become very uncomfortable in new situations or when something suddenly shifts and is not what I was mentally prepared for or expected. Life lesson, Mandy: Things never stay the same.

But lately! Oh, lately, I have been lavishing in change. It is all around me like swift zephyrs of refreshing air. I love the way it tousles my hair and forces me to inhale deeply and think: This is new. I can handle this.

What changed my attitude? What’s that line from the movie, Idiocracy? (One of my favorite movies.) I think it goes something like, “Either lead, follow, or get out of the way.” I was definitely tired of following, and I had been getting out of the way for so long I was surrounded by suffocating vines of depression, stagnancy, lost motivation, and self-loathing. My only choice was to finally lead my own life.

Although I’ve hated change whenever it meant I was losing something I loved or was comfortable with, I also knew in the back of my mind that something good would come out of all the pain, inevitably. You have to prune the tree to get new growth. It’s just the way of life. However, recently, the changes have been so positive! I can get on board with these kind of changes. Heck yeah!

I have made decisions in the past month or so that will change things for me drastically:

  1. New roommate moving in, in July
  2. Writing apprenticeship, which is taking up ALL my free time
  3. Purging, purging, purging

Number three… This one is mainly because of number one. Why am I getting a new roommate? I have been living alone for three years, and I love it. I really do. It’s pretty amazing, and I suggest that everyone do this for a period of time at least once in their life. However, I want to save money. I miss companionship. It helps out my friend. So, this will be a massive adjustment, but I will make it through.

I need to get rid of things, to pare down my material existence, so there’s room for my friend! I have been putting this off for three years; what better time than now? I truly believe that emotional baggage is directly correlated to physical baggage. I have been donating, throwing out, and giving things away, and already, I feel mentally lighter. Some of these things were related to my old existence with my ex fiancé, and it just really was time to let go.

The biggest change of all is my attitude. I was tired of being a prisoner of my own negative thoughts. I am determined to take the dying plant and prune the shit out of it until it has no choice but to soak up the radiant sun and luscious water and GROW.

Being in a romantic entanglement with someone from another state forces me to be busy. To be positive. To be focused. I cannot dive in head-first and get lost in him, because he has his own life, too! This is a good thing for me. Really good. I like this change from the last relationship I entered, where all I wanted was to see him. I had the ability to see him whenever I so chose, but guess what? He chose to back-burner me a lot; I was lost in a neglectful relationship, which harvested a very negative self-image and worth. Ugh! How did I let myself get there?

This is the season for change. It is now. My mom always reminds me that I am in my Saturn years (it’s an astrology thing), where the choices I make now will impact the next thirty years of my life. I was drowning myself in alcohol, being lazy and unmotivated, and fearing I would never be loved. Is that what I want for my future? Fuck no.

So, I changed.

Flipping the Switch

Leave a comment

I have been lost in an endless sea; treading water in an unknown ocean. Three years ago, my soul mate walked out our apartment door–our home. It was the most selfless thing he’s ever done.

In his absence, I have learned to love myself and to embrace the things with which I feel impassioned. I started going outside more. I made new friends and reconnected with old. I played the guitar every day and improved my singing. I wrote incessantly like a madwoman, exorcising all of the years of latent agony which had caked up inside the walls of my heart and mind.

Simply, I began to live again.

In my beautiful rediscovery of self, I couldn’t help but get lost in a new lover’s strikingly breath-taking eyes. The intensity of passion I felt when staring at him was something I had not experienced in so long that I had completely forgotten what it felt like to burn with vivacity at that level. I became addicted.

Then, I lost myself.

For over two years, on and off, I talked about him. Breathed him. Dreamed him. My biggest concern was his happiness. I wanted nothing more than to look into those eyes forever. I fell in love.

Falling in love and losing yourself is like swimming out to the middle of a vast, open body of water. It’s overwhelmingly astonishing until you realize that you have no idea how to get home. You can’t even tell in which direction you should start swimming.

Eventually, you get tired and sink.

943431_orig

I have been really unhappy for a long time. You can be an unhappy person but still have moments of happiness. That’s how I would describe myself for the last two and a half years: As someone who was devastatingly incomplete but found happiness where she could.

Six months ago, a kindred spirit began to help me mend. He allowed me to express my deepest fears and the whole of my pain without trying to win my romantic love. This was a first for me. During this time, I began to examine myself in a new light. Instead of burying my pain or accepting my fate, I implored and urged my issues, anxieties, and fears to bravely surface and reveal themselves.

Finally, I began to heal.

It was probably two months after I started to recover that I reconnected with a friend I had met in late 2013. Now, when people use the term “drop-dead gorgeous” to describe a person, this is him. Sure, I was always attracted to him; I was very aware of the instant connection we formed the night we met, which grew over time. I was just so deeply submersed in cloudy, murky water I couldn’t see beyond that which was immediately present.

Very shortly after we reconnected, a dear friend of mine suddenly passed away. He, to me, was the embodiment of what it means to accept others and love unconditionally. I don’t think I ever heard him speak a negative word. About anyone. About anything. I am inspired with increasing intensity since his passing to spread love’s message with my actions and words. My handsome and compassionate friend proved himself to be much more than that during this stressful, painful time with his supporting words and the way he carefully handled my heart and my emotions.

I didn’t want to have feelings for someone new, nor was I totally ready for it. However, I had realized something in the time that passed since we reconnected: I had faith. I felt healthier. Maybe everything happens for a reason, and I was meant to form this bond now, because, now, I am finally able to see and appreciate the beauty of someone who doesn’t want to take advantage of me and actually cares about my happiness.

Little by little, I felt the pain of the past disengage like rotting driftwood and leave me.

However, this is not a love story. At least, not the kind you might be thinking.

I no longer believe it is healthy or okay to put all of yourself into someone else’s life, love, and happiness. In doing so for years, I completely forgot self-love and care. What about my goals and aspirations? I had none to speak of for a long time.

My kindred spirit friend asked me awhile back to write a list of goals, both personal and what I wanted in a partner. I did this exercise and began to see that this amazing man with whom I had reconnected fulfilled my “partner” list. Great. But what about my personal goals? One of my major goals is creating a plan. A life plan. I have always loved writing and want nothing more than to make somewhat of a career out of it.

As the days went by, I felt depressed. Stagnant.

Then, one day in late May I came across an article that was written for an online journal, which I have been reading for years. Their focus is on mindful living, whether it be through spirituality, loving the environment, pursuing wellness and healthy relationships, or practicing yoga. They believe in and promote anything that encourages and brings forth a better you and a better community. At the bottom of the article, there it was: a link to an online journaling/editing/writing apprenticeship. The deadline was the next day.

Without a second thought, I filled out the application.

Within the week, I received an email response congratulating me on my acceptance into the three-month-long program. I am a week and a half in, and I feel like a switch has been flipped.

In accordance with the Universe, I feel aligned. I feel happy.

Finally having a purpose again, especially one that is my biggest passion, I am excited every day to wake up. I don’t miss the man I don’t get to see often with quite the intensity and desperation as I have in the past months, because I am loving the time I am spending with myself.

This is the first step in my plan. I am doing it. I made it happen.

I single-handedly created my own destiny and my own happiness. No one else did it for me. No one else ever could.

All it took was the nudging from a kindred spirit, the inspiration of a passionate, tender man, and my own desire to be happy again.

I have not felt this way in years. I never want to swim in the ocean again. Burying my toes in the grainy shores of gratitude, rootedness, and self-fulfilling pleasure, I am writing my own story in the sand.