"Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you will ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is you want..." - Janet Fitch: White Oleander

I am blessed to have found the very great exception.

And so I wait...

I can't remember the last time I felt this way.... so void.... so empty....despondent to the heart of me....
alone, always. And yet at the same time so full...

....So full that I overflow with something that wells up from within me. The way a bucket filled with water will slowly reach it's capacity and suddenly spill over. Unable to hold or carry the weight of it's contents any longer.

I think that's what it is. That I am full. Overwhelmed. There is no room left in me. Everyone keeps giving me their tears, their angers, their sorrows; their pain so affectingly palpable that I have no room left to console myself. Parts of them washing over me, leaving emotional traces of each one on my clothes, my hair. Their scent seemingly something only I can smell, intermingling with mine; and no matter how hard I try, I can't scrape them from me. My mind not mine anymore, now an assisted living facility for every broken heart without a home. Hurts abandoned and left to linger in shelter as their owners adopt new wounds to care for.

I am transparent. Unseen, unheard, unfelt by those I love so dearly.
I'm so tired. Too tired to breathe today....too tired to try.

It feels as though I stay silent for so long, waiting for something, someone to feel all that I feel, and think. Someone who could really know me, without explanation, without words. To find solace in the simple honest silence of a heart that sees all...and yet, holds you still.

Time...time....time.....passes. More and more I feel it coming and leaving, leaving an imprint in that moment. I carry it with me, on me, in me.

Holding on for dear life to anything that feels real, and true.

Soon something, some moment will lift me, up above the physical constraints of this body, to a level of intimacy so deep that I will sink in the comforting beauty of it. I will drown myself in it and let it have all of me.

Then everything will move on again and I will be renewed.

Reborn....for a while at least.

And with that my soul will find rest.

Until then, I will remain... a ghost, watchful, awake and longing... for the me that comes alive in that one moment passing by...

My Diagnosis

Lets talk for a moment about how absolutely crazy I've been as of late. I have been happy and somber, elated and devestated, high as a crackwhore and down in the depths. More accurately I've been swimming around in them in fact, not all that eager to leave. Why? Good question. Lets take a close look shall we? Personally I think there are a number of contributing factors to my current mental state.

A) Not enough quality one on one time with my loves. With the people closest to me, the ones who know me inside and out, where time with them is easy and effortless. Where it doesn't matter where we are because being around them is so completely natural to me that it feels like home regardless of the venue. Because the truth is that being in their presence makes me immediately step up, they inspire me to be the very best version of me. Simply because I want the best for them. I want to give them my best. Period.

Without this, I'm gonna be a lost cause every time. It throws my emotional balance off. Given enough time apart or alone I begin to isolate and internalize everything. I become quiet and observant, taking it all in. .. holding it and analyzing it over and over until often it no longer carries the meaning intended but some perversion of the truth created by my insecurities. Left alone too long, I can convince myself that that is exactly what I need.. to be alone, that that is how it should be. At times I just can't get myself out of my head and frankly it's exhausting.

B) Winter's a fucker. Winter and it's below hypothermic in 10 seconds without a house around you as a barrier is bullshit. Then it decides to partner with the sun and really fuck you over by saying, " hey sun dude, take a break, you've earned it, working hard all summer. I got this. I'll just through up a few grey clouds and some whip up some howling winds and viola! Depression. Grey is so trendy these days! Nothing like a dismal abyss weatherwise and a severe lack of Vitamin D to really put a little pep in your step." yeah, the Belljar is unfortunately conveniently located right next to my King Size bed that I'm already a big fan of and rather well acquainted with. So there's that.

C) I'm a going on 8yrs sleep deprived mother of two amazing kids, kids that I love and adore, kids that I will do absolutely anything for, they are my heart. ...kids that need a lot. From me. Of me. All of me. All of the time. Seriously. ALL OF THE TIME. I'm tired. So tired in fact that even when I do get the chance to sleep, I can't. Because I've crossed the point of no return and I am actually TOO TIRED TO SLEEP . ...Nooooooooooooooooo!!!..... (No this is not a myth, it is a real place parents, usually mothers go to functionally die. This means that the are pretty much "Zombie" Moms, that still function physically, walking around, making lunches, dusting things, but are mentally dead.)

D) I've been working through somethings, things that I'm saying good bye to from my past because it's time, things from my present that need to become my past, and those are all difficult things and it doesn't get done in a day. No matter how much I'd like it to. And so I have good days and bad ones. More good than bad I can happily say.

E) I'm a female.. (No really, put two and two together I shouldn't have to spell this shit out for anyone.)

F) I'm in love and that will just forever be the messiest most worthwhile rollarcoaster ride of absolute magical bliss and terror that I never want to get off. (Well... except when I want to "get off", if you know what I mean;)

Ahh now that's more like it. See I feel better already. Just talking it out with myself and some tunes. All is right with the world. As it should be....

Final Diagnosis: Full on Looney Tunes. Upside, I make a straight jacket look hot.

6ft Under

"You have my permission not to love me;
I am a cathedral of deadbolts
and I'd rather burn myself down
than change the locks."
-Rachel McKibbens; "Letter From My Brain To My Heart"

Our hearts were tethered together.
but I brought the hurt, so now I'll make it better.
My only way out is to cut myself.
Left for dead, and put back on the shelf.

Nothing worth a damn costs less than it all.
So I gave you my breath,
because I was starting to fall..
for you.

Until I read the words that you said.
Now I'm retreating to the darkness within.
Writing down memories, trying to expel,
those words and feelings that cut me to hell.
Cut to my heart, cut to my core.
Sliced me clean through, still thirsty for more.

My "I told you so's" berating me,
salting the wounds,
purifying through pain,
with scars that still bloom.
To make sure I never forget,
this absence of air and the taste of regret.

So still and silent,
cold and quiet,
I box up my heart...
and lay down beside it.
And listen to it say,
that I just shouldn't be,
tethered to a heart,
that I only make bleed.

------

"We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
In the lonely light of morning
In the wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything
That I've held so dear.

I've fallen...
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don't come round here
And tell me I told you so..."

- Sarah Mclachlan

"Our lives are not our own.  From womb to tomb we are bound to others. Past and present.  And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our futures." - Cloud Atlas

Yellow Light - Proceed with caution .. and joy.. and freedom.. and love

 "I would lie in bed and try to vanish. I was not old enough to understand what death was, exactly, but I recognized loss; I understood it was a kind of absence and I was determined to become that. I would close my eyes so tight I saw stars, I truly believed I could stay inside the hard clenched black and flip myself inside-out, becoming the reversal of light. Often, I would pray myself into a catatonic state: Let me go away. Let me stay in the dark. Let me be gone, over and over until the sun came up. I would go several days without sleeping, trying to manifest my end with heartbroken prayer. Sit for hours in front of the television, staring into the static between channels. I mistook the humming of my sleep deprived brain as a step closer to vanishing. It was the only thing I wanted. All the time." - Rachel McKibbens, The Ghost Daughter Speaks.

I read this and I couldn't keep it out. It was like someone was narrating moments from my life. It felt impossible, could it be that I was not alone? That someone saw me in that darkness and wrote down all my secrets? That's what I thought initially, instinctively. It made me feel.. naked, and heard. It's crazy how someone else can put words to your feelings and give your heart a voice when despite all the ways you tried and wanted to, so desperately, you could never seem to find them. The emotional and verbal paralysis that happens when your mind tries to save you by silencing you. But silence is the loudest voice of all. Replaying memories like film on a projector that never stops turning. I read this and it immediately takes me back, back to every night when this was my prayer. To just let me fall asleep and in the morning be gone. Be nothing. Be safe. Life is a scary place when the people that are supposed to protect you, hurt you instead. And you know it must be bad when a child's sweet dream is the one where the darkness protects her. Where if she could just find the right place to hide, from even herself, then finally there would be calm. Where the monsters in her closet are no where near as terrifying as the ones walking free in the daylight. Reading this, something let go in me, and I could feel myself breathing.. really breathing. I remember thinking how foreign it felt. And in that moment I realized that I'd been holding it for years, decades even. I wondered then, if I'd been holding my breath since that night, as scared to let it go and be heard as it was to leave me? And all these years and relationships later I finally understood why my breath always seemed to believe that it was safer staying right inside of me.

In spite of all of this I can honestly say I fought against myself, against every self preserving instinct I've ever had, when it's come to love. Always. I've turned myself inside out, and upside down, to be all the things that I want to, need to, to the ones I love. And in the process I've broken and re-broken myself, starting over again and again, forgiving them and myself for falling short, for disappointing and failing. And then choosing to get up the next day and start again.. because it's worth it. It will ALWAYS be worth it. Because I can't keep having my sweetest dreams be ones where I'm alone in the dark. Because as comforting and consoling and safe as that dark feels for me, there is one thing I will never find there... the warmth of another heart that loves me. There isn't room for that there, that is something I will only ever have if I can step into the light. It's hard too, the light, because there everyone can see you, and you can really see yourself, and there is no safe place to hide. The light of another's love exposes all, but it does something even more profound if you let it... it accepts all, and loves all. Not in spite of but because of.

So I'm ready to take a walk in the sun, to bask in the sun, to work on my tan even, but I am fair and fragile, so for safety sake I will be responsible and wear a little SPF. But I'm looking for a place to start...

------

"I'm looking for a place to start,
And everything feels so different now.
Just grab a hold of my hand,
I will lead you through this wonderland.
Water up to my knees,
But sharks are swimming in the sea.
Just follow my yellow light
And ignore all those big warning signs.

Somewhere deep in the dark
A howling beast hears us talk.
I dare you to close your eyes
And see all the colors in disguise.
Running into the night,
The earth is shaking and I see a light.
The light is blinding my eyes
As the soft walls eat us alive."

- Of Monsters and Men

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift." -  Mary Oliver