Love is patient, love is kind...so it goes...

I'm here again and I just feel so far.. from everyone and I get this moment of total terror when I think for a split second.. what if, just what if this time I can’t find my way back? These horrible sadness's and hollow feelings, brought on by pain are getting longer and longer and harder and harder to bear. I've read books and the articles, all kinds of articles on depression, watched shows and heard stories.. and I think, is this it, I’m I finally past the point of sad or everyday depressed and really actually clinically depressed? Then I think, no, I can’t be because I’m questioning it. So I’m not crazy. But then again, crazy and depressed are not the same thing are they. My trigger is heart break. That is always what wraps its hands around my throat and tries to drown me, pull me down and keep me under. Its fingers slick and powerful on my neck, forever squeezing. Sometimes my vision even goes black. I just blank out. The physical pain too intense and heavy to hold. It simply just crushes you, your voice, your motivation. Your only escape is to sleep. Sleep is comfort. Sleep will hold me. Sleep is the only friend I have in this war, the only refuge. There I feel safe, it’s like that air pocket in the sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean. The only oxygen you have, the only place that you can stick your head out and breathe… slowly, deliberately. Knowing that its all you’ve got standing between you and death.

But is death really so bad? Shame on me for asking, I must really be sick. At this point I say report me. I wouldn’t mind a little medication, a little numbing of the mind, to take the sting out of the heart would be more than welcome. To feel nothing would be a blessing. I think that in the big moments in life, when things are falling apart I jump in, I forgive, I triage, and I try to get the ones I love out alive, with minimal damage and injury to them, to their hearts. My kids I protect at all costs. Even my husband. The man I love and still the man who has crushed my heart time and time and time again, I worry for him… first. Care and forgive him first for fear he won’t be able to deal, that I know the truth and that is that he is weaker than me, but I can't afford to give him the chance to prove it. I cry.. a bit, but then shut off, shut down, from shock, denial, fear. Fear of facing what kind of permanent damage that I may have incurred in all of this. I fear that I will never be able to give to him my heart, myself wholeheartedly, that the complete trust in him I once had won’t return, that we will forever and always be this less than, 80% version of ourselves, because we just can’t get past it. I try to look at him now, as who he is now and only that, not who he was, or who I want him to be, or his mistakes. When I do this part of me softens to him, but part of me also panics, because this is the guy that did these things, this is the stranger that I didn’t know existed in him, and I’m afraid that he'll always be, this stranger. That if this is the him now, then is this the man I love? Most days I think absolutely, but doubt is so powerful. I know, how can she admit this on paper. Why wouldn’t I? Hiding it doesn’t help me, it doesn’t help him. Pretending doesn’t fix anything. I don’t want to pretend. I know that a lot of people will say fake it till you make it. And normally not only would I listen, I would advocate, this has been my motto for years, through all kinds of hell, and trust me when I say I have been to hell and back. But sometimes, in this case, I don’t have it in me to pretend. I want whatever this is to be real and of itself. To be true. I want to begin again... Start over with a new foundation, because that old one is rotten. And if we try to build on it, it will crack and bend and break. It will fall apart from the inside out, and take us both with it. And in the rubble you will find us broken and left for dead. We need a strong foundation…

So is it possible to have that? To build it again. Can we be the architects of our own futures, can we be the footing and foundation of each others lives going forward? It’s not about forgiveness. I forgive. I really and truly do. It’s about trust. Trust and forgiveness are two very different things. I feel walls between us. They go up without effort. Defenses that have gotten more impenetrable with time and hurt. How? Where do I even begin? I want to. I’m tired of holding down this fort alone. I have ALWAYS hated the game of solitaire. I’m not wired that way, despite the countless time that I wish I was, the reality is that I'm just not. I can mimic it really well out of necessity, I can be hard and tough and independent. I know how to get things done and take care of myself, but I don’t WANT that. I have never wanted that. The undeniable truth is that I need him, that I love him, more than I can stand. That my love for him is exactly why he is the one person that can break me. Ruin me. Almost effortlessly, it is also why he is one of the only people in the whole world that scare me, because he walks around everyday with the power to bring me to my knees and destroy me with a few mere words and he doesn’t even know….

And everyday, I just try and make myself ok with the knowledge of that.

The thing is, is that it’s such a paradox… because while I am feeling all of this, there are moments when all he has to do is smile, or touch my back, place his arm around me and I fall for him all over. .. and he whispers he loves me and I forget everything...for a moment. Just a split second, but I am happy again in those moments, and I believe every word. I really BELIEVE it. I fall so easily for him over and over and over again. Maybe what I’m really scared of is me. Maybe its me that I don’t really trust around him, because I’m so quick to fall, to believe...to hope… and there is nothing worse than feeling stupid, and nothing more powerful or dangerous as hope.

I want to give myself to this, to him, to be all in and never doubt it, or look back, but how do you change your instincts once bitten. You keep looking back to make sure, to feel safe.

I just want to love him again, with all of me and feel completely safe. .. maybe that’s why I have such a hard time being happy, because to me happiness doesn’t feel safe anymore. Every time I've started to let myself really be happy and trust again, its been ripped away.. I just want the two to be synonymous once again, with his name, with us.

I’m willing to try because I don't want to give up, on him, on us, our family. ..because I am wired with faith to my own detriment it seems, but what else do I have left if I let go of possibility? Of the ability to BELIEVE in something better? That we all are worth it, we are all possible of redemption? So much of me is him, and him in me, that without him, I’m not whole. Huge chunks of me would be missing. Here is hoping that my faith will not be in vain. That love can really win out in the end...

"Love is patient, love is kind... it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." - 1 Corinthians 13: 4,7-8

Love please don't fail me now. ..I am trying so hard to see the good...


“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

 

A little life

So I'm up ... and it's raining...
And I'm thinking of you.
These thoughts, a trail of a story long cold ... coming to life again.
The thing is, I've never been good at keeping things alive,
but I'm a natural at burying them.
My thumbs only green from crawling on my knees, the earth wet from mourning you ... face turned toward the heavens in hope that God would see that and save us both.
I buried you alongside my heart, and said good-bye to them.
Now here I stand ... on the precipice of their resurrection,
bearing witness to your smile, to the little life in your eyes ...
reminding myself that not all angels have wings,
and that I still believe in miracles.


------


Rain

Its hard to listen to a heart heart heart

beating close to mine

pounding up against the stone and steel

walls that I wont move

sometimes the hurt is so deep deep deep

you think your going to drown

sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep

when all this rain falling down

it strange how hard it rains now

rows and rows of big dark clouds

and I'm holding on underneath this shroud

rain

its hard to know when to give up the fight

some things you want give will never be right

it's never rained like it has tonight before

now I don't want to beg you baby

for something maybe you could never give

I'm not looking for the rest of your life

I just want another chance to live

it strange how hard it rains now

rows and rows of big dark clouds

and I'm holding on underneath this shroud

rain

oh it strange how hard it rains now

rows and rows of big dark clouds

and I'm holding on underneath this shroud

rain

oh it strange how hard it rains now

rows and rows of big dark clouds

and I'm still alive underneath this shroud

rain rain oh rain

- Rose Cousins

What happens after...

There are some things we don't talk about, memories sealed in tiny metal coffins marked 'non-exhumable'. We cut the utilities, board up the windows of our hearts, condemn the whole goddam structure.

I was with my daughter when I realized you were gone for real. She saw my face so wet with pain she could have hydroplaned over my eyes. She told me not to cry, that she was still here...

I've moved on from asking why because I've been through this enough times to know by now that it's the one question I'll never have an answer to. But maybe you can help me with these:

The more I think about loss, the more I realize that a part of me was lost with you. A part of me died that day. So who do we become if we keep losing the ones we love? Empty hands and orphaned hearts?

And when we finally meet again, will they even recognize us at all?

How do I bury you six feet under in my frame when I only stand 5'4?"



------






Hold On We're Going Home

I got my eyes on you

You're everything that I see

I want your hot love and emotion endlessly,

I can't get over you

You left your mark on me

I want your hot love and emotion endlessly

Cause you're a good girl and you know it

You act so different around me

Cause you're a good girl and you know it

I know exactly who you could be

Just hold on we're going home

Just hold on we're going home

It's hard to do these things alone

Just hold on we're going home (home)

 

I got my eyes on you

You're everything that I see

I want your hot love and emotion endlessly,

I can't get over you

You left your mark on me

I want your hot love and emotion endlessly

Cause you're a good girl and you know it (oh yeah)

You act so different around me

Yeah you're a good girl and you know it

I know exactly who you could be

So just hold on we're going home (going home)

Just hold on we're going home (going home)

It's hard to do these things alone (things alone)

Just hold on we're going home (going home, going home)

You're the girl You're the one

Gave you everything I love

You're the girl You're the one

Gave you everything I love

You're the girl You're the one

Gave you everything I love

You're the girl You're the one

Gave you everything I love

We're going home

We're going home

We're going home

We're going home....
 

 

- Bear's Den

Mouth to Mouth (and other life saving techniques)

Under the depth of your glance I crumble.
My head is thick with thoughts of you,
and I don't know how to stop it.
Truthfully I'm not sure that I'm even trying to...
You were my too soon too late,
and now it's exactly that.
Too soon...
to need you like this.
Too late...
to stop my heart from wanting yours...
I feel it speed up and race with the scent of you.
Our hands brush and it pounds in my chest with a calm authority.
Like it's knocking on its cell door asking to be paroled.
It wants to play but I'm scared it'll slip,
that it's slipping.... and falling....for you.
That it'll scrape itself all up again.
Soon all it will be is scars.
"They don't make Band-Aids big enough
for wounds like that", I think to myself,
But as I do your arms wrap around me like a first aid kit
to stop the bleeding before it starts.
That's when it hits me,
That you could take me out and down.
I didn't see it at first, but I see it now.
And even knowing that, I would follow you still.
Your kisses, like warm whispers,
and I, am all ears.
They could make hell look like heaven,
and would have me smiling the whole ride there.
I'll take your demons over your angels any day.
They are so much more fun when we play.
And at least then I know what I'm in for.
Real you is all that interests me.
Like the way you roll your eyes when my mouth says something that gets under your skin.
When all I keep thinking is how much my mouth wants to get under your skin.... and make you roll your eyes again...
This time though I won't waste my breath using words to make my point, when my tongue knows that actions will make you speak louder...
And its thoughts like this that keep me up at night,
that make it impossible to concentrate on anything that doesn't end with your name.
So I let your name pass my lips,
playing with how it feels against them,
and I'll hold you there until the next time
that I can press mine to yours.



------






Falling For You

"What time you coming out?

We started losing light

I’ll never make it right

If you don’t want me ‘round

I’m so excited for the night

All we need’s my bike

And your enormous house

You said someday we might

When I’m closer to your height

Till then we’ll knock around and see

If you’re all I need

Don’t you see me now

I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you

Don’t you need me

I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you

On this night and in this light

I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you

Maybe you’ll change your mind

I think I’m falling

I’m caught on your coat again

You said oh no, it’s fine

I read between the lines

And touched your leg again

I’ll take it one day at a time

Soon you will be mine

Oh but I want you now

When the smoke is in your eyes

You look so alive

Do you fancy sitting down with me

Maybe ‘cos you’re all I need according to your heart

My place is not deliberate

Feeling of your arms

I don’t wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your neck

Don’t you see me

I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you

Don’t you need me

I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you

On this night and in this light

I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you

Maybe you’ll change your mind"

- The 1975

Wait a minute Baby, Stay with me a while...

Your smile is so sweet 

It puts sugar to shame

But I'm still addicted all the same...

I laid my head against your skin and I listened to your heartbeat,

So I could try and time mine to yours.

I needed to be able to take it with me, to feel you anywhere... 

The steadiness of it fills my chest, 

The same way that holding your hand turns empty space into love. 

The way that your eyes turn looks into light...and then into laughter.

A welcoming conduit to someplace else entirely and I am caught staring...

Smiling like a kid that just saw a unicorn kitty...

Awestruck that you were sitting there before me.

Me, having found all of my favourite things wrapped up in Oakley's and a Beaver Canoe. 

And you, just eating your fries like it was no big deal. 

I don't know what I find more surprising, 

The softness of your mouth or the things that fall out of it.

But I'd stick around all day just to listen to what it might say.

Maybe if I wish hard enough it will meet mine halfway again.

You smell like the memories that I want to make. ... Over and over...

So here we are, 

two souls crossing paths...they say timing is everything... 

I think they're playing our song... Would you dance with me love? 

If only for a moment...


------

    Sara

"Wait a minute baby...
Stay with me awhile
Said you'd give me light
But you never told be about the fire
Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
And now it's gone
It doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
Call me home
And he was just like a great dark wing
Within the wings of a storm
I think I had met my match -- he was singing
And undoing the laces
Undoing the laces
Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
And now it's gone
It doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
Call me home
Hold on
The night is coming and the starling flew for days
I'd stay home at night all the time
I'd go anywhere, anywhere
Ask me and I'm there because I care
Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change, never stop

And now it's gone
It doesn't matter what for
When you build your house
I'll come by
Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
And now it's gone
It doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
Call me home
All I ever wanted
Was to know that you were dreaming
(There's a heartbeat
And it never really died)"

- Fleetwood Mac

Love Yourself

"I am self-propelled; fueled from within.

I appreciate people's opinions, but I am not attached to them.

I learned a long time ago that if I give them the power to feed me,

I also give them the power to starve me."

- Steve Maraboli

Sweet Little Duck

Today I say good-bye....

I haven't yet... allowed myself, to really say good-bye.
Good-bye to my person.
Good-bye to the person that I loved.
Good-bye to the person that I thought I knew...
That I thought knew me.
Good-bye to the person that I trusted... with everything.
Good-bye to my friend.
You, you were my best friend.
I didn't have to talk, and you knew me.
In silence and in laughter, you knew me.
S.S.'d me and made me laugh on the darkest of days.
And made me cry with nothing more than a sweet little duck.
And a hug that despite being from the tiniest little person felt as big as world.
I always believed in you. .. had faith in you, because our hearts were the same.
You always told me that.
That's why it was so hard when I realized that you had none in me...
After everything.
After all your "always" and "forever's".
When what you really meant was until...
You demanded safety but couldn't offer it.
Always afraid of the monsters in others,
Never seeing that it was the Jekyll that you could Hyde, that scared you the most.
and because of that you feared the same in me.
But I'm not you, I never was.
I wasn't even worth a second conversation which only told me one thing...
I never meant anything to you.
I was a "thing" that you needed, until you didn't...
never a "someone"... never a heart.
Your words used to carry the world and were weighted in truth,
because I believed them...  now they are meaningless.
Just letters standing side by side.
You were supposed to protect my heart, keep it safe.
But you abandoned it instead.
You were the judge, jury and executioner,
and I still don't even understand the charges against me. 
Telling your heart lies about mine and allowing yourself to believe them.
Drawing your lines, severing ties with surgical precision.
Like a black market organ swap exchanging hearts for the right price.
You cut mine out and threw it to the wolves.
All so you could finally get the one that you wanted.
Mine would have beat for you forever.
It was good... and loyal... and understanding...
and above all... it loved you.
Because you were my friend...
Because you were my family...
Because it called yours home...
Because that is how my heart is made.
And even now, my heart and head have had so many talks, and still it can't be reasoned with.
It doesn't work that way. It exists to love. And so it does what it knows how to do.
And it loves.
It loves the you that I knew, even if she never existed anywhere but in my mind.
And it will... for all it's days and with every beat. .. it will.
Because your heart will always be family to mine. 
And the rest of me just has to be ok with that.
And I am.
Sometimes you just have know when to let go,
because some things just shouldn't be this hard.
And with that...
With all of the heartbreak... and ruin...
with all of the good memories that I keep sacred in my heart.
I say good-bye... to your heart... to my home.
I love you.


------






Sweet Little Duck


"Sweet little duck I've been waiting for you
Wearin' my heart on my sleeve
And I sleep through most my days
So the time goes by
And I think, I drink more now than ever

'Cause you got me on your shelf and I just sit here
Thinkin' about when everything was right
And you say, you don't got any answers
Well, I'm tired of you not makin' up your mind
And on Tuesday, I'll be back for my things

And sweet little duck, I'm waitin' for you
But I still wear my heart on my sleeve
I'm gonna set things right
I got a job down south
Don't you think about comin' after me

'Cause you got me on your shelf and I just sit here
Thinkin' about when everything was right
And you say, you don't got any answers
Well, I'm tired of you not makin' up your mind
And on Tuesday, I'll be back for my things."
 

- Kathleen Edwards