What’s it like to leave me behind?
If you knew then what you know now,
would you leave a second time?
What’s it like to leave me behind?
For me, it felt like it stopped time.
What’s it like to leave me behind?
I stayed yours, but you were no longer mine.
What’s it like to leave me behind?
…
Why do I do this to myself?
Nevermind.
–S.
As a child, my parents would say hurtful things about my weight. They never flat-out said that I wasn’t beautiful or that I wasn’t worthy of love, but I took the words they did say and basically felt as if I heard them say I wasn’t beautiful and that I wasn’t worthy of love because of my size.
This became part of my identity at a very early age.
My entire identity wrapped itself around these false statements that I gave power to.
I imagine growing around these false statements like your body tissue forms and grows around a breast implant, or a bullet fragment, or a donated organ, or an injury.
They became a living, breathing, part of me.
They became true for me.
But, I was wrong.
So fucking wrong.
They were, and are, false statements.
There is no way that I am worth less than the person standing to my left and to my right anywhere on this earth. There is no way that I am not beautiful.
Today, I choose to give different statements power as I unwrap my identity around these false ideas I have carried about myself for over two decades.
I imagine the tissues dying off as their blood source is taken away.
Today, I made myself breakfast.
I packed my lunch for work. I did an entire skin-care routine.
I made my bed. I am going to go workout after a closing shift.
All this time I thought that I didn’t love myself, but I did.
I was just showing it with unhealthy coping mechanisms that didn’t look too much like love, but I think they did look like someone who was desperately trying to move forward while believing that they were less than.
It looked like a losing fight.
I did these things today as a healthy form of self-care and self-love.
I’m only able to do these things because I actively love myself and want to care for myself.
I am reinventing myself. I am leveling up.
Like a 2.0 version of myself.
I’m taking apart all of the false ideas and negative thoughts that I had about myself to find out who I really am.
I’m coming for all of the energies taken from me.
I’m focusing on turning all of the losses I took into wins.
I’m coming for all of the love I wasn’t given and giving it to myself.
As for weight-loss – I’m going with what feels good.
The idea of an ideal weight, I’m scrapping it.
When I was 16, 170 pounds was my happy space.
I have no fucking idea what my happy space is at 28.
I snatched my weight-loss board off of my closet door.
I ripped up the reward system that I wrote out for every 7.5 pounds down.
I’ll know my happy weight when I fucking get there.
I’m not rewarding myself for weight lost because I’m not going to tell myself that that’s the only reason I deserve to be rewarded.
I gave so much power to so many things that were so wrong.
I was so wrong about everything.
I realize that it is totally okay for an idea you had about yourself to not be true. It is okay for you to realize that it was total and utter bullshit. It’s okay to say you were wrong.
I feel
naked,
afraid,
nervous,
excited.
I’m having to step into who I really am now and it’s terrifying and it’s beautiful.
I could never truly be me because I was always carrying around the dead weight of the dead tissue with me. It weighed me down.
So much of me was wrapped up in lies.
Today, I am more me, than I ever was before.
Like – WILL THE REAL S PLEASE STAND UP?
I don’t know why the hardest person to forgive is yourself. Probably because you’re the only physical – living and breathing – entity on this earth who knows who you really are – you’re the only person who knows who you are at your core. You know every nook and cranny of your mind, heart, and spirit.
So, when you’ve let yourself down, it is like a million hearts breaking.
But the first step to get to the point of forgiving yourself – is to acknowledge the wrongdoing.
Cheryl Strayed wrote in the book Wild –
“What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I’d done something I shouldn’t have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I’d done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do anything differently than I had done? What if I’d actually wanted to fuck every one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn’t have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”
This quote always stuck with me and I finally figured out why.
Because I was so very fucking wrong, but I could still be forgiven.
I did what I did out of survival.
Emotionally eating. Being hyper-critical of myself. The men I dated. The friends I kept. The money I spent.
I did what I did because it was the only thing I knew.
But I can still be forgiven.
So, I forgive myself today.
Because I didn’t know better than, but I do now.
I always loved myself, just not in the way that was best for me.
But it was the only way I knew how to love then.
Today, I know better.
Today, I am forgiven.
I imagine that flowers are now growing in the places where the tissue died off.
–S.
My eyes haven’t let the tears fall. I am afraid that if they do – they would never stop.
It was an extraordinary day. We were high on coca-cola and all you can eat pizza. We gathered our tickets together and traded them for a whoopee cushion, three lollipops, a soldier with a parachute, a ball with Patrick’s face on it (Spongebob’s BFF), a yellow plastic man that sticks to the wall when you throw him, a Styrofoam plane, a hand fan with a butterfly design, and a metallic blue spring.
We stepped onto the landmines late in the evening, The first blow took us by surprise. Bringing us to our knees. Frantic voices, mouths moving, unheard words. The blast blew our eardrums out.
We didn’t need the ability to hear to know that more blasts were coming. Every hurried step triggered another blast.
He was dead.
And that is what it has felt like every day since we found out.
The landmines keep exploding. The shrapnel surrounds us. Cuts into the deepest parts of our hearts.
People keep talking. Smiling. Embracing us.
Life is what it has always been.
Wake up. Pee. Brush your teeth.
Shower. Dry off. Get dressed.
Eat breakfast. Walk to the car.
Start the car. Go to work.
Finish your shift. Go to school.
Life is what it always was.
Landmines keep exploding.
The earth keeps on turning.
Days will turn into weeks.
Weeks will turn into months.
A year will come.
Our hearing might return.
–S.
From 2014.
I know that we usually say I love you after we play-fight or someone brings up a topic that is still too fresh to joke about, but in every moment, serious or comical, I love you with my whole heart.
The beginning of this summer, at least for now, will be the last we will spend together.
As the days near your departure, I am full and I am hollow.
I am full of inside jokes, laughter, snippets in time, late night adventures, songs, embarrassing moments, proud moments, drives around the city, dances downtown, all-nighters pulled for assignments, the million little pieces that comprise our friendship.
I am hollow because I won’t be able to look at you across from the table at a restaurant and speak to you solely using eye contact. I am hollow because in your presence I am home. I have found shelter. I have found comfort. Life seems scarier to take on without you being a ten minute drive away.
Although we have only known each other for two years, I feel that our friendship has weathered the test of time in lives before and after this one.
I see us deep in the country at the age of five, collecting lightening bugs in mason jars and counting how long their light will last one Mississippi two. I see us at the age of eleven trying to drive an old beat-up truck and running it into a creek. I see us at the age of fifteen running away and deciding that we would live out of the bed of that same truck. I see us at the age of eighty-two at the nursing home ogling the ass of the tall, dark, and handsome nurse.
I am forever changed because of our time together. I hope in the future that we do get that apartment or house together that we always talked about, and even if fate wants us to always be separated by miles as our lives head in different directions, I want you to find comfort in the fact that I always carry your heart with me and when I feel the breeze against my face on a hot Texas day, or see the lights of the city late at night, I see two girls in a truck, laughing and speeding away.
I’ll be seeing you,
–S.
I don’t miss the lying,
but I miss the dying,
of laughter.
I don’t know what it is that you were after,
but it wasn’t me.
I wonder and wonder,
but I still can’t see,
there’s no rhyme or reason,
it just wasn’t meant to be.
–S.
If you were here, I’d come pick you up at 1:30 am.
We would stop at McDonald’s and pick up all the food and drinks that are the worst.
I’d put on a playlist that I made that night. It would be filled with all of our favorite songs at the moment. Sometimes I would sing lead and you would sing back-up and then we would trade places.
I would look over at you and see that you are hanging halfway out of the window taking in the summer breeze that only happens at night. You’d be sipping your soda and a bug would hit your face while we are speeding down the highway to the airport. You’d erupt in a big cloud mixed with spitting and cuss words.
We are coming up to our destination. My secret place. One of the main reasons my car runs out of gas quickly.
The airport.
The lights. The breeze. The air. The sounds.
We take it all in.
The music is still playing, but we are no longer singing.
Here, conversation doesn’t have to take place. We are both sifting through our own demons. And this place calms us.
People are leaving. People are coming back. And although physically we are not on any of those planes – I see our souls rise up into the night sky and make things right.
We will always have these memories. And even when their warmth is no longer able to sustain our friendship – we know that those two young women are still alive somewhere in this universe.
A touch. A whisper. A scream. A cry. A moment. A feeling.
Fleeting.
In this moment, I am still aware that we are going to separate soon.
That you will move away and things won’t be the same. That someone else will get to hug you and see the way your face lights up for Pepsi and hot Cheetos – even though you know they make you break out. That someone else will learn all of your faces, different laughs, and words you’ve made up.
Someone else will be your friend. They will learn to love you. They will learn your ways.
-S.
The brush strokes remind me of your strokes.
Color.
Intensity.
Pressure.
Length.
Width.
Release.
–S.
I paint your body from memory,
I hope you haven’t forgotten me.
I love your body in my mind,
I can still feel you touching me.
I love your body in my mind,
your words are still caressing me.
I try to touch your body with my heart,
but the universe blocks the energy.
I try to touch your body with my heart,
but I am protected from things not meant for me.
–S.
Music,
It’s been many years since I’ve written you – although we are never apart, forever together.
You’re like an imaginary friend with no physical body. I guess if I had to explain what you look like or feel like – I would say that you are like the caress of the wind. You are able to touch without a physical presence. So, thank you for your magic and your wonder.
Your words have helped me to realize that I’m not alone in many things that I’ve felt over the course of my life and those ties that bind have helped me to sustain my belief in humanity – helped me to always remember that at the core, we all feel.
You also sustained my belief that love exists. I don’t know that I can say that I’ve felt that earth-shattering, out of this world love connection with anyone yet, but I remember how many times you’ve sung about it – in different genres. So, I trust that you know what you’re talking about. After all – how could there have been that many loves worth singing about and not one for me? So, I believe.
I appreciate that you’re ever-changing, but also constant. We’ve grown together over the years. Evolving and maintaining all at once – into forever.
I don’t imagine that we will ever run out of silence, sounds, words, or even time. That lets me know that you are one of few people or things that will truly follow me to the end. This brings me ultimate peace. It would only be right that the presence that was the soundtrack of my life would be there with me to meet my death.
I appreciate the high echoes of your piano notes, and the low timbre of your guitar strokes.
You’ve made me cry.
You’re made me laugh.
You’ve reassured me.
You’ve reminded me.
You’ve taught me.
You’ve made me smile.
You’ve made me hum.
Most of all – you’ve made me dance.
You’ve held my hand for a long time.
I’ll be feeling you – in the next song, always in the next song.
–S.
Sometimes I wonder what if I tried one more time?
What if I told you that I was sorry?
What if I told you that I missed you every second of every day (and even the intervals between seconds), that I loved you so much that sometimes I just didn’t even notice it, not like an afterthought, but because it was that much a part of me, it was just a part of my existence, like breathing. ?
You were necessary like breathing to me.
What if I showed up one more time? What if I looked into your eyes one more time?
I am forgetting what your voice sounds like.
I am forgetting what your laugh sounds like.
I looked up one of your social media accounts.
I saw you with your new girlfriend.
You love her so much, you wrote.
You love her family as well.
She’s supportive and kind and crazy about you.
And that’s all good and well. It really is.
But I can’t shake the fact that I should’ve been the one holding your hand forever.
What if it was supposed to be me?
–S.
The Messy Middle 🖤 