I disappear.
I disappeared.
I was disappearing.
And then he saw me.
In all of my flawed glory.
And I tried.
Tried, but was not successful in tearing my eyes away.
I fade.
I faded.
I was fading.
And our first kiss breathed life into my throat.
To my lungs.
To my stomach.
To my spine.
Ears.
Fingers.
Liver.
Toes.
Eyes.
Thighs.
Arms.
Hair.
And into my heart.
–S.
There is this thing about birthdays – something ALWAYS happens.
The boy you love doesn’t love you back. The friend you really want to be at your gathering is not there. Some friendship is not where it needs to be. Something about your body doesn’t look quite right. The outfit you picked a week ago doesn’t look as good as it did in the fitting room. When does that ever happy, anyway?
I feel like I have ruined some of the most important moments in my life for myself. The overtime that I put the thoughts in my head through and the expectations that I set for people, or relationships, or moments.
I am finally learning to live in the moment. I understand that every birthday is a year closer to death.
However, how much more afraid would you be to die if you never really lived at all? If you never celebrated? If you never made ridiculous wishes as you blew out your candles? If you never got your face smashed into your cake by your older brother? If your dog never came and swiped a piece of food off of the table during your party while no one was looking If you didn’t take the 5,621 and a half pictures that your parent wanted you to? If you didn’t dance horribly to your favorite song with a group of your closest friends? If there wasn’t just a little sadness mixed in with pure joy? If there wasn’t some god awful presents that you had to put your fake smile on during the opening of them?
You wouldn’t be afraid of dying, you’d just be dead.
I think my biggest fear comes from the greatest moments not being able to last forever. One day, they will fade. I will fade. And someone somewhere will be wishing that their best friend Piper came to their birthday party and the whole day will be ruined. Even though their mom made the birthday cake from scratch. Even though there is a used truck with a big red bow parked in front of their house.
Turn off your thoughts every once in a while. And just celebrate. Act like those 6 or 7 hours are your last. And when you blow those candles out, wish for forever.
And let’s stop ruining things for ourselves before they’ve even happened. Just because something isn’t how we imagined it – doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful in it’s own right.
Let’s celebrate everything – because we never know when the last time is the last time.
Please, PLEASE, go out and celebrate.
–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.
Writing about 2018 and going into 2019.
There are some years that break your heart.
Then there are years that break your heart open.
This year broke my heart open.
Sometimes you love someone who doesn’t love you back. Sometimes you never receive the apology you think you deserve. Sometimes you wake up and life chews you up and spits you out before you even get to start your breakfast taco.
Sometimes a person you trusted, disappoints you or burns the bridge of trust. Sometimes you don’t get picked. Sometimes the thank you never comes. Sometimes you get overlooked. Sometimes pain you thought you got over or you buried bubbles to the surface. These things you buried, they took root and grew – into things you maybe weren’t exactly ready for. And you face them.
You don’t get to know.
You don’t get to know the whys or the whens. So, you make your way through the only way you know how, graceful some-days and like a train-wreck on the other days. You live your way through it. You grow your way through it.
So, I stand away.
Better than I was before, I think.
Despite all of the things I thought unimaginable and hard to get through.
I don’t know the whos or the whats or the hows or whens or whys of 2019. But it’s coming anyway. We’re never really ready for it, are we? As much as we plan and wish and hope and dream and fantasize – life never turns out how you think it will.
–S.
Excerpt from a recent birthday card to my friend.
This day – today – is our BEST day.
Yesterday is gone. It’s never coming back.
Tomorrow isn’t promised.
So, we can plan, write, hope, dream, wish, and fantasize about the future, and that’s all good and well, but all any of us really have is the 24 hours in front of us. And for some of us who woke up today, we might not get to complete our full 24 hours.
Some people didn’t wake up today. Some people lost a loved one today. Somebody was raped today. Somebody miscarried a child today. Somebody found out their partner fell out of love with them today. Somebody’s son was shot today. Somebody’s daughter was kidnapped today. Somebody was handed divorce papers today. Somebody found out their husband was cheating on them today. Somebody found out their wife is pregnant by somebody else today.
So, we need to really start counting our blessings. What we DO have versus what we don’t.
We need to practice gratefulness daily.
It’s obviously easier to have an attitude of gratitude when you feel good about yourself, when you’re happier. But through times of sorrow, of grief, of pain and heartache, we have to maintain those things that we are grateful for.
I know I’ve said – I understand why someone would not want to be here anymore, but I DO want to be here.
Sometimes it gets so dark, and the light is hard to find. It feels as if it might never shine on you again, but we have to realize that the light comes from within. That we are the light. We are the answer.
You’re so beautiful. Don’t roll your eyes or laugh, hear me out here. People tried to break you down. They used you. They manipulated you. Your giving heart and your kind spirit, they took advantage of it. But you persevered anyway. You stayed beautiful inside. You never switched up. You never let the losers and the cheaters and the beaters and the abusers and the fraudulent souls change your light inside.
Did the flame flicker? Yes it did. Does it shine as brightly as it probably should? Not always. But does it shine? Despite all the odds stacked against you. Your spirit is unbreakable, that’s one of the main reasons you are so beautiful. Your resilience.
A TRUE Queen.
–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.
I believe in mothers as best friends. I believe in the healing power of a dog’s love. I believe that laughing with someone you love is one of the great joys of being alive. I believe that music is a constant companion. I believe that some of life’s greatest adventures can only be found in a book. I believe that traveling helps you not only uncover more of the world, but hidden parts of yourself. I believe in using painting as a form of therapy. I believe that there isn’t much a dinner filled with Italian and girl-talk cannot solve. I believe that the only real apology is changed behavior. I believe that there are many different forevers – some might last just for a second or two, but they still go on – forever. I believe in the power of words – not only as a form of self-expression, but to prove to you that you are not alone. I believe in sleeping in. I believe in contemporary art. I believe that you are the only one responsible for your own healing. I believe that a good sense of humor can get you through a lot of dark shit. I believe in sunrises. I believe in sunsets. I believe that there is beauty in the mundane. I believe in the magic of ghost towns. I believe in love. I believe in letting go. I believe in the Universe. I believe that cooking a meal from absolute scratch is a form of therapy. I believe in appetizers and dessert. I believe in the power of reinventing yourself. I believe in connecting with someone on a deeper level because you know them from a sister life. I believe that after each heartbreak, you must relearn who you are. Additionally, I believe that you are changed every time you have loved truly. I don’t believe in love at first sight anymore, but I believe in ‘oh, it feels like I’ve known you before’ at first sight. I believe that time is one of the great healers of life. I believe that the ocean is a profound place to bring your grief. I believe in the caress of a breeze or slight wind. I believe that rain should make you feel alive. I believe in deep conversations after midnight. I believe in car rides around the city with your playlist blasting. I believe in still purchasing your favorite movies on DVD. I believe that the emotions I feel when singing my favorite songs are unmatched by anything else. I believe in adding cheese, bacon, and avocado. I believe in squeezing a lemon or lime wedge into my coca-cola. I believe in the sense of unity attending a concert brings. I believe that my dad is the funniest person I know. I believe that I will always give my all to remain close to my baby brother. I believe that nature is a great healer. I believe that sometimes you have to get lost to be found again. I believe that unlearning a lot of the bullshit you thought was true brings you closer to who you really are. I believe that some things are unforgivable. I believe that I’ve never been kissed properly, thoroughly. I believe in the acoustic versions of songs. I believe in poetry slams. I believe that the truth will set you free, it might set some things on fire, but it will set you free.
–S.
I wish I could tell you that everything worked out the way you thought it would, but it didn’t. It worked out the way it was supposed to, like life always does. It takes a long time for you to learn that.
You work your ass off when it comes to your dreams. You persevere despite all of the odds stacked against you. You laugh. You cry. You love. Sometimes harder than you should. Love is never lost. It always comes back to you. Like energy recycled, and always bigger, brighter, and better than before.
People come, go, and some even stay. You spend a long time searching for some kind of reciprocation from people. Something more. But you find it in yourself. Your heart breaks. You actually break a few hearts yourself. You’re a rock for a lot of people. People don’t know how to handle the funny and strong girl going through a hard time. You become your own rock. More like a crystal. Shining through all of the cracks.
Are you ready for this one? Your mom is your best friend. Crazy, right? But she has always been the string that holds everything together. And when you’re thirteen, your mom gives birth to a healthy baby boy. And everything changes. Life can never be called dull again. Your heart expands and then there’s this boy who looks like you and your mom, and your dad all mixed together with long limbs and a loud voice and a personality of his own. He sighs and rolls his eyes when you tell him about life and all of your childhood photos look like his and you don’t really know where he ends and you begin.
You encounter many people who want to numb pain. So, they have sex with anyone, they get high, they get drunk, anything to not feel. But you feel your way through everything. Even when the pain is so great that it takes your breath away, you warrior your way through it. You spend so much time worrying and being scared and everything always comes out okay, you make sure of it.
You never let a man define who you are. You read thousands of books. You get lost in the words and found again. You place a lot of importance on being smart and not society’s version of what is beautiful. You come into your own. Your happy place is any ghost town or small city.
You learn that your voice and feelings are important and valid. And somewhere along the way, you fall in love with yourself.
I know you’re not going to believe me, but trust me.
I’m writing from the future.
We did okay, kid.
I love you the most.
–S.
This year was the crazy one. THAT year.
The one that you want to tuck into a box, put in your closet, and forget. And then miraculously only that part of your closet catches on fire and only that box gets burned. But then I would have to forget that I have never cried, laughed, or loved more.
That I stand a completely different person exiting this year, than I did entering it.
That I stood in front of a boy and willed him to love me. Then I had to will myself to let him go. That I stayed on every dance floor until the music stopped. That I memorized the way this city shines at night and the soundtrack my car speakers provided. That I let myself feel. That I let myself feel vulnerable. That I learned that we have to love certain people from a distance because we love ourselves more. That I bought a new vehicle. That I explored forgotten areas of Texas and fell in love with the hues of blue and green that can only be found here. That I learned the magic of privacy. That I finally learned the song the Texas breeze sings. That I stood in a ghost town completely alone. That I discovered my love for adventure. That I had to rely totally on myself. That I embarrassed myself and lived to tell it. That I made mistakes and people loved me through them. That I was able to find the little silver linings of humor in the dark days. That I cussed too much. That I perfected my just rolled out of bed look. That I was pushed completely out of my comfort zone and each instance turned out to be nothing that I could have imagined. That I ate way too many crab rangoons. That I made people laugh when I didn’t feel like laughing. That I gave a few chances too many and it showed that I still dared to hope. That I wanted to believe the best of certain people and it taught me to believe the best of my self. That the love I share with my parents took these losses, wins, lessons, experiences, and observations – duct taped and gorilla glued them back together and sent me right back out into the world.
This life is like nothing that I ever imagined at 7 with my glasses, which I didn’t need and made me look like Harry Potter. Or at 13, with awful awful awful bangs that I thought made me look like Hilary Duff. Or at 17, with aqua rubber bands in my braces.
It’s never what you think it will be. Because all we are able to really do is steer the wheel. Choose a street blindly and hope for the best. There are no lights to shine the way. Only yourself. The flickering light in the driver’s seat. And then the street dead ends on you. Anyway, it’s always a hell of a ride.
I wrote this when I was twenty-five.
I was fired from a Texas-based grocery store for attendance at 24. I was on my last strike and I spent the entire night fighting and crying with my now ex-boyfriend. I missed my alarm. Last strike and I was out.
Several days later I turned 25. Three days after my birthday, I’d spent the day celebrating my birthday with my then boyfriend, and drunkenly told him to fuck off causing him to actually fuck off and leave the bar. I don’t really remember what caused me to get pulled over. I know I didn’t hit anything with my car. I might have been on the wrong side of the road. My memories of this night are in bits and pieces. One piece flashes and looks like I was in some type of alley way with my car, but I do remember my heart dropping into my stomach and the red and blue lights. I remember my then boyfriend was still texting me to continue arguing over the phone. And I wrote back, I have to go, I just got pulled over.
This was me fucking off.
I was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated. I bombed the Field Sobriety Test, I never watched it when my lawyer received a copy for the recording. I blew double the legal limit. I spent the night in jail drunk and crying. Calling the wrong people to bail me out. Dehydrated and with the worst hangover/headache of my life, my boyfriend picks me up. He hands me water as soon as I get into the car. It was like coming up for air. I scarf down my Wendy’s meal like I haven’t eaten in days. I spend the night in my boyfriend’s arms unable to recognize myself. I face my parents in the light of day.
I go with my boyfriend to get my car out of the tow yard and to hire a lawyer. The lawyer tells me, “you’ve made your defense for me very difficult.” All I felt was guilt and loss and like a major fuck-up. And I was guilty. All the evidence pointed to it because I was guilty. I had been driving drunkenly. So, although my whole life was about to change in a major way, in a way it felt like not being able to to get out of this, was the proper penance for myself. It felt heartbreaking and RIGHT.
Several days after this, the man I could’ve spent my whole life loving, breaks up with me because I’ve changed too much.
I loved him through his lowest, and at the time it just felt like he couldn’t reciprocate the same for me. I lost something in myself that night. Although, DWIs are so common whether personal or someone you know, it took something human out of me. The last blow in a series of unfortunate events.
I spent that summer following all of the court ordered classes, fees, victim panels, and community service. I spent that summer trying to get my ex back. Jobless and legally not being able to drive, focusing on the wrong things. I spent that summer laying in bed at night wonder, hoping, wishing, praying. I spent that summer watching entire seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and the Walking Dead in one day.
My mother told me I was unrecognizable. Like I said, all of it, took something human out of me. Not just the DWI – all of it. Loss after loss after loss. I took so many L’s and it felt like there were no W’s/Wins on the horizon.
I was convicted 8 months after the arrest.
It was like the ending of the saddest chapter in a heart-wrenching book.
I tell people to stand in their truth.
So –
That’s my truth.
I stood in it.
I am standing in it.
–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.
The Messy Middle 🖤 