You swear I'm enough

I've learned one really key piece of success in life recently:

You can only depend upon yourself.

I say this not from a cold, broken heart but coming from a place of the opposite. Maybe it's true that you can only really expect someone to love you once you've learned to love yourself. Maybe that's pure bullshit. What I do know is that it's a hell of a lot more fun to be with someone once you've come to terms with yourself. Every day is still a work in progress, but it's better to be 50% there than not even trying.

I was told that eventually I'll find someone in life that doesn't look at me like I'm just the mental and medical baggage I carry around with me. Someone who understand and has empathy for those brief moments where I hate everything or a panic attack sets in. Someone who can help me cope with feeling like the walls are caving in. Eventually, I'll find someone who is okay with the sexual trauma I've dealt with. Someone who acknowledges it, but isn't a terrible person who makes me feel bad for what has happened to me.

Knowing that these two things don't define who I am is a step in the right direction. I am not defined by someone else's actions. I am not defined by someone else's opinion of me. I am only defined by how I see myself - how I think about myself. I have only learned this within the past three weeks. And I learned it from someone that I thank every day that I took a leap of faith with.

I don't believe in faith, luck or any of that bullshit. Things happen for a reason, whether good or bad. You meet people in your life for a reason, even if you can't explain it - even if you can never explain it. People leave your life for the same reason. Trying to come up with reasons for people entering and exiting your life is a waste of energy - and I'm in the business of conserving energy and exerting it on people who matter.

I read through posts on this blog ever so often, and I'm amazed at the people that come and go from my life and the impact they leave on my life. Most of them have been negative individuals that I dodged a bullet with, but there are some that I miss quite dearly. It's a two way street though - people leave because you the door is open, and sometimes I even open the door for them.

It's been a long, long time since I've been content in my life. I almost don't want to jinx it by saying that everything is starting to be okay again. Maybe it will never be 100% okay - but it's hard to really quantify "good" vs "bad". All I know right now is that I wake up not totally disappointed that I'm still alive, so it's a step in the right direction.

It feels like I've known you my whole life

My dearest TC,

I don't remember the first time we talked face to face - it could have been in the hallway of Centerville High School, it could have been after a competition. I don't even remember the last time I saw you when I was in high school. But I do remember the lasting impact you had in those years as I grew up.

Is that weird to say? The kind of relationship we have is a very complex one, and if I spend too much time trying to understand it, I'm going to dig myself into the ground, and probably never return. You were someone I looked up to when I was growing up. I was instantly attracted to you because I thought you were cute. It was a high school girl crush. I never expected it to turn into anything else, and I don't know how it did. I can't think of anyone else I marched with who has someone like you in their lives. The guys who march the independent lines are polite to the high school girls, but they never become friends. That's how it was when I marched Redline, and I can only imagine it was the same way for you.

I've spent ten years getting to know you as a person, and letting you understand who I am. I never, for a second, thought not to trust you. Maybe because at the time I was such a naive individual. I hadn't experienced real hurt - the kind that leaves me sobbing, breathlessly in my bed, hoping that death will be kind to me and end everything so I don't have to hurt anymore.

And in that time, that time I felt like dying, you were there. I never told you about my suicide attempts, because I was afraid you would judge me and run away like all the other people did when I mention it. I don't want you to think I'm weak - I don't want your pity. I love you too much to ever want that pity.

In ten years, an innocent high school crush has turned into one of the most important things that has happened to me. I question what my life would be like without you. When we first started talking, we talked about my high school English papers. My English major, I would call you. I stressed about my papers, until I talked to you. You helped me see what was wrong. You do that with more than just my English papers now. You do that with my life.

I want nothing more for you to be within driving distance, so on a bad day I can drive to you, walk in the door, lay down on the couch and bury my head in your chest. There is something so comforting about your existence. You were the first person to really, truly accept me.

We walk that fine line between being too close as friends to ever be anything more. I will be the first one to admit that I have fallen in love with you time and time again, for different reasons. How could you not love someone who has been in your life (though, sporadically) since you were 14?

Fourteen is such a malleable age. At Fourteen, I was confused on what I life was supposed to be - dealing with diagnosed depression and anxiety. Looking for stable ground during an earthquake. I know at first you didn't realize that you were that stable ground for me. Our conversation was innocent. It was just something I did to pass the time. But as more birthday's started to pass, I became more aware of the type of person you are in my life.

The year you came to visit me at Bowling Green was a year I tend to not really think about. I had multiple suicide attempts, a job that I couldn't stand, and schoolwork that I was drowning in. I had a boyfriend who was too afraid to touch me, only furthering my standards of being unlovable. I shut myself off from the world. When I went to class, I would come home, close + lock my bedroom door and try to shut everything off from the world. I remember laying in my bed sobbing, hoping that the world would suddenly go black. I remember the night I had my first attempt. My friend Ian could tell it was coming, but he lived in Alaska. The next moment I remember, I am laying in my bed with my friend Mike Jones sitting there next to me, telling me that Ian had sent him because he was afraid for my life.

I am an overall anxious individual. The unknown gives me anxiety. Bad storms? Anxiety. I don't usually remember the anxiety after it passes. I remember how nervous I was for you to show up. I spent the entire day cleaning the apartment and briefing my roommate as to not make things weird - I probably made things weird anyway. The anxiety was debilitating but I learned something from it.

You probably will never realize this, but when you came to visit me that year, you made every bad thing that had happen worth it. I realized in that moment that sometimes you have to go through the shit in order to really enjoy the good times. I remember going to the alcohol store and looking at you, while I sat in the passenger seat and being dumbfounded that someone like you wanted to spend time with me. Someone like you drove across the state for me.

When we had a conversation that time, you looked in my eyes and I felt like for the first time in awhile there was another human being on this planet who truly understood what my brain was trying to communicate. There's a level of comfort that is understood when you're friends with someone for a decent amount of time, and then there is a completely different level of comfort I felt when you looked at me. I feel like I have known you my whole life. My soul spends so much time wrapped up in a corner, especially now, considering the traumatic incidents that have occurred. But when I think about you, my soul sighs a breath of relief - for at least one second, I know I am going to be ok.

I don't know what I wanted to get out of typing this out - did I want to put these thoughts into the universe? Did I just want them out of my brain? I'm not sure I'm ever really going to know.

A beginning of a bright new era.

I have never felt so alive, but confined at the same time. Something about that night, 4am, laying in bed with you as you consumed more alcohol than I ever thought was possible. You looked at me and said the words I never want to hear - "red flags". You told me that you'd probably be part of the 27 club. The combination of those two things made me so violently sad that I thought I was going to vomit. I have never felt that feeling in my entire life, but I think that feeling was the beginning of a new era.

You taught me a couple of very good life lessons. Which is surprising, considering I only knew you for a week. It's interesting to see the people that you meet and how they're going to change your life. If I had known that these lessons were going to come out of me meeting you, I'm not sure I would have approached you.

The first and most important thing you taught me is that I can do whatever I want and I don't have to give a flying fuck about anything anyone says. This is a two part lesson, that I'm the most grateful to have learned this early on. You kept telling me all about your "punk" past - the drugs and women and the stories that you have. You kept telling me that "you don't give a fuck". I truly didn't understand what that feeling was until you destroyed everything I was at 4am on a Thursday morning.

I truly do not give a flying fuck about anything that happens in my life anymore. I know now that I cannot control the future, especially when there is another person involved. There's no reason to try and stress over what's supposed to come. There's no point to try and put yourself in the right place at the right time, because whatever is going to happen is going to happen. I cannot bet that anyone is a permanent fixture of my life, even after two years. This is a sub-point that I should have learned after Joseph, but clearly I was too stupid to understand it at the time. Nine months later and it's like the clouds have cleared and I can finally see the truth.

You cannot save someone who doesn't want to be saved. All I wanted to do is save you. You told me your stories of heartbreak and all I could see when I looked at you was someone so deserving of love, someone who I thought deserved every bit of myself, no matter how broken I was. I wanted to give you a place to feel at home, because I desperately wanted to be able to call someone home.

Maybe some people are meant to be homeless - vagrants. Maybe that's okay. I feel at home knowing that I can call myself a home. I can spend a night at a place with someone and call that home for the two hours I'm there, but when I'm back on the road and it's just me and the unknown, it's okay. The unknown is finally not a scary place to be. There is something so freeing, being able to be yourself for a night, and give yourself to someone for a night but put your clothes back on and go home to yourself.

I will be the first to admit that I was broken when we first met. I'm probably still broken, but here's the thing - when I met you, I was putting the pieces back together, and I probably put some pieces in the wrong place. Things didn't line up the way I thought they were going to. You told me that you'd be around to help me put the pieces back together. When everything went down, I really thought that you did the opposite, hindering my progress. In fact, I was wrong. You knocked all the pieces out, on the ground so that I could really look at who I was as a person and make the pieces really fit in the direction they were supposed to. Maybe I was meant to be this person all along, the nine months I was trying to fix myself, I was trying to put myself back together the way I was before Joseph, when instead I needed to evolve and make myself into something completely different.

I can guarantee you, without a doubt, that I am not the same person who stormed out of your room, down the stairs and tried to get the door open at 4am a week ago. I am better now, stronger now. I have done things in the last week I never thought I would ever have the guts to do - storm out of a situation that I felt was unnecessary, sleep with someone that I've only met once, work my ass off at work and really focus myself into it. These are all things that I never thought I was capable of doing, and I can strongly say that I do not regret any of them.

I was naive to think that we could ever really work. I wanted to believe more in what we were than taking the time to really look at who we are as individuals. You have gone through so much life, and I haven't, I'm still experiencing things you experienced 10 years ago. We're just at different parts of our lives.

I've really taken a hard look at everything around me, this experience has given me the opportunity to really analyze the world around me and see if things are what they're meant to be. There is one thing that I really haven't said out loud until right now. My life is better because of you. Not for the reasons that I originally thought, but because you have made me a better person. When I said that I loved you, I loved you because I knew you were going to make me into something better. A person who was stronger. You did that in your own way, and I couldn't thank you more.

I truly do mean that I want us to be friends. Things between us have been kind of cold, and I'm trying to hold a conversation with you, but it's hard when all I receive are one word sentences and the like. If you don't want me in your life, just say the word and I'm gone. I no longer have an issue with the idea of leaving something. Being permanent is never going to be an issue for me ever again. After all, we're all going to die some day. Might as well take advantage of the time we've got with one another.

Closure

I keep hoping that the words will come to me to accurately express how I feel towards you. Unfortunately, I wait and I wait and nothing is happening. This is concerning to me, as are a lot of things in life, but this actually has a reason to be concerning, unlike those miscellaneous things that freak me out for no reason.

I think what is most concerning to me is the way everything happened. And I think a lot of this goes back to my issue of blaming myself for everything. I could have stopped you from drinking, therefore making this entire situation more understandable and easier to swallow. You told me that you were drinking because there were things you were too afraid to say sober. I never heard those things, I only heard the terrible things that came out of your mouth. And the looks you gave me while I sobbed from hearing those things. I only felt completely disrespected. A night before you sent me a text saying that you wanted to cuddle with me because your bed felt too big for just you. I was under the assumption that that is what we would do if I spent the night. That's what I wanted to do when I spent the night. Instead of dealing with a nightmare inside my mind, I was dealing with a nightmare that was all too real.

What is concerning to me is that I don't hate you. I don't forgive you for what you did to me, especially considering you said you wouldn't do such a thing to me. What is concerning to me are the things you said to me, about helping me rebuild the pieces. It's like helping someone do a puzzle, and put the pieces into place but then, when they finally get the puzzle done, you shove it off the table and everything shatters, essentially putting the pieces back where they were before you started. You didn't do any good by saying any of those things, and I question your motives behind them.

Maybe I was just not as well versed in what the world has to offer as you are. I haven't gone through the same experiences you have, haven't been hurt the way you have, done the drugs you have. Maybe I just wasn't prepared for what you were going to give to my life. I don't believe that's the case whatsoever. I think it was our differences that made us who we were to each other. I saw your past, the things you went through, and it only made me like you more. I wanted to be that safe space that you didn't realize you needed.

I'm sure there are more words that will come to my head eventually, but I'm feeling really numb about the entire situation and you as a whole. Actually, I'm feeling more like a hole in my stomach. I'm hoping that hole will slowly close up and I'll forget about it eventually. I think I need to make my peace with the way you treated me. I still feel like I need closure, but I don't think I'll ever get it.

RE: The Final Apology

This is going to be a two part blog post. First part because there are some things I need to respond to. The second part being the thoughts that are drowning me. Nobody ever reads my blog anyway, so it's not like it really matters.

--

In the almost two years that we were together, I believe that I never got a heartfelt apology for anything you ever did. When everything was a struggle and I felt like giving up, I never got an apology. I do have to say that maybe its the fact that I'm a sucker, but I believe this apology is heartfelt. It doesn't matter because you are literal shit to me, but I thought you'd like to know that I believe you. I could never hate you. I could never hate anyone. I will never forgive you for what you did, and what you took from me. But I do hope you find it in your heart to forgive yourself. I'm not going to say that you're not a bad person, because only bad people do what you did. I am saying that it needs to be a lesson. And I hope that I will be the LAST girl you treat poorly. I am standing up for anyone else you ever feel like trying to befriend. 

I'm trying to figure out what else to say, but in the mean time, I need to get these feelings out so I don't drown in them.

I chose Rita because she is, in her own way, as damaged as me.- Dexter Morgan

Is there even someone out there that can understand what is going on in my head? Someone who can be okay with the weird thoughts in my brain? I think maybe I need to learn to pretend to be okay.

Love is a scary term. Something that I am completely terrified in. Does it actually exist? How am I supposed to know what it really is. Everyone always says - "when you know, you know." I thought I knew. I thought I was going to spend forever with a certain individual and it was destroyed in an instant. And instant that I replay in my head all the time when I'm driving to work, or sitting at my desk, or waiting for Zumba to start. Someone will tap me on the shoulder and I will jump, because human interaction freaks me out.

I need to write more but my gym class starts soon and I haven't gotten changed yet. I will compile my thoughts while I kick things to make me feel better.

Bye Felicia.

End Credits

It's interesting how life changes, and how you adapt to the hand you've been dealt. Similarly to that, its interesting how much you can change the hand someone else is dealt. I won't lie. It has taken a lot of work to get to the state of mind that I am currently in. A lot of work, talking to people and medication has made my life possible.

Every person I've met from the summer on, I've had to really study them before deciding whether they were worthy of being in my life. Some people have shown their colors early on, which is nice, when it comes to online dating, because at least you know that person is in the same realm as the other assholes you've wasted years on. But then others are extremely interesting.

The end credits are never something that I can depend on, because everyday I am in self-surviving mode.

One day, I hope to wake up one day and not be afraid of being with people, but with my track record, anyone could be the next person to kill me. Being paranoid is a real crutch in my life, and hopefully I will be able to walk alone soon. I have run so far from where I was last summer. I know I can do it. I have never been more strong than I am right this very second. I am sweaty from my workout this evening, but I did it, and I can do anything that I need to do in order to survive.