Rock City and Me - Like Peas and Carrots Again...

Beck and I always talk about the effects of being 30,000 feet in the air.  It makes you think.  Maybe it’s the quiet, the vulnerability, the passing over the energy of new lands – whatever it is, I’m not sure but it makes my mind sort of melt and the desire to purge every thought appears.  

Today I escaped the office for a bit and walked around Detroit.  It was cold out but I felt sort of numb so I didn’t notice.  I had my headphones in, sunglasses on, sort of lost in thought and air and time roaming the streets wishing I had my camera to capture some of the beauty hidden within this dilapidated city.  

I had walked back there to see if I could catch a glimpse of some sunlight on my face, but he wasn’t around.  I walked slowly, which isn’t really like me.  I have ridiculously long legs.  I basically sprint everywhere.  But it was calming.  Just breathing.  Just being.  Getting lost in my head for a bit and imagining life being different.  It seemed fitting to peer through empty windows of empty buildings.  

Most people think you’re insane to walk around Detroit alone but it doesn’t scare me.  I have sort of fallen in love with the city over the past couple of years.  It reminds me of myself.  Something sort of broken down, that used to be beautiful and thriving - and that one day might be great again.  Maybe that sounds like some fluffy literary symbolism but it’s how I feel.  I find comfort in Detroit.  Or perhaps things that dwell within.  I find comfort in the hope of it all.  

I thought about my life.  The goodness of it.  The sadness of it.  The loathness of it over the past couple of years.  The hopefulness of it.  Maybe it’s my city of hope.  The place I need to go to in order to be reminded that anything can be rebuilt.

Last night a soul friend held my hand and said nice things.  I know he wants me to be o.k., to find my happiness.  I want that too.  I’m trying.  I just get lost sometimes and veer down the wrong path.  More so, I just get tired.  Fighting for yourself is exhausting – but what else can you do?  

Anyway, I digress….Detroit.  There is beauty and life within that city and for whatever reason it came into my life, I’m grateful.  There is an ellipsis there.  It’s not over.  There is just a pause of things to come.  Like this.  Like me……

Thanks for listening.  

Passing Ships

There are moments when you meet someone and your world sort of stops.  It’s like finding a long lost part of yourself and immediately you miss what never was.  Because it can’t be.  Because you’ve met them 16 years too late and there’s a ginormous piece of granite separating you.

Or something like that.

It’s difficult to rationalize soul connections.  Why do you meet?  What are they supposed to show you, teach you, give you?  And why, at times, does it seem so treacherous that the only way for someone to give you what you need is to ultimately give you nothing more than the mere knowledge that they exist?

The unscratchable itch that tests every boundary of resistance.  I have never done well with boundaries.  I cross them all of the time.  It’s a challenge of epic proportions.  

And maybe there is a moment when he let's you see him under a street light and for a second you can close your eyes and pretend that he will just exist there, in light, beside you.  And maybe in that moment you fall in love.  Maybe. 

There is gratitude in knowing one can feel.  Even if it’s wrong.  I miss what never was.  Greatly.

I shake

The snow out of my hair.  I get up and change the song that spins.  

Every month leads me away.  Every moment of laughter I grow.  I'm tired.  I've been trying for a bit to believe that there is something greater.  There really isn't.  You fill the gaps.  That's what I do.  Fill the gaps.  But at the end of the day, it's all the same.  The memory of a life that wasn't.  Quiet reckoning. 

I remember laughter. 

I like to keep some things to my self.  Self.  My. 

I was pretty when he held my head in his hands and asked for me to not leave - no matter what.  It was simple then, when it was codependent.  Addicted to being.  Fuck. 

The most wretched story of all time.  Love. 

Last Mile

I’m tired.  It’s been sort of a universal life-shifting week.  Signs popping out behind every corner that I turned.  All pointing ahead.  This is it.  The last of it.  The last mile.  All of these years of looking behind me are done now.

I know this to be true.

Something shifted in me.  I stopped fighting and when I stopped fighting I released it.  It’s funny how you can be ¾ of a mile to the finish line without an ounce of energy left, about to quit before you finish what you started and then this surge of something comes in, takes over and just sort of pushes you across.  You might collapse when you get there, but you made it over.  By Sunday night, I had made it.  By Monday, I collapsed.  But I had made it.  I had won the great race against myself.  After all of this time. 

And might I be bold enough to say that I am proud of what I have done.  I did it in my own quiet, chaotic and often tormented way, year after year, mile after mile. But I did it. 

The 29-year-old girl that chose the path of most resistance finally came to the end of the road at 37.  Scarred, bruised, and having fallen 1000 times but I got to the end of that fucking path. 

You know how they say when you’re running a race, if you look backwards to see who’s chasing you, you will never win.  You will have lost a second and taken yourself out of focus and you will falter.  Well I could never win because I have been doing just that for almost 9 years of my life.  Isn’t it silly to stop yourself from winning because you’re too busy looking backwards at something that isn’t there anymore?

I guess it’s something we all do in our own way.  Perhaps I just did it longer than most.  Perhaps it’s because I had always wanted to believe in happy endings.  That fighting for something meant that it was supposed to be.  But what if you’re only fighting yourself? How can you ever actually win against a ghost?  Regardless, I’m not going to fight for anything anymore.  Here’s why:

You don’t need to fight for things that belong.

Don’t look back.  You're not going that way.  It’s that simple. The answers are always ahead. Remember that. And I promise…you will win the race every time.

Thanks for listening.

xo

Sometimes

I sit in the quiet. And it's needed and necessary and I am reminded that as much I feel that I have lost, I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I've lost no time. Only gained lessons. I have just needed more schooling than most.

That is all.

Thanks for listening.

Butterflies

A couple of years ago, out of nowhere, the person that I had spent years of my life with suddenly vanished.  It was only days before Thanksgiving that he fell into some emotional paralysis and my world as I knew it seemed to crumble.  There would be years following of back and forths, ups and downs, but ultimately, we would never be able to recover.

Anyway, for that weekend of Thanksgiving I walked around in a state of complete wreckage.  I bashed into walls, literally, fell through floors, drank myself into a broken frenzy, cried, collapsed.  You name it.  However, throughout all of this time, someone was always with me.  My ladies stood guard, watching over.  Letting me grieve and keeping me safe.  At the end of that weekend I was standing in my kitchen.  Nic, on duty, was sitting on a stool, keeping watch.  I remember turning around and looking at her and saying, "I think you can go now.  I am ready to rest."  With trepidation she looked at me, "Are you sure?  I don't need to be anywhere, I can stay."  "I'm sure," I said.  And with that,  I allowed myself the time to close my eyes and stop.  I had mourned enough.  I had done enough damage to myself.  Which is the funny bit.  Destroying myself as penance for someone else breaking my heart.  I think I did that for years. 

I'd like to believe I don't do that as much anymore.  Though I sometimes think that time in my life won't ever pass.  Though it comes in haunting waves in the middle of a moment, it is now a more silent knock.  I am more gentle with myself.  Although 'he' is long since gone, the memory if 'it' still remains.  The 'it' I pray each day releases itself further and further from me so that something beautiful can find its way in.

Another Thanksgiving has passed.  I didn't bang into any walls.  I didn't fall through any floors.  Nobody had to stand watch.  I may in some ways have stood watch over others.  I laughed.  Maybe I shed a few tears but mostly I gave thanks, found gratitude and only let him creep into my thoughts when it was safe for him to do so.  I'd like to believe that year by year and within all of this time and space, I'm finally figuring it out.  I'd like to believe in butterflies again. 

That's all.  Thanks for listening.

Nuff said