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

Padded Cells

Today I had one of those vibrating moments where everything sort of whizzed around me and I felt all sorts of woozy and out of body.  It happens sometimes.  I won’t go into the details of the moment or what spurred it but it happened nonetheless.

In that moment, I sort of broke my own heart because I realized that as far as I’ve come, I haven’t really come that far - in that one tiny moment, I realized I was still holding on to something that I would be served greatly by if I could release it.

Memories are a dichotomy.  As much as they tell your story they can at times break you.  It’s the elation of remembrance and the burden of it all the same.  The other day I was laughing and then I walked by a painting that he had bought me and my stomach instantly went into that wretched twisty knot place and that was that.  And unfortunately for me – the memories are everywhere.  My home, my thoughts, my ocean.  Although I have woven them into the fabric of myself I find no comfort in accepting them.

I presume I see it all as this invisible blanket that covers me.  Sometimes it’s incredibly heavy – sometimes its light but it’s there, constantly, - weighing.  

I had written a lot about not knowing shit in your 20’s.  To be honest, I’m not quite sure I know shit in my 30’s either.  I seem to be running to stand still and spinning in circles all the same.  My life, as glorious as it is…and it is…is nowhere or nothing of what I thought it would be.  And, what scares me the most – is that I have no idea what it should be.  Although I appreciate the existential idealism that ‘you are where you are supposed to be’ I don’t know if I buy it anymore because ‘here’ kinda hurts and I’ve been ‘here’ for quite some time.  But it’s subtle and it ebbs and flows.  It doesn’t rob me of happiness, it just.....- weighs.

Awhile back I had sort of made a pact with myself to not share so much.  Not write so much.  Not be so open.  I’m not really sure why but I just felt compelled to keep things close and protected.  But perhaps by doing that I’ve kept too much in and it’s all become cluttered and chaotic.  I don’t know.  And likely that’s it…what this place is.  Not knowing.  Today I’m standing in the middle of the fucking ‘not knowing’ room and darlin’ – there aren’t any doors.

Basta.

Feeling lost in translation

He covets my mind a thousand times daily.  Cloudy.  Exhausted.  I am not sure if I will ever be able to unravel myself from him.  His energy surrounds all that I do.

It sucks.

You Don't Know Shit in Your Twenties: Act - Don't - React

I'm pretty sure I spent the majority of my twenties being reactionary.  Every emotion, every thought.  It became an acquired discipline as I got older to just fucking breathe.  Let things go.

In my twenties, everything was so monumentous.  It was so defining.  I had no idea, the older that I got, things would just 'be what they are'.  They would ebb.  They would flow.  They would change and evolve and except for myself and my reactions to it all, there wasn't a lot that I had control over.  That evolution creates a sort of serenity.  A knowing.  A peace.

There are no answers.  I spent so many years of my life plaguing myself seeking reason.  Sometimes there is none.  And as you progress in life you begin to realize that resistance to the belief that you are exactly where you are supposed to be regardless of the discomfort, is futile.

So you succumb.  You succumb to realizing that not everyone or everything will ever be as good as you want it or them to be.  You succumb to realizing that sometimes, there are 0 answsers, only acceptance.  You succumb to accepting that love doesn't come in the form of a neat little package and most certainly, serenity doesn't come in disregarding the voice within. And you succumb to the fact that all of that, in it's annoying, uncontrollable everything, is all good. 

And so you learn to act.  Not react.  You learn to be, not be provoked.  You learn to judge little and accept more.  You learn to become situationally aware because you realize that it isn't all about you and your moments....it's about much more.  It's about two wrongs not making a right and a peaceful nights sleep knowing you did good that day far out trumping demon's the day after.  It's about just doing the next right thing for you and those around you - because well, that's what we're here for. 

And so you learn to age with grace instead of combat.  Because it makes more sense that way.  And as much as I spent so many years arguing against my future - I feel ok now....because I finally began to listen to it.  Find quiet.  Find gratitude.  Act.  Not react. I didn't know that for decades.  I do now.  It was worth the wait.

That's all.

Thanks for listening.