About to burst

Have you ever felt like if you didn’t do something you might just burst? That’s how I get sometimes. Like if I hold it inside any longer it will take on a life of it’s own and just burst right out of me. Maybe it’s singing or dancing or being just completely silly with my kiddos, but I can only be a grown up and pretend to have it together before I need to just burst out in some fun! Currently…Tori Kelly, Meghan Trainor, and a couple other random songs on repeat around my house so my girls and I can just sing and be silly whenever the mood strikes. “Hollow” is my current fave to just belt out with my girls. Sometimes you just have to sing and have some fun. Who cares what the neighbors think?! We are having fun!

Art of Letting You Go

It’s always you I go back to; I know it’s danger
It’s always you my heart runs to, but I’m a stranger
Baby, what happened? What am I to do?
Wanna move on, but I’m scared of losing you
I can’t seem to master the art of letting you go
No, I can’t seem to master the art of letting you go

It’s a Tori Kelly song. It reminds me of you. It reminds me of us. You are always the one I run back to when the world gets turned upside down and my heart is looking for it’s home. You were home to me for so long. You were always the one to pick up the pieces and help me put them back together. I need to close that door. I need to walk away. But I know deep down….I will always answer when you call. I will always run to you when you need me. I will always be the one you can count on when everyone else lets you down. You are so much a piece of me at this point. Letting you go would be like cutting off a piece of myself. You are a part of me. You are a part of my past, and maybe someday, you’ll be a part of my future…that’s why I can’t just let you go. It’s that hope. The hope that some day things will work out like they should have from the start. The hope that one day it won’t just be taking turns picking up the pieces when the world has torn us apart. Maybe one day the timing will be right, or maybe I should just take a deep breath and let you go.

Eight

I live my life at an eight. My pain, on any given day, it’s an eight. It started when I was younger. People chip away at you over time, and bring you down and make you feel like you are less than what you are in actuality.

My mom would slap me across the face when she would get mad. If we were arguing and I was too sassy…here would come her hand across my face. She would always apologize afterwards…she even brought it up when speaking at church once. How ashamed she was that she had done it and promised to never do it again….it had happened many times prior to her saying this in church….by the time she made this promise I was out of her house and didn’t see her often anyway. She said how degrading it is to hit someone in their face. How it is something that can be purposefully demeaning because they have a visible reminder when they look in the mirror of what you have done to them and the shame associated with the event. She said you are making your children feel like they are less. You make it harder for them to keep looking up.

The next person…well he broke me down a little at a time until he beat the shit out of me. You only did it the once, but that was all it took. You would be mean and cruel and come back and say you were sorry and that it had been a bad day or you had been stressed. You didn’t mean it. Could I please forgive you? You would say I was too good for you and you didn’t deserve someone like me. I should have listened to you. Instead I kept letting you come back. I kept opening the door and letting you in when you said you had no where else to go. That’s how it ended. You said you had nowhere else to go. We had been fighting and hadn’t seen each other in awhile. I should have known I was in for it that night. I prayed the whole time you were raping me that you wouldn’t lock the door on your way out the next morning so someone would find my body and be able to get to my babies before they had gone too long without food. You didn’t kill me. Instead you laid down next to me after beating and raping me and had me put my head on your chest while you slept. I looked in the mirror just long enough to cover up the damage you had inflicted…then I didn’t speak of it to anyone for a long time.

The next one..well he felt pretty shitty about where he was in life and the more I tried to build him up and bring him up the more he would tear me down. It didn’t start out that way. You started out pursuing me with a single minded purpose. Once you had me though….things changed. You changed. You didn’t want me to try and help, you just wanted to tear me down to your level. You just wanted to berate me until I felt as shitty as you did. You wanted to make sure that I knew I wasn’t worth it, and to make sure that I knew you knew it as well. It was like you would pick fights just to make sure you could get a jab or two in so I didn’t feel too good.

There were more less significant things along the way, but the point is the people I loved and chose for my life tried to break me. They nearly succeeded. People ask why I don’t just get out there. They say I would have no problem finding someone who would love me. I don’t love me. After all of this, after all the people who should have loved me and treated me with anything but love…I don’t know that I have it left in me to “find someone”. Every day my life is at an eight. I’m done living at an eight…I want something better. I want something that’s more than just making it through each day to get to the next.

 

4 years later

March sucks! It’s a hard month for me. I lost a brother and my grandfather a week apart in March of 2012 while I was finishing up my last year of nursing school. Then one year and a week after my grandpa died I lost my grandma as well. I’ve been feeling pretty crappy lately…like I just want to cocoon in my bed and not leave.

It sneaks up on you…the grief and loss. Just when you think you have it all down and under control…it’s like you can’t breathe. You feel like you’re being crushed under the weight of it all.

I’ve gotten really good at the fake it til you feel it smile. That so happy and overly bubbly no one would think anything is wrong.  It’s all fine. I’m fine. Nothing to see here. But the truth is I feel kind of broken still. Where is someone to call bullshit on you when you need it?

I know this feeling won’t last. I know I’ll get it under control soon…so until then…keep me away from the booze and inappropriate men! 🙂

I love you still…

God he knows how to make me smile! It rolls off his tongue so easily. “I love you still”. It’s sweet and makes me so happy to hear it. It’s from the heart. He means it. He has proven it time and again…over and over. It’s a simple declaration. I’m not asking for anything and he’s not offering more than those simple four words. I know he means them. I know that it’s not a line that he offers up often or to many people. When he says it…he means it. He doesn’t say it often, but he is more of an “actions speak louder than words” kind of man. His actions have proven him to be someone worthy of my trust. He was my first love. Everyone that came after him had a hard act to follow. If you must know…I love him too. It’s not romantic. Just simple. He knows me better than most. He has stuck by me for too long for him not to have a special place in my heart always…and I will always stick by him. I love you still…even after all this time…after all these years…I love you still.