lost in translation

why do i fee like my life is...

i am up this early for one reason, and one reason alone... my brain won't stop working in overdrive.  do i wish it could stop, well HELL YES. do i wish i knew the answer, again HELL YES. do i know how to  bring it to a resolution, well... uh... no... if i knew how to bring it to a resolution, i wouldn't be up all night thinking about it. the only true way to do it is to ask questions, i am not sure i want  answers to and to rely on half answers that don't really give me true resolution to the problems that  plague my head and now my sleep.

i have always been a pretty level headed person, as long as i know the facts. when i know the facts i  make decisions that are in my best interest. i think about things and i figure it out. i take the time and no matter how bad things could be i walk away, or i stick to it. i have never had a person that  had any type of ideal anything in my life. i didn't get the life i wanted, i have never really gotten  the things that i wanted... and after many years of struggling through bad things turn worse, i have  finally realized that my life is not my decision.

yesterday on thanksgiving, i heard my step brother say that he was "thankful for the struggle of life, because without the struggle he wouldn't know what was good" and that was definitely food for thought. my life has been a struggle, a struggle i do not share very often or with very many people. partially  because i didn't want to be judged, partially because i didn't think people wanted to hear me whine,  but mostly because i wanted it to seem on the outside like i had it ALL together.

keeping it ALL together is exhausting, and so for the last few years i have been opening up a little more. i have sought out professional help which i will never not share my experience with that. it was originally what i wanted to do, i wanted to help others with mental struggles, so the respect that i  have for the profession is no short of enormous. i miss having the type of insurance that allows me to see my psychologist on a weekly basis. i miss her, i could use her help right now, BIG TIME. as i am  sure that she would say certain things that would wake up my sensible self, who would then kick my  emotional self's ASS.

with that being said that is always the struggle i have. the struggle between my brain and my heart.  the worse thing about this situation is that my heart has been the first to give up. the words it once shared were never as strong as they were in years past, but then it is because the amount i was ready  to give in regards to my heart was small in comparison to years past. where i could cop it up to still being shattered from the actions of another, the truth was that i knew this situation was not going to be easy. it was not going to be a fun romantic type relationship as it was riddled with problems from  the start. the problems were ones i was coming into, not ones i was creating... but nonetheless they  were there.

i want to yell... i want to blame... i knew i gave warnings from the get go, i know that i tried hard  to protect myself. i have pulled back, i have removed feelings, i have replaced the chain length  fence, with a cinder block, then a brick one... now feeling like the only way to truly protect myself  is with cold war armed guards on posts with automatic machine guns. i know i am already doing that  with the sharpened knives that disguise themselves as words of concern, are really only trying to get  answers so that i can feel in the right. because if i feel in the right, and know the answers then i  can feel vindicated, right?

all i do know right now is that i didn't sign up for this. like a cable contract that gave me this  screamy deal in the beginning, i have hit the end of the contract and was given a new contract with  new verbiage that is written in Chinese symbols. as much as i don't want to "grill" anyone, i do  deserve answers to the questions that i seek. not for my heart, not for my head, but to get back the  sleep that my body deserves... if i can't sleep then i am no good for the things that do need me in my  life, which right now are my daughter and my school. right now, i will have to ask and receive the  right information so that i can make the right decisions. i can no longer listen to the voice in my  head that gives too much care to the situation... i need answers to put the skeptic at bay and keep me, not my heart or my head but my entire being, safe.

Some random thinking…

It’s been a long time since I have written a blog and a lot has changed. I used this blog as a platform to write out the sadness I had in my heart from the actions taken by my ex-husband, as well as various other issues I saw in myself and my life. I saw this as a cheap form of therapy, one in which I could try to read and reread to access the situation better. I admit other than spelling errors that I never changed the blogs contents or the message I wanted it to portray. Even as jumbled as it was sometimes.

There was a point in June 2012 that I cracked. I went to work, I sat at my desk and I fell apart crying. I had a man in my life that was self-destructing and I couldn’t help him. Like many times in my life I placed all the blame on myself instead of looking at the situation from outside. After that breakdown I sought therapy and was kindly helped by Linda Bahnsom, a marriage and family therapist, since retired, and we worked through the issues I had with my husband and with my mother. I took some time off work, tried my hardest to re-center my heart, soul, and mind as one. It worked and after two months I went back to work.

That was a bad move on my part. Work was too intense, and the Zen-like feeling that I had accomplished with therapy and calm living was instantaneously gone. I felt like I was in a cloud, when I did do something positive then I had it taken away from me… and when I did something wrong I felt like it was amplified as high as the Himalayas... regardless after talking to my physician, he advised a longer leave to re-center myself (again) and look for other employment if they couldn’t move me to another department that was less stressful.
 
 While I loved the people I worked with and what I did, it was the politics that caused my inner turmoil, it was too intense. Like coming off the greatest vacation you’ve ever been on and then going to work the next day in 4 hours of one-way traffic on a 2 mile commute while some asshole steals your lunch each and every day. In November I left again, I focused on my roommates, my friendships and my family. Christmas was hard because I was single again… which meant all the other holidays were looking to suck and then I met Chris.

Chris and I had known each other since high school, had crushes on each other complicated by friends. A friend that warned me before dating him telling me he was selfish and he lacked worth. I ignored her because it was so nice to feel wanted by someone again. When you have been lonely and then you get the touch of a human hand, you grab it. You want to hold on to it, regardless if later that hand hits you smack on the cheek or worse breaks your heart and betrays your trust.

We started dating in December 2012, and after one date he asked if I would come and spend some time at his place. From then on I spent from Tuesday through Friday at his house each week. It was nice because I could get away from my roommates and spend time in a decent house with a big TV. I cooked dinner for him most nights and we’d cuddle up in bed and fall asleep. He said “I love you” first, he gave me a key to his house and money to buy groceries. He praised me for being strong, for taking care of myself and for love him. He took me to one of my favorite places for Valentine’s day and we laughed and loved and created peace like I hadn’t had in a long time. He told me about his troubles, what he was thinking and how me hurt. We shared and he told me that his life was the best it had ever been with me. That is until I said I maybe pregnant. Then he shunned me, then he didn’t return my “I love you’s” and he stopped communicating with me altogether. I went to his house one night to try to talk, to try to understand and he said he just needed time, but then that was it. From I love you to nothing was how he treated someone that was bringing him nothing but love and care.

In late April I confirmed that I was pregnant, and even after telling him he got crueler. I didn’t think it was possible but he got even meaner, crueler, happy if I aborted it and that was all he would say. In May he returned my things. In June, I found another doctor to talk to, on the advice of my OB, I needed to make sure that I would be ready for this child, that I wouldn’t harm her, and that I would be happy by her arrival as I felt I was. Thank you Dr. Marcelle Pratt, you saved my life!! In July I saw him to try to talk to him again about the baby, about what “we” were going to do and about the next steps. He remained silent, playing with my phone charger card. In October I was encouraged by my doctors to contact him once more, I wrote a letter and sent an email saying when the baby was due, what gender it was, where I was giving birth and all the details, hoping he would contact me and want to be a part of her life but nothing. All I received back was more cruelty and hurt so I finally gave up. I would not put my child through harm by his hands.

I had my little girl, adorable and sweet, looking to me for take care of her. My parents have been nothing but loving and supportive. My family knows about her. Thinking I would never hear from him again, but I was not right. And now we are up to date…

There will be more to come but for now I had to bring you all up to date since my head is in random mode, like when you flip through channels trying to find something to watch but not focusing on anything… that is where I am at right now, so more when I can focus…

today was a hard day but my hopes are that tomorrow will be better...

it is hard to find out things after the fact and try to bring them into your present life... today was one of those days... brought on by events over the weekend and right now i feel like i am just kicking around puzzle pieces on the floor instead of studying them to see where they fit. in the past couple of months i had a lot of changes... i moved in with a man i was so in love with and thought so much of the world of i was scared to tell him that. he was going through things and so was i and when we should have been talking to each other we were scared or angry or who knows... to this day, i do love him. as much as it makes me cry at this moment, i felt he was my soulmate from the first kiss but problem after problem and two people broken from past relationships trying to venture down a path they are actually scared to walk and now we are done... did i want it this way? no. did i hope that after a couple of months of his working and being on his own that we could talk and find common ground again? yes. does it hurt any less knowing that we still haven't really had the right talk? no. do i want to try again? i don't know. would i open the door and invite him in to try? always. do i hate crying? yes... it makes me feel stupid and weak. i have always been told that i am strong, i am the string one that tries my hardest to keep the strength up in her life, but even the strong can fall and stumble once in a while. i am not on a pedestal and if anyone ever told me that they couldn't then they are lucky that they have never had to fall. sort falls are much better for me then long falls though. just like a kid climbing a tree, a fall from 4ft won't hurt as much as a fall from 6ft etc, etc, etc... but on the other end it takes more effort to climb to the 6ft and fall then climbing to 4ft so what is better? the long falls that are more crippling but you learn more from or the short falls that keep you climbing? regardless i am at a total crossroads... do i try and give this one more chance or do i focus on myself, become selfish and self focused and try for a life that may lead me to financial success and cougardom. i am sick of feeling lost, i am sick of feeling stupid and all in all i want the morning of 12/14/2011 back again when my sweet boyfriend bought me supermarket store carnations in my favorite color and focused on us.. i want last year back because this year didn't work and i don't know if anything will work... as i sit here and cry i just want things to be okay again and not just for me, for all the people that are hurting right now in my life... do i know what to do? no. do i wish i did? i don't know.... right now i just don't know.

this funny little thing called love

so i have been thinking for a couple of days how weird relationships really are, along with my definite failure of them. regardless where the blame may lie, i am just not good at them. oddly enough i have come to realize, with the help of an awesome psychotherapist, that i really have issues with them. on the simple side i just change, i become someone different... a more caring me that promotes more of a slave type image than that of her once cocky fun loving chill persona that i started with. as odd as it is, i have figured out that this dual persona is a simple combination of both my mother, the cocky confident redhead, and my grandmother, the cookie cooking hug giver lover of family. i have realized that when i truly don't care about someone i stay in redhead mood... probably also part of the reason that i dye my hair red and stay overly confident to a fault that i am a true bitch. on the other end when i end up in a relationship, i begin as the cocky one and then i become the more nurturing one. i take on more fault in the issues of the relationship and i tend to lose myself by chameleoning their likes... why do i lose myself in a relationship... or is it just that i put my worst foot forward first, and when i calm down they don't like the more nurturing sweet persona. and why does this only seem to be in relationships... with friends i am me, good or bad... well right now being that i have ended another one, trying when i should have given up, caring when the other care was gone and still very angry with him for not being truthful with me. but then maybe he was truthful with me and i was too dense to see... regardless i am done with relationships. i am done with focusing on someone else when they aren't focusing on me. i am done. i won't say i was broken by this last relationship but that is a lie, i was. i was more than i was from my marriage. i was because with my marriage i was blindly entering the valley of despair and in this relationship i knew where i was treading. i stupidly knew... i just want to take a breather... too much this time broke and i can only thank the anti-depressants, my doctors and my friends for bringing me out of it. i needed to find me again. i am still not there because therapy takes time and its worth each and every co-pay that i spend. i would have never decided to make this choice without being at a very low point. i thank the people that saw it and truly cared, did just fain care and tell me things like "you're strong, this isn't you. get over it" or "why don't you think about all the things going right in your life". when you are depressed you see nothing but a dark long black tunnel that you are in without a flashlight or any guidance. to a point at my lowest i was suicidal but with only thoughts to guide me to an end with no guts to complete the mission at hand. was it hard, yes. is it over, i hope. do i need to figure out what i truly want in my life above and beyond all others... completely. do i still have my weak moments... HELL YES! it is just one of those things... i feel like depression is a cancer of the mind that needs time and help like chemo to kill it. it may go into remission and be gone forever or it may get a trigger that brings it right back. regardless knowing that you have the illness is the first step in any situation to conquer it. i will conquer this and i will learn from this...i will learn from this...

absense does truly make the heart grow fonder

so last night i am writing in my journal as i try to do each night and i wrote something that i actually had a realization about. i was missing my boyfriend, plain and simple. he left april 8th to fly from the bay area to fairmont, nc so that he could help his dad with a special construction project and hopefully pocket some cash. this fun little project has grown in complexity and now officially he has been gone for 6 weeks now with no real return date in sight. which is beginning more and more each day to suck. i won't say that things were going perfectly before he left but we were progressing. as each person with baggage of bad relationship pasts ghost wanders in and out of the closet so did he and i have our conflicts which lead to understanding and better communication. to the point that sunday mornings were our "let the world just go away" time. laying in each other’s arms, talking about the weeks’ worth and laughing about the silly little things that had been bigger monsters of frustration sometimes only mere moments before hand. i have grown to realize that grown-up relationships aren't perfect, far from actually but that they take baby steps called communication to truly be the less scared tortoise or ostrich that brings their head back into the light after a rough patch. the boyfriend and i both have the same views in regards to life, relationships and feelings. we are both strong, stubborn and opinionated but we respect each other which is far more than my ex or any of my other relationships claimed. shortly before my boyfriend left he asked me if i considered him my best friend? having labeled only female friends with that title in the past i can admit that the questions perplexed me greatly. i can admit that i never saw a man that i was with as my best friend... i can only assume because the term best friend has always been taught to me as your closest friend and while i can use my grandmother as a great example i still thought "no" until yesterday that is. prior to last night, my best friend was only a friend... while the gender could have been female or male, the intention of best friend was that this person i could share almost anything with but that there were still things that i would hold back from a best friend. i can admit that i discuss more with a partner than i would a friend. i have had too many friends hurt me in one way or another through fault of my own or them. a best friend i could not talk to for months at a time and much like a daytime soap opera, one phone call or conversation and i was back up to speed on. a best friend you hang out with but time spent with them is secondary to that of a partner/boyfriend. there is something about intimacy and sharing of things taboo or scary or foreign or harmful that i will only do with a partner, with my boyfriend and a best friend just falls a little below that status. in my opinion and we can blame how i was raised, if you need something to blame, that i place my partner in the number 1 spot, family in number 2 and friends in number 3 followed by all others. some of my friends have become family over the years like jackie and david, i consider them family more than anything else especially with over 25 years of knowing each other but few raise in the ranks like that. a best friend does comes close to a partner in certain events but never 100% of the time and while i kept thinking this way i realized last night that i missed my boyfriend as that best friend as well. i knew when he asked that we weren't quite there, i knew that we were close like a pebble ready to plummet off a high cliff but that it would take something to get us to that point. i was right. what it took was a first turn, what it took was a conversation where i was the first one giving the advise to him, what it took was that conversation and the day without hearing from him after it that made me realize that i truly missed him. this morning i got a picture of him in solace, his solace which is the water... go figure for a pisces. he is calmest when he is near water, he is best and most level headed when he is near the water, he is at peace. i can understand that, i love nature, all nature and as much as the culture of the city excites and intrigues me i am most at peace when i am away from all people and all things and i can hide. when i grabbed my journal last night i realized that i missed him, not certain parts of him but all of him the silly jokes and goofy smiles, the arguments that ended in little jabs to the ribs or kisses and hugs, the cuddling through the night and the smell of him on my sheets in the morning, the short and long conversations that ended in a hug, a kiss or more each time i needed it. when i miss someone that i love and i know i love him so much but that is for another blog on another day... when i miss someone it actually aches in my the middle of my chest. it is not my actual heart but my metaphorical heart that throbs for the attention given by him. i sat last night and wrote clear as the writing on my license plate 'i miss my best friend'. plain and simple, no more explanation just clear as daylight i miss my best friend. our relationship has hit the point where i know where i need to be, what i need to do and who i want to be with. truthfully after my crappy marriage i wasn't sure i wanted to get to this place again and i didn't know if i could, i didn't know if i ever would be able to and i wasn't truly sure if i wanted to be knowing the potential joy and potential hurt that this instance may or may not cause. but when it comes down to it you have to trust your gut and while my heart isn't always right, my gut is fool proof. so here and now after writing what i could only recognize as an epiphany i am feeling more anxious to see my boyfriend, my partner and my best friend. even if this stupid project takes another month to get finished i know that i can watch dumb romantic comedies and look forward to the moment that i can kiss him again and see the smile on his face and the glow in his beautiful green eyes. i truly understand my heart growing fonder :) it’s a nice feeling...

after the words... numb is easy

when i was younger the last thing i would ever think in my entire life is that turning myself back to the feeling of numb or rather the lack of feeling... i have noticed that in my life, when i am happy i vibrate like a rainbow, full of the color spectrum and ready for anything that life is ready to give me. regardless the cash in my pocket, the job that i attend on a daily basis or the people in my life. i can spend the entire day inside the house and still be productive. but when i am numb there is no colors... i don't smile, i don't care and there is nothing that i can take pride in.

i will admit that i wasn't a full rainbow lately, too many things on my mind were clouding my judgment and my day to day interactions. i felt like a scared animal, only taking a step when i knew the ground beneath me wouldn't give and most of the time not moving much at all. as my cats do when they are in a new place, i had my paws underneath my body and my tail wrapped closely in the same manner. i realized yesterday after having all day to think that I am scared, not of one certain thing but of one resounding thing that takes a good 73% of my head right now.

last night i slept, but it wasn't restful. being numb allows no comfort, it is just a place of protection and it allows your brain to try to function on a less emotional and more rational space. but it doesn't mean that anything is truly functioning the way you are supposed to function or worse yet the way you want to function.

i have realized yesterday after going into "numb mode" that after being burnt so many times in my life by people that claim to love me that it is easier and easier to navigate into. if i were to use the gears of a car for my life you have drive, reverse and neutral... numb is simply neutral and when in neutral on a hill you are screwed but luckily right now i am not on a hill... thank f#$%ing god i am not on a hill.

right now i am trying to decide a next move with baited breath and fingers crossed that the person that i love right now will make the first move so that i can decide the second. i know that he has made a move, but the move is just words and until actions follow i don't know where to go. i have always told someone that i care about that while i am bright i want the words and actions communicated in my relationship to be simple so that there is no misunderstanding. if there is no misunderstanding then he can make his move, place his cards on the table and i can decide whether i want to bet or whether i want to throw in my hand.

in this situation i know that this man that i love is the one. i have had dreams since we first met of the potential of our relationship but my gutt said from the get go that paradise is but the destination through a valley of thorns and hardships. i knew coming into this that it wasn't going to be easy but the strength of this wonderful relationship would prosper when it was ready to as long as neither of us gave up when the going got tough. my gutt was on track but this toughness was more than i have ever bared in my life. i have never been scared of someone that i love, not in the matter that he would ever do harm to me but in the fact that i never know the mood that he is going to walk through the door with. i feel like i am always wearing a bullet proof vest and ready to grab the gun and shoot (purely metaphorical people)...if he comes in this way then i have to be A... and if its this way then I have to be B and so on and so forth so I AM CONSTANLY ON EDGE... sometimes the colors of the day reveal themselves early and sometime they reveal themselves late. but i am always on edge waiting for the next pin to drop.

now i know this isn't healthy for me, i know that feeling like a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs is no way to love life... i know, I Know, I KNOW... but its what i chose to do right now. over the last week he has been back east helping his dad with a project. a project that started out paying one thing and then got reduced and then got changed and now my poor man in working at least 12 hour days for what can only end up paying him slave wages. but when you are unemployed with no income, you take what you can get. regardless that i knew this was not going to be a good time for us, i knew that the conversation on sunday was going to happen and i knew that i was about to put myself in numb mode so that i could try and get through it.

after my failures in life which i feel are tending to outweigh my achievements i turn to numb because it is the safest thing for my heart and my soul. i love certain things about my life but right now i can't talk about them. right now i can't even pull a word into my brain and try to think about them. right now the smiles that i will sport are fake and if i put on a movie that i know would make me cry, i don't think anything would happen and so it is time for creation. when i am numb i can create, my mind is most clear for creation whether it is for writing, design or creation. so for now i will deal with numb and i will create and i will feel like i am holding my breath until i can come out of numb, but right now who knows how long that is going to be.

ears are the speakers to the heart

do you ever hear, and i am sure that you do, that the eyes are the window to the soul... well the other day after having an emotionally explosive conversation with my boyfriend that my ears are the speakers to my heart.

as i got hung up on that day i was the widest range of emotions that a person could be and without going into them i tried to sleep away the disbelief of the conversation. instead i stared at the ceiling in our bedroom and watch the ceiling fan slowly circle. it was mesmerizing but not what i needed. i needed it to be tiring, exhausting and anything that would allow my eyes to close and let the conversation run out my ears and onto the pillow that surrounded them.

after a while i realized that i needed to travel over to the bi-weekly dinner appointment with the grandparents and so a quick shower, a push of the clock radio sleep button and picking out clean clothes to get ready for a nice couple of hours with the people that as far apart in age as we are tend to "get" me. i jumped in the car and as i switched back in forth between my two favorite radio stations i heard only the songs that were directly affecting my mood that evening. which by the way my mood was worthless, as worthless as a penny with a parking meter.

all i caught were the sad songs that pushed me further and further into a funk that i just wanted to try to get out of but more than likely what was going to happen was avoidance. avoidance is easy... or easier... but as i switched back and forth it seemed ever damn song was the bad ones and ever word that my ears focused in on made the tears rush down my face faster than the ones just before. as i drove to the grandparents i realized that my ears always do this. they exemplify my mood through the songs that i hear and i constantly have my radio on.

i realized when i am ready to take a road trip that i pack the songs that make my foot caress and push the gas pedal and when i am not in my head i actually turn off my radio, which is a much rarer moment that when i have the music blaring. thinking about this on the ten minute drive to the grandparents felt like a thousand tiny daggers stabbing me but could i turn off the radio.. nope, nope, nope.

when i finally arrived at the location and unlocked the front door i almost fell on the floor because i wanted away from that damn car's haunting voice as quickly as possible. the grim reaper seemed to follow those lyrics and instead i ran into the house, puddling on the floor the instant the door had been closed behind me. i looked around and realized the house was quiet.. quieter than normal which when you have 90 year old grandparents freaks one out. i picked myself up and checked in the bedroom, no sleeping grandma and then into the garage with no grandpa but with a car.... shit, shit, shit.

totally forgetting that they were at the coast on the night where i needed to talk. i laid on the couch for what seemed like an hour but was literally only a few minutes while tears streamed down my face, i couldn't figure myself out. i thought do i just stay here, he wasn't there but that wasn't what was keeping it away... it was his ghost, his ghost kept me away. and the haunting lyrics that were going to play with my heart the second i got back in the car. what was i going to do, i couldn't hide forever especially at my grandparents house. plus it was sunday and i had to work tomorrow.

finally after more empty feelings flooded my brain filled with some anger and a huge lack of focus i walked back out of the house and trepidatiously walked to greet death sitting in my passenger seat, smoking a cigarette with the window down and his sandaled foot sitting cockily on my dash board. death smiled at me, which pissed me off, but i still got into the car and as i turned on the car and the radio came to life like frankenstein my eyes welled up again with tears.

this is not what i was willing to take right now. this was not what i wanted for my last day off of the weekend and the first weekend where i was fully in our place. or at least that was the reason that i moved for us. instead now i was lost and trying to figure my way and allowing every dumb depressing song to turn my eyes into Niagara falls. the whole day left me trying to figure or refigure everything in my life since the moment i stepped out of the budget moving truck back in 2009. what was i doing back in this damn town trying to find something i was never ever going to find again and what was my next step going to be. ever since having felt like i lost everything to bring death into my car, i feel as if i am lost and the more lost i am the more the radio plays the crappiest songs to keep my heart in that mood. so for now the radio has been turned off in my car and in my office... for now i am closing the speakers to my heart until i am ready to hear the words again... right now my ears are closed to save my heart..