Now

Thinking about what is and what could be is pointless. You just have to close your eyes and breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Open your eyes. Kiss him. Hope he feels the same and kisses you back. The "now" is all that's left. There's no past. Don't even dare think about it. There's no future. Forget about the future... thinking too much of the future might ruin the "now". The "now" is the most important time of your life! Live the now! Tell someone you love them. Kiss that someone. Try some new food you've never eaten. Dance around your house naked. Sing in the shower. Tell someone a naughty joke. Get drunk. Go to work hungover. Drive to work with your jam as loud as fuck. Or maybe stay in bed with that special someone and not go to work at all. Wake up next to someone that makes you smile. Bring someone breakfast in bed. Make someone feel like they're the most important person in your world, even if you know they aren't. Kiss them. Kiss them again and again and again... Look at them as if it were the first time you ever saw them. Kiss them over and over and over... Make love to them. If they leave and never speak to you again, cry. And then cry some more. But live! Live, damn it! Stop being afraid! Tell them how you feel. And tell them NOW! Because now is all you have.

Judging Books By Their Covers

"Judging Books By Their Covers" - Keaton Henson

I know I may be lean,
Uncomfortable being seen,
But I feel like I am just what you need.
All my body's thin,
I don't let anyone in,
But I can't help but let this begin.
And though I may seem cold,
And I feel I'm growing old,
I wish that you would just come home.

Cause I'm tired of feeling alone.
Please tell me how to let go.

Love, I know you're doing fine,
Your chapters end so well.
And love, I love your welling eyes,
You seem happy, I can tell.
Love I know you'll be alright,
But I can't help but feel sorry.
Cause love, your book will end just fine,
But I am a different story.
I am a different story.

I know I am a mess, and I love most people less,
But I miss the feel of your summer dress.
And this all may be weird,
I can feel you are not near,
But please baby, just come back here.
Please baby just come back here.

Love I know you'll be alright,
Your chapters end so well.
Love I love your welling eyes,
You're happy I can tell,
Love I know you're doing fine,
But I can't help but feel sorry,
Cause love, your tale will end just fine,
But mine is a different story.
Mine is a different story.

Try and get enough sleep...

How to meet with Death...

Dreaming of better days

The day is starting and I was just hit with this overwhelming feeling of how huge the world is... and I'm sitting here in my tiny cubicle thinking of how much of the world I've never seen and most likely will never see during my lifetime. It's both amazing and sad. When I was younger I thought my life would have some impact on the world but so far, I'm 40 years old and I'm just a speck of dust flying through the air trying to find a place I fit in so I can finally rest. It's been so long and I still feel at odds with myself. I still don't know where I fit in to. I still feel awkward in social situations. I'm still that strange little girl who talks to herself and daydreams about impossible things. When I was a young girl I always though anything was possible and that if I tried hard enough I could do anything, even the impossible. Now that I'm older, much older, I know better. I miss that naive little girl that would roam the countryside looking for crickets and who brought home every stray cat she'd encounter along the way. The little girl who'd scrape her knees and come home crying. I would always want a comforting word from my dad but he was never there. My mom was always way too hard on me. She still is. I spent my entire life angry at my parents for never being there for me, so I just rebelled and did a lot of shit I regret. My adolescence was very hard on me as I did not have anyone around to help me through it or navigate trouble. And now I'm this sordid version of that awkward little girl, always dreaming of better days...

I've read somewhere, that one can't start the next chapter of life if one keeps re-reading the last one. And as I think about it now, I've been re-reading the last chapters of my life for way to long. It's time to turn the page and let new beginnings flow. But will they be better days? I'm not sure they will. All I can do is hope for the best and have faith that they will be better. In retrospect, I don't think I'll ever know the sorrow I've known and had for a companion for a better part of my life. But you never know... sometimes the universe is not done punching you in the face!

Not Dark Yet

Not Dark Yet

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paree
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music

Disconnected

Veruca Salt - Disconnected

Disconnected, it's the way that I wanted it to be
The Cult Electric is my favorite record of the week
Cause I'm not feeling sweet

But I can't say that, when everyone is so judgmental
And I can't play back, all the times when you were gentle
Cause even you can't be true

It's astounding what love can do to a city
Laurel Canyon was the best place for you and me to be
I chose the curtains and I dreamed a dream of domesticity
What a freak you made of me

Now I'm on Zoloft, because you told me I was crazy
And I won't jump, cause now I know you'd never catch me
And I can't leave you, because you swore you'd never let me
But even you talk shit too

It's January when I jumped the fence of your backyard
Finish the fairy tale that you were drunk enough to start
It's kind of scary when your lover leaves you for a movie star
And I'm still in the dark

But you have trained me, to watch my back and drop my standards
And you have shamed me, since the first time you were with her
And you cant make me, love your band or buy your records
Cause you have tainted, my respect for your adventures

And you will never have the chance to trace my features (it's kind of scary when your lover leaves you)
And you will never make me feel like such a loser (it's kind of scary when your lover leaves you)
And you can have the past 'cause I'm in love with the future (it's kind of scary when your lover leaves you)

I'm in love with the future (it's kind of scary when your lover leaves you)

And I have met a boy who makes you look so shallow (it's kind of scary when your lover leaves you) (I'm in love with the future)
And there is so much time and so much space to travel (it's kind of scary when your lover leaves you) (I'm in love with the future)
And I will make the climb and I will kiss the gravel (it's kind of scary when your lover leaves you) (I'm in love with the future)

(Touch the sky) (It's kinda scary)
And I will kiss the gravel (I'm in love with the future)

(Touch the sky) (It's kinda scary)
And I will kiss the gravel

I'll touch the sky
I'll touch the sky
Watch me, watch me
I'll touch the sky
I'll touch
The sky, the sky.

The Sky Is a Neighborhood

Foo Fighters - The sky is a neighborhood

rough sleepless nights

I currently hold a rosary of rough sleepless nights. I wake up in a sweat. I wake up with my body bruised. I wake up and vomit. I wake up and can't sleep anymore. I have nightmares and wake up. I wake up with a fever. So many lonely nights slowly sinking in a sea of salty tears.

Cheap wine and cigarettes don't make it all better anymore. The drugs don't work anymore. The voices in my head are slowly forsaking me. I don't know if that means I'm getting better or if I'm just so toxic even imaginary voices and hallucinations avoid me.

And I'm so tired. So, so tired. I think if I went to bed now I'd sleep for days. I can't wait for the weekend to come. I believe I shall remain in bed the whole weekend. But knowing me, I think I'll run up north to the comfort of my old room in my parents' house. Everything feels so much better there. It feels warm and inviting. Where I live now it's cold and bare. I don't belong in that house. I do believe it's haunted. I need to look for a new place to live.

The only comfort there is Azazel, the feral cat that comes over for a meal. I feed him kitty treats which I buy at the local supermarket. He let's me sit near him but won't let me touch him. I so wish I could pet him. I feel like I need a furry companion. But the "no pets allowed" rule prevents me from having a furry soulmate. It's sad... I pay so much money for rent and I can't even have a pet. Or take a decent shower. Or cook a decent meal. Or feel at home. I feel like I'm living in one of those run-down sleazy motels. I hate that place with a passion. But finding a nice suitable place to live in here in Porto is like searching for the perfect man. It's damn near impossible! I'm so frustrated. I just want to live somewhere quiet, with decent water pressure and a stove which will cook my food in a timely manner.

I'm sleepy. I can't wait for the day to be done so I can go back to that hell-hole and crash... Maybe this night it'll be different.

Look at you now

Joe Purdy - Look at you now

"... you used to have such a pretty little smile..."

You were right, David

I am in a room filled with people and I never felt more alone. Everyone is talking and exchanging ideas. I have nothing. I am nothing. I sometimes think I'm a functioning ghost. People's voices and words meld with the voices in my head. I want to drown them all out but even music doesn't work anymore. I am starting to think I might actually be insane. You were right, David. There is something wrong with me. I guess I just didn't want to admit you were right. I was always sitting at the edge of my seat waiting for the shit to hit the fan because I knew eventually it would and I would be the one to fling it about like a naughty monkey at the zoo. I am sorry.

They usually say: "better late than never", but I case in this case that does not apply. I usually take a long time to realize what people are trying to tell me, or show me about myself because it's like looking in a mirror and I don't want to see myself. Especially through other people's eyes. Particularly through yours.

Day is done. I am left alone with the voices of people I work with and with the voices in my head. It's so loud, sometimes I have to close my eyes and re-focus. Or whatever it's called. But still... sometimes one or two of the voices manages to seep in and completely destroy me. Which seems to be happening a lot lately. It's nobody's fault but my own. I let myself go and refuse help because sometimes those voices are comforting, although they isolate me from the world. Such isolation is soothing because I feel protected. I don't want to hurt anymore and self-sabotage is the only way I know how to keep myself guarded.

But here I am now, David. Letting you know that you were/are right.

Love is dead

It's been a while since I last wrote. I've been a bit jaded for whatever reason. Depression and anxiety took over once more. Anti-depressants and anxiety meds kind of put me on some sort of weird "cruise-control" situation. I am slowly snapping back but I don't feel like myself anymore. I cam out the other end as a different person. I'm not sure yet if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

I moved away. I live in Porto now. I also work here. Work is great. Living situation... not so much. The bedroom is quite big but the walls are a mess. The bathroom looks like something from a horror movie. The tile is hideous. I lock myself in every night. I wake up with bruises all over my body and I'm not sure if I am harming myself on myself or if there's some sort of angry ghost trying to get me to leave. Either way, I need to find a new place. I hate it there.

It feels like my personality or my sense of self is slowly being taken over by someone else. Like I'm being possessed. I'm scared. I'm scared but I'm not fighting back. I'm easing in to it. Do I let myself disappear and turn into someone new? Or do I fight for the person I am at the moment? I don't know what to do. I feel so numb! I just want to be happy. I wish I knew how. I'm just shuffling through existence or life like a zombie. Sometimes I cry when I'm at home because feelings hit me hard all at once and I can't deal. Other times I laugh hard when I'm at work because everyone is so awesome. Other times I try to smile but it feels fake. Smiling is a foreign concept to me at the moment. I can't remember the last time I truly really smiled for real. All my smiles now are fake, or feel fake. I don't want to fake smile anymore. It's frustrating.

Sometimes I'm driving home and I get stuck in traffic. I think back to all the people that came into and out of my life. I think of people I haven't seen or talked to in years. I think of people I knew that died. I think of high school and how simple everything was back then. I think further back to when I was just a little girl in grade school and how small and clueless I was. I'm still clueless. I'm no longer small.

I'm growing old. You would think that I would have some answers to life's questions. I don't. I'm as clueless as I was back then. About everything!

As for love? Love... Love is dead. There's nothing left. I am alone and will remain so. It saddens me to know that I will live out the rest of my days in solitude. But I just can't seem to get the love thing right. So I killed it. Or did I...?

Unfuck the world

I need to unfuck myself, unshit myself, undo myself...

I have to rewind myself, rebuild myself, redo myself...

I have to stay alive.

Angel Olsen - Windows

Won't you open a window sometime?
What's so wrong with the light?
What's so wrong with the light?
Wind in your hair, sun in your eyes
Light
Light

We throw our shadows down
We must throw our shadows down
We live and throw our shadows down
It's how we get around
In the sun
In the sun

Why can't you see?
Are you blind?
Are you dead, already?
Are you all right?
Are you all right?

Won't you open a window sometime?
Won't you open a window sometime?
What's so wrong with the light?
What's so wrong with the light?
Wind in your hair, sun in your eyes
What's so wrong with the light?

I will be myself again

You need to feel it!
You need to bleed
and breathe it!

let it fill you up
and drown you
there's nothing but silence

but the streets are filled
with laughter and joy
all things you avoid

nothing but silence
let it push you down
snuff all sounds

the rain hits the windows
such loud noisy rain
feelings coming back again

push it all down
hide it away from sight
away from any light

I need to feel it!
I need to bleed,
I need to breathe it!

I need sound and pain
laughter and music again
rain falling on my face
and a tiny kitten to chase

I need to feel it.
I am bleeding,
I am breathing.

I will be myself again...

Today

Today I remembered a boy who had movie-man for a nickname. Cine for short. I remember the night we sang to each other songs we both had written. His song I can still hear within me and on youtube, as it seems. It was one of his bands "hits", if ever they had one. Every time I hear it, or remember it, I cry.

I don't know what happened or why we drifted, if we drifted, it hurt though. It hurt me deeply because I was so much in love with him. And when he just passed by the next day like nothing had happened and just winked like it was meant to be a secret, I died a little inside. It was like I was choking and I couldn't breathe. I don't know what happened. And I never will know. It's been 20 years... Life goes on.

I'm not sure if he loved me, liked me or just used me. I know that night was perfect. We made love. For a while it felt like we were the only two people left in the world. Then, I fell asleep. He left. And we went back to being... whatever it was we were or are. Friends. He moved on. I moved on. But that night and his beautiful song remains with me.

Heaven was in his arms.

Only I can do that...

This is how it goes, this is how it is: my body is scared. Self-inflicted and accidental scars. It was always about feeling something besides shame. Now these scars have nothing on the emotional scars I now have. I regret hurting other people. I regret living. Sometimes, most of the times lately, I wish I was never born. I wouldn't have hurt everyone that I ever hurt and maybe they're lives would have been better for never having met me.

I feel like I should be guarded so other people don't get hurt. And I don't want to hurt either, I have such an emotional earthquake within me it destroys everything when I cut lose and let my emotions out. I can't ever do that again. For my sake as well as for everybody else's. Nobody wants to read this. It's filled with super sad clichés. Nobody needs details of all my stupidity and sadness.

I write because I breathe. As long as I breathe I need a way to tame this turmoil inside me. Writing keeps the demons at bay and it gives me moments of clarity... seconds, really, through the thousands of screaming voices that echo inside my head. Sometimes I feel like I am cursed. I always looked for someone out there to save me. But I never did find anyone who could. Many have tried, but I kept pushing them away because deep down I know I can't be saved by anyone.

Many times I wished I could fall into a dream and everything else would be an afterthought. I always looked at other people to make shit better but only I can do that.

One day...

One day, you'll like someone so much they'll rip right through you. This is what I'm thinking as I listen to one of my friends joke how she doesn't like anyone and how tough she is. But one day... someone will gut her and her eyes wide open she'll play back all the joking around about not ever falling in love or liking someone enough to stay.

I know this because I would say the same thing. I swore I'd never fall in love and that there wasn't anyone in the world I would ever like. I was gutted. Gutted by the realization when I first fell head over heels for him. My first love... he tore right through me like a hot knife running through butter in the summertime. I was never the same. There were other loves after. But my heart forever guarded against the torment that first love caused me. Even after 20 years I still think of how it felt to be in love. Not with him. I don't care about him. But that first love, that feeling, the first time you have it... there will never be anything like it ever again in your entire life.

I guess that's why I am sad all the time. The doctor says I look sad and I have a sad face. I am sad. I will never have those days back. I will never have that love back. I will never have that feeling back, or a chance to ever relive those first-time experiences. And as time passes by, my sadness grows and it encapsulates me in a cocoon I'll never emerge from.

One day I'll be a ghost and I'll roam the Earth looking for young people going through these first-time experiences and I'll share them even though they are not aware of my presence. And perhaps, watching them live in a way I never could might bring me solace, some glimmer of joy. Perhaps I might smile again...

Rinse and repeat

Yesterday you texted me. I didn't want to read it. You texted me from a phone that isn't yours, from somewhere other than your house. I still didn't want to read it. I don't care if you've finally went to rehab. I'm selfish, readers might think, but I don't care. I don't want to get sucked back into this vortex of fucking insanity anymore. I don't want to deal with your family. I don't want to deal with your mom or with your aunts. I just want to be left alone. I've been beaten down enough. By you and all the rest of your family. Just leave me be. I did not write you a letter nor will I. I write on here to exorcise my own inner demons because talking to you would accomplish nothing as you clearly don't want to hear anything I have to say, just like before. You never heard me, or seen me. All you cared about was yourself, and your dreams and your goals. Fuck all the rest. I have dreams and goals too! But you just ran all over anything I had to say, thought, or wanted for myself. So now... this is it. You broke me and I hate myself for letting myself get broken. I just want to be alone.

Today I took my mom shopping. It finally started to rain. We were talking about the good old days and she mentioned my grandmother and I just start balling. I had to stop the car. I just sobbed and cried and my face got puffed up and red. My mother didn't quite know what to say her do. She's never been really good at comforting people. I don't think anyone in my family is very good and comforting each other. I calmed down and she went ahead with her grocery shopping and I just went for coffee and waited for her to be done. The ride back home was pretty quiet...

I started the new meds my doctor gave me yesterday. I had an appointment. Basically she says I'm sad and I look sad. I shrugged. I have nothing much to be happy about. So yeah... I'm sad. Doesn't take a genius to notice that. I wonder how long it will take for these happy meds to kick in because I really need to get my train of though back on the coherent track. Right now there's so much shit going through my mind a thousand miles per second and I can't grasp or hold on to a single interesting thought. 

I can't sleep. It takes me forever to fall asleep. I toss and I turn. I hear the neighbor's cows moo throughout the night, I hear the other neighbor's dogs bark and howl violent and eerie melodies at the moon, I hear the birds chirping when first light comes out. I toss and turn some more. I think I fell asleep. The alarm buzzes. I curse and get up. Here we go again. Another day. Rinse and repeat.

Will it ever rain?

A woman outside is screaming. Someone ran over her dog. She is screaming and crying, but I feel nothing. I want to cry and silently mourn the death of the woman's beloved animal, but nothing... not even a fake whimper. My heart is empty, hardened. For days I've tried to cry but I just don't seem to be able. I've lost that ability. For now, it seems. I know that one day soon it'll hit me like a ton of bricks and I'll cry all day and maybe all night too. But for now... nothing. Just numbness. I do feel stuff... but they're like tickles behind my chest or scratches in the back of my brain, just not enough to let lose the ocean of tears I have inside of me to let lose. Also... I feel like crying alone at this moment might be dangerous for me. Because most times I come to the conclusion that the world and the people around me would be much better off without me getting in their way. And so I just hide up in the attic away from everyone and everything waiting for that good big cry to come and wash away all my sadness. Will that day ever come? Will it ever rain?

I am going down. Deep down withing myself. I drown in desperate lonely thoughts that I don't think I can describe in a way people would understand. It's my own private hellish playground. I am only happy when I am asleep. When I sleep, I dream. And my dreams have been wonderful lately. Just last night I dreamed that my mom was baking one of her scrumptious cakes, and she was all  quaalude happy and 70's stylish, and those cakes just slid out of the pan onto the floor and they were so big I could jump around in them as we ate them. So many colors... strawberry red, golden sponge cake, purple blueberry, raspberry pink, chocolaty brown... perfection. I actually woke up smiling even though I had to wake up early to get a penicillin shot. Turns out tonsillitis wasn't tonsillitis at all - it was scarlet fever.

So now I am getting ready to jump back into bed looking forward to the next dream that will take me away from the shit my life is and has become.

Tonight I would like to hang out with my grandparents. I never got to know them all that well. I would love to get advice from them. But hey, that wouldn't really be a dream. Well... it is a dream that I have, but an unattainable one. I guess we'll have plenty of time to talk when it's my time to die. I hope they'll be there to hold my hand and smile. BEcause I can't imagine anything being worse than this life we're living. This is the real hell... Nothing... no tears. Will it ever rain?

I'm not what you need

It's not me... I'm not the one you're looking for, nor am I the one you dream of. I'm not the one you need. I am fire and I am ice. I am stillness and I am furious sound. I am a witch's wind and soft lullaby. I am everything, I am nothing. As for hate and love... I am neither. 

I am not the love you are looking for, I am not the one you found. I am not the hate you now harbor within since I left. I am nothing, I am everything. 

I am not what you need, I am not love, or passion, or grace. I am not the obedient wife you dream of, I am not the happy girlfriend you wanted to show off. I am not the evil spinster cursing your life. I am not the witch who stole your heart. I was a replacement... and for some time you were happy with these delusions that I might be what you need... but I am not. I am not what you need. I am not what you want.

I am a free spirit. I am me. I am a wild fire set by misery. I am the rain that pours as mystery. I am and I am not. I am all, I am nothing. But as for happiness and sadness... I am neither.

I am unsure of everything, of myself. Of love and time and my role in this universe... but one thing I am so very sure of, down to the marrow of my bones, I'm not what you need. I am not the one you love. I am not her. And I shall never be anyone but myself. So there you have it... I am not what you need.

The Staves - Tired AF

Tired as fuck
wish me luck, wish me luck...


This is sort of how I feel at the moment. I certainly am tired as fuck. I'm tired of all the bullshit. I'm tired of being pushed around. I am so tired... I just want to sleep. I want to sleep for 5 years. I want to sleep for 5 years and wake up to a whole new different world. Trump won't be president. I will no longer be a fuck-up. Music will sound good again, no more pop-tarts shaking their nakedness at me making me feel inadequate. Music will make us feel again. Music will make me feel again. And I'll open my eyes, smile and sing a sweet song. I'll be whole again. I'll be the person I was before. I so want to be me again...

take me somewhere nice

Looking bad at my track record of infatuations, boyfriends and loves... none of them took me anywhere nice. It was all about the fleshy, sweaty, sticky, non-stop, sex. Weekends between the sheets in my own apartment. Only come up for air. And food. Back at it. No walks in the park, or visits to a museum, or concerts, or movies... just days and nights of lustful sex. Maybe a cigarette after. Some meaningless conversation. Songs. More songs. Songs that would lead to some more sex. Another cigarette. Silence. Sleep. Sometimes I would wake up to an empty bed and the fantasy was shattered. Other times I would wake up and leave. I would walk around town early in the morning thinking about that one perfect night that would live in my memories forever. Do they know who they are? Are they reading this? Do they know if they were infatuation, boyfriend or love? I never told. And I never will...

I won't

I haven't been sleeping that well these past few nights. I keep dreaming of blood... like I'm swimming in it, or it's raining blood, or the blood flows from my veins and I'm surrounded by pools of my own blood. And I am just standing there, completely numb. Like I'm oblivious to what's happening. I don't know what that means to my current state of affairs. I have nothing going on except for work.

I think of him still. I worry about him. But it was time. I could not live that way anymore. I had lost myself. I didn't like who I was and who I was becoming. I'm at peace now. I loved him. I love him still. But I can't not be who I am. Sometimes love doesn't conquer all. This was one of those times. Seems love never conquers anything when it comes to me...

I did try. I tried so hard to make it work... but in the end, it just wasn't meant to be. I'm not built for love it seems. So I'll just give up on it forever. I'm done. I have all these wounds that won't heal. Old wounds. New wounds. Time to sit back and just breathe. Love feels a lot like going round and round in circles,,, eventually you fall down. I fell too many times now. I just want to sit the rest of it out.

I don't want to call him. I'm too weak to call him. Perhaps I'm not weak, just way too strong and I don't want to hurt him. But no one knows what happened to him. Seems he disappeared. I don't think I should get involved even though we did share so much together. I shouldn't. I won't.

(goodbye) Sleep on the floor - by the Lumineers

"
Cause if we don't leave this town
We might never make it out
                                                      "


And that's exactly what happened... We didn't make it at all. It's not your fault, but it's not mine either. I just couldn't live like that. I couldn't breathe and I wasn't myself.

I guess the price for the ability to breathe easy and be myself is loneliness. It was a choice I had to make, not just for me, but for you as well. I hope you find happiness. Goodbye.
                                                   

Last night

I've spent the last four days in hell. I was really sick. Fever, sore throat, my whole body was aching and all I could think of was the past. But not like linear or coherent... It was like I was watching clips of the movie that is/was my life. I came to the conclusion that I've fucked up my life over and over and over and over again because I try to be someone I am not. I try to be what people expect me to be. And I have written about this before on this very same blog but I keep repeating that same mistake. Why?

I wish I could go back to when I was fifteen and just slap myself across the face. Would I wake up? Maybe not. I suppose I would still make the same stupid mistakes and still fuck up my life. In the end it's not just the trying to be someone else for someone that fucked up my life. It was a number of little stupid choices like: "I'm too tired. I'm not going to class today." or "This is too hard; I'm not even going to try. I'll just do the minimum." or "I'm still young. I can teach for a couple of years to make some money and then dive into my art". And that is what fucked up my life - wasted opportunities. Because dealings and relationships with boys and/or men are just life lessons, but wasted opportunities... you don't learn a thing from that. You just regret not taking the plunge or doing what you loved to do because you were trying to follow parental advice on how to be practical. What happens then? You end up working at a call center with a college degree and a master's.

So... to all you young-ins out there reading this - don't be stupid. Don't be afraid to do what you love. Don't take a break from classes. Give it 100% even when it's too hard and you hate the subject - always try and do your best. Don't end up like me. This is my advice to you and it would have been my advice to myself 20 years ago.

I guess that if my fucked up life can be a lesson to anyone out there reading this, it has served it's purpose and I will be content.

And this is what was spinning and creeping and crawling through my mind last night: missed opportunities, who shall remain nameless, my family, Paul (the best friend I rarely speak to these days - I'm just too depressed and don't want to bring him down with me), where I am now and where I could have been, where I could be in the future, ways to relieve anxiety, and I fall asleep.

I believe tonight will be most of the same: what was, what is, what could have been and what will be. My mind is stuck on this. I wish I could only think and focus on what will be. I don't want to drown in the past anymore. I don't want to relive my mistakes. I can't take them back. Would if I could. But I can't, so I won't. Those mistakes are like scars - they make me the person I am. Some of them are physical scars. But the emotional ones... those are the hardest to heal. Some of them are still festering wounds. But those too will heal, in time...

Don't be long - by Keaton Henson

Just wait and see... that's what I'm told by everyone. Wait and see and things will get better. But they never do. They just keep getting worse. But I say nothing. I just take all the "wait and see" and all the "things will get better" in silence as I push down all the angry words, I just want to scream! But I just sit there and nod, they walk away feeling better about themselves because their fucking Yoda-like words of wisdom got through. Well... newsflash. They didn't. It's all bullshit. YOU just wait and see...

Just listen

I feel numb... The tears run down my face but it's some sort of reaction automatically triggered by my body as a means to cope. My brain is shutdown, as is my heart. My eyes gush water as I stand still and stare into nothingness. When my head is about to explode from all the rivers and oceans of pain being purged through my eyes I crawl into bed and hold my knees and just fall there in a fetal position.

I try to sleep I can't. I turn over, and over, and over. 3 am turns to 5 am. And 5 am turns to 8 am. Every time I close my eyes feels like it's been 5 minutes. I can't get any rest. I don't rest anymore.
What should I do now? That is what keeps me awake at night... the anxiety, the fear of always choosing the wrong path. Which path is the right one? Which path will bring me peace of mind and stability? We are never really sure, are we? So why is it that some people are able to do it and I've been trying for so many years and never get that peace of mind and/or stability I so long for? I can't breathe and my heart is pounding.

I realize that there's no real way to know what lies ahead and that scares me to death. I panic. I can't sleep. I can't function. I get out of bed and go about my day as usual - there's the routine. The routine kicks in and I'm on auto-pilot. Incoherent thoughts try to break through but I am paralyzed by fear and anxiety. I just want to crawl back into bed and lie there in the fetal position. I want to wake up between 3 to 5 am to a different reality. I want to be okay. I don't want to live with this uncertainty like a sword over my head about to fall and split me in two. I can't breathe and my heart is pounding.

I know what you're all thinking which is what everyone says... and by everyone I mean the few people I try to explain what it feels like. You're thinking: "girl, it'll be alright". How do you know that? How can you sit there and tell someone that they will be alright? What would you do if she turns around to cross the street and gets hit by a car and dies? I guess that's a way of everything being alright - she's dead! She won't worry anymore. She won't panic anymore. She won't have to deal with anxiety and fear anymore. She'll be at peace (or so they say). There's no way to know anything. Don't tell people like me everything will be alright. Just listen... I can't breathe and my heart is pounding. But listen... I see you. You don't see me. I can't breathe and my heart is pounding so loud it might burst out of my chest. But listen... just listen.

Epilogue - Keaton Henson

Here's to me
I'm on the edge of my seat
Bound to fall
but I'm hoping you'll fall into me

Here's to us
Here's to the ties that I've cut
Along the way
Here's to the eyes that I've shut...

Take me back to the night we met

This song... I first heard it watching "13 reasons why" but I have to say... it took me back to my own past and I remembered how fucked up high school was and how it just got worst durin college. Listening to this song makes me think of you. I haven't seen or heard from you in a long time but I remember our innocence and fleeting happiness. This song captures a moment in time, from my past... sometimes I wish I could go back and relive that moment. Sometimes I do. I close my eyes and I am taken back to that night we met. And we dance. We dance and say nothing, but we say everything. Our silence is louder than anything and the world melts away... Then I open my eyes and I am back in my room listening to this song. Sometimes in a loop. Sometimes I listen to our song. Sometimes I cry. But every time I die.

You get the love you think you deserve

It broke... I don't know how or when, but one day I woke up and it was broken. Trust. When trust is broken everything else rots. It rots and it turns to dust and disappears.

That day I woke up different. I woke up and a tiny piece of my former self screamed so loud it sent shivers down my spine and I knew. I knew I had to leave. That tiny piece of my former self showed me I was a shell, a ghost, no longer myself. But that's what I do. I become who they all want me to be. Somewhere along our adventure I forgot to keep myself in check. I spent years trying to find myself only to stuff all of who I was into a teeny-tiny box in the back recesses of my mind. But that morning, as soon as I opened my eyes I knew I had to leave, I had to get my soul back.

I had stopped being who I was: I stopped writing. I no longer sang or listened to music. I stopped buying books and I didn't read anymore. I was a zombie you used whenever you felt like and when you were done, I would sit on the coach watching you play your fucking stupid games. And I sat there and thought of nothing. I sat there and slowly drained myself of everything I ever was until I was empty.

That morning, I opened my eyes and decided to leave, It was my first thought for the day. I could no longer be an empty shell. I planned my escape and then I got the call... my mother's cousin, the man who raised me had died. He died of cancer. I cried all afternoon. You tried your best to comfort me but after a few minutes everything went back to being all about you. What you wanted, what you needed - fuck everything and everyone else. You took, and took, and took... You took all of me and gave none of yourself. All you gave me where drunken drug induced "I love you". For a while, they meant the world to me, they made me feel special. But that morning, the tiny voice of my former self screamed, and I realized I fucking deserve better! I deserve to be loved for who I am. I deserve to be told "I love you" by someone who is not shit-faced drunk or completely baked. Then I remembered... "you get the love you think you deserve". And for so long I thought so little of myself, that I let myself fall in love with someone like you. I am so angry at myself. It's not your fault. I knew early on how and what you were, but I stayed. That's on me and I am sorry.

That night, after I mourned the person who took care of me for several years, I devised my escape plan. You swore you'd go into rehab. You didn't. I left. I never heard from you again.

And now... now I sit here alone. Writing this. Because I have finally gathered the courage to start being myself again. And this is who I am. People will try to break me, and they might take me down for a while, but I will always rise up. I will always wake up one morning and open my eyes to the truth. You get the love you think you deserve. I think I deserve to love myself...