Tuesday 29 May 2012

A little tease...



This is my current inpiration. Grace Margaret Brown Hayes. My great x 4 grandmother. She has a story to tell. I've spent the last 5 years, off and on, trying to figure out what that story is. I'm currently researching but will begin writing soon.

I'm so stinkin' excited...

Saturday 26 May 2012

Misnomer of full and empty...

"The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.... Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant re-arrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss." - Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook


I feel normal this morning. Like some kind of balance has been restored to this mad existence I've been experiencing over the past year. As if the purging I've done over the last week has somehow removed that acrid poison from my brain.

I know sometimes I'm harsh. I know sometimes I hurt people with words.

Words - my most effective tool, or weapon even. I wield them like a sword, slashing and cutting, spewing them forth as daggers at whomever I feel to be the current foe. Then, when the volcano of verbiage has erupted, when it is left empty and the ashes cooled, I feel...well, liberated.

It's so dangerous to bottle up words, feelings, thoughts. They tend to grow into something that isn't rational. They eat at your soul from the inside out leaving you empty. Would it not be less painful to others if I didn't hold on to those words until they can only be expressed in a cloud of hurt and anger?

Interesting, isn't it? That I would say being full of your own thoughts leaves you feeling empty? That purging the poison leaves you feeling full? Perhaps full and empty are misnomers in this instance. Yet, I don't have another word that fits for either case.

I can spend a lot of time analyzing myself. Not necessary, I suppose. You don't need me to tell you that I'm fickle, or moody, that I can be spiteful and sometimes downright mean, that I have no patience for those who intentionally keep themselves ignorant of the truths in life.

Yet, here I sit, often ignoring my own truths. Like the fact that sometimes I overreact to something that is, in fact, much less complicated than I've made it out to be. Or, that sometimes I say things that I shouldn't because, while they may be true in that particular moment, they're not overall, all the time, the real and consistent truth.

When I'm hurt and angry I tend to view the world, the circumstances, in a very distorted way. It's almost like wearing glasses with cracked lenses. Things that seem far away are, in actuality, right under my nose. Warning! Objects in mirror are closer than they appear...

But, that's life sometimes, isn't it? If you think of your brain kind of like a file cabinet, all the experiences, hurts, and things that make you who you are, all tucked away neatly, compartmentalized into neat little rows that somehow make it easier to deal with yourself.

 Imagine then, that someone has taken that file cabinet and dumped it all in the floor. This file is mixed in with that file, no order. Chaos that brings that little panicky feeling to the back of your throat. You feel it choking you and you don't know where to start to put everything back together.

Then, some jerk steps in and throws a few more of your files in the floor. What do you do? Where do you go from there?

I come here. I lay it all out, bare and naked, for the world to see. I sort through the words until they all fall into place again. Until all my files have been restored to their proper place and I can, once again, breathe.

Friday 25 May 2012

Enough...

Jennifer Lopez plays Slim in Columbia's Enough - 2002

I’ve spent a great deal of the last few days explaining myself to other people. It all goes back to that self preservation that stems from anger and hurt – people not understanding why I can’t just pretend it never happened and move on. I’m gonna tell you what I’ve told them.
It’s not over yet. “Person” is stuck in a vicious cycle of apologizing and lashing out. Things are only fine as long as “person” is getting their way. How many times are “you” going to forgive person for repeatedly doing the same hurtful things over and over again before “you” decide it’s enough?
I’ve reached enough. I don’t have to allow abusive and deceitful punks to infiltrate my life. I can forgive someone without placing myself in a position to be abused again.
I think it’s been temporarily forgotten that I’ve been in an abusive relationship before. Many of them…
I’ve learned that I don’t have to live that way. I’ve learned that loving someone doesn’t mean they are supposed to be a part of your life. It doesn’t mean that you have to tolerate all manner of shit that they want to pile on you. I've learned that "sorry" is something you DO, not something you SAY.
Fact is, you throw shit on me and I’m gonna throw it right back. I might even shove some of your own shit down your throat in the process. Then, I’m going to wash off the shit you piled on me and get on with my life – poop free.
I don’t care if you’re a friend, family member, or just a random stranger, you are not going to move past my enough. I’m drawing a line in the sand. If person ever decided to act like they are somebody, to act like the adult they claim to be, then person and I can have a discussion. Until then….

Enough…

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Primal Anger and Self Preservation

I suppose it's not news to anyone that, for the last year, I've been in a very dark place. For the past 3 months, it's been even darker -- sometimes dangerously so. I wonder, if I had kept writing, if I wouldn't have been able to keep my head above water. Occasionally I've been able to come up for air, but most times I find it much simpler, somehow less painful, to close my eyes and relax into the abyss - that quiet place where no one can touch me.

Is it lonely, you ask? Sometimes. But, sometimes the benefit of self preservation is greater than the risk of loneliness. If you can't see me, if you can't touch me, you can't hurt me.

Then, there are days like yesterday. Days when someone penetrates my shell and hurts me anyway. Hurt me in a way I can't ever recover from. The relationship will never be 100% ever again. It reached the point, that while I someday might be able to forgive enough to avoid the risk of living with bitter hatred in my heart, I will never forget. I will never grant that person access to my heart again.

I'm usually not a violent person, but yesterday, in that moment, someone touched that primal nerve and unleashed something in me I haven't seen in a long time. The words were more violent than anything I physically did. I said things I couldn't take back, things I'm sure I didn't mean, and I said them on purpose. I said them "with" purpose. That primal urge burned the bridge beyond repair. Not for me. I was already at that point. I burned it beyond repair for "that person". That need to self preserve won. I "fixed" it so that person would never want to be close enough to me to hurt me again - so I would never have to risk trusting them again.

Someone came into my life about a year ago. That's when the dark place came. It took me months to start to find peace with it - to begin to feel like everything might be OK. Then came the gut punch. The realization that it was all a lie. That I had been deceived in such a huge way...

The last thing that hurt me this way was when J's dad walked out of his life without looking back.

My mother and my husband have each asked me, "Do you really mean that? It will never be ok? What if "person" makes a huge change and is apologetic?"

I really mean that.
It will never again be ok.
I will never believe the apology. It's clouded by lies.
I will always hear "what if" in the back of my head.
I will always be hurt by the sight of that person.
I don't know what else to say about it.


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