how do you know?

i was talking with a girlfriend the other day who is currently going through some problems in her marriage. and she asked me, how do you know it’s going to get better? she said that if she knew it was going to get better that she would do this a hundred million  times because she would know the outcome but, then she looked at me again and asked, how do you know? 

my first response was that you know you’re never going to have that answer and i stand by that because like her, i have asked myself that question a million times over. how do you know? how do you know that the choice you’re making or not making is going to effect your life in some way? and unfortunately, my answer is still the same, you won’t ever know.

it just so happen to be good timing when she asked me that it has been intersecting with my own personal life. i have been seeing a guy for the last three weeks or so. not the first guy i’ve seen since my breakup last year but, the first one that may actually be going somewhere seriously. he’s the only guy i’m seeing at the moment and yet, there are so many questions, fears, and feelings that are swirling around in my head at any given time. 

he’s a good guy. or at least that is what my instincts are telling me but, again, how do you know? after the hit I took this last year, how well do i really know about other people and what their intentions are all about or how well do i know about my own instinct? i feel like i really let myself down last year without listening to my instinct that may or may not have been screaming at me that the situation i was in wasn’t the best for me and now, my instincts might be telling me that this guy is a good guy and possibly worth taking a chance on but, i’m scared because…how do you know?

after you’ve been broken down a few times, i think your heart changes and the way you look at people and yourself changes. not to say that isn’t a good thing. i mean after you’ve been through some tough shit, you want to change even just for the very fact that you don’t want to be hurt that way again, but, can the change make you so afraid to make any decision at all? a part of me feels like i’m just waiting in limbo right now with this relationship and it’s very hard for me to even get excited about it. i’m so afraid that all the things i want just won’t happen and maybe not in this relationship or not at all. that’s why it’s very hard to even get my hopes up about anything at all.

i’m so afraid to get hurt again, i’m afraid to be disappointed or get lost in a situation that i shouldn’t be in. i’m afraid of putting myself into something, my whole self and not getting the same in return. i’m afraid, of well, i’m afraid of failing yet again. i feel like i’m getting too old to keep failing and failing so big. so, sometimes i find myself wanting to sabotage this relationship or myself. i know that isn’t the right thing but i feel like there is this part of me that is wanting to run scared. for so long now i have cultivated my independence once again and it’s something that i don’t want to lose or maybe it’s more about not wanting to lose my values, the ones that i’ve had for so long but haven’t ever really had met? i think that’s my biggest fear, is losing myself yet again for something or someone when i know it just isn’t the right thing.

so, now that i am faced with this particular situation i’m in which has brought me quite a bit of happiness back into my life, it ultimately has me wondering…how do you know? the only answer that seems appropriate…you don’t.

this adulthood thing is hard. do they tell you that as a kid and we just don’t listen?

it’s been too long since i wrote on my blog. i really do need to be more consistent with this thing as i know it always helps and it’ll help to stop making me look like a crazy person, wandering the streets talking to myself (well, sort of). and so to write all the things that have happened in the last month, i’ve put my headphones in so i can concentrate on just this one task and let everything else fade away. it ist much-needed as i find myself a bit heavy with thoughts. 

so, the last time i wrote you guys was to inform you that i started online dating. it was interesting then and it still is. i mean seeing your ex-boyfriend who is currently married on a dating website, well let’s say it didn’t quite boost my confidence about joining this whole new world. but i tried to take my sister’s advice and stick to it. so, because of it, i have met some people. one of which i feel like i completely blew and the other, i’m questioning. 

the first guy i met was great. i actually still think he’s great and have affection for him but, i think i may have revealed a little too much too soon and he pretty much ran for the hills. well, we won’t say that exactly but, whatever happened, it made me rethink exactly what he wanted right now and what he was willing to give and for right now, he just isn’t sure. and because of that, it was best that we part ways. can’t say that i haven’t been beating myself up a little bit about the whole thing, feeling like i might have scared off a potentially good one but, there’s nothing i can really do. i don’t regret being honest about who i am, where i’m coming from and what i’m ultimately looking for.

although, according to my oldest sister, she did tell me some wise words of advice which may prove to be useful in the future. assuming i actually take it which let’s be honest, seems not often enough. she told me that although there is nothing wrong with being myself and that i want to be just myself, that in possibly revealing my cards too soon that i am missing out on the fun that dating can be apparently. that it’s not allowing me to let things develop naturally and organically as they should. she said i am a control freak (couldn’t really disagree with that) and being in the dating world is extra scary for me because it’s one of the least controlling environments that one can find themselves in and she’s right about that. 

so, it wasn’t as if she was talking out of her ass. she really wasn’t. she does know a two or thing about dating and three or four things about me if not more. she is my big sister after all. it’s not as if i have to not be myself when dating but, i guess i could learn to curb some more of my annoying habits right out of the gate but, you know, after today’s therapy session which honestly couldn’t have come at a better time, it was confirmed that a lot of dating faux pas lately have been due to well, you heard it here, being afraid. well, that was a no-brainer, wasn’t it? here i think that guys do things subconsciously when really, maybe i too am guilty of doing said things.

i want to just hurry up and establish what a relationship is and exactly how a person feels about me so that i know i won’t get hurt. it’s as if i know all of their intentions right up front and their plans and how they feel about me, i will be in the clear. i will be safe. but, you and i both know that that just isn’t true and that just isn’t life either. to think that we can somehow cleverly outrun old hurts and our past demons is for me to think that i can also drink fire and poop gold at the same time or at all. it just won’t happen. 

my therapist told me that because of my fear of getting hurt and somehow irrationally thinking that what i want in a partner, ask for in a partner/relationship will never be met, i find myself rushing to get anything but, or putting myself in situations where i can only get some needs met and not permanently. she told me that to want what i want isn’t irrational at all or even unrealistic. and because i also didn’t get certain needs met as a child with my mother, i always feel like i may not get those and how could i ever get them from a man if i couldn’t ever get them from my own mother. i guess i’d never really thought about it from that perspective which was surprising to my because i thought i had dissected my relationship with my mother until it could no longer be done. but, i guess not. 

so, that now leads me to where i’m currently at. i’m now seeing this other guy that i had met around the same time as the one that just flew the coop (yeah yeah that may not be the exact case but i like to be dramatic and embellish my temporary pain). we just had our second date the other night and it was great. we’ve always had a great rapport and get along very well and very easily. needless to say, i find myself wanting to know more about him and where this could possibly lead. he was very honest with me about where he is in his life. he’s very unsure if he wants to pursue anything serious at this time due to the conflicting nature of his job which will put him overseas in possibly in the next 5 to 9 months which his mind is made up that he will not carry on a long-distance relationship for the time he is gone because he won’t put anyone through that nor himself after having had a bad experience. i didn’t blame him nor could i change his mind and i’m not supposed to. that’s not my job.

so, in a way no matter where this “relationship” goes, it may very well go to splitsville because of his wants and the only job i have is to decide what i want. is that something i can live with? can i just do something fun and enjoyable for now without expectations? and i don’t know. this is the thing about me, i live very much in the black and white. and we all know that life is hardly anything but. it’s mostly in the gray or the other colors in-between. and i think so much about either being all in or all out but, am i missing out if i can’t put myself in the middle where some of life’s experiences are happening, and may very well be vital to me?

i told this person last night that i am interested in continuing to see him and going with the flow but, as i’ve thought more and more about it today, i’m not sure if that’s really what i want. but, i feel like i’m telling myself that i can’t have fun. that i can’t just live without putting so much pressure on myself and these experiences, thinking i can only get one resolution from it. i feel like if i go through with this then somehow i’m moving further away from what i really want but that’s the thing that my therapist said, that i can’t think that just because i allow myself fun, i allow myself the company of someone without expectation that somehow i’m not going to get my needs met, whether they be with this person or someone down the line.

i thought at the end of this blog, i might have my mind made up but, i don’t. i will just have to live with that. i don’t know if it’s about being present which i try to do at all times, or if it’s just knowing that what i want is okay to want and that i will get it. and that it’s okay to wade myself through this journey for it is just that, a journey. we shall see. 

a new year.

for a couple of days now, i have been thinking about what i’ve been wanting to say to wrap up 2013 and what i want to say about the year we just stepped into. it’s not that i necessarily want to wax poetry about all of the lessons i’ve learned but, i guess a part of me wants to voice it as best as i can. i want to know that i did learn some lessons actually. and i think i did. 2013 seems like it is what it would feel like to take a master’s program. i felt schooled to say the least.

my 2013 started off very different than other years. i was involved in something that completely raptured my whole being and for a time, i almost thought it’d always be like that. but, life as we all know it doesn’t always work out the way you think it’s going to or hope that it will. so, as my year progressed, it did just that. it turned into something i would have never asked for but would have to endure anyway. and maybe that was the point. because if we were to talk about lessons, this was by far the biggest lesson i have ever had to go through in my life.

by the beginning of summer, i pretty much was spun out on stomach-churning, heart-palpitating and sweat-induced heartbreak pain, the mother of all pains (besides stubbing your big toe). and that is where i will start talking about the lessons i’ve learned i suppose. no matter how much i’ve hoped for certain things in my life, i have become accustom to the notion that life never asks you what you want and even when i think it is, it really isn’t. and so this lesson wasn’t any different but it never feels any less painful whether you knew that already or not.

so, i think the lesson in that would be to know that yes, life isn’t going to ask you what you want so you’re going to have to do that for yourself. what do you want? you know, to be honest with yourself is one scary place to be. it’s sort of like being in the middle of a dark room and you’ve got to navigate yourself towards the light, the one that you hope is there in the first place. and i don’t know about you but, i’m not the biggest fan of the dark and that is what it was like, this lesson. being in the pitch black dark. and wondering, is there light, wherever i am?

we will come back to that in just a little bit because i don’t want to minimize other, possibly lighter yet most-noteworthy lessons i also learned. i learned that sometimes when you reach out and you stretch out your hand just long enough, someone will take it into theirs. i cannot begin to describe the depth of love and support i received this year from family, old and new friends alike. i can honestly say that my heart was full to the brim with the kind of tenderness i was able to receive from those that i loved, and those that i have grown to love so very much. these people, these oh so wise people who lent me their hearts when i felt mine was irrevocably broken and without these people, i don’t think i’d be able to sit here and write about this or make it through the pain that i was in.

you know it’s people like the ones that i am so fortunate to have in my life that are the things that make learning lessons like this the only thing possible to get through it and learn from it because these people are really the ones that have created a whole new dialogue and view to see things from. it makes me think back to this summer when i was getting my first tattoo and my tattoo artist who i still keep in touch with said this to me, he said that all life is about making connections and putting people in our hearts and that we shouldn’t waste one second on those who can only go surface deep. i think about that all the time, it was probably one of the most profound things i’ve ever heard. and i will always be grateful to those words.

and the connections i’ve made this year with new friends and the connections that have deepened with friends that i have had for years has been…well…it’s been everything to me. because i believe too that life is all about connections, reaching out and touching one another and being touched in return and this year proved that to me ten-fold.

so back to the biggest lesson i’ve learned that spurned from my heartbreak, you know the thing i’ve droned on about in probably all of my blogs. how did i learn from it? what else did i learn from it? what is it that i really do want? and my answer to all of those are well, just this…to be determined. if i were to sit here and tell you that i’ve learned my lesson, i will give my heart out to less people, i won’t give as much as myself to someone else, i won’t be with people less-worthy, or whatever, i’d probably be lying because those are things you cannot ever predict. yeah you get smarter about choices, and about the people you let into your life but you cannot predict just how you’re going to behave or how someone is going to react to who you are. life is still a gamble, no matter the lesson.

but, what i can tell you is that the growth i have taken this year is something that is a progression. it hasn’t stopped. i haven’t learned all that i can. God, do we ever? someone once told me that the minute you stop growing is when you’re dead. i still believe that. sure, i have days when i just feel like i want to be done already, i want to know exactly what i’m doing with my life, who i am, and where i’m going but, i know that’s ego and not truth. because the truth is that i may never know those things to an exact tee, and they may always change but, that’s the point. the only constant we will ever have is change.

you know i said before that being honest with yourself is a scary place to be and it is. and i find myself the most scared when i sit down and tell myself that this is what i want because sometimes i think, i may never get it. i may never have the courage to go out there and get it or have the courage to wait for it because i can be a taurus to a tee at times, one stubborn ass bull. i want things and i want them right now. but, remember, here comes that pesky notion again…life never asks you what you want. and what about this fear thing? is that ever going to go away, even with my progression into a new me? i don’t know.

the other day i was on facebook and i read a quote that said everything you want is on the other side of fear. pretty powerful, huh? i thought so at least. and it made me think of this year and just how much my choices have been fear-based for a very long time. i’m so fearful that i won’t ever get what i want, and that if i ever do, it won’t be real. or that i don’t really know what i want or that i’m afraid to be that honest with myself about what i do want. i did mention i have this thing about fear, right?

but, then i think about some of the things i did this year and i think that some were made possible by the fact that yes, i was scared out of my gall but, i did it anyway. that i pushed through certain boundaries that were only put up by myself and my fear and again, i did it anyway.

so, to really try to sum up my year as poetically as i can and with all the meaning of who i am and who i want to be, what i learned the most this year was that there are some connections you make in life that run so deep, they’ll change every core of who you are or thought you were, and that if you don’t ask yourself what you truly want, no one will, and that fear is a state of mind, a motivator, and the one thing that can stop you dead in your tracks or make you look at yourself in the most brutally honest way, the only way to look at yourself.

2013, you really kicked my ass. you beat me to a bloody pulp, had me crying like a newborn baby in the fetal position, and really pushed me off a cliff with no remorse whatsoever. yet, just like any other bully who comes to take my lunch money, you leave me with something i didn’t have when you took my money the first time and that’s conviction that the next time, i will be better prepared. i may not always get it, you may always take a little something from me, but each time, i’m going to be there, a little smarter, faster, and hopefully, better.

2014…here we go.

life may just break you but it won’t kill you.

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP

i started today’s post with the quote from above and i think it says it all. life will break you and there is nothing that can prepare you for that fall. and there isn’t a way to avoid it either because just like the quote said, we are here to do all the things that are going to bring us that pain, the kind that is going to break us all in the places that we thought we were safe.

i was thinking about that today as i got out of bed. i started my day off with meditation and man, it felt awesome. my concentration during my meditation is growing and i’m able to quiet the voices and the mad thoughts i’m having and go into a trance where i hear nothing, see nothing but feel everything. and it really is changing the way that i start my day and how i live the rest of my day as well.

once i did that i got into the shower and that is where i did most of my thinking about what i wanted to talk about in this blog today. and i’m pretty sure i’ve lost a lot of the great things i was going to say too once i got out of the shower. but i knew i was going to at least say that today i started my day off strong. i felt strong. i feel strong. i didn’t feel like i was having an avalanche of feelings come tumbling down on me and pummel me to the ground when there are days that i still feel that way.

it made me think about how to start your day and how i’ve been starting mine lately. i am of course a member of facebook like the rest of the world and on my facebook i am subscribed or have “liked” a bunch of positive affirmation pages and everyday a plethora show up in my newsfeed. and many of them hit the spot for me. and of course i go and hit that like button. i’m very much about surrounding myself with positive words, sayings, inspirations, etc. but i’ve been thinking about how much do i really believe in them? at least for myself. and i know that is something i want to work on because i can “like” these things till they go out of style but, if i’m not buying into them or believing in them for myself, what good are they to me? they’re just things that take up space in my newsfeed and my life. so, i’m going to make a much more conscious effort to really think about what they mean to me and how they can apply to my life. i’ve already got the first step down by just letting them into my life, now i just need to believe they should be there.

so that got me thinking about an interview i had yesterday. i was interviewing for a coordinator/supervisor position at a community college about an hour from where i live for a head start program they have. once the interview was over or even during it, i felt highly under qualified and that every single thing that was coming out of my mouth was just one more thing keeping my unemployed. and i thought that the whole way home, while i got gas and ran into the store to grab a couple of bottles of wine. and then i continued to think that as i sipped on my wine the rest of the night.

i talked to my friends about it and they all say i’m too hard on myself as usual and that we all think about what we could have done better during interviews. that’s just how it goes. and that i need to think positively and that good things are coming my way. again, it’s easy to surround myself with good, positive things and people but how much do i really believe that they’ll pan out that way for me? because with my track record, it’s not exactly been that way.

but, as i was in the shower this morning i decided to let that go. i decided to stop critiquing myself on what i did or didn’t do during that interview and let it be for now. and if they decide to bring me in for another interview, of course i will be the first one to be overjoyed and thoroughly surprised and if not, well, then that’s another thing about life. it doesn’t always ask you what you want. and we’ve got to be okay with that and i’m learning how to do that these days.

and as always, it got me thinking about my journey, unemployment, heartbreak, transformation…all of it. it made me think about the last year of my life and how half of that time i spent pouring myself into something i really believed in, something i very much attached myself to. someone i very much attached myself to. and you know how people are always saying that when they look back on situations or relationships that they somehow always knew it would end or that it wouldn’t work out? i’m not sure how you can really have that feeling until you experience it because even now, i’m not sure if i feel that way or if or when i will.

because i feel like when you’re in something very deep and it’s flooded with the love and effort you’re putting into it, it’s very hard to see it ending any other way except the way that you think it’s going to. i think when you’re in something that deep, you’re willing and ready to take a good beating and then once that beating is over with, you’re ready to take more until one day, it’s just not an option anymore. whether at your will or theirs.

again, life never asks you what you want and it surely didn’t ask me. it didn’t ask me if i wanted to devote myself and my time to someone for so many months only to have it end a way in which i didn’t envision it to. it was as if i was finally staring at a chess board in which all the players had lined up to take the queen and it didn’t matter who or what move was going to be made, she was going to be taken because she was never protected in the first place. there’s no strategic move needed when you’re not really all that guarded to begin with and i think that’s what the quote is trying to say.

i didn’t ask to be in this place, some five months later to be sitting here and blogging about my innermost feelings about my experience thus far about the pain that life brings. but, here i am. and that’s also the point too. i’m here to tell the tale. if anything, if i believed in anything, i believe that yes life is going to break you and once you’ve healed, it’s probably going to do it again. oh that limb is just starting to heal? oh that cut is scarring up? too damn bad. we are going to break that limb and re-open that cut…just cause. but it most certainly isn’t going to kill us, it hasn’t killed me even when i was sure at times it was most certainly going to.

life is hard, cruel, harsh and makes you short of breath more times than not and sometimes you just get the shit end of the stick and that can’t really be helped. especially if you’re someone like me that also so firmly believes in love which means a varied amount of things can happen. disappointment, hurt, and rejection, among other things. but, i also believe that loving and having the ability to love is extremely powerful and it teaches us about the kind of people we are, what we are truly capable of and what we are willing to endure.

love, and the loss of love has brought me to this very place today. and today is just another day in this journey and today i feel strong. i know i won’t always have days like that but, today is just one of those days. and i’m looking forward to many more just like this.

stuck in love.

i just got finished watching a brilliant film called, stuck in love. it was about a family of writers who were all at different stages of their lives and their careers as novelists. and they were stuck in some form of love whether it be unrequited, new, or running away from it. i thought it was beautiful, poignant, heartfelt, and moving. and i liked the fucked up nature that it also portrayed about how love looks sometimes.

i think it capitalized just how much love penetrates our being, how much it inspires us, breaks us, and can help us to live (or live again). if anyone who knows me knows just how much i love love and that is why i love movies like this. i’m all about a good love story despite my own failed attempts at it.

there is a scene in the film where one of the main characters is sitting in the car as rain falls (of course) and she is listening to a song being played for her by a guy who is incredibly sweet on her. she whispers, “i’m scared” and he acknowledges that. she turns to him with tears in her eyes and says that she doesn’t want to get hurt. he says, “i’m not going to hurt you.” her character had been burned by the bad taste that the love that had gone bad between her father and her mother had left in her mouth. so, for much of her young adult life, she had been running away from possibly the real thing until this one moment in a car, under the rain. absolutely loved this scene.

like i said before, this film is about a family of writers. the dad is an accomplished novelist and his daughter’s book gets published at the beginning of the film as his son is also a talented poet and science fiction writer. at one point in the film, the boy’s father is going through his son’s journal without him knowing (these kids have been keeping journals for most of their lives) and his dad comments to his son that he not only left his journal on his father’s desk to read if he wanted to but because he wasn’t afraid that there wasn’t something in there that couldn’t be read. his father said he was scared of that. he said we write from the experiences of our lives and he felt like his son wasn’t experiencing enough. he wasn’t taking enough chances, he wasn’t getting out there and was playing it too safe. this was another one of my favorite scenes.

i took from the scene above because i love to write. i’ve been writing for as long as i can remember and it’s something that i feel like i can always count on. it’s where i feel like i can trust myself the most, i feel like it’s something i can trust in general. but, lately, it’s been one of the last things i’ve wanted to do until i started to write this blog to help ease the things that i have been going through. when all of this started happening (whatever this is), i found myself paralyzed when it came to writing. i was questioning my ability as a writer even when i only write for myself so i’m really only my best critic. but, i didn’t feel like was good enough to write because i was questioning everything that i was as a person, even a self-proclaimed writer. i didn’t feel like i was producing anything original and there were no new concepts coming to me either. i was just going back and forth editing things that i had already written.

i attempted to write about things that i knew or at least i thought i knew but, what do i really know? and i tried writing about things that i wanted or things that i was going through in an artificial and somewhat fictional way but, it just wasn’t cutting it. because i didn’t know what i wanted, i still don’t. i didn’t feel like i was really getting anything out, if anything i was just piling it in more than i already was.

so, when i saw that scene when the father is talking to his son about writing from his experiences and that that is all that writers do, we write from experience whether it is put into something autobiographical or fantasy. it’s all from a place within. and it made me think back to when i started this blog earlier this week that i was wanting to write from a place within whether people understood it (or me) or had ever experienced the same thing or not. i wanted to write about the truth, i wanted to write about my own truth and that was something i did know about and that wasn’t something that could just be easily taken away from me. and it wasn’t about being good enough to write about it either because it was mine and that was what mattered. what mattered was that i was writing for me, to help me, and to bring myself something.

it wasn’t about being artificial or about trying to scope out just what kind of character i wanted or location would best fit the kind of story i was hoping to produce. it was about writing about what i was going through, about putting my thoughts to paper and seeing it in front of me. you know they say that when you’re able to actually physically look at something, rather than continue to imagine what it may or may not be, you take away the fear. that’s what i’ve been wanting to do. take away some of this fear.

for those of you who do know me and for those who have yet to know me, know that i love writing. writing is a great passion of mine. and with the help of this blog and this film, i hope it can inspire me to really let myself be in this time in my life, no matter how shitty it might feel and take that experience and put it into something. put my pain and what may feel like exasperated hope into words to help begin this healing process.

and also i want this specific time and movies like this to help me still believe in all the things that i used to and that was just how much i used to believe in love. how much i believe in the purity of it, the value of it, and the sanctity in which i esteem it to really be like. no love is perfect (boy, i have learned that one the hard way) and no piece of writing is either. each one is about experience and effort and the truths that we hold ourselves to.

i end this blog by saying that i’m currently staring out of the window to a beautiful fall day. the wind is slightly blowing and the sun is slowing fading as it highlights the richness of the fall’s colors. and i think to myself, this is how novels start…

she was just staring out her window, waiting for her life to start without realizing…it had already begun.