Thirteen 02.25.10

There's a bit of anxiety rolling around in my skull today. It feels like small beads wrapped in tinfoil and tinsel sliding across one of those cheesy stained vibrating beds that you find in motels. You don't know where its been or whats its seen but it sits there willing your curiosity to slide one fat quarter slug into its waiting slot and watch it bark to life. I'm a little bit afraid someone might actually notice that I'm secreting away a racing heart beneath these bruised ribs today. I have an appointment today with a therapist that might actually be able to help me.

She might be able to help me take these pieces I have been deconstructing and put them back together in a way that feels natural and strong and self realized and whole. I have been looking forward to this for fucking weeks. And what if she doesn't work? What then? Well you know what? I'm going to stay open and motivated.

Where there were once walls and no doors, there's a large open spaces filled with light and sound. Where there were once claustrophobic hallways of shame and denial and anger built up brick by brick, there is only a sledgehammer bearing your name and a pile of smoking rubble at my feet. You would think I would be afraid of this when I look around at the devastation. My hands are itching for a shovel. Someone get me a mallet and a chisel. I'm starting with a new foundation and I'm going to build this back up and turn it into a temple. Witness my glorious works of masonry, how I turn battered bricks into smooth shiny cornerstones. And for those bricks that are too rough to flatten out, I'll display them proudly. There are no doors in this temple. Only vaulting ceilings and gentle inviting arches. I am aroused at the prospect of this hard work. And even when I become afraid and doubtful and have moments of hopelessness, my core is determined to succeed in this it carries me through to faith and to action.

It's no wonder I'm a little anxious when I woke up so excited. That Slam night I went to last night changed so many things for me in just the space of a few hours. So many things I can't take back or replace and I'm aching to live this life again. I'm aching to cast away all my troubles and worries and just be. Just be: me. But it's not the me we think we know me to be. Nah, this animal is one of an entirely different breed. I don't wanna be shy and coy and closed off anymore. I don't wanna be cooped up and isolated and building fences so tall they tower over me made out of old tires and barbed wire and dental floss.

No I want to see the horizon.

I want to see what I'm walking towards instead of what I'm hiding from. I'm so tired of this self-imposed bullshit. It's like all this pain and suffering and misery just piled itself up in my liver. I got addicted to that shit. I didn't know there was any other way I COULD be. You showed that. Through your guidance, through your loving embrace. You showed me that strangers might hurt me, but that in their eyes I also might find God's given grace. You showed me that people I don't ordinarily talk to could open up my eyes to things I've never seen. And that places are for exploring and there's a kind of beauty in wandering.

I am slick, racing down to the pavement like rain on a sunny day. I'm revealing rainbows of insight with all the things I look back on. Why have I been wasting my time? Why have I been holding back what's inside of me and longs to be free? Why have I been afraid of people for so long when I know, I'm not fooling anyone when I say I could live without them. PLEASE. I couldn't go a single week without reaching out to touch another soul. That loner thing, it's just not in me. I'm starting to know where this all came from. I'm starting to see the events line up like cards in a Rolodex revealing how I lost my way, lost myself in this misery.

I'm starting to uncover all this mess of tangled twine that will lead to me to the end of this twisted knot. And I am finding out, that I have been a victim to my past, living in it like it's just repeating over and over and over. But in doing that I've become a self fulfilling prophecy. Fuck that, wasn't I the one that said I don't believe there's not a hand I didn't have to play in my own destiny? Why was I squandering it just sliding into atrophy and pretending like I didn't care about being out it in the world? Who the fuck was I kidding fronting that a passion junkie like me wasn't starving for the limelight?

Can I dare to make this dream come true now that I've tasted my true wish? I think so. I don't know if you're listening, and part of me doesn't care but I want you to know...I wish I could be more like you. I wish I could let people in like my heart was a halfway house for the whole fucking world. I wish I could learn to fear less and trust more. I wish I could learn to speak with integrity and passion while displaying sensitivity and love, instead of insults and verbal beatings. Yeah, nothing is the same now. It took you doing this, leaving me, for me to get this now. The blinders are ripped off and the world is not a place I'm afraid to look at.

I want to grow, change, mold myself into my TRUE form and embrace all the parts of me I want to cultivate the most. I'm trying to find the tools and the words and the actions that will lead me down this path, back to myself. I feel like I've never known me, I feel like I'm a total stranger now. Who is this person who's going to get up on a stage and preform despite the stage fright? Who's this chick that looks people in the eye as much as she can now because she wants to let see her? Who's that girl who's tired of saying "I'll try to come," and now just does it? And who the fuck is that girl that wakes up and says "do something new, do all the things you wanted to but didn't, stop making excuses, this is YOUR life LIVE IT?" Yeah that'd be me, the new me, so wide open its ridiculous.

I want to walk up to everyone I see and tell them: I'm in love with a girl that doesn't want to speak to me anymore. I'm fucking crazy in love with her because she showed me that the life I want to lead is SO worth living, and most importantly, that I can live it. This is NOT the impossible dream. It's the first day of the rest of my fucking life and I am going to live it. Yeah, I'm not going lie, there's gonna be down days and sad times and pain. But I'm not gonna let that shit hold me down any longer. I'm not gonna let fear of the unknown temper my spirit and break it down to something weak and frail like spun sugar. Not when I know better, not when I know, you held me in a time of weakness and nurtured me back to life. You brought me broth and warm blankets and soft caresses made of moonlight and a kind of sentimental beauty.

I got strong again, but then I got scared. This was the last leap. The last moment where I ran after you and found a cliff side waiting. Ordinarily I'd say "fuck it." I'd say she abandoned me and retreat into my grief turning you into a thing of misery and pain. I'd let that steel up my heart and turn me into stone so I could be like Medusa and have a fucking excuse to not look people in the eye when they speak to me. But this time, I'm looking at the cliff side and smiling. I'm backing away from it so I can get a running start. I am hurtling myself into the abyss and loving the feeling of soaring that courses through me, instead of the fall I thought was sure to come.

Call me crazy, but I am coming after you. If you thought you could get rid of me that easily, you're wrong. I am in love with you and everything that is right and worth keeping in my heart is telling you, this isn't over yet. You may be wondering to yourself what that means...well...sufficed to say I'm now a bit of a member of the congregation of spontaneity. I can't tell you, or it will ruin the surprise. You'll just have to trust me. You'll just have to know that I'm never far from your heart. You'll have to live with the fact that out here, there's this crazy person who is so enthralled by you I would never leave you fully.

There's a difference between letting you go, and leaving you behind. I'm letting you go, but I'm always going to be RIGHT HERE, RIGHT HERE calling your name in my sleep and grinning like a fucking idiot when I think of your face. People say I'm looking better and they ask me what's changed. I put it to them simply: ME. But more accurately, I'm all aglow with my love for you. I can practically see the silly little Disney blue birds racing around my head. These little pink hearts made of cotton candy and sunshine lift out of me and find their way to you. I know, I know you are eating them with your clever mouth and the tell tale stain of their pink is clinging to your fingers. Don't even try to deny it. I know you still love me the way I love you. So we'll see how long this has to go on for, how long you need to be out in the world wild and free until you realize what you want. Just like I did. It took me thirteen days to realize what I want. And now that I know, I am never looking back.