Defining Love in Longwinded Verses

I swear I may be the only person left in this world that holds love to such a high degree of importance. I feel as if I don't breathe correctly without him. I feel as if the last month and a half has not even existed, like my life was put on hold and nothing I did matters or even happened. Without him, the world was dark, and I was not me. Nothing made any kind of logical sense, it just was. And it was impermanent. I knew from the second that my world fell apart and he left me begging and crying for him, that this would not last for the rest of my days. I let the love of my life walk away from me. I let him run, full fledged and faster than I could ever imagine keeping up with, away from me. And I did this only because I know the power of love, and I knew that he loved me. I knew that one day he would wake up and realize that he was missing something, and that that something was me. Some would probably say that I didn't know this, that I merely hoped it, but I stand firm in my belief that I did know. If I had not, I probably would not have survived this. In hindsight I'm surprised that I did survive, because for a month and a half I did not breathe. He was my air, and he was nowhere to be found. I'm still a diehard believer in love now, maybe more so seeing the recent events unfold in front of my eyes. The world brightened, and there he was, standing there with that smile and tears in his eyes. The man that I lost long before he ever ran away was suddenly standing before me again with arms wide open and opportunities up his sleeve. Did I want him back? Would I accept him? Hadn't I always?

And so we begin again. A new slate, or maybe just a clean yet partially tarnished used one. We will move on from this still hurting and a little bruised from our time apart. But we will try again, if only for the sake of trying. I need him in my life, I want him in my life, and nothing will stop me again. The ultimate question remains: Is love ever enough? God I hope so.

Love is a concept that I'm not sure I will ever justly define. It's a feeling that you get deep down inside for a person that changes you. It rearranges all the little compartments in your heart until you realize that not even one would be quite perfect without that person in your life. There would be holes everywhere, and no reparations could fix it completely. Love hurts more than anything else in the world, it tears you to pieces and stomps on the shards left on the floor. It also makes every second of that torture worth it. Love is the be all and end all of life. Without it, there is no life. Maybe I'm the only person on earth gullible enough to go there, but I believe that love is the only thing in this world that can save us. Unfortunately, it can kill us just as easily. I'd rip my heart out and give it to him, and I may already have.

So here's to love, and ripping our hearts out to give it meaning,

J-L

Ruling or being ruled?

How amazing it must be to know your place in this intricately complicated world that we live in. I have to wonder if anyone really KNOWS their place though. Sometimes we think we have the entire picture figured out. There are no hazy edges or blurry spots that can be misinterpreted, and then suddenly the pictures fades, changes, rearranges, and spews forth a blurry mess we can no more decipher than we can like it. And we must unravel the mess all over again, we must figure it all out and hope to god the same thing does not happen again. This is what life is like when you let it rule you.

The indefinable first love

Love is something that is indefinable. I guess to most people it's an action, to others it's a concrete thing, and to even fewer others it is simply a way of life. It's hard to pin down what it means or what it is or even how someone should go about speaking of it to the world. If I know only one thing about love it is that it undergoes vast changes. It withers, it grows, and sometimes it even dies; should it then be considered an entity? I've been the girl that envied those that had found love my entire life. I've watched couples bicker and banter between each other and kiss in the end, and wondered with great awe how such a relationship came to be. And then I grew up, and I got to be one of those people. I got to bicker and banter and even fist fight and still end the night within his arms. I could look him in the eyes and tell him my deepest, darkest, most disgusting secrets, and to my amazement he would kiss me and everything would be fine. I felt love, I held it, I touched it, I nurtured it, and I watched it progress to a point I never thought possible. It took over my world, it engulfed everything that I knew and everything I ever wanted to be. He was the only thing that I was sure of. And then that love withered, and it died. A funeral should have commenced, or may have actually been conducted in my mental absence. He did not/ does not/ will not love me. And the world is suddenly off kilter. No solid ground can be sought, nor can it ever be found. This is the part they never mention in the fairytales. This is the fine print on the bottom of the contract to your heart. Being in love, feeling it, knowing what it really is deep down inside. Being able to caress it, to know without a doubt that it does exist, that it is capturable, that you can have it. This all comes at a higher price than most would have ever been willing to pay. Knowing true happiness, true completeness is out there, can only be proven if you are willing to one day lose that. Love comes at a great cost, because eventually love ends. It dies, sometimes by natural causes, sometimes by suicide, but mostly its murder. He killed it. He took a knife straight to my heart. Contract voided. Love lost, life still keeps on going though. And nothing will ever be the same, because now I am not enlightened by love, I am broken by it. Knowledge comes at a great cost. If I could turn back time and never let him in, it would be tempting to say that I would do it. But is it not true, that even if it was not him, it would have been another. I would have been hurt by another, probably sooner. There is no escaping it. And unfortunately there is no cure. Is it better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all? I doubt even one of us could ever discover this answer. We will all be one day broken by love, and if you are not, I dare you to allow yourself to be broken by it. I will love him for the rest of my days. I will look back on these days and cry, tears breaking loose without abandon. I will never love to such a degree again. First love, young love, untainted all out love, is different than just love. Loving before you have ever been hurt is something you will never again experience. It's pure, it's addictive, and its set on a path of destruction from day one. So love wholeheartedly, but remember: love dies just like we do. It blossoms, it withers, it self-destructs, and one day it will be gone.

Backwards Realities Never Were My Favorite.

So when the world goes topsy turvy this is where I stand my ground. I tell my secrets without abandon, hoping some answers will be found. Maybe I'm a little crazy, a little too perfect to live in this fucked up world. The only thing I ever wished to be, was to always always be his girl. And this rhyming is getting out of tune already… so here's my saga I hope your ready.

I've been with a man for almost 4 years… almost being the key word here. Our anniversary is august 3^rd, today is July 29^th. He broke up with me with no warning, no reason, and no care 3 days ago. Looked me straight in the face and told me that he didn't love me, that maybe he never really had. And my world melted. It lost all reason, all purpose, everything. We were on our way back from vacation. I didn't even get to unpack my bags before I was forced out of my home. Days went by without communication, until I had a few drinks and decided that I wasn't going to be silenced on this topic anymore. I didn't care what he'd done, I wanted him back. He still didn't want me. And I wouldn't give up, so he says something that tears my world to pieces once again. I cheated on you. 4 words, 5 syllables, yet groundbreaking. At first I didn't believe a word he said. I didn't see his face because he did it over the phone so I couldn't believe it, I wouldn't. So we arranged a time to talk. I sat waiting for an hour and a half before I got the phone call. He was at the police department. He had changed the date on his expired motorcycle 30 day tags, was carrying an ample amount of marijuana, and would be in jail a few days. Could I call his mom? Could I call his boss? Could I pick him up? I wasn't his girlfriend anymore. He'd done who knows what with who knows who who knows when. I wasn't his lifeline, and yet somehow I was. I called him mom, she called his boss, and she picked him up. And somehow I came running back to him when he got home. He wanted to talk, about what we were going to do now that our relationship was over. I wanted to talk, about how we were going to make this work. I WAS BEGGING HIM FOR ANOTHER CHANCE. We have to have entered a topsy turvy world where yes means no and everything is backwards. It made no sense. He did the unmentionable. And I was apologizing, I was going to change for him?

Here's the part where all you readers get pissed at ME. You tell me not to be THAT girl. You tell me to pick up whats left of me and walk away. Kick him in the balls, slap him across the face and move on to something better that I deserve. That's what I'd be feeling if I read this. Writing this is different. For the first time in my life, I know without a doubt and without pause that I love this man. He's screwed up right now. He's on a disaster path that's leading him to somewhere that he likes. He wants to be alone… wanted maybe is the key word. You never really realize what you want until it's gone, or leaving. So yelling and screaming that I loved him, that I would always love him, that he made a mistake but he could fix it, only tonight. And now he's kicking himself in the balls, and slapping himself across the face, and telling me to move on to something better that I deserve. He is marveling at the power my love for him has. I will not listen to a word you have to say, and I'm sorry, but I'm a smart person. I have an IQ that is off the charts and I've aced every class I've come across, unless of course I didn't feel the need to summon up the effort. My friends would describe me as the genius, the smart one, the one that always knows what to do. But from the day I was born, I listened to my heart, not my head.

I feel broken in two. I feel as if our relationship will never be quite what it was before, because I have this stuck in the back of my head. There will always be her, when I'm undressing, when I'm kissing him, when I'm making love to him. To some degree the thought of her will not go away, at least for a while. As for him, is he to be trusted? I say yes, but again that's my heart speaking. It is my belief that he hit a psychological break and wanted to let loose all ties to all those around him. I was the only one that wasn't going to go willingly, so he did the one thing we both thought would seal the deal on this relationship. I said from day one my only two rules were don't hit me, and don't cheat on me. Those are the only reasons I would leave without a second thought. I was wrong. As was he. This may prove to be our undoing in the end, but for now I'm being strong because I think in the end of all this bullshit, and when all the backwards curtains are pulled and the world is as it should be, there will be happiness on the other side. Call me stupid, call me whatever you want, I'm in love and for the first time I don't care what other people think about my decisions. I might be wrong, but I'm okay with that.

And so we wait, for the final ball to drop, or for the scene to reverse back to reality. We wait to see if love really is enough in this fucked up world. We wait to see where we go from here… these are the days you marvel at your own strength, and also your own weaknesses. I love him, but this makes me fucking hate myself. This will be a long road but it's brightening a little everyday. Maybe that romance in him will return. Maybe he'll come home and sweep me off my feet. Maybe he'll make me love myself again someday. We just have to wait and see.

-JL

Loving him and losing it.

My Pieces

Over the course of growing up I was probably asked over a hundred times what kind of person I am. Am I giver, or a taker, a liar or a faker. I've been given a thousand comparisons to choose from. Black and white reminders of categories that no real person could ever fit in. I was told from day one that I had to fit into categories. I had to be… something. I had to be able to explain exactly what kind of person I was in order to decide what kind of person I wanted to someday be. Today I finally realized who I was. And to be quite honest, it has nothing to do with the bullshit cookie cutter places they wanted to shove me into. I am a very unique person, one that has intrinsic value that is lost on most people. Those are the ones that vanish from my life without many second thoughts. They move on before they realize what I have to offer them. I don't really blame them, I'm just realizing exactly what it is that I possess, what kind of value I hold to this amazingly fucked up world. So what is it you might ask? What is it that I have to give to you? The answer is a piece of me.

I've skirted around this idea that I started as a whole person, and that I've lost pieces of myself along my long journey of life. I've talked it to death in previous journals, but I never really gave it any depth. I never really structured the idea in the sense that I intend to now. Before I get too deep into this I want to issue a small disclaimer. I do not intend this to increase my social, or even intrinsic value to the world. I am not spewing these mostly useless words to prove to you that you should be in my life, or that somehow I am worth more than you. I just made a profound realization in my life, and its brought me to a place of finality somehow. It has brought me to a place where I can be me, I can be comfortable, and I can feel as if, in the long run maybe I do mean something. So here is my normal incoherent babble for you to muddle through with (dis)interest.

I'm one of those people that has always always felt like there is something profound missing from my life. I walk around seeking that final piece day after day, and I will find things that feel right, and I will keep them, and still that hollow piece in my heart pangs to be filled. I used to blame it on losing my father at such a young age. I thought that I would never fill the hole that he left me with. I've realized that is not the case. I love my father, and in some way shape or form he is still with me every day of my life. He is proud of me, he loves me, and somewhere out there he is waiting for me to return to him. Am I bitter? Absolutely. Do I hate the world sometimes still? Everyday. Do I feel empty because of it? No. I feel a lot of things about my father, but not one of them is emptiness. I'm almost overflowing at the brim with memories of him. I will never lose that. So why do I feel so empty? The answer lies within the kind of person I have found myself to be.

I am selfless to a degree that I'm not sure I can explain in words. I am the friend that will never give up on you. I am the person that will give up anything to make you feel better, even in detriment to my own well being. I am the one that will give my life for yours, and think about it a little too late and a little too little. This sounds weird even as I type it out about myself, because I'm a bitch. I tell it how it is. I call you on your bullshit. I get heated and upset a lot. My tolerance is high, but when I explode, I decimate whatever lies within reach. I'm real. So maybe this is the price you pay for the goods you receive from me. I give up a part of my soul to everyone I touch… a part of my heart.

I will always be empty to some degree, because the pieces of myself that I long for lie within the people of my past. I give a part of myself to each person, a different part, a necessary part that makes their life a little easier to deal with. Maybe this is why I find it hard to let people in my life go because in an essence I am giving up on me. I am giving up on the parts of me that I felt I could do without. I love so deeply and so passionately that I do not see giving these pieces of myself away as anything great. I see it as necessary. A need. I love doing it.

Everyone I love holds a piece of me that I will never get back. And I realized today that they are better for it. They have never, nor will they ever again, have a person like me in their life. I love them more than I can fathom loving myself. All of them. All of you. Even the ones I have yet to meet, I love you for all your fucked up little quirks. I love you for your empty chambers that I can no doubt fill with another interesting part of me. I can be whatever you need me to be. Because I don't need to be anything other than that.

My haphazard past has led me to many places, and I could probably not trace it back if I tried. My pieces lie like breadcrumbs in the hearts of those that I have touched, and even if I sought to find each and every piece, I do not have the heart to take those pieces back. They needed those pieces, more than I did, and more than I will ever need them again. All those versions of me, they still exist out there within these people. Maybe I'm getting a little existential on you guys, but there are a thousand versions of me out there conquering the world. There are a million of me affecting the world still today, because each person with a piece of me, no doubt passes that part of me along to those they come into contact with. It's a strange little Jenny chain saving lives and hearts out there. This sounds crazy, and like I'm full of myself, but I feel good.

I feel great for the fact that I am worth something. I am the person that will someday at least try to save your life. I've seen what saving one life has coalesced to, what it is still blossoming into. And its eyeopening. I love that my life can save thousands just by shattering… even if it is one piece at a time. I only hope that a piece of me is climbing through these virtual pages. Learn from me, and pass it on. Maybe you too, can save a life.

Maybe emptiness doesn't have to be a bad thing. Maybe it's just a reminder. A slight pang that tells me that in some small, maybe even insignificant way, I'm changing the world. My pieces make other people feel whole, and my emptiness is a reminder of that. It is a small incentive to continue living the way that I do, to continue loving with no limits. I'm a bitch, but you love me, and your probably better for it too.

So in conclusion, if I were to define myself, I would have to say that I am a completer. I encounter people, I pick them up and dust them off and fill a tiny hole within them that allows them to continue on by themselves. I am not a creator, nor am I a developer, I am simply a builder. I am a helping hand. I reassemble what is out of whack. And I love doing it. I love finding something broken and bandaging it. Maybe someday I will encounter another person like myself and finally become my own finished product. I almost hope that doesn't happen though, who am I, if I am not who you need me to be?

 

This is either the caffeine or the sleep deprivation talking, but I mean every misspoken word of it.

XO

J-L

And when the end comes crashing in, imagine me ready to go out in glory

And when the razors are so inviting, this is where we end tonight. Farther away from being in love, and even farther from being alright. We end where the cobwebs lose their meaning, and spiders aren't the craziest affair. We wind to the end of a road quite horrid, a path we'd rather wind unaware. And we come to this place quite mistakenly, after a night of misguided fun, we end here because we have no idea where else to haphazardly run. We did no wrong in following this path, we meant no malice or spite. We wanted nothing other than to love him wholeheartedly, and even now want nothing more than everything to be alright. Wounds come at a price too high to pay, even after all this crazy withdrawal, we may never raise the funds to pay it, we may never come out on the favored end of our misguided brawl.

And so here is the list of misguided loves, and hates and undecideds. Even before the breakdown I can tell you I love him with all that I am.

I love him mostly for his bravery, he'd stand up in a second to any fight. He'd fight for me, or against me, but he'd never show his fright. He would protect what needed to be protected, no matter what it was. And in the end it wouldn't even see it as anything close to the fight it was. He did what needed to be done. That's his story through and through. I also love him for his passion, in bed and otherwise. He's the kindest, most open lover you will ever find. He finds joy in another's pleasure, and ecstasy in mine. He is and will always be passionate, for anything he deems worthy. He's willing to try new things, willing to work through those that don't pan out, and most importantly the attempt was always worth whatever consequences may come about. He's also adventurous, climbing each mountain that comes to play. But cautious in the sense, that if I would get hurt, he'd shield me. He's not cautious by nature, but for some reason, some amazingly compassionate reason, he is cautious if only for me. That's a virtue you find seldom in another human being. To be conscious of another's downfalls is amazing to me. Me, I'm cautious to the extreme, so when I go all out, I scare him a little, which is why he is cautious by proximity. He feels if I'm going to step out of my comfort zone someone should look out for me, I guess. I love him for a thousand different things. He takes care of me financially. He makes me smile. He plays stupid arcade video games because it may be one of the only things we can agree on. And he's nice to my friends, a virtue I can not boast myself. I'm hard to impress, less than willing to open up, and untrusting of newbies. He is everything that I am not. He is open, trusting (in a surface meaning of the term), and charming. He can charm the pants off of a newcomer. I'm even jealous of that attribute. He definitely charmed me…

I like him because he's smart in the most odd ways imaginable. He knows how fast an ostrich can run, even though the number eludes me now. He knows the german number system. He can shoot a gun. He can turn on a video game he's never seen and play it within 5 seconds correctly. This astounds me no matter how stupid it sounds. He can lie like a champ, this sounds like it would be something I would hate, but who doesn't love someone that can fool the world without a second glance? He cares about animals. He takes care of his pets. He compliments me when I least expect it, and even though I'm not sure how to take those compliments, I cherish them, each one and to an amazing degree. I still remember the first time he called me beautiful, it was unwarranted and incorrect, but I relish in the fact that he said it. I love that he loves my music for me. And my movies he could give a shit less about. I love that he loves everything I love. Maybe I should love what he does too. And I do try, I swear I do.

I hate that he hates country music. It's the most honest thing in the world to me, and I just wish he would see it for what it was sometimes. I hate that he's fast to judge and faster to punish. I hate that he has expectations I feel like I could never in a million years live up to. I'm smart but there are some things I couldn't ever expect to amount to. I hate that he hates me, for the fact that I'm not sure how to please him. I don't know how to clean, because my life as a child was in extreme upheavel. If I wasn't switching from home to home, I was losing a father, or a mother to a stepfather that killed everything pleasant in my world. I never had the childhood he expects that I did. I never learned to clean, or to resolve arguments, or even to just be calm. Being calm wasn't an option. It was life or death. I wish I could have chosen death. But here we are and the ultimatums are the same, I hate that he doesn't see that. That he doesn't know that. That he hasn't ever thought to ask. Most of all I hate that I can't blame him. These faults, they all boil down to me, me being who I am, or maybe more importantly who I was molded to be. I'm a little crazy I guess. I hold on too tight, I fly off the handle too fast, and I'm never ever comfortable with a what if. Whatifs are nevers to me, because they all boil down to do or die. You can't halfway it, if you don't do something about it, something is going to die. That's how I feel and I doubt anything will ever change that fact.

And so I'm all in. For only him, and for only this. I held my head high and I challenged all my fears when I went into this blind. I knew somewhere deep down that he was worth it, that what he would show me and teach me and be to me would be better than anything I had dreamed. I knew he was it for me. From the very first second I knew, and continue to know that he is everything I wanted. It's not all flowers and rainbows and tv show promises of happy endings, but its real. And most of the time its amazing. I see in him something that few people possess. I see in him a spirit that is worthy of the love I intend to give him. If he wants it, it is his forever. Forever and always. That's what he said.

I love him more my dreams. I love him more than becoming a counselor that could have seriously helped me when I needed one. I love him more than walking down the aisle and pledging my love to someone. I love him more than bringing another soul into this world. And that's hard for me to admit, because when I think about it I don't want to give any of that up. I don't want to give up a future than I know I would be perfectly happy with. But on the same hand, I don't want to give him up more. I love him more than any what-if in the world, because he's real, and he's breakable, and he can walk away but with everything I am I don't want him to. I could never be this me without him, and I love this me. I love this me that isn't afraid of things, or possibilities. I love this me that fights fire with fire and ice. I love who he has made me, and I will whither without him. I will burn out quicker than he realizes.

This is me, in my disgustingly honest hues. Yes, I held you back no matter your intentions. Yes, I damaged your window, and intend to repair it no matter how this pans out. Yes, I screamed and cried and bled for me. And yes, it was worth it. I would change nothing. I don't regret things. These things are who we are and what we did. We deal with them, we heal from them, and we move on. Scars are obviously left, some that will never ever go away, but together we can beat them. Together we are more than any of these scars can ever be. We are better than our drunken mistakes. We are more than our unfortunate encounters. So love me, for who I am, and for who we are together.

And if the love was not enough, and he turns his head and sighs, just know that I tried my best, let your witness be these cries. I was honest if nothing close to worthy, and fought for everything I thought we had. It's in his hands, and within his heart now, I pray to god that life is not this mad. Because we are something close to the ideal, even if not perfected nor molded quite right, we can be everything I dreamed of, I promise we can make this right. And so this lies within his hands, and his heart not yet turned to stone. Love me for who you know I am, know me for who've I've somehow grown. Close your eyes take the leap, it's not that far yet to be thrown. We will prevail, we will love each other again, please let the truth be shown.

Her best intentions were never the best he could hope for.

Sometimes I feel as if the things that I try to do to help people are misinterpreted by others around me. Is it wrong of me to not give a damn how my conversations with an individual person are perceived by outsiders who don't really know what went down or what was said? Or should I care? I've lived my entire life caring entirely too much how the world saw every little thing that I did and every little decision that I made. And I've woken up from that way of life and I've come out of my shell in ways that I did not think were possible. I've become this person that I like. Don't get me wrong, I still think things through. I still play situations within my head before I ever enter in to them. The difference is that instead of just sitting there thinking about a situation, I do actually go through with it, consequences be damned. I am doing my best to be assertive. I dive head first into the lives of my loved ones when I think that it's right, or when I think that I can help them. Should I be judged because of this? Should I have to feel as if I'm doing something wrong every time I try to use what little insight I have from my education to help them? I honestly don't think it is, no matter what past I may have with the person.

I bring this all to your attention as well as my own because today I did what I felt was right to help two of my best friends. I took 45 minutes of my time and tried to help a boy that I used to love, continue to love someone else. I can see why this could be viewed as inappropriate, but who are you or anyone else to judge my intentions? All I wanted was to help him see what he was unconsciously doing. I wanted to open his eyes to the things that he wasn't aware he was putting his girlfriend (another one of my best friends) through. I went out there with no pretenses, no secrets, and no barriers, because I know that he respects that. I was direct and truthful. And I might have even hurt him, but I think I had to simply to help him help himself love completely. He needs my help, or he never would have allowed me to stay in that car. He wants to listen to me; he wants my help because he knows that I'm someone he can trust, someone that is honest, and someone that will lead him down a path that might be a little easier. Hell I might even be able to understand things about him that he so far cannot. And so I took a leap and I helped my friend. And I return to my apartment, to a boyfriend that is looking at me like I've betrayed him, like I've done something wrong. He alludes to the fact that I shouldn't shove my nose where it doesn't belong unless I'm invited. What my boyfriend does not and will never understand is the fact that I have a special friendship with this person. I know where the boundaries are. I know him better than myself, and better than he knows himself. I see through all his bullshit. And I help him, in ways that my boyfriend will never see, nor does he need to see. It's a quiet but immensely deep friendship that we have.

It's one of those friendships that can survive any battle. It can survive almost love, and utter heartbreak. It can survive almost death, and deaths of others. And someday it may be the death of us simply because it is so deep and so meaningful, but we're willing to deal with whatever consequences, because it's something neither of us can or ever will give up. I've tried to walk away. There were days where it hurt to just think about him. But then I'd see him and it'd be like I was going back in time. Everything melts away, and friendship survives all heartaches. I love this boy, but I am no longer in love with him. I'm simply addicted to his friendship. He makes the world stop spinning so quickly and he wipes away all the stupid illusions until I see what's always been sitting in front of me. As much as he needs me right now, I've needed him more in the past and he has always, always been there. No matter what. Our intentions are entirely straightforward.

But even my best intentions may not be enough for him. For either of them. But I will continue on doing what I think is right because it doesn't matter what some outsider thinks. I need to do what makes me sleep sound at night, what keeps that knot out of my throat and keeps my heart from beating straight out of my chest in fear. And if my true love cannot understand this, maybe it isn't what I think it to be.

My best intentions will always be misinterpreted,

My lifelong battles will someday be misread,

And I will probably lose them both in pursuit,

Of quiet within my crowded head.

But I will keep on breathing,

I will keep on trudging on,

Because this all matters,

Until love is completely gone.

J-L

11:58 pm

Let the past be the past

My life is by no means an easy one. There are many examples that I can bring to the table to prove to you that this is true, but I'm not sure that I need to justify myself to anyone anymore. But maybe I do need to bring my thoughts out in the open, so that maybe I can come back to this entry, this place, and understand this specific version of me. Because that's what I do, at least 6 times a year, I look back and I revisit that person I used to be. Not because I want to wallow in my regrets or because I wish I would have done this, or that, but because I miss that girl that I used to be. As amazingly confusing as that might be, I do miss the thousand versions of me that exist somewhere in the past, because each version was amazing in a specific, if not outstanding way. So here is my tale, here are the things that make my life what it is today, in no particular order, and with no specific meaning.

I believe that one reason that my life is so complicated is that I grew up most of my life, or at least the important years, without a father. I say that and I'm sure that you assume that my father is some kind of deadbeat ignoring child support requests or maybe even my existence. That is not what I had to endure. I had a father, an amazing father actually. He loved me, and he told me that, and he showed me that every single day of his life. He and my mom did not get along for most of the years I remember, but you know that's okay. I know he wasn't perfect. He was an alcoholic, and he was strong enough to give that up. And it actually saved my childhood. I have memories with my father. I have great memories swimming in lakes, and playing in playgrounds. I have so many memories, and not one contains a taint of alcoholism. He was first and foremost a father. And then he got sick, and I watched my father whither away. This is most of what complicates my existence still. It's one thing to lose someone close to you, but it's entirely different to watch them fade away. It's heartbreaking to watch someone that you thought was invincible literally fall apart, and become a whole new person, physically and mentally. To be honest, I lost my father a long time before he ever passed away. But I loved him until the end. I still love him, and a part of me still expects that one day someone will just say "oh ya, by the way that was all just a joke", and we can move on and be a happy family again. I still imagine and wish and wait for the day that he shows up at my doorstep with that grin on his face. It will not happen, and I am well aware of that, but the childish hope still thrives. My days will always be plagued with a darkness of his last few months. I will always be tainted by the fact that I had no positive male influence in my life after I turned the age of 12. I will never understand men. And I will always miss one man until the day I join him in the clouds.

I think another reason my life will never be easy, is because my first love was not really love at all by the social definition. I've swayed between calling it love and adolescent lust for what I didn't really know, but I think if I'm honest and I forget all the people that I could hurt by admitting the truth, that it really was love. I fell in love with a boy when I was a freshman in high school. This seems like a broken record to me, but I'm going to imagine it's a broken record you haven't yet heard. I fell in love with a boy that was broken beyond repair. He was everything that I was told was wrong for me. He liked rock music, he had tattoos, he was a loner, he hung out with people that I was kind of scared of if I'm honest, and he was a skinny scrawny non-muscley type. Those are all the social labels that kept me forever a step away from him. What drew me in and made me become best friends with this boy was his amazing honesty, his blue eyes that surrendered his every thought, and the fact that he wasn't scared to be who he was in a world that told him he wasn't allowed to be that. He listened to me, and as I found out years after the fact, and way too late, he loved me too. It was an amazingly complicated semi-relationship that never had the timing it needed to become what we wanted it to. He was in a relationship. I was scared to begin something I knew nothing about. It was my fear, that sealed the deal and kept me those final inches away, forever and always, it was my fear that kept us apart. He is my what-if, my shoulda coulda woulda, but never will be. And I stress never here. Because even though I still think about, even though I wish that back then I would have had some confidence, or maybe that he would have had less reserve, the time has passed. And I have moved on, I've fallen in love again, and for real this time. But the fact remains that I do have that long lost love, and he just so happens to live with me. He's one of my best friends. He's around me more than any of my other friends, and I find that some days I'm transported back in time. Whenever it rains and he gets upset and his eyes just glow the way they do in the grayness… it takes my breath away because I remember days when I couldn't stop trying to draw his eyes. He is one part of my past that I cannot get away from, he does not fade. And no matter how in love I am, how much of myself I've given to another man… I sometimes still feel the compulsion to throw it all away. I know the truth though, I am smarter than my desires. The love that I had with him is nothing that can ever thrive. It is and will always be that love that just never had exactly what it needed. It didn't have the timing, or the confidence, or the life that it needed. It was always always missing something crucial. It died a long fucking time ago. It was one of those love stories that needs to be told to completely go away though. And so this pen, and this person will one day bring it to life, so it can be granted real death. Our love will exist on paper if nothing else. But my heartbreak, and the wounds that he inflicted on me will forever live on within me. Back then, I was just a girl that had never even kissed a boy. I was the inexperienced girl that didn't quite know how to go about telling a boy how she felt. And so I kept most of what I felt inside. He knew me though, he knew me better than anyone in the world. So he made me tell him the truth. And one day I broke down and I told this boy that I loved him, that I wanted to be with him, that I'd give anything if he just felt the same way for me. And he said nothing. I almost would have preferred a rejection, but I got nothing. And so I went on with my life still fighting for him, even if it was only for a friendship with him. I went on broken, missing a very important piece of my heart. I deemed myself unlovable, inexperienced and stupid. I never wanted to ever tell a boy that I loved him again because I was so scared to feel that again. I still feel ugly most of the time. I've been with a man for 4 years, that has told me how beautiful I am from day one, and I still do not believe it. And it took me a long time to say I loved him, because it just hurt too much. My first love ruined love for me, because it could have been perfect.

The final blow that I suffered from my first love was only about a year ago now. I had continued being friends with this boy for years after he broke my heart. I always harbored scars from it, ones he saw and knew, and some he didn't. We met after a long week because I needed a friend, and I got more truth from him than I ever had. He told me that he loved me back then too. This shattered my world. Not only did it make me question my current relationship, but it made me question how he could hurt me, and how I could continue being friends with him. He stole my new love, and my old love, and my friendship with him, and my perfectly nice reality. He stole all the illusions that I had created to make everything make sense. And then he hacked them to pieces with the look he pierced me with. This was something that needed to happen, and I realize that. Truth needs to be revealed, and relationships need to be tested in order to see how strong they really are. It turns out that my relationship with my boyfriend, and my friendship with my first love were both stronger than I had ever imagined, as was I myself stronger. He threw me for a loop in this rollercoaster of life, and I survived. I strived. And I moved on. But he left scars, some that still rip open and some that continue to bleed. The truth is that he will always hold a piece of my heart. He will always know that version of me better than anyone else. And he will always be in my life, because I need him to keep me sane. He makes my life hard just by being in it, but I wouldn't give him up for anything. Is that selfish of me? Yes. Do I regret it? No. He needs me and I need him and that's all that matters. Sometimes we have to open the wounds all the way, dig around and get all the truth out before we can ever move on. I found my truth that I always yearned for when I was younger, and it was too much, too late. I love him. But our love will never be today, what it could have definitely been back then.

So here I sit, seeing how these things of my past shape the person I am today. I am an amazing girlfriend. I am an amazing friend. I will one day be an amazing mother, and grandmother, and aunt, and whatever else comes my way. And I will be all those things because of what the men in my life have put me through. The older versions of myself had a rough ride. They lost things that meant so much to them. They lost a father, and a lover, and a best friend, and a perfect reality. But I have gained insight. I have gained knowledge of my world, and I have grown immensely. I can live a door down from the person that I used to love and not think twice. My relationship today means more to me than anything in the world, and nothing to break that, not even confessions from a past that I wish I could change. There are a lot of shoulda woulda couldas out there, and not one can break what I've built. Because in reality those woulda shoulda couldas are the building blocks that have built this structure. I never could have become this me, if I wasn't all those versions first. So here's to the past, being the past, and building this future. And here's to hope that love and friendship can life in harmony and in truth for the rest of time.

And if this perfect life shall fail, I only have one hope inside, may all these people know I love them, may I never have anything to hide. And may his soul just rest in peace, for at least just another day, and may my first love find his own, so his wounds too can melt mostly away.

J-L

12:52am

A new beginning, an old goodbye

The way time passes amazes me. Things can change so rapidly, and so immensely that we don't even realize that we've become this entirely new person. We don't realize that we've left the person we were behind, and have grown into a new one, until we look back randomly one day and realize how different we have become. I know this because it's happened to me quite a few times over the years. Looking back it seems as if I must have gradually progressed into the young woman I now am, but I'm not sure that the change was really so gradual. I think it all happened at once, and I was completely unaware of the changes because I had other things to focus on… other things to be happy about for once. I've grown into this person that is able to love with all her heart. I've grown to forgive the people around me for the mistakes they've made, as well as to forgive myself for taking so many wrong paths. I have fallen in love, given my heart away, and I can't imagine that a day will come when I will regret that decision. Good, bad, happy, sad, or pathetic this is what my life is. And it's invigorating.

This is not to say that life is all sunshine and rainbows. It's more like fire and ice. My world has been set ablaze, and I love it. Every single thing in my life seems somehow amplified in the light of first love. I can find reason in the world, where reason used to escape me. I can find sadness too, though. There are shadows, and there are dark corners that I still fear, but I also relish in the adventure that they bring to the table. I love the rainstorms because I get to run through them with him. I love the snow because it means we get to cuddle to keep warm. And even the bad things in life don't seem so bad when you realize that you don't have to battle it alone.

Maybe that's the change that ensued. My I, became a we, and the world just seems more bearable somehow. And so I want to welcome this new way of life, that I hadn't until now realized I was already starting to live. And I want to say farewell to my newest version of my old self. She wasn't so bad, she was just broken, in need of repair. And somehow I think that he healed her. He created this new me from the ashes of the old me. He brought me back to life. And I love him for realizing that she wasn't the me I was supposed to be.

J-L

11:43 PM