Running is the new healing, at least that's what she says.

And she's running away again, faster than she ever has before.  She is running from obligation, from being needed.  Is it so much for her to desire someone to want her again?  To truly want her, more than anything else in the entire world.  That is her dream, that she will someday find a man that is content to just be with her.  Someone that can lie next to her in bed in the dark and just talk for hours.  Someone that makes the world melt away, and revels in the fact that he can melt with her.  She thought that she had found him, she thought that she had found this amazing man that would make the rest of the world finally make sense, or allow her to ignore the fact that it will never, and has never ever made sense anyway.  But then she realized that she needed more than that, but somehow less than that too.  You see she thought that she saw the glimmer of her father in the eyes of a boy waiting in line for a roller coaster, but really all she found was a boy that would love her the same.

Unfortunately it was as he was confessing his love for her, that she realized that she would never love him the way he already loved her.  She could not love him, and at first she thought it was because she still loved another.  In those first excruciating moments it was his face that flashed before her eyes.  It was his eyes she was looking into and it was his hand holding hers, ever so gently, but still protectively.  It was his stubble that she was stroking, and his lips that her fingers were running across.  So ya, maybe the epiphany was two-fold.  She realized that she still loved someone who would never ever choose to love her the way she deserved back, not in the way she wanted anyway.  Because he would always love her, just not in the right ways.  But she also realized that the boy that she had chosen to take that other man's place was no closer to the man that she needed.  The funny thing, is that together they were a perfect man.  Strong, protective, comforting, sensual and racy meets sensitive, caring, loving, and goofy.  Two halves of a whole that made up the greatest man she had ever known.  Together they were her father, but individually they were largely disappointing.

And so here she stands, after running away again.  Writing a story about a girl that was obvious was her from the time the pen starting touching paper, and then her fingers started gracing the keys.  She is trying to make sense of her decisions, of her reactions, of her nearly insatiable need to be with these boys that mean nothing to her.  But her decision-making seems to have been placed on hold in light of her need to heal.  Again.  So that in a month or two when she meets another amazing man, she can run and her body will be conditioned for the consequences. 

The real question is whether the same can be said of her mind.

J-L

my own little one tree hill

Some days I look at my life and I wonder if I will ever have enough.  I am not a selfish person, and I never really have been.  If anything I am selfless, I am even selfless in detriment to my own well being.  I will give anything to see you rise up against the tides of this overwhelming world.  And yet somehow, no matter what I do, or who I meet, or how deeply I fall in love, it is never enough.  He is never enough.  Which makes me wonder, if maybe its me that's the problem to begin with.  I have these ideas about love in my head that have built up as a result of my life.  I have what I expect love to be in my head, whether I can figure out what that actually is still stands in question. 

It seems ridiculous to relay what I am even thinking at this moment.  It saddens me to admit the thoughts inside of my head.  But I also wonder if these thoughts are not the product of my endless pursuit to finish a tv series that for many years of my young adulthood I wished was my own life.  I wished my life were that exciting, or that enticing, or even that dramatic.  For years I wanted to be Peyton Sawyer, and now as I rewatch the series on Netflix i'm beginning to see that 5 years later... maybe I am.

You see i'm finding myself in this place where I've realized that even after throwing myself full force into an amazing relationship, one that can work, and is working, that I'm still in love with someone else.  And I'm wondering if this love is eternal, everlasting, inescapable.  Or if its simply inevitable, lasting, but over.  The problem is that I do love another, I love someone with my whole heart, but he does not want me.

And so this boy is my Julian.  I could love him, I could be happy with him, but there will always always be that other guy.  I'll think of him when I am least expecting it, I will keep him in my life because i can, and because everyone allows me to.  But I will be waiting, no matter how deeply I get into another relationship, I will be waiting for that day when he misses me, when he realizes that he made a mistake.  And I will go running back. 

It kills me to see this, to be this girl.  And so I wonder if this is only the product of a high fever and too much time to catch up on dramatic television of the past.  I wonder if I am dreaming up all of these feelings, or if this is really who I am.

I am Peyton Sawyer, and he is my Lucas Scott... but for today I will be happy with Julian Baker, because he's a great guy, he makes me smile, and some days he even makes me forget that Lucas Scott ever walked away.

J-Leigh

I see myself through their eyes and I am beautiful (I see myself through my lies and I am beautiful)

But the world seemed darker today than most others...stranger. Nothing was as bright or promising. The world just was...in all its gray glory and she wondered for the first time if there was more. If she could be more.  If she could title it...she'd name it melancholy. But for some reason, some ungodly premonition she knows she never will.

And so she paints it. In Grays. And leaves it for them to remember on a day that she does not intend to see. Because we were not all meant for infamy...some if us were meant for the unmarked billboards, the untitled songs, the anonymous quotes.

She will live forever. And she revels in the fact that no one else will ever know.

And it is the love that comes on the eve of her destruction that somehow saved them both

She finds herself pondering life again, as if she needs to figure it out to give it the right meaning, when maybe the truth is that the meaning lies in her inability to decipher it.  Maybe this part of life, this happy part, the part that makes her smile more often than she has in a long time, or allows the smile to stand unmarred for longer than ever before in her life, does not need an explanation.  She has been plagued by bad luck and even worse decisions for as long as she can remember.  And it is when she is on the verge of unveiling a massive deception that could have torn her world down that she found someone that made her question whether any of that mattered in the first place.  The fact that she is still standing right now is amazing to her.  So maybe she needs to go back to the beginning, retell this story, since really she isn't quite sure what her life story is anymore.

Many years ago there was a girl.  She was pretty ordinary in most respects.  Her hair was too curly, she was pretty awkward, and wasn't even sure what makeup was or what dating boys meant.  She hadn't ever kissed a boy, or even held one's hand.  But she had lost her father.  She was the broken little girl that was quite lost in her world.  She retreated into herself and into her writing, trusting that what she believed about life was true.  She believed that her father had been sick, that he had some terrible brain disease that stole the best man this world had ever allowed to live.  She believed that her stepmother had moved heaven and earth to keep him with them for as long as she had.  She believed that her own mother had deceived her, had tried to keep her from knowing the truth even though she knew she could handle it.  The truth was, that whatever the truth may be it never left the lips of that woman.

Eleven years later she sits asking herself if it matters.  Does it matter if her father died the way that she always took for granted was the truth?  You see this girl always valued truth.  Above all else, the lies were the things that hurt the most.  It drastically changed the relationship she built with her mother when she was convinced that she had intended to lie to her, to protect her from her father's disease.  In reality her stepmother was keeping everyone that cared about her father from knowing what was going on with his health.  It seems entirely likely now, in hindsight and much too late, that he did not die of an illusory brain disease.  He was either poisoned or misdiagnosed.  Either way someone is at fault.  Someone killed my father.

And here we go away from the story and into the heart of what this really is.  Someone killed MY father.  The best man that I have ever known, one that was not free of faults or bad decisions.  He was just a man, not superman or anyone that would have saved the world, but he was a good man.  The kind that few meet and even fewer get to know for who he truly is.  He may not have saved the world, but somehow even though I only had thirteen years with him, he saved me.  He saved me from a life that I could have had, simply by being who he was and showing me that it was important to be that way.  So it's hard to wonder if his death is important, when it is blaringly obvious that it is.  Even if no one else cares but me, his death is important.  Just as important eleven years later, as it was the day my mother broke the news.

I see past the lies now.  I see that even though I may never know if my stepmother did something to cause my father's death that she was not the person that I believed her to be.  Deep down in my heart there are bitter and disgusting feelings.  Feelings that make me want revenge.  I want to take something that means as much to her as what she took from me.  But even when I say that I think I know that I don't even mean that she took my father from me.  I mean that she took my peace of mind.  She took that part of me that doesn't question anything, that just trusts blindly because I will never ever trust like that again.

And yet here I am.  Waiting for a boy that makes this not hurt nearly as much as it should.  A boy that doesn't even know that I have lost a father, or that I'm damaged goods.  A boy that can make me smile without even saying anything.  It's like the world knew that I needed him, and that sounds completely insane.  Since the day that I met this guy I saw something in him that I have seen in very few human beings.  I saw something that I could not place, something that reminded me of something, of someone, of sometime.  And it wasn't until today that I realized what that was.  Every girl is destined to want someone like her father, and I think that's what I found in him.  I don't even know him yet, but I feel like I can see it in his eyes, tucked back in there way past where any normal person could see.  It is there and I know it.

So this life, that has forever been working against me, gave me him on the eve of my possible destruction.  I have no doubt that if I had not met him that I may have crumbled on the cusp of this.  But somehow whenever I look into his eyes nothing matters anymore.  The deception does not matter, the want for revenge is nearly nonexistant, and I revel in the fact that I now have this person in my life that could turn it all around.

He saved me, or maybe more precisely, the world saved us both.  There must be a reason that we met that day, that we didn't choose to delay for even another minute.  That's all it would have taken.  And when I look at it that way it is even more wondrous.  Fate.  Destiny.  I never believed in those things.  They were fairytales and bullshit.  But now, after eleven years... I'm a believer again.  He's made me believe in something, made me want to believe in him.  And for the first time in my life, I'm not scared. 

make me a believer, for i want to believe in nothing but you

I've never been a real believer in fate, even though the thought of it intrigued me.  I never put much stock in horoscopes, or psychics, or even intricate life plans.  But I feel as if I am being forced to recognize the powers of the universe, that some things are just meant to happen, some people were just supposed to meet.  A thousand things could have impeded our meeting.  Any small decision could have changed any of our four courses that day, and we would not have met at all.  I say this, wondering if we had made different choices if the world would have allowed us other chances to meet.  If we would have met somewhere less magical, or if we would have gone on with our lives oblivious to the fact that the other existed.

Who travels an hour and a half to an amusement park, sparks up a random conversation with two strangers that have driven two and a half hours to get there, and ends up spending the entire rest of the day with them?  Who finds a guy that they are head over heels for in line for a roller coaster that she almost decided to ride later?  I guess I do.  So I have to believe in fate.  And that fact that this guy that makes me feel things inside of my heart and inside of my soul that no other guy has ever made me feel before, is amazing to me.  Life is amazing.  And my heart is all jumbled and my brain is no better off... but I feel like I have so much to say here, and yet so little will come out of this incoherent jumble.

I'm falling harder than I may be comfortable with, but I feel like this might be the point,
J-L

Her mind goes back to the same place every time she sits down to think. She is somehow transported to this place...this place that to her knowledge does not exist in the world not the real world anyway. The place overtakes her. So competely that she can smell the air. She can feel the breeze and run her fingers through the grass. She can breathe the place in...and it is refreshing. Refreshing like only this place could ever be or ever has been. It travels to her soul and through her veins to her heart. She breathes him back in...here. Because this is the only place he can exist now...for her.

In no other place do they exist together except for here. They never have. And her heart knows it but yet she tries to believe it anyway...that she can steal him away from this special place.

And so here I am buried in a pit if loneliness...I never thought that I would be that girl. The one that watches the girly movies and cries her eyes out before its even over. I'm not the girl that needs a boy. But I am the girl that needs him.even as I say this I wonder who I refer to by saying that. I wonder who it is that my heart aches to have back. He will always be the one that I cannot have I fear. The best friend...the could have been. The I will always love you but I'm not in love with you kind of thing. The dagger of all daggers. The love that never would have lived up to the idea about it in my head. He never was that guy or wanted to be or ever can be that guy again. So I'm stuck waiting and missing an illusion. an illusion that I fear to let go of because if I'm not waiting for him...what am I doing? And what if he chooses that moment to return? If I give up on the improbable do I then stop believing in the impossible? And I'd I do that have I lost myself in the process? Have I lost that amazing ability to believe in anything and to stop at nothing?

The loneliness permeates my world as if attacking full force. It is impossible to ignore. And so I look for comfort wherever I can find it...hoping someday it will simply appear in the bed I choose to share each night with whatever boy deemed me worthy for the evening. If any.and I hate myself more everytime I end up here or there.because I'd rather find comfort in being alone than revulsion at the thought of never being able to do so

Ramblings of a Wannabe Writer Commence

just some ramblings from trying to get back into the swing of writing again:

The creek where they grew up beckons tirelessly because he no longer answers the call. She's been waiting there hoping for something better than her life has to offer now, someone better. Someone that's like him, but not him. She needs a gentle soul that doesn't know who she is or what she's been through. Someone that doesn't see how tainted she is, how different she was back then. Someone that looks like him and smells like him and treats her the way he used to. Because he's not that guy anymore.

This place calms her like no other. The smell that permeates this meadow is indescribable. It brings her back to a better time, to a simpler time. The illusion is intoxicating. The idea that she can stay in this place forever crosses her mind as she sits. She could simply let the creek overtake her, let the water run through her veins until her heart no longer beats for him. It would be easy to allow this place to have her. Because if he does not want her, this may be the only other place that does.

and here it is september again
it's like no time has passed at all
the wounds are just as fresh today
and the tears they want to fall.

it's been eleven years this time
its crazy so much time has passed
it seems like just yesterday
we knew the day was our last.

the world is so different
life is almost too hard without you
i need you to confort me, to laugh with me
but those days are definitely through.

I can still see your smile in my mind
I can almost hear your voice, smell your cologne,
almost is too much for me sometimes
I feel so devastatingly alone.

Call me from heaven
God must at least have a phone
I want to see you, to hear you, ask you
I have too many questions ________?

It was a moment that froze time, but in a way that is hard to explain. It was a moment that froze a million previous moments in one specific place and melded them together to a point where they were all the same. And then it shattered, broken by the remnants of a scream he never intended me to hear, and a confession that I had known was coming.

You see him and me, we were broken when we met. We were both torn apart by people that "loved" us. It was a bond that isn't easy to explain, both because it was so long ago, and also because I think that explaining it in words makes it look like something far worse than it was. We were those friends that healed each other. We picked each other back up and we healed, and we moved on. It's difficult to tell the tale. We had more in common than any other person I had ever met. We were in tune on a cosmic level that most don't believe in. We were meant for each other... for these few moments in time. Inside his room, and on that couch, a whole world exists... existed... that no one knew about, and that no one could understand. When I was there I was safe. I can't say that he felt the same, although I hope that he did. That place was our world. If we stayed there, together, forever, then nothing could ever hurt us again.

I loved him. I loved that him that hold me and made me feel like nothing could ever hurt me. But outside of that little world things were different, and eventually the better we felt, we ventured out of that room. We went back out into the world, and it was amazing. It was amazing to feel again.

But the reality of it was that the more we wanted the world, the less we ventured into our own. Or the longer we let ourselves get swallowed by this false sense of security, the lonelier the real world felt. This relationship did not exist outside of the boundaries of that world. I wish I could tell you why. I wish I knew why. I wish I knew why those feelings that blossomed in that room in the dark, went dormant in the light. But I do not know.

My beliefs about love have changed as a result of this relationship. Before this I thought that love was neverending. I thought that if you loved someone you never stopped loving them. And that is probably still true. The meaning is different though. Our love exists within that room, and within the memories of that room, and will exist there forever. That broken girl and that broken boy that somehow unbroke each other will always exist there. And I will cherish what happened in those months that all we really had was each other. But I live in the real world, one that isn't safe or sheltered. I live in a world where I get hurt now.

And when I felt like I couldn't deal with that hurt anymore I returned to that place thinking that it would still be the same even though everything else was now different. I came back seeking that comfort that had existed for so long. But in my absence, it had changed, he had changed, we had changed. So I picked myself back up, and I healed myself this time, because I could.

What I didn't realize is that maybe he didn't think of us the same way. Maybe I took for granted the fact that we were so alike, that he had to feel the same way I did. I could go from loving him, to loving being around him without much chaos in my world. I could be his friend. But he never wanted to be mine.

I just wish that he could see what we really had. That we had a perfect life, in the confines of his room, but that that life did not translate to the real world. We had everything we needed in that room, but out in the real world we need more. And that in that room the world flies by without us. People grow up without us, and have real lives. People go to real jobs, and get married and have children. We are not that for each other. We are not the happily ever after. We are the once upon a time.

But unfortunately now we are the end. And I guess that makes sense on some cosmic level that no one else can understand. We were more for each other in those few months than most people are for each other in ten years. We were a rather concentrated relationship, and probably one of the best relationships I've ever had. He wanted to be more for me, but I wish he could just see that the reason I loved him was because he wasn't trying. I fell in love with a boy that was broken hoping to fix him. I loved him for his sadness, and for his failing confindence, and also for his broken heart. But then one day he healed. And even though he was still a great man, an amazing man, he was not the boy that I fell in love with. And so, I fell out of love.

We were meant for each other, for those few months, to learn that love did still exist. Maybe he'll hate me for finding out that I feel this way, that I loved him but left him. And maybe he'll still think that he wasn't enough, or maybe that he was too much. I think he was just enough. And ya maybe it's not the kind of love that lasts forever, but its still important, it's still an important kind of love. This is the kind of love that heals all wounds, and no other love will ever measure up in that regard.

That scream could have shook mountains, and maybe it did. Maybe that's what it took for me to see that we were not as similar as I had thought. Maybe that's what he needed to do to rip me out of the real world and back to that world that we had created together. I escaped it, but I'm not sure that he ever wanted to.

You'd think that after twenty four years I'd have learned how dishonest this world is. It's all fake. All a giant ruse to convince us that life is perfect, life is beautiful, life is... easy. People don't say what they mean any more than they do what they say. Life is not perfect. Life is not beautiful. And life is definitely not easy. Still I have this illogical desire to believe all of the lies that surround me. I want to believe that life can be perfect, that life can be beautiful and that life can be easy. If I believe it, maybe I can make it come true.

But with these kind of ideas life is an utter disappointment. Nothing is ever enough. That movie that you saw last night wasn't funny enough, or scary enough, or maybe didn't have enough action.

making bad decisions in the form of overthinking

And the rollercoaster begins anew, as life repeats because we're through. We are disastrous together, completely wrong for each other. If we were to continue this little dance that we have been doing for months, i fear that the world would literally implode. Do I love you? absolutely. Do i miss you? More than anything in the world, or anyone before you. Is it enough? never was. I'm terrified. I've picked up my entire life, and i've made changes that I have never had the guts to before. I made decisions for ME, not for him, or for anyone else, but for me. Unfortunately, this time the situation is not poetic. i have nothing amazing to say, nothing intriguing or alluring. I am simply me... the girl that hasn't worn makeup for a week, or even done anything to my hair. The girl that is deadset on the fact that this time life will be different, decisions will be different, and yet i'm doing the same exact things. I'm falling into my own traps again, and again i don't care. I want a guy that thinks I'm beautiful without the thrills this time. I want a guy that loves me for me, that loves my family, and wants to know my friends. i want a guy that wants to be in my life, and would go to the ends of the earth to have me in his. is that so much to ask? and yet somehow I don't want anyone but him. Another him. We're not going to name names here, because I'd embarrass myself with how many I'd have to label. He is the one i cannot let go of. The one who always captures my attention from across the room. The one who's family considers me theirs even though I can barely recall any of their names. Good people. That's the only way to describe them. and he's the boy that never wants to grow up. I fell in love with the man that I know he can and will be someday, but unfortunately he's still the boy that refuses to be him. or to love me. I must be careful with that one, because he has my heart wrapped around his finger and he doesn't even know how much he affects me. I wish just one day he could see himself through my eyes... that anyone could.

So I wonder now how I move on with my life as a single woman. Do I jump full force into the world and allow what will happen to happen? Or do i stand back and watch from afar? Do I watch my life unfold or do I live it? I want to live it, but I'm afraid where that would lead me.

Making bad decisions in the form of overthinking,

J-L

"Love" and "Acceptance": we are unraveling

I feel like somehow my life is on consistent repeat. We all imagine that as we grow up we change, and we leave behind a million versions of ourselves. We believe that when we change we are this totally new person, that we have somehow adopted new ways of life… but yet I always seem to find my way back here. I feel like I have a pattern, a pattern that I wish I could break, but one that I know will somehow continue on forever. Every couple months I end up back here, back to my writing, and inevitably back to reading quotes in order to feel better about my life. I want to feel like someone out there knows how I’m feeling. But the problem seems to be that I cannot for the life of me figure out how I am feeling in the first place. My intention was to find a quote to summarize my view of life. I wanted something poetic, something groundbreaking. Needless to say, I did not find that. I think the only way I ever would is if they tumbled out of these misguided fingers without purpose or pause. Anyway I found myself drawn to the quotes about love. And a general theme that I was not expecting to notice was the theme of acceptance. Love is when a boy listens to everything you say, and accepts you for your flaws. Love is when a boy sees through the disguises, and chooses to stay. I’ve had mixed thoughts about my current love situation for a while. I thought that I was going through some stupid time in my life where I just cannot handle to be held down, or expected to do certain things. I thought that this whole thing was my fault. I was confused about my past “love” for another. I was confused about my motives and my intentions when I left home each night without him. Was I going because I needed my own life, or was I going because I just didn’t want to be with him? The real problem was not apparent. I have all of these ideas about love. I have this picture of what love should be in my head, just as I’m sure everyone else does. Something that has been molded by Disney movies, and Dawson’s Creek, and romantic movies. Love should be epic. Love should be earth-shattering. Love should stop time. Love should consume you. And this love is not that, for one reason. He cannot accept me. I’m a girl that has made my fair share of mistakes. I’ve loved the wrong man, stayed in destructive relationships for far too long, and let my heart lead me to places that I knew I never wanted to be. I’ve had meaningless sex. I’ve had secret trysts and reveled in the danger of getting caught. I’ve broken hearts, and other’s trust in me. The list goes on and on. I know I’m not perfect, but I also know that to regret those decisions goes against everything I stand for. I want to be genuine, authentic. I’m going to be me and I’m going to make the wrong decisions sometimes, and I might even be aware of that fact as I’m making it. But I will not regret a single thing, because that’s who I wanted to be in those moments, somehow whatever those things were, were important to me. It’d be ridiculous to deny it. So I’ll wear my mistakes like badges, and find honor in the display. Because I’m okay. But when I come home I feel as if he wishes I was someone else, someone better. He regrets the things I do. And it is because of this that I wonder if he really loves me, or if he simply wants to, but cannot. It’s not a problem of him loving another, or me loving another, it’s about him not really loving me. I don’t have those earth-shattering moments with him, he does not stop time. He makes time better, and I love the way it feels to be in his arms. But he makes me want to hate myself sometimes. He makes me question my motives, question my intentions, when normally I would not. Normally I wouldn’t have to. So what do you do when you cannot love someone, or that love has somehow faded, because his love was never genuine to begin with? I need someone I can share my secrets with, someone that’s just going to listen and laugh at me, and tell me that none of that matters. Because why should it? I wish he could just give me that.
But he cannot, or maybe will not, the string that unravels the tapestry that we call “us”. And all I can do is watch as I dive in deeper because I feel like I can save it. I can make him see, but somehow deep down I know that he doesn’t want to. He wants me to be something more than I am, something different, but I cannot be anyone but this. And so here I am left to revel in yet another destruction, wondering if the next guy will fault me for this too.
Unraveling us, to uncover me and you,
JL

The road to becoming a “counselor”

To say that this week was a learning experience is quite an understatement. I feel as if the past 6 days has been 6 years. The things that I have learned about myself, about my abilities, about my limits… they are infinite. I come home changed. And I know this. I can see it in the mirror. I can feel it. But what I truly wonder is if they will see the change too. In my head this change is so drastic that I wonder how they could miss it. I wonder if they do miss it if they truly know me at all. But at the same time, I wonder without experiencing this with me how they could see everything that I expect is written across my face. I feel as if my forehead has been branded, but in a good way. I feel like the girl that traveled to dallas no longer exists. She is lost somewhere in the world, and this new person has taken over my body. This confident person, this insightful and amazing person that finally has a direction in life is sitting in this chair now. I always felt so lost before this. I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I went back and forth on a daily basis of who I wanted to be, who I wanted to be with, how I wanted to be, and who I wanted everyone to think I was. Now I feel as if this huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders and I can just BE. I can BE ME. And for the first time I realize that that person is not stagnant, that person will change, is changing all the time. If I was not changing I'm not sure what I would do with myself. If I didn't leave tomorrow up in the air, I just don't know what I would do. My whole life I have been dependent on other people whether it was my family and friends or my lover. Now I know that I can exist on my own. I can be without having to be anything for them. I think the thing that has come as the largest revelation is that I can overcome my past. I can overcome that 13 year old girl that lost her father, and her family, and her reason for living. I can overcome anything. And for the first time I can see that I can do that alone, but that today, I don't want to.

I think I miss him more than I've ever missed anyone else. I don't just miss him persay either. I don't miss his conversation, or his guitar playing, or anything he does for me on a daily basis. I just miss BEING with him. I miss those moments where we aren't doing anything. I miss the moments when all is quiet and all is silent and I can hear his heart beat through his chest. I miss how I make him feel, and how he makes me feel. He feeds a part of me that no one else ever has. And yet somehow, when directed into that happy place, that place where everything else goes away, and all is quiet and calm, his arms were not the ones I wished were holding me. I was torn. No happy place could be found because I wanted him, I wanted his comfort, and his presence, but somehow I wanted another's arms around me. I went back to a night not too far in the past when I could smell another, be held by another, and the rain started to drizzle ever so slightly, but neither one of us wanted to part. I don't know why this is. I've always been a big believer in the fact that I could not be in love with two people at once, but if I truly look at my life, and I look at where I'm at and who I care about, I am. I love him with everything that I am, but I have not yet let go of a love that I have had longer. It was his arms that were around me, his smells that overtook me, his presence that calmed me. It was his voice whispering to me that everything was okay, whispering in a voice that soothed and calmed, and brought me to a place where I could be free of the counseling world, and the distress that it puts on the soul. Can I be in love with him, and find my strength and calm in another? I feel as if this should be wrong, but it felt so right.

And I guess what I truly wonder, what I'm truly afraid of, is if this new and "improved" me will make a new decision. Will this new me not be satisfied by the path that I had started to nervously wander before I came here, before I grew into "me"? I feel as if the life that I had started to leave may not be enough for me. In saying that do I mean that I wonder if he will be enough for me too? I don't know. So here's to finding out. Here's to living a brand new life in the same old world. Even as I say that I know that the world has changed too. The way I see the world is drastically different than I saw the world before. Everything looks different, better. Everyone is better. There is strength in this world that I did not stop to notice before, beauty that I was not attuned to. This world never again will be what I thought it was. I just wonder whether that is something I should revel in or fear. Who will I be, where will my life go, if I am no longer on the path that I began to carve in the world?

Fear of the unknown is not new to me. Somehow this is different though. I'm not sure if I'm afraid of what I don't know anymore, or if I'm afraid of what I do know. This new outlook on the world is terrifying. So many new options now exist.

Getting caught up in the beauty of the world is terrifying in a new and exciting way.

So here's to finally SEEING, BEING, and CARING,

Jenny Leigh.

i'm staring down at the world from 30,000 feet, and I am jealous of the order life seems to have from these heights. It's geometric from this viewpoint. People fit into tidy little boxes, and move in methodical logical patterns. Everything seems to make sense from such a distance, somehow the chaos is masked by the illusion of order. I am jealous of this because from this vantage point I am not part of it. I, along with my fellow passengers, am exempt from this illusion of safety and order for the next 2 hours and 58 minutes, approximately, as my captain would emphasize. I am jealous of all of their illusions. From here there are no labels, or assumptions. Each person is but a microscopic dot on a surprisingly orderly map. They do not have problems, or pain, or anguish. They do not have to think, because they are dots, on a map that is far larger than they could ever imagine being. They move in tune with one another without question or pause. Here, in this pressurized cabin, we exist apart from them. We move in chaotic polite fashions that, for most of us, are insincere and annoying. We do not know each other, nor do we care to. And yet we are bonded in the fact that we alone are exempt from that land-locked order. Our problems are somehow larger here since they are confined in such a small space. Life is in the balance here, and we risk everything we are simply by being here.

But in 2 hours and 5...3 minutes, approximately, I will return to ground level and realize that this illusion is just that, an illusion. The chaos of the streets will return, and I will have no need to be jealous of those people thousands of feet below because I will be one of them again. I will return to the world that is far more chaotic than ever seemed possible from 30,000 feet.

Is it wrong that I am in love with an illusion that, in all reality, I cannot ever be part of myself? I am in love with the efficiency of the world that I see out of this airplane window. My mind is, and has always been, largely mathematical. Angles make sense to me. Lines, and perfect shapes amaze my mind. I love the fact that there is always an answer in the mathematical world. And so, from above, that is what these people seem to have. They seem to have clean cut lives with absolute answers. People are but ants in a colony venturing through their daily routines with ease and reason.

Those of us above are in purgatory. Condemned to battle our demons in a cabin stuffed with others doing just the same. Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but this 2 hours and 58 minutes make life much more real. It's do or die up here. It really puts the important things in perspective. Looking at all the order of the world below makes you contemplate how much chaos you are creating.

Which brings us to the real problem...the only question that in this moment matters...does the world only seem so orderly because I am not in it?

Forever the creator of my own chaos,
Jenny Leigh

This empty page mocks me again, still, as always. I'm not even sure that I have anything worthwhile for this world anymore. I don't have any enlightening things to say. I don't have any ideas, or anything amazing to relate. I am living. I get up each morning and I do roughly the same thing as I did the day before, and the day before that, and the month before that, and the same thing that I will no doubt do tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and the month after that. I will continue to live the same day, with the same people, with the same petty problems and I will keep complaining because my life is so mediocre that I could scream. I feel like I'm in this tiny carefully built cage that does not allow me any hope of ever escaping it. And it is smothering me, and it is changing me. I have always been this girl, this girl that feels like she could literally burst at the seams. I am too much for this life. I am begging, pleading for something more, something that not only means more, but is more. I need that fairytale. I need that intrigue. I want to be the heroine in every one of those stories that I used to read when I was little. Who am I kidding? I want to be that heroine that is in every one of those books that I still read today. I want to kick ass and save the day. I want to explain something that no one else could. I want to save something. But in this small town. And in this small life. We don't get to save anything but ourselves. And I did that. It wasn't really amazing. It wasn't really attention worthy. I simply survived. I'm not sure it even constitutes as saving. At the end of it all, it was just another day. I lived. I lived to love another day. But I also lived to question love again. And always. I wonder if I will ever encounter a man where love does not fade. A man where love simply gets bigger and bigger until it could burst the seams of my life once and for all. Not that it would make my life any more, or my world any better, it would simply show me that there is something worth bursting for, something worth losing everything for. But I am forever unsure of whether that love truly exists. Does true love, that be all and end all of love really exist or is it a bullshit fairytale? I want to believe in it so badly, but I wonder if my past has not rendered me incapable. Could I be blind to it even if I do have it? I think that is what scares me the most in this world, allowing the past to ruin my present, or my potential future. This love has faded, as they all did, regardless of how differently I treated it, or how blindly I believed in it in the beginning. I did not put any barriers up this time, it could bloom to be anything that it desired, but it stopped just short of opening in to the amazing rose that it was supposed to be. So was his mistake that he showed me that he wasn't perfect, or that I wanted him to be perfect in the first place? Oh how this existence confuses me.

He made me want to see how amazing love could be again, but in the end maybe he simply showed me that love isn't everything. Love just is.

So this is me knee deep in the aftermath of second (or possibly third) love realizing that sometimes you can't explain it. Sometimes you can't put it in words and make sense of how you are feeling. Sometimes the words jumble up all meaning that it had in the first place. Because I love him, but now I have to come to terms with the fact that I am no longer in love with him, and don't quite know how to get back.

Love always,
JL

And I bid farewell to my bitterness, for you were never worth it in the end.

It's hard looking back sometimes. It's hard to come back here and read the words of a girl that gave everything she was to a boy that didn't want her. A boy that never deserved her. Whoever that girl was, she doesn't exist anymore. That girl that would give anything, change anything, be anything for love no longer exists. She died the day she realized who that boy truly was. I will fully admit that I was that girl. I was that dreamer that wanted to believe that there was some good in all people, that even if someone did something bad, that there was a reason behind it. No person was malevolent or mean at heart, they were simply lost. After the events of the past year and a half I can say that some people harbor an evil within them that cannot be explained, and cannot be fixed. There are liars, and abusers and worthless human beings in this world. He was one of them. So this is my last letter to him. A hardened goodbye that until today I have been too scared to attempt to write. Because giving up on him, on us, on a 'forever and always' is difficult and scary. But with a clearer mind and a clearer understanding of the world, and of people I can honestly say that I never intend to be a part of his life, nor want him to be part of mine, ever again.

To my first (love/mistake),

It's almost amazing how freeing this last year and a half has been without you. I've done things and experienced things that I feared, because of you or because I was with you. I've grown more as a person in these past months than I grew in the four years we were together. For a long time I didn't think that I would ever be able to move on from the pain that you purposely inflicted on me. I didn't think that I ever could, or ever would, or would ever want to love another person again. You changed me in ways that I don't really want to admit. From the day I was born I trusted in people. I trusted that people were good at heart, that even if people did bad things, they did them for good reason. I had a faith in mankind that was unchangeable, or so I thought. And then I met you, the real you. At first I blamed it on me. I blamed it on the fact that you could never love a person like me, that I had done something wrong. I don't believe this anymore. After a solid year of not having contact with you I do believe that I am better for it. Your lies and your deceptions shrouded my entire life. You broke me. And I fixed me. Alone. While you went running full-fledged into the arms and heart of another, I let myself heal. I let myself grow to be who I now know myself to be. I'm still not the girl that I intend to be, nor am I perfect, or unflawed, or even completely happy. But I am myself. And you have hardened me to lies. I hope that someday you wake up from the miserable life that you built for yourself and you realize that I was right all along. You are just a scared little boy that doesn't know how to be alone. And I think at some point we all are. We all need that defining moment where we must stand on our own two feet. It's terrifying, to know that you don't have anyone else in the world, but it is amazing as well. To be able to say that I overcame you is probably one of my greatest feats. I overcame a man that waltzed into my life, deceived me, changed me, and made me do things I would never ever do on my own. I overcame a man that broke me. I wish just one more time I could look you in the face and tell you everything I think of you. Maybe that makes me a terrible person, that I want to tear you down just like you tore me down. But I think what I would have to say would hurt more than anything you ever launched at me. Because the only things that I would ever need to say would be thank you. Thank you for pushing me to see that all people are not good at heart. Thank you for forcing me to stand on my own two feet. Thank you for making me feel so fucking amazing. And thank you for allowing me to find real love. Not juvenile love, not necessary love, but love. Love where a man WANTS me, DESIRES me, APPRECIATES me. You make every man in the world look amazing in comparison. All I have to realize is that hey, can't be any worse than that first one right? You see, now I have rules that I do follow. And if a man EVER lies to me, cheats on me, or hits me again I have you to thank for the fact that I will not have a second thought in picking up and leaving in an instant. I will never again let a man treat me the way that your young stupid ass believed you could. I am someone you would no longer recognize. I'm not scared of the world anymore. I'm not scared of what people think, or how they react to me. I'm me… take it or leave it. And I hope you rot in hell for what you did to me…and what I no doubt believe you will continue to do to any girl you "love". Because some people were never meant to love. You asked me once if I thought that the world was better off without you. I answered no. Even then I knew I lied. So I'm finally letting go, not of you, but of the memory of you. I've held myself back because of what you did to me for far too long. I've met people that were far better than you and I still did not trust them, because you made me mistrust the world. But I'm done with your lies, and I'm done with you still influencing this me… this new amazing me. If I could go back in time and change one thing it wouldn't be loving you, it would be trusting you. But I can't, so I can only live and learn. Live my life free of your influence, and learn to trust that these other men are not you. Trust that these men are not liars, or abusers, or fuck-ups. Because that's who you are and who you are destined to always be. I'm the completer and you are the destroyer. Polar opposites, that attracted for far too long. Go bring someone else's world down because mine is standing unscathed finally. You couldn't affect it if you tried. I love NOT loving you.

Forever and always,

Jenny