I cried a lot, the last couple of weeks. Even more than I thought I would. I listened to Of Monsters And Men on repeat and cried and cried and cried. It was exhausting, but I do feel better now. My previous breakups have never been this intense. It either hadn't gotten very serious yet, or I hadn't put my whole heart and self into it in the first place.
God it hurts, when you're all in. Chalk it up to experience, though. One more aspect of the human condition with which I am now familiar. My happiness was so wonderful and precious to me -- but so was my deep and surprising sadness.
Yes, it was worth it. And yes, I will go right back out there, and try again. For the sake of the experience of both of those emotions, and everything in between.
Showing posts with label looking forward. Show all posts
Showing posts with label looking forward. Show all posts
July 2, 2012
June 15, 2012
safe
Safety is only ever a feeling really, if we're being honest. I mean, I'm sure you might very well be perfectly safe for moments and hours and days at a time... but there's no way of knowing for sure. Which moments you were out of the way of any danger whatsoever and which, had they gone the slightest bit differently, could have cost you your life. Until they do.
Anything could happen, literally any thing, at any given moment. You could be alone in a padded room with the cleanest air and water and the healthiest food and the perfect amount of natural light and some freak of genetics could stop your heart or send a blood clot to your brain and you're done for. Or your cells could stop multiplying, for no particular reason, before you're even born. Or the earth could simply crack open one day and swallow you whole. Who knows.
When I was little, no one was looking out for me. The world was dangerous because not only did Bad Things happen but no one else cared when they did. So I learned that it was entirely up to me to watch out for myself. If I was tired, or scared, or distracted by any other thing, I wasn't going to do a very good job, but it was no one's concern but mine, and I might as well be resigned to the fact.
So personally, whenever another person shows any kind of interest in my well-being, no matter how briefly, it comes as a huge relief. Perhaps I can do this after all. With a little bit of help.
Perhaps, for now, I might be safe.
Anything could happen, literally any thing, at any given moment. You could be alone in a padded room with the cleanest air and water and the healthiest food and the perfect amount of natural light and some freak of genetics could stop your heart or send a blood clot to your brain and you're done for. Or your cells could stop multiplying, for no particular reason, before you're even born. Or the earth could simply crack open one day and swallow you whole. Who knows.
When I was little, no one was looking out for me. The world was dangerous because not only did Bad Things happen but no one else cared when they did. So I learned that it was entirely up to me to watch out for myself. If I was tired, or scared, or distracted by any other thing, I wasn't going to do a very good job, but it was no one's concern but mine, and I might as well be resigned to the fact.
So personally, whenever another person shows any kind of interest in my well-being, no matter how briefly, it comes as a huge relief. Perhaps I can do this after all. With a little bit of help.
Perhaps, for now, I might be safe.
April 20, 2011
embarrassing anecdotes
I was not given to daydreams when I was young, the way many other girls are.
My circumstances simply did not allow for it. But these days I can actually afford to torture myself with nonsensical fantasies -- and I find that they are eating up my free time. Suffice to say: I have an enormous crush on someone who is not in a position to ask me out. *strangled noise of general frustration and disgust*
Oh, unrequited love! It's a jerk. (Haha, Jeff! Miss you.)
I'm having a really hard time meeting people around here, and, to put it nicely, my co-workers are not the kind of people I would spend time with voluntarily. So there's my old friends who don't live anywhere near here, my online friends who I know only vicariously... and this one cool guy that I know and like but can't have. Ugh.
Do you want to hear something embarrassing? Of course you do! So. Lately I have been coming up with reasons to go to the store where he works when I know he will be there. First I make sure I look super cute that day (duh) and then I show up and "shop" -- but really I am just hoping I will get to talk to him a little.
Honestly, I do not have anything better to do. And when I pull it off, I am happy for the rest of the day.
So it's not wasted time.
It's not.
Anyway. I just want him to notice me, in case anything changes. You know? In case we can go out, someday... and then get married... and have three or four kids and two dogs and an awesome house in Santa Monica with a pool. Or whatever.
DEAR GOD, I just want to be planning my wedding right now! Of course, there are a lot of things I want rightnowthisveryminutebecauseiamsosickofwaitingforgood thingstohappentomelikeeveryonesaystheywillbutsofartheyneverdo. Equally much, or maybe more, I want to be pregnant again, and I want to make it all the way through to that moment where I lay my cheek against the sweet perfect softness of my newborn's tiny head. Bliss.
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PS: It is less than two months till Ailis' unbirthday, and this time I do not feel in the least prepared.
My circumstances simply did not allow for it. But these days I can actually afford to torture myself with nonsensical fantasies -- and I find that they are eating up my free time. Suffice to say: I have an enormous crush on someone who is not in a position to ask me out. *strangled noise of general frustration and disgust*
Oh, unrequited love! It's a jerk. (Haha, Jeff! Miss you.)
I'm having a really hard time meeting people around here, and, to put it nicely, my co-workers are not the kind of people I would spend time with voluntarily. So there's my old friends who don't live anywhere near here, my online friends who I know only vicariously... and this one cool guy that I know and like but can't have. Ugh.
Do you want to hear something embarrassing? Of course you do! So. Lately I have been coming up with reasons to go to the store where he works when I know he will be there. First I make sure I look super cute that day (duh) and then I show up and "shop" -- but really I am just hoping I will get to talk to him a little.
Honestly, I do not have anything better to do. And when I pull it off, I am happy for the rest of the day.
So it's not wasted time.
It's not.
Anyway. I just want him to notice me, in case anything changes. You know? In case we can go out, someday... and then get married... and have three or four kids and two dogs and an awesome house in Santa Monica with a pool. Or whatever.
DEAR GOD, I just want to be planning my wedding right now! Of course, there are a lot of things I want rightnowthisveryminutebecauseiamsosickofwaitingforgood thingstohappentomelikeeveryonesaystheywillbutsofartheyneverdo. Equally much, or maybe more, I want to be pregnant again, and I want to make it all the way through to that moment where I lay my cheek against the sweet perfect softness of my newborn's tiny head. Bliss.
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PS: It is less than two months till Ailis' unbirthday, and this time I do not feel in the least prepared.
March 24, 2011
impetus
Every time I travel, it's like a delayed-reaction catalyst for change upon my return. Australia was overwhelming, but when I got back, I was in awe of what I had experienced and it motivated me to reach for more when I got home. Being in Washington State was really hard, and I felt extremely tired the whole time, but now when I think about the handful of days I spent there, and the people I filled those days interacting with, I feel so happy because I love them all so very much and am so glad I got to do that, and I am equally glad now to be back in California, where I am so much more at ease, and look forward to building a better and better life here -- a life I could never have achieved before.
And I am relieved to have returned from a place I always viewed as an inescapable snare; to have proved it was not so inescapable after all, because here I am again, no longer there.
And I am relieved to have returned from a place I always viewed as an inescapable snare; to have proved it was not so inescapable after all, because here I am again, no longer there.
February 24, 2011
redefined
Thinking today about future kids I hopefully maybe someday will have. Went, in my mind, further than I usually would go. Ballet lessons. Birthday parties. Baseball games. Holidays and vacations. A good man by my side. Longtime friends, and carefully hand-picked family, sharing life with us. Children who understand early on that just because you've never met someone, it doesn't mean they don't belong to you; children who will say "Ailis" and "Noah" out loud -- and smile. Little girls with strong spirits and unfathomable eyes, little boys slow to anger and quick to love. Family as I'd always hoped it could be: united, whole. Bound to one another not just by blood, but by love and trust and choice.
Fierce, I think. My family will be fierce, in the best possible way.
The word resonates pleasantly for me. I think of strength and beauty and passion, of people who own their power. Children so loved they are never afraid to speak truth. Children who know when something is not right, and won't go quietly to their doom. I can teach this. I know I can. I can do for someone else what I wish had been done for me.
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These are fragile dreams, tenuous as soap bubbles; but without them... Without them, I am lost.
Fierce, I think. My family will be fierce, in the best possible way.
The word resonates pleasantly for me. I think of strength and beauty and passion, of people who own their power. Children so loved they are never afraid to speak truth. Children who know when something is not right, and won't go quietly to their doom. I can teach this. I know I can. I can do for someone else what I wish had been done for me.
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These are fragile dreams, tenuous as soap bubbles; but without them... Without them, I am lost.
February 14, 2011
be mine
I was going to bake a cake for today, but my cousin made about a million cupcakes last night, so I figure there is enough cake in the house for now and I should probably wait. I have no one to make it for anyway, aside from myself, so no one is getting let down.
You may or may not be surprised to hear that I am not a romantic. Like, at all. Many of the things that other girls swoon over or have come to expect on this day, I find silly and contrived... But still, I've always liked Valentine's Day.
As a child I really enjoyed the idea of a day devoted to showing love to one another. School parties were the best! Even the unpopular kids who usually got left out due to classroom politics were showered with hearts and candy on at least this one day -- and that made me happy inside. Even when I was older (in college, and abroad in Australia) I still liked to make handmade valentines for all of my friends, and my little cousins as well. I am not a fan of the commercial aspect of the holiday -- but I won't move to revoke its 'holiday' status just because of that. You don't have to buy anything to make someone feel special. And you don't have to have a romantic relationship to be happy that love exists in this world.
I wish that my little ones were here, so I could shower them with sweet treats and too many kisses. I even wish, for literally the first time, that I'd had a date this Valentine's Day. I don't feel bitter about it; not even a little. Humbled, actually, would be far more accurate...
You know, there's so much more I could say about this, so much I discovered about myself as I thought it all over yesterday and today. But I don't think I can write it down very well right now. So I'll save it for later, tuck it away. And maybe one day we'll have coffee together, and you'll say: "How do you feel about Valentine's Day, Vera?"
And I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything I'm thinking. I promise.
You may or may not be surprised to hear that I am not a romantic. Like, at all. Many of the things that other girls swoon over or have come to expect on this day, I find silly and contrived... But still, I've always liked Valentine's Day.
As a child I really enjoyed the idea of a day devoted to showing love to one another. School parties were the best! Even the unpopular kids who usually got left out due to classroom politics were showered with hearts and candy on at least this one day -- and that made me happy inside. Even when I was older (in college, and abroad in Australia) I still liked to make handmade valentines for all of my friends, and my little cousins as well. I am not a fan of the commercial aspect of the holiday -- but I won't move to revoke its 'holiday' status just because of that. You don't have to buy anything to make someone feel special. And you don't have to have a romantic relationship to be happy that love exists in this world.
I wish that my little ones were here, so I could shower them with sweet treats and too many kisses. I even wish, for literally the first time, that I'd had a date this Valentine's Day. I don't feel bitter about it; not even a little. Humbled, actually, would be far more accurate...
You know, there's so much more I could say about this, so much I discovered about myself as I thought it all over yesterday and today. But I don't think I can write it down very well right now. So I'll save it for later, tuck it away. And maybe one day we'll have coffee together, and you'll say: "How do you feel about Valentine's Day, Vera?"
And I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything I'm thinking. I promise.
January 17, 2011
variations on a theme
I've been thinking lately about how the first event of my year seems to ultimately wind up being its thesis. Going to The Center last January was such a huge precedent for the rest of 2010. Last year was about separation, and also integration. It was about sorting things out, about turning the topsy-turvy world I'd always lived in right-side-up.
I was absolutely driven by the idea of distance. I wanted distance -- physical and chronological separation -- from the past and from the people who had done me harm. And I found that the farther I got from Them, the closer I got to my Self. And that was good.
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2011 began, for me, in Australia; and I don't see how anything could really be a better prelude to a year of Potentially Unmatched Awesome than that. I hope that this will be a year of saying "Yes!" and of taking hold of whatever other priceless opportunities come my way, big or small. Of being less sensible, and more spontaneous. Of being bold. Of being free.
Of being.
When I was in Australia, I had this sudden realization that I was the person on Facebook who was getting to do something completely awesome and talk about it in my status updates. That I was having this experience, and it was happening right now. I have (and had) such a hard time being totally present, but there were times when I know I succeeded, and that is comforting. I can see my growth. But I want more. I want this to be the year when I come into my power -- and not quietly, either. For the first time in my life, I want to be noticed. (Which says a lot, actually, about how much safer I feel in my own skin these days.)
I have a good feeling about all this. I hope it doesn't fade. I hope that by the time Christmas comes around again, I am spending it with Pam and Gretchen and Jill and Jeff and the kids... and that I am positively crackling with vitality. Watch out, my dears!! It's gonna be awesome.
I was absolutely driven by the idea of distance. I wanted distance -- physical and chronological separation -- from the past and from the people who had done me harm. And I found that the farther I got from Them, the closer I got to my Self. And that was good.
----------
2011 began, for me, in Australia; and I don't see how anything could really be a better prelude to a year of Potentially Unmatched Awesome than that. I hope that this will be a year of saying "Yes!" and of taking hold of whatever other priceless opportunities come my way, big or small. Of being less sensible, and more spontaneous. Of being bold. Of being free.
Of being.
When I was in Australia, I had this sudden realization that I was the person on Facebook who was getting to do something completely awesome and talk about it in my status updates. That I was having this experience, and it was happening right now. I have (and had) such a hard time being totally present, but there were times when I know I succeeded, and that is comforting. I can see my growth. But I want more. I want this to be the year when I come into my power -- and not quietly, either. For the first time in my life, I want to be noticed. (Which says a lot, actually, about how much safer I feel in my own skin these days.)
I have a good feeling about all this. I hope it doesn't fade. I hope that by the time Christmas comes around again, I am spending it with Pam and Gretchen and Jill and Jeff and the kids... and that I am positively crackling with vitality. Watch out, my dears!! It's gonna be awesome.
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