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I stole this photo from Biker Body Pillow’s shop’s Instagram. I needed it.
If you are ever in Toronto go to Kensington market, Reactive Ink. Tell the boys I say hi.

I miss my people back home. I am not feeling very brave.

Tennessee Whisky came on last night and I almost messaged the Giant. I wasn’t drunk enough to figure out what to say, so I left it alone.

Sober nights make way for better mornings and less regrets.

Woke up a little earlier than I would have preferred but I almost got my 8 hours.

I see a nap in my future. But I am awake now, and writing. That’s something.

Surrender Dorothy.

My wise woman Monika posted this…

Surrender is better
Giving up denotes a lack of faith
Surrender says…ok. I see what is…so what’s next.

https://www.facebook.com/MonikaCarlessAuthor/

I hit rock bottom with my coccyx night before last. As best as I can piece together I poured 6 shots of whiskey on 2 english muffins before 9. We were upstairs talking and my eyes leaked. Haven’t heard much from him since. We will circle back around to that, just give it a minute.

The night went downhill from there, and I was already pretty fucking low.

I have my period too, which is not an excuse but…pelvic sorcery and a lot of pain, both physical and emotional. I was due for a breach.

Always calm or breaching.

I managed somehow to be much less drunk in the middle, then blacked out around 2:30am.
No idea how I got home.
It seems I tangled with a now broken kitchen chair and we both lost. I am now the not so proud owner of a very bruised tailbone. I woke up at 8 the next morning, still drunk, looking like a pinball on tilt trying to get to the bathroom, dry heaving from the booze and the pain in my ass.

I am a stripper with a broken butt. The irony is not lost.

The Weeknd was playing on a loop in my head “I might not make it, this time I might not make it.”

I realized I haven’t been that drunk since 2006, I almost died that night.

But I made it then and I made it now. Got right terrified at the beginning of last night. Then a couple strippers and co-workers rallied around me, kept me off stage and at work. Made a bit of money and surrendered to what is. Life is just gonna hurt for the next while. Bruises heal eventually, hearts too.

I’d just finished healing from the last stupid thing I did to myself. Now this.

I seem to be stuck in a loop of ‘if I can just get through this ____ everything will be okay.’ Then the next ____ happens and I am back at zero.

My Facebook statuses were enough to scare my mom. She checked in on me and I cried a bit as I told her the truth, but it meant a lot to me to be noticed, even if it was me falling apart that got the attention. Some things never change. Forced me to problem solve. This is what is happening and this is what I am going to do about it.

Guru chimed in too. Told me not to fight or run, just freeze and ferfucksakes stop drinking for 2 weeks.

On it.

But darling, if you could see the size of the blessing coming to you, you would understand the magnitude of the battle you are fighting.

I’ve fallen apart before, and once the shattering is complete I rebuild with the broken bits and make something better.

I was scraping my knees along rock bottom, climbed out a bit when the boy held my hand, and when he let go, I fell, hard.

It’s not his fault. I should know better than to put any amount of my happiness in the hands of others, they drop it every time. From what I can recall of our conversation, I think he thinks I want more than he can give. Same song, different mouth.

I want nothing. Just sex. Why is this hard?

He is hard every time he gets near me, I know this.

And so what if I cried a bit? I am beyond frustrated and I am human. I just did a big, huge, terrifying thing. I am allowed to break.

I am Dorothy. I am in Oz. A place where the snow flies sideways. Good witches, bad witches, flying monkeys and a man hiding behind a curtain.

And at some point I will realize I had the power all along.

There’s no place like home.

I’m home.

For the record I do not regret the things I’ve said when I was drunk. Except maybe when I told Mark to leave me on the bathroom floor because I didn’t want anyone seeing the fucked up puddle I had become. Poor guy had to carry me down the stairs, I dressed myself though, so that’s something.

I have also never been on to write drunk and edit sober. Feels too much like lying.

Drunk words are sober thoughts. Everyone knows this.

I am held up and together by so many inebriated “I love you’s” sworn into my collarbones by drunk boys hanging on to me for dear life. Just to let go the next morning when the hangover and reality kicked in.

I’ve done it too. Never said I love you when I didn’t mean it, not lately anyways. Not since I figured out what it meant I mean.
Said shit drunk I wasn’t brave enough to say sober. It happens.

Lately, when I drink, I cry.

I’m beyond frustrated and I can’t keep it contained. Whiskey is the key to the lock on my glass case of emotion.

I mean, I’m actually made of glass. If my mouth doesn’t say it, my eyes will. But my mouth always says it. If not in real life, then here in these pages I write.

Most of the time I am bulletproof, and sometimes there’s a crack.

I am transparent. I live without a filter and I speak without lies.

I sit in my emotions and my truth and sift through them endlessly.

Most people can’t, don’t or won’t, and sometimes I envy them.

They smoke/drink/fuck/run/hide…anything to quiet the noise.

And they lie.

To me.

And themselves.

Sometimes convincingly.

You see dear readers, this is not a new story.

It’s a culmination of all those who came before.

I’ve had a million moments of self-doubt.

Especially when it comes to men. Wherein I have thought, with bone shaking clarity “Maybe I made it all up. Maybe it wasn’t what I thought it was.”

I repeat this till it is true.

It’s easier that way, to blame my imagination. I have a habit of seeing only the good in people I care about, and I tend to take the blame when they leave. It’s just easier.

Time passes, I convince myself of this new ‘truth’ and then…oh and then, I will be looking through this inbox or that one and the earth shakes and the truth comes out.

The actual truth. Spelled out in black and white, in old messages. Their words, not what I imagined, what I remembered and tried to forget.

And then I have to deal with the loss and confusion all over again.

So maybe it isn’t easier.

But I don’t know how to be angry.

Knowing I was right and having them still gone brings no satisfaction at all.

And sometimes they come back.

Always, they always come back. Seriously it’s fucking weird.

My girls back home will kill me if they read this, but here it is.

Lumberjack found me on the Siren’s Snapchat.

Ya, that Lumberjack.

The one who hid his actual girlfriend the whole time.

And I didn’t block him. I let him say what he needed to say, and I forgave him. Just let it go. He is what he is, being angry won’t change what happened.

Cut to a few weeks later, Monday I think it was. He pops up again with a snap of a rather delicious looking seafood stew of some sort. I said “noms, how are you?”

I have a rather fond memory of him taking me out for a glorious seafood dinner to satisfy a whim I had, and as I was struggling with a crab claw he reached over, cracked it for me and handed it back, smiled and called me a dork. He remembered too, which is why he sent me a pic of my favorite foods. Fucker.

Now, please understand I am drowning. Monday was extra bad, I saw a lifeline and I reached for it.

I said “I need some advice”.

He complied.

Took me a minute to spit out what I wanted to ask. Sometimes I can’t find my words.

I asked if I had been more assertive, less passive would he have still gone back to her.

He said “I thought you were in love.”

(eyeroll*)

I said “I am, and I am scared. I just don’t want to repeat my mistakes.”

There was a long pause and then he said “I can’t believe you are blaming yourself Sarah, I’m a terrible person.”

Followed by, “if this guy is reminding you of me, you might want to run sweetheart.”

It’s not that. Different man, similar situation. Bitch of an ex.

I told him he had potential to be good, just had to fix his broken ego.

I ended it there. No point in continuing.

I didn’t really get an answer, but it was nice to get some closure.

The answer didn’t matter anyways. Not like I could be a bitch if I tried.

I do not demand anything of anyone, I take what I am given and work with it as best I can.

*Typical of him to think I was wanting him back though, I got a good chuckle out of that.
Nope, I can forgive but I won’t forget.  “I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again.” Arthur Miller

Speaking of…

Gelfling found me before I left. Triggered by some pic on Instagram I’m sure. Just wanted to remind me he existed. We chatted briefly. He recalled everything I did and said one night we were together, 4 years after the fact. Even what I was wearing and how my legs sit when I drive.

Fuck you.

I am so tired of being held so fucking sacred, after the fact.

How is a memory of me worth keeping when I wasn’t?

I might be strong and brave and weird and loving and forgiving…

But underneath all of this…

I am just a girl, who wants to believe the sweet things.

Like getting a place together, picking me up from the ferry, taking me home for Sunday supper.
That I am magic and you miss me. I know all these things were said at night, a few beers in, to my face, in my inboxes.
And I can’t help but remember that Friday night when you told me you were shy sober.

This is the one time I want to be remembered. I am right fucking here.

I need a hard reset.

A trip into the woods sounds like bliss right now. I miss my old cabin out in god’s good nowhere and the isolation. I am isolated now, just in a different way where I am surrounded by people, most of them good, but part of me aches for the past, or the future to hurry up and start. Anything but this limbo I am in. I do miss the good times with Panda and my girls. Hamilton was home for a while, but I don’t want to go back there.

I came here with purpose and I am craving him.

If I look back to see where I’m homesick for it’s the time spent alone in the quiet. Sunbathing naked on the porch, the hummingbirds having endless aerial acrobatic dogfights with the bees, the dogs lounging, and good work…like stacking wood and mowing the lawn and the endless playlists. Yes, this.

But that isn’t what I meant to talk about exactly. I do tend to wander off topic.

I’ve watched one movie since I got here.

Silver Linings Playbook.

In my tiny room there is only a tiny tube tv with no HDMI port, so it is laptop or nothing.

Last week when the reality of what I had done hit me like a fucking freight train I cocooned in my room and tried to regroup.

I needed a happy ending. Or to remember they exist.

What I got reminded of, and realized I was lacking, was signs.

When I cannot control what is happening to me (even if I did this to my damned self) I get superstitious.

I think anyone who works in any kind of industry that is based on randomness for money, it becomes a thing. I have a lucky bandana. Little rituals before work. Sometimes they work sometimes they don’t. What it really boils down to is that I am on my hustle or I am not, doesn’t matter what rings I am wearing or what color the bandana I am sitting on is.

But there is another side to that coin.

What it comes down to is rituals and signs.

When the body goes through a traumatic accident, like mine did, all muscle memory is reset to zero. Except when a certain song plays and I sit up like a meerkat and laugh at myself for thinking Jesus is coming.

An old portent triggered a gleeful response years later.

Not actual Jesus. I have been handing out nicknames to people for as long as I have been out in the world. And once, I knew a man we called Jesus.

Music jogs my muscle memories.

I now have YouTube rabbit holes, where I tumble down and find new things, wonders to behold. And alternatively I have playlists saved from varying points in my life.

It’s been a constant stream of Lords of Huron, Ben Howard, Kaleo and Lumineers lately.

Meet Me in the Woods, Take Me Back to the Night We Met and Promise on repeat.

But I needed something different.

In my nostalgia, I clicked on an old list. Took me back to the first time we went to Florida. I came home from that trip and I was free. And that was the beginning.

But it went even further back.

Somewhere in between the new things I had found was an old gem.

Here Comes Your Man, by the Pixies.

My tired little brain instantaneously thought “Jesus is coming.” And I laughed out loud.

You see dear readers, many lifetimes ago, I had a crush on the boy we called Jesus.

And well before we had little GPS’s in our pockets and Facebook check ins and everyone knew what everyone else had for lunch or how they felt about politics or knew what their dogs were doing at any given moment, I had psychic flashes and ‘signs’ about this thing or that boy.

I used to go to a bar called the Dance Cave religiously every Wednesday. My friends were there, the music was amazing and it was kinda like church. I felt weird if I didn’t go. I would see my people, confess my sins, sing, dance and just feel better after. And sometimes Jesus was there.

Not every Wednesday mind you. Just every time the Pixies were played. That song specifically. The guitars riff would kick in and I would instantaneously be on high alert. Head bobbing up and down, watching the door. And Every. Single. Time (but once) at some point, there he would be. Jesus. And it was good amen.

We were having a conversation last night outside the strip club about religion. And the usual points were made about imaginary authority figures and mass population control. Old Testament god versus New Testament god. But when it came down to ‘why did we ever come up with religion in the first place’ I knew the answer. Before science we had no idea why sometimes the earth would shake or the sun would go out in the middle of the day. So we invented beings even bigger and more terrifying than those phenomenon to explain why the world gets weird sometimes.

Ritual is the same thing. One time a girl fell into a volcano and it finally rained after a long dry spell so every year to bring the rain, toss in another virgin to appease the gods.

Personally? I can google anything I don’t understand. I was never much one for churches. I do pray, but in my own way.

When things aren’t going exactly my way, I pray a little harder and try to look for signs.

Logical me knows there has to be something bigger than all this. Not a vengeful god whose stomach rumbles and refuses to make rain until he gets fed.

And if there were sacrifices to be made, good god I have made them.

I leapt into the volcano willingly.

There is a wait so long
You’ll never wait so long

Here comes your man

(The Pixies)

I started re-watching The Good Place on Netflix.

I won’t spoil any of it, if you haven’t seen it, you should.

13 easily digestible episodes about 24 minutes long. It’s adorable.

The opening scene is Kristen Bell opening her eyes in a waiting room and the first thing she sees is a sign that says

“Welcome! Everything is fine.”

I have been saying everything’s fine a lot lately.

Even when it isn’t.

I know exactly what I am doing. I am casting a spell of intent that it will be fine, trust and faith.

I know it will be, it always is.

Better than fine.

I’ve had tastes of how amazing it will be, at the top of the stairs, the whole world goes away when he kisses me and it is absolute bliss.

And there have been times where it most certainly was not.

Those are the times I say it with almost a madness in my voice that reaches my eyes and scares people a bit.

I forget I can be intimidating on occasion just by existing.  But add some intense emotions and ya, I’m intense. Trying to keep myself in check just now.

“Don’t listen to a word I say, the screams all sound the same.” Of Monsters and Men (and yes I miss our) Little Talks

I’m forcing myself to remember everything works out in the end. And I don’t really want this to end.

If I have to baby step and backslide into this new chapter, okay.

Deep down in my heart of hearts I know all of this is worth it.

The moon didn’t make me do this, I made a decision and followed through.

I drove 3 days away from home for a boy and a new life.

And I kinda was expecting to open my eyes to see a sign that said “Welcome! Everything is fine.”

Instead? I didn’t get the room I booked so I had to improvise, I got sucked into a crazy vortex by a crazy stripper, I missed my kid and my dog like limbs, I got Stompy Magoo stomping around upstairs, the money didn’t come right away and neither did the boy.

Where was I going with this?

Oh ya.

Cosmic fuckery.

As I type this it’s a full blue moon in Libra smack dab in the middle of retrograde.

I messaged the boy last night and he hasn’t replied. We’re having a hard time finding time to see each other and it is driving me nuts. That mantra I had shouting in my head upon meeting him has only gotten louder than bombs now that he is close again.

Boy

Bed

Now

Once upon a time, something similar happened. Not on this magnitude but similar enough that as I was making coffee this morning it struck me that I had the dress rehearsal for this 4 years ago. My last year in the cabin in the woods. I was pms’ing on a full moon smack dab in the middle of retrograde and I handled things badly. Tripped over all my lines, missed all my cues and it was over just like that. To be fair, he was my second fuckboy ever, I had no idea what I was getting into add to that I met him on the first day of retrograde and it just went way uphill real fast then dropped off into an oblivion of miscommunication and then none at all.

I already wrote all of that down in triplicate. I have had crushes on boys before, this one was a little different than the rest, but in retrospect he was just a boy. He had some magic to him, I never saw more deer than I did for the two weeks we dated, but then it was just over. I remember seeing a dead deer on the side of the road and thinking ‘that’s done then’. And I moved on.

Lesson to be learned from that and him?
Don’t start anything new in retrograde and lines of communication are gonna be a little fucky.

One thought came clearly as I sipped that first sip of deliciousness and I calmed all the way down.

Don’t panic.

I love it when shit I have been through serves a purpose. It is so satisfying, like perfect circles.

There will be another perfect circle. With this boy, on a bed, maybe not just now.

16 days left before Mercury stations direct.

I have waited this long, I can wait some more.

In the interest of self-preservation I think I won’t drink tonight.

Strip clubs and full moons are notoriously insane enough without me pouring booze on things.

I’m learning.

I have a group chat going with the girls from home, I regale them with tales of Stompy as they occur, and I figured it was time to share with all y’all.

It’s taken me a good long while to settle into any kind of routine here.

Still not quite there. Leaning heavy on Red Bulls and 5 hour energy shots on the nights we are open til 3.

I’d basically quit dancing for 2+ years before I came here in November and I think, knowing I was only going to be here for two weeks upped my ability to suck it up and deal with the late nights, the self-inflicted assault on my liver, the weird sleep patterns, the forced naps, the lack of my stuff and my things and clothes and routine.

And then there is the boy.

But I am here now, he is here now and I am not leaving.

My brain is slowly coming to terms with this, body is slow to follow. Heart is so very happy, so there is that then.

My circadian rhythm reaaaaaaallllly wants me up with the sun.

There are not a lot of sunny days here so when it peeks around the side of the blackout curtains…ya, I wanna get up.

Also, the crackheads tend to take it outside when it’s sunny, so who needs an alarm clock really, when I have a rousing chorus of “bitch better have my money” around noon on nice days.

I used to get up at 6, 7 or 8. Have a couple cups of coffee, take my vitamins, smoke my cigarettes and negate the vitamins I just took completely and write for an hour or 16, then go about my day.

That is not happening here. My entire life is sporadic at best.

I need to sleep til after noon or get a nap in somehow. Otherwise I become a stabby-sleepy-sooky stripper and it’s not fun for anyone.

And since my room in the cathouse is right beside the better bathroom and the only living room and right underneath Stompy Magoo I’m pretty much fucked.

Now I am not sure if it’s cocaine psychosis or bipolar disorder or a fun little combo of both but good god damn it is getting worse by the day.

Once upon a time I had a bipolar roommate. He decided I was a witch, and I am, but he also snuck into my room with a filleting knife and tried to kill me in my sleep but got scared of the cats who were on my bed hissing at him and woke me up. He also tried to push me over the stair railing. He also did a lot of cocaine and had a lot of conspiracy theories about god.

She left this out yesterday.

I think she thinks I need to get clean and right with the Lord. Or maybe they weren’t meant for me at all and her paranoia is just contagious.

She never leaves anything out for the record. Hoards every little thing in her room, including the can opener. So maybe they are for me.
Little does she know I am quite right with God, all the gods really.

Luke 6:30 Give to everyone who asks of you and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

I know you ate my cookies and my chocolate eggs sis, its fine, I can buy more.

She is miserable and ready to snap, I see it. And good god do I hear it. Standing at the top of the stairs having a religious experience singing off key to Drake “God’s Plan”. Her favorite lyric is “I only love my bed and my mom I’m sorry” she giggles after that line, and then “God’s Plan” at the top of her ample lungs. She listens to both the radio and some kind of manic preacher while she spends hours upon hours in the kitchen. Loves cooking maple bacon, but only on days when I have a raging hangover. She must have been a middle child because she doesn’t speak so much as yells every sentence ever whether it be on the phone or yelling at me because I left the stovetop dirty one time and it is worse somehow she says, because she’s black and tired of cleaning up after everyone all the time.

Honey, no one asked you to rage/coke clean both bathrooms on a Saturday morning with sleeping strippers 3 feet away from where you were thumping banging and splashing and mumbling loudly, how does one manage to mumble so loudly?

I don’t know which is worse, when she is brooding and miserable or when she is violently happy. Both are indicative of a storm coming.

It made landfall yesterday. After I had spent 20 minutes on the phone with the boss’s wife trying to figure out when Stompy’s birthday was because I knew it was close and she seemed proper vexed about being stuck here for it. After I had gone outside in the rain to collect a package from the postman for her and gently, quietly put it outside her door. After I had tiptoed around for the entirety of the day because I knew she had been on a bender the night before.

The apex of my irritation. After 5 weeks of badly timed laundry, interrupted sleep, not being able to use the kitchen at all, snide comments, listening to the entire 5 minute speech she made up in her head before confronting me about some egg droplets on the stove wherein she said “we all used her as a guinea pig” (I understand the sentiment but wrong animal) and it’s worse because I’m white and she’s black and she feels like a slave (bitch please) even though the second she said it I was up and cleaning and apologizing. Was the vacuum nap incident of 2018.

I had just put my head down and up she sprang from her full day off sleeping it off, whatever it was. Bad timing, no big deal. She doesn’t walk, she stomps, hence Stompy Magoo. We have a 6’3” 200 pound bouncer living upstairs and he doesn’t even walk that heavy. Fine, I turned my music up a smidge, pulled the pillow over my ear. Then she ups the ante and starts up the vacuum and moving the furniture. I admit it, I snapped, the crimson flood is about to hit the whole house, we have all been snappy, I get it. But…all I said was “_____, I am trying to nap.”

Her answer “Oh I’m in trouble now.”

Well ya, but not because of me, because of what she did next.

She snapped, and stomped and snorted and slammed the bathroom door so hard she broke the trim.

Ya, the same bathroom that is right outside my bedroom door.

And even then, when the owner of the house and club showed up 20 minutes later, I still covered her ass and said the trim must have come off due to repetitive stress and use and gave him a hammer and nails to fix it.

She’s being moved downstairs. Not because of me.

I did try but I am a bad liar and not the only person on this floor who has issues with her.

I know she is going to blame it on me. So I am just gonna sleep with a chair pushed under my doorknob until she leaves.

My friend is continuously putting the sad face emoji under my blog posts.

STAAAAAHP.

I’m not sad.

Don’t be sad for me, I did this on purpose.

Yesterday’s blog post was full of Pollyanna optimism. Not sadness.

I’ve had monumental moments of sad. Had one that lasted a whole month recently, but in there were belly laughs and adventures and an adjustment period of epic proportions, plus shark week and the realization that I can’t go home.

Cut me a little slack would ya? Fuck.

The fairy tale doesn’t start Once upon a time and cut straight to happily ever after. There are dragons to slay and sleeping princes that need waking up with a kiss. There are trolls to fight and riddles to solve. I am somewhere in the middle, writing the story as I go.

Every bit of profound sadness I get hit with just gives me a greater appreciation for the good things.

Even the tiniest high feels like soaring because of the things I have been through.

There was a meme that circulated around once upon a time. I didn’t save it so I must paraphrase…

Someone asked me why insist on taking the hard road
I answered “why do you assume I see two roads.”

That hit me like truth.

Because it is my truth.

No question mark, just the way it is.

I don’t care if things get hard, anything worth having is worth waiting and working for.

I used to take the easy road, built many paper houses on that street, so I know it exists, but it doesn’t work for me.

The easy road was staying put, not moving forward, battling to remain in a state of mediocrity with a dash of oppression for flavor. It was not being my clumsy, silly, romantic, sexual self. Instead being a watered down version of me that no one expected much from.

Fuck it sucked.

All those years wasted.

He met me way back then, the sad face friend.

I was in hell. That was my sad place.

Is that what you want for me still?

Because I don’t.

I have no desire on god’s good anywhere, for any worldly reason to play safe. Everything I want is on the other side of fear.

I understand your need for comfort and routine but that is not my way.

I will be the first to admit I do ridiculous, reckless things.

“Am I mad?” asked Alice

“You are here aren’t you?” answered the Cheshire cat

Its risk versus reward. Plain and simple.

And I am an ‘all in fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl’. And honestly? This is how I like it.

In the 5 years since my becoming I have felt, witnessed and experienced phantasmagorical things.

And I have felt profound emptiness.

Like when I left here.

I tasted something, felt something. And it was so new and magical everything else tasted like dust in my mouth by comparison. I had to come back and try again. In my mind there was no choice. Not if but “how” and “when”.

I figured out the how. Now it is a matter of when.

So yes, I took a huge leap into the void. A trust fall, and it took me a bit to land, the abyss is infinite after all.

I was given the option once to take medication to even me out, and I refused.

Had I accepted the blue pills I would probably still be stuck where I was, comfortably numb.

In limbo forever.

No thank you.

The offer of pills came from me admitting out loud that there were times when I wanted to kill myself. But the curiosity of what might come next kept me here. Curiosity killed the cat but kept me alive. Do you understand?

Besides, that was years ago, somewhere along the easy path.

Some part of me knew something good was coming and whispered it in my ear.

The same part of me that roars now “do the thing” “kiss the boy” “you got this”.

The darkness is where I learn and explore and regroup. I don’t mind it.

I am grateful for the juxtapositions and every minute of my weird little life.

I have many a man friend back home and 90% of them, at one point have stuck their dick in crazy. My job is to handle the fallout.

Tend to the wounded.

Sometimes they do it a few times before they realize yes, the stove is hot and you will get burned and all the hot sex in the world isn’t worth their sanity. Then they do it a few more times.

I get it to a degree. I myself, was once crazy. Mistaking possessiveness and jealousy for love. Being a sneaky little twat was my whole wheelhouse, it’s all I knew. Got over it after high school, then back slid like a motherfucker years later when I was married. All my old CSI training and nagging and manipulating came back harder and better.

Mind you he was cheating and lying about it the whole time, but I chose to stay even though I knew what was happening beyond all doubt, that’s on me.

Drama can be addicting when you don’t know better, there’s the adrenaline rush from fight or flight. Jealousy can feel like love if you don’t know what love is.

I didn’t know love back then. Now I do, and I wouldn’t trade its calm acceptance for anything.

I will never again be with someone who makes me that fucking crazy.

I am not that girl anymore. I kept a few pieces though, she’s now my inner bitch and on occasion she is absolutely necessary, she’s well trained in the art of war now. Especially when it comes to him, I am protective, not possessive.

I am something to behold when I am angry.

I was using my powers for evil. I see that now.

These days I reside in the lovely balance between do no harm and take no shit.

I am not saying I am sane, how could I be, I am here.

Since I got here my guard was way down and I got sucked into some crazy shit without even realizing it.

People pretending to be someone or something they are not and I was too sad to notice.

Holding on hope is exhausting.

I actually feel kinda bad for these girls who think drama is a hobby. Like no sis. Read a book, knit something, figure yourself out. It’s pretty smooth sailing on this side of things. Try it, you might like it.

I got  hit with a hurricane of batshit insane.

The weather and the women here are fucked the fuck up.

I came back to this island for a few reasons. 75% the boy, plus the ocean, the money, a fresh start and I must say, I love how most of the men out here behave.

There is something about the way the women raise their sons on this island.

I hear stories from a lot of men about how close they are with their mamas and it warms my heart. These mamas are ferociously protective and take absolutely no shit.

The result is these grown men with manners and chivalry bred in the bone.

The girls here though…

What in the actual fuck.

It’s an island full of fucking harpies. Except I don’t want to insult harpies.

They have teeth and claws and I swear the boys pay all their bills so they have nothing to do all day but sharpen them and stick them where they don’t belong, into the hearts of these good men.

Do y’all not know what love is?

Love is not stealing paycheques and passwords. Its actually giving a fuck about your man beyond what he can do for you.

Love is calm and supportive and being a safe place. Not batshit choo choo crazy train.

The motto out here seems to be a perverted version of stand by your man. It’s a fucking abomination.

Stand by him unless he’s out of town and then suck as many dicks as you can or until you find one with more money.

I can’t swing my purse on George Street without hitting 5 guys his missus has fucked, and it’s not a big purse. And he still stays with her.

I don’t get it.

I find it both flattering and frightening the sheer number of men who meet me and feel compelled to tell me how calm I make them feel, how easy it is to be around me, how soothing I am. This is a good thing considering my chosen vocation, but it breaks my heart.

The world is a cold, hard place, everyone knows this. Life is pain.

The person you choose to walk this earth with should be sanctuary.

A warm safe place

Anyone who has read all of these things I write might remember I was born backwards.

Full truth is I was breech, back down on my way out. I turned myself around in the ambulance and came out feet first.

So, in effect, it is my birthright to do everything backwards and the hard way.

I still do that.

“The ghosts of all the Women you used to be are all so proud of who you have become…” Nikita Gill

Well fuck, there it is.

I am a collection of old versions of myself. And all of us had to learn the hard way.

It’s okay.

Everything is fine.

I don’t know exactly when it will be fine, but its coming.

I already know.

This isn’t the first time I have been through this, but I know it will be the last.

I sat at the bar the other night playing cards and chatting with the bartender. He is amazing and about 20-25% of the reason I am here. About 80% of the reason I haven’t bolted in the night after all things that happened my first while here.

I would say “thank you”, but he won’t read this. He doesn’t want to go wandering around in my head, and since sometimes I don’t either, I don’t blame him.

He is getting married to a woman he was friends with for years. Said he wasn’t attracted to her until he was.

For a minute I thought, ‘how cool would that be, to go through life without knowing someone is gonna be of paramount importance at first glance.’

Then I remembered, the grass is not always greener, sometimes I have just neglected to water my lawn or it’s actually Astroturf.

I have met a more than my share of beings on this little blue and green ball flying around a yellow sun whom, the minute they spoke or I saw them, I just knew they were to be tangled in time with me somewhere. That I had something for them, to teach or to learn or I was just meant to love them.

This is not to say that I haven’t dated the wrong people or not had bad friends for a time here and there. I have. Especially in the time before my soul became quiet. After all the mayhem settled my intuition grew exponentially.

And truly, even the bad ones had lessons for me. Even if it was big glaring statements of what I didn’t want.

So I am sitting at about 100% success rate.

Especially when it comes to love.

I have experienced love at first sight twice in my life. Wherein I did things backwards, fall in love, figure out the how and why after.

I am currently struggling with the how right now. But, if I look back at the lessons upon motherfucking lessons I have learned, that isn’t exactly my job, to know the how. I showed up and I am not leaving. I will take my opportunities to speak and tell the absolute truth.

Learned all that the hard way at 13 years old. The first time.

I used to think it was a curse, that I would just ‘know’, ya know? It makes me weird, I have a hard time explaining it to people, except the important ones I guess. They get it eventually, like “huh Sarah, you were right”. I haven’t been wrong yet. I think it’s a blessing. Even when it takes them a while to catch up.

And it does.

The universe does not work on my timeline, which usually isn’t so much of a timeline as me internally stomping my feet shouting ‘but I want it now…now I said.’

And I am forced to wait.

But the things I wait for are the good things. The significant things.

I do not know about everyone else, I can only speak from personal experience, but the universe has been pretty generous with helping me run into ‘my people’. The ones who say ‘me too’ in a rousing chorus when I tell my truth. I love them, I truly do. I walked this earth so very lonely for so very long and may gods bless the internet for making it easier for us tribes to find each other.

Then there’s that next level soulmates union.

I wonder if because I meet all my tribe with such jubilation that the gods find it amusing to give me more.

I met someone last time I was here and I just knew.

I was asked today if I thought things would work out with the boy.

I do.

It’s not a matter of if, just when.

I haven’t been writing much. I have a bunch of tabs open but I can’t seem to finish anything.

This one is gonna come out a little weird. It’s been a weird week.

I got to play fairy godmama last night.

It was Diamond’s turn to cry. I still cried, don’t get me wrong, I am not sure if I have managed to keep my eyes dry 4 days out of the 4 weeks I have been here. But she got her turn and hugs and love.

I broke down later.

Sometimes it’s easier on me when someone else is sad. Makes me protective, gives me a job to do ya know? Gets me outta my head.

She wanted to sober up and make a hundred bucks. I found us a table with two nice men and ta da wish granted.

For both of us. Even though I didn’t know I needed one.

A man sat next to me and told me my soul was ready to move to the next life. I smiled way too big and my eyes leaked a bit, happy tears though.

Messages from the ether were coming in hard and fast last night.

I woke my Guru up out of a dead sleep. He had stuff to tell me.

Him: Why did your face just wake me up? Yeah, yeah, I get it. But that ain’t it.

Me: Message from the ether?

Him: What were you JUST doing?

Me: Drinking. Talking about beer pong.

Him: Maybe stop.
Or fucking completely dominate the proceedings…I sense some experimentation with your social platforms…you know what?…You are SO NOT in control of your environment right now, Chickie-Pie…
Still… you crash and nearly burn so fuckin’ elegantly…I love you
Deal with it.

Me: Fuck
That’s astute

…

I was also talking to someone who isn’t the boy

Him: Dreams. That’s all I wanna hear about. When they happen. Here.

Me: You told me to stop doing what I was doing. That I’m not in control. I know I’m not.
I don’t even know if I want to be. This whole thing has been a trust leap and free fall
I haven’t landed yet

Him: You just can’t fucking resist free fall…and your mystifying hypocrisy… is, you’re afraid of the landing. Why, Z-Baby? … You’re beyond feline pliable… But, what a cold hard heart of fear you embrace. Fuck you. Feel me? Fuck you.

Me: No no. I’m digging it. Freaked out for a bit. I okay now

Him: I Love You. For what that means, here. Now.

Me: Love you too
Am I allowed to land?

Been flying forever

Him: Nope. You haven’t finished revisiting a list.

Me: Okay

Him: There’s one name there. Jesus. Take Your Fucking Time.

Me: Do you know the name?

Him: Darlin’ … Why the fuck would I know the name? He’s a thorn, a whisper, a stomp, and song… And you meet so many of them…because, freakily enough, you WANT to…and my love goes on…

Me: Got it. Just checking. Sometimes my messages are exceptionally specific

Sent this this morning…

So ya

He messaged me an hour or two later. Also a random man told me my soul is ready to level up

It was a weird day

I sat in the bar last night trying to hold a tiny girl together and attempting to decode these messages I was getting from the cosmos.

Actually, I gotta back up a bit. I dreamt of the boy yesterday. He said I was celestial and he didn’t want to drag me down to earth with him. Him holding me was holding me back. And in my dream I said I didn’t care, he was my choice, held him anyways and all the anxiety went away. Then I woke up.

I forgot half the dream, then Guru posts this

And it all came back.

Then everything got weirder.

I actually slept proper the night before, that dream kept me asleep, I didn’t want to wake up.
Had dinner plans with a girlfriend and just a rather fabulous day in general. By the time we went for food I was feeling like my sea witchy powerful self. Got to work, did a rather good show, sober even.
Just felt better. Then Diamond teared up and I helped her.

And then, oh the fucking and then…

So once upon a time, in October, I thought I could sneak in one last visit with the Giant before the Last One wifed me. I woke up in the morning, stuffed my panties in my pocket, drove home and found myself blocked without warning or reason. But I knew. I did this.

Sabotage.

And it’s happening again.

Here is why I cried last night.

Giant messaged me and said “so this is how you felt when I left you.” and I crumbled.

I don’t want to hurt anyone like I have been hurt.

There was way more to it than that. He wants to see me, I left too soon, he misses me, I was right about everything.

He has his eye on a new girl and I said I would be happy to help, he doesn’t know what to say to her and I have all the words. Last time I helped pen a love note, they got married.

I want him to be with her.

In all honesty, he was the hardest thing for me to leave behind. So difficult in fact that I haven’t let go all the way. I see that now. Still trying to sneak in one more visit.

He was cussing me for being so far and I said I had to be.

He is so close to perfect, but deep down I know he isn’t mine.

Giant asked me if I’d met my person, and I told the truth.

He asked me if I am sure, and I answered 100%.

I said the boy’s name.

And that is when Giant said, damn this is how you felt when I left.

Ya babe. It is. and I am so fucking sorry.

Me: You were the worst. Never cried like I did over you. Like I sprained my soul.

Him: I’m learning

Me: I tried to tell you. I get it now, we weren’t done back then. I dedicated a book you. You get that right?

Him: Yes I do a little more now

Me: I want this girl for you so I can let you go.
I want my boy
He’s my person
You were so close
So fucking close
My lesson is that I don’t get to choose.
I just have to roll with it.

If you love me let me go.

Not complaining, evaluating.

I had to take sleeping pills to drop off last night. Probably the twelfth night ever in my life. I took 2 days off, I was shook as fuck and I promised myself I wouldn’t drink.

Woke up with a feeling that absolutely mirrors a hangover, except from the pills. Oh the agony of insomnia and irony.

I think I’m losing my mind this time this time I’m losing my mind.
~Beastie Boys

I’m not losing my mind. I am digging through it and doing some exploring, some of it is not pretty at all.

I’ve been through so much worse.

Not the best mantra.

I’d very much like to get outta my head now, please? I lost the key somewhere.

And my favorite earring from NOLA.

Bummer.

It may yet be found. The key too. All the things. If they are truly mine, they shall return.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3RRrLE5IOQ

I am the key to the lock in your life…I am the pick and the axe.

And right now I am climbing up the walls ~ Radiohead

I can get a new lock and a new key, I can turn that earring into a pendant. I’m resourceful.

Overwhelmed and undercharged. 15% battery and I am hanging on by my fingernails.

I am ready to rebuild any time now universe (do you hear me?) as soon as the earth stops shaking. I forget how hard it is to trust the ground after an earthquake, especially one I caused myself with my own upheaval. I did this.

You know I almost miss my explosive rage. I would crack and there would be this amazing release.
In the moment it felt so good to explode. To hit and hurt so someone else felt as shitty as I did even for a moment. So I didn’t have to be alone in pain. I wonder if the earth feels that way.

But so much collateral damage. Unnatural disasters.

It’s been years since I snapped and there is still fallout.

I am more of a controlled crumble now.

I almost miss blaming everything on everyone else.

So much easier than looking inside and finding my fault lines, then tending to them before I cave.

I have to slow way down on the drinking and if I can’t slow down, I have to quit.

That thought has me quaking in my stripper boots.

Did you know I was not drunk in a bar until I was 26 years old? I danced sober for 2 years. How in the fuck did I manage?

I quit drinking the January before my 19^th birthday.

I started drinking at 15 or 16. I would get black out drunk and rage. I was so angry back then. I was the squeaky wheel screaming for grease.

Any attention was better than none.

Now I don’t really want any attention to be totally honest. I get shy when people notice me. It’s harder here because I am supposed to be shiny and new. Not feeling my shine. Like I deserve any attention at all.

It’s hard to accept accolades for just barely holding myself together.

Got my period the day after a meltdown #2 and though hallelujah it is finished.

Nope, one more, forgot about the rule of 3 for a minute there.

And the Lord said let there be another earthquake and there was and fuck it sucked.

Last night was hard.

Had to happen, I could see it as it was unfolding. Didn’t make it any easier to watch.

Didn’t stop the aftershocks from keeping me awake imagining scenarios.

There was a fight yesterday, and I finally saw how I used to be, right in front of me. Like an ugly mirror.

The witnesses said I had great composure. How do I admit that it wasn’t exactly calm keeping me quiet, in reality I had so much shame I was choking on it. Like that I suppose.

I heard my own voice in the screeching cyclical arguments and the twisting of truths.

How did I ever exist that way?

All that anger? All that blame thrown everywhere but where it belonged?

How am I not a pariah of my own making?

How did anyone put up with me?

And better yet, why?

In the time called before I would have had her up against the wall by her throat 5 minutes in.

Dealt with the fallout as it came.

But I am not that girl anymore.

I am the one who looks inside and tries to figure out how to get better.

And fuck it is like work.

No wonder not everyone takes this path, it is a lot of uphill, but the wide open spaces are glorious, if memory serves. It does, too well.

I have to forgive that girl I was then too, make peace with my rage.

Everyone else has.

It is not enough to deny that part of myself. I was angry. From lack of love. Love from where it should have come from and love for myself. I felt disposable, why not behave that way?

Push everyone away and then blame them. All out of fear that they were leaving.

I would have run.

But by the grace of god some of them stayed. Something in me must be worth loving, so I should probably find that part of myself and be as much of that girl as I can.

I can’t remember when I realized no one was coming to save me.
No one is coming to save any of us.
I do remember being terribly afraid for a minute, then relieved.
Light and enlightened.

It is an equal amount of work to blame everyone else as it is to look inward. And both ways are messy I suppose. Just at the end of the day when I set about rebuilding from the rubble, I can feel like I accomplished something instead of waiting around for someone to fix it for me.

If I accomplish my own successes, own my own failures and muster my own happiness from inside, it cannot be taken from me.