Jeff’s Sad Face

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.