Uncategorized

Imaginary Friends and Enemies

August 27, 2016

…26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Matthew 12:26-28

Stop dividing yourself between what you did and who you are.

Did a bad thing? Okay.

Still doing it? No. Good job darlin’.

He said: I was afraid to see you after 22 years. I know the things that I have done in that time apart and I somehow assumed you did too, but you don’t, do you?

I replied: Nope, I don’t, but it doesn’t matter, I’d love you anyways. You are what I remember. We’ve all done some sketchy stupid shit, myself included. There is no judgement here.

Funny enough he brought me handmade scrabble tiles that spell out L.O.V.E.

We only let love in this house.

We’ve both changed exponentially, but the things that made us friends stayed the same.

“Never apologize for how you had to survive.”

But everyone does. Just makes you human and humble. That’s okay.

We’re all trying to navigate the 4 lane highway between do no harm and take no shit.
But then emotions get in the way and we covet things/people we ought not to. Life happens and we get hungry.
Or we run into the selfish soul suckers and we find ourselves fighting them on their turf and terms and then the shame sets in.

What did I just do?

Doesn’t matter, the question is ‘what do you do now.’

Just get back on the highway, or climb in and let me drive for a while.

I’ll pick you up gladly, but leave the past in the rear view. Don’t tow it behind.

I have music, cigarettes and enough gas to get us far away from here.

People love to tell me the things they have done, their deep dark dirtiest of secrets.
And I listen.
I don’t ask why.
Why is a useless question.
You did what you had to do/wanted to do and no amount of worry/guilt or shame is going to change that.

If someone starts drowning in the past I throw a life preserver labeled…“But did you die?”

Yes? Cool, I am communing with the dead, how can I help you?

No? Let it fucking go.

I scrolled back through my Instagram and I was struck by how much things have changed.
I know I’ll do it again in a year and think the same thing. I chuckled at myself. I remember being sad because I didn’t get what I wanted.

Then I pulled myself out of the muck and mire of ‘what was supposed to be’ and setting my feet down on the firm ground of ‘what is’.

I was stuck in detours and rest stops that were actually really dirty and dangerous in retrospect.

Get back in the car.

As I look for stories to tell here I find myself falling back on Facebook/Instagram memories.
There is no drama presently, nothing to dazzle y’all with.
Just a girl who likes a boy, her job, her house, her friends, her life, in this moment, right now, as is.

The past is just a story we tell ourselves. Chuck Palahniuk

And those Gods and demons we thank and blame?

Just imaginary friends of our own making.

I do envy those who blindly believe in god. How easy it must be to give your every action over to an omnipotent puppet master in the sky.
Personally? I gotta call bullshit.
You did the thing and god doesn’t approve or disapprove, own it and move on.
If it made you feel bad, don’t do it again.

I am my own moral compass. If my gut flutters with butterflies, I go that way.

If my stomach twists and turns and hurts. I run. Or I hang out for a good long while, cry a lot and then I leave.

My friends that don’t believe in god still carry these heavy burdens of guilt about where they came from, the things they’ve done.

Baby did a bad, bad thing. (Chris Isaac)

Again, I have to ask…but did you die?

It just means you are better than those who hurt you. Start acting like it.

You survived. Enjoy.

If you tell me anything and the beginning of the story is ‘once upon a time’ I will remind you that there is no such thing, all we have is this moment now and you’re spending it in the past?

Stop doing that.

Tell me where you are going, not where you’ve been.

They label this darkness as ‘demons’.

Stop.

That makes less sense than god.

At least we give god credit for the big, beautiful, miraculous things we enjoy.

What do those demons do for you?

Not a damn thing.

Mama says “If they can’t play nice then they’re not your friends.”

If the cd keeps skipping, toss it out the window and make a new one.

You are writing the story of your own life with the memories and feelings you choose you hold onto.
Edit yourself a better life.
Sugar coat that shit all you want, remember the good things. Put the rest in a filing cabinet marked ‘what not to do’, yell ‘plot twist’ and get on with your life.

No one will know in a year.

Gods and demons are just fictional characters, time to invent some better ones, and make sure they love you even when you are acting the fool. If they don’t, they aren’t your friends.

Smile at your own ridiculousness, because in the end, it won’t matter.

How about this… I am your flesh and blood friend, I exist and I absolutely forgive your absolute worst.

I’m your goddess of mercy.

I don’t care how you got here, I am just glad you made it.

Uncategorized

Coming Home

August 25, 2016

My boss pulled me in the office the other day and asked me what I wanted to do at this new company.

“Do you want to come in and casually help out or do you want to take over and run things?”

Told me to think about it for a couple of days.

I knew there was no wrong answer and I thought about it pretty hard. But I already knew the answer.

I am going to run it.

He wants to build a tiny empire and I want to help him.

My strong suits are his weak points and vice versa.

Every job I’ve had in the past lends itself to this one. I got this.

I had the job when I walked in the door, I just had to say yes.

And I did.

I knew it would change things.

Like being up at 5:30am to write. But I like being up when the world is still asleep.

I haven’t had a straight job in 4 years and that ended as badly as anything could. I was to have a 5 year contract, paid over the table, a chance to save my money and build a life. It ended fast and furious a few months in and I was forced to regroup. I did a pretty good job of it and I love my life now. That place literally burned to the ground after I left.

I’ve been getting by on the grace of god and a bit of my own wits. Mostly god, and my comfort in being naked amongst strangers.

I just moved in with my Sunshine and it’s not perfect, but it’s really good. I love our little nest, I love her. I want to stay for a while. I really don’t want to move again until I buy something.

I want to finish this book and start another. I want the book to do well enough to keep me comfortable for a long while. And it very well could. I finally cracked the thing open after a month of avoiding it and damn, it’s good.

I always figured if I won the lottery I would probably keep working, I don’t sit still well.

JK Rowling got knocked off the billionaire list because she gives so much money to charity. I will be that way. What do I need a billion dollars for? My sisters need houses, people need food, dogs need rescuing and I wouldn’t have a clue as what to do with that much money other than making sure me and mine are comfortable.

Comfort to me isn’t about yachts and limos. It’s a cabin in the woods by a lake I can swim in. With a garden and roses.

It is possible to be an optimist and a realist when you realize anything you can imagine is real.

My dreams are my own and the only thing needed to make my life better is to dream bigger and work work work work work.

I am poised on the precipice of finally knowing what I want and having that be a good thing for once. Bliss.

I still say to my son “it’s a one in a million chance that you will become famous or a rock star, or an athlete or win the lottery of have some stroke of genius or luck in your life that leaves a big mark. But never ever think for a minute that it won’t happen. It does, every day. People win at life, amazing things happen. Why not you?” It is within the realm of possibilities. Everything is.

I have my Eeyore moments, everyone does. Mine are usually regarding men and relationships because let’s face it, they haven’t gone well. If they had I wouldn’t be here talking to you good people about how to tuck and roll when shit starts to burn.

There was a back and forth on this meme.

I have a +2 credit or I’m at 7, if the 3 good ones subtract from the bad, and they do. My girl said it was never going to happen for her and I wish I could gently reach through the ether and tell her that isn’t the truth. People win at love all the time.

It came along right as Rob Breszney posted this

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/20160825.html

And my horoscope.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)
I invite you to dream about your true home . . . your sweet, energizing, love-strong home . . . the home where you can be high and deep, robust and tender, flexible and rigorous . . . the home where you are the person that you promised yourself you could be. To stimulate and enhance your brainstorms about your true home, experiment with the following activities: Feed your roots . . . do maintenance work on your power spot . . . cherish and foster your sources . . . and refine the magic that makes you feel free. Can you handle one more set of tasks designed to enhance your domestic bliss? Tend to your web of close allies . . . take care of what takes care of you . . . and adore the intimate connections that serve as your foundation.

Of course I cried. I really want to go home.

My soul let out a triumphant bellow and a cathartic sigh.

I am so close I can taste it.

Of all these people, places, jobs and relationships I have tried to call home…they just didn’t fit. The bed was too soft, the porridge too hot something was always off and I would get rereleased into the unknown like a dandelion fluff on the wind. I would settle in hostile territory and grow anyway, just to wither and die and send my wishes back out into the world looking for somewhere to call home.

I am getting close to touching down, I can feel it. Somewhere where the ground is fertile and the sun shines and the rain falls, somewhere I can put down roots and grow that isn’t the cracks of a sidewalk or an abandoned lot.

Somewhere like a cabin in the woods, near a lake so I can swim. With a garden and roses.

Uncategorized

What if her Name is Actually Becky?

August 24, 2016

Mama Susan (My Queen Bee) said to me when I posted this meme…

“The day is coming when you’ll realize that your pussy is humble and you are magic.”

“Soon” she said.

I already have. He’ll probably see it too. Pray he don’t call me when he notices.

So what are you gonna say at my funeral, now that you’ve killed me? Here lies the body of the love ~~of my life~~, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head. Here lies the mother ~~of my children~~, both living and dead. Rest in peace, my ~~true~~ love, who I took for granted. Most bomb pussy who, because of me, sleep evaded. Her god listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks…

I’ll drink to that eulogy.

Pray I don’t die here.

I’m not dead yet.

Once upon a time Sunshine said she was going to finish her water and get into the wine.

I said “baby please, drink that Ménage a Trois the Giant left here, get it out of my life.”

Rolled my eyes.

Middle fingers up.

She said she wasn’t going to get turnt, and I laughed, “How can you baby girl? It ain’t even a full bottle”.

She said ‘say goodbye to boys that don’t pick you & show up half-drunk with half-drunk bottles of wine’.

The biggest grin pulled up the corners of my mouth and I spit ‘tell him boy bye.’

Gift me liquor, tell me to keep drinking, then dismiss me for what you coaxed me to do?

no no HELL NAH

And I don’t feel bad about it
It’s exactly what you get
Stop interrupting my grinding
(You’re interrupting my grinding)

Middle fingers up.

Leave unfinished business in my house?

Tell him boy bye

Make me apologize?

Tell him boy bye

Text me while you’re with her?

Tell him boy bye

I ain’t sorry

I’d only heard snippets of Sorry by the Queen B. flipping through radio stations.

“… Her shroud is loneliness. Her god was listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks.”

Heard it full through the other night and everything came rushing back. Broke my heart and filled it up simultaneously.

I love it when women get strong.

She was then I was the fucking side chick. I was ashes. The fire went out.

He poured ¾ of a bottle of wine on it after I doused it with 3oz of vodka in a wine cooler.

I ain’t sorry

Let’s have a toast to the good life

My therapist told me I am allowed to have more than one emotion at a time. I laughed so hard I cried.

I told Giant I had run the gambit of feels and landed on shame.

But there was more, there is always more…until there isn’t.

I am shocked anyone found my off switch as I am forever turned up and on.
I am pissed.
I carry with me the tiniest bit of uncharacteristic hope that he will wake up one day and he’ll realize what I am* and what he’s lost.
Beyond Most Bomb Pussy…

He always got them fucking excuses
I pray to the lord you reveal what his truth is.

Yes Queen B, she said it better than me. And those Beyoncelogues, damn woman. Preach.

Intuition, I knew this was coming.

Denial, I pretended it wasn’t.

Anger, I was venomous.

Apathy, now I don’t care.

Loss, his.

Emptiness, I found room to move in this space.

Accountability, I own what I did.

Reformation, I don’t want to be loved by halves, I’m whole on my own.

Forgiveness, I forgive, until I can’t anymore, and then I forgive myself.

Resurrection, I deserve better.

Hope, I am better.

and I can do better.

Redemption makes him look small.

He only want me when I’m not there

You better Becky with the good hair.

Sorry, I ain’t sorry

No no hell nah

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

http://www.bustle.com/articles/156559-transcript-of-beyonces-lemonade-because-the-words-are-just-as-important-as-the-music

lost boys

No Funeral Required

August 20, 2016

The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Sometimes that is the truth.
I have shit days, we all do.
The ones where we just want it to end, whatever mask ‘it’ is wearing that day.
Good news?
Masks don’t last, wounds heal and eventually things get better.

Hot Neighbor is always asking me if whatever is vexing me in that moment is going to bother me in a year. My answers vary from a ‘Probably not’ to a chuckling ‘nope’. Then he hugs me and I feel less busted than I did before I said the thing out loud. He is leveling up at lightning speed and keeps asking me to join him. With his gentle nudges and check-ins that all sound like “Sarah, evolve, its time now.”

I ask after his Russian nesting doll and he shows up when I need him.

So there is that then.

The hardest thing I ever had to do was forgive someone who wasn’t sorry.
Unknown

It’s actually not that bad. You should try it sometime.

Once you have done it, it gets really easy.

I’ve done it and I’ll do it again a few dozen times before my life ends.

Here’s how, in one easy step.

Realize that…

Everyone has their own perception and reality.
Matter changes when observed, so me being near you will alter your behavior to a degree, but the microcosm that is you, is still you. We have this immediate second that we live in and everything else is just stored data. As creatures with active imaginations and sometimes/often corrupt filing systems for memories, sometimes the data gets distorted and no amount of arguing or worry on my part is going to allow me to change your mind. Whatever you think happened is your hardwired reality. So be it.

So that isn’t it either.

I think the hardest part of the human condition is saying good bye to someone who is still alive.

I avoid it like the plague.

‘Cause when you’re done with this world
You know the next is up to you
John Mayer

shit.

It IS up to me, and for a long time I didn’t know what world I wanted to live in.

The fear of the great unknown keeping me tethered to the Walking Dead. Just like Michonne and her walkers on leashes, no arms to hold me, no teeth to bite me neither, but damn they smelled bad and held me back.

The severance becomes exponentially harder when there are invisible threads and entangled particles.

I went to a funeral once and a Buddhist monk came with a ball of string. I am not sure what the purpose was but when he cut it I felt a palpable release, like she was free.

I have been wrong this whole time, I don’t need an exorcism with an old priest and a young priest, I need a monk with scissors and a ball of string

I wrote a thing once and now it’s making me cringe. That happens a lot.

Something along the lines of ‘when given the choice between the devil you know and the devil you don’t stick with the familiar, he will probably hurt you like he has before, but at least you know how to tend to your wounds.’

That is a shitty philosophy. The girl who wrote that is dead to me now. I have no problem burying older outdated versions of me, I don’t even bother with flowers on their graves anymore, just smile wistfully now and again, thinking ‘you silly bitch, thanks for the lessons on what we ought not to do again ever.’

Catharsis is easier when there is a cataclysmic event to accompany it.

“Traitor child. I must despise you now”
Queen Bavmorda, Willow

But what happens when there is no blow out.

What if you just drift apart slowly?

What if you really like being near that person because your soul feels good but because of circumstances beyond your control (see above where their reality is different than yours) it ain’t working anymore.

What then?

That my friends, is the heaviest door to close.

There is no fanfare or funeral or closing ceremony.

It just is, becomes it just isn’t.

I think that’s why the easy way out is what everyone else seems to do which is flip the switch between I have you to I hate you.

I don’t hate anyone because a huge part of what I am is understanding. So it’s hard for me.

Damn near impossible.

Probably because I see walls where there are actually doors and vice versa. I have bloodied my knuckles knocking on doors that once were opened to me but have now been locked/bricked over.

Watching through my fingers, watching through my fingers
Caught off guard by your favorite song
Oh I’ll be dancing at a funeral, dancing at a funeral
Sleeping in the clothes you love
It’s such a shame we had to see them burn, shame we had to see them burn

What’s gonna be left of the world if you’re not in it?
What’s gonna be left of the world, oh

Every minute and every hour
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more
Every stumble and each misfire
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more
Bastille

What is going to be left of this world without them in it?

Me.

I am all I ever had anyways.

All the things they left behind, all the things I became when my particles met theirs and my atoms changed and transformed from being tangled up with them.

This I get to keep.

I’m gonna go ahead and do what Joseph Campbell suggested and cleanse my doors of perception and wander out into the infinite.

They can stay in that graveyard where I buried all the previous versions of me. Keeping each other company.

No funeral required.

…and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand
Sanober Khan

Uncategorized

Yesterday is Where I Left it.

August 10, 2016

Yesterday I saw a soldier demon try and claw its way out of a little girl. Constantine

Yesterday, all my trouble seemed so far away. The Beatles

Wait, no yesterday was the trouble and I was the little girl with the demon in her, wanting out.

I live with chronic pain. I just do. I don’t talk about it often. I haven’t had more than a week below a 3/10 since Arizona, and that was 7 days out of 7 years. I miss that chiropractor like oxygen. I swear she had angel wings and a halo. Her hands were made of magic and she rearranged my bones into a less painful configuration for a time.

I don’t talk about it often because to speak of pain aloud gives it acknowledgment and thereby power over me.

I hurt, and that’s okay. I am used to it and most days it doesn’t bother me. And on the days it does, I either let it or I don’t. Some days I have no choice and it huffs and it puffs and it blows my house down. So I nap and cry and put ice packs in interesting places and wait it out. All storms pass.

I am in control over my own damned self.
I manufacture my own happiness and other emotions in my own mind.

Giant said something the other day and I was quick to correct him.
He said “I can’t come running over and make you a happy Sarah.”
No you can’t, you can add to it, but you can’t create it with your presence or take it away with your absence.
My sadness also belongs to me and me alone.
I cried rivers over him, which flowed into oceans, but they were my own.
I could have stopped at any time, but I chose to go with the flow and see where it took me. Which is here, and here is good. I float.

4-6 days a year I hit an 8.
10/10 being active labor or the first while after the car crash that started all of this.

Yesterday was an 8.5

When I say I live with chronic pain I mean she sleeps with me every night, I try to roll over and ignore her, but she wakes me up sometimes. She sits with me in the car and I avoid acknowledgement until about hour four then she sits in my lap and weighs heavy on my legs and lower back.

I made a decision upon a farm couch 7 years ago.

There is no parallel universe with any version of me who would not have stubborned herself up off that couch. There is no doppelganger of mine that convalesced and died there. Sisterwife lays there dying now, her choice, not mine.

There are days where I hurt so bad that I cry hysterically and this opens me up to emotional outbursts that I cannot control. But there are days when I don’t. I live for those. I love being in the water because I float myself down to a 2.5. The stretching and cardio I get on the pole and the endorphins released during sex lessens the pain as well, or distracts me the same way opioids do. The pain is there and I simply don’t care.

Apparently poles of all kinds are good things for me.

I take the same attitude with my PTSD. I don’t have it. It has a key to my house and pops by now and again to remind me something bad happened years ago. But I have mentally put so much space between me and then, it’s like watching an old movie clip. If I put effort in I can remember the whole film, but why would I? I didn’t do that to me, someone else did and they are long gone and far, far away. I’m in no clear or present danger. Those little flashes are just warning lights when I veer down a familiar path. So I leave.

I do not understand why we would prolong our suffering. Wasn’t it bad enough the first time?

I didn’t do those thing to me, someone else did. Not my problem. I practice kindness not cruelty because I can. The only person I can control is myself, and these are my choices.

Let go and let god.

Everything is as it should be.

This too shall pass.

Laugh and smile as often as possible and pass it on to others.

I live for belly laughs, good food, better sex, writing, loving and learning.

Yesterday all of those things seemed really far away.

Yesterday don’t matter ‘cos it’s gone. Rolling Stones

Today is a whole new glorious day.

Uncategorized

Safety Joe and other Prophecies

August 6, 2016

Oh forfucksakes, goddammit.

It actually is.

Now what?

Can I evict them? Do they have somewhere to go? Will someone else look after them? Do they know how to get back if I let them out into the world? I gave them sandwiches, perhaps they will think to leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Or more likely the will just get lost and stay there. Lost boys get lost. Its what they do.

Not hard to understand why they moved in huh? I am getting nothing from this and they still get my genuine concern, somewhat divided attention and some love.

It is as though they know my heart is a church and if they knock and cry Sanctuary, I gotta let em in, and they can stay, indefinitely.

I am not saying they are all cowards, these people I keep in my heart.

But if the running shoe fits…

Gelfling bolted saying he couldn’t give me what I wanted even though he never did ask me what that was (very little for the record).
Young Un the first didn’t want to be in a relationship until a month after he left me and then he tripped over untied shoelaces and fell into a relationship.
The Poet was so afraid he ran back to his castle too.

So if the meme fits…write an article about it.

Giant came over to hang a chandelier, it’s still not up. He got shocked twice and we were missing a piece. We were missing lots of proverbial pieces but he keeps leaving them here one by one. As well as other assorted odds and tangible ends. I giggled the other day when I found his volt meter. Said “it’s cute that we keep leaving bits of ourselves at the other’s house. I don’t think we can sever our invisible thread but it’s nice to have something to hold onto.” He agreed. The bigger picture is getting clearer and clearer. Knots in the thread not withstanding.

We also had a good giggle about him calling himself Safety Joe.

He’s not a coward, he is Safety Joe.

One more puzzle piece.

A stranger with your door key explaining that I am just visiting. And I am finally seeing. Why I was the one worth leaving.
~The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, Postal Service

We talk, it’s what we do. Over vodka tonics this time instead of beer. It’s usually me babbling a little more. Reiterating things that I’ve written or Eurekas from therapy or venting about dates gone wrong. But when he talks I listen.

I was rubbing the knots from his back and asked him if he had ever been in love before. He said yes. He met a girl at 13 and dated her from 17 to 22 and then they broke up.

Of course I asked why. I like to untangle things.

He said

“I didn’t want to be in love in my early 20’s.”

Mmm, what you say?
That you only meant well? Well, of course you did
What you say?
That it’s all for the best? Because it is
What you say?
That it’s just what we need? And you decided this?
What you say?

(WAIT …)
WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
Speak no fear, no I don’t believe you…
(Imogen Heap, Hide & Seek) very funny.

You decided this? How in the ever-loving-fuck does one wake up one morning and just decide this?

Can you teach me?

I too fell in love at 13. I couldn’t find the breaker. Finally did.

He does speak in ransom notes and newspaper word cut outs. Pretends he doesn’t fear, but he does.

I asked him that too. If he was scared of me, he said yes.

“But you love me, don’t you.”

He said “yes, I do.”

And herein lies the epiphany/eureka that illuminated the room in place of the chandelier with the missing piece.

I sent him this the day before he came over.

I don’t think I am all that, but maybe that is what he sees. I am more like this…

He has no idea what I see in him. Tells me again and again how plain he is.
Average Joe, Safety Joe, “I’m just some guy”.
His reality is that I could see his truth at any moment and burn it all to the ground like the mystic he believes me to be.
So it is safer for him to hide from me behind her and her behind me.
I’ve done that, it’s called a rousing game of Human Shield.
He cannot possibly fall in love with either one of us if the other exists and takes up space in his life/heart/home.
But not too much space.
Hes too pragmatic for that.
He loves his cozy little life, as he should, he built it with his own two giant hands.

He IS a King dressed in rags who has amnesia. Of this I have no doubt.

I doubted everything else, but I always somehow knew that he loved me, he made it very plain that he wanted me, that was not hard to decipher, that wasn’t a secret.

What I didn’t understand is how he could love me/want me and not be with me.

Easy…

He made a choice. Not to fall in love.

Interesting use of a superpower. To plan your life out to the point that you can put a leash on your heart and tell it where to go.

15 days he leaves his early twenties.

I wonder what he has planned for himself then?

I could just ask him, I know he would tell me the truth, he is good like that. I think I already know.

Every prophet in her house, and he in his.

He has said many times that I will wander. I won’t stay.

He has made it near impossible for me to do so, maybe he is a prophet.
A self-fulfilling prophet.

I’ve done that. They’re going to leave so I am going to make sure of it.

I have memorized the lessons for loving a prophet* as well, someone has to, poor dears.
He speaks like one, like me. Creates reality with his thoughts and words.

The last prophecy I foretold was that one day soon I am going to figure him out and I am going to feel markedly better. That was 10 days ago.

Now if I can just get that chandelier up so I can have some actual/tangible illumination…but of course the missing piece is in a drawer in his house, he has been hanging onto it for a year, waiting to see where it fit.

Uncategorized

Who is this Masked Man?

August 4, 2016

Who is he really? I have no idea.

There exists a meme that makes the rounds about forgiving someone who isn’t sorry and how that’s strength.

It is.

I should know, I just did the thing.

It’s going to take longer for me to forgive myself. But only by a lil bit.

2 years it took me to come to the realization that I fell in love with a masked man.

And only the mask.

He’s kinda an asshole without it.

He is not the Batman, beyond the rich/hermit thing. He can’t even save himself.

The lightbulb that went off burned my retinas.

Sitting in therapist’s office, she was questioning why I even come to her at all.

“Sarah, you seem to be able to figure things out rather well on your own, why are you here…am I actually doing anything for you?”

She is, but I have to stop with the day-to-day and resurrect my past. I am afraid I did that thing that I warned her I would do which was twist the conversation into a new direction to get away from what I don’t want to deal with.

Recent past? I got this.

The time called ‘before’ like when I was married? I am actually alright with all of that too. I learned a lot, mostly what not to do. I shed skin that didn’t fit and itched something awful. I have already danced naked on that grave enough. I can’t even remember where I buried them.

Way back when I was a little girl with glasses, a huge vocabulary and skinned knees?
She needs some love and attention and then I think we are going to be okay.

Someday soon I will reach back and pull her out and tell her everything is going to be better than fine. It is going to be spectacular.

I hold onto ghosts, lawd knows I do. I feed them, water them and give them a place to manifest. My bedroom is a Ouija board and I commune with the dead on soft sheets, my hands are wandering planchettes that move with psychic, spiritual guidance and spell out sweet things on their skin or trace the constellations in their freckles trying to decipher maps to home or both.

At least when they appear I can recognize them, they remain true to the men I knew, and their newfound transparency is pretty sweet.

The golden rule with the dead is ask them what they want.

I said to the Giant “When I start to develop genuine feelings for someone it’s like a bell gets rung in my heart’s graveyard and all my skeletons get up and ask me to dance.” Via text the morning after we slow danced in my dining room.

Happened when I loved him, Jason too and the Hulk. Young Un the first was the first so he got immunity and I recovered alone.

I am doing that thing again. Talking (non)sensical nonsense in avoidance.

What of this masked man…

Well shit.

I can see it with abundant clarity now.

Flowed off my tongue as the truth tends to do.

I said

“The first night, the night we talked for 12 hours he was this attentive, excited, vulnerable man with this unyielding strength. I fell in love. I did. I fell in it and stayed there, wet up to my waist and waiting for his return.

But the man that called me the next day and every subsequent day or night after that, wasn’t him.”

Maybe the stars were aligned a certain way that first night, or it was the Fireball, blame it on the alcohol. Or maybe the doors of perception were either cleansed or filthy…filthy sounds more astute.

Or it could have been prima nocta. I was taken away and mindfucked by a man that wasn’t mine.

There it is.

Whatever happened, he never came back. Except to lord over me a bit.

I wanted that back so badly I couldn’t see the truth. I just wanted My Poet back. But My Poet didn’t actually exist outside of that time and place.

It was a well-constructed mask that fell away over the next two weeks and then he fell away too.

I did the same thing in my marriage. Fell for him in the first 3 months when it was summertime and we were new and life wasn’t hard. Then he turned into a video game playing couch-potato and I became a Fallout widow. But dammit I hung on to those 90 days for dear life and wasted my dear life for the next 2556.69539 days.

Until I landed in therapy.

I’ve worn masks too.

I wasn’t exactly myself when I’d go to work, but that veil was a fake name and more make up than I wear on a day to day basis. Geisha-face with stilettos basically. Salome in her war paint. Call it what you will but I was only selling the skin my soul came in, not my soul itself.

I’ve spent a lot of time teaching and training myself not to lie, I can happily say ‘what you see is what you get.’ I’m mutable and I have my moods, but I am always myself.

I wandered off again.

He claimed to be one of 4% of men who derive pleasure from sharing his woman with other men. We talked about it at great length, I sent stories and started a book about it.

I had yet another moment of clarity. They have been coming down from heaven like lightning strikes in the heat of July.

He’s never had what he wanted. What if the reality of it is actually more than he could bear?

That too feels like truth as it rolls off my tongue. It’s my truth as well. I am not sure I could be that girl/his girl, but I was willing to try.

I am all the things all these men ever wanted until they are confronted with the reality of it.

Be careful what you wish for.

This is my one true face.

men

Of Course You can Touch my Butt

August 3, 2016

Oh honey, you had a bad day?
Come over here, tuck yourself into me.
And of course you can touch my butt.
Do you need a sandwich?

Oh honey, you’re still at work 16 hours into the day and you can’t come over?
Here is a picture of my butt to remind you that it is here waiting for you to touch it.

The word document file name for this article is ‘actually touch my butt’.

I was sitting on the porch last night and the neighbors were fighting and my heart got heavy and I’d just made a new Word document called ‘touch my butt’, it was open so I vented there.

This is why I lose things. I give them obscure names, my laptop reboots without my permission and poof.

Buh-bye now, see you next year when I’m cleaning and organizing.

It’s the morning after the new moon.

Save one bill, everything is paid. I’ll get to it today.

The house is spotless, like “It’d be okay if Queen Elizabeth popped over for tea” clean.

Burned some candles and some sage last night.

We are only letting love into this house. So mote it be.

I feel clean, calm and I keep smirking.

Doesn’t hurt a bit that the Lumberjack messages me intermittently throughout the day, every day.

He’s working way too hard right now and I haven’t seen him in…I don’t know how many days.

Huh, funny, I usually count these things.

He said his last girlfriend and he broke up because she was constantly fussing about him working too much.

So she spent the time she did get with you bitching about not seeing you so now she never gets to see you?

That makes no sense.

A lot of things women do when it comes to men make no sense to me.

There are a bazillion people on the planet, if the one you have isn’t working for you do not play blacksmith and try to heat them and hammer them into something that is not their original shape. Go find another one that fits your shape.

Don’t get me wrong. In the folly of my youth (which really only ended 3-4 years ago) I thought if I just tried hard enough ‘I could change him’.

I’ll tell all y’all a secret. No, you can’t. And really? You shouldn’t want to.

How hard that must be on a person you (profess to) love or care about to constantly feel like they have to adapt to please you, like they are not enough as is.
Pretty sure that isn’t love.
I am quite sure that is how the bulk of my exes made me feel. If I just behaved a little better, or was a little quieter, less aggressive, less sassy, less needy/slutty/chatty/sleepy/sneezy/bashful/dopey/grumpy etc. etc. but then I am not me. So why’d you pick me again? And why won’t you touch my butt?

I still have men in my life that make me feel this way. But not for long. We are only letting love into this house.

This is the problem with the neighbors, they fuck and fight and that isn’t love. It’s just a loud, screaming, sobbing mess.

Women are not put on this earth to fix men. They aren’t broken.
Men are not put on this earth to lord over women. We got this.
We’re two separate yet compatible halves of one whole.
Men don’t need to be fixed, they need to be loved and nurtured and left to go build things.
Women do not need to be ruled, we need to be left to be creative and kind and loving.

I’m about to get called out for being anti-feminist.

I could give a fuck.

I do not believe that men and women are equal. I believe we are symbiotic.
And by sucking the life out of the opposite gender trying to get them to submit, we are actually hurting ourselves.

Women have access to this powerful, protective, productive male energy and we harness it to
…
hold our purses at Bed Bath and Beyond?
That doesn’t seem right.

When did we trade nurturing for nagging? And can I please take my nurturing back?
Nagging feels shitty, both to give and receive.

By denying a man his masculinity you are denying your divine feminine self.
Um, what’s not to love about being a woman, we are soft, mystical creatures that create things out of nothing, capable of abstract thought, we feel things on these deep emotional levels and have multiple orgasms.

I jiggle when I walk. He likes that, as do I, I hate doing squats. I am soft. I do not consider this to be a weakness, but strength instead. I am not hard and rigid like him. I flow. I adapt. I soothe myself and others.
Put me against a wall and things change a bit. I have a vicious mouth on me and for the most part I can hold my own physically. But when there is a good man around, I don’t have to do those things. I can build things, fix things and I can appreciate having a man around to open that jar.

Lumberjack is having a stressful time at work right now. He talks to me about it, I make suggestions and ask questions and he comes to his own conclusions. I do not presume to know what is best for him or even exactly how his business works, I have an idea because I listen when he speaks and I ask questions.

He throws the word ‘perfect’ around a lot. I am not. What I am is compatible. The things about me that are feminine and good work with the things about him that are masculine and good.
And for once I feel appreciated, so I make sure he does too.

My job here is to see him when I can. Listen to him vent, rub his back and let him touch my butt. Because like the rest of me, it is soft and soothing and divine.

Uncategorized

Enough Buddhas

July 28, 2016

Roommate (aka my Sunshine) says “We have enough Buddhas.”

Considering the size of our apartment, she is probably right. Considering who I am as a person, I have since bought one more Kuan Yin and will probably sneak another Buddha into my room.

We have one in the sanctuary we call ‘porch’ and he is the only one facing the right way. Funny if you think about it. Does Buddha really care? He might have a preference for early morning sunlight on his face, I do too. But he doesn’t actually give a shit where you put him. He is not an overly thin skinned prophet.

The emotional freedom I gained when I finally internalized the words “Everything is as it should be” was…all. I immediately stopped fighting. I couldn’t argue and I stopped wanting to.

I probably don’t have quite enough Buddhas. I still forget. I lose time thinking about what almost was.

So I am talking to my other girl. My North Carolina Mawmawolf. It’s killing me in small increments. She is my mirror image from my sad days on the farm. I want her outta there. Trying to rig up a tough love catapult to launch her out of the past.

She said she wrote something and confessed to attempted murder.

A) It was 17 years ago
B) She wrote an article about an ‘almost’.
Ergo…
C) All it is now is a really riveting story.

Sucks that it happened, awesome that she wrote about it so well.

https://letspretendblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/if-i-had/

I can’t find the words to get her to let go.

Closest I got was “BUT DID YOU DIE?”

There is an alternate reality where I have a crippling opioid addiction and I am still sitting on the stinky farm couch with an equally addicted sisterwife.

But it ain’t this reality.

Currently I am sitting in a house full of Buddhas, music and sunshine. And it’s clean and it smells good. I am only here because I changed how I think about things.

I wrote an article, feels like forever ago, about the times I almost died. It’s been a lot. Enough to write an article about it. I also wrote in “Regeneration, After the Fire” about how imagining what could have been worse about something that was already bad enough was a misuse of time, energy and imagination. Because it fucking is.

But did you die?

Nope.

Carry on then.

Why are we so addicted to drama and worst case scenarios? I know I used to be that girl but I have no interest in digging her up to glean the why. She smells like desperation and monkey shit from running around circus tents that weren’t hers.

Time is too precious.

I lost 3 days fussing over a move that didn’t go my way. I lost nothing but 3 jars and 3 days. Can’t get it back so…moving on.

I could very well have been raped on a Tinder date. But I wasn’t. Not dwelling on what happened other than fine tuning my collection of red flags and adding a few.
The Poet posted some poem about loose women looking for trouble in bars and getting what they deserved right after I posted what happened. Little lemon juice in a wound that was barely closed, but whatever. Chased it with a shot of tequila, had a chuckle and got on with my day.
(Hi honey. I’m fine thanks, and you?)

I saw this lovely British man do a short excerpt/talk about unrequited love.

https://www.facebook.com/CoachMatthewHussey/videos

I watched it until my eyes bled and it became my marrow.

Been turning that grain of sand over in my head like an oyster and I came up with this little pearl…

If he wanted me he would be here.
If any of them were supposed to stay and love me, they would be, right here right now.
Jason has been trying to get me to accept this for a while now. And I always came back with a “But, but, I understand why he is doing what he is doing.” Which translates to a very meek “I’m not worthy.”

Um, ya, I am.

I am a kind, funny, sweet, loving, understanding, talented woman who loves sex and values men as men. Plus I make killer sammiches.
And I am wicked smart.
Me hanging onto a future I manufactured in my own head is not sexy, is not romantic.
I hate martyrs and I am not going to be one. I have shit to do.
I am a good girl, I’m human and I make mistakes and sometimes I have to play dead to get out of bad situations. So be it. No harm no foul, I washed it off.

Poet bailed on me shortly after my birthday citing that I embarrassed him, no explanation, just a block.
Some harm, some foul.
But I don’t have a time machine and if I did I wouldn’t use it to go back and edit a 20 minute conversation I had with a strange woman about coffee cups. Again, I have better shit to do.

Like write a book inspired by my fantasy life that I made up in my head and is going rather nicely actually. Someone once told me sex sells on the internet, and he wasn’t wrong.

Shoulda done this years ago…tee hee.

Everything is as it should be and everything went the way it went.
No amount of fussing or self-flagellation over imaginary sins is going to change that.

You made it, here, to this moment. Enjoy.

I can play the coulda woulda shoulda game like a gold medalist, but it gets me nowhere. I should never have dated that psycho-wannabe-soldja-boy. I had the Giant. But who says if I had done anything any differently that Giant wouldn’t have left me for his safe traveling waitress anyways?

I did what I did. I am what I am and I own it.

I don’t have time to figure out what other people want me to be, I’m way too busy enjoying being myself.

Here and now.

Uncategorized

Digging in the Dirt

July 8, 2016

Every harlot was a virgin once. ~ William Blake

Everything changes, letting go is the only way.

I’ve been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could’ve been.
I’ve been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I’ve endured within
~ Tool 46 &2

I can feel it. Mostly in the lack of things that were here before…and in the warmth that has replaced them.

I can control time, speed it up to get through the unpleasant, slow it down to savor the bliss. I have the blessing of not noticing the unpleasantness around me until it is time to get out of harm’s way…or just not at all.

It has been years since I had soul crushing panic attacks that would rob my breath and sanity and cause me to feel as though I would never be happy again. My limbs used to solidify into deadwood. No more. I am rooted in the ground and branch out to the sky collecting sunshine and rain.

I have succumbed to baby backslides now and again, but I accept them…learn from them and find great satisfaction in conquering them.

I’ve looked inside myself and found grace, peace, strength, bravery and love.

I know I must allow the universe to unfold as it will.
My responsibility is to think happy thoughts, work hard and follow my gut towards my desires.

I know I can only control my actions and my reactions to the actions of others.

I no longer feel the need to cloister myself in the nunneries of dry, sexless, loveless, passionless relationships.
Hiding my potential behind men who were never worthy or enough, just to justify my feelings of being unworthy and never enough.

I have freed myself from those prisons and somehow I feel my eyes are still adjusting to the light.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell. ~ Buddha

I do revel and rejoice in my victories over myself, no matter how small.

I cannot seem to shake this feeling of unworthiness, but it is lighter than before.
I am no longer crushed under the weight of it but I am still dragging it around.
Still laying my boots to long expired equines on occasion.

Past dictates that no matter how hard a hold of my heart someone once had I can learn to let go, or at least adapt and maneuver in the parameters given.

My heart is currently bound to someone worthy. I am working at becoming worthy back.
And regardless of outcome, that will be mine to keep.

The relationships I find myself cultivating in my present life are passionate, lovely, satisfying and yet my past dictates that I still anticipate the alternate piece of footwear will succumb to gravity at some point. I’ll just go barefoot.

It’s true, everyone comes and goes. It’s my job to love them.

I am hand shy I have to stop flinching.

So shed your skin and let’s get started ~ Hunters & Collectors

I am working on it.

Digging in the dirt, find the places we got hurt. ~ Peter Gabriel

All due respect to the process, the earth has been turned enough now. Time to plant and start growing up.

Those who sow in sorrow, reap in joy. ~ William Blake

I sowed in sorrow for a long time.
Always pouring concrete over the gardens I had planted right before the seeds broke the soil, so they never saw light. Self-sabotage.

I constantly find myself marveling in how far I have come and reveling in how far I have to go.

Sometimes I wallow.

I have been alternately wallowing and skating by for years.

What have I done?

A much easier question to answer than ‘what do I do now?’

It is time to live, breathe, move and work with purpose.

I will suffer fools, gladly. But I can no longer beat them nor join them.

I have no enemies in this place. You are with me or you are inconsequential.

My past does not dictate my future. I have conquered everything that has happened to me up until now and I am still here, with more grace and strength because of my trials and tribulations. They haven’t made me what I am, I have.

The time has come to thrive instead of barely surviving.

I am no longer scared of my potential.

I suppose by sitting here waiting to find patience I am, in fact, being patient…

Older Posts

Newer Posts

as is

…and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand Sanober Khan

…and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand
Sanober Khan