Isolation: The Repeating Scene

This feeling of loneliness has always played as dramatic backdrop to my life; sometimes easy to overlook depending on the current scene of the act. But when all the pretty people leave and the clever lines are said and done and it's just me, it's hard to ignore. When I'm just left to my own devices, it transforms from subtle backdrop to overwhelming truth.

I have come to realize that having any sort of meaningful relationship with other people on this planet means you must become vulnerable. You put yourself out there and hope for the best. In times past, I tried to protect myself and kept a guard up that didn't let anyone in, but that took away the "meaningful" aspect of any relationship I had. As unfortunate and dangerous as it is, I have allowed myself to trust other people. It's something I'm working on. But at the end of the day it's hard to feel like I'm not still all alone in this world; like all I'm ever going to be is this disaster who doesn't know how to be herself.

I'm always searching for people who can truly just love me for who I am...people that don't look at me and see all the flaws that shine through. Why am I so hard to love? Why am I so desparate to be loved? Why do I seek out approval from others to validate my own self-worth? The same questions I've had for the majority of my life, and I am no closer to finding an answer than I've ever been.

I just get my heart broken over and over again by people I'm supposed to be able to trust. Why can't someone love me as much as I love them? Why can't friends care as much as I do? Why even try when everything ends in disappointment? It just doesn't really seem worth it anymore.

So as I sit here alone, left only with my own thoughts, I know that I can only truly trust myself. I can take that for what it's worth at the least. There was a time when I was the greatest of betrayers to myself, so at least I have myself to rely on now. It's better than being isolated from everyone including yourself. I'll put that in my back pocket and hope that the rest falls into place...eventually.

The Best of Me

I started this blog during my first year of college as a venue for all the random thoughts that were rolling around in my head; a replacement for my cherished bedside journal. It was going to be anonymous and personal and a chronicle of life on my own. So when Blogger asked me for a title, it didn't take me long to come up with "The Best of Me". Perhaps it was my (then and still very present) affinity for The Starting Line. But, rather, I think it was the hope that the best of me was still waiting to begin. I was making a transition from a small-town girl to this independent, self-sufficient woman. I wanted to think that I was going to become the person I always wanted to be.

Three years later, I don't know that much has changed. Sure, I'm older. I'm definitely stronger. I can say that I've gained an independence I never imagined seeing in myself. But at the same time, I often feel like I'm still searching for the best of me. Like somewhere down this road I get to look back and be proud. Have no regrets. Look at life and embrace it with open arms. Isn't that being happy? Isn't that what makes life worth the living? Because all I feel is this unrelenting uncertainty. It makes me wonder when I'll be able to say I am as good as I get.

But then again, do I ever want to be as good as I get? Maybe always searching for the better you is what makes you the best you that you can be. Maybe satisfaction and complacency are the enemy of your spirit. I don't think that anyone ever really gets it right...so if I ever think I have, maybe it's time to step away and find what can make me better.

Maybe I don't ever want to find the best of me.

Still looking,

Wishing for the Past

I find myself yearning for the past so much lately. Things that I let slip through my fingers. Simpler times. Less responsibility. The blissful ignorance I once owned and took completely for granted. The past year has been filled with so much personal turmoil that I'm not sure it hasn't left a lasting scar. I somehow feel more jaded than ever. What little hope that I was clinging to seems to be fading.

I have had to sit by and watch someone I love more than words can ever describe suffer at the hands of someone who will never be what she wants him to be. She keeps hoping that he will once again be the person she fell in love with so many years ago, but I'm afraid that it just isn't going to happen. I've witnessed so much of what my parents have worked their whole lives for be taken away. This economic crisis has made their retirement nonexistent. And now that my father quit his job they aren't living as comfortably as they were. Then those crises combined make for a perfect storm.

I know that for most people they don't take on others' burdens, even when it comes to family. But for me, it's all I can do to make it through another day. It's constantly in the back of my mind...this worry. It eats away at my spirit and my faith that God has a plan for me. And lately I feel like I don't know how to be this successful, fully-functioning person that I always thought I would be. I feel like I am failing so much. Am I not working hard enough for it? I just don't know anymore. I hope that things get better. But I really don't know what to expect anymore...

A Coming of Age Story

There have been a lot of changes in my life during this past year. Some good, some not so good. But I guess the older I get, the easier it becomes to look at these changes with a bit of jadedness. I've learned people come and go from your life...often by their choice alone. You can't always keep a firm grasp on those who don't want to be held onto. Other times it is you who lets them slip away. Whatever the case may be, it seems that these changes occur with greater familiarity and a little less sting.

Or so I tell myself. Maybe I'm just trying to think of them this way because I have learned there is little I can do to stop or reverse them. I think I have just stopped trying to figure out why things must change altogether. I want to think that it's because there is a plan for your life. Some things are just out of your hands. But just because something wasn't necessarily meant to be doesn't mean it hurts any less to lose it. I guess that's what I can't understand. If something is so wrong, how can it hurt so badly to have it taken from you?

A Coming of Age Story - Dropout Year

I have come to the realization that love is a lie. Love, the way it is made out in movies and books and little girls' dreams, does not exist. There is no fairy tale ending, no perfect romance, no undying, unconditional affection. There are broken hearts, shattered endings, unraveled stitches of the fabric of your life. "Love" as I know it makes you rip yourself open time and time again until you just don't think anything's left, then makes you sew yourself back up again, just trying to make yourself whole. You'll never be whole again. You'll never be the same.

I used to think that each heartache, each person you loved, only made your heart grow to let more love in; that it healed itself stronger and there was room enough for the past and the future. But now I know that your heart doesn't grow bigger...there is just less and less to give. So much less that you are scared to even give what's left for fear of losing it all. Love makes you so bitter, so hurt, so vulnerable, that you feel like never letting it happen again. You're so scared to ever give yourself to anyone or let anyone else in that you stop believing in love altogether. Love makes you wonder what is so desparately wrong with you and your heart that makes you incapable of true, honest, all-encompassing love. It makes you think that you are unlovable and unworthy and impossible.

Then it happens. Someone comes along and convinces you that maybe you're wrong. Maybe you just haven't found the right person or circumstance or level of unselfishness that makes love possible. Maybe you could love again. It causes your heart to have amnesia and forget all the horrible things love has done to you. So you do. You fall. You let someone else take hold of your heart and soul and fill every waking moment with thoughts of them. You set yourself up again. I always set myself up again. I let myself think that maybe, just maybe, it will work this time. Maybe, when he says, "I love you" he means he loves all of me. Every inch of my being. Everything good and bad and unreasonable and loving and hateful and every single thing in between. Maybe this time...this time I won't manage to fuck it all up.

But I do.

And it's all over. My hope that I can find whatever it means to be loved crashes down so hard that the earth splinters into a billion pieces. My heart feels like there are a thousand knives stabbing around inside of me, cutting the very fiber of my existence. And I decide that I can't do this anymore. I cannot manage to sew myself whole again one more time. I am fractured and fragmented in ways so that I am unrecognizable. I am finally broken. I decide I will never love in the same way again. It's too risky. I will wrap my heart in caution tape and tuck it away, keep it locked so far inside of me that even I cannot find it again.

Love is a lie and I am done buying into the fake-plastic ideal that everyone keeps trying to sell me.

Love is a lie and I would rather find the truth in bitter loneliness than give anymore of me.

Love is a lie and I am done living it.

When I Close My Eyes It's Almost Like I'm Happy

Here I am again. Alone in the world. Maybe I've brought this on. Maybe I asked for it. Maybe someone like me should be alone and spare others this misery. Maybe someone like me doesn't deserve to be happy. I just don't know anymore. I have grown numb to these feelings because they are so familiar. I find that being broken is a feeling that is the closest thing to home that I've ever had. I didn't mean to become this person. I don't want to hurt the people I love the most. I hate waking up and realizing that I don't know the right way to love anyone. No matter what I do it's simply not enough. I can get just close enough to touch it, but then I sit back and let it burn. I try to make it work...I really do. I try to love the only way I know how. It just falls short of everything it should be. I've fooled everyone into thinking that I am capable of real love. Capable of being unselfish. Capable of being this person that I'm afraid I'll never be. I want to believe in myself, but so far it just seems impossible to believe anything. I try to warn the people that "love" me that all I am capable of is hurt and deceit and pain. I try to warn them how heavy my burdens are, how hard I am to bear. I try to tell them that I am far too big a mess to try to love. Maybe I just need some time to figure out who I am. Some time to learn how to manage myself before I can ever let anyone else into me. Am I afraid of being alone? I feel alone no matter what I do so I'm not sure. Only time will tell how I'm going to survive this life.

Let the Storm Come

Unruly, violent, raging tempest -
This world has let the tide carry me out.
Let the depths take this pain and wash it away
Because I am drowning within, drowning without.

In the tumultuous waves I lost myself;
Lost everything that meant anything to me.
There is no rescue, no help amid the storm,
And this abyss is calling, beckoning me into the deep.

Maybe all I'm destined to do is drown in this sea
Alone, broken, dying again.
So I'm giving up this struggle
And letting myself give in.