good days

I'm sure you've heard about those people who are sick or have a psychological disorder or something like that and they always say.. today's a good day or today's a bad day in relation to their 'illness'.

For me today was a good day.

I woke up feeling rested and took a nice long hot shower to wash last night's going out 'grime' off myself. Got dressed in my comfy clothes and took off to meet Jessica to feed the ducks at the park. (I never knew this.. but feeding ducks is actually extremely harmful to them.. we did it anyway, altho I'm never going to do it again. Feeding Water Fowl) It was really nice, Jess and I hung out a lot in middle school and I've known her all throughout high school. We kicked it in the same group of friends and I could always be super silly with her, it was great. We grew apart in college though and after my mom passed away we managed to reconnect. It was cool to just catch up while walking circles around the park and start rebuilding our friendship. Time has definitely changed the both of us and we see more eye to eye now.

I've noticed a lot of change in our high school friends over the years and it's strange to know that we probably all wouldn't be friends now if it hadn't been for our long history together. We're so different from one another, but it's great. I love how it's opening my eyes to see who they really are and it definitely makes me appreciate them way more than I ever have. I'm glad we have our childhood history to keep us together, because it makes them all the more special to me. I'm starting to see them through my 'college' eyes. The one that looks more critically at events and situations and sees the strength and compassion and wit that lives inside each of them. We've gone through a lot and I love learning what their opinions are of issues we never discussed in high school.

Fuzz has definitely been a strong support recently and I really love and appreciate the fact that he's like this big fuzzy bear that I can lean against when I'm lost. He's always willing to listen and he can definitely empathize with me. And then there's Jen, she always means well but lately I just haven't got the strength to deal with her iffyness and whining, but I still love her. She does the best she can to cheer me up and it's just nice to know that she's always there for me no matter what. And Jane, God I love that girl and I can't wait for her to come home!! It's been a long time and I miss having her around, she's just all around great and one of the few friends that understands a lot about the high school me. And then there's Virginia too, lately I've just come to appreciate her more and more. It all started with a snowboard trip to tahoe and it felt really comfortable to kick it w/ her and Loi and just have things feel normal. She's studying up in Vallejo so I don't see her much, but I think one of these weekends I'll hafta go up and see her just for fun.

Even with my ex I see new things in him that I had never noticed before and it makes me glad that we've managed to stay friends. Although for a long while it was rough for me and we actually didn't talk much at all in the last four and a half years, but with the past becoming a fading memory it's nice to be able to kick it with him once in awhile. He's one of the few whom I'm comfortable enough to be almost completely honest with. Some 'lies' still slip from my mouth to protect my own ego, altho i usually regret it later.

It's hard when you've trained yourself to protect your own heart that sometimes the truth becomes a half truth so you don't have to face pain.

I spent so much time running away from this place because it caused me so much pain and it was the greatest pain of all that brough me back. Perhaps this is my time to make it mine again, this is going to be difficult because my heart yearns to be away, off, it calls to the beach and the sun and So Cal and England, as much as it loves Nor Cal. Things have changed and it's hard to find rest, but I'm going to try.

Anyway today was a good day.

the dark place

I've been there, that dark place where in the midst of people you feel completely alone and it seemed silly back then, but I grew out of it. I found confidence in myself and a niche where I flourished.. then my heart was broken (repeatedly) and I found myself slipping into that dark place again.. so easily over and over.. I began to wonder if perhaps one can never truly leave that darkness... and lo and behold I climbed out of it again.

I found love in my friends and joy in life and things were good. I was having fun and exploring the world and myself.. yet part of me still knew what alone was. I can't forget alone, it's like carrying a little bit of that darkness with me everywhere I go.. and along side of that darkness is my little ray of hope that someone will save me from all of this.

But then my world decided to come crashing down on me again, in a way I never realized was possibly. You never EVER truly understand someone's pain unless you experience what they've experienced. To imagine pain does not even come close to the actual slamming reality of it.

Anyway.. so I hadn't realized I was falling or losing control until these past two weeks. My defenses that I had put up around my mother's death were slowly crumbling, they were being chipped away and I was slowly losing it. Every little thing bothered me and I wanted to cry all the time and my whole life felt like ash.. it's the best way I can describe it.. ash. Last thursday the frustration of putting my roof rack on my car set me off and I snapped at a friend as she was drunkenly trying to console me.. which only further irritated me and for the first time I shouted the words out loud.. "she's dead and she isn't coming back." I had been bottling up this frustration and anger in me for so long. I remember standing in the hospital as we watched them turn the machines off.. a decision we made as a family.. and wanting to just SCREAM.. NO GOD DAMN IT, IT'S NOT FAIR, DON'T GO, COME BACK DON'T LEAVE US.. and just scream and scream and scream.. I never did.. I still haven't, it's too late for that now.

Then this past weekend everything just tipped over and out. I had gone up to Tahoe for a weekend and little things kept happening that just kept building on each other. I was already feeling vulnerable and then one of my friends wldn't drop a certain issue which added to my already delicate balance of things and then a certain situation including an ex caused a bit of pain to my already broken heart and then one night I have this wacked out dream which I won't describe, but made me feel like throwing up all day the next day.. and then we watch TV and in one show a guy's father ends up in a coma (which gets me thinking) and then the movie afterwards is She's All That, a story about a girl without a father who ends up finding love with a wonderful girl that helps fill the void her mother's passing left.. (hmm.... ).. and that was just it. I slipped into the back room barely holding it all together called my friend Dustin and let the dam break.

But then my ex's friend comes in the room and sees me crying and I think she tells him coz he ends up coming in and the tears are just flowing and all I can think about it how much it hurts without her.. the things I never got to say.. the last time I saw her awake.. the last words she heard me while conscious.. the decision we made to let her not suffer as her last wish was.. watching the doctors turn the machines down slowly.. the monitors levelling out and she was gone.. i watched her die... at the age of 23 I WATCHED her DIE.

It feels like someone had sucked all the life out of me and there's this void that just sits there, sometimes in the pit of my stomach and sometimes in my heart, but it's always there. I just need my heart to be safe right now and it's not and it feels like I carry an open wound around every day. I didn't realize what I had wanted was someone to just hold me while I cried and feel safe again. But the thing is, I've struggled my whole life to be strong, to never show weakness and crying... oh crying used to drive me crazy. There's only certain people I don't mind being weak around and many of them are scattered too far to be physically near me. Strangely enough the person who I long ago hated to be weak in front of the most was the person I was completely weak in front of this weekend... and it felt nice. I think I just needed someone to hold me while I cried, someone I felt safe with... but the hardest part is asking for that.

falling apart

People tell me they admire me for how strong I am being.

My Christian friends say 'God would not give you something he didn't believe you couldn't handle.'

A buddhist friend is supposed to send me materials and told me that chanting might help me find some peace.

Then why does it feel like I can barely hang on and hold up the walls that keep me sane.. the walls that help keep me moving forward. An action I took this weekend reminded me of how lonely I was. I remember from long ago what it was like to feel safe (or at least to think that I was safe) and how nice it felt to be physically near someone again, to be held. But I unknowingly unleashed upon myself a worse feeling. I was already feeling lonely.. but this was like a colorful reminder of what I haven't had in so long. And it doesn't help in this time of my life when it feels like no one is around. I know people say call if you need me.. but when I'm really in that low spot I want someone to find me.

I want someone to read that subtle, or sometimes not so subtle comment I make and just call or if they're in the area grab me and take me away from here.. even if it's only for an hour. This loneliness eats away at me.. it's like i'm standing at the edge of a cliff and the darkness looks so soft and quiet and peaceful below.

i want to fall apart.. into that soft darkness and know that someone below will catch me and that i can have a moments peace and that they'd watch over me.. just for a moment...

i want to fall apart.