Falling

You know that thing they say: “He fell first, she fell harder.”

God, ain’t that the truth?

Remember how I described the difference of loving men and women?

Women were classy and comfort…

Men were pure adrenaline and danger.

That’s so accurate to you that it hurts.

Falling for you was like pulling a death defying stunt.

Like bungee jumping with a rope you know won’t support your weight.

Like skydiving without a parachute.

And cliffdiving straight into shark-infested waters.

Helpless.

Adrenaline filled.

Scary.

Insane.

Death defying.

Something to remember forever if I survived it.

And for a while I didn’t care I was falling alone.

Perhaps it’d be better that way.

I wouldn’t drag you down with me.

Wouldn’t hurt you in the process.

But then I also craved having your hand in mine as we fell.

Toxic of me, I know.

But I wanted you right there by my side.

So it stung ever the more when you hit me with that sentence.

“I fucked up by letting you fall for me.”

How would you have stopped me?

And, worse, why did you catch me?

If I needed to be taught a lesson, about you, about love…

The best way would have been to let me crash and get hurt

that way I would’ve learned.

So please, tell me…

when I found myself falling helplessly for you;

eyes closed,

bracing for impact,

why did you set up an emergency landing pad for me?

Why did you scramble desperately onto it, just as I landed, to check for my injuries?

With a despair larger than that of a first responder,

more akin like a feral animal,

crawling on your hands and knees to me.

Please, tell me…

Why did you pull on the rope so I wouldn’t hit the ground head first?

Why did you lead the sharks away with a steak?

Why did you jump in after me with your own chute and held onto my waist?

Why did you save me?

Why did you tell me on that call that you fell for me?

Mirror

When I look at myself,

It’s like I’m looking in a shattered mirror,

Reflecting thousands of little parts of myself,

From multiple different angles.

When I look at myself,

I see the daughter who strived for good grades to make sure that the money wasn’t going to waste,

The little girl who subjected herself to peer pressure to have friends,

The teenager that had to pick up the pieces of her parents marriage,

The friend who lent an ear but kept her issues to herself,

The girlfriend who would protect and love unconditionally until they broke her heart and then some,

I see the responsible student who was a pleasure to have in class and showed interest in the curriculum,

And the girl who rescues animals,

The one who would fight anyone to protect who she loves,

And the one who’d forgive anyone and naively believe them to never do the same things again,

I see the *me* that makes things easier for others. That bends over backwards to please them. The one who would do anything for you, for them. The one who wants so badly to be loved.

But I also see the bitch who broke his heart,

The unmotivated student who won’t go very far,

The freak no one wanted to be friends with,

The hard headed girl who doesn’t know when to fucking quit and treats everyone like shit,

And the daughter he wishes he never had,

I see the body I have always disliked and the personality traits I find annoying, the voice that sounds like a dying cat, and my inability to stay quiet and I see the standards I wasn’t able to reach and the disappointment in my mother’s eyes,

And the hatred on my own, which mirror my dad’s in so many ways.

And I see the one who wishes she was good enough.

The one who believed every single insult thrown her way and that wouldn’t bounce off no matter how rubbery she made herself to be.

And no matter how much I look,

How much I try to see,

I will never be as beautiful as you think I am.

How dare you look at me and all the same broken pieces *I* see,

And instead of finding the monster,

Finding someone worthy of love?

And, worse, how dare you see all that,

All those sides of me,

How dare you love me,

Only to then turn around and stab me

With those fucking mirror shards?

Lonely.

So it’s Christmas time. Or close to it at least. Happy Holidays.

.

.

.

I feel lonely.

There. I said it. I feel hella fucking lonely. And the obvious path to follow would be to blame the pandemic and social distancing measures for it, but that would be both shifiting the blame and allowing a stone of my past to go unturned. So let’s be realistic.

My grandpa has passed away. He passed in September 2020. And no it wasn’t by the virus that shall not be named. It also wasn’t a shock, neither was it sudden. He had been in the hospital for a few weeks, and before getting put in the hospital he had been in a nursing home type of place for 3 months because he was recovering from a debilitating sugar crash (diabetes suck, btw). followed by a really aggressive lung infection.

The doctors had told us they didn’t have much hope. They allowed my mom to visit him before he went. She was the last person to see him.

To make a long story short… He’s gone…

So it’s just me and my mom now. The house feels empty. It already did when he was away from home in the beginning of the year, but back then we knew where he was and we would call him and talk to him often. Now, it’s actually empty cause we can’t talk with him anymore.

I can’t visit my family either. Not that I was too excited to do it any way, and I wouldn’t want to leave my mom alone during the holidays, obviously… But it felt nice to have the option of hopping on the car and visit them. Now I don’t even have that.

I can’t see my friends and exchange gifts with them either. The pandemic is cutting all travels and putting curfews in place so we’re all stuck at home… I just wanted to be able to see them opening my gifts and pretend to enjoy them (it’s okay, I know I’m terrible at gift giving).

I haven’t felt this lonely in a long while. I think last time I did was in 2017, around the time I wrote here for the first time ever. God, it’s been long. I feel old.

Loneliness is a terrible fucking feeling though. Like having an abyss in your heart; a black hole, all consuming, uncaring and unmoving, eating away at you from the inside out… You try to fill that void with whatever you can find that might fit the beast’s vague and picky criteria, but nothing does the trick. Maybe some hobbies? Maybe some zoom calls with your friends? Using the TV as background noise when you cook, or shower, or sleep? Maybe hugging a stuffed animal, pretending they are that one person you miss so much? HA! As if those things can provide the satisfaction you crave.

Nothing works, does it? Nope. Nothing works.

It’s just you, laying miserably in a pile of blankets on the couch, watching TV, hugging a stuffed animal or maybe even your pet as the rain falls outside and a random YouTube video plays, seemingly a mile away, on your phone.

.

.

.

I used to enjoy being alone. I used to like not having human interaction. God I used to think love was stupid.

Now I’m older, I miss people. I miss my friends. I miss loving and being loved.

I’m tired of the loneliness.

When will I be able to look into your eyes, to see the light shining into them and calling forth the thousand specs of color that are only noticeable when I’m held tight in your arms? (Because let me tell you, the pixelated version of your eyes on zoom doesn’t do them fucking justice.)

Hello.

It has been over three years since the last time I wrote something like this. And God have things changed. I’ve changed, first and foremost. I’ve met people, lost people, life has gotten worse, gotten better, then worse again and now it’s… fine, stable, I would say. 
I’ve actually gotten into therapy and started slowly working through my problems, sifting through them like you would do with flour, slowly and steadily, sometimes having to go over the same problems more than once in order to make them more manageable. 

I’ve realized that writing was a way of verbalizing my worries, my fears and insecurities… But I gave up on it and, in a way, gave up on myself for a while. I guess it was because I was scared of facing and working through the things that were weighing me down.
I used to just… open my mouth (or I guess, type it out and post it) and bare my soul to the unknown, but never actually adressed what needed to be worked through.
The classic “if it’s out there it can’t hurt me anymore” falacy.

Alas, that’s now how it works, my dear. Things have to be adressed, change has to be made, things have to be worked through. I learned it the hard way. I’ve let the stones of my thoughts, worries and trauma go unturned for too long. Long enough for them to grow thick moss and roots that wouldn’t let me turn them easily. And while in the past I would’ve let them be and ignore the root of the problem (ba dum tsss), now I’m equipped with an axe and I’m gonna start fucking swinging. It’s gonna take a while and maybe having a chainsaw would be more effecient, but we’re gonna get there, I promise.

And that’s exactly why I’m here, that’s why I came back, that’s why I’m making the conscious effort to work through my problems and to turn a new leaf. I’ve started to change and although I’m still not in a good place, I’m proud to say I’m gonna keep trying to get there.

So… Hello. Let’s try again.

I love you ❤  (Part 2)

A few weeks ago I talked about “I love you” and as I don’t seem to be able to say it properly, since it sounds empty and meaningless when I say it. Just now I understood that maybe, the reason why I don’t like saying it is because I feel that, when it’s me saying it, it doesn’t have impact on people and they don’t seem to care about those words in my mouth. And it hurts me to know that people don’t care about it… But it hurts even more to know that if I DON’T say it, people won’t say it to me back… And I NEED to hear people saying it to me, or else, I feel abandoned and uncared for.

Even when people are mad at me, I expect them to tell me “I love you”. And no one seems to understand it… Not even my parents. When people are mad, they are so blinded with their rage that they forget they’re dealing with me, someone emotionally and psychologically fragile, and they forget to let me know that even if they’re angry, they will ALWAYS love me… And I know this is selfish of me to say… Because as many of you might say “If they’re angry at you, they must have a reason, you must’ve did something to them” and I get it, I truly do… But I expect them to show they’re love to me when they’re angry… And they never do…

Worse than that, is when I’m in a relationship, and I’m forced to say “I love you” everyday, in the end of a phone/text conversation and people say it back, not even noticing that, even if for them saying “I love you” is something common and normal, for me… it itsn’t. I have a necessity of hearing it, feeling it… I need to FEEL loved at any given time of the day, be it the morning, the afternoon or the middle of the night… I need to feel that happiness that follows each “I love you”. And I need to feel it regardless of what emotion the other person is feeling… It’s addicting and necessary for me… 

And I hate not being able to express to other people how “I love you” makes me feel… The only way I can do that is by saying it back… And, on other people it doesn’t have the same impact it has in me…

Why don’t my words give you chills and fill your heart with happiness like your words do to me…?

I love you ❤

Since I was a little girl, I would hear my parents always saying ‘I love you’ to one another. So, as all children eventually do, I started copying them. I started saying ‘I love you’ to them as well. They had taught me that you should be gentle and give love to those who matter the most to you. And I have no need to deny that my parents are my life so, it’s only natural I tell them I love them, is it not?
Even now, I do it everytime when I get up and when I go to bed and even at random moments of the day. But it stopped being something natural to me a few weeks ago. I don’t know why. I stopped saying it with all the energy and kindness I used to, I slowly stopped saying it at random moments and now only say it when I go to bed. I don’t know why I stopped. My mom started to notice something was up and asked me if I’m alright and I feel okay, but I don’t know why I stopped saying ‘I love you’. It feels… meaningless to me, right now. And I’d like to understand why.
It always sounded kind of… empty to me. Even when I said it to the person I’m dating it felt meaningless… Instead, I noticed that there is a sentence I say a lot to my mom (I have said it all my life) that comes from the need of being close, of having contact… And that gets close to what I feel for the people close to me, something 'I love you’ will never even be close to reach. And then I noticed that this sentence is for me what 'Okay’ was for Hazel-Grace and Augustus… And I finally understood that 'Okay’ was their own way of saying 'I love you’ because it was bigger and better than the word love ever will be. It shows their more secluded side. So, when I say that sentence… (actually, it’s not really a sentence. It’s more of a request, a plead, a question, whatever you want to call it) it shows my delicate and insecure side. A side that shows how damaged and tired I am; a side that shows how I need support and company; a side that shows how scared and worried I am of being abandoned and unwanted. This sentence shows the real me, with all my imperfections and insecurities, and after all these reflections, I can proudly say: 'I don’t like to say “I love you” but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to love. I just have a unique way of telling people about it.’ By the way, I bet you’re wondering what this mystery sentence I keep telling you about is… Well… it’s “Please don’t leave me.”.