I feel as though there are a lot of forms of heartbreak one can feel in their time on this Earth. And I feel that way rather a life last 100 years, or if it’s cut short right in its prime. Some experience every form of it. And those are the people that hold the most truth and strength. However, unresolved, those are also the people that go on to cause great suffering around them. And on the opposite end, there are those who have been through each heartache, did the work to heal, and allow themselves to give fully again to experience the fullness of something. And if they ever cross paths with the first version and connect in absolute, it can be disastrous.
This world can hold so much sadness. However, one of the saddest to witness or experience, especially close to home, is to witness and/or experience someone that is so much of a dreamer, that they can no longer see clearly.
I flip back through notes, years’ worth, even one as recent as my very dark birthday. He spoke of hoping and praying to see and experience all of the adventures that were being written about amongst us. It makes me feel sorry for him reading it now. Because the secret part that I could always see and held knowledge of was the blissful fact that writing down those adventurous plans, were always part of the adventure.
Each and every word penned down, a grin on the face; those poetic verbiages, were part of the greatest adventure. And in that sense, knowing now, he missed them all. He missed our greatest adventures.
While he was dreaming of other lives, other adventures, even with other people, here I sat, penning down adventures of a lifetime. Bringing them to life, I penned down a manifesto. I was living every moment of bliss we were building and had built. Both by living them, and by poetic penmanship. I sat there fulfilled. You? Sad that one could miss every single one daydreaming of something better.
When enough isn’t enough, we miss the best parts of our lives.
And now? Well now, I grow old content and fulfilled. Because adventures, I have lived them. The greatest ones.
I also get to be the saddest. Because for years, I thought I was living out these adventures with the greatest of all soulmates. And now, I am slammed with a realization that I travelled miles and mountains with a ghost. A phantom man ran his hands through my hair. A phantom shivered up my spine as he shook my world.
I flew in the clouds as I hallucinated the greatest love of all time.
And you?
I feel pain for your soul. We get one life gifted to us by mother nature’s womb. As I grow content in the gray that forms in my sweet and worn scalp, you wrinkle in regret. Too much time living in your own needs of protection have robbed you and cost you all of the incredible journeys that were right in front of you.
They weren’t enough. For you. And now, they have come to pass and haunt you. Fantasy smoke has cleared, and bones aren’t as sturdy as they once were. Thrown aside when not benefiting you, all of the things and people left in your wake dust off and come to view you like a museum piece as they live on.
And when and if this ends, I will leave fulfilled. Because heaven knows, I lived every single second of every single one of the greatest journeys of my life.
And I demand the chance to protect my health and my body.
I owe it to my very being to find love for my own self first, to set an example for those
that will come after me.
I demand happiness and to push any obstacle out of my way to accomplish that.
I demand respect. The kind I have both earned for myself, and the kind that just naturally
comes from being birthed a human and woman.
I demand love. The kind I deserve and can also provide. The kind of love that changes
how I view everything in this big world. The kind that I can be myself with.
I demand a place in this world. For myself and for my family, and I stand ready to fight
for it.
I demand understanding. Understanding that if I portray a thought process different than yours, you will not shake it in me. An understanding that as you stare into my eyes and sense an emptiness, you know not the measures of things I have been through, nor that I am battling as we exchange looks. An understanding that possibly in that moment, I am hanging on by the last thread that I have more than likely graciously borrowed from someone who felt generous enough to offer it up to me.
I demand self-worth. A world that acknowledges my beauty as a woman, my strength as a mother, and my value as a fellow human.
I demand unapologetic boundaries. Last and definitely not least, I ultimately place my mental health, my wellbeing, my self-love, and the care of my children above all and everything. If at any time, or in any place, any of these become threatened or weighted down, I reserve the right to distance myself, children, and soul from the weight.
I demand my demands to be met. And if they are not, I demand a removal of the obstacle.
My whole world has become complacent lately. Feeling like a machine with my heart renewed on an assembly line by a conveyor belt each day only for it to be broken into pieces once again. Broken heart after broken heart. I am a born again living dead girl. Floating around preparing myself for the next jab. A pride carried from a naive heart who only felt she had gotten at least one thing right in her fragile, brittle life.
Take that molded rug right out from under me. Over and over again until the bends of these knees that have prayed for you shatter in two. While I lay here, a puddle of poison and battered, I will finally admit to myself that it was a facade.
With every strength and effort in me to break a cycle and do it better than those who had come before me, I have seemingly failed. I lied to myself and continue to do so. And since that was the only good that was ever in me, I’m emptied of a want to. I am hollowed with a who am I. I am robbed of a purpose.
Convinced now that I everywhere I turn, everything is polished before I get there, and rusted out by the time I pass through.
Damaged goods. Homeless.
How does one who is broken time and time again, die inside, and then awaken again to die once more but never stay dead?
When I said I’d take the pain of this world off of you if I could, I never knew or imagined that it would mean that I would take not only the pain, but the weight of every ocean, the blame, and every ounce of hate and resentment that had passed through the vicinity of us.
But even so, torn limb from limb, I steady myself to stand once again with half the sun rising on my beaten face, to take my place on that front line once more.
A failure badly bruised, mentally paraplegic, and dead but still breathing; prepared without hesitation to do it again. And again.
A maternal love is unfailing, unwavering. At least that is what it’s supposed to be. And maybe you’ll never see it in me, or find any sense of pride in my silent and suffering efforts, but I will press on in it in hopes that in the end, you will awaken to the knowing of how profound the possibility is of someone, who is so broken, numb, and beat down, could still love someone else and fight for someone else with an unfathomable, immeasurable, unfaltering, unconditional, and powerful will to live again, and also still love someone else with an entirety and unbreakable spirit, while unable to look at her own self in the mirror.
Live fully, my sweet joy. Live powerfully as my favorite chapter. I’ll be here fighting it for us. And always loving you out loud and working through the dead in me silently.
And even when you didn’t think I cared, or don’t think I care, I have loved you and will love you with every fiber and every second of my existing…
It’s the power in the breaking of a heart that can create the strength that opens your eyes.
It’s the revelation of a moment realized when you are taking that necessary time to be alone with yourself, so you can learn how to be alone with yourself.
It’s the confidence of the first step forward, when you finally stand on your own two feet once again.
It’s the strut in that step when you step back into the jump rope of life that kept on moving without you.
It’s the humbleness of faith, even when bad news stacks on top of bad news.
It’s the smile in the eyes, when you come across someone who completely steals your heart, when you never expected to share it with anyone again.
It’s the butterflies when you are finally face to face in the perfect moment, and your lonely lips meet another’s so sensually.
It’s the birds chirping on a superbly painted mountainside as you walk hand in hand down the trail.
It’s the dogs meeting, and it seeming like they had known each other since birth.
It’s the yearning for another moment when you are apart.
It’s the poetic justice of a finely swooped love letter.
It’s the sexy well-placed hand on your back as you feel heat fill the room.
It’s the waiting for the right time, and being ok with that.
It’s the getting to know every part of them and yourself with them, before intimacy.
It’s the problem solving when obstacles arise.
It’s the soft candles, perfect music, great conversation and that specific kind of kiss.
It’s the ravishing each other after all of the waiting, knowing that it’s right.
It’s the long-lasting, sexy moans, thrusting, and rolling around, and the tracing of the body so attentive.
It’s the after ambiance, holding hands, smiling, and feeling right for the first time in a long time in your life.
It’s making hard choices, and not being afraid to for once, knowing there’s a partner there to back you up.
It’s the support through scary times, taking care of each other, and feeling grateful to do it.
It’s the forgiveness when mistakes are made.
It’s the compromise when differences are discovered.
It’s the can’t wait to see you. You can’t wait to see me.
It’s the sharing a home together, making a home together, and loving what that looks like.
It’s the present moment. Living moment by moment, soaking it all in.
It’s the true love. It’s the leave me wanting. It’s the knowing…knowing you’re right where you’re supposed to be, right at this very moment.
It’s the blessing, after some lessons, and it’s mine.
Oh lover, I have looked into the eyes of pure bliss and pleasure. I met you in secret, in the fields of weed flowers where we rolled around, temporarily forgetting the world. I feel no pain in this meeting while you stroke two fingers down my back.
Pushing my hair behind my ears, you trigger chill bumps that shiver up my spine the same way they shivered up my spine years ago. When you are apart from me, I envision the next time we will meet and my clothes will peel from my skin.
Tell me you’ll meet me here again tomorrow where our eyes can meet once more.
I can’t fathom any second of my world if you are not in it. Every adventure we embark on is a dream in which I check off of my list.
Pull your body as close to mine as is humanly possible. Press your lips so firmly against mine, that I need to come up for air.
Build this life with me climbing each and every mountain together.
Make love to me as if it will be the last time, each time.
I remember each and every field we’ve walked in, each path we’ve discovered, and envision the limitless life that can be ahead of us.
I would smile walking with you in a hurricane, laughing as we run from the rain. This life we are building is exciting and fills me with hope. A hope I have never experienced before. When I say I love you, it’s a feeling I can’t explain. It’s a word I have never used in the way I am using it for you.
When I am speaking of you and I say family, it is new because it is a family feeling that I have never had with anyone else. It means future, a finality, eternal.
I will adventure with you til the end of my days as long as you remember to meet me in the fields when things get tough. As long as your hand is in mine while we walk or crawl through the hard journeys. I’ll hold you up when you need strength, and take care of you like you deserve, because you fulfil these same loves in my life.
I love you. I love us. And I love this life we are building. And if we ever get separated, you will know where to find me…….
The Truth and the Lies of the Journey 