Girl, Interrupted

I vow to always be your safe space and never invalidate your feelings. I vow to always ensure I openly communicate my thoughts, feelings, and emotions with you in real time. I vow to remain honest and transparent; I will not keep secrets from you, especially in enough effort to “spare your feelings” because you are a man, not a child, and I fully respect you as such. I vow to never intentionally speak at you or down to you, and if that unintentionally occurs, I vow to accept accountability for those actions and ensure they don’t repeat themselves. I vow to care for you without conditions, never judge you, and never let you go outside looking crazy. I vow to always be your person… to take pride in you being mine and being yours. I will ensure that I never let a day come or go where I make you feel less than. I vow to always ensure you know how much you are appreciated through both my words and my actions; to reassure you every moment I can and you need me to that it was and always will ...

I am tired. I’m tired of working on myself and becoming a better person for people to only ever see the me that used to be. It’s as though they’ve found the skin I shed and are still so fascinated by it that they’re unable to see this shinny, beautiful new layer that lay beneath. It’s tiring. Feeling as though I am always on the defense. Feeling as though I constantly have to defend myself.   No matter how hard I try to show people who I truly am beneath all the hurt, the pain, the heartache, and all the mess that I’ve been through they refuse to see me. I’m standing right here in front of them not allowing my past to define me, to change me, to continue to harden me, but they refuse to see me. I’m tired of standing here.

I don't need  to hold on to the hope that he’ll change. The hope that one day he’ll wake up and realize all the hurt he’s caused me even in his absence, by his absence. I don’t need to hold on to the hope that he’ll one day wake up and love me, really truly unconditionally love me. I don’t need to sit here waiting at the bottom of this step in the cold pouring rain, drops blending in with my tears, hoping that he’ll open the door and let me in; that’ll he’ll embrace me with a warmth that swallows me whole and softens the ice walls around my heart until the melt away into beautiful flowing rivers giving life to all the dry earth around it. He was the first man I learned to love unconditional. I loved him the way Christians loved God. I couldn’t see him, I rarely heard him, but I knew, I just knew he was there and I loved him with an unyielding love. Loved him without question simply because he was… That’s it. Love him because he was, and I was of him.

It's crazy how  we love unconditionally those who do not love us. It’s a painful kind of love. The ones who breaks you down until you’re a pile of dust. The ones who make you doubtful of yourself and fearful of others. All the while walking around unscathed and without a single worry.

love ləv/ noun 1 . an intense feeling of deep affection. "babies fill parents with intense feelings of love" 2 . a person or thing that one loves. "she was  the love of his life " verb 1 . feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone). "do you love me?" This is how the dictionary defines love. A feeling an attraction, but is that what love is to everyone? Can it be more? Is it more? Everyone thinks of love differently while some aren't even able to find the words to describe it at all. To some, it's just such an intense and overwhelming feeling that no amount of words would be able to do it the slightest bit of justice.  Love is one of those things I've felt more than words can describe, but I see love in things. That's the way I describe it more than anything. Love is feelings and actions. Love is vulnerability. Love is compassion and forgiveness. Love is free of judg...

People come in and out of my life all the time. You’d think that at this point I’d be used to it all. Sadly, I’m not. I always hold the people I meet closer to my heart than need be. I get so attached to them that when they betray me or my trust it’s like a stone being thrown at my bare heart. One of the most painful feelings in the world. They’ve abandoned me. Like many people before them and, in my head, many people after them will. That’s a feeling that I can’t take. It’s like I NEED to know why. I need to know why they left. I need them to tell me. I need them to come back and explain to me what I did wrong. I need them to explain to me why I wasn’t good enough for them to stick around. What was wrong with me? Why doesn’t anyone love me? Why doesn’t anyone stay? I’ve spent so many years of my life feeling as though I’m inadequate. Too many years to be exact. It’s as though I’ve always been some sort of defective that people seem to be able to see on my face. Is it written on m...

A lot of times we tend to not realize the positions we put ourselves in when we make decisions during our lowest and most vulnerable states. We don't see to what extend we are devaluing ourselves. We don't recognize that in doing so we show others it's okay to devalue us as well. It's so hard to break out of that cycle sometimes because the feeling can last longer than we anticipate and our actions become so habitual that it's so hard for us to break the cycle. The cycle has not only become our comfort zone, but the norm we have created for ourselves.

It’s four in the morning and I’m still wide awake. Well, I guess the Bible was right, there’s no peace for the wicked. I guess I should consider that a sign. Consider that He sees my heart and although good lives there it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to save me or to make me pure. It isn’t enough to allow me to pass over into righteousness. I guess that explains it all, I am the wicked. Explains the failed relationship after failed relationship. Explains why everything, everyone good in my life leaves or I ruin… or both. There is no peace for the wicked. Here I was thinking it was insomnia. Nope, just my wickedness keeping me awake in my most dreary moments. Forbidding me for resting because rest is a luxury of the righteous I suppose. Or could it be the righteous parts of me dueling with the wicked. Who will emerge the victor? Of that I am unsure, but if I heed the Bible’s word the answer is surely clear. 

Too much faith and trust in people. Sometimes, most times, that’s usually the issue. We give people things they don’t deserve and haven’t even began to earn. We allow people to feel as though they have power over us that they shouldn’t and bend to their will when we shouldn’t. Too many times we do this and go out of our way for individuals who wouldn’t even hold the door open for us or even say “Bless you” when you sneeze only to get nothing back in return, but the sound “I told you so” and “you’re foolish” whispered in the breeze. The universe’s way of reminding you of how naïve, gullible, and simply idiotic you were for believing that would have ended any other way. They say there’s someone out there for everyone, I’m starting to believe that’s just some fairy tale nonsense they tell people to make them feel less bad about themselves being lonely; spreading false hope to the masses. Just tell me there’s no one for me and that’s I’m destined to live life as a lone...

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” ―   Steve Maraboli ,  Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

I have spent three days trying to write about my father. Why him? Well, because I am working on becoming a better me, loving myself more, and my deeply rooted issues with my father have everything to do with that. I cannot move forward until I deal with it, with him. I cannot learn to breathe and love and live again until I have given life to truth and by speaking it and death to pain by forgiving. Until I do so I will forever be a prisoner of my past hurt, watching people live and love through these prison bars.  I don't believe fathers really understand the affect their presence, or lack thereof, has on their children. More importantly I don't believe they know the effect it has on their daughters. Some of a father's main goals as a parent are: being an example of how a man is supposed to carry himself, showing what a healthy relationship between a man and a woman looks like, and ultimately showing his daughter the love she deserves, should expect, and demand from a...