It’s Time: How To Be A Person Of Substance

I’m still putting together this slideshow. Seeing the pictures of this year and trying to trace the journey back to how everything got so broken up. The family I love and care for got so broken up and shaken apart.

It’s not that dire. But I feel us slipping and drifting and I want to put the brakes on.

I hate the world for never stopping. I hate the world for moving on and things for changing all the time. I want the change but I hate it at the same time.

If something isn’t broken, it doesn’t need to be fixed.

It doesn’t need to change.

Something changed this year. I grew up or got older or started to move away from the people who have been the bedrock and foundation of my life for the last thirty years. Something changed in the chemicals of my brain and I tried to start building friendships that resembled an idealized version of life in a video game.

I did that.

I hope whatever I did to divide us can be reversed. I hope I can be a catalyst and unite us towards a common cause again – the cause of this amazing family and all these people I love coming together to celebrate. I just want to celebrate with you through dance and song like we used to. Instead of all these drugs and alcohol getting in the way. Instead of ignoring and turning away from the love that is there. Are people happier, though…for the change?

I got lost. I threw myself at the world in angsty, emotional agony because my heart was broken. I’m not even sure who broke it. I think I did. I think I was depressed and hurting and fell in love with shadows and broke my own heart and sucked all of these souls up in the vortex of my life.

I keep pulling these people together. I keep making them come together to satisfy this strange desire in my chest. In my growling stomach. I NEED TO CONSUME YOU. I NEED YOU TO COME TOGETHER.

What is this urge within me that craves togetherness of all the people I care about? I wanted to be a person of substance for the last nine months and I thought I did that by sticking to my word. The last three weeks I’ve almost undone nine months worth of effort with canceling, tardiness, and NOT BEING A MAN OF MY WORD. But I got sick. And tired. And sick again. And tired…

I got tired of caring so much. I got tired of trying to be someone I’m not.

A poor, angry girl. Straddling worlds and circles and stratospheres. I’m a poor, angry, dirty girl with too many rings around my belly now and an empty womb where another soul could go. I could bring another lonely life into this world. Fill it with all my fantasies and failings and fortitudes.

I could make castles in the air and underwater and I could sing this new soul to sleep every night because I know the lyrics to so many songs.

In choosing to be a person of substance to others, I have ignored the basic rule: TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.

Passed all the tests. Examined the life worth living. Made tough choices. Put faith in my values and moral compass and the collected experience of 30 years to do the right thing. DO THE RIGHT THING.

The right thing is always to choose love. Not to break love. Not to hurt the ones we love with our own selfish, base desires. But create better boundaries instead. And those that love us will understand. Those that exchange love with a mutual understanding of humane compassion will understand.

All the others will fall away.

I thought I could make myself into a person of substance.

Turns out, I already was one.

Going. Going. Gone.

You know… there’s a steam room at the Clackamas 24 Hour Fitness. It smells like eucalyptus and it gets so hot you can taste the warmth in your mouth. You could lose yourself in the fog and if someone is sitting across the room from you, they slowly begin to disappear.

At some point, you can’t even tell if the water drops on your skin are from the hot tub or the condensation or your sweat.

It’s pretty. damn. fantastic.

All the really bad stuff has leeched out of me. Drained from my system today.

There is only the sweet relief of the events opening up in the next few days. Seeing loved ones. Wrapping presents. Exchanging gifts. Eating food, drinking wine, imbibing herbs and being merry.

There is only this gracious, joyous love.

Nothing more.

All of the bad has dissipated. I am myself again. I am myself. Maybe something more. Maybe something better.

Sweet Nothing

Things have changed. The turbulent, unhappy feelings I felt are gone.

In it’s wake are all the things I left behind, waiting for me to return and pick them up. I want them back. I want those things more than I want you to care about me. For a few months now I wanted you to care about things happening in my life. I wanted you to show even the slightest bit of interest.

The things I want now: I’m going to get them.

It’s going to be so easy letting you go. There’s not even a hollow in my chest or my life where you fit. There are only important things I’ve been ignoring in the meantime. I am sad for temporarily abandoning the people I should be caring about and expending my energy on people who didn’t equally care about me. My only hope is that the folks in my life who do care welcome me back.

I am sad that I let important things wallow while I obsessed about trying to get close to you. Both of you. Either of you.

Cause you’re not even a good friend. To me.

When was the last time you asked about me? When was the last time you genuinely celebrated…with me?

No. Because it’s all about you.

I’m putting together this beautiful piece of work filled with people who love and care about me. Why do I keep forgetting about these people? They matter to me. They celebrate successes, they are around for failures. They put energy and meaning into my life.

You’ve put nothing but bad feelings, uncertainty and doubt.

“Those patterns take away my time.”

I’m coming back. Oh god, I’m coming back. I thought I was lost but I’m coming back.

Thanks for all the sweet nothing. I hope you are prepared for a lot of it in return.

“The world is not around because of you. You know I’m not around because of you.”

Small Noises In The House

I want to go back two years ago.

Before December 2010.

And start the years over again.

I think I can do them better.

This time.

I know I can’t make you go away. But I can do a damn good job of it. That’s what I’m good at.

Disappearing.

The truth is…I was happier when you were gone. Or when I barely thought about you at all. You’ve got a piece of me…but it’s just a little piece of me. I don’t even recall how all this started again. And it’s so so so stupid that it did.

And I’m glad I read those words. I’m glad I know.

“Now you know.”