Hidden In Plain Sight

sometimes when we talk,

I have to refrain from saying, ‘I love you.’

sometimes,

it still sits so close to the surface.

sometimes I can forget,

and fool myself into believing I’m moving on.

sometimes,

I want to reach out and touch your face.

run my fingers through your beard.

curl up in your arms.

your smell. your warmth. engulfing me.

I thought the pain was gone.

why on some days does it still feel so fresh?

she gave you a bracelet.

a gift to you, yet it pierced my heart like an arrow.

I want to scream and shout at the unfairness of it all.

but I don’t. there’s no point.

there never was.

all I can do is sit with this pain that seems to have made a home in me.

and when I’m alone, allow it the only escape that makes sense.

one day my tears for you will cease.

until then I will give myself grace.

I will hold and forgive the parts that still hurt.

that can’t seem to let go…

It occurred to me recently how much I abandon myself in a relationship. I come away barely recognisable. It’s made me begin to sit back more and observe. Observe others and how they move together. My last experience showed me signs I can see that are so familiar. I observe the women mostly. We are so absorbent. You can tell a lot about a relationship, and the man a woman is with, by observing just her.

I saw a couple that did make me smile this morning though. Their energy flowed between them as freely as their touch. It was so beautiful to witness. The ease with which their bodies knew each other without thought. I realised how rare that is to actually see. He and I didn’t have that. Our bodies knew each other less than our souls… and our souls hardly knew each other at all. Even after 3 years.

I’ve shifted through so many emotional states in regards to us. But now I just feel sorry for us. We struggled so much. I always feel so naive in hindsight. Looking back, reflecting. So many mistakes that I see now could have been overcome had neither of us been so naive. That’s the cruelty of hindsight. Being able to look back and see where things could’ve been different. A pointless pursuit. It’s easy to say hindsight is a blessing to help prevent mistakes next time… but it just leaves room to make new ones.

The thought of a new relationship is absolutely unfathomable to me right now. And to be honest, I’m perfectly ok with that. I kind of like it. It feels peaceful. I still revel in the beauty of witnessing love, and being able to be happy for those who seek it or have found it. I am just feeling a very strong urge to walk this part alone. I’m tired of abandoning myself. I don’t want to be one of those women I keep seeing everywhere who lives in a perpetual state of… what? Exhaustion. Carrying the weight of those around her. Smiling while she acts like glue, yet is silently falling apart on the inside.

As the lyrics from one of my favourite songs states:

“I will not pretend. I will not put on a smile. I will not say I’m alright for you. For you, whoever you are.”

I may not life as others think I should, but I love my life. After a lifetime of seeking distraction and numbing myself, I love the depth of which I now feel and experience everything. I love that I’m remembering to come back to paying attention. Ignoring things doesn’t make them go away. It simply makes me go away.

I Sasquatch ?

Sasquatching: 

Emerging from isolation so infrequently from the get-go that one is never quite sure you exist at all ?‍♀️ 

After listening to a beautiful song shared here this morning, I sat back and thought to myself, “I’m going to start living as though I’m already living my life as I hope to.”

It’s amazing how one thought can open so many doorways to self-awareness. I had a flashback to being a child and having that feeling of “one day I’ll be able to escape from here and be free to be me.”

What I hadn’t realised until now is that I have maintained that belief. My life will start *after* I get out of “this current situation.” But what I’ve been doing is just continuously living that fantasy. There has never been an “after” where I do actually begin living the way I see myself authentically. And that has always been my excuse. Always seeking. Always waiting. Always believing it’s somewhere in the future, beyond my grasp.

So, today I begin living as though I’m already there. Living my life as I want to, as the person I want to be. Because “if not now, when?”

Soubhiyè

That period of time in the morning when no one else is awake but you, and you can have some quiet time to yourself before the household is awake.

For me, it’s that moment of stillness before the world wakes up. A quiet pause just before the birds begin to stir. And then suddenly, everything comes to life. Pure magic. This is my favourite part of the day ? 

“Soubhiyé is the magical time of silence and solitude when you might be the only person in existence, a liminal space between dreaming and waking, the rest of the house still aslumber. Soubhiyé is an art. A time to gaze outside at the bowl of stars, savor the scald and smell of a good cup of coffee in your favorite mug.”

You think that by me saying I don’t want to be with you again, is a rejection of you. It’s not. It’s a rejection of how you’ve behaved towards me and our relationship.

The rejection, the belittlement, the shame in not being enough in your eyes- not smart enough, not sexy enough, not political enough, not passionate enough… never enough. The constant giving and withdrawal of your affection and love, as I watched you parade your devotion around in front of me with your dog, and your sexuality around in front of me with a steady stream of others. I hoped that if only I could hang in there long enough, be loyal enough, forgiving enough, accepting enough, be… enough… someday those things might come my way. 
The relentless lying.

All of that had consequences. I stopped trusting you. And eventually I stopped being in love with you.

I gave you the power of being responsible for an option. You couldn’t be responsible with it. And eventually I ran out of reasons as to why I should keep asking you to try. So I am merely removing that option from you. That’s all. Removing the pressure from both of us. We love each other much better this way, as we are now.

You will always have a big place in my heart, and if you so choose, my life. But I deserve much better treatment than what either of us have believed all this time. It’s time for me to start caring for myself, and that has to start with us. 

'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'

~Billy~ age 4

‘What you do makes a difference. You just have to decide what kind of difference you want to make’…

Superhero name: Atomic Boom ?

Superpower: Inner critic fairy. Sprinkling fairy dust of unconditional love onto the inner critic to silence it and bring ourselves back to that place of belief and hope in ourselves and others ? 

Something I used to say quite often was how much I hated drama. And yet, somehow I would always find myself involved in it. Fighting against… something… the world, people in it, life… whatever. I attracted people who loved it, and I couldn’t work out why. Of course, I blamed them.

Until one day I dug a little deeper.

I realised that I had (and still do to a lesser degree, because boy does it run deep) an addiction to drama. I didn’t necessarily want to be involved in it directly, but a part of me still thrived off the energy and conflict created. That part that was scared of being “boring” or being “bored” or what I see more clearly now… was terrified of the unknown. Peace.

I have not really had a life that has shown me what peace looks like. Internal peace. The kind that simply allows you to sit with yourself or others without a need for distraction. The kind that brings space to both inside and out without it feeling empty. The kind that allows room to just breathe. To simply be.

The more I find this space, and become used to it, interestingly, the less affected by “drama” I am. I observe, and allow those who still find a thrill from it to go about their way. To a much lesser degree do I feel a need to have an opinion or make a judgement, nor become involved. I simply accept with understanding.

So, why this writing?

Today I decided to share. Obviously the recent turmoil here has brought these thoughts to the surface. I like to be able to reflect on where I once was, and where I am now. And to share that for others who may relate. I guess in a way it becomes painful to watch others with the same struggles I’ve known so intimately. Perhaps it’s a breadcrumb. A suggestion that it doesn’t have to be a way of life, getting stuck there. There can be a way out, a way forward.

However, for someone like me, I realised not too long ago, that can be a terrifying thought too. It truly is an unknown to try to imagine a life that *feels nourishing*. Even though I’ve always believed it’s what I want, looking back I can see I’ve always stuck with what felt familiar. Always dragging along that little safety net of chaos. Strange, I know.

I’m currently in the process of picking up all the balls I’ve dropped during the last few months of stress and struggle. Unfortunately when life hits hard, I tend to drop things one by one as the overwhelm builds… and although logically I know it makes things worse, usually the first to go is self-care. And then I have to wait. Wait until I can find the space to pick just that one ball back up again… because that’s the big one. That’s the central one from which everything else falls into place. Although it’s still super tough, I try to no longer berate myself for not coping. I try to give myself grace. I try to allow those who love me, to share their words of support, and tuck them into my heart. I try to remember each baby step to the way back because I now understand I don’t have to stay there. I have the tools. I know how to find that peace again, because once you know it you can’t unknow it. And I remind myself that the chaos I’m feeling, and reacting to, is actually inside.

Today is the first day…

May you find your journey to inner peace also. Sending lots of love to those who need it ?