Tears, Tea, and POW's

Every night 11 pm my in laws go to sleep. Every night at 11:15 pm I go to the kitchen and make tea for Jigger and me. It doesn't matter what day of week it is or month of the year. Every night the same routine occurs except for last night. Last night as I leaned against the sink waiting for the tea to boil, suddenly and without warning, a tear slid down my cheek. 

I hadn't realized the thoughts in my head were so close to the surface. As I stood there, thinking. Thinking how I hate my life, how I want so desperately for it to be different. I realized I'm not even in survival mode anymore. I've gone completely into POW mode. I'm just trying to make the best of my situation until I can escape. Every free moment, every moment I can catch alone, I allow the thoughts of escape to enter my mind. I plan what I'll do my first day out. What I'll eat, where I'll go, what I'll wear. 

I feel so controlled, so helpless, so whiny. All I can do is propel myself forward and wait. Wait for the day when I don't have to bend to the will of another. The day when I don't feel hunger, when I can go to the store freely for the things I NEED, not WANT, but NEED. You know little things like tampons. I'm so high maintenance. I just want to be able to feel the sun on my skin again. To feel the breeze upon my face. To close my eyes and be encompassed by the wetness of the rain. 

I just want to be free.

Fraudulent Friendlies

Pet peeves. I have many. My biggest? Fakeness. Pretense. Specifically pretending to be interested and/or concerned about my well being when in reality you're not. I am not as stupid as I pretend to be. I see more than people realize. Call it a gift. A sixth sense. Whatever, but I'm not stupid. I don't understand why people do this. It makes no sense to me. If you want something from me, then just say that. Don't pretend to be my friend. Don't pretend to be concerned about me when you're not. Just be honest. Truthful Say what you want but don't act like you care for me when we both know you don't. 

Fucktarded people! Everything is just getting on my nerves lately. Little things that I usually could over look seem inflated a thousand times over. I just want to run. Far. Run. I want to be ok. Now. Not a year from now. Not two years from now, but NOW. I'm ready to LIVE not just SURVIVE but I can't. I'm still in survival mode. I can't come out of it. Not now. If I did then I would lose everything. I'm still not out. I still have a long way to go before I'm out, but I'm ready to be out NOW. I want out NOW.

Riding the Emotional Roller Coaster

For the last two days, I've been battling the inner me. The me that worries and overreacts. The me that panics and freaks out if someone doesn't reply immediately. The me that fears rejection and will do anything to please you. The me that hates the me that will do anything to please you. 

There are a lot of me's. 

I've started my own business which is good and bad. Good because it helps me to be independent and work from home. Bad because I suck at dealing with people. I don't understand them. I don't know what their actions and words truly mean. These last two days I've battling the me that wanted to email contracted clients because they have been distant lately. 

I have been listening to the me that worries if it is because they are unhappy with me, if they are planning on leaving me, sneaking off in the night to find another partner. The 1.5% of my brain that is capable of having rational thoughts keeps telling me that all of these thoughts are untrue. That I haven't done anything wrong. That they are happy with me. These 2.3 brain cells that understand my clients are in between projects and on a mini vacation visiting their family back in their original homestate realize everything is ok and I just need to chill, but the other 4537829 parts of my inner being are totally freaking out. 

Those few rational brain cells are screaming at me to not do something stupid. There was a time not long ago I would have never listened to them. I would have gone sniveling and snotting to ask what had I done wrong, why was there this distance between us that wasn't there before. What did it mean? Were they leaving me? I've kept busy. Kept my hands busy. My mind busy. Even if the busy was watching pointless reality tv shows. It kept me from emailing and that was the end goal. 

Not doing something stupid. Not creating that thing which I fear most. I need that constant physical connection. I don't trust it's still there if I am not physically "touching" them. Since they are oceans away, my physical touch is email. When I don't hear from them, I panic. I know on some level things are ok but on other levels it is hard to believe. Even with Jigger, I cannot sleep unless I am physically touching him. Reassuring the inner me's that he really is there. It doesn't matter how late or little I've slept. Within 5 mins of Jigger getting up, I instantly become awake. The emptiness beside me is like a screaming banshee forcing me to awaken. If he takes too long in the shower I can feel the panic creeping in. I hate being this way. I can hide it to some extent but when it begins to overwhelm I need to reach out. Luckily for me my clients emailed me today to tell me a joke. It calmed me. Reassured me of their presence. They hadn't disappeared. They were still there. 

Still connected to me. 

So far it seems to be working. I just hope it keeps on.

Human Repellant

Silently I watch the world pass before me. A silent observer of humanity, watching as its participants interact in a play I don't seem to be a part of. There are times they call me forth and I  get hopeful. Hopeful that this time I'll remain, but it never is to be. Only for a short while am I allowed into their inner sanctum. To be tossed out once again. Never knowing what it is about me that causes them to run away. Why I seem to have to hold onto them so tightly, until my grip fails me and they slip free. 

It always happens. The one certainty that exists in the ever changing chaos that is my world.

At first I feel sorrow. A deep ache within me longing to be wanted. Longing to be a part of something. Anything. Longing to feel remembered, but a reality it shall never be. I shall spend eternity in the land of in between. A shadowy figure lurking at the edges of humanity. Unwanted. Unnoticed. Discarded.

Be the Pan and Crow

Yesterday's events just make me realize how grown up I have to be. Three days ago Jigger and I had some issues, but the second his phone rang I let go. They ceased to exist. His need for me was/is more important than my need of being right. It reminds me of how "grown up" I have to be. How the world sits on my shoulders, a female Atlas. I look at others and I long for their freedom. I long to be selfish. I long to put my needs before others. 

I look at them in awe and wonder how they do it. My BIL has sat here for almost 4 years without working. Never once did it ever cross his mind that he needs to do something. He feels no shame for sitting while others work 18 hr days, seven days a week. He feels no shame when he buys new clothes while others are torn and stitched together. How do people do that? Sometimes I want to be like that.

To be able to just take all that is mine and feel no guilt. No burden in existing. No thought of what I might be placing upon another. No worry or fear that my taking means someone else might do without. To just be so effortlessly. I long for that. 

I don't know  what that feels like. Not even as a child. The peace of our house rested upon my shoulders. I could never just be. Could never just spin in circles and then fall dizzy to the ground. Could never close my eyes and just run through the breeze. Could never just breathe. Responsibility is something I seem to have been born with. While I am responsible, I am also resentful in many ways. I resent my BIL's ability to sit and not worry that I have to work so hard to support HIS family. I resent it when I'm asked if I want something and I say no and they don't realize that I really do WANT it but I'm too shy to say "yes". Too fearful of rejection. Too afraid of disappointing. Of becoming a burden. Too worried about hurting someone or making them feel the way I feel inside. 

Then I think of  my children. Of the reasons of the distance separating us. I become angry. Angry at those who so easily cast me aside and brand a letter upon me. Yet they never look in the mirror to see their own brand. I get angry at myself for remaining silent in the wake of their accusations. For not defending myself. For not exposing their own decay. For being a helper of theirs in hiding the rot they carry within them. By allowing them to declare the rot that is theirs to be mine. I become enraged at myself that I am unable to break this cycle. Unable to speak what is inside of me. Unable to be hurtful and vengeful even if it means I am the loser. 

If I can't even defend myself, then how can I expect anyone else to? When I'm unwilling or unable to speak up for my own basic needs. NEEDS. Not WANTS. There's a difference. So if I can't fulfill my own needs then why am I so surprised when others don't either? After all these years I still am shocked when I'm forgotten. Overlooked. Ignored. I don't know why it still surprises me so. I should be use to it by now but somehow each time is like the first. I seem to forget all the times before. I don' t know why. 

Maybe it's because I really do believe in fairies.

Innocence Misunderstood

Jigger came home for a little while this morning and then left again to go to the funeral. While he was here I was asking him what had happened. If his friend had been sick and things like that. He was telling me all about it. Then he was telling me about his friend's 5 year old daughter.

He said she was so excited to have so many people there. All of her family and friends. She was running around playing and kept asking "why you so sad" to her mom and uncles. He said for him that was the hardest part. Watching her and her complete unknowing that her father won't be home from work tonight or ever again. He said he felt so heart broken for her because now she is so happy but soon her world is going to change and she won't even understand why.

I could see so much of myself in that little girl. I could see her future. Her emptiness. The hole that will grow inside of her as she grows and she won't even understand why the hole is there. But she'll know it's there. She'll try to fill it with odds and ends that don't quite properly fit, but no matter what she does that hole will remain. Until either she surrenders and accepts it as a part of her or it consumes her and she disappears inside of it.

There is also a two year old who'll grow up never knowing what an amazing father he had. Never knowing that which he lost. It seems such a waste. Three young children fatherless. One minute he was totally fine and the next erased. 

Jigger was going to help him in his business. Some advertising and things for him, but now that'll forever remain unfinished. It's strange how yesterday the world was one color but today it is another. Spinning and turning on while we sit. Helplessly being tossed about where it sees fit. Passengers on an unwanted journey. Stopping at destinations that are not our own. I'm ready to get off now. 

This is my stop.

Kick to the Gut

Life seems to throw curve balls from every direction, but this one just I don't even know how to process. An extremely close friend of Jigger's just died. As in Jigger just got the phone call about an hour before I started writing this. He immediately left to go to his friend's house. He was shaking when he left. It's a complete and total shock. The friend was in his 30's so to die from a sudden heart attack was totally unexpected. 

Jigger was devastated. He most likely will be gone until tomorrow after the funeral. I don't even know how to process it. There is so much shit going on between Jigger and me and it all seems so silly and petty now. Jigger and I are the same age as his friend. It makes me think what if tomorrow I woke up and Jigger wasn't here. How would I function? I'm not quite sure. 

All I know is for the next days/weeks/months I've got to hold my shit together. For him. This will rock Jigger's world. It will take him a long time to get over this. Actually he'll never really get over it but he'll get past it.