I've been off for almost a week.  Which is awful for my mind.  I've thrown away a bunch of shit, I've groomed my dog, I've cleaned.  But my mind always comes around to you.  

As I near 35 I wish more than anything you'd talk to me, that you secretly feel the same way.  I know it's a lost cause.  

Forward march.  I have to keep it moving.  Keep pointing north.  I've overcome so much.  I know eventually, with enough time, this will feel smaller, duller.  I will be better for it, I have grown.  I will keep growing.  

I am grateful for all of this, even though it is hard.  I am grateful for the ups and downs, and highs and lows.  Because the sun is that much brighter when it comes back around.  

And I'm so very grateful for my dog, Samson.  I love him so very much.  His love is everything.

Being heartbroken in the times of quarantine is shitty. I'd rather be working, I'd rather be distracted. Nothing makes me happy. Not even TV or movies, which I used to find comfort in. Sammie does, of course. But food, no. I'm not ordering out much at all. I make soup or sandwiches and drink my shakes and eat string cheese. 

Mostly I think about you. And apologize to God for wasting the previous life I've been given by doing this. But how do I stop. That happiness I felt was like a drug. Going out with you, being with you just made me feel good. Being in the car with you, going places. 

But I have to stop torturing myself. I have to move forward and keep working on myself. Keep squatting, keep up with my skin care regimen, keep taking care of myself. I want to be happy for me. Be good enough for me.

But a little piece of me wants to come out on the other side with you looking for me.  Is that so wrong? 

feelings.

I had this bipolar patient back in acute psych.  She was 18 and very sick already, her medical record included an exceptional number of hospitalizations from a very young age and it made for a bad prognosis.  But I won't ever forget her looking at me in the eye and explaining her sentiments (and yes, this is from memory from years ago, so I'm paraphrasing here--in reality it was all the more beautiful and hauntingly sad):

"I would not trade this for anything.  You see, when I'm sad, I'm sad.  More sad than anyone will ever know.  It's awful, there's no end in sight.  But when I'm happy?  I know happiness that you will never experience.  You see, I can feel things that you will never comprehend.  And for that, I will suffer these waves of depression knowing that there exists that joy like no other.  Because I can have these feelings.  I CAN feel.  And I pity the rest of you, because you will never know what this is."

And even though it sucks, I guess it is something to know that I can experience these feelings.  I'm not a brick.  I'm not numb.  I can let myself experience thought and feeling.  And while I'm not bipolar, I've always thought I can process emotion and feeling in a way that not many other people can relate to--and I'm trying to explain it, because I'm not trying to brag here.  It's really fucking shitty and isolating a lot of the time.  But it can also be incredibly beautiful too.

Does that make sense?

the shadow of your heart

Cosmic Love

Florence and The Machine

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes
I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it's left me blind

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat
I tried to find the sound
But then it stopped, and I was in the darkness,
So darkness I became

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

I took the stars from our eyes, and then I made a map
And knew that somehow I could find my way back
Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
So I stayed in the darkness with you

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Florence Leontine Mary Welch / Isabella Janet Florentina Summers

Cosmic Love lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

There are few things shittier than thinking you've met the one person in this fucked up universe that understands you, that sees you for you and loves you anyway.  And then they leave and stop talking to you and treat you with disdain and all the wrath of the world.

Writing anything else just seems pitiful. And I am so strong. I just wanted to be at peace with a soul like mine.

I miss your sweetness, how gentle you always were with me. I miss the way your laundry smells. I miss how small my hand felt in yours, and how safe I felt when I was with you. 

I miss so many things at five am, as I stand here folding. 

300 squats times two days.  Feels so good to feel the burn again.  I'm not even kidding.  I fucking love it.  

Late at night, here alone, there is no profundity.  There is just the terrible bitterness of absence and the hollow thrum (pang?) of aching for your voice, your hands, your curls. To close my eyes and feel your love returned. A thousand shining suns. I love you. In this space between day and night I am too spent to fight it: I love you.  Echoing in darkness like a moth's furtive wing-beat.  Lost on the wind and tucked away in the edges of night, the love still palpable and real forming in morning like dew on leaves. I was here and I was real, this heart a bleeding pulp exposed.

I'm learning a lot.  I need to be a stronger communicator.  I'm learning about what I do and do not like, and about taking time for me.  I'm beating myself up less.  I'm trying to throw stuff out.  Trying being the operative word.  I'm starting out slowly, but it's going.  I'm learning that work isn't all.  That to be happy, I need to make time for myself and my personal life.  

It might seem like this vacation time hasn't been all that, but for me, it's been everything.  I've slept, I've been eating.  I can't remember the last time I've cried.  I've been talking to friends a lot.  The next step is family.  I'm trying harder with myself, and it feels weird but it feels good.  

I can't lie and say I'm not stressing over a bunch of things.  Money and Sammie and things I need to take care of in general.  Doctor's appointments and driver's licenses and annoying life shit.  But I'm taking each day as it comes.  And I'm grateful for them.

Also, you know what's a good fucking song?  Every time I hear it?  I am just transfixed by The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter.  

So damn good.  For so many years.

Thank you.

at times I focus on something so much as to become something else

I still miss.  Seven days.  I can do this.  I can stay strong.  

I can survive with missing things, and before long seven days 

will be eleven, then twenty-two, and eventually forty-five.

In forty-five days, my heart will burst from this ribcage.  
I will know what it means to really love myself and be happy.  
I will count the days not from the end of him but the beginning of me.  

It is alright, it is okay.  Each day is brighter than the next.  

I am writing this on my head, my hands inside gloves

 that don’t match

Silvina López Medin

I lose at least onefrom the pair per seasonand hold on to the other, that singleglove left behind still contains the lost one.That is to sayon the winter break I read Pascal Quignard,in each image there's a missing image,says he, I addin each sound there's a missing sound,say: my motherhow she, because of her hearing impairment,is permanently reconstructingsentences from fragments, isn't thatwriting? I amwalking the nine blocks back homefrom the subway, it is -18 degreesand I'll never knowhow to turn that into Fahrenheit or howat times I focus on something so much as to becomesomething else. Glovesprevent us from breaking apart,gloves are not relevant in Buenos Airesthis cold does not existthe kind that makes you turn not only your headbut your whole body just to look atwhat's coming. I did not write muchback there, just broughta couple of summer images: my mother and Iat night standing in front a white wallkilling mosquitoes; my mother,my sons, I, in the backyard,hurrying to take away the clothes from the clothes lineunder light rain.