Tag: Personal Growth

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Rewind, this was NOT the plan.

What happens when you’re an adult and you still have no clue what you are doing with your life? You are at a standstill. You have no vision, no goal, no clear path. All you know is that you are not happy and you want to be fullfilled. How do you avoid feeling like up until this point you have wasted your time? And not just time or even valuable time but your LIFE. How do you avoid feeling like you have wasted your life?

You look at people you know who are happy and content. For some people it’s genuine. I think for many, it is content with being unhappy. There is a difference between being truly happy and having happy moments. Can you ever be truly happy with every aspect of your life? Can you love your downtime, work, family, friends, and social life? Can you be satisfied with your physical appearance and be mentally stable? And on top of that be overall healthy? Do all of these things have to be top notch in order for someone to truly, really, genuinely be 100% happy? You could argue that it isn’t possible for all of that. Something inevitably goes wrong or falls short. So, the answer is, you need to be happy despite what isn’t perfect. It is no easy feat, but it is possible. Anything is possible.

Decisions are mandatory in life. You are making them everyday, all day. You decide to wake up, you decide to have coffee over tea, you decide to put gel in your hair, shave your legs(or not). You decide what to take for lunch, to order out for dinner, to finally get in bed before ten o’clock.  You make decisions that consistently impact your day, your general mood, and your life. And you make them without actually knowing what the outcome will be, without even necessarily thinking of what it will be. However, you probably know what you want it to be.  You have coffee, because it will help keep you more alert on your drive into work. But you get to work only to find you are jittery, and your heart is racing. Oh well! What are you going to do? Regret that you decided to have coffee? Beat yourself up over the fact that you didn’t think about the potential to feel over caffeinated?  Question, why did I do that? Why didn’t I just have the tea? What was I thinking? This was such a horrible decision, no good has come out of it at all!  No, chances are you don’t do any of those things. You don’t go back and try to analyze precisely what went into your decision of having coffee and what you thought would happen verses what did happen. There is a chance you don’t even associate your jitters with the coffee. You could go all day thinking you just felt weird. Either way, you go about your day, maybe drink a few extra glasses of water.

Yet, when you make more serious decisions in life and the outcome is not what you hoped for, you do exactly that. You dwell, you regret, you question. Nobody makes a decision because they think something bad might come of it. You are always making them because you think it is right, better, smarter. It might be the harder way but you still make the decision. You decide, in hopes that it was the right choice. You decide to move across the country for school or a new job. You might get there, not get into the school, or lose the job after a month. You might get there and realize the dream job isn’t so dreamy after all. In addition, you have a falling out with family, and get into a car accident. It would feel as though as soon as you got there, everything went wrong. And you would feel like you made the wrong decision. You would be right about one thing, and that would be that things turned out differently. But that doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. The jitters are from the coffee, but not from your decision to have the coffee.

When you make a decision, you make it with intention. When you make a decision, you have to commit. You commit to it, you stand behind it, you have faith in it. You have faith in yourself. It’s not a game show, you didn’t choose door number three and get slimed. But if it were, and you did, you would go home and wash it off. When things do not go the way you thought, you go with it. You change with it, you adjust. You make it what you want it. You don’t sulk over how everything sucks, this isn’t what you wanted, and now what are you going to do? Nothing is ever certain, we don’t have a way to see into the future or to know how things are going to turn out. But we make decisions despite that. We have to. We don’t avoid, we can’t go back and change anything. We have to look forward. Always look forward. And tomorrow you have half-caff.

 

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The Real World

When I told my family that I had decided to quit my job, sell my condo, buy a motorhome, and travel around the country for as long as my savings account would allow, they were surprised to say the least. There was excitement and disbelief. It was all very positive. This is so exciting! I can’t believe you’re doing this! How long will you be gone? Where are you going? Can we visit you along the way? They knew my wife and I might come back or we might have found someplace we wanted to live. My father lacked a little of the excitement. He was perhaps more…skeptical? He’s old school and traditional. Extremely old school and traditional. You might ask how old school and traditional can he be with a gay daughter? And you would be right to question that but that’s for a whole other post. His mentality was kind of like, Okay, go for it, have fun, be careful, and when you decide to come back to the real world we will be here and hopefully your jobs will too. He didn’t really get it.

What the hell is the real world anyway? And why isn’t what I was planning on doing a part of it? Why has life been summed up to work, owning a home, starting a family, student loans, retirement accounts, and having “fun” on the weekends? I don’t get it. And I don’t like it. Actually, I loathe it. That is not a life to me and I refuse to make it MY real world. After traveling and living on the road I knew that despite where we needed up, we were not going to fall victim to ordinary life again. In my soul and gut I knew I could not possibly accept it, not after being exposed to the beauty of freedom and the joy of living a life I never imagined was possible. But how?

There is just no getting around it, you need money. At least I believe you do anyway. Because I don’t want to live on the streets or eat food out of dumpsters. That’s not exactly the alternative lifestyle I’m imagining. But I believe you can live a life where you get to do the things that give you the most joy. I believe you should make money specifically to do those things. I spent all of my twenties making and saving money for things that gave me no joy. I bought a condo that stressed me out, I bought a brand new car that got me to and from work every damn day. And I was saving money because I thought that I should. I was saving it for the future but for what in the future? A nicer, bigger condo? A newer, more expensive car? A retirement account to be thankful for in 40 years? Those things might give some people joy, and if they do then great! By all means, save away. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it, but I was doing those things and I was miserable. I never did anything I wanted to. I never went back to trapeze class because it was too expensive even though I thought about it all the time. I never took days off of work to go for hikes, or go to museums or to the beach. I never enjoyed nature even though I felt it pulling at my heart strings.

You know, it’s funny. People always say, Wow, what a dream! I wish I could do that! And my response is, YOU CAN! People said to me, How could you have left your family? I could never leave my family! And my response is, YES YOU COULD! I truly believe the thing that made me leave and pursue my ideal world was passion. If anyone isn’t doing it, they don’t want it bad enough. I had such passion and fire inside of me, if I didn’t leave I felt I literally would have died. Of course I knew I would miss my family if I left, but the alternative was a much darker outcome for me. And what I discovered was so profound. It was something I was never going to get by staying put just so that I could make it to Sunday dinner at my parents.

I discovered MY real world. And it did not involve living in a house with a massive mortgage, owning a nice car, having twenty pairs of jeans, new bathing suits every summer, working like a slave, stressing over bills, or waiting until the friggin weekend to do what I wanted to do. I discovered simplicity and minimalism. I listen to my friends talk about selling their starter homes for something bigger, and I cannot wrap my head around 1500 sq. feet of space not being enough. Nothing is ever enough. Everyone strives for the same things and they are never happy enough. They say they wish they could do this or that, but they are never driven enough to do it. So they settle and go through life being complacent . Complacency does not lead to happiness or fulfillment.

So how do you do it? How do avoid falling into the rat race? How do you prevent yourself from living just to work and working just to pay for your mortgage, loans, car payment, childcare, etc.? There isn’t one answer. Everyones quest for their real world will be different because everyones ideal real world is different. Something that helps is knowing what you don’t want, what you do want and what you are willing to do for it. I can’t say never, but for now I know that my wife and I refuse to be slaves to a mortgage or to jobs that leave us no time to do what makes us feel alive. We don’t need much. We don’t find value in “things”. And when you can let go of all the materialistic shit and focus on the experiences that truly fulfill you, you can stop living for a paycheck. After all, nature is always there, right outside your window, free of charge.

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The Trouble with my Hair

 My hair, it is the vein of my existence. For my entire life I have received comments on my hair. Most of them compliments, some of them backhanded, and some it is hard to tell. It has been both flattering and embarrassing. I have been interrupted during dates and flagged down in departments stores. I have been told it is a blessing and a curse leaving me to ponder, a curse for me or for you? I have had strangers ask if they can touch it, and I’ve had strangers not ask and touch it anyway. Women have glared at me in restrooms while others gush about how they envy it. I’ve been asked if it is hard work which I coyly respond, “No, it’s actually pretty low maintenance.” People want to know which products I use and how much, how often I shampoo and condition. I have written step by step instructions for waitresses while I am out to breakfast. They want to know how I brush it (I don’t own a brush), if I blow dry it (I don’t own one of those either), and how much I hated it when I was little (not at all).

Many are shocked to hear that I grew up liking my hair. Actually, until I hit middle school I never paid much attention to it. My mother combed it out for me when I got out of the shower, and I wore it in a braid most of the time. Occasionally it would be worn half up/half down for the school play or picture day. My mother never put products in it, and she would brush it out so it looked like a frizzy, puffy, triangle behind my head. In spite of that, I never hated it, but should I have? Was I supposed to hate my curly hair? And what does it say about me that I didn’t? Was I conceited or full of myself? Did it seem as though I was bragging? Should I lie and go along with it saying, “Of course I hated it!”

Kids sitting behind me in class would stick pencils in it to see if I could feel it and how long they could get them to stay in before slipping out. One woman asked if I ever considered relaxing it, just a little of course, to give it more length. Once, I was told it made me look hard, angry, unapproachable, and intimidating. My hair can do all that?! The rare moments I would straighten it out were always interesting. The reactions were off the charts. I was almost unrecognizable with straight hair. People couldn’t believe how straight it was, how long it was, even how the color changed. They would ask, why would you ever want to get rid of those beautiful curls? Some thought it was permanent, getting judgmental and saying in a snarky tone, I can’t believe you would do that. Then there were the other comments, the ones that stung a little- that looks great, you should wear it like that more often, don’t ever wash it, I like it better this way, you look younger, you look prettier etc. These comments left me perplexed. This wasn’t how I looked naturally. It was like someone saying that I looked better with makeup on. Like, what did you think of me before? Straightening my hair gave me complicated feelings. In a way I felt more confident, partly because I got less attention and didn’t have the looming insecurity of my big curly hair. I looked more normal, like most other girls. I blended in.

Once, on a date someone told me “I love your hair, I think it’s your best feature”. At first I took it like any compliment, I blushed and said thank you with a smile. But, then it sunk in. If my hair is my best feature, what does that say about the rest of me? An old friend of mine told me that her boyfriend said I grabbed the attention of all his friends because of my hair, it made me look exotic, and without it I would be just like any girl- regular, average, nothing special. The first thing I should have done was get rid of the friend (who tells someone that unless they are trying to hurt their feelings). Instead, I chuckled, and silently my insecurity grew. Is that true? Is my hair the best thing about me? Is it all that matters? What if I lost my curl? What would I be then? Bland? Boring? Useless? Unattractive? Just plain Ugly? What if I got cancer and all my hair fell out and grew back in straight? What would I do? Would I ever be found intriguing to anyone ever again if I didn’t have this hair? Would no one ever compliment my smile or my eyes? Does that even matter? Because it doesn’t appear they are noticed now anyway. What about, gasp, my personality?! Am I not funny enough, do I have no sense of humor? Am I not interesting enough? No wit? Nothing? Am I nothing without my hair?

My hair and I went through many phases together. There was the phase of being too insecure about it’s bigness to wear it down. I felt like there was too much of it, drawing too much attention and not in a good way. Like I was walking around with a giant clown wig on, its course wiry curls getting in the faces of people walking by. There was the phase of always wearing it down because I felt like I had to. Like people expected it. Like it was a shame not to. I felt like without it framing my face I was not much to look at. There was too much face for my comfort level. It brought unwanted attention to my nose which was slightly off centered from a break when I was little and my tiny brown eyes. I never felt I was pretty enough. I couldn’t put my best face forward, my hair was the best thing I had. Nobody will ever compliment me if they don’t see my hair, I will be exactly what people have said, boring and unnoticeable.

There were times when the compliments were too much and I wanted to hide my hair and then there were moments when I felt incredibly dependent on those compliments. Without them my self esteem plummeted. I was starting to develop a bit of a complex- a love/hate relationship with my hair. The hair that, for the most part, I always loved. And, not because other people loved it, but because I genuinely loved it. It was a part of me, like a limb. My hair fit me, it fit my personality. I wanted to love my hair but I didn’t want to depend on it to feel better about myself.

The older I get, the less entangled I get with my hair. It has taken on a more fitting, proper role. It is just my hair. I wear it up in a big puff ball on top of my head, tendrils falling down on my forehead like bangs. I play around with it more, brushing out the curls in a deliberate frizzy mane. I manipulate the curls into more of a wave for a nice change. I part it down the middle flattening out the top and drawing more attention to my prominent nose for a different silhouette. I let it get really big, the bigger the better, without worrying It will get in someone’s way or block their view at the movie theatre. I coil it up into a tight bun, I braid it. I cover it up entirely with a scarf. I do whatever I am in the mood to do on that particular day and I let it have no lengthy effect on me. It makes me no prettier and no uglier. It makes me no more confident or insecure. It makes me no less approachable or intimidating. I am not funnier with it or more serious. It does not make me sexy or plain. It makes me no more or less worthy of your attention. It makes me no more of myself or less of myself.


Once in a while

Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To shave my head
They say it’s my face
My hair makes it look angry
Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To be hard, to be edgy
I want scars on this skin
I want ink on my body
Someone said it was my best feature
Someone said I should smooth it out
Be careful what you ask for, it is longer than yours
Is it too big for you
Is it too frizzy for you
Does it scare you
That I am not like you
Is it too chaotic around my small, almond eyes
They see you
You see me coming from a mile away

Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To stop trying to be pretty
I am too clean
To small
I need meat on these bones
This body is getting smaller
Edges where curves should be
Am I waisting away
I have to let out my desires
Set them free from these cages
Set them free
I have this urge to be ugly
Because that’s what I am
When I am not trying to be beautiful
What is beauty anyway
This hair is my perfect
This hair is my flaw
This hair is my child
I am tending to it all the time

I am not my hair
I am the knot at the nape of my neck
Do I have a face
Is there someone awake inside me
Every once in awhile
I have the urge to be ugly
To check the “other” box
I am female
I am sexy
I am beautiful
I am hard
I am too thin
I am too independent
I am too inward
I am not poetic enough
I need more
Education
I need more
Words
I need more
Tools
I need more
Metaphors
I need more

I am my hair
I am wild
I am messy
I am going In different directions
I am loud like the volume
As singular as the tightly wound curl
I am stretching
When you pull me
I bounce back
Cut me
I will grow
Wash me
I am clean
Try to tame me
I will fight it

I am not commanding your attention
I am demanding, look away
I am not my hair
Picture me
Bald
Every once in a while

 

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The girl who….

In my last post I mentioned how I had shed some skin while I was traveling, A.K.A. my past. Now I want to shed some light on what I meant. Living in the same place your whole life, while having many advantages, has many disadvantages. Friends I had growing up LOVED the idea of staying put. They wanted to be “townies” like their parents were. To be honest the thought made me throw up in my mouth a little. That was the last thing I wanted. Also the last thing I wanted- to be labeled. I felt like I was walking around with a bunch of labels stuck all over me. Everyone knew too much about me. Everything from my past felt so present.  No matter what changes I made, I was always going to be the girl who…

I was the girl from Chelsea. The girl who lost her belief in God or any higher being for that matter when she lost her grandmother. I was the girl who failed gym because she was too shy to run.

I was the girl who got shoved in the locker room in seventh grade by a beastly eighth grader. She had heard I called her a bitch (I hadn’t). For one, I was the new girl in school and didn’t really know who she was and second, I was the new girl in school and wouldn’t call anyone of that size anything for fear of exactly what was happening. I was saved by an equally massive eighth grader just in the nick of time who I believe was friendly with my sister.

I was the girl they called anorexic.

I was the girl who got shunned and bullied in eigth grade by a group of kids. Led by two girls I once was friends with, I was tormented through the halls, called vicious names and was afraid to leave my classrooms. All because I was liked by a boy. I cried every day until I refused to go to school and my parents had to talk to the principle.

I was the girl they thought was a snob.

I was the girl who finally got taken in by a new group of friends in highschool only to end up losing them after highschool. What made this loss so devastating was that after my terrible experience in middle school I lost a lot of confidence and self esteem. This group of friends gave a lot of that back to me, I felt accepted, liked and important. They gave me a sense of worth that I was lacking. It appeared as though the friendships I built with these three girls would last our whole lives. When I started losing those relationships I realized they weren’t  just taking their friendship away, they took all I got from it with them. I lost friends physically but mentally I lost much more. They signified so much to me and that loss was so traumatic that till this day I struggle with it at times.

I was the girl who cut herself.

I was the girl who went crazy my senior year over a breakup. I flipped out at parties, screamed and cried. I called my ex’s new girlfriend and begged her to leave him unless she truly loved him which I knew she couldn’t possibly. I left all our prom pictures in his mailbox, I sat around the corner from his house crying hysterically in my car. I threw out everything and anything that had to do with him. I sent him the poems I wrote about him. I wrote him letters. Years later I still wrote him letters. Years later I still could not move on. I went to therapy specifically to help me get over it.

These trajedies and losses were hanging over me like a storm cloud, they followed me everywhere. When I wasn’t thinking about them I was dreaming about them. Everywhere I looked I was reminded of them between houses I drove passed and people I bumped into. While in reality those people probably weren’t thinking about it ever, I felt every time they saw me, they were remembering-that’s the sad girl, the depressed girl, the crazy girl. Deep down I knew it was my own perception of myself that had to change. Nevertheless, I couldn’t escape it here. This was where it all happened. This was where those memories lived. Now, I should say that it isn’t as if all these years later I am still walking around with anger built up inside me. I am not holding grudges against an ex from when I was 17 or mean girls in middle school or old friends in highschool. I am not thinking about this daily, weekly or even monthly. I worked hard to be a successful adult who isn’t seeking revenge on a 12 year old brat. But in the rare moments when I am reminded of them there are still small pangs of hurt.  I surprise myself sometimes with the feelings that bubble up after over a decade has passed but then I remind myself I suffered through these events and their aftermaths for well over that.

As a 32 year old I feel a little embarrassed to admit that these things that happened to me so long ago still effect me. I should be able to let them go, they should be old news- silly, insignificant, typical school drama.  Like, grow up already! But it took me years to be able to talk about these events without crying not to mention a ton of therapy. They will always be old scars however shrinking and faded.

Living back here I am reunited with the person who endured those hardships. When I was on the road I felt weightless without the heaviness of those labels. I felt like I finally had a chance to be myself, the me I was without all the clutter of being something I didn’t want to be. I wasn’t the pathetic girl who lost all her friends. Twice. I wasn’t the girl who couldn’t get over her heartbreak for years. I wasn’t someone ‘s old best friend, or an easy target. I wasn’t the underdog or athletically challenged. I wasn’t tragically damaged. I wasn’t the hairdresser or the wanna be writer. On the road I wasn’t depressed, I was happy. I wasn’t crazy, I was calm, I wasn’t timid, I was bold. On the road I could be known for being fearless, adventurous, and brave. I was a mountain biker, a camper, and a hiker. I was a minimalist and free spirited. I was optimistic and funny. I was undaunted, uninhibited, and liberated. That’s who I was. It is who I am.

 

Leaving the hurt behind

Grey skies turned blue
Small skies turned big
Dark skies turned starry
Straight roads began to curve
Highways gained elevation
I got further and further away from you
Mean words taunting
Calling me out
Calling me names
A child in a mean girls world
You didn’t follow me there
Green turned brown
Brown turned red
Sun got stronger
Nights grew quieter
The air was cleaner
You didn’t follow me there
Best friends turned enemies
You made me feel accepted
Then you left me out
I left you back there along with my lack of worth
States grew fewer but larger
Rivers and lakes were clearer
Mountains were taller
I achieved new heights
You didn’t follow me there
First love
Worst love
Heartbreak is too tender a word
Heartbreak does not last eight years
That’s depletion
I didn’t need therapy, I needed saving
Too stubborn to leave me
I left you

You didn’t follow me out there
You wouldn’t have lasted a minute
In the bare bones of solitude and minimalism
You require too much
I was reborn
I left you where you were conceived
And you didn’t know any routes out
You couldn’t read the maps
You needed protection
There wasn’t any of that out there
The wide open scared you
Mountains made you feel small
Uninterrupted skies made you feel insignificant
Made you feel less than
The journey made you feel weak
The journey made me strong
I traveled further and further away from you
I climbed higher and higher away from you
I drove faster and faster away from you
I set my eyes on a new horizon
I found peace away from you
I grew taller and taller away from you
I stood on solid ground away from you
I was fearless away from you
I found myself more and more away from you
I was myself
Away from you

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New poem-New life in my old home state.

I am still sifting through this new life in my old home state. I miss being on the road so much. I miss everything about it. I miss living in the small quarters of my motorhome. I miss opening the door and overlooking the La Sal Mountains in Moab, Flathead Lake in Montana or the waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.  I miss the simplicity of it all. I felt I had shed all that made me who I was and suddenly I was nothing more than  girl in a motorhome. I could have been anyone, from anywhere. Finally, I was not the life I had lived. I was just me.

Living back here I am reminded of the many struggles I have faced and how far I have come. I am constantly reminded with flashbacks of my childhood and of the depression I endured as a teenager that lingered into adulthood. I find I am still battling these monsters as a grown woman even though I have done everything in my power not to be a victim of my circumstances. I expected to write everyday on the road but I was surprised to find it difficult. I was not inspired to write, I was inspired to do.  Now that I am back from my travels I am overflowing with words. I think sometimes being in something can be blinding and it isn’t until you are out of it that you can truly see. I can see now and I am writing it all down.

Here Is one of my latest poems. Hope you like it!

 

Rabbit hole

I had to come back to feel it
Had to retrace my steps
Close my eyes
Arms reaching out in front
Hands spread
Fingers feeling
For something I recognized
Would it be everything
Or nothing
Time away can change a person
Sending her into a galaxy of unknown stars
Circling in beautiful confusion
Swirling around in the brightest darkness
A miraculous discovery
New vision
Is this a new me
Has my heart grown bigger
Or are the beats just getting stronger
The pounding making my chest feel smaller
My whole body in a subtle tremor
I am light as a feather
I am blowing around amongst the telephone wires
My face damp with the mist of cumulus clouds
An overcast of reflection
Old meets new
How do you do      It
You are too big for these shoes
Bulbous knuckles turning white with grip
You cannot hold on to these pieces of you
They are cracking, slowly chipping away
You will fall with them
Keep falling
Rabbit holes
Infinite space
Infinite release
Keep falling
Screaming
No one will hear you
Voice swallowed by depth
Let it out and it is gone
No echo
Keep falling
Where are you going
Will you ever get to the you you are running to
Is she down there
Arms reaching out in front
Hands spread
Fingers feeling
I know this person
I know this smell
It fills me with remembrance
She is a child
She is pretending in a world of ambivalence
She is growing up
She is getting angry
She is looking for words angrier then angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole
She is a teenager
She is easing her pain with sharp objects
She is losing her belief in a greater being
She is growing up
She is getting angry
She is looking for words angrier then angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole
She is a woman
She is running away from the life that was created
She wants to know who is responsible for this
She wants to know how to fix it
She is growing up
She is showing her age
She is looking for words angrier than angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole

 

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A poem: the struggle of being someone new when everyone and everything else has remained the same

Being back in Massachusetts is more of an adjustment than I was expecting. I am not sure what I thought it would be like but I feel as though I am merging different versions of myself. One, who I was before I left. Two, who I became while I was away and lastly, who I am now. The last version is still in formation. Coming back to the place I grew up as a changed person creates so many mixed emotions. Everything has remained the same, but I am different. Figuring out how to work these different aspects of myself into the life I once knew well and the people who are part of it is more complex than I was prepared for. Trying to explain what that feels like has been very difficult for me. Recently my best friend hosted a girls get together, it had been a year and a half since I had seen our friends. On the drive home I found myself reflecting, reminiscing and a little out of sorts. Finally this poem came to me and as I wrote the last line I felt exhilarated, relieved, weightless and liberated.

 

 

Things are not right here
I am broken into different pieces of myself
Blown apart
Each piece landing out of reach of the other

I am a sister, I am a daughter
I am an island

I am a friend, I am a wife
I am a mountain

I am spread thin like ice melting on a pond in spring
I am as tight as the corkscrews of my hair
I am confined by these walls
Not able to break free from the tracks I am setting
I want to go back
I want to be out there with no assumptions
No ties
I want to be out there
I want to go back

Back but not backwards

Who am I here
I am too many different pieces

I am an enemy, I am a confidante
I am floating in space

I am sinking in the ocean
I am a wave

These words do not reflect me
These thoughts are not my own
I have no say, I am mute
I do not relate to this world
This world of need and want
I cannot shake my head in agreement
But I do
I laugh and contribute
Adding to nothing
I am too much when I am here
And not enough of anything

I am depressed and troubled
I am a storm

I am strong and independent
I am a mudslide

I close my eyes and I am floating
Out into the open air
The clouds carry me
I am floating
Out from these power lines of restraint
These chains of ordinary

I am not this confusion

Blurred barrier of skin

It is too thin for this
How many people can I be
I am unrelenting rain
Filling up with unfortunate circumstance
I am a body of impersonation

How can I be so unsure
Surrounded by what is most familiar to me
It is too close
Too close to the origin of what tragedies made me
The aftermath still echoing in the air
Bouncing off the buildings and billboards
Flying like a ping pong ball
Threatening to strike if I stand up too tall
I should duck
Out of the way like a little girl crouching from her father
I should run
Faster than the fear of a belt to my fragile legs
I should scream
Louder then the sound of heartbreak at 17
I should dig
Deeper than the scar of a razor to a wrist
I should hit
Harder than the ground of burying depression
I should stand
Taller than the height of expectation
I should fight
More forcefully than the hands of violation
I should hold on
Tighter than the embrace of scared siblings
I should resist
Like the urge to disappear in the face of torment
I should worry
But worry is what got me here
I should be so worthy
To remember and not relive
But all too often they feel like the very same thing