Evolution

All I swore
I couldn't live through
Has come and gone...
Apologies
And excuses
Didn't change
The Truth.

I evolved
Past confusion,
Rewriting the clarity
Of my own days.
I am no longer led
By recklessness
Or Ultimatums.

I control time
My hours are mine
I am not locked into
A pair of arms
That don't comfort...
Internal bleeding
Is always more dangerous.

I removed
All the pieces of him
That stuck to me
Like invisible anchors.
Instead of looking
At the door that closed
I opened a window...

And joy leaked in
Like a warm breeze
Cleaning and restoring me
Bringing value to all
That was lost...
And I am beautiful
Because you love me.

Surrender.

I'm so used to waiting for the other shoe to fall that I don't really know what to do now that I'm not afraid.

I'm so used to feeling alone that I am almost in awe as I feel him all around me, all of the time.

Just knowing he exists is enough for me.

My whole life has been about those issues - feeling like an outsider in my daily existence, like I am on my own little island of nothingness and no one can ever reach me, so why bother trying?

There is freedom in letting go - and having someone catch you. I am caught. All of the crap I went through, all the drama and unhappiness was just preparing me to appreciate and know the difference.

And I have never been happier.

Adventures of the Black Wig.

Decided it would be fun to wear a black Wig to the Bauhaus show at the Roseland tonight. Black wig = MANTRAP. Seriously.

I was, of course, super excited to see my beloved Bauhaus - and wanted to get down to wait outside an hour and a half before the show started so I could be right up front. So, my beloved Brie Cheese went down there with me at 6:30.

I must mention that Brie looked extra hot this evening - her hair was down and she had on a little tight, black ensemble and the infamous sex boots. It was ON.

So we parked and went down to the Roseland, and there were only a few hearty souls that made it there before us. As we were standing in line, gushing about the men in our lives (or lamenting on the recent departure to Thailand thereof) Brie noticed on her ticket that the show started at 9 - apparently I was thinking of the Seattle show (which I sold my tickets to, and which DID in fact start at 8). OOPS.

Anyway, because Brie loves me she just rolled with it anyway. Got checked out by some weird guys drinking beer, tried to get the attention of the cute Euro guy for Brie, and spotted the Keanu Reeves guy that sadly, ended up being gay and breaking Brie's little heart. (but kept staring at her all night, as he sat with his boyfriend...wtf?)

We got in, and I went to the merch stand to spend entirely too much money on a Hoodie that I love and of course needed, as Brie marked our front right center territory (prime Mr. Ash viewing) in front of the stage. Met a cool chick from Boston or somewhere that was at the Seattle show and gave us the good news that there was no opening band.

Let me just say Daniel Ash in tight leather pants eclipses my previous favorite Daniel Ash, Mr. Mesh Shirt. WHO KNEW?! I'll just leave it at this, if Brie wants to elaborate, she of course may... hahahah. They played the big three songs I wanted to hear - including what I refer to as the sex song. Daniel sang "Slice of Life" too which made me suuuuuper happy.

About 3/4 through the show all hell broke loose and all of a sudden crazy crackwhores started to show up and get in our space. And I mean shove us around, throw their arms all up in the air, hitting us, and generally spazzing out. I started out calmly pushing her back, then I got a little meaner and put my elbow out. Finally I turned around and threw a bunch of profanities at her and informed her I was going to start throwing punches if she didn't quit elbowing me in the fucking head. Well, she didn't listen (after she apologized) and so then I just started to throw elbows at her, getting a small satisfaction that her ribs and her face will be bruised and sore in the morning. Brie in the mean time was putting the smackdown on some stoner chicks that were in her space, so between the two of us a brawl was about to ensue. Cause NO ONE fucks with my Bauhaus time. lol.

Show was over, just in time, I was getting WAY too pissed off and was seriously going to hit this stupid pincushion chick (she had about 1000 facial piercings and smelled TERRIBLE). Her stupid boyfriend was about to get it too, I was sick of feeling certain parts of him shoved up against my ass. On the way out we saw the prettiest goth boy ever (aka Mr. 42) and several other interesting people...

There was the afterparty - which we had NO DESIRE to go to, and so we went to Taco Bell (where the mantrap black wig continued to work its magic - hahahahaha) and now are at home, preparing for a wonderous day of work in the morning.

But Bauhaus does indeed still rock your ass.

Thinking.

More VA Hospital Funness with my dad this morning. More fun sitting and reading disgustingly filthy/crusty copies of Parenting Magazine in a room that smells like weird old men and mold. Some cute kids did come sit by me and tell me all about their Halloween plans, so that passed some time.

Got in and the Ortho MD whipped out his latest round of hip ex-rays. My dad is like the Bionic Man - he's been put together so many times that they are going to end up with a 50 pound bar of steel screws after they cremate him. Hahahah. Anyway, the hip joint collapsed around the pin they put in - which isn't good news. BUT, he is generating enough new bone growth that there is a possibility this will be okay. I loved how the MD made this sound like an all around positive result of the surgery - even though I knew better, and he knew I knew better when I started pointing things out on the X rays.

The VA is crap. It still amazes me though, how many of these old dudes are walking around thinking they are in good health when in reality they are barely held together. I guess knowing the reality of the situation wouldn't really help, in fact I was really worried about my dad getting de-railed at what I perceived to be bad news, so I was very thankful for the doctor's discretion.

This messes with my mind a little, as obviously I am all about "honesty is the best policy", yet in this situation I was happy for the skewing of my Dad's condition. I know that he seriously can't handle another surgery, unless it was of course something to completely save his life. I also know for a fact that he doesn't want any kind of life saving surgery. And I will of course, respect his wishes.

There comes a point where you kind of let go of wanting to fix someone. His body was so abused from the drugs, booze, fighting, motorcycle wrecks and various other ailments that its kind of amazing he's here at all. I showed my mother a recent photo of him the other day and she actually cried. She was shocked as to how he looked, and knowing what a prideful man he is how terrible it must be for him to suffer like this. And through all of this also, she has lost her hatred for him and gained compassion for his situation... at the same time fully realizing the karma of his situation.

I don't believe in accidents. I really don't. And I don't think that any of this is an accident.

Likewise, I have some other important things that are happening in my life. A someone. I was up most of the night last night, writing, trying to wrap my mind around all of it - examining feelings new and old, fears, insecurities, motivations - and I know my heart is in this for all the right reasons... and I'm pretty sure his is too. And it's a good thing to feel a little nervous - because this causes you to stop and think before you act out of impulsiveness. It allows nurturing to occur, and timing to work its own karma. I'm not going to screw this up, overanalyze or choke it with irrational fears.
Some things aren't as elusive as I was thinking them to be... I just needed to stop looking so it could smack me in the forehead.

Why I bother.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I still have my first diary, I started keeping it when I was 7 years old. I used to write the names of the boys I liked and complain about how unfair my mother was. I also kept an extensive record of which books I checked out from the library, and the status of whatever lego project I was engineering in my spare time.
Writing for me though, is primarily therapy. In my first journal I found comforts after my grandfather died.

My grandpa Robert, Papa, was the first love of my life. I was his first grandchild, and he was like a father to me in all the ways that my dad was unable to be. My dad had a terrible childhood, and never had a good parenting example. He did the best he could with limited information. Everything with my father was on his terms. If I wanted to spend time with him it was handing him tools in the garage.

My father wasn't a bad father. He taught me how to read at age 3 by reading the Wall Street Journal and the Shotgun News. I used to crawl in his big brown recliner chair and read to him. But my father didn't know how to really play with me, he just never was a kid himself. He tried his best.

My Papa on the other hand, was like a big kid. He was funny and goofy and instilled in me a reverence for nature. He used to take me on nature walks, picking wild blueberries, or checking out birds. He taught me which plants I could eat if I ever got lost in the woods. We'd go out to the lake in his fishing boat and sit there and talk for hours.

The best part of visiting my grandparent's home however, was the garden. 3/4 of the back yard was his huge organic garden. He grew everything you could imagine. I remember digging up carrots, brushing the dirt off of them and eating them right there, and that they were sweeter and more satisfying than any candy on the market. I remember taking huge bites out of fresh, warm tomatoes and having the juice drip down my chin, sweet rivers of summertime staining my skin. I remember sitting out there in the yard dipping pieces of rhubarb in the sugar jar and chomping down happily, thinking that I was in the most magical place on earth.

The garden was my haven. I would sit out there for hours, with my little daisy watering can, talking to the plants because my grandfather told me it would make them grow. I didn't realize it at the time but the garden was a mode of survival for my grandparents. They grew things to can them, to get them through the lean winter months.

Hibbing, Minnesota was a tiny mining town in the Northern part of the state, and it was bitterly cold in the winters. If it made it ABOVE ZERO that was a good day there. Hibbing is also the boyhood home of Bob Dylan, if it sounds familiar to you for some reason. Bobby Zimmerman was a rich kid, however, and lived in a different part of town than where my mother grew up.

My grandfather operated a train for a living. And of course, due to the weather, the railroad shut down in the winter, which meant no income for part of the year. So the garden saved them. That and hunting, which while I could never do it was literally how my mother and her brothers ate in the wintertime.

He hated his job his whole life. He wanted to be a writer, and he had great talent for it. The newspaper in the closest big town had a contest every year, and he won 5 years in a row. His style was very Hemingway-esque, immersed in details and heavy on nature themes. He also was a poet. He was discouraged by his parents from it and told to get a "real" job. He also was a member of Special Forces in WWII, but even that couldn't kill his need to write, and his passion for the written word.

He hated his job so much that it killed him. He just swallowed all of his bad feelings, sucked it up, and tried to lose himself in his writings and his garden. He finally retired, with his pension and gold watch. He took my grandmother on a trip up to Canada, which they were so excited about. The first morning they woke up in the hotel, he woke up, clutched his chest, fell over and died. He never got to enjoy his free time. He worked his whole life and then never got to do what he really wanted to do. And as an adult, this seems so tragic to me.

I think this is why I'm so passionate about getting my degree. I am not obsessed with status symbols or being rich. I want to be able to be comfortable, and not worry about providing basic necessities for my family. I'd like to be able to travel once in a while. I must feed this wanderlust inside of me. I want to see Paris, and the pyramids, and Stonehenge... I want to turn a prayer wheel in Tibet... and I don't want to have to work jobs that I despise my whole life to do it!

When he died I was inconsolable. I wouldn't come out of my room for three days, I wouldn't eat. Even my father couldn't get me to come out. So I used my journal, and I began to address it "Dear Papa" instead of "Dear Diary." I wrote to him every day, asking him what heaven was like, and if he missed me. I told him all of my troubles.

I used to think I saw him everywhere. We lived in Detroit when he died, and my dad and I were on a bus on our way to a Gun Show one day, and I swore I saw him outside and was hysterical, trying to get off of the bus. I used to dream about him nearly every night and write down what he said to me in my diary the next morning. I slept with a bandanna of his for two years, until it finally lost its smell. I still have it.

Now I write to vent, to analyze - I make lists and reminders of why I make decisions. I write for hours, put it away, pull it out the next day and don't even remember doing it. When I can't make a decision I do that, and read it imagining my best friend wrote it to me - and I usually can find the truth in there and make the correct decision. I paste things in there that mean something to me, like concert tickets, and leaves from the tree outside that I'm in love with. (Yes, I fall in love with trees.)

Also, any time I reach a milestone in life, I buy a new journal. When I can tell a new chapter is opening. Even if the old one isn't even close to being done. I also threw away boxes and boxes of journals a couple of years ago. It was my way of letting go of the past. I read them all first before I did. The memories are all still in my head, anyway...

Happiness.

Hearing my father belly laugh for the first time in years. He looks at me, as we are waiting in the doctor's office, all serious - "Say-ruh, Ahm sorry, but Ah think Ah have to fart." I cracked up and he cracked up and I told him just to let it rip then. Told him at least he wasn't so deaf he couldn't hear that. He laughed until tears came down his cheeks.

In the car he told me he was happy that "I was there to take care of everything" and thanked me.

Yeah, this is why I do it. Even though he can be a huge pain in the ass, he can be stubborn, and selfish, and totally demanding... but he is my blood. I have a very small family. And its moments like this, when he's "on" that I'm so thankful to spend the last few years of my daddy's life with him.

It heals so much of that wounded, abandoned child left in me. Every time I reach out to him when its hard, it breaches a little of that gap that grew when he left. And now my hand is the strong one. And I have forgiven him.

We almost got sideswiped by a semi on the way home. It was a close call. After it was apparent we were safe he looks at me and wryly says with that mischevious twinkle in his eye, "Oh man, if we woulda been mashed up, Ah want you to just take me to the side of the road and shoot me...Ahm done being patched up." And I looked at him, trying to guage his seriousness, and he cracked up again and patted my knee.

Yup, he's doing better. :)

Slice of hell - dumping thee ex bf.

Once you've been abused, you can smell it a mile away. And you get weird to it, and things push you into an ugly place, a place of survival.

Last I heard from him he was sending emails, asking what to do with some stuff of mine, I had stuff of his also. He said he would leave it up to me how to decide to swap it.

I decided to think about it, because I wasn't ready to see him, because it had been confused, even though I knew the end of our relationship and probably our friendship was the right thing to do, it still hurt, I still missed him, and I still wanted him around in some ways. We didn't date that long, but it still sucked. And whenever we would talk via email one of the other one would basically vent about how much it sucked without the other person, and why are we doing this. I knew I personally was too weak to make it stick, because I missed him. And I knew it wasn't right, which is why I broke it off in the first place.

So I was trying to strengthen myself, so when I saw him it would be calm.

After 9 he just shows up. I was in my pajamas, talking to Dave on the computer. He brought the things, I could tell he was upset and had been crying. I thanked him for bringing it, tried to remain as casual as I could. He left. It was weird. But I was grateful for the maturity of the situation.

Within two minutes on my porch he was back, telling me he needed to talk. I hesitated, then I invited him in, I figured it was the least I could do, and I felt bad that he was feeling pain, because I had been there so much in the last two weeks over us. I'd been up and down and all over the place.

He started with apologies, which I accepted, I tried to remain calm. I wasn't comfortable with the amount of emotionality that was happening, but I tried to just chill. He brought up an issue that I didn't blog about (because despite what he thinks I don't blog to hurt him, I blog to DEAL) and expressed regret that he did "one fucking thing wrong". This is where our voices got raised, and I told him I didn't want to argue with him. I told him again and again. And he begged for time. He said "just two minutes" and looked at his watch. I gave him two minutes, which was two minutes of picking apart my personality flaws. It hurt, but I took it. He was standing in my doorway. Then I asked him to leave.

He made excuses.

I asked again.

More excuses.

My voice was raised to a shout, as was his, it was the only way I knew how to communicate that I was serious, that I wanted him out of my life. I couldn't deal with the poisoned relationship we became. I started to panic. It was survival, GET OUT. GET OUT OF MY SPACE. This was about 20 minutes later... he kept saying "just let me talk" not even realizing he had, and that if I gave him three days he would still not be done attacking me.

He left and the phone calls instantly started. There were 9 of them, from different cell phones, between 15 seconds and 3 minutes apart, whether I hit "decline" or if i talked to him and told him to go away. On one phone call I gave him 30 seconds to talk, as he requested, and he chose to argue during that time.

I told him "I do not want to be in a relationship with you. I do not want to talk to you. I do not want to be your friend." I was brutal, and honest. So he would GET IT. Finally, after he wouldn't listen after my repeated requests for him NOT to call me, I was so angry and felt so scared and violated that I shouted "FUCK YOU! GO AWAY! I WILL CALL THE COPS IF YOU CALL ME BACK. DO YOU UNDERSTAND???"

And finally it was enough.

The last time I had to say that was when I left my husband. I hate to have to be cruel. But I had no choice... he wasn't listening.

I don't think that he has the capacity for physical violence. But I felt intruded on, I felt like he wouldn't leave me alone, and this scared me. Because this is how it starts. He says he will do one thing (wait to hear about the "stuff exchange") and then just do another (show up). It's never consistent with him and so I don't trust anything he says to me.

So he probably hates me. But everyone told me to call the cops, have him picked up, he's probably drunk. I didn't know if he was drunk, he smelled like bar. And he finally did stop calling me. They all said I'd be doing him a favor by calling the cops. I don't know. I'm not a mean or selfish person, not all of those mean things he's been saying about me.

Anyway, if he comes back I will contact the police because I am afraid, and I have the cell phone records, as well as three different people as time stamps as to when it happened and how long it lasted

I hate this. I hate that he made me feel this way. I never expected it. And he will blame me me me me because that's what people with no boundaries do. And that's ok. It will be his way of coping.

My way of coping is keeping him the hell away from me. And I will do whatever it takes.

Pair off.

So last night was better than the night before. Only cried once. I figured it out - it was mourning the future that I was thinking was going to happen with him. I have forgotten one of the crucial and very basic Buddhist teachings - BE HERE NOW. It's attachment to the past or the future that causes suffering.

It's hard to balance because I am so monogamous in nature, and my whole life I've just wanted to be part of a family unit. I suppose that's why I stayed with an abusive asshole for four years.
I haven't really admitted this to anyone but I was thinking about it last night before I fell asleep.

The first time he abused me was three days before we left on our wedding trip. I was too scared and embarrassed to tell anyone. Everyone told me I was moving too fast and I was stubborn and wanted to show all of them that they didn't know what they were talking about. He wanted to marry so fast because he knew his mask would slip if we waited any longer. I blamed it on the stress of the planning, I deluded myself.

Hindsight is always 20-20, and even though I didn't pay attention to that little slice of hell I still ended up getting out. He just about destroyed my self-esteem in the process, but I'm reclaiming that, bit by bit.

But I don't think I'm over it yet. I'm not over being used, abused, and taken advantage of. I still hurt from a very deep place. And I think that I was naive in pinning all my hopes on the future, my dream of finally being "taken care of" before I'd really gotten okay with being alone again.

But who does want to be alone? No one does, but I have to learn to at least being comfortable in doing it.

And now BOTH of my parents are here. Yeah, they don't speak or whatever, and now I'm the one caring for my dad. But they are HERE. And I forget that. They moved here to be with ME. They chose this. And yet I always still feel lonely and unloved? It's obviously in my head...I can feel lonely in a room filled with 10,000 people. And I need to knock that shit off, because its destroying my life.

They are pretty much my only family. No brothers/sisters, two uncles (California and Minnesota) and one Grandma (Minnesota) and I barely know any of them. So the three of us (and now thankfully my stepdad, who I adore) are it for me. So of course I want a husband and at least one kid. Who wouldn't? But expecting that when I start to date someone is just stupid, because dating should be about friendship - friendship with chemistry, if you will, and dammit, I'm going to start dating like a normal person when I am ready to date someone. Like, meeting them somewhere, or god forbid having a guy pick me up and take me somewhere and then going home.

But first I need to be friends with people. Because then I can learn to trust people again, in a non-threatening way. And be loved unconditionally by my friends, because that is low-risk. I can have a rewarding social life without having to be part of a "couple". So when I am ready to be half of a couple it is all for the right reasons.