When was I 21?

Some years ago
I can't remember the last time I allowed myself to want something. Want is an emotion reserved for people who deserve to be happy. 

I have spent the last 4 months stuck in a self-doubting coma, anticipating loss. 

Why am I not enough? Why am I not worth it? Is there someone else? What does she have that I don't have? 

So I'm 21. I'm 21 and I have spent the last 10 years telling myself that I will not have a future. I could never picture myself living past 25 years old. Everyday is a struggle, a new battle, and I could not imagine myself winning the war. Everyday is a new emotion and I thought that I was stronger. But I'm not and it is harder each time I fall down to get back up. And I felt like I would never overcome it. But I'm only 21, and I've worked hard up until now to get to this place. Wherever this place is. I will not let myself ruin it. I am not who I was 5 years ago. I'm not who I was a year ago, and I won't be the same person in another year because people grow. People love, people make mistakes, people hurt and get hurt. There's sadness and anger and love and happiness. And people learn somewhere in all of that.

AND SO I'M 21! I need to be able to tell myself that I deserve to be happy. And I need to learn to take care of myself so that I am in a better place to take care of others.  And I need to realize that I still have a lot of growing up to do.

Lost Kitten

Dissociate yourself from ego, it has no business in love. 
                                                           - Yoga master Colin. 
Who are you and what are you doing here? Let's forget about the existentialism of it all and work through the literal.

Who am I?
Lisa

What am I doing here?
This is my house.

A week from now will mark 5 months of a no-Ryan life. The good news is I can finally think about him without a debilitating sadness washing through each of my muscles one by one. The bad news? I've replaced the emotion with one I am not entirely certain is any less self-destructive.

6 weeks ago I attempted to "get back out there". This wasn't because the options already available to me weren't good enough, but because I had spent the last 15 years stuck in the mindset that I wasn't enough, and one person's opinion just didn't provide the substantiation I needed.  So, I registered on a dating website. Almost immediately my inbox was flooded with messages from eager singles wanting to get to know me. While I'll admit this stroked the ego that, for as long as I can remember, craved the attention from eligible bachelors- it was probably unfair to put myself out there when I wasn't ready to reap the results.

I'm alone still.

But for the first time in my 22 years of breathing, I think I am okay with that. Everything I've ever done in my life;  every thought, every action, every decision I've made have all been rooted in my desire to please others and my crippling need to be loved by men. Because what did I have growing up? A physically absent and emotionally unavailable father whose impatience was rivalled only by his inability to look past appearances. Two brothers and a sister who, because of an age difference left me behind at every turn. A mother who worked herself to the bone to give my brother and me the childhood we deserved, but in doing so forgot what it was like to be a kid. And an entire school full of children, each dedicating their lives to making sure my days were filled with rejection, humiliation, and physical abuse. 

This is how I spent my days. This is how I grew up; desperately trying to become the girl I thought people would like better and losing every part of the girl I was meant to be in the process. I had become so unrecognizable to myself; like a liquid with no definitive shape of her own. I had strayed so far from the strong and confident girl I knew I WANTED to be, that I let some self-absorbed, emotionally vapid, insensitive loser walk all over me and at the end of the day make ME out to be the bad guy. 

Excuse me? When did I become a housewife? When did I become the sort of person who baked cookies, did laundry, rubbed feet, went grocery shopping, cooked dinner, wrote papers, made handmade gifts, smiled and nodded and let him be right, and got him off; sometimes without so much as a thank-you? When did I become the sort of person who tolerated an inattentive asshole who'd rather play video games than look at his naked girlfriend? And who deemed foreplay a "waste of his time"? And who after ALL of that, turned around and cheated on her with some blonde brazilian bimbo who didn't even speak English? Where in this relationship was Lisa and why was she so convinced that she was happy? Why was she convinced that her life was over after he left, and how come she was blaming herself when he turned around and cheated? Was I really designed this way?

So, after 3 months of wallowing in a whole lot of self-pity and even more self-doubt I got up, dusted myself off, and told myself that I was awesome. I may have not had any idea who that person was, and I may not have been entirely convinced that I was, indeed, awesome, but I knew that hidden beneath the insecurity and fear there was a substantial amount of good intention. That there was a smart, brave, thoughtful girl with the ability to smile and persevere. And so that's what I did. I persevered. I took up drawing, I started running again, I sang and wrote songs, I got a kitten, I started a new job and I worked hard to make a good first impression. I spoke my mind. I started going to yoga. I took up climbing and I realized with the right amount of determination anything is possible. Good things come to those who wait. The meek little girl melted away and found the confidence to do what she wanted even if it meant having to do it alone. And that same meek little girl found it in her to move on and put herself out there again. And, well, while I may be moving towards a dead end--at least it doesn't consume my whole world. And at least I'm out there.

So, here is what I know. 
I know I am incredibly resilient. 
I know I am funny, energetic, caring, considerate and smart. 
I know I am good at a lot of things. 
I know that what Ryan did does not reflect my ability to love and care for somebody. 
I know that time heals all wounds. 
And I know that I'm not perfect, but that I don't need to be. All I can do is be perfectly me.

Moving on...

I'm painfully aware that for years to come, I'll be looking for you in every boy that I pursue. Because sometimes, I swear, when something reminds me of you I can relive a moment and smile as I remember the happiest I've ever been.


Two weeks from now would have marked our two year anniversary. Had things not gone the way they did, as I never imagined they would, I'd feverishly be trying to plan something. Desperately praying that the countless hours I invested in the relationship would pay off, and he'd finally decide that I was worth an effort. And therein lies the entirety of our relationship. Me, ignorantly convinced that this could be the one. Him, blissfully devoid of emotion and unable and unwilling to commit.  


So here I am. Today, like every day over the past three months, relentlessly assailed by the unpleasant memories that come strongly and without notice. Some are less unpleasant than others. Some resemble what I remember as happiness and love. Those are, usually shortly after, accompanied by a inexplicable sense of forlorn and an emptiness in the cavity that should be host to my heart. I prefer to silence those ones. But all the time the same, a new memory. A different day, a different laugh, different words. Each one flutters around in my brain for some time and then leaves. Never to be thought of again. So far, aside from the milestones in our relationship, I haven't thought of the same one again. 


I think this is my way of dealing with things. I don't think I'll be satisfied unless I've analyzed every aspect of our relationship. Every minute of our time together. Every look he ever gave me. Every smile or touch of validation I craved and never received. Every time he came home drunk, passed out, forgot about me. There's an answer in all of these pieces. An answer to the unremitting question, "Why wasn't I good enough?" Unfortunately all I find when I scrutinize the minute details of us, is a vulnerable girl giving all of herself to a boy who wasn't ready. A girl who sometimes cried when he seemed distant, or when she thought about life without him. A girl who made dinners, desserts, gave massages, wrote papers, edited papers, let him go out with his friends, never got jealous, tried her best to be rational and understanding. A girl who never even dreamed of being with anybody else. So the truth is, no I don't think I did anything wrong. And yes, it was probably unwise to become so emotionally invested in somebody who was so emotionally detached and content with being alone. 


So I'll let time do it's job. What he did hurt beyond any words I can put together to describe it, so I can't rush it. But one day, when I'm ready, I'll find the person I deserve to be with. And because I refuse to believe that everything I saw in Ryan was a lie, I hope they share a lot of the same qualities I found in him: self-sufficient, resilient, brave, warm, honest.


But I also hope they are nothing like him at the same time, because he is: incredibly self involved, terrified of commitment, callous, hot and cold and in between and terribly inconsistent, and blind. Obviously. Because if he couldn't see what an amazing thing he had right in front of him, he should get his eyes checked. 


His loss.

Post-War Blues

"A man may call a pretty girl and perhaps be welcomed back again."


Sometimes I still wake up and have to remind myself that it wasn't just a bad dream. That the last two months were real. Every bit of pain. Every twinge of sadness. Every missed beat. The heaviness in my chest and undeniable sense of longing. And when I go to bed I wish with everything I have left, everything I still have left to give, that things were different. That time would stop, reverse, erase itself. 


But even if I could turn back time, even if I could go back to before January 20th when he made the decision he did...it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't change who he is or how much I meant to him. Was there anything I could have done? Anything I could have said? Had I not given him every part of me worth loving, and loved him back without condition and without judgement? 


Eventually I have to stop blaming myself and accept that there wasn't anything I could have done to change the way things ended. They were destined to end the moment they began, if I'm being honest. And not because I didn't try. But because he told himself from the beginning that he wasn't ready for the kind of things I was ready for. All the signs were there. So eventually I have to stop blaming him too, because that's just who he is and where he is in his life. I want more than anything to believe he's the person I fell in love with. There is no worse feeling than losing the person you love, and questioning whether that person existed in the first place. I think he's capable of being better than that. At least, I hope for his sake because even after all of this I think he deserves love and kindness and patience. When he is ready, I hope he'll let somebody in who can give him that. 


So what now? What about me? Where do I go from here? It's been so incredibly hard to find myself through all of this. I guess that's what you get when you let love blind you. Take you over. Become your whole world. So it crumbled. Everything I worked so hard for over the years was gone. Every bit of confidence and self assurance, gone faster than it took for her to upload that photo. My world was upheaved and everything was broken. I'm still broken. 


And now there's this...this beacon of perpetual light and hope. This never ending source of happiness and affection and I'm too broken or messed up or too full of self-loathing that I can't just embrace it and admit it's what I've needed all along. Because then what? I fall in love. I let my guard down. I let somebody take care of me the way I crave to be taken care of. And then that's it? Or maybe he breaks my heart. At least I saw it coming from all the other scum bags. But what if I let him in, and he starts to see this perfect girl is not so perfect. Not even close. I'm back where I started. 


I don't think I know what I deserve yet. 


So this is what I've got so far. I HAVE to be okay on my own. I have to respect myself. Love myself. Worship myself. Accept every single one of my flaws as definitive pieces of me. Embrace them. Because if I don't know who I am, and respect that, how can I expect anyone else to?


I wish I could write songs.
"I'm not a stranger to the wonders of your silence. I want to be there when the walls all fall away. So I can see all of the things that made me love you. Just a smile, a simple smile on your face."

My heart feels restless, 
My mind is a mess, Miss,
Will you tell me all your secrets?
Tell me what it takes to keep it?
My body now at war, 
Takes a toll, and then some more, 
Will you share your biggest secret?
Because I'm telling you I need it.
And now my blood is full of noise, 
Red, and hot, as it destroys, 
Will you tell me what it takes?
Both your feet pressed on the brakes?


Trying to express this kind of sadness is very difficult.

I swore I'd never love again.


I'm too close to the fire. My rubber soles are melting and soon I'll be running barefoot. Running away. Or pushing. If he runs first I won't have to. Or I'll be stuck. I'll stand here long enough, and when the fire goes out my melted shoes will cool and bind me to the earth.
And I'll swear I'll never love again.


That's the thing about love.
You don't really have a say in it.


And if I get burned this time? Well then I'll never love again.

I think you could be something I would be good at. 

If you could only see the beast you've made of me, I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free. Screaming in the dark, I howl when we're apart, drag my teeth across your chest to taste your beating heart. My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in, you are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl. Howl.  Now there's no holding back, I'm aching to attack. My blood is singing with your voice I want to let it out. The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound, I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground. Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins. I want to find you and tear out all of your tenderness. And howl. Be careful of the curse that falls on young lovers, starts so soft and sweet and turns them into hunters.

Hunters. Hunters. Hunters. 

This is thrilling, and also very terrifying.

I think one of the reasons I went to Switzerland in the first place, was to realize that there is a lot more to life than what is drilled into our heads from birth: go to school, go to university, get a job, get married, have lots and lots of babies. As if babies and marriage and a job are what determine our success in life, what determine our merit as individuals. 

We're kept busy. School, homework, part-time jobs, extracurricular activities, family events. And we're kept underpressure. A+'s, GET A JOB, "do you have a boyfriend yet"'s. It's a wonder anybody has any time to think.  Think about whether or not what they are doing, is what they want to be doing, or if it's what everyone else is telling them to do. 

Don't get me wrong, I want to get a job, and get married, and have babies. Since jobs make money you need to live, and I don't want to die alone, and any person living on this earth will do a combination of these things, if not all three for the exact same reasons. But along the way, they'll take the mere action of breathing for granted, robotically moving towards an intangible goal that everyone is telling them to move towards. Some picture society has painted for them to keep them motivated. Some point down the road where everything will make sense, and they'll know exactly why they had to work so hard at everything and someone will tell them "good job, you win at life". And they'll look around, and have everything they ever thought they wanted, but they'll have spent 40 years of their life tediously drudging through a whole lot of uneccesary shit and never experiencing anything. 

Life is short. So live it up, drink it down, laugh it off, avoid the drama, take chances, and never have regrets because at one point everything you've ever done was exactly what you wanted.

I have learned that consequences shouldn't prevent you from anything. There IS no destination, there is movement. There is life, and love, and we shouldn't ask for anything more than that.

Inspiration comes to me easier when I am unhappy. And when I am bored.

I am neither of these things, so maybe I should go in a different direction with todays blog? Except, I am not very funny either. So, I guess I will just leave it at the fact that I am ridiculously happy.

So take me with you when you go, I don't want to stay here alone. Remember when we were golden? Yeah, that was a long time ago. You told me that you felt foolish, you stayed where you didn't belong. Well I don't want to be foolish, square peg in a round hole. Square peg in a round hole. You said that it was still stolen, but it just didn't beat any more. I guess that when it's done falling, it's just lying dead on the floor. Said if you want to be foolish, then you can go do it alone. Square peg in a round hole.

Sometimes the shoe fits, but I don't know if that means I should go shoving my foot into it and run the risk of blisters. I've grown just enough for this to be uncomfortable. Winnipeg is uncomfortable. Winnipeg remembers who I was, and tries to make me forget who I am.

I am not going to let myself be hurt any more.
I am done chasing after people who don't have the maturity to confront me and be honest with themselves and how they feel. Done chasing after people who wouldn't chase after me, people who avoid problems rather than facing and resolving them. People who expect more of me than they are willing to give.

I think I am done here.

You've been acting awful tough lately, smoking a lot of cigarettes lately, but inside you're just a little baby. Its okay to say you got a weak spot you dont always have to be ontop better to be hated than loved loved loved for what you're not. You're vulnerable, you're vulnerable, you are not a robot. You're lovable, so lovable, but you're just trouble.

I think I portray an image of myself that is less than desirable. Are all men slime, or do I only attract them because I appear to have no self-respect? I am a very sexual person, driven by passion and lust and I admit that I tend to end up in beds that aren't my own, beside men that I don't know very well. But I am passionate about my relationships, about being a good person, about self-improvement. Regardless, I am objectified by every man I ever meet, and being the common factor in all of these encounters I can only assume that it's my fault. 

Why don't men want anything more from me? Do I not deserve love?

I have learned my lesson. And I need to be okay.

12.03.2010

All there is is silence. This bed. His bare arms wrapped around me. My face buried in his chest holding back the words I don`t know if I mean yet. If I am even allowed to mean them. He`s drifting off, I can tell because his grip around me loosens, his gentle fingers stop mid-stroke on my ribcage, I feel his warm breath on my hair slow and deepen. I raise my mouth to his one last time before he gives into sleep, which isn`t coming as easy to me. A million thoughts flitter around in my head, fluttering in time with my eyelids that won`t stay shut. My chest feels heavy and tight. I keep clenching and unclenching my jaw, grinding my teeth in time with the pulse of blood pounding in my ears. His heart beats against the side of my head out of rhythm with it.

I think about what has brought me to this moment. If it was meant, what it means now. To me, or to him. But when I begin to think about what has led me to this country, I become more and more aware that it has also led me to become suspicious. Guarded. I am wary of deceit, and all too familiar with the lies told by men to get what they want. And now, in these arms, in this room, in this tiny mountain town, I am wondering if this boy is who he says he is; and if he is so, whether or not I know who that would be, being that our mother tongues lie so discordant with the other. He stirs beside me so that his body is facing mine. His eyes open, shyly, one at a time, and he regards me with his lips curled up towards his ears-which I understand to be a look of fondness. He draws me closer to him, places his mouth to my forehead, and reassumes his place in dream.

I decide that nobody could be that cunning, that committed to subterfuge as to mislead me from the hazy edge of sleep-a decision that surprises me, considering how cynical I have become over the years-and that even if such a thing were possible I would be lucky to never find out. Hopes can only come true when there is someone there to hope them, and they become increasingly hard to hold onto the more they are veiled by disappointment. I resolve to not let myself be disappointed by this boy. 

A wise girl kisses, but never loves, listens, but never believes, and leaves before she can be left.

I'm learning how to be more grounded, how to root myself to the moment. 

Sometimes volcanoes erupt when you least expect them too, and you're left with no direction.

My life up until four days ago has been a series of countdowns. 

[827 days until graduation. 

14 days until I see Calum. 

85 days until I start university. 

35 days until I leave for Vancouver. 

7 days until I leave for Switzerland. 

2 days until Amsterdam. 

2 weeks until mom visits.

2 weeks until mom leaves. 

21 days until my period. 

A month until Budapest.

23 hours until I'm on a plane to Canada.]

Only, I never get on that plane. I never get on that plane and I am lost. 

I am so busy looking ahead of me, that I keep tripping on what's right beneath my feet. Lost in time, and the only thing I can do is live minute by minute. So for the last four days I have been doing just that. 

As liberating as it has been, I am still glad to know when I get to come home. 

Tuesday, April 27th.

On January 1st, 2007 I made a resolution to finish everything I start.

I have a closet full of knitting needles with half knit scarves. Books on bookshelves with bookmarks two thirds of the way in in. Two novels each a sixth written. Four glasses of water of varying volumes and ages on my nightstand. Pieces of music with four movements in which I have only learned one. Five thousand, five hundred, and twenty eight songs out of eight thousand, one hundred, and eighty three, in my iTunes library that I haven't listened to the whole way through.

I can barely finish my sentences.  And when I do, they are mere fragments of sentences.

Three hundred and fifty three days later and it's almost finished. Five days and the hardest year of my life will be over. I can't wrap what I learned this year around my neck, I can't quote page 250 of a Hemingway or Phillip Ball, play the double-tounged thirty second notes in Poulencs Sonata, and I will most likely pour the stale water in those glasses out. 

But this extends far beyond warm necks and literature. Beyond substance, matter, the concrete or visible. Beyond wasted glasses of water, one quarter full. 

I'm leaving with new friendships, new values, ideas, opinions, attitude. I'm leaving with a new perception, a new definition. Strength, spirit, appreciation. Awareness. Experience. Knowledge. Certainty, or a new inspiration to find it. Independence. I found the maturity it takes to be immature. Because adults are sometimes boring four-sided figures who forget how to laugh. I've learned what it takes to raise a family, what it means to be a good friend and how to tell when you've found one. I've learned how to undo belt buckles and jean buttons with one hand without looking, and how to spot a lie from even the most practiced of liars. I've learned how to drink beer without making a face, the consequences of letting a man get the best of you, the ability to say NO when I want to say no, swiss etiquette, and how to make mulled wine. 

I've learned to let loose in a country where seemingly no one knows how to let loose. 

And I've learned about myself in all of that. Accepted who I've been and where it has taken me. And I've realized everything I'm capable of despite the cruelty everyone else is capable of. 

I'm ready. For whatever lies ahead. 

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else,

but in the end the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself.

I am proud of me. And for the first time in my entire life, I don't need anyone else to be. This has been the worst, most amazing, most substantial learning experience I could have ever experienced, and I wouldn't trade it to be anywhere else. I am going to soak up every last minute of my time here, and I am going to take with me the self-certainty I deserve.

The men in my life...

You had nothing to do with it. I am where I am because of the steps I took to get here. Maybe I'll never know who I am, maybe no one CAN ever know that, but of this I am certain: who I am is strong, determined, passionate. It took an entire year of looking, and only one night to make this entire year make sense.

I have no photo for today, or for the weekend.

I am sick, and I am scared, and I am nervous. As little as it helps, I am expecting the worst and I haven`t been this worried in my entire life.

Let`s just try to get through the next 32 days.

Hi. My name is Lisa and I am really good at mathematics.

I wish I still had that bow.

Fiesty