I could do worse than become my own grandma, or anyone of the strong women who raised us. Our strengths emerged from theirs; we build on their heritage and transform their resilience and competence into our own.
I am not collarbones or drunken letters never sent. I am not the way I leave or left or didnāt know how to handle anything, at any time, and I am not your fault.
I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song youāve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me aside, and you who send me letters and emails and beautiful gifts wouldnāt even recognise me if you saw me walking down the street where I live tomorrow for I am not a poem. I am tired and worn out and the eyes you would see would not be painted or inspired but empty and weary from drinking too much at all times and I am not the life of your party who sings and has glorious words to speak for I donāt speak much at all and my voice is raspy and unsteady from unhealthy living and not much sleep and I only use it when I sing and I always sing too much or not at all and never when people are around because they expect poems and symphonies and I am not a poem but an elegy at my best but unedited and uncut and not a lot of people want to work with me because thereās only so much you can do with an audio take, with the plug-ins and EQs and I was born distorted, disordered, and Iām pretty fine with that, but others are not.
I am a free soul, singing my heart out by myself no matter where I go and I call strangers my friends because I learn things and find ways to fit them into my own world. I hear what people say, rearrange it, take away and tear apart until it finds value in my reality and there I make it work. I find spaces in between the cracks and cuts where it feels empty and there I make it work.
I was happy, but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. Much easier to let it blow all over you. This is where I disagree with the philosophers. They talk about passionate things but there is no passion in them. Never talk happiness with a philosopher.
I can do thisā¦ I can start over. I can save my own life and Iām never going to be alone as long as I have stars to wish on and people to still love.
Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back. Iām going to help you forgive the things that you wonāt let yourself forget.
For so many years, I couldnāt understand why every time I thought that someone finally loved me, likeā¦ for real, they would eventually turn to vapor. Every person whom Iāve ever loved is trapped inside of my chest. Iāve breathed all of them in so deeply that Iāve nearly choked and died on every soul that Iāve ever given myself to.
I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself ā my past and the kaleidoscope of mistakes, failures and wrong turns that have stacked unbearable regret upon my shoulders.
Does our purpose on Earth directly link to the people whom we end up meeting? Are our relationships and experiences actually the required dots that connect and then lead us to our ultimate destinies?
I fantasize the night sky to be like a cosmic blue print of my life as I close my eyes and unbutton my heartā¦. just in case anyone up there is listening.
Something, somewhere, knows whatās best for me and promises to keep sending me people and experiences to light my way as long as I live in gratitude and keep paying attention to the signs.
Iāve grown up defined by this desperate, undeniable, ācanāt breatheā kind of space inside of myself and Iām afraid that the diagnosis is fatal.
Iāve always seen this in you, ever since you were a little girl ā this hunger to love other people into their highest selves and itās what has made me irreversibly and just so forever in love with you.
Pleaseā¦ Whoever you are, whatever you areā¦ I believe in you even though I donāt completely understand you. I feel you around me even though I canāt exactly describe what Iām feeling. Sometimes things happen to me and I know that youāre there and Iām humbled by the lack of coincidence that exists in the world. Whatever you want from me, itās yours ā just please help me. You know how I get when I lose control, and I find myself constantly being pulled back there these days.
I feel a resurgence of my 6-year-old selfā¦ that little warrior, goddess of a girl reminding me of who I was when I was little, before the world got its hands on me.