Skinny Girl

Skinny Girl will freeze in the freezer; just to make you aware of that fact.

This is the end of two full days of carrying a heavy burden of loss and trying to handle things differently. I am tired but unable to sleep so I am on my computer drinking a bottle of skinny girl margarita...the things you get to do when you live alone.

It's not really doing much and I've found I probably have the tolerance I had when I first got out of the military and could do 5 drinks + shots and still function and wake up normal the next morning. Thankfully I do not have that kind of alcohol in my apartment tonight...I may be tempted to drink it.

I have my window open and I'm listening to the late night street racing going on in the neighborhood. I'm 'watching' an episode of Supernatural on netflix. I've gotten a decent amount of schoolwork done and have a schedule, tentatively, for the weekend.

But now I cannot find things to pass the time anymore. The things I could be doing, would be more beneficial to do, are too far away-both physically and psychologically-to grasp. So I drink.

I wish I could drink to sleep, drink to forget, drink make everything better. But that only works when I'm in groups. When I'm alone the alcohol goes down more like it's tea. What's the point in that?

I realize how much of my father I do have in me, especially at times like this. I can imagine him sitting in his apartment right before he died on May 26th listening to similar sounds. It's like I'm in the room with him as he wrote his final letter and stepped out to the neighboring apartment to give it to his neighbor. My hand is his hand as he rigs the lock to not open. But I careen back into my own apartment before he takes his life.

I would rather remind people of my father than have people I am a dead ringer for my mother. I see my mother as weak, insufficient, and neglectful. Every time I have a family member make the 'you look like your mom' comment on FB pictures I cringe inside.

It's easier to identify with the man I never knew than the mom who didn't take care of me. I wonder if she broke that year and the brokenness kept her from being what I needed. I wonder if she was already broken and his suicide was just the nails on the fragile coffin.

It's hard to believe that he didn't know what he was doing right over my mother's birthday. Suicide rates are higher after holidays because so many people wait...did part of him narcistically make her remember his death as 'her fault' every year for the rest of her life?

I am so mad, and I wish I were able to bury my head in the sand this weekend. I wish life were easy and I had it all figured out. I wish I didn't see myself creating a noose from a jump rope and knowing the aftereffects of that cording on my dads neck.

I wish I had something stronger than skinny girl margarita

o.v.e.r.w.h.e.l.m.e.d.

I'm not going through a blind seated panic right now; my interactions with others have kept those waves at bay.

But they cannot be my beacons and they cannot make this okay.

I'm sitting on my couch, my boat during this hurricane, as the gail force grief battles to overtake me. I cannot see through the ever-falling sheets of sorrow and I may have just sprung a leak.

The storm is flooding in through cracks and I'm like the captain of a sinking boat; I'm resigned to go down with this ship

May 26th-29th, 2013

Another year has passed without you in my life. However, I have found, I still carry you tandem at my side.

You're not there to push me towards my goals; your presence gives me guilt I have not succeeded.

I have so severely hurt, been broken and lost, unable to crawl into your arms for love and guidance.

The thing about riding tandem is the fact I can break free. But, you carry the parechute, and I don't know how to fly. to flee.

In One Week

It's amazing to think I am finally returning to work after, almost, 4.5 months ago.

Over the last week I have continuously had my attention taken up by one experience to keep me from focusing too much on the next thing. This has definitely served its purpose.

The last of those events occured last night; I discharged from IOP. There are so many overwhelming things occuring in the next couple weeks.

You are not who you once were

Ever have something happen that hurts you so bad, and has been so influential to your life since, that you don't realize what is actually wrong with the picture?

Your flight/fight system reacts and you run, your shame kicks in because you should've said something, and should've been accountable and taken the consequences. For years this haunts you, it wedges its way into how you see yourself, and you don't even realize it.

Until something happens to pull the plank out.

All I wanted to do was shut down and be done. I had gotten all I could from the experience. I didn't want to share or be given advice anymore. I couldn't share and I felt guilty for who I was. I was convinced, if I just carried the lie a little longer, I would be free and everything would be ok again.

Except, if I didn't accept that this was occurring, realize how it was bringing up my past, and change my part in the outcome, the wound would fester with the added contaminant. I would have given myself another experience to add to the belief that I am worthless and a liar and unlovable.

So, this time, I stood up.

In My Chest

My heart is constricted in my chest. I'm having a moment of anxiety in which my life does not feel like my own. Life doesn't seem possible and it hurts to breathe. Motion is too scary so I sit on my couch with my legs crossed indian style, like I'm a child and the demons will get me if I put a toe on the carpet.

My fingers on the keyboard are what keep me connected to life around me. They sit on the keys because, if I lift them, I will be left alone.

My eyes burn with the tears I have not cried.

I'm not sure what to do.

At this time in my life

I've been silent for quite some time. I've read old posts and realize how my thoughts find their way to the virtual page. Most times it happens more eloquently than when I write in the pages of my journal.

My life for the last four months have been treatment and school. I haven't been to work since January 21st and, when I return, I will have been off the radar for four months. By the time I return to work I will be less than three months away from finishing the classes for my Bachelor's degree and 7 months away from finishing my internship.

The last four months I have been changing and am radically different than who I was in January. I don't know who I am, for identity is far too abstract, but I know who I am not and what I deserve.

I am not empty and I am not nothing. For so long I had seen myself as living on the peripheral of other people's life and failing their expectations but I have found myself and am able to say I have succeeded and I am successful.

My body is mine, I claim it back from those that have staked claim, or who I have surrendered it to. Those who have hurt me, betrayed me, had no right to take this away from me. I deserve to be appreciated and loved, not objectified and neglected.

I am gay. And I am able to say I have avoided intimate relationships and shut down in them, up to this point, because being so transparant with another human being has not been safe in the past, and I have not opened myself to the possibility and vulnerability to be loved. yet. I deserve to be loved and cherished.

I want to be a mom. Not to 'show up' my own mom who has never been what I need, or deserve. Not to fill the void family has not filled in my life. But to see this beautiful child grow into their own person and be a part of their growth. I want to be able to give my body over to my child as it forms inside my body, feel comfortable (at least to the point that is possible in a pregnancy), and see the process of my own body changing as beautiful.

I am not the person my family has said I am and I will never be that person. I have realized how grateful I am for this. I am forming a loving family from those around me but they will never replace those who are 'supposed' to be there. This is no fault of my own and I've accepted they will never be what I need and deserve. In the process of grieving this I have made the first real steps forward, greeted who I am meant to be, grabbed her beautiful hand, and began the journey down my own path in life. Working on becoming whole.