Trust

In my life, I have realized that my biggest issue is trust. I don't trust anyone. Not even myself. 

Surrender

I had to surrender today. I’ve been in Austin almost a year, and I finally got a Texas driver’s license. And they took my New York license. They took the last little bit of my New York life that I held to. It’s looking like I am also going to buy a condo, securing my place in this life, for another few years.

I’ve been back to New York only twice in this last year, but not until today did it all feel real. Really, real. There’s no bitterness or illusion, of what any of this might be. It is what it is. I’ve said that a lot in this last year, as my life has changed shape, color, and size. 

I guess my phone number is still the same. You can still call me. Will you still call me?

A home owner, a business owner, a man with a license, all these things that I do suggest stability. And yet, I feel as though I am floating above it all. 

You can try to escape the story of your life but you can’t. 

It happened.

The career wasn’t a career after all

You had to start it yourself

The heart broke

You had to heal it yourself

You sold the house

A new home had to be built

But it didn’t look like the picture

It never does

You had to love the picture

And the people in it

But the picture broke

The dad went crazy

The broken glass from the frame sent everyone in a different direction

Maybe that was wise?

I hope wise

Mine isn’t the story I would have chosen in the beginning

But I’ll take it

It is my story

It’s only mine

death of cinderella

when you have a secret two things happen:

1. it winds up owning you
2. you end up owning it

basically, you're never in control of it.

and when it's released it can kill you.

my parents almost killed themselves. it's a figure of speech. or is it?

girl, interrupted

at being sixty-five

not such a girl.

death of true love. first love. only love?

pills.

to make you better?

what's better?

happy new year.

resolution?

a good night's sleep.

but i want to wake up in the morning.

i hope you want to wake up in the morning too.

i love you mom

NEGATIVE

We had talked for a year
We had met.
There was a chemistry.
He lived in Houston. I was in Austin.
We decided to spend a weekend together.
To see "what if"...
I don't spend weekends with people.
But "what if"...
How many guys want to go there?
I'd like to go there.
So I went.
And it was a good weekend.
We talked and had sex and got to know each other.
We had decided to make plans to see each other again.
And then he left.
And I got a sore throat.
And I kept getting up in the middle of the night to pee.
And it burned when I did, like a hydro peroxide.
I looked down at my penis the next day.
It was inflamed. Enraged.
A brown discharge came out of my body.
The kind you see when you pick a scab.
But this cut was deeper.
He swore he was free of all diseases.
He just had a cough from teaching kindergarten kids.
Maybe it was a urinary tract infection?
I got tested and treated.
And I was positive. At 34, I had gonorrhea.
What are the chances?
I got tested for HIV and every other sexually transmitted disease.
I stripped naked for the second time.
Because I also have jock itch from running and the weather change.
But I didn't know at the point what anything was anymore.
And this woman examined my entire body as if I had been raped.
She asked if I had ever been raped.
I felt raped.
Raped of an idea, a dream, a promise.
Do you meet guys online, she asked.
Where do you meet guys anymore?
This is what you get what you go to the Centers of Disease Control.
All I want is to be in control again.
And after my blood was taken I passed out on the floor.
This is normal. I expected it. These last three weeks have taken everything out of me. Well, not everything.
I'm stronger then that. Then this. I think? I hope.
I was still conscious, as they fed me a juice box. Hi-C. I felt like a kid again.
But I'm not a kid.
To be a kid again, underneath a fort made of blankets.
They had rapid testing
And I tested negative.
He says he's negative.
What do two negatives make?
I'm so fucking single.
But I'm healthy. And proud to be single, for maybe the first time in my life?

Scared.

I wish I wasn't so scared. Of everything. But mostly I'm afraid of the unknown, which in my opinion is the worst type of fear. How do you overcome something that you haven't even faced yet, really. That doesn't make any sense but that's how I feel. 

I'm finally doing it, putting my house on the market and selling it. My plan? Move back in with my parents for a year (ugh) to save money. While I am there I plan to do some research looking for jobs in any state besides Rhode Island. Hopefully either Florida or California. I need a change and I need a new job. As much as my current job affords me some perks...working for my dad, extra vacation days etc., I am slowly fading away into oblivion with the stress and unhappiness I feel on a day to day basis working here. The dread of going into work begins the day before and I am drowning. 

Hopefully this change works and I find something I like. But I'm again, scared. I don't know what I want to do. Work in a book publishing company? But books are sadly becoming obsolete. Work at Disney or Universal Studios? But in which department? I miss the days of things being decided for me. 

Simple

Here’s what simple and happy looks like. We are shown this when we are kids. Do you see it? Can you feel it? Sit with it? Hold it? Don't let go, because the older you get the harder it is to recognize it. And when it’s gone it’s more complicated because we are adult, if we are lucky. Maybe we are still kids, battered from the reality of what life is, before it’s ever even fair. What is fair? So you pick up the phone, and you talk to someone who can remind you of who you were before everyone who never mattered told you who you should be.

The Worst Of Him

The worst of him will kill you before you get the best of him. I keep telling myself that. I learned that lesson once before. Better to have gotten out now, maybe the universe was secretly doing me a favor. You think you’re filling a glass up with something, and then you pick it up and everything you’ve been pouring into it comes out the bottom. There’s a hole. 

I don’t want to be on your time, Lindsay said.

I don’t either. Put me in another time, I replied.

I’ve always been crazy but it kept me from going insane.

Life is filled with moments where you have to sit alone with yourself.

I miss you already, was the last thing I said to myself. And that was all so unfortunately true. Sometimes people get lost, I get lost, from time to time. Probably more than one should.

 Sometimes people find there way home again.