Fiction is the Only Way You're Dealing

There was a diaper sitting on the top of my over-the-toilet shelf.  I saw it every single time I walked into the bathroom.  I finally threw it away, because he'll never be back here to wear it again.

There is a transformer in the glove box of my car that I discovered when I was changing out my insurance card.  I shut it quickly and will forget about it for the next six months, because he'll never ride in my car and play with it again.

While folding my socks yesterday afternoon, I came across a tiny sock.  Not mine, not Aiden's.  Out of frustration I threw it behind the couch, where it is still laying.  It has no mate, not where I live.  I will probably pick it up and throw it away the next time I vacuum.

Little pieces of them are still clinging to the little pieces left of me.  I find them in random places, cozy corners, in the songs I hear on the radio or the photos that I unexpectedly come across in my phone or iPod.  I hear about movies, and they come to mind.

Not just one, not just the other, but ALL of them. 

My heart doesn't just have one hole in it, but three.

I read and I write, and I sit alone in my room some nights and cry.  I disappear, and it still doesn't feel like enough.

I am okay, until suddenly I am not.

I am chasing down all that is good in my life.  I am surrounding myself with people who not only love me back, but don't invalidate the way I feel at any given moment.  That give as much as they get, if not more.  I have endless amounts of cuddles and forehead kisses, and people willing to sit with me so I don't have to do it alone.  

I know I'm not the broken one.  I know that I did everything I could and everything within my power to make this man love me, and it still wasn't enough.  But even though I'm not broken, and even though I'm able to force myself into moving on, into looking back fondly, because so much of it was good, and so little of it was bad; I am still the one with three gaping holes in my heart. 

It's always been so much easier for him to let go of me.

29 minus 8

I love to read.

There isn't a point in my life where I remember not loving to read.

I was the girl who carried around a book that wasn't assigned for class, and would bury my nose in it every free chance I had.  Before classes started, after getting a homework assignment done, after finishing a test.  I would bring a book to work with me and sit in the breakroom for 15 minutes smoking cigarettes and losing myself in a whole other world.

I've tried my hand at writing.  I've written poetry and random prose.  I've written really terrible fan-fiction.  I've tried to write a memoir, and a children's book.  None of these have ever really panned out.  I would like to write a combination of all of these and put them into a book, and a title it Love, Blue.  I would fill up notebooks with my purple colored ink.  I still have most of them locked in shoe boxes in my closet.

I am good with the real stuff.  I am really good at writing about what I've experienced, what I've felt, what I am able to touch and smell and feel and be.  It's the fiction I struggle with.  However, this is what I enjoy reading the most.  The stories that are not mine.

Favorite book: I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb.
Favorite Poet: Saul Williams

I collect books like some women collect shoes.  I firmly believe that you can never have too many bookshelves.

I'm marking it down to learning, cause I can.

Tonight is the eve of my 28th birthday.  In all honesty, just another day, but I'm going to be honest in saying that I am looking forward to thirty.  In the 8 years that have passed since I turned 20, I have learned endlessly about myself and my friends.  I have had huge ups and downs, and these last 8 years have been the most intense of my life.  I cannot wait for more!

Over the last year, I have been to weddings of close high school friends, fallen in love for the first time in over seven years, and lost close to 40 pounds.  I have opened myself up to people, allowed myself to be cared for, and tried as hard as I could to hold onto something that wasn't as good for me as I wanted it to be.

In the last year, Aiden's father had come into his life, and left it just as quickly.

I have learned that my timeline doesn't necessarily meet everyone else's timeline.  My feelings are mine and mine alone, and though other people can empathize with them, they will never know exactly how they feel going through my head, and flowing in my blood.

I have learned that a breakup is only as bad as you allow it to be, and a threat to your child is so much worse.  Nothing in this world will ever snap me out of anything as quickly as the well-being of my son being in question.  I have given up endless hours of sleep, endless hours of worry, phone calls, meetings with therapists, and my own emotional well-being in order to deal with some of the threats to my son's health and wellness.

I took four drags off of a cigarette for the first time in over a year and a half.  And I don't regret it.  It just cemented for me why I quit in the first place.  I spent the rest of that evening (although extremely intoxicated) smelling and tasting of smoke.  It's not something I ever want to do again.

Over this next year, I would like to lose another 40 pounds, get into even better shape, and perhaps take up a sport.  I love to swim, so perhaps that's something to work toward this summer.  I would like to continue in my healthy lifestyle and expanding my cooking into things that Aiden will eat and learn to love.  One of my biggest goals is to start a food journal and hold myself accountable for what I'm putting into my body.

I want to fall in love, again.  Headfirst and without thinking.  Even if it ends up getting me hurt, because in the end it is always a wonderful learning experience, and I always walk away knowing more about myself.  I want to find a partner.  Even if it's someone I'm not romantically involved with, even if it's a man or a woman, or someone who will drop nearly everything and come running when I need it.  I have terrific friends, but all of them have someone other than me to go to.

I want to dance like no one is watching, and love with every fiber of my being.

Here's to the best year yet!

I wish nothing but the best for you : Day Twenty-nine

Day 29 – Your aspirations

When I had Aiden I gave up a lot of my dreams.  Where there used to be worldly goals and aspirations, there remained only the will to survive long enough to make a difference in this little person's life.  It has taken over 8 years to get to the place we are now.  Sitting comfortably, a full fridge, money to do fun things, reasonable happiness.

But then I take a step back, and I say "what about me?"  Which, yes, sounds very selfish, but for anyone who has ever had a child, or a pet, or just a tendency to put everyone else above themselves, it is necessary.  This of course is splattered with thoughts like "why not me" or "why me" or "when is it my turn" in which I compare myself to other people, namely my friends, sometimes strangers and for some reason I always come up short.  I want to try to stop this line of thinking, because I am worth everything I can dream for myself and my family.

So, what about me?  For close to ten years now, I have wanted to get in shape.  I have gradually put on a few pounds, sometimes more, each year.  I have led a very sedentary lifestyle, spending most of my nights too exhausted to do much of anything but eat crappy, easy food, and then to sleep.  Almost two years ago, I put a stop to that.  I started getting active, using my resources, and getting myself into shape.  I still have a LONG way to go in that quest, but I am more comfortable with my body now than I ever have been, and that's saying a lot.

I want to finish school.  In what field, it doesn't really matter to me.  Ideally, I would like to get a lactation consultant license, and be able to help new (and soon to be) mom's in doing everything they can to breast feed their babies.  This is something I am truly passionate about, but no one has ever really been able to tell me how I would go about something like that.  There is no degree for it, and I know most people who choose that path begin in nursing, which I have no desire to do.  Also, nursing is not a requirement.  So I guess I need to figure out where to go from where I am at now.

I want to write a book.  Probably a children's book, for children born with clubfoot.  It would be a book for children and parents alike, letting them know that they are not alone, that this is not a defect that should ever be allowed to slow a child down, and to let the child know that they are NO different from their peers.  In my experience, children roll with the punches.  It's the adults that need the lesson.  I have had this idea, and the start of the story in my head for years, but I have never really sat down to actualize it.

And finally, I would like to find love.  That all consuming, compromising, and beautiful love.  I have waited this long, that I am not going to settle for just any Joe-Schmo who walks into my life.  Quality over anything.  Must be kind, gentle, and tolerant.  I have no fantasies of marriage and a white dress, but someone who will love me forever will be enough.

Put my arms in fragile hands : Day Fifteen

I wrote this the last time I did the 30 days, and it still rings true. I thought I'd post it here so that other people can read it, even if it is recycled.

Day 15 – Your dreams

Six years ago I had an intensely vivid dream of a river with a wide fork in it. I was walking with two men, one of which was there for me, the other who I tried so desperately to cling to, but offered no reassurance. As we walked along this river, it got deeper and darker and right before I woke up, I went under. This dream (and I don't usually remember my dreams) came at a point in my life where I was trying to make some big decisions in the direction of my life. It helped me to realize that no matter the choice or my reasons behind it, it was mine alone to make. So I did, and I've never looked back.

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When I was seven I wanted to be an archeologist or a paleontologist. I wanted to dig up dinosaur bones and study ancient cultures.

When I was fifteen I wanted to be a writer. Prose, or poetry. I wanted to publish a poetry book that was titled "love, blue" and was about me and the people I have loved through my life. I wanted to write music like Michelle Branch and play a guitar.

When I was eighteen I was going to be a teacher. One semester of college and I decided I really didn't like children all that much.

At nineteen I wanted to be a graphic designer. My dream? To create the billboards that decorate Times Square in New York City. Ii wanted to make commercials, or title sequences for television shows or movies.

At twenty I was a mother, and I no longer had any dreams.

My dream was to be able to make it through the month without a bill collector phone call, or my cable tv being shut off from lack of payment. It was to be able to have enough money to put gas in my car and food on my table.

I once had a boyfriend ask me what I wanted most out of a significant other, and I told him that more than anything, I wanted someone who would stay.

Over the years, things have gotten easier. Aiden is growing up into a fine young man. I managed to quit smoking, get a new job that I actually enjoy that pays decently. For the most part we're able to keep our heads above water from one week to the next. I have been able to find time to better myself. I have started actually cooking meals instead of relying on boxes or fast food places.

My dreams currently? I would like to finish school. In what, I don't know, but at this point I would settle for anything. I know that this is at least another five or six years off. I would like to pay down the student loan debt I've accumulated already without adding any more onto it. I would like to take a class or two a semester, online if possible.

I would like to be a more present mother. I'm here, but at the same time I'm trying to cook dinner and do laundry and keep the apartment in running order all while working full time, trying to exercise, and trying to play and learn with Aiden. It's exhausting and on the days I have off, I find myself catching up on lost sleep and falling further behind in the process.

I would like to be able to enjoy my time alone as not a punishment, but as therapeutic. I raised Aiden for over six years pretty much by myself, and it's hard to accept his father into his life every other weekend. I get severely depressed, and lock myself in my room for 48 hours because I have no one to care for or entertain. I want to be able to go on dates with myself, get to know my friends all over again, and just find time for ME. Because there is still a me without Aiden.

I want to run a 5k. This is silly and will probably never happen, and if I ever did, it would probably be so slow that I wouldn't finish by the time the race was over, but it's something I WANT to do. Maybe next year sometime.

And more than anything I want to find someone who I can share my life with. Platonic or romantic, it doesn't matter to me. I want to find someone that I can be their number one person. (and I know I'm Aiden's number one person, and he's my number one person, and nothing will ever change that,) I want to mean something more than passing entertainment to someone between significant others. I want to be someone other than the other woman, or the person who is there when no one else is. I want to feel needed and wanted. After seven years I am DESPERATE to open my heart to someone, but this time the RIGHT someone.

Oh, and I'd like to have one uninterrupted night with Taylor Hanson, and Johnny Depp. Together, or separate... I'm not that picky.