What I really want

My desire for what I want in life has seemed to overshadow the perception and reality of what I actually had... I wanted a family so badly I was willing to change anything to have it. Willing to give anything to keep it. Willing to be talked down to, willing to be seen as less important, willing to take on all the responsibilities of the family for fear that I would lose what I wanted if I didn't...

I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be what I thought it was more than I was willing to look at what it really was.

But I learned there are some parts of Carly that I cannot change, some aspects of me that I should not give away so freely, and that I am pretty wonderful just as I am. I learned that an unfairly balanced love just won't sustain itself on this roller coaster life.

And walking away was the best thing I could do...  there is always more to the story... and I'm gonna tell it.

Lil C's story:

I once heard an author say that meeting her inner child was like coming face to face with a silent stranger you’ve known forever. It was also that way with me.

I was instructed to go dig up an old picture of myself from before I could remember any pain or heartache. My first memory, at three years old, was exactly that… of pain and heartache. Though my task seemed daunting, I trudged through every old album I could get my hands on, and I searched. I found an old Polaroid of myself, little Carly, standing in the kitchen, toes smashed way down into my mother’s giant high heels, apron tied seven times around my tiny 4 year old waist, hanging nearly to the floor. And the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. This is when I met my Lil C.

As the author described, I felt like I was staring at a stranger. Lil C looked just like my then 4 year old daughter, and I could, of course, see the resemblance to my adult self, but the attachment of emotion was simply missing. Missing; like an enormous black hole in the top of my gut; quite the opposite of indigestion, and somehow quite similarly distressing. But there she stood, smiling. And there I sat, confused.

I have always believed I experienced a normal, healthy, solid, acceptable childhood. This belief guided every critical thought in my head. I’ve walked around feeling so guilty for my own hurt feelings, feeling responsible for my tragically flawed thinking patterns. And as I stared at Lil C’s perfect little face, I began to realize an awful truth; a truth which came crawling from that hole in the top of my gut like a demon with massive eagle-length arms, scraping at every organ along the way. This truth: that I have no memory of being told by my mother that I was ok no matter what, loved no matter what, forgiven no matter what; I was never made to believe that she felt lucky to be my mother, glad at the chance to know me, happy with the person I was. And that was only the tip of the abandonment ice burg. This truth crushed my soul, and I knew, beyond all reasoning I knew, that every child deserves unconditional love and endless teaching; and these are things my childhood did not provide.

These are things that my Lil C cannot live without; the reasons for my hurting and wasting and pain. So the task was set before me at that moment: I must work to develop my own voice of the loving parent to help quiet the storm of my inner Lil C, and shut down the voice of my inner critical parent. I can soothe the wounds left long ago which have governed me for longer than I know, I can find now what I needed then, and help my inner Lil C grow up and mature. Sound amazing? It is. This is my journey…

a new day

my sitting and pining seems to spark mainly a flame in my soul which yearns, with each open breath to speak to you and tell you all that I've discovered in just a few days of looking. Looking where? Into my own thoughts, and beliefs, and motives, and behaviors, to see why my life has fallen short of what I want it to be; why I am so hurt, so scared, so lonely, and so confused. Because I pray and I ask to be shown what I can actually do here, right now, to make any sort of anything better. Don't we all come to that moment at times? That moment when I know I have no idea which way to turn, but I know I gotta turn some way, and it feels like the scene of an old movie as i sit at the fork of a dusty dirt road.

my relationship with God has been my only ever peace and resolution in times of absolute doubt. and yet, over and over again I find that it is so hard to trust God. Perhaps about as hard as trusting anyone here as well. But I fight and I cry and I whine when my life doesn't work out the way I want it to... all the while forgetting that I believe in a world where God always provides. I just forget to ask. often.

but, i believe in this world where happiness is a perception deal, and my faith can change my world because it has been my experience in life. i have seen miraculous things I could seldom admit in front of a croud of people, and it is not my place to debate the origin of such miracles. I know it in my heart.
but what's most amazing is that every single time I can turn my heart and my thoughts and my attention to what I can give and do and be - rather than what I need, or did, or can't have - then I am on my way to freedom.

cause i'm starting to realize that my un-checked selfish desires (ooohhh, banan splits, fancy clothes, and love!) might be the biggest reason why I begin to think that my life has fallen short of what I wanted...
which happens sometimes, you know?

there is no need for me to complain. i have everything i need, and whole ton of stuff I want. i am loved and taken care of in every way by myself and my loved ones. no matter what today brings, i hope i can remember just how very grateful i am for every person, every moment, and for the chance to start over at any time of my day or night, to say a quiet prayer and let my mind change.

When my heart hurts:

I'm mostly beside myself because I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go, and it seems like the choices I make keeping screwing everything up. It's hard to know if I'm trying to force life into what I want it to be because I'm constantly taking charge of situations. And this is ludicrous considering I frequently make mistakes in what I say and what I mean to say. I shouldn't be in charge of my own relationships.

The good news, however, came from my bff's perspective this morning:
I need to focus on the internal stuff I can control and regulate, and start letting something much more powerful than me do the work on all the external situations.

I just don't know why I start to believe that everything is up to me to figure out. I sit here, today, looking at the bag of his things sitting near the door waiting for that god-awful 'exchange' thinking that the truth is that i do not have the answers, and that is perfectly ok. I don't know if I should fight like I want to, or let him go in the hopes that he returns whole-hearted like that old adage says, but I'm listening and learning that maybe, just maybe, if I stop trying to figure out what to do for half a moment, and I start looking into my own heart, and my own behavior, and my own ideals, and my own beliefs, then I might get out of the way long enough for God to place me exactly where I need to be. Maybe what I want doesn't matter. Maybe what I can learn here is most important.

Of course, for me, every vision still includes him in it... and my heart still aches... and I still hope beyond hope that my future follows his... but I'm starting to believe that my only right move, is the one I ask for strength and guidance to be shown.

it is broken

I think a broken heart is the most painful status of being there is. Cause that's the deal... it is a state of being. It happens, like it does, horrifically, suddenly, and then there you are: heartbroken. Sitting, staring, crying, snoting, blaming, whining and begging. Oh god, it is so unpretty.
I love that almost every human on the planet can relate to a broken heart... I love that when I walk in the door with snot on my face and eyes the color of jupiter I can quickly explain away their horror by admitting my status of being: broken hearted. It is almost like declaring oneself a writer or a musician as a way to stave off the would-be hygeine critics and career police. My broken heart is my clearance to look an absolute mess... though, instead, I frequently try to look my best. At least that's the advice my grandma always gave when a boy didn't want to love me anymore... she said there ain't no use in crying, you just go put on your best silk blouse and call it life.
But the truth is, even though I don't like to call my granny a liar, there is nothing I can do to make this pain go away. No silk blouse of any color is gonna fade the feel of his arms on my skin, no one's opinion of what should've or would've is going to rewrite this story. I don't really know what heals the heart which has been broken, but I'm certainly waiting on its magic.

Almost a month

It's been almost a month since I've set my intentions on writing here, in this digital space where maybe 10-50 people will hear my words spoken within the reiteration of their own mind's reading. Subject to interpretation, of course. But one month, almost, it has been, and today I remembered that I want to write here everyday most importantly for the reason that the release keeps me sane. In this last month, as like always, I have tempered my moods, calming and heightening my affect to suit the likes of the people around me. But for some reason, today, I am more resolved in my heart, and quick in my middle-finger muscle memory. I want to write because I want to live, and that desire doesn't always come so easliy or genuinely to a bipolar chic like me. But today?

Today I am sitting in the midst of my own broken heart. A dream I had just yesterday seems suddenly to be unreal. The person for whom my heart yearns decided to walk away, and I am still here. Living today despite the horrible possibility that the only script I'd ever written concerning love, is turning in to a bigger flop than any J Lo theatrical disaster. So I sit, and I cry, and I cry, and I cry, and I tell myself one hundred thousand times to stop thinking whatever it is I happen to be thinking at that moment which is most abundantly along the lines of self-hating, pessimistic, hateful, pitiful, and martyrdom. That's just how I roll.

See, the deal with being bipolar is that most often my thoughts and my emotions are guided by forces and chemicals outside of my control, and often outside of my awareness. I do not know that I am abnormal; frequently the only barometer for my whackyness will be the looks and attitudes of the people around me as I blow through conversations like a hurricane, or melt into emotional mush on their feet. In fact, not until I have begun to silently implode on my bathroom floor in a pool of my own thoughts and fears do I start to catch the idea that I'm suffering from something that I just don't understand.

Maybe this is why my heart is broken.

 

 There is an article published in yesterday's Wall Street Journal titled "The Magnitude of the Mess We're In" that I haven't yet read, but is on the top of my must-read list for the day. Yes, like, today. I find it sometimes quite difficult to fit into the hours given in one day the total number of experiences I'd like to have. There is so much to see and do and feel and taste and hear and learn that the time it would take to do it all pales in comparison.

Like right now I'm totally supposed to be in class. But it's raining. And my favorite person is not otherwise engaged, and I have internet, and coffee, and a new puppy all joyfully existing in my home. And so there it is that I shall remain also, to tell you this story...

About stumps.

 

Two inches below the surface

you don't even break the wake

but meters you have an' aren't showin'

Brrrrbbbrrrrrbrbrr...  ya give me the shakes

 

 

A forrest, he said, up under those ripples

the land, hardly cleared 'fore flood

old hickorys and oaks

they make your motor choke

and send fear through your blood