Pathetic

Life gets better and better. Over the long haul. I mean the looooooooong haul. But in between it sucks. It sucks between the neurons. It sucks like gunk between your toes. It's uphill. You're blind AND deaf. At best you see those 3 feet in front of you like you are walking through life with a flashlight.
Hey it's better than total darkness, right? But it's still just a flashlight. You will not be able to fight off a jaguar in the rainforest with a flashlight.
Not that you have the first idea of how to fight off a jaguar.
Not like you're even in the rainforest. But it sure as hell feels like it.

How do you start a relationship this way?

Openness and trust takes on a life-or-death kind of feeling. Or perhaps I'm simply neurotic as fuck.

Perhaps it's the new birth control.

My daughter said, in response to me dating someone new and thereby reinforcing my no longer being with her father, "You had your chance at love."

She simply picked up on me and this guy's togetherness on a field trip (so did her teacher) and confronted me. She's mad. She's sad.
It makes me wonder.
I can at least console her by saying, "I will not be getting married ever." And then I hear myself say to her, "and I already told him that."
What kind of fucking conversation is this to be having with your ten year old?
And did I tell him that?
And who is him?
Him that is running ramshod through my life. Who is he? What's he mean to me? Why does he so suddenly mean so much?

I had to tell the ex-dh of course. Cause the ten year old can't tell him. And she will. And that's cool. Telling him is infuriating of course. And then there's a call from the principal's office. Molly's melting down.

This thing that's happening; it is page one of a thousand page book but okay, let's spill the beans. Let's face the music. In the words of Good Morning America's Advice Guru, "Let's make room for love."

Tonight and last night and even today, I felt sick of not knowing.
I felt sick of people hurting.
I realized how really bad I am at playing games.
Especially the dirty ones my mind is fooling with.

I want to know. I want to be sure. I want Certainty to be my middle name.
Is it so far from Audacity?

I want to smoke in bed.
I want to trade myself in for a new me.

I wonder why I'm in my pajamas drinking wine out of a plastic cup.

I want to reach you. I want to invest. I want you to rush in. I want you to convince me. I want you to commit while I squirm away.

I want you to see my worth. I want you to ravage me.

It's all about me pretty much.

I want to give up when it gets hard. I want to pull off the scab and make you eat it. I feel like quitting already. What was I thinking??????????????

Sylvia Plath never used fourteen exclamation points in a row.

I feel like I'm risking so much. Are there returns? For real? Are there? I'm not seeing it. But I smell self-sabotage. It smells like burnt hair in here. Why can't I enjoy myself? Cause really, what about this ISN'T ENJOYABLE?

Fear. Complications. Revelations. Insecurity. Embarrassing reveals. Sudden intimacy. Stumbles, Escalation, Love, Rush, Wait, Wonder.

It sucks being alone but it's easier. You know you get used to lethargy. That's the definition of it. You think, life will just be like this now.

But I DID NOT want that life. Page one is a good place to start. In fact, we may have gotten to page two tonight.

"Oh dear, out here.
Everybody stumbles on fear.
Who cares if we're scared?
Everyone is on there own."
Brandi Carlile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SDpZrLciCE&feature=autofb

Family of Man

We are a family of man. A tumble-torn, bruised and damaged lot. Our original sin is held in the heart, in its fragility, its ability to break, its inability to heal. We are handicapped by this organ that just wants to love.
We walk grey streets of remorse and denial, our motley pasts zipped into our packs. We walk alone although we are surrounded by people, our family. A family of brittle hearts. We struggle to communicate our love and longing and loneliness but share easily our pain and anger and frustration. Frustration at our inability to shape our lives into what we want them to be. Frustration that things don't work out the way we want them to. Frustration that people aren't what we need them to be. Frustration that the road is steep and long.
There's so much we have to work for. To fight for. To struggle for.
To gamble for.
We must extend ourselves, risk our joy, play our shitty hand, toss in our glass hearts, our flimsy souls.
I keep looking for a guarantee of happiness like it's a star in the damn sky somewhere.
I keep thinking that pain will recede yet it returns like a tide.
I keep hoping that I will overcome my faults and insecurities. I will stop stepping in the same potholes, the ones I swore I patched up.
But there are so many cracks in the infrastructure.

Consequently, I lean heavy on the power of prayer.
I pray for eyes open and raw and seeing. I pray that the blinders of my upbringing, my race, my sex, my expectations fall away even if it makes it a Visine kind of day. Because I so much want to see YOU. To see your experience, your heart, your raw and open eyes looking in mine.
I pray for ease. I pray that I don't make things harder than they have to be. I pray that the incline abates. That I get out of God's way. That my pain-popping ego stays in its place and stops dancing all over my primal wounds. That I don't become hard-edged and pessimistic. That I don't court rain when I need a clear blue sky. That I have faith in the universe's merciful leaning toward equilibrium.
I pray for quick lessons. As much as I want this journey to be grief-free, it seems impossible. There are dues to be paid. You must ante in to play. But when the darkness does come, I pray I learn what I need to learn quickly. And I wish the same for you.
You know what they recommend when you're going through hell.
Keep going. It's the only way out.
Be brave. Have courage. Face your fears. Bet your heart. And keep going.