I am perceived to be cold. An exterior of stone and bricks built up. I move on with life building the wall behind me. I let go and forget. I am bound to nothing. I’m seen as distant and have no feelings toward how my actions may hurt those around me. I am insufferably independent and in need of no one.

But

I perceive myself as fragile. So I build walls that others don’t realize are glass. I beg people to break them so I can free myself of this cage I’ve built. Everything inside those walls, I hold onto. I am drowning in every opinion, ever wrong decision, and every loss I’ve experienced yet don’t want to burden others with it. So I let it consume me. I am bound to everything and share it with no one. I pound my fists on the invisible barrier around me hoping someone can save me from this turmoil. I am in desperate need of someone, anyone, to find me here.

Resting my head on concrete. Cold. Hard. Soothing.

Both uncomfortable and comforting.

Not ready to get up but not sure I should stay.

My body has walked away and my mind has held me down.

Is resting on concrete okay?

Resting my head in my bed. Soft. Familiar. Unwanted.

Both comfortable and not comforting.

Ready to get up and not sure I can leave.

My mind is driving away and my body has no place to go.

Is resting my head in my bed okay?

As I experience a second time in my life the utter solitude into myself, I hope this time it’s full of healing and growth that I don’t know if I ever truly grasped the first time around. I think I experience loss in a grand manner. I forget that time makes it settle more rather than heal as the clock ticks. I’m thankful this time it is not full of darkness rather a maturity of understanding that something’s may not be for you and you may not be for them. There is no accusations and no harboring of ill intent, yet willingness to be, accept the change, and reform myself into a healthier and kinder individual. It was 10 years ago I entered a place of needing to be with only myself for a prolonged period of time and though it has now been over a year, I feel myself settling once again into solitude. Time will bring crashing waves and calm waters interchangeably but I will take both in stride. I must or there will be no reason or rhyme for the pain, the cost, the suffering. Today I will begin again and try to find peace. Peace that only my weary bones and tired mind can resolve. So I walk alone but refuse to find myself lonely. Because I choose me.

Experiencing phantom kisses

Ive created such long term heartache by shutting myself down from possibilities that feel immediate. I have altered my life from fear of everything going wrong and now I will only ever know one outcome. I only learn things the hard way because I refuse to let anything feel easy. I’ve comfortably accustomed myself to life not working out for me that I have inadvertently manifested that reality. No matter how much I crave love and delusion myself into the idea that I am made for it, I finally forfeit myself to the notion that I should ever hold someone’s heart in my hand again. I am not gentle and love requires fragility. I have not healed my wounds enough to drape warmth over another without bleeding all over them. I am avoidant. I am uncomfortable in unknowns. And as I have found myself in another stage of life where I am a table for one, I understand my reality. I accept this. I am not giving up, rather I am actively saving future heartache to others.

Some days you are a thought in the morning, the night, and a few random memories that pop up throughout the day. Other days I have written poems for you, texted you a full paragraph, and then deleted it all knowing if you wanted to reach out, you would. Some days I’m understanding and other days I’m angry. Some days I accept this new reality and other days denial and delusion coats every fiber of my being. I live in the duality that I was the finality of us and owe endless and stringless apologies AND I was greatly hurt by you.

Also I miss my friend.

I would do it all again knowing I could change nothing. && I’d remind myself to be present. To let what is- be.

-Revisiting it all

Bent corners, rips, and stains cover every page we wrote and as I flip through every unwritten chapter, I’m reminded that some stories will never get told.

-Whispers of You

How dismal the truth of Nostalgia can be. To revisit it is more damaging than allowing it to be its own memory. Shrouded in a mist of love and purity, stepping foot through the doors of your childhood is equivalent to unveiling the kitchen to unveiling the back doors to your favorite restaurant. Some things are better kept where they are.

On a good day, I am hopeful for a rekindling flame somewhere down the line. I trick myself into thinking there is a long term goal we are both pursuing and all I have to do is wait it out while working on myself and we will fall back into each other’s lives, better than ever. I shuffle through each flashback with a nostalgic lens and make up excuses for any head tilting memories.

On a neutral day, you are a lesson. Taking each segment of flashbacks as a learning experience of how I could have handled things differently and how I will do better in my future endeavors. I look at any negative memories that affected me as ways to better set my boundaries. I take all the pain at face value and remind myself we are both human, constantly making mistakes. I will continue to make many as well as I can only fault you as much as myself. We hurt each other and now we must move forward and do better with whatever may come our way.

On a bad day, you are the enemy. I spew venom when recalling each time you burned me and convince myself it was all just a manipulative game with the end result being my suffering. I replay each fight in my head and read old conversations with red tinted glasses. I pick at every underlying meaning I could possibly find and analyze it until it’s hard evidence to defend my victim filled rage.

I wish every day was a neutral day. Those days hurt the least.

In a cloud of haze my feet stumble toward a nostalgic reflection.

I wonder if my choices were faulted by my own lack of judgment.

Did I set extraordinary standards that could never be reached and pull you down on the way?

Did I drown you in painful memories that slowly sealed our fate?

I wander through this maze of thought and finally clear the air.

Finally finding printed proof that my sanity is clear.

Nostalgia forgets to fill in the blanks and leave you in confusion.

Because now I remember all the pain you caused in this rosy retrospection.

I’ve stopped checking on you. I don’t check when you’ve posted. I don’t check your page. I don’t allow myself to see anything that you’ve done while also allowing you to live in a space that I occupy. No blocking. No needing to erase you because I don’t want to. You existed in my life. You were a huge part of my life and in a lot of ways you still are. I wake up and wonder how your morning is and when something happens during my day, it passes a filter in my brain saying ‘what would a convo with you sound like if I told you about that specific thing?’. Sometimes it’s even as far as ‘how would my day have looked if things would have ended differently?’. Would I be happier? Would I be sadder? Would we be doing different things then what we are doing now? I wonder how you are dealing with stress in your life if any. I wonder how annoyed you are by the colder months as they come or if you even exist where it snows anymore. You cross my mind when specific interests and things enter my daily life. Slices of you come through during songs, meals, shows, and certain clothes I have bought recently. I replay old memories in my mind and sometimes Snapchat replays them for me as they pop up in my ‘blank years ago’ albums. I smile at certain inside jokes I remember and wince at the harder memories, trying to quickly move on from them. I like to remember the good. It softens it all for me. I know this is a passive way to reach out as well as if you wanted to, you would have reached out to me already. It was left in your hands and now here I am. Like every other ex to you. I understand. In life we make our choices and they come with consequences. And mine happens to be life altering. && I will have to deal with that. I will continue to not check up on you out of trying to live in the reality of my choices. So I will never know if this is seen but in the smallest of small chances it is. I just want you to know.. I think about you. And I hope your doing well. And of course I wish you nothing but the best in your life. Always and forever. I’m sorry I wasn’t in a better place and of course I wish we both would have been healthier in the time we had. But overall I appreciate the good it brought in my life. I’m very thankful for the years I had with you. That’s all.

I like living in a delusional alternate reality where in 5 years time, we run into each other, both living in different places and creating our own security/ stability. We have spent time working on ourselves and decide to make our casual conversation into a casual hang. We never lost our spark and hours pass by and we don’t even notice. We decide to keep in touch and everything stems from there.

Delusional reality is much better than the permanent mess I exist in where I may never see you again.

All it took was reading a few words to change my breathing. It’s like when I take in air, my body wants me to drown in it. So it continues to pull in deeper until I catch myself and let it go. It’s that hitch that wants to drag you inside yourself. Heavy chested and lights headed. How powerful words can be. They not only give thought, but they take up time and space. They paint a picture and then it fills your head with assumed meaning. I can see every event leading up to this. I can hear hours of conversations and subtle messages. I can feel the space between us drift farther than I thought the earth could even allow. It was like the tether snapped. Yet I was living in a delusional limbo, one where my hopes and dreams like to live. But now I have to leave that comfort and my body feels the pain of it. Because with just those words, I now know I’ve lost you.

I find nostalgia in the smallest things like the way my clothes stick to my body when it rains because I remember that one time my mom sent us outside in a summer storm. I do it with people too. The thing about nostalgia though is it requires distance and faded memories. Because if it was clear, I’d remember fighting with my brother 5 minutes after going outside or stubbing my toe on the stone path leading to the screen door on my way in. I tend to just leave those things behind and instead find happiness in the blurred edges of what could have been. It’s no wonder I go back to familiar and continue to try with old relationships. Even knowing I left or moved on because things were not healthy anymore. I tend to purposely forget those things.

That’s nostalgia. Yet, it’s midnight and I am in communication with both of my childhood boyfriends and both make my stomach hurt. Why was I hung up on these boys for so long? Why did nostalgia do me like this?

Honestly.. I’m so thankful ‘he’ hasn’t reached out after I practically threw myself at him last we talked. I want to continue having him on a pedestal. Even though I remember the negatives and I remember the hurt and pain, I like to know I miss him and feel more nostalgia toward him than any other feeling. I want to keep him in that box. Cuz after communicating with my highschool boyfriends, I’m appalled. One can barely hold a conversation and the other can only tell me ways he wants me in bed.

I’d rather be single. I’d rather just keep doing me. Im over it.

So I’m gunna let nostalgia be my drug and just take small hits off of what I miss.

I’ve come to the realization that I don’t think I’ve ever truly been in love.

Now hear me out- I have cared deeply for my boyfriends and felt what I thought was love. I have had fond memories and loved things about them. But the realization that I have never truly loved myself until recently has made me think on those relationships. How could I love someone else when I never knew what love was to begin with?

Looking back, I was a basket case. I craved attention and I needed their validation just to feel deserving and worthy of living. I was fueled by compliments and admiration. If I was not receiving this, I would crumble. I would spiral into anxiety and depression because my source of validation was not being met. I became codependently attached to these boys. I set no boundaries and when I did, I allowed them to be broken. && then I victimized myself. Not to say I was always treated with rainbows and butterfly’s, but we all have a part to play. And I left myself wide open to hurt and abuse just so I could feel good in between. My identity was my relationships and without them, I didn’t know who I was.

This period of growth has shown me that loving myself is so important. I go on walks just to feel the sun on my face and listen to the same album on repeat. I workout now for the Serotonin boost instead of for the wandering eyes of boys. I wake up every morning with intent to do something that will make me happy. I make time for myself, I cook for myself, I say nice things to myself. I live for myself.

&& some days I miss the idea of being in a relationship. But then I think of how freeing it is to be where I am. And maybe someday I’ll be there. Maybe someday I’ll have something to give with clear boundaries and respect for myself. Maybe I’ll be healthy enough to understand what it is to love someone else without giving up who I am. But right now, I am still healing my inner child and growing as a person. And I think I’m okay doing that alone.

So maybe I haven’t fallen in love before. I’ve fallen into infatuation. I have fallen into anxious neediness. I have fallen into codependent habits. && I always was left feeling gross and undeserving.

But this journey of falling in love with me, man, this has been the best decision I’ve made yet. 💖