Why couldn’t I be strong enough? Why couldn’t I do the things I needed to do? Why didn’t I love…Never mind. I was strong enough. I did as much as I could do. And I still feel more than I will ever feel for anyone else, if I live to be a thousand years old.
It would have taken miracles. And there were plenty of those. (That truck didn’t kill me. The strangers were too drunk or drugged up to destroy more of my life than had already been. Not to mention the fact that he exists in the first place — and that I was reminded of that existence, after so many years.) Etc., etc., et — freaking — cetera.
(There are a lot more pages and a lot more notebooks. I will get through them. I will decide what I can live with and what I can live without.)
I follow a lot of people on tumblr. I follow because I find them interesting or I think that they say things or show things that I need to hear/see.
I mostly follow people who have photo/video only tumbr sites. Color catches my eye mostly, but I also follow some that have really amazing black-and-white photos that seem to tell a story.
I love stories. I wish I could tell them like these people do with intense/beautiful/artistic photos, but I’m not that good/lucky with a camera.
I write my stories down and they are mostly true, usually at least semi-autobiographical. I tell stories here that I can’t tell on my site, because I’m either afraid that they say too much or because I’m at least slightly embarrassed by the story. But I tell them because I need to tell them.
Having said that, I don’t hide my tumblr(s) I link them together and link them to my site, in a more or less prominent way. Anyone who visits my site could easily visit here. I do feel that there is enough distance, right now, because tumblr is so new and people are slightly afraid of it. (Like, “Oh, I don’t know. Do I want tumblr to show up in my history?” kind of afraid.)
I like tumblr. It is mostly an extension of my twitter and I love twitter. I may come to love tumblr, in the not too distant future. My life is evolving, right now, and I find myself needing to come here more and more often to express feelings that I can’t anywhere else. (I might come less and less as tumblr becomes more accessible to the mainstream, but that’s still in the future.)
I reblog very rarely. I ask questions very rarely. (I almost never answer questions.) I have seen things on tumblr that worry me, frighten me and make me feel things that I’ve never felt before. There is a type of tumblr that I won’t “follow” or ever reblog because I have a young child in my house and — well, you never know. Those tumblrs I bookmark.
(Having said that, I do follow many tumblr accounts of very damaged young women and men and I’m not afraid for the child to see those. When she glimpses them I talk to her about it — she is nine — and I explain that sometimes people hurt so much that they need more help than is available to them and they try to reach out in any way that they can. God forbid their problems ever become her problems but I think what they teach me will help me understand if it ever comes to that. I hope.)
This is me, on tumblr.
[video]
Eleven years ago I had lots of plans. I was going to be with the man of my dreams. Then someone turned the world upside down on me. I was too weak. I was too broken. I did things I should never have done. I should have waited. If I had I wouldn’t be this miserable, now.
I was going to write. I was going to write novels and poetry and songs. I was going to live the life I should have been living for at least ten years. Suddenly everything was harder than it had ever been, and nothing has ever been easy for me.
It was the loneliness, I think. I had been alone all my life, but I had never felt lonely until I was in love and realized I couldn’t be with him. I was suddenly so very lonely. For a long while I couldn’t function and by the time I could I was so convinced that I was losing my mind that I grabbed on to what seemed to be normal, the way I thought everyone lived, even though it wasn’t the way I was meant to live.
I had plans for this year. I had thought there was another chance. I did things to get back to where I was before. I thought I had a little time. I was wrong. I’m still going to do the things I had planned, but I don’t expect anything to come of them. I’m so lonely. My life is in pieces. My dreams are shattered and he’s with someone else. I need things to change, completely, or stop. I really don’t care which.
Be what you are.
You have to feel what you feel.
The whole thing about “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet” is just a perspective thing.
It doesn’t mean you can’t be sad because your life is in whatever state it is in. Maybe you shouldn’t be AS sad as someone who is WAY worse off than you, I mean there are degrees, but you are allowed to feel what you feel.
You are allowed to cry because someone you love(d) hurt you — even if they did it unintentionally or from a distance. You are allowed. You are human. We react. It’s normal.
If you are sad, cry. If you are happy, laugh. If you are hurt, scream. Screw anybody who tells you to shut up and take it, to grow up and stop feeling — whatever. They aren’t in your shoes. When they cast your shadow, then let them tell you what to do and how to feel — until then, FUCK them.
That being said: feel what you feel, do what you need to, get it all out and then … move on. Go on to the next feeling, whatever it may be. Don’t live inside a tiger cage. Keep moving, but go in your own direction.
Things didn’t have to be about: ME!
People will tell you you’re selfish. Guess what? Everybody is.
The only reason we get up in the mornings and feed ourselves and wash and get dressed and do — absolutely anything at all — is for OURSELVES.
We want it to be for YOU. We want to love YOU more than we want to take our next breath, but we don’t, we can’t. In that direction lies insanity — and, Hell — love is insane, enough.
So, we breathe and eat and sleep and do and BE, only FOR OURSELVES. We even love YOU for OURSELVES. We love YOU because it feels wonderful — or because it feels horrible — sometimes both. (Actually USUALLY both.)
The selfishness that other people (and we, ourselves) see in us is nothing other than a queasy feeling in the pit of the stomach that comes when you imagine something is wrong. It isn’t wrong. It’s nature. Not even HUMAN nature — okay, not JUST human nature. It’s a self preservation thing. We think and do and be and all that other stuff because we must be alone into ourselves. We must be individual. (No man — in humanity — is an island unto himself? What? Bullshit! That’s exactly what we are. Billions of little islands. All alone in our part of the gigantic ocean that is existence.)
I’ve been posting things to peoples “Ask” sections, today, just because I feel like I have to say something. I feel so inadequate and sort of weird. I mean this is “social” media, but I’ve never been “social”. I wish I could be the sisters or aunts or best friends to some of these people. I’m not. I’m just someone who “follows” them and sees something incredible there. I’d miss it if it was gone and so…
I have to say something.
It’s not okay to be unhappy?
I can be perfectly fine and be unhappy. I mean, being JUST unhappy doesn’t make me horribly sick or anything.
Depression is not being unhappy. It’s something different, it’s a chemical thing, a brain thing. I don’t want to be depressed. I don’t want anyone to be depressed.
But unhappy? If, every so often, you/I just need to sit and cry for a while, or be all sigh-y and sullen, that should be just fine.
Who says it isn’t?
I’ll tell you who. All those Smiley Church Ladies who tell you “God made you and you should smile ALL THE FREAKING TIME OR YOU”RE GOING TO HELL!” Them and the people they socialize with and the offspring they create think it’s the worst thing in the world to see somebody cry.
Well, guess what? It isn’t. Sometimes it is the absolute best thing in the world. So, guess what? I’m gonna cry and you should to.