Fields

"That field is already harvested. How did I not notice that? Or did they just do it?"
I felt the familiar distraught panic I developed every fall with the ending of September.
Mourning summer like an old friend.
It was as though over night the lush green corn fields turned to dry yellows,  sporadic like a tie dye shirt,  overtaking it like a disease.
You wake up one morning and have to go back into the house for a jacket and cringe as yet another girl gives an ode to fall by expressing her love of scarves,  crisp air,  and pumpkin spice lattes.
Sometimes I think people don't even know what existing really is but they say they're doing it.
I know I do.
Where does time go?
I'm transported to the image of me coming up over the few hills to my house,  the light soft and the sun going down.
It's so lonely but God,  it's so beautiful.
My horse is munching the last grasses of the summer in his pasture,  tail swinging half heartedly back and forth.
I don't know where my dad buried him,  it's been that long since I've been home.
The chickens are picking at the ground,  searching for goodies in the grass,  scratching at the ground when they find something, talking back and forth to one another in their own way.
My cat is walking down the driveway and slowly dips to the ground to roll on her back.
My dog sniffing around for something only he knows what.
The calves are no longer babies and are beginning to eat hay and corn.
Their cries go on for days when we wean then from their mothers.
It occurred to me that they're like people to the extent that things seem so bad at first . We cry,  get angry,  kick up a storm,  and days later we are back to being okay,  back to the places and things that make us feel comfortable.
Not right away,  but someday.
I miss the farm.
I know I can't go back but there are moments I'm transported by nostalgia to when life was a little bit slower.
Authentic living is how I reflect on it now.
The place I first learned lessons in a simplified and yet complex manner.
I learned about anger when a coyote would eat my favorite chicken.
Justice when I protected one of the ostracized animals and made them safe spaces in their pens.
Joy when a new life came into the world,  from the time their beaks poked through the shell to thriving and reaching adulthood,
Or rubbing my eyes and looking out the window and seeing a fresh,  shiny black calf sticking close to its mother on wobbly legs
Triumph when I stayed on my horse the next time he tried to buck me off.
Sorrow as I held many of my beloved pets as they died.
Loyalty as I cared for the sick and injured.
Duty and respect when caring for an animal until it reached the age where it would be used for food.
Gratitude when eating one.
The lessons were so simple but so profound.
I didn't live at home for the first summer in my life and I felt like time just flew.
I didn't feel fully adequate in fulfilling my newly established adult role in the world.
They say it's the best time,  your 20's, because you're the best physically you ever will be, you're not married and you don't have kids to hold you down.
Somehow it felt a lot like simply existing
Holding a place in time.
There was no richness to make it vibrant.
After recovery and graduation from my undergrad I felt some estrangement from the person I was.
A muted need to become intimately acquainted with myself and the person I am instead of rejecting it for once.
Suddenly I woke up and realized that I would have a professional career and can't waste time with people who care little for me and I them.
I want to call it an apathetic frenzy because that's what it is.
Nothing bad,  nothing good, everything normal.
It's something, I just don't know what yet.
All I know is that I don't want to wake up one day and realize I yellowed and withered like the fields.

....

"Have you ever read the Big Book? 

"Oh, a few pages for class." 

"I want you to read this paragraph." 

He handed me the Alcoholics Anonymous book with an Ace of clubs tucked inside as a bookmark. 

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation-some fact of my life-unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes." 

So often the veterans at the transitional house bring solace to my aching mind these days. 

Growing pains I suppose you could call them. 

"What's the right answer?" I beg of them, eyes soft but piercing. 

I've sat in a chair on the porch of the transitional house nearly every evening shift this summer, legs pulled up, gazing across the street at the greens of the trees, vibrant pinks and purples of the flowers, peeling yellow house on the far right, and the smell of clean air and rain. 

"What's the secret to life?" I've asked a few of them. 

Some tell me I have to find out for myself because everyone's definition of happy is different. 

One told me that I need to make a list of my good qualities of my bad and see if I can be okay with the things I can't change then make a list of all the things I want to do in my life. 

In regards to love they tell me to find someone that is my best friend, that I can be completely honest with and talk to. 

It always makes me sad to think that so often these people are the ones that society has cast off and yet they have such simple and profound wisdom. 

"The 20's are hard." I tell them. 

Some say that they had a great decade, some say they spent it in the service or doing things like drugs and other activities they shouldn't have been doing.

I'm confused and I'm depressed. 

Sometimes I think that my relationship is a joke and like it wouldn't matter if I was there or not. 

All people are replaceable if we're being honest, and sometimes I think I'm more trouble than I'm worth.
Or at least he kind of seems that way at times.
Man I could go for a week at my mom's house, just hiding away with people I know love me.
That safe place...

Never in my life have I not been without a plan.
Never have I ever lived day by day. 

Sometimes this depression and fear leads me to wish for a car accident or something where I die. 

I know how melodramatic and pathetic that is but I can't see a purpose right now and maybe it would be justice for all the shitty things I've done to people and for my lack of direction at present. 

It's me feeling sorry for myself, I know, but I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. 

If you ever pray, could you throw one in for me? 

It's agony feeling this way, this apathy or emptiness. 

Feeling sorry for myself, I apologize. 

Just lonely and lost. 

For once I don't know where to go for the answers. 

Frenzy

"Snooze the alarm."
One eye open, fumbling with my phone.
"How's it already morning?"
He sighs as he pulls his arm tighter around me.
9:15 am, the cheery tune begins to ramble off, making me feel homicidal like every morning I hear it.
He rolled out of bed, hair in an Einstein mess, looking around the room as his eyes adjusted to his glasses.
"Are you going to make me breakfast like you said you would?"
That grin.
Every time.
Sighhhhhhhh........."Yes, hold on."
Wrapping the blankets tighter around me then all of a sudden, not at all, I forced myself up and out of our bed.
Our bed.
Crack, plop.
Crack, plop.
Crack, plop.
Crack, plop.
The eggs began to sizzle.
I reached up for a coffee cup, wondering how I was so tired.
"Fuck I don't want to go to law school. I was up forever reading for this stupid class."
Weaving in and out of rooms collecting books and papers, he's getting ready for school.
He stops in the living room and sits on the floor in front of the coffee table.
"Summer is gone."
The melancholic voice of the man I've come to know so well.
I set the eggs and coffee down then set out making him snacks.
Soon we're packed and in his car so that I can drop him off on campus.
A comforting familiarity to our routine.
He smiles, gives me a kiss, then gets his bag.
I tell him to have a good day and drive off.
It's school time once again.

You know what gets me?
Time.
My dad used to tell me hat the older you get, the faster it goes.
Never was that more pertinent than when I was putting the letters from my ex in a Walmart bag and then taking them to the dumpster.
I wanted to hold on to them but couldn't find sufficient ammo for that nostalgic argument
No reason  to keep mementos and ghosts of others in our apartment.
Ours.
He was that good looking, long haired guy at the gym that I had to have and now he's my boyfriend whom I have a lease with.
A year ago I was finishing my undergrad.
A year ago I was with someone else.
A year ago I was far less confident.
A year ago I didn't know if I was going to go to grad school or not.
Often times I wonder what I would have thought if I ad read my blog entries when it all started or even if I read the next year's now.
Change is inevitable.
Movement of time is inevitable.
I just keep hoping that I make the most of it and don't live afraid.
Lately I've been fixated on the notion of being ordinary and not doing enough with my life.
But maybe that's the sign that I'm not going to settle for being ordinary.

I've wanted to write but couldn't find the words.
I wanted to write something beautiful but felt so muted.
Lately I've felt like a ghost, despondent and transparent.
So I started taking my depression medicine again.
Sometimes I lay on the couch thinking about the people that I hurt on my way up to this point.
I feel selfish.
When the urge to get away takes hold I run as fast and far as I can, with no consideration to those in my path.
I wish I could tell L how I felt and tell him the whole story, but I know that the truth would break his heart.
Sometimes I wish I could see T and go camping and do some of the things we used to, but the heart has a funny way of only uncovering the few good times, shirking the bad in recollection.
I need more hobbies.
I need more intelligence.
I need to gather more information on life and stuff in general.
I need to be more extraordinary.
I need to be more intense.
I need to be more interesting.
I need to be more confident.
Lots of needs.
Lately I've forgotten to take note of the things I do have, or when I do, they seem to pale in comparison to the rest of the world.
A boring, maleable human.
I just want to stop feeling like I'm in a frenzy.

I start school tomorrow, and even though I hate doing house hold chores I'm enjoying the new apartment.
I trust him and think he loves me, I just have to stop doubting why he would love someone as plain as me.
Two jobs, grad school, enough money to pay my bills, eat, and still have fun now and then, and someone that cares enough to put up with me daily and still pull me close at night, so I would say I'm still coming out on top.
Blessed.
I hope everyone is doing well, as I've missed you all and I've missed writing.
Just trying to get out of the empty frenzy.

Water With Poison

Over and over I hear people talk about recovery and that it's the mental aspect that's the hardest to reconcile with.

Accepting self, accepting what happened, weight gain, change how you perceive yourself, 

Blah blah blah. 

I believe that, but you know what's really been the hardest for me? Getting rid of toxic people.
Valuing myself enough to get rid of these kinds of people. 

"She's not your friend." 

How many times had he said this to me? 

I felt a little indignant and rushed to defend my friend. 

He didn't know her like I did, this is just how she acts when she's upset, I just have to ride it out. 

"You're a selfish, self-righteous cunt!" she screamed at me. 

Am I? No, I didn't think I was.... tears were pooling and I had to walk away before I said something I would regret. 

"You're right. She's not my friend." The "I told you so" said for him. 

She had always been opinionated, ever since we had met. 

Always been there for me during all the hard times. 

When I moved in for the summer I thought it would be fun to live with one of my best friends. 

At first it was awesome. We would go to the gym or spend time doing things together, I would come to her for advice or to listen when I was upset.
Store runs, ice cream runs, craft days, and bad TV marathons. 

It was the beginning of summer and nothing seems impossible or terrible when the air is warm and everything is alive.

It only took a few weeks for things to begin their steady decline. 

She began her new job as a caseworker at the prison, I was talking on the phone too loudly at night and she had to be up early for training. 

Selfish. 

Wanted me to help her lose weight for her trip to the beach with her boyfriend in August, but I had gone by myself since she worked while I was home and I worked while she was home. 

Selfish.
Her comments becoming harsher and harsher, her complaints becoming pettier and pettier.

"Take out the trash." 

I was going to...

"Your dish is in the sink." 

I was letting it sit to make it easier to wash...

"You have a book and blanket sitting out in the basement living room. We (her boyfriend and her) feel like we don't have a space of our own because you have stuff everywhere." 

Your stuff is LITERALLY everywhere in the house and I have one thing here and there.

"You're going on another vacation?"  

Yes, it's the first time in a long time that I've seen my uncle and cousin, oh, and I have a long distance relationship until school so I want to see him again. 

"It's good you're working every day of the week because you've been gone too much." 

I don't mind the work I'm just tired. 

"I asked you to work out with me but all you care about is yourself."

You were at work when I wasn't! I gave you tips and ways to modify your diet but you didn't take any of it into consideration! 

"You shouldn't be going on another trip to see your boyfriend because you'll be spending money that you don't have." 

You can fuck off. My money. My relationship. 

"You don't have a real job."

I think the work I do is meaningful and provides skills I can use when I'm a licensed therapist. I don't have a career because I need a masters to have my chosen career. Only two and a half more years. 

"Part of being an adult is cleaning up and not sleeping in my boyfriend's bed."

He said I could! My family is moving my bed up when I move the first weekend of August. He sleeps with you. He told me he doesn't mind! 

"You're a selfish, self-righteous cunt who only thinks about themselves." 

You only said  that because I didn't bend over backwards to make you happy. You know why? YOU'RE NEVER HAPPY!

"Your boyfriend needs to be okay with me. He doesn't even care if I like him or not." 

You're right, he could give a fuck less if you like him or not because he hates you and he thinks you treat me like shit. How you feel really doesn't matter to me either in this matter. I'm happy. 

"You do whatever you want." 

Yah, because I'm an adult. 

Back and forth and back and forth. One day can be great and the next she's shouting that I'm a whore. 

She says terrible things to me and pretends it's all okay the next day. 

I just want to be friends but I'm constantly whiplashed by these things that she says 

Finally I realized that my boyfriend was right. 

She isn't a good person. 

That is so hard for me because I want to believe that everyone is but she has pushed me to the point where I cry after our fights and doubt myself. 

That's not a friend.  

What makes me feel most upset is the fact that I allowed myself to be treated this way. 

If I valued myself then no one would speak to me or treat me the way that they do.

I hate her right now. I hate her for the way she talks to me, the way she makes me feel, the way nothing is good enough, but most of all, I hate the way I LET her treat me. 

Here's what's hard, letting people go that are not good for me. 

Call it hope, seeing the best in people, whatever, it's wrong. 

Everyone is worth something. Everyone is worth respect. Don't forget that you are too. 

Don't be abusive and don't allow others to be in your life that are as well.
When we establish some boundaries and maybe make amends she can be back in my life, but not until then.
Respect is earned. 

You can't grow if you're being watered with poison.  

Romance Era

"I've told you this before, but you're like a Romantic piece - like Brahms.  Music was perfected in the Classical Era.  Baroque before that was too mathematical, and was so beautiful but was just a little too boring because everything was expected."

"I like Brahms."

"You know where Mozart was going at every turn, because he did it "perfect", harmonies in 4ths and 5ths. Then people started to play with things, harmonize in thirds and do different things with the tempo being much faster. This was the classical Era.  After that, Chopin and Brahms and Beethoven brought in the Romantic Era which rejected that perfection, and just played what was beautiful.  Sometimes it doesn't make sense really "why" it's beautiful. Chopin's Nocturnes are very weird and syncopated and atonal and chromatic, but it' s beautiful because of the cadence.  Beethoven was the master of harmonies and Brahms takes one melodic line like in "lullaby" and makes you focus on only that - no orchestra, just a single, beautiful melody.  Very much more intimate than classical.  Not "perfect", but so real and powerful and raw.  Does this make sense?"

I don't think there is really any better compliment than being compared to a Brahms piece.  You know how to kill me and make me feel beautiful."

"Like not a barbie doll. You're the guy Ken cheats on Barbie with.  Because you're so much more alive and interesting and beautiful.  And beautiful not in a boring and stereotypical and expected way."

I wrote an entry on the fourteenth of October saying that I think I could fall in love with him.
Then there were ones following that had the angst of fights, break ups and reconnections, changing colleges and starting a new program, uncertainty, fear, memories, and joy.
We all have our stories, mine included, but I never thought that mine was going to get this good and I'm not even at the end.
I'm in love.
I'm happy.
I have two great jobs that I can get by on.
I'm getting my masters.
I have some very good friends and some very supportive family members.
I'm successfully in recovery from anorexia.
I'm successfully in a romantic relationship after abuse.
I signed my first lease today.
There is always hope.
Sometimes I didn't think there was going to be a better way but I was really scared.
Sometimes I still get that twinge of sadness when my father and I text because there's no substance to it.
Sometimes I'm scared I'm going to fail or mess this up.
Making choices that could affect your life can be such a terrifying thing because what if it's wrong?
What if I have to put myself out there and I fail or someone doesn't return the same feelings?
I hit this milestone finally where I was no longer afraid to shed my childhood and my terrible experiences because this is infinitely better.
Sometimes we just need a push.
I want to write soon, write about the changes and the thoughts but I don't know how, only that I want to write.
For now, here is this beautiful compliment which was the result of taking a chance on the what if.
My Romance Era, if you will, where I'm learning that it's okay to take a chance life.

Surge of Memories

"When will it stop hurting?"
"What?"
"When will I get over this?"
"I don't know...."
"I just want you to know that no one will ever add up to us."

I didn't know what to say to those aching words popping up on my screen.
It would have been six years that we were together and even now I feel the heaviness inside of me.
I was seventeen going on eighteen that summer and my first love had dumped me.
That summer I was working for a landscaping and on this particular 97 degree July day it was a particularly stubborn set of bushes coming out at a gas station.
There he was, walking up to me.
"You look like you could use a bottle of water."
Blushing under the clear sky, shyly taking it from him, a nervous thanks coming out.
A few days later he came back to the job site to ask me for my number.
He would later lament that he should never had bought me a water when we'd get into another fight.
He thought I was older, while he was twenty-three.
I can't believe it sometimes. he was the age I am now. At the time he was mysterious, cute, and we seemed to have some things in  common.
His personality was dark, carrying a lot of sadness.
But mine could provide enough sunshine for the both of us.

I watched it crumble and I didn't care because I was so unhappy, but the minute I thought it was going to, I clung to it with all my might.
"If you're so unhappy, go!" he'd say, but when I finally did, he got on his knees to beg me to stay.
I didn't expect the tears because it's been a year since we were together and even longer since we functioned well as a couple anyway.
It was just so heavy...
Remembering the night I understood for the first time that I was seeing a drug addict.
Laying in his bed on his side, becoming unresponsive from a drug overdose,
Only to wake up and vomit into a bowl by his bed.
I was seventeen, naive, and scared.
The police came to hospitals with an overdose patient, didn't they?
Jumping into the car, I rushed to Walmart and bought some soup and anti-nausea medicine because somehow a cocaine overdose had to be like the stomach flu.
Begging him to drink the water, making soup and trying to hide the medicine in it.
He ended up having to pour it out because I put too much in.
Laying naked in the tub with the spray of the shower on him,
I, standing vigilant from the counter.
He loved water, loved a hot bath or a hot shower. Soothed him.
He would later tell me that I had saved him from a few overdoses.
I hated that bed of his with the thin, red blanket in the creepy old house.
Curled around him as he shook, so thin.
Scared. Praying to God that he wouldn't die.
I swear to this day that something dark lived in that house, the darkness feeling heavy and oppressive.
I hated his Chuckie doll that he claimed was a collector's item and the people that would come to his house that he would collect money from for selling them weed.
He swore too much and we couldn't view the world the same but somehow he grew on me.

We loved to eat Chinese by his big fish tank and would play Call of Duty late into the night.
I look back now and can't believe all that happened with us.
I see the time he was high and I was home for the weekend, bored, and he took me to the gas station to try my first scratch tickets.
I picture that winter before he was arrested and ache.
So many things that should have been taken back but you can't because time doesn't stop.
I wish I had done so many things differently, or maybe had left earlier, but I loved him.
No one else seemed to see the good in him but I did.
I saw the good and the hurt and I tried to run with it, far away.
I think of the times he would make me hot coco and we'd watch movies or play video games, cuddled with our dogs.
I think of how he hated that I would watch the Food Network before bed and how I hated that he would fall asleep early and wake me up before 9.
Always with a cup of coffee and a kiss in hand.
There were the summer camping trips and after work trips to the lake.
The time we woke up at six in the morning and walked to the other side of the island on the lake with birds quietly standing to gawk at us, then in a flurry of wings, flying up around us.
It was beautiful.
Dates to the Japanese restaurant and surprise sundresses because he knew I loved them.
The times we would buy different bottles of wine to try and would save the corks, maybe marking the tops with a black "X" if we felt especially lustful after having a few glasses.
Rides on his motorcycle, late night rides to get snacks, and late nights waiting for him to come home in the end.
Fights that ended in tears and words I wish I could take back.


I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do. I just wanted to be happy...
I love you. I still love you. You're forever in my heart.
I don't know when it will stop hurting because every now and then I ache too.

Fear as a Temporary

It sounds sort of melodramatic to think about the temporary nature of this life.
I don't know if it was never ending pay out for various bills,
Standing in the grocery store aisle with my hand on my hips foregoing the Captain Crunch and wine for $0.78 cans of tuna and plain Greek yogurt to go with my value bag of apples,
Or the fact that I would rather stay home to watch Netflix with my hair in some form of crappy ponytail sans makeup and expectations than go out
But it's already June again and I can't help but realize that we have but a blink, just like they said.
I suppose that's silly because being 23 means that the sky is the limit.
Or $30 at the grocery store.
Or 1:30 AM because I'm tired and I need to get up by 9:30 to make sure I make it to the gym and still get chores around the house done before work.
Or the amount of bullshit ('scuse me) you're willing to put up with from the people in your daily life.
It's not a bad thing to lay in bed at night thinking about how you can be a better person because we all can improve a little bit.
It's not bad to be broke for a little while because it teaches you to be ingenious, grateful, not ready to settle, and to share with the people you love.
It's not bad to be busy because it teaches you to revel in the quiet moments and make the most of everything in between.
I don't have any zen knowledge that anyone else hasn't found already but it's strange to be here, to be at the point where nothing is terrible.
For once, I'm out of the fire.
Sometimes I get angry because I'm paying for the aftermath of several difficult experiences now.
I stopped wanting to be tough and hide my emotions and pretend I was okay because that's not functional in the real world.
As soon as you stop feeling fat post eating disorder and stop hating yourself post sexusl abuse you're left with these sticky feelings like shame and anger.
Why?
Because normal isn't an exact science but healthy is.
I'm constantly confronted with the realization that I live my life based on fear.
Fear of failure.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of being vulnerable.
Fear I won't be good at something.

I'm looking out the car window because I'm terrible at looking at someone when they show me who I am.
"You tell me why you're special."
"You're my boyfriend! You should know!"
"See? You don't even think you are."
"What if you shoot me down? I don't want you to ruin it by disagreeing with me."
"You never gave me the chance! Maybe I do think you're the best but you never even gave me the chance. That's your problem. You always live in fear. I'm so sick of you being that way. You know what you want but you're never assertive enough in any area of your life."
We settled the argument soon after.
I wanted to cry because he was right.
He's always right.
He told me that I need to stop making choices based on the worry that the relationship is going to fail, like anything I do is going to fail or it will.
All my life that's what I did.
That's when I realized.

Frustrated incident after frustrated incident I ask myself where my voice is?
Why did I let that person take advantage of me?
Why didn't I just say what I meant?
Why did I apologize after I stood up for myself?
Why wasn't I more confident?
Why does he still want to be with me if I'm not the confident and independent woman I should be yet?

When I said I was paying for the mistakes I meant literally, that is, if I want to get help.
If not, I have to just experiment with counseling techniques as I learn them in class because I'm already paying to learn to be a counselor.
I just wish I could afford to see one...
How do you fix your poor attachment learned in early childhood by the relationship with your parents?
How do you break through the glass ceiling and be more confident and have better self-esteem post emotional and sexual abuse?
How do you put aside deep seeded shame?
How do you push the limit?
Or maybe it just doesn't exist.
(Yes, I went Mean Girls reference. :D)

There's an awful lot of people with terrible backgrounds walking around being successful.
There's plenty of people having good relationships, healthy ones even, post trauma.
Not all of us are debilitated by it, maybe just distrustful when you see a female name on the text screen as you walk by.
Maybe just insecure because he think that girl doing power cleans over there has great thighs.
Maybe hurt when he goes to see a friend and doesn't offer to take you or introduce you.
Maybe just needy sometimes.
Maybe just jealous other times.
But you can still carry out your life and can still be intimate, even though being truly intimate and vulnerable is a learning experience similar to that of a giraffe trying to walk on stilt legs.
But hey, the giraffe always learns to walk eventually.

Life is temporary and some people are better at it than others but no matter what, try.
Maybe there's nothing magic about leaving the grocery stuff with five bags of stuff for only $30.
Maybe there's no magic about not being insecure about your relationship or body for once.
Maybe there's no magic about getting a good breakfast, working out, eating a good lunch, then making it to your job.
I think there could be.
If you're surviving and you're trying to thrive then I think there is magic.
We don't have a lot of time.
I don't want to waste it being afraid.