On the sixtieth day.

It's been two months since I picked up and tore myself away from Philly and moved back to Lancaster.
Although terrifying at the time, I've been overwhelmed by how wonderful people have been in my return.
When I felt the gentle push to move back to Lancaster and leave the place that I had come to know as home, a huge part of me was devastated. My apartment had been my safe place when every other "home" I had known fell to pieces. I had settled my heart in the warmth and made a home for myself.
Only six months before I moved I had told myself that I'd never move back to Lancaster because it wasn't home anymore. It only felt like a friend that had betrayed me and I wasn't prepared to trust it with my heart anytime soon. I should have known that I'd have to go back to make peace with the pain and anger that it held for me.
It wasn't just what Lancaster had "done" to me, it was who I'd become in a years time and the question of how the new and messier me would fit in the old space I had occupied before in everyone eyes, including mine. I was afraid of not measuring up to even just the old me. I was afraid of being seen in all of my "ugly."

It's been a battle to remember that no man or woman's approval defines me. That my name will be spoken ill of and that it's not always my job to jump up and clear it. I'm learning what it means to live and love abundantly with no need to prove anything. In all of this I think I've actually already made peace with Lancaster... I'm as content as I can be at this point in my journey and taking one day at a time, enjoying the process. I miss my Philly home and community, but I'm at rest where I am for now.

Truly, I can't help but be incredibly full of gratitude for how my needs have been provided for...

I have a warm and wonderful home, living with hearts much like mine; beautifully broken and on the journey of discovery and truth.

I have a job that I absolutely love! I get to do things that I thoroughly enjoy every day and pay my bills doing it. My bosses treat me well and make me feel valued and cared for. My co-workers are vibrant characters who've instantly welcomed me as another misfit in the Square One family.

I have a community that quickly enveloped me, refusing to see me walk alone.

As painful as this years discoveries and truths have been, I've been blessed enough to have people who will love me through it and encourage me to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I am thankful. True story.

The Wait.

                   What is it to exist within a space defined by the tension of waiting?

        What focal point do you find and call yours when courage lingers too long at the feet of last years collapse?

         Are the colors that paint the sounds of contentment held only for a select few or do they drip upon any who seek to test them with brushes of their own?

         Is hope true if it's more than blindly believing that the continual underlying sadness must eventually lead into a more authentic state of happiness?

         At what point will I no longer feel as if I only tarry for another day longing for the ache to be eased?



Tell me, are the edges of the distant reality harsher than the worst of my dreams?



         I own far more questions than answers; ruining my chances with stillness and the pursuit of a quiet mind. Thoughts run wild and stir the dust settled on blurry consciousness, yet my heart is colder than I recall it ever being before.

        I siphon warmth from the beautifully unsuspecting while dressed in mirrors meant to convince them that they're receiving what they've been giving. I betray my own love and its beating heart with every moment of hiding behind my fear that beauty might never look my way nor utter my name.
I beg you, do not withhold your disgust! Please make me try my own patience... My depravity's deception I, above all, silently abhor.


          But I am afraid of closed doors and even more so of the forgotten memories that might live behind them.
          I am afraid of the predicted letdown that plagues the excitement within the unknown, but more than that I fear the disappointment's propensity to thicken the walls I've been tearing at for years.
          I am afraid that my waiting may be ever prolonged by tomorrows discovery and yesterdays truths.
         I am afraid that I will never change and that my dreams will remain the same and never touch my reality.


I hope to make a mockery of these fears... After all, what are fears but mere shadows that must flee at dawns light?


For that, I'll wait as long as it takes.

Unhinged.

This... this courage knows no shame;
till its jekylle borrows time in a panicked attempt to save face. It thrives on the chance to risk it all for even just one moment of unmitigated sense.

But wasn't this the original sin? To speak before I think, to feel before its safe?

This... this is nothing like me.

I'm the archaic walls built higher than your will to climb.
I'm the promise that your heart will break well before mine.
I'm the distance that I'll run before your inch takes a mile.
I'm the lie that claims indifference masquerading with an elusive smile.
I'm the symptoms of a little heart with too many ancient inner vows to keep.

I'm the surprise that sees a crack in the hardened shell of concrete.
I'm changing it seems.

This... this terrifies me.

Shackle my confessions to the roof of my mouth, stop these floodgates from impulsively rushing out.
Dare me to be silent, dare my heart to recall solitary confinement, dare me to use my better judgement.

Anything but this...

Daily wars are waged in the caverns of my soul; my pride seeking to protect at all cost, my heart begging to feel and count all as loss.

This... I think this might kill me.

Wake.

There is a silence that breathes louder than my distractions and it's living in my numb.
I feel words but they cannot find my lips; they gather like the autumn leaves upon my doorstep.

Comatose.

I float, alive and weightless, above the truths of my reality in the hopes that they will disappear.
They have not.

Linger longer near these terrors and you'll come to understand my listless air. Yet, there are no excuses I can hold tightly; I am wholly responsible for my current disrepair. I see my faults more plainly than these lines that define my weathered hands. I could run from these fears forever, but I cannot escape their source within me.

Here's that moment where I wrestle a "yes" from this hearts beating breath; trapping my fleeting feet beneath duty and raw hunger. Give me a few seconds to collect courage and dim the lights on my souls childish outrage and I promise I'll begin.

Begin to turn and run towards the fears conceived in pain.
Begin to feel enough to have to choose to forgive.
Begin to remember what an unguarded heart even sounds like.

I will begin.

To the first.

All your letters... I finally let them go.
I remember the time when I thought I'd never have to and that it was ok to hold onto them for memories sake, but yesterday a different point of view found me.

I took the time to carefully read each one... my fingers feeling the familiar textures of the different types of papers you used for each letter and note.
I saw the moments that accompanied each word.
I heard your voice bending to the inflection of your thoughts in each phrase.
I felt the sparkle in your eyes as if you were standing right there bleeding your love onto the pages.
I wasn't just reading and remembering your letters; I was reading and remembering you.

I let my wounds and their protest drift far from my mind in that moment and I chose to remember you.

Just you.

Not the pain, not the conflict; only you.
And within that window in time I loved you as you were... where we were.

But this time was different because I didn't want to go back.
I wanted to remember you well, to remember you beautiful... And I did.
But I realized that after months of begging my soul to forget you, my heart had finally made its way back to me.
Suddenly there's room for something new and I no longer ache for you.

My tears fell freely upon the pages in my lap and I felt the weight of that defining moment. I could have wept as each one slipped from my fingers into the grossly undistinguished trash bag assigned to the ending of this process.

As I started to breathe in the new borders to this season that I'm entering, I knew that I couldn't take these pieces of you with me. You can't be the memorial that I run to when I feel scared and alone.
As I pack my life and my memories away to see a new time and space, I quietly lay you aside and whisper my goodbye.

I don't believe that I'll ever forget you...
But this is where I make room for all things new.
This is where I take one more step of letting you go completely.
This isn't where I bitterly get over you; this is where I peacefully move on.

This is where my love goes free.

numb.

It's one more drink;
one more hit;
one more day spent in bed.

It's one more hour of living vicariously through another fictional happy ending sitting stationary staring at the screen set before you;
one more haircut to be the answer to your dissatisfaction;
one more minor manipulation prescribed to fix your devastating self loathing.

It's one more risk;
one more near death experience;
merely one more cut just to focus on the pain.

It's one more surface friend to keep you from even just one moment of terrifying silence;
one more makeshift lover for fear of ever being the one caught alone.



So when do you know when you're just filling the space to numb the ache?
At what point does it become just another way to medicate?

Today.

Today I wasn't ready to let myself figure it out.

Find me breathing

If I were to paint my life I would paint it always on the edge of the shoreline. Sometimes I imagine that my heart swells just because it carries some of the dangerously beautiful ocean within it, almost as if it was born of it. There are moments that I forget my place and begin to feel the breathless ache for what could only be called home. I don’t know when it started, but as far back as I can remember I’ve always known this love affair with the ocean.



It was only a year ago that one of my dear friends started to point out a consistent problem in my day to day; I simply wasn’t breathing. At first I thought she was crazy and I gave her a hard time for making an issue out of nothing, but I slowly realized that she was right. I was living off of shallow breaths and never taking the time to breathe deeply like my body needed me to.  Now it wasn’t until this past September that I realized the significance behind my breathing problem... and it’s directly connected to my relationship with the beach.

This year is the first time in years that my family did not go to Long Beach Island (or any beach for that matter) for vacation. I realized after September came and went that every year for the past ten years we’ve held our breaths till we were able to rest our weary hearts at the shoreline. I don’t know that we planned it to be that way, but its as if we waited to release a sigh of relief and breathe deeply till we were standing at the ocean letting go of a years worth of pain held in. At least that’s how I’ve related to the shore…



I’ve never been one to rush into the ocean upon arrival after three hours of driving, almost as if the childlike buttons lining my heart have been stuck in sleep and cannot be accessed without the hand of another holding mine and leading the way.

I approach the ocean much like a long lost love that I must slowly take in and remember...  it takes time. I stand at the edge of the shoreline and let my toes sink in, only hoping that somehow that will keep me rooted there forever. I then begin to give all my senses a chance to slowly be awakened to the ache that will finally be met with what feels like a comforting embrace, and finally, I exhale the breath held for far too long and I begin to breathe.



It’s there that I wrestle with the questions that have merely accompanied the weight that I slowly push from my heavy heart. My chest aches from the pounding of the unknown upon my humanity; the tension of waiting within the confusing in-between. But still, my heart melts with every deep breath taken and then released and I begin to imagine myself captured only by this dangerous beauty before me. This is the moment that reaches into the depths of my soul and whispers, “You are far from alone, My love… I am with you.”



This is home.



Now I realize that I can’t spend my life holding my breath and living off of what can only be known as shallow and barely there, and I’ve begun to practice the art of remembering to breathe. It takes time.



But here I am… if you look you’ll find me breathing.