I do dear, I do

now that I'm in a good relationship, I'm not supposed to reminisce about the shitty ones. I'm not supposed to miss people that hurt me and lied to me and left me. but I do anyway. I don't want them, but I think about them, and I feel sad.
because for such a brief time, Pants let me see what he was really made of. because for a while, he let me hold him and let me hear him sing and say stupid things. for a while I believed something could be there, even though I knew with the rest of me that nothing could come of what we did. nothing could come of what we did to each other, other than what has. a little bit of bitterness and a lot of melancholy.
"sometimes I cannot sleep for the greatness of my hate for you. sometimes I cannot sleep for I miss you." I wish there could have been more for us, at least for a little while. nothing could have lasted. I know that. but being with him made me feel so special. I was somewhere few people got to visit. I saw things few people were allowed to witness. I held him when he cried, and that is a memory I cherish.
I don't know what I would have done if he had loved me back. maybe I would have run as fast from him as he ran from me.
or maybe we would have burned to ashes in each other's arms before our abusiveness could undo us. what we had was not meant to last. it was built on uncertainty and desperation. we didn't know each other but pretended we did. I whipped him and bit him and he made me leave at 4 in the morning when we were done. and I did.
I was never really into the sex. I just liked feeling wanted.
I liked that he, specifically, wanted me. even if all he really wanted was my body.
I don't think I could have gotten close to him any other way.
I miss him. I do. but it's foolish. the entire thing was foolish.
the melancholy felt good sometimes.
still, I'm glad it's behind me now.

all these demons were just people after all

I still struggle with the loss of the people who used to be my closest friends. They are amazing individuals who had to do what was best for themselves by cutting a selfish person from their lives. I want that person to not be me, but it is. I am self-absorbed and self-centered and my own needs come before everyone else. Always. I was much worse in high school, as people tend to be. I have always let my drama drag me down, and expected everyone else to sink with me. Very few people have had the courage to tell me this, but enough have done so that I actually started listening.

It is, and has always been, very hard for me to forgive and move on without an apology. This is a behavior that I got from my mom. It is a legacy I would like to leave behind me. It is something I have struggled with for a long time, but recently I've been thinking a lot more about it. I have been left irrevocably behind by people that I needed to keep close to me because they were the ones that would call me on my shit. But they're the ones I used so harshly that they gave up on me. So there's no going back, I suppose. And I need to stop trying to return to past relationships when it's clear those people have no wish for me to come back. If they did, I would have heard from them.
It's hard to let go. Let me use names, real names, not the myriad of aliases I've constructed here. Elley, Sharyn, Jared, Sascha, Sin, Matt, I miss you all. I have wronged you. But I can't help but feel that, even if you were on speaking terms with me, we would still be barely speaking. Because that's how it was before you dropped me, so I guess there's really not much loss over all. And Ariel, I miss you too. I regret how I treated you and it's so kind that you didn't just completely cut me from your life. I will never have a friendship like that with anyone else, and I wish I still had it with you. But like I said, there's no going back.

I have changed. Sure. It's so easy to say that. Death has changed me. It started when AJ died and only increased with my mother's death. There are a lot of people that I miss that I didn't really appreciate when I had them. Maybe they think of me. They probably don't. I don't think too often of the people that I left behind for my own sanity's sake.

I want everything. But I forget that in order to take, I must first give. And when you take too much, then there's nothing left, no matter how many times you apologize.

lost between these thoughts

I dream about a new life. about a life I've wanted yet never thought possible. I'm scared to hope. I've resigned myself to accepting less for so long that I'm not sure what to do now that options have appeared. I keep expecting them to go away. I keep thinking something tragic will happen and rob me of my hope, like how it's happened in the past.
I want to be loved and taken care of. I want to make art and not worry. I want to live somewhere near the water. I want to swim all year long. I want to smile in the winter. I want my past to not hurt because of how good the present is.
I want to have problems that get resolved and do not linger on. I want to be able to talk things out. I want to not feel guilty about playing video games or watching movies. I want to not feel guilty, period.
I daydream about living with Fig in his big house and his little pool. I think about my cat roaming around and lounging on the steps. I think about Fig and I traveling. I fantasize about making papier mache masks and creatures all day long, whenever I want. I tell myself over and over that I'm almost done school. but in the back of my mind, I find myself thinking that if my mom hadn't died, I'd already be done. better yet, I'd probably be on my last year of my MSW.
but my mom did die. and so I've had a lot more time with art instead of social work, and it shows. my passion gets poured into art instead of my studies. I am bored with class and find it difficult to participate. I'm just coasting through to finish.
I hope this new internship happens. I hope that being able to actually include art in my work with people will help. otherwise I'm going to feel a little lost and all this time would have been for nothing. all this debt to repay will weigh on me even heavier than it already does.
I just want to run away with Fig, and forget everything here except for my sister, her husband, and their kids.

it's coming out

sometimes it feels like I will never stop being bitter. being a social work student is the worst thing to be if you're trying to hide from your grief. one of my readings said something about how someone will avoid close relationships if they've recently suffered a loss. OH NO! THAT'S ME.
the only people I feel genuinely close to right now are fig and my sister. I am still so angry at shiny for leaving me when he did, and, more than that, for staying gone. I took the bus home today and saw someone with his build and hairstyle putting a bike on the front rack and for a moment I was terrified/excited with the thought that it might be him. then I realized that this person was far too short to be shiny. I'm sure there could be reasons for him being in Providence. there were before.
I am so angry, and sad, and I still feel so lost. and I have been avoiding these feelings for who knows how long. I hate that I miss shiny so much. I hate it. sometimes I forget his name, but I still remember the way his lips looked when he smiled, and the laugh lines around his eyes. I hate myself for it. I hate myself for missing him.
every relationship I end up in is lost in someone else's shadow. someone else's senseless shadow. shiny didn't care for me with even a fraction of the love that fig does. but shiny is so tied up in my mom's death that I can't feel the sting of one without being pricked by the other.
so when I badly miss my mom, I think I see shiny. and I get angry all over again.
her birthday is in a month from today. she would have been 61.
can't stop my heart from beating.
feels like I'm having a panic attack.
I need to sleep for a while.
I need to cry for longer.

On a train

When I miss him, it feels like I'm betraying myself. I can't pinpoint the reasons he pops into my head and I can't get rid of him once he is there. I am stuck with an uneasy feeling. Or maybe I am just stuck.
I  find myself wondering how he would have dealt with certain situations. People told me he was boring, but he wasn't. He never embarrassed me or himself. He was solid and steady and I hate thinking about him. We haven't talked for so long. So why does this still happen?
Fig worries that I am not happy with him. That isn't true. I'm just a different kind of happy with him. I don't look forward to things the way that I used to and I don't get excited the way that I used to. It's hard. I imagine it's because I don't want to get excited about something that might not happen. I don't trust much anymore, except that plans don't pan out and just because something is for the best that doesn't mean it feels good.