Sick

Everything was great. I had the world in the palm of my hand. I was victorious over every battle that came my way. And then all of a sudden, I wasn't. 

It all seemed to happen so quickly. My life changed. Maybe for the better, maybe for worse. I'm not surrounded by the people I expected. 

I got fucked over. Hard. By people I trusted, people I allowed myself to be vulnerable to. People I put my faith in. People I considered my best friends. And it got me right back to rock fucking bottom. 

They left. They saw an out and took it before I could. I know what was holding me back from taking that out - pride, arrogance. And hope. 

I'm prideful. I have a love/hate relationship with that aspect of myself. I don't settle for less than I deserve and that saves me from a lot of heartache. But it bites me in the ass every now and then too. I should have asked for help. I should have swallowed my pride and just reminded myself that although I'm a legal adult, I can't handle everything on my own. 

Arrogance stopped me. That arrogant train of thought of how strong I am, how much I have been able to overcome in the past. Arrogance in saying that this isn't the hardest battle I've had to fight, that I can win with no effort. I seriously miscalculated that one. This battle has been hard and braving it on my own has made it even worse. Arrogance stopped me from fighting with all my might. And if I had, I may not be here. But arrogance stopped me. 

But the fact that I clinged so hard to hope is what kills me. I hoped for the best, I had faith that things would turn out my way. They didn't. 

I had hope that people would change, and other people would stay the same. They didn't. 

I had hope that the people I gave my all to would give me something, anything in return. They didn't. 

I had hope that this would make me stronger. It didn't. 

I had hope that I could conquer this. I couldn't. 

And I am so fucking sick of this shit. I'm sick of sitting here trying to pin-point the exact moment shit hit the fan. It's making my hair fall out, it's making me wake up with scratches on my arms that I don't remember giving myself, it's making me physically ill. And it's not fair. 

But I'm also so fucking sick of feeling sorry for myself. I'm sick of crying in my car and hiding. I'm sick of saving theses emotions for late nights and long drives alone. I'm sick of losing sleep over people that sleep soundly at night, not caring where they've left me. 

So I'm not doing this anymore. I'm going to try my best to just get my fucking shit together. I'm going to do what's good for me and finally be a little selfish. 

But I'm scared. I have a plan. I have a plan that could fail. A plan that could leave me sitting here feeling sorry for myself again a year from now. But I'm going to risk it. 

Call it pride, call it arrogance, call it hope. But that's all I have right now. 

Here

I never pictured myself here. 

I thought this place would be home. Moving in with my two best friends, not giving a damn about anything, living our lives together. I thought this would be the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's not. 

Sasha's pregnant. She's going to move out soon enough. We've lived until his Josie for two fucking months and I haven't seen her at all during that time. 

Jordan, my gay best friend, hasn't been honest with me. He's been skirting around his extra curricular activities like I'm going to judge him for them when he knows damn good and well that I don't judge anyone. 

So here I am again. Here I am with my inferiority complex. Here I am at three am on my fucking birthday wondering where everything went wrong. 

Was it me? Was it this house? Was it just our friendship, doomed from the start?

I don't know. I don't know who or what to blame this on. 

But for once I at least know that it's not me. 

I am so fucking sick of taking the blame for everything. For feeling like shit because other people made me feel like shit. I'm done. I am so done felling inferior. 

I am sick a good fucking friend to all of these people that make it seem so easy to kick me to the curb. So you know what? Fuck them. Fuck them all. 

I will know my worth and I refuse to forget that. And if they can't see it, then I will find people who are a little less blind. 

You're welcome for giving you grade A advice and sticking with you through every crisis. I can't believe it took me so long to see it. It was never me. It was always them. Always. 

So I'm done. I'm not doing this to myself anymore. This is what you call "self respect." 

Goodbye. And good riddance. 

Choices

I can feel myself changing now everyday.  I am not exactly sure who it is I am becoming.

I've been questioning everything lately - the difference between want and need, why the line between love and hate is so fine, how to be who I want to be, if I can live with all the mistakes I've made.

Here is the difference between want and need: I need myself.  These friends that I hold so dear make me feel inferior. And to a certain extent, that's my fault.  They are good people and I'd never want them to change but at the same time, I can't live in their shadows anymore. I need exactly who I am in this moment: the eye of the storm. Everything is crashing down around me and I can feel it collapsing, but I refuse to shatter with it.  I will stand tall and proud despite the chaos I've let into my life because I will be strong again. I may want these people in my life, but I don't need them.  Because I don't need anyone to tell me what I already know: that I am a completely capable force all on my own. I never lost my strength, it just dwindled for a moment.  And I'm back to reclaim it.

Here is the reason why the line between love and hate is fine: they are two of the most passionate emotions you can have towards another person. Loving someone takes as much energy as it takes to hate someone. So I'm going to settle for indifference. I can't live my life loving people who I know don't feel the same way about me.  I've done it too often and it seems as though it gets more and more heartbreaking every time.  I refuse to hate these people, to hold every bad thing they've done in my presence against them purely on principle.  I won't do it.  And I will wish them the best because even if they've done me wrong, I've probably done the same to them.  And at the end of the day, they are still people with feelings and pasts and futures that I hope turn out to be exactly what they want them to. I don't have nearly enough energy right now to love someone or to hate them.  It takes too much heart.

Here's how I'm going to start being who I want to be: going back to school.  I've been blatantly not going to classes for almost a year and half now.  Classes for spring semester start tomorrow and for the first time in years, I'm excited to go back.  I've missed learning and stressing over exams, surprisingly.  I think this will be good for me. I'm going to fill my time up so quickly with two part time jobs and full time classes so I won't even have the time to feel sorry for myself.  I am going to throw myself in to being a good student and a good employee and be content with the knowledge that I don't need people to kiss the ground I walk on as long as I can look myself in the mirror and convince myself that I am worth that level of respect and adoration.

But living with the mistakes I've made? I don't know.  I've made too many at this point to decide if I really can live with them.  Some are small, some are explosive.  But they've all left me sitting here at the cafe on my day off, writing this shitty post to make me feel better about myself.  I can't help but think about how these mistakes, the paths I've chosen to take have made me who I am right now. And that's overwhelming because I am so many things in this moment. I am content and I am sad. I am optimistic and I am realistic. I am strong and I am weak.

Right now I am neither the best version of myself nor the worst.  And I am going to make the conscious decision to be happy about the fact that I've come a long way. I certainly am not where I hoped I'd be at twenty years old, but hey, at least I'm not doing heroin or something.

I am selfish and vain and a little too closed minded. I drink too much and I don't think I was born with a verbal filter. I don't try nearly as much as I think I do and I let other people take the fall for the things that I fucked up.

But I've also given my heart away so many times only to see it be trampled on and depleted.  So right now I'm going to focus on myself. I'm going to try and give up the people who are holding me back from becoming who I want to be and actually take the first steps to becoming that person. I'm going to make hella money between my two jobs, spend more time with my grandparents, move out of my parents' house, and never allow myself any free time to get caught up in my feelings.

Honestly, feeling sorry for myself is not helping anyone.  These pity parties that I love so much are not helping me actually move forward.  And moving forward is exactly what I intend on doing. I am going to fill my life up with so much good, that I won't ever be able to justify sadness again. 

I cannot wait until these plans become a lifestyle.  I just want happiness to be something that I wake up with, something that comes naturally.  Isn't that what we all want? I am going to choose happiness every day and I refuse to apologize for it.

And if I have a bad day somewhere along the way, I will breathe through it. I will remind myself every day that sometimes all you can do is hang on and hope for the best. Every day is a battle - some days you demolish everything in your path and some days all you can do is breathe. But either way, I'm a fucking warrior. And I don't plan on forgetting that any time soon.

Placeholder

I am inferior. 

I am not a first choice, I am a back up plan. And I am so fucking sick of people acting like they care when they very obviously don't. 

I am shell of who I once was and I can't do this anymore. I'm not funny anymore. I lost my humor, the one thing I had going for me. I may not have been the prettiest or the smartest, but I was always the funny one. And I'm not anymore. 

No one laughs at my jokes or smiles when I'm goofing around. No one genuinely likes the person I am. 

I keep everything at bay and it's still not enough. I'm still not funny and I'm still aggravating and I still don't know who I am. I am trying so hard to go back to the person I was before all this shit. 

Before I had a boyfriend who hit me, before I let the person I loved most get away, before my dad got arrested, before I lost myself. 

I tried so hard to find myself again after Shane. And it took years and effort and energy every fucking day but I finally did it. With a little help from my friends, I finally came to be the best version of myself and I was happy. For once in my life, I was truly content with who I was and where I was going and who I was going to be. 

But I never thought my life would turn out to be this way. I never though lt that I'd be who I am now. I am pushing everyone away and losing myself in the process. Again. 

I can't go through that again. I simply don't have the energy to find myself after all this time. Again. I've been through hell and back. And I've smiled the whole way through, staying optimistic, convincing myself that things would get better and I'd be okay by the end of it. 

But I am far from okay. I am far from who I was, who I was when I was happy. 

And I don't know how to get back to that point. How to smile at the autumn leaves that turn beautiful colors and fall in perfect patches, just waiting to be crunched. I don't know how to laugh at good jokes and smile as if I didn't have a care in the world. I don't know how to be the best version of myself and I'm fucking scared of who I'm becoming. 

I'm becoming more of a robot than I ever was and that's saying a whole fucking lot. 

I will never allow myself to be vulnerable again. I will never be comfortable with who I am because I am not anyone. I am not someone who belongs, someone who matters. 

I am a back up plan. I am placeholder. I am the shell of a girl that used to be everything. And now I am nothing. 

I have nothing left to give, I've already given it all to a person who threw it away in favor of something brighter, something better. Because even my best and my brightest still isn't good enough for the person I walked through hell with. 

I wonder if he realizes that I was there for it. I think he forgets that I've seen his highest highs and his lowest lows and I still think the world of him. 

I wonder if he realizes that no matter how hard I try, I still give him all I have. I give my time, my energy, my money. And what does he do with it? He throws it away. He throws it away because he doesn't want those things from me - he wants it from someone else. 

So I'm done giving. For my own sake, I have to be. I can't give away who I am in return for absolutely nothing. 

And I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to get back to thinking the sun shines out of his ass and I can trust him with anything. Because I can't anymore. I don't trust him. 

He confirmed my worst fears and told me to my face that I wasn't good enough for him. That I have given him all I have to give and yet it still isn't anything. Everything I've done, every part of who I am, it just isn't enough. 

Why? What is so terrible about me that I just can't have anything that I need?

Maybe he isn't what I need. Maybe he's holding me back from finding out exactly what it is that I need. Maybe I need to distance myself from his weight and relearn how to carry my own.

All I know is that I'm not strong anymore. I'm not who I was. And it's killing me. I always held on to my strength. Even if I wasn't funny or pretty or smart, at least I was strong. At least I could carry my own weight and be happy with at least that. And I can't even say that anymore. I don't know I am. I've lost the most integral part of myself. My strength. 

I don't know who I am, but I know that I'm not who I was. 

Expectations

You know when life just didn't go as you had planned it? When all of a sudden it's 3:30 in the morning and you're drunk and wondering why all the things that happened to you happened in the first place?

That's where I'm at now. I'm laying in bed in absolute silence wondering why. 

I'm wondering why I was never enough for the people who were always enough for me. I'm wondering why I can't express my feelings. I'm wondering why it's oh so easy for me to write them here but not say them out loud. I'm wondering why I can put on this facade and pretend like everything's okay one minute and sob the next. I'm wondering why I'm not worth anything. I'm wondering why it seems like so suddenly the things that made me happy four years ago don't make me happy anymore.

I want to be happy again. I can feel it slip through my fingers everyday. I'm almost grasping it, so close to the feelings I want so dearly, only to feel it slip through my fingers as easily as sand. 

It was so easy before. It was so easy to look past my struggles and put on this brave face. I may have known it was always a mask, but I was so comfortable wearing it. 

So what changed? When did I decide it was okay to be vulnerable? 

I'm still stuck with the same type of people. The kind of people that lie to my face and do things they know will hurt me behind my back. The same cowardly people that shy away from confrontation. 

Why do I allow myself to open up to people that have continuously let me down?

Because I have no one else. Because I'm stuck. 

Because if I leave theses people, these people that care about each other more than they'll ever care about me, I'll have no one. I won't have anyone to spend the night with. I won't have anyone to conquer to boredom with and to quiet my demons for me.  

I have run out of strength. I have exhausted all of my resources in this piece of shit town and there is no one left to drown my fears. They are my last option. I have gone through every other one.

I know I could leave them. They have hurt me more than any other person has because for the first time in a long time, I opened up. And they abused that. 

How do I justify that for them? How do I explain that away and make excuses for them for that?

I'm tired of making excuses. I'm tired of pretending like everything is okay because it's not.

I am sad. I am not who I once was and I'm fucking losing it. And they don't care. 

All I've ever done is be there for them and they can't give me the simple respect of being honest with me. 

So why do I stay? Because I have no one left. And if I lose them, there is no one else. And shitty friends are better than no friends at all. 

I'm stuck. I'm sad and I'm stuck. And I fucking hate it. 

Dustin

What you don't seem to realize is that I am the moon and she is the sun. You may be a star, but there are so many of you. You fill the sky - nothing special in comparison to your neighbor. As singular masses of being, we stand alone. And yet, we compliment each other. You only compliment yourself. 

I hope you wake up one day. I hope you pull your head out of your ass and finally see what is right in front of you. You have two beautiful people who would give up the world for you. And you don't care. 

I couldn't care less if you don't give a shit about yourself. But the fact that you honestly don't give a damn that people give a damn about you blows my fucking mind. 

We fight for you every goddamn day. We try our hardest to love every part of you and every time we think we have you back, you show us just how far you've gotten away from us. And you don't care. 

You don't care that we try. You don't care that we accept every apology you throw at us. You don't care that we let you use us as your floormat to wipe your dirt on. You don't care that we are still here, despite it all. Despite the fact that you make us feel replaceable, like an outdated toy. 

And as I lay here haunted by the thought of not being good enough to make you happy, you still don't care. You are so wrapped up in your own head that it's impossible for you to realize that maybe we have our own thoughts too. We have our own opinions and our own demons and our own battles to fight. And we try our damnedest to be who need us to be. And you still don't fucking care. 

You once told me that you don't see us as real people, instead as extensions of yourself. That is all of your problems in this friendship wrapped in to one set of words. We are people. We have pasts, presents, futures. We have thoughts and feelings that matter just as much as yours. 

Your effect on us is substantial and maybe you don't see that. I know you label yourself as this third wheel, and maybe you are. But we have never treated each other the way that you treat us. You make us feel like loathsome human beings and it takes the two of us to remind each other that we're not. We cling to each other because we have a common enemy - you. 

You set yourself up for this. And I guarantee you there will come a time when we make a mutual decision of the fact that we have had enough. That we have had more than enough. 

And when that time comes, I hope you look yourself in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that it never had anything to do with us. It's all on you. It's never been about how we dealt with you or how we treated you. It's about the fact that you don't care to deal with us and you don't care how you treat us. 

So stop the crocodile tears and the fake apologies and promises you have no intention of keeping because I'm not falling for them anymore. I know who are. I know exactly what you're capable of. I'm not falling down for you. 

Are you worth the heartache? Are you worth everything I feel when I have to coddle you? Are you worth staying up at night for? 

I'm finally pulling my own head out of my ass a realizing that no, you're not. You're not worth the trouble of trying to keep with you. 

Maybe it was never about me not being good enough, but more about you not being enough. 

You're not enough to keep me happy. It's taken me a damn long time to realize it. 

I hope that one day you are enough. I hope one day the sun shines so brightly that it seems like it only made an appearance for you. 

But I'll be damned if I stick around to see it. 

Selfish

I've considered myself a lot of things in the past twenty years - juvenile, insecure, moody, spontaneous, narcissistic. But I don't think I've ever truly considered myself selfish until tonight. 

I'm pretty good at putting the problems of others before my own. I can push past my own problems, take care of them myself, and weigh a little less so I can carry the burden of others. But I realized that the most important person's burden to take awayis my family's. 

I thought that that was what I was doing. I was taking away the burden of the family I made for myself - Peyton and Dustin. I was putting myself in the back burner for them because they needed me. I needed them, too, but not as much. And it was worth it to sacrifice for them. It is so worth it to carry your best friends - your family. 

But I've been letting them help me with bits and pieces too. I've been opening up more, letting myself become vulnerable in a way I have never allowed myself to do in front of anyone else. It makes me uncomfortable, being vulnerable, but I know they don't think differently of me for it. I know that they will always think the sun shines out of my ass. Because they love me. Like a family does. 

But blood is thicker than water. And my mother needs me now more than ever. 

And while I've been putting myself on the back burner for my friends, I realized that I've been putting my mom on the back burner too. I got away. I left that house that was sucking the life out of me two months ago and I moved in with Dustin and I haven't looked back. Not even when my mother called to me, asking me to turn around. I refused to. And that's selfish. 

It's selfish because I took an out she doesn't have. She had one, years ago, when I was young and we still lived up north. And she didn't take it. She didn't take it because she was selfless. She was hopeful, naively so, that things would get better. And they didn't. 

She left that out to fade away behind her because my sister and I were young and impressionable and she didn't want us to face the consequences of her and my father's problems. So she carried her own burden and decided that her own little family, no matter how broken it was, was good enough for her. 

How did she come to that conclusion? How did she look past all the warning signs that told her it wasn't quite the darkest her life would get and continue to guide our family and our lives anyway? How did my mother become so selfless? And more importantly, how did it take me twenty years to figure out just how selfless she is?

She wants me back. She wants me home. That place may not be home to me, it hasn't been for a long time, but I am home to her. And I've been unfair to her. I've been so caught up in my own shit that I haven't had the energy to realize that maybe more people need me than I thought. She need me more than anyone else. 

It's going to exhausting, but it's a battle I have to fight. I have to go back to that house. I have to fight this war with the person who needs me most. Because it never occurred to me until now that my best sidekick is the person going through the exact same thing - my mother. 

I need her as much as she sees me. I need  to be less selfish and give a little back to the woman who gave me everything. I need to stop being so blind to a strong woman's fights and fight them with her. And with enough time, I will. As long as it's not too late.