Black

"It's always darkest before the dawn" never really made much sense to me. If everything is awful, how could it be cleared so easily? How many times to you really get a break in life?

I can't think of a single moment in my life when I felt comfortable enough to sit back and think about how good things are. I can't think of a time where everything felt settled. It's always had a way of being swept back and creating another twister. 

Maybe I only say that because everything frightens me. I don't know what's going to happen and that scares the shit out of me. Every fucking thing about my life is up in the air right now and I don't have the patience to wait for it to be settled. And if I'm being honest with myself, which I very rarely am, I don't know if everything ever will be. 

I don't know if this pain in my chest will ever go away when I think about it. I don't know if I'll find the motivation to set myself up for when I'm older. I don't know if I'll ever find anyone that genuinely cares about me. I don't if I'll ever sleep easy at night again. I don't know if I'll ever be content with just myself and not have my self worth tied to someone else. 

I'm constantly worried about someone or something and I can't breathe. I can't sleep. I can't function. I don't know what's happening and I'm scared. I am so scared of everything.

I want everything to be okay but I don't even know what "okay" is. I haven't felt "okay" in far too fucking long and I don't feel like I'll ever be truly happy again. 

I don't know what's missing. I have this vast number of tangible things at my disposal and I don't want any of them. I don't need them. But I don't know what I need. I don't think I'll ever know exactly what I need and I'm losing my fucking mind. 

All I'm saying is that if it really is the darkest before the dawn, it's bound to break soon because I've never been immersed in such an emptying shade of black. 

Knots

I have officially given up. I don't care anymore. Fuck Dustin for not thinking that I'm enough and fuck my best friend in Virginia for leaving and fuck my parents for blaming me for being sad and fuck school for being a constant reminder that the only thing I'm capable of doing well is fucking up. 

I've been doing okay too. I've been marginally happy and optimistic and been doing things that I should be doing. And of course I can't be happy for long. Of course I can't be satisfied with my best adventures. They're never enough for me. Something has to be wrong. It always is. And I'm fucking over it. 

It's like my life is this huge knot and every time I unravel some of it, put it back in pocket, and forget about it, something else gets tangled up. And I can't fucking stand it anymore. I can't stand being second best. I can't stand surrounding myself with the same people who don't really give a shit about me. I can't stand being a disappointment and not having anyone to talk about it with. I can't stand having all of these feelings I have with no idea how to express because I'm so comfortable being a robot. 

I hate being alone. I hate crying in my car in the middle of the day and having strangers look at me like I'm fucked in the head. I hate being with people in supposed to be comfortable with and feeling like I have to sensor myself. I hate not being able to get myself out of my own fucking head. I hate the headache I get after I cry. I hate the weakness I feel while I'm crying. I hate it all. I hate it. 

And I can't do it. It's over, I'm done. I'm done fighting for everyone around me, including myself. I'm done watching myself waste away in front of the world while they turn a distracted eye and pretend not to notice. I'm done building people back up and try to be everything they need when I'm just some background character in their life. I'm done trying to save people. I'm fucking losing it and nobody, including myself, fucking cares. 

It's Isa throwing herself a pity party like she always does. It's Isa getting up in her feelings and refusing to talk about because she never does. It's Isa being moody and taking everything personally. It's all my fucking fault. 

I can't keep taking two steps forward just to be thrown back another fifty. I can't keep up with the revolving door of people in my life. I can't keep pretending that everything rolls off my shoulders. I can't keep acting like nothing keeps me up at night and that I'm not falling apart. 

I write all of this knowing that I will never fucking say anything out loud. I'll never confide this in anyone. I want people to realize but I'm not willing to mention it. And that's fucked up. I'm a waste of a person and it's all so fucking clear. 

I may not be as transparent as I think I am. Maybe my happy act really is fooling everyone and it's not that they don't care it's just that I'm too good at pretending that I don't care. So yeah, fuck everyone but mostly, fuck me for being completely incapable of asking for help. 

I don't need it. I'm strong enough to handle this in my own. And if I'm not, I'm strong enough to get myself out of it, one way or another. 

Forgiveness

There's something completely unreal about the idea of forgiving someone. If they were truly someone who cared about you, why would there be anything to forgive? Why would they ever fuck you over? Why is forgiveness even a thing?

But then I think about all the times I fucked up. All the times I've apologized with my heart in my throat, hoping and praying that they would accept and things wouldn't be torn. 

But those were small things. What about the big ones that take a little more convincing? The ones that can't be fixed with a murmured, "Sorry." The ones where you know you fucked up and it, whatever it is, could be done. 

Why would anyone do that to someone they care about? Is it the heat of the moment or is it something built up from many moments? Which is easier to forgive?

Forgiveness is hard concept for me. But it's also simple as hell. Do I value this person and their place in my life more than I resent them for their betrayal? That's the only question I had to answer for myself. 

Recently, I've been asking myself this about Shane. What he did, the effect it had on my life, I promised myself a long time ago that I would never forgive him for that. And to this day, three years after I've been officially done with him, I haven't. I haven't forgiven him. 

But his weight makes me feel as though I'm going collapse. I think I need to let it go. 

I think I need forgive more than Shane. I need to forgive myself for staying. For being weak. For allowing him to treat me that way. For thinking so lowly of myself. I need to forgive who I was so who I am can be lighter. 

So this is my official record of me forgiving Shane and forgiving me. I forgive Shane for laying his hands on me in anger. I forgive myself for laying there and taking it. I forgive Shane for calling me every name in the book. I forgive myself for believing that his words defined me. I forgive Shane for being who he was. I forgive myself for making excuses for it. Most of all, I forgive Shane for finding a place in my life when I least expected it. And I forgive myself for making it too easy for him to do so. 

Maybe the world I've been carrying on my back will weigh a little less now. Maybe this mountain I've been trying to climb won't feel as high. Maybe my life will be brighter without the shadow Shane cast on it.

But, really, who knows? Maybe this won't change a single thing. 

The September Curse

Every summer for the past four years, I have had a different guy best friend. Every summer ends and with the ending comes September. And that's when they leave. That's when they all just leave. Maybe we grew apart, maybe we had a fight, maybe it was a slow drift, but it always ends. It's the September Curse. 

All of these guys I spend every day with. We don't go more than 24 hours without each other and it's blissful. It's nice to always have someone there. Someone to take away the boredom and the consistency and shake things up a little. I loved them all separately and with all my heart. But this summer, I have never been more satisfied with who I'm spending my time with. 

His name is Dustin and we are inseparable. We can't even run an errand without each other and it's great. We used to be a trio until our other girlfriend moved to Virginia. Now that she's hours away, it's hard to maintain and friendship with her but at the end of the day, she is my absolute best friend and I'd give her the world if I could. And so would Dustin. 

We're here now in Virginia visiting her and we are growing apart. It's so clear how much he loves her and how I'm just someone he uses. I'm someone he kind of loves but it will never stand next to the love he has for her. And I can't change that. 

I can't change the fact that she's better than I am. I can't change the fact that she's beautiful and perfect and outgoing and just lovely. I love her and I'd never want her to change because there isn't a single thing about her that I don't absolutely adore. 

But it fucking blows to live in someone else's shadow. To wither away in the winter while they thrive in the summer. And it's getting to me. It's getting to me because I'm always second rate. I'm always the back up plan. The placeholder. The girl who's used. 

It's no ones fault but my own and I know this. I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough for Dustin or my parents or my sister or my best friend. I'm just not enough. I don't know how to be. 

I don't know how to hold on to him. I may just have to let him go. I can already feel him slipping away. It may just be the hardest thing I've ever done, but this battle may be so devastating that there would be no reason to even fight it. He's done. I can see it in his eyes, in the way he sits, in the way he speaks to me. He resents me. 

I don't know how much longer I can stand it. How much longer I'll be able to handle him treating my like dirt on the bottom of his shoe when we're in public and a queen when we're alone. How he acts like I'm some sort of inconvenience instead of a friend. How I don't know how to be myself around him anymore because I'm so caught up in worrying about him hating me more. 

It's going to be so fucking hard to let him leave. But it would be even harder to ask him to stay when I know that all he really wants is out. So I'm going to have to give it to him. I'm going to have to give him an out. And it's going to kill me. 

Maybe he'll live a better life without me holding him back. Without me there to act like I own him. Like he's my property. Without me to bring him down and never lift him back up. I can see him slouch under my weight and I know that I have to relieve him of my pressure. 

It's the September Curse back again to haunt to me. It's mid August and I know that it's coming. A month from now he'll be someone I'll see on the street and avoid eye contact with. He's someone that I'll catch up with awkwardly in a couple years after we're both older and time has healed some of our wounds. 

I'm losing him all at once. And it's killing me.