Tortured Soul

Holy crap am I bored!

This has been one of the most torturous days of my life! Mentally I feel ready to take on the world. Physically, I'm a hopeless, homebound, blob of pain. Stuck with stupid t.v. as my sole source of entertainment for the day, I feel less intelligent. A good book from the library would have saved my soul.

Surely I will feel better in the morning. Regardless of how well I actually feel, I am going into work. Spending the day in the house again would cause me to seek out the highest possible window to jump out of. It feels like days have passed since I interacted with the outside world! Funny what an involuntary day of rest does to the mind and spirit.

No Pain... No Gain?

It's Tuesday morning. Instead of sitting at my desk in the office, I'm laid up on the couch! My valiant attempt to train for the upcoming 5K has left me handicapped and couch-ridden. I heard a couple "pops" during my aerobic workout last night but thought nothing of them. That's what I get for not thinking.

My neck and back muscles are so tight that I'm barely mobile. Turning my head to the right brings me the most discomfort. Perhaps I'd better approach my training a little less aggressively!

Spirited delusions of grandeur had me believing I could dive into a daily workout regimen and make this 5K-in-3 weeks happen without fail. The inspiration from my workout even spilled over into my other life dreams and led to rainstorm-inspired ramblings with an ink pen in an old spiral notebook. I felt like writing all night! However, I forced myself to go to bed, foolishly thinking I was going to be physically capable of working.

Instead of solving our community's problems in an office chair, I'm simply draped with a comforting blanket, listless and struggling to decide if I should watch "Price Is Right" or "Judge David Young." And I think that is what hurts the most.

Soapbox Confessions

I think to say you have "grown up" you must learn the art of forgiveness. I know most people expect you to grow up by your mid-twenties... but, hey, we're all different; and some of us really seem to like doing things the hard way.


I'm happy to say, that at the "young" age of 35... I truly started growing up. When we let the pain of the past wrongs, or the embarrassment of past mistakes control our minds, we prevent ourselves from living life in the present, let alone having any hopes for happiness in the future. Unfortunately, although time stands still in our hearts and minds... we still physically grow old. Bullshit, I say!

Anyway... I've had the pleasure of running into several people I hadn't seen in over 15 years, in the past several months... people that may have not seen me at my best. And how could they have? I was an emotional mess when I was young! And after talking with a few of them, most of us were! I might be turning into a "super sap" in my old age... but there is something truly beautiful, and liberating, about forgiving people for simply being human.


If you were to have asked me, even five years ago, if I would ever consider opening the lines of communication with my very absent father... I would have said "hell no!" and maybe even told you to kiss my ass! But somewhere along my journey through this crazy little thing called "life," I realized that every single one of us has had some sort of struggle, hardship, tragedy, or emotionally devastating event occur in our lives. I realized that maybe my dad wasn't a dad because he literally couldn't be one... maybe he didn't know how. I'm not going to say that his lack of involvement in my life didn't hurt me, and I'm not going to say that exchanging a dozen or so emails with him magically erases any past wrongs or regrets. What I will say, is that just about anyone will tell you that life didn't quite go the way they planned it to... and I don't believe that anyone intentionally makes bad choices. They do what they know... and do what they can.



Does this make it right? Of course not. But if we spend our lives keeping score of who was "right" and who was "wrong," who was "good" and who was "bad," we immediately slam the door of opportunity... the opportunity to love and to learn from other people. The opportunity to forgive. The opportunity to have peace and forgiveness; true happiness in our lives.



Yesterday does not matter! We cannot change the past. We can't change the things we wished we wouldn't have done or said, anymore than those who have hurt us can. But what we can do, is accept things for what they were... what they are... and forgive. Most importantly... forgive ourselves.



Of course I wish that things could have been this "easy" when I was younger, but if I hadn't gone through my own hard times, who's to say I would be the person that I am now? And although I do think it's sad that it took me this many years to be able to talk about those "terrible" things that held be back from being truly happy for so many years... I'm very thankful that I can now say, I just plain don't give a shit! I punished myself for things I had no control over, things I didn't do, things I didn't ask for... and if being blatantly in-your-face honest prevents someone from taking the hard, and painful path... or suffering a life in painful silence... I'll risk the gossip... the "oh my God can you believe?"s...



That's me. A peace-love-and-happiness-can't-we-all-just-get-along kinda girl. And if you haven't noticed, I'm not apologizing for that anymore. I'll proudly stand on my soap box and let you make fun of my obnoxious eighties hair, shake your finger in shame about the guy I shouldn't have slept with, or wonder why I didn't "make something of myself" sooner... because I know if you're reading this, you've got a big heart in you, somewhere (smile!)...


Uh-oh! That big fat clown is coming across the stage now with that big, shut-the-fuck-up cane...

Mona Lake is Dead???

So tonight I confided in a friend. And I said, "I think Mona is dead." Which is me, of course.

But. Fuck that. I'm not dead.

I'm just hurt because I allowed myself to really feel, for the first time in a long time... but with a man who couldn't, even if he wanted to, feel back. And as much as I could try to convince myself it was wrong, I know it wasn't. There was a devine reason for us to meet, which the true meaning of, I have yet to discover.

But I know, that I've wasted the majority of my life denying who I am, what I want, and where I want to be. And when it's all said and done, I'll have one last regret.

So I'm here. Wanting him. And he probably wants me too. But, that can't be. So. I'm thinking I am about to entertain the thought of a "no strings attached" relationship, based solely on sex. Because... I am... a 37 year-old woman, that is fit, smart, sexy, funny, and open-minded... and there is a world out there that keeps on spinning; with or without me. And damn it! I want to have some hot sex! Not once. Not twice. But at least, three times... this year!

The Empty Chair...

I have sat here... in this same... old... hard... cold...

uncomforting, uncomfortable chair... for twelve hours. Half a day. A lifetime. Lifetime of feelings. Conversations. Words. Said. And unspoken...

And

I

Am...

Mourning. Frustrated. Sad. Hopeful. Desperate. Needy. Full. Empty...

All at once. And...

All

Alone.

In this empty chair...

A. Fucked. Up. Mess.

The defintion of a fucked up mess... according to Webster:

A: "from beginning to end; completely; exhaustively"

Fucked: "great, malicious, unfairness"

Up: "as a virtually meaningless element added, esp. colloquially, to almost any verb"

Mess: "6 a) a state of embarrassment, trouble, difficulty, a person in either of these states 2. to make a mess of; specif., to make dirty, soiled, or untidy; also, to bungle; muddle; botch: often with up

What. Have I done. Do I do...

An Absolute Mess

I am an absolute mess.

A product of my own destruction. A scattered, shattered, all and nothing that mattered mess.

Here's a photo to prove it.

The Big Fat Fucking Mess

Now I've gone and done it. Fucked it all up.

I can't get into all of the details. I'm still spinning and sick with the dizziness. Already uncomfortably brewing with too much coffee on an empty stomach before I got the message from C.F.

The message.

C.F. and I had been intimately chatting and sending photos for the last six weeks. And we had finally met. It was electric. Pure. True. And right away, I was afraid. Afraid for all of the cliche reasons... afraid to be in love, broken-hearted. But also afraid of feeling something that most likely would have to end... and I didn't want to ever have to let it go... so I almost didn't let myself begin to feel it.

But I did. And I do.

And now... he's afraid. Justifiably afraid of the consequences of our feelings. Of us meeting again. Of us being more than what we can handle... because he's involved with someone else. And if he holds on to me... he inevitably has to let go of her and his life. It's a mess. A fucking mess. And I want to talk to him about it so badly, but he's afraid that we can't meet. We were supposed to meet tomorrow.

I can't make sense right now. Not of this. Not to explain it. Can't make sense of what I feel... and I can't try... because our relationship was a secret. So I am stuck here... with this bubbling, explosive mess... trapped inside my sickened stomach. Alone.

And to further scatter the wreck and confusion that is me... Mr. Irishman called right after I got the news, and asked me if I was okay. I just said no and that I couldn't talk about it right now. So... I have to add to the mess... and not tell him the truth. Not tell him that I'm basically almost in love with someone I can't be with, but that I love him too. God. Typing that just completely paralyzed me. It doesn't seem possible. How could that be? How could something so entirely fucked up even possibly happen? And why am I so torn with convincing myself that it was stupid to begin with, and feeling like the honest reality is that we can't help who we love, or why we love them. And damn't... we can't isolate the tangled web of the world that sometimes keeps us away from where we want to be... and who we want to greet us when we get there.

Fuck.