Time is non-refundable.

For as long as I can remember I have been billed as the no-nonsense, hard-core, self sufficient bitch on the outside.

          I don't need anyone.  I don't need anything.  I've got it.  I just tell the truth, sometimes that's not awesome.    
               Men?  I like them, but I don't need them.

For as long as I can remember, it has been true.  Until a year ago.
         
          Do you think I am pretty?   Do you love me?  Do you want to be with me?

I suppose even under the hard exterior there was always a core with a heart.  Most people never saw it.

I moved to Florida alone.  Co-dependency has never been my friend.  I have always been a loner.  I allowed boys and a state to break me.

I have this tattoo.  It's Peace, Love and Rock and Roll.  My mantra for life.  I forgot.  I totally forgot.  I forgot to love.  I forgot Peace.  I forgot Rock and Roll.  I actually, for a moment, did not like my tattoo.  Well f*ck that.  I remembered who I was and why I have that there.

I LOVE.  I always have.  Everything is better when you love.  LOVE.

Proof that I once loved:

Top 5 favorite songs of ALL time:

Nature Boy- sung by Nat King Cole
All You Need is Love- The Beatles
Hey There Delilah- Plain White Ts
Crush -Dave Mathews Band
The Luckiest - Ben Folds

When I came home from summer camp in 1999 I got a job at Starbucks.  I enrolled in community college.  I worked full time 45 minutes from home and was enrolled in 15 units.  I did well.  As a matter of fact I was asked to become an economics tutor and picked up a second job.

I liked my fast car.  It was expensive.

So I worked, one thing led to another and I was working 60 hour weeks as a manager.  I didn't sleep.  I didn't need to.  Sometime around 2005 I realized I missed life.  It spinning around me at 5000 miles an hour, I buried myself in work.  Then work turned on me.  No mater how many hours I worked, I couldn't get ahead.  The universe was working against me.  It was cold, and not just because I couldn't afford to heat my apartment and visit my boyfriend.  I read books, rented movies, and spent lots of time alone.  One week I watched 3 movies, read 2 books, and met 1 person who all contributed to the eternal altering of my outlook on existence. 

Long story short, I wanted to live for fun.   So (LONG STORY OMITTED) I decided to stay at Disney World and enjoy an easy job.

I tried this whole "work for fun, no responsibility thing"   Yeah, I don't like it.

First;
I am a thinker.  I really must be doing like 12 things at once in order to function.  Full time job, managing and school?  absolutely, add debate and radio?  Bring it.  Planning a wedding?  Go ahead, toss that in too!  Doing nothing?  GAH!!!!! I am going freaking insane.  It has made me neurotic, a shell of myself.

Second;
I would like to believe that I am low maintenance.  I don't need a lot.  I am just a common woman.  This, i have discovered, is a lie.  I thought "I am not materialistic, I don't need things to make me happy."  HA!  I have finally come to grips with me.  Yes, I can change my own oil and do my own brakes, but I don't want to.  I don't need to have my nails done, but god, do I feel a hell of a lot better afterwords.  I like to shop.  I like cosmetics, I like to shop for them, buy them, and wear them.  I like to own books.  I am just not a library girl.  I like technology.  I like to go to concerts.  I like to buy music.  I derive joy from vacations and seeing beautiful things.  I like food.  GOOD food.  Taco Bell has a special place in my heart, as does chick-fil-a, but nothing beats a good sandwich on artisan bread.  Yes, I like freaking artisan bread.  I like fancy coffee, I like lattes and over priced hot coco.  I like CLOTHES and SHOES!  Nice clothes, and lots of them.  I am at peace with this.  I am no longer self rightous.  I live in a first world country, and I am happy.  It is now my duty to live as such.  

When you're asleep all I really want to do is spoon you from behind and rub your chest.  I want you to know everything is going to be alright.  <3

I am in it.  Right now.  Way in it.  I am in the hole at the bottom of the pit.  I am in the bell jar.  Everything is wrong and upside down.  At first it was numbingly painful.  Like, it hurt so much, so deeply,  I had no room for any other feelings.  So now it hurts a little less and I have this over whelming desire to do nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  It's everywhere.  The pain is in the library, at the supermarket, at home, at work, in my car, the inescapable pain trails behind me, looms ahead of me, and lurks in corners waiting to jump out.  I have always prided myself in my ability to mostly get over "stuff".  Especially trivial stuff.  I have not been able to trivialize this situation no matter how hard I try.  I think perhaps he is not the one for me.  I try to convince myself that I don't want to be with a guy who does not have goals, telling myself that he will remain mediocre.  Apparently my love is blind to this.  Where as previously my standards dictated that only someone who is an achiever could win my heart, I fell in love.  So this is love.  and this is a broken heart.  I only wish I hadn't discovered them so close together.  He told me there is no in between.  There is no try, only do (really, who quote yoda, oh wait, I did).  I retorted with "life isn't black and white, there is gray".  He told me he was starting a black and white only movement, for the eradication of gray.  I am not angry.  Not even a little.  Only hurt.  So hurt.  I sit on the couch and one of his worn shirts is here, I can smell him.   Isn't it funny how even if you live together the person has a smell?  To me that smell is home.  I have crashed on quite a few couches lately, and the only thing I can think of is the smell.  It is not home, it's all wrong.  When I come back to grab my things, I wrap my arms around him for a hug and suddenly I can breathe again, as if I had been sufficating in air and smells, suddenly everything is ok.  Why is love so crewl, so wicked.  My insides have been torn apart.  I tried to find comfort.  Just hold me.  It's not the same.  All I could think about was how these weren't HIS arms, this wasn't his touch, his eyes, or his smell.  All I want is to go through this with him.  ::sigh::  You give what you get and you get what you give, I suppose..

Pain upon Pain,
It hurts so much and you fail to realize what you do to me.
The burning pangs within me,
i don't understand.
and because you think you are broken some how gives you credence to destroy me.
I am not that bitch,
I haven't done anything wrong.
I have been better to you than I have been to anyone.
You leave me broken, with no answers or concerns for my well being.
You may have friends that picked you up when you were broken.
I am alone.
Always alone.
I will never know what I did wrong other than care for you.
Perhaps because I haven't got as much money.
Maybe I am not hot enough,
i am just me,
freckles,
bleh brown eyes,
pale skin,
short,
big feet,
broken heart.
I am defective.  So are you.  So why don't you accept it.
We can fix ourselves.
Together.

The truth exists inside us and only inside of us.  Once it is outside it is subject to interpretation, scrutiny, recapitulation and ultimate subjectivity.  We relate it to our selves to our scopes of reality and alter truths to meet our needs, necessity and reality.

Yes our own reality.  Granted perception is different for everyone.  Our perception is based on a series of experiences to which one is subjected.  No two people have been subjected to the exact same stimulus at the exact same stages and phases and time frame unless they are a test subject, then, you are a completely contrived ultimately unfortunate person.

Much like Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, we are all mad men.  We all have a beast that exists within.  Whether the beast is savage or harmless, strange or common is shaped by the experiences of before.  The beast is formed by our perceptions.  No one understands you fully unless they understand the nature of the beast within you.

I have the equivalent of a duck billed platypus inside of me.

Have you ever met a duck billed platypus?  no?  Haven't seen any meandering through Target or walking their dog in the park?  Yeah, Neither have I.  Oh and how many people do you know that are experts on the platypus?  Me neither.  And what's the plural of platypus?  Platypuses.  Not Platypi.  Do you know why you didn't know that?  Because, I'll wager, If you've seen one, you're fortunate, if you've seen two, you're a freak, or a platypus eating crocodile.  Did you know that there is no word of a group of platypuses?  Like flock or herd or romp?  yep, they're solitary creatures.

Probably because they're weird.

Every now and then I will meet a person whom I believe has like a wallaby or a koala living in them.  I figure perhaps another creature from my ancestral bestial origins might understand the plight of the platypus.

But I think I am wrong.  The platypus is always a solitary animal.  Much like the wolf of the steppes.

::love::

Shatter.

I live in a world of neon pastels and sand.  Where apartment complexes back up to wild jungles and you can find seashells in your backyard.  Many find this land of turquoise water, white sand and margaritas paradise.

I want to say my own personal hell, but those words are harsh.  It's beautiful, sunshine,  beaches,  the wilderness,  It's full of mystery,  venomous creatures, gators, beautiful birds, greenery.  It's also vapid, vacuous, living in it's own reality of tourism and southern culture.  Oranges and country music.  Delicious strawberries (They might even be better than those in California) and Caribbean cuisine really can't cancel out the massive gift shops with smiling magicians and enormous animals with light up eyes sprouting from the roof.  To many this kitsch is charming, much like that in  Chinatown or fisherman's wharf, but the ominous beast of consumerism and promoted naivety looms large.  The culture of non-culture is so prevalent in this paradise, homogeneity is always rewarded and the slings and arrows are endured by the unique.

Feeling alone in millions is a familiar concept to many, (I mean look at poor Eleanor Rigby), but to live in a world where everyone one is here on a limited time basis, is challenging.  I am comfortable alone, for days, but without a comiserant, someone who understands your context, truly and deeply the values of you, being alone transitions into being lonely, for you are lone.

Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.
-Carl Gustav Jung

 

Why couldn't you write a song about me?  Why couldn't you be exactly what I wanted?  All I wanted was a freaking song... You tell me you might have been writing a song, but it's an angry song.  You know all I wanted was you to sing to me.  Everyone else got the love I thought I deserved.  All I want is an I love you song.  I know I'm not sappy or extra girly, but you knew if you wanted me all you needed was 88 black and whites and some lyrics.  Why can't I inspire anyone?  The only inspiration I inspire is carnal.  My soul isn't beautiful, my breasts are.  My mind isn't impressive, my ankles are.  hair, eyes.... I must be that girl that people think is ok... but only if they keep their mouth shut...  one damn song... that's all...
 

You just don't get it, you don't get it at all.  I love to be alone.  It's ok, I am ok with myself.  I judge me, but i understand my judgments, I know what about myself I enjoy and what I don't.  Let me be.  Allow me to explore my reality.  My life has been dry and bland, myself has been missing, now that I have relocated myself in between lyrics, buried in music, in the bindings of books and stuck to the glue, that reminds me of who I am.  I am satisfied with who I AM.  Not the shell you have created forced over me like a fondant, to suit your needs, to improve your ego.  I nearly suffocated, until, much like Plato's cave I realized I had been hypnotized by the images you showed me, strapped to the chair.  I have poked holes, I want to be free...