I have had a lot of time for introspection lately.  Too much time, really.  Between the wakefulness thanks to nightmares and my own general introspection any way, coupled with this year’s crippling events, I have had more than enough time to delve deeply in to all the things that make me who and what I am.  This is rarely a good thing.  I cannot say, yet, whether this has been a good thing recently, either.  Though I have come to some conclusions.

I recently did something that has, to date, been one of the three hardest things I have ever done.  I sat down and wrote all the things I could, at the time, think that I love about someone.  It is much harder than it sounds.  I have often thought about it before, and when I did, I often found myself snapping back to the present with my mouth agape, eyes unfocused and staring in to memories past, lost in the swirling swarming events I hold close to my heart.  I can no more put in to words the emotions these memories evoke than I can adequately explain the emotions of giving birth, swinging from flesh hooks, adopting a child out, being beat by your spouse, escaping death.  They are all things that have no words, in any language, to really explain.  Though some of those I can explain better than others.  Love, fear, loss..these emotions will never be adequately explained, and they are the three that make us do the most fucked up things.  They make us stand when we should flee, they make us flee when we should stand.  They make us give when we should take, they make us take when we should give.  Or in my case, I don’t really feel fear so much, as I have written before.  I have found my fear response tends to go in to pure on “fuck you, I survive” mode where I go incredibly cold and calculating or I skip right over fear in to straight up terror.  Either way, I don’t run.  Ever, so far.  I face it.  Then I face it again.  And again.  And again.  And again.  And again.  And I keep facing it.

I am the type of person who, if I don’t want to do something, if I “fear” it, I have to do it.  Period.  Regardless the consequences, I have to do it.  Yes, I know the consequences.  I know the chances of me being hurt in some cases are pretty fucking ridiculously high, but I have to do it.  Sometimes, as I told a friend last night:

I don’t care about much, but I’ve lost nearly all I DO care about this year. Sometimes you gotta throw it all out see what comes back.

I guess that can be likened to “if you care about something, set it free, if it comes back, it’s meant to be. If it doesn’t, it was never yours.” or whatever the trite phrase is.  I don’t believe we “own” anyone.  I don’t give a flying fuck if it’s your spouse, child, pet, whatever.  We’re all on borrowed time; you choose to spend it in each others’ company.  You don’t OWN anyone.  You CHOOSE the people in your life, and that is what makes the time with them so much more precious.

Back to the writing… So I sat down, over the course of MANY hours, and wrote.  And I wrote.  And I wrote.  I don’t write much these days.  But I bled my fucking heart all over paper in ink.  I bled out hopes and fears and love until my hand cramped in to place.  Sometimes tears flowed freely, sometimes they simply teemed at the edges of my lids as I thought, hands shaking.  Sometimes, I simply stared off in to nothingness, trying to put adequate eloquence to the heaviness laying waste to my chest.

There was no eloquence.

There was only me, a pen, paper, time, and tears.

This may not seem like much, but I rarely write.  Never have I written something like this for anyone.  Ever.  I have found a lot of firsts since the end of 2012.  Many.  So much has changed in me, for me, since then.  Things I could not have dreamed of changing.  Things I could never have thought would change, because I had no basis to think they would.  I found, was shown, a reason to think differently.  Many reasons, in fact.  I feel differently about most everything.  And I did not really realize this until I sat down and wrote.  Finally penning all the things I have been thinking for over a year that I could not put word to made me realize many changes in myself I could not see previously.  They are not bad changes; they are simply different.

Have you ever loved someone, been IN love with someone, so much you loved just watching them move?  It did not matter what they did.  I have not, before.  Granted, despite my age, I can say I have never been IN love with someone before.  I do not mind this being a first.  I am glad, actually.  It is like watching liquid fire lick up a tree, slowly…starting at the roots and slowly moving up to the top.  It looks so soft and gentle.  Fire is destructive, yes, I know.  But if you remove your fear from that and look at it objectively, fire is so god damn graceful and fluid.  It is filled with so much beauty without ever trying.  That is how he moves when he doesn’t pay attention; with liquid easy grace and surety.  I love that.  I will not go in to any more; it is just one of those thing I notice and love that, upon thinking of all of it made me realize… It is incredibly motherfucking HARD to write down all the things you love about someone.  Not what you love they do for YOU – oh, I love how you make me FEEL.  I love how you touch ME.  I love when you do blah for ME..but things you love about THEM.  Both sides matter, don’t get me wrong.. but realizing and writing all the things you love about another person, writing them all down is so fucking hard.  Do it, and you may realize you love them less – or more – than you thought.  In my case, I found I loved him far more than I realized before.  And I already knew I love him with all my heart and soul.  He takes my breath away – he always has.  But realizing it goes so much deeper really has been an incredible shock for me.  I wasn’t aware it could go deeper.  I wasn’t aware caring about someone like this could change my entire view of the world, the people and things I care about.

A LOT of shit just is not important any more.  At all.  Many things, or people, are so fucking far on the back burner, they’re not even on the god damn stove any more.  Hey, look, priority change!  I am not who I was a year ago, two years ago, three years ago.  I have always been an ever-changing entity, comprised of my experiences.  We all should be.  These changes have rocked my world, however.  And my world has not stopped rocking since the beginning of this year.

Perspective is a beautiful thing.  It changes everything, depending on how we choose to see things.  I have known this a long time.  However, remembering this is not always easy, even if you already know this and have learned this lesson.  August is always a brutal-as-fuck month for me.  Always.  >.<  This year it is fraught with more emotional ups and downs than usual.  This year marks 12, years cancer-free, my adopted son’s 10th birthday, my 5th year divorced, would have been my dad’s 68th birthday..a few other things.  {{takes a deep breath}}  Emotionally good things, emotionally hard things… All things that are difficult to deal with alone.

Even good things can be stressful and difficult to handle alone.

It is important to take the time to delve in to yourself.  It is important to see the changes in yourself and take note of them.  I cannot say for sure whether these changes will be for the better or not.  I think time will show these changes are good.  I am softer in many ways.  I am harder in others.  I am filled with less care for things that don’t matter and more care for things that don’t.  I am…many things.  I am more than I was, yet less in others because of loss.  I learned WHY I broke this year.  I learned what broke.  I finally figured out why my core is so much smaller than it was, why everything is nothing.

Have you ever heard a song you have always loved, and suddenly everything about it is so much more poignant, so much closer to your heart than it has ever been?  That has rarely happened to me.  I have heard songs that HIT me the first time, that I heard at just the right moment in my life, that resonated with every atom in me.  Today, I heard A Perfect Circles’ 3 Libras, and it just.. Hurt.  Because I realized I saw myself through someone’s hurt eyes, and I didn’t like what I saw.  I was not always seen that way, but after too many months, I could not take being seen that way any more.  It hurt too much, and I was not strong enough to see me that way any more.  I couldn’t not see me through their hurt and fear any more.  And even the strong falter, even we fall.  And I fell, hard, and just couldn’t get back up this time, not by myself.  And I’m still on my back after that one.

A Perfect Circle – 3 Libras

I don’t know where I am going with this, except to say…Try it.  Try to write down how you feel about someone.  Delve in to everything you feel, put all of it down in to all the words you can.  Dive in to all the memories, good and bad, and let your heart flow all over the pages in ink.  For me, that is incredibly special, since I never write and always type.  Especially since I do NOT write letters.  Ever.  And it’s so much more personal when you sit down and actually take the time and effort and WRITE a letter about everything tearing your heart in little pieces, drowning your mind and soul.  And it takes so much effort to write, to put to paper all the little nuances you did not even realize you noticed and love.

Write.  Put your heart on paper for someone you love.  Put your heart on paper for you.  Write.  Find out how much you love someone.  Maybe you’ll surprise yourself, too, and find out it’s much deeper than you knew.  Maybe you’ll find it’s less.  Maybe you’ll learn something about yourself you needed to know.  But you owe it to yourself, and them, to write.  Life is too short to regret what you do not do.

Write your fucking heart out.