Even the Possibility of Losing Someone Hurts

Well, life has been really crazy lately...and by that I mean over the last couple of years, but I guess that's what happens when you grow up a little bit, isn't it? Truth be told, all of the craziness in my life for the past couple of years is exactly why I ended up having to create this blog—to help, in part, to keep my sanity, and also because all of this craziness tends to give me a lot of wisdom to share with the world.


Anyway, I don't recall mentioning this in this blog, but last year one of my uncles died, so my family and I had to deal with that grief, and going to that funeral...that wasn't too bad. I didn't know my uncle very well—I loved him solely because I knew he was part of my family, that, and whenever I did see him, he was always a nice guy. So, what all this comes down to is that my grandmother has been in and out of the hospital lately, and now she's there again. This time they're talking congestive heart failure.


I don't know what to do with myself. This woman was like my mother when I was a little girl, hell...I always felt like I loved her more than my own mother when I was little. You see, my own mother was never around, and neither was my dad. It wasn't their faults—they were always working; they had to, but this led to my grandmother practically raising me, and making the greatest impression on my young self out of all the people I knew in my life at that time. She was like my real mother. She still does feel like she's my real mother when I talk to her.


I don't want to lose her...but I'm starting to become extremely afraid that my time with her...moreover...her time with us in this world is limited...which they are. She is almost 95, after all.


It's hard when you think you're about to lose something more important to you than the world for, when you realize that you're about to lose something, all you want to do is keep yourself from losing that thing. Your prayers become selfish. Right now all I want is to be able to talk to my grandmother one more time and tell her "I love you" before she leaves this world. I told her every time I talked to her before, but it's been awhile, and I don't want to have any regrets. I don't know.


She was always the one person who would tell me to follow my dreams. My family never did that—my mom tried, but my dad wouldn't ever encourage anything that didn't ultimately lead to success with no doubt, and my dreams have never been things that would be undoubtedly successful.


My grandmother's love for me has always been unconditional. I wish she could be here with me for the rest of my life. She's the only person like that that I have left right now. 


I'm not consigning her to the grave or anything by writing this post, but it's not looking good. 


I love you grandma—we all love you. Please be able to stay with us for a little longer. All the money in the world couldn't make me want to lose your love.


Love,
the person behind A Little Lonely Wisdom


"You can't fill your cup until you empty all it has
You can't understand what lays ahead if 
You don't understand the past
You'll never learn to fly now until you're
Standing at the cliff
And You Can't truly love until you've given up on it."
~"Satellite" by Rise Against

Pretty Little Understandings

This has been an odd week. Not a bad odd, but odd.

I've gone back to school after my three week break, and it's summer now. The birds are singing in the morning, and the days last till 8:00 p.m. People walk with a skip to their step and smiles on their faces. Little girls whirl happily in their summer bell dresses just to see them poof out around their legs, and the only thing that interrupts my afternoons is the sound of the church down the street ringing a happy tune at midday.

The music on the radio is peppier, the clothing brighter, and the smiles genuine. I love this time of year. There's just something about it. Even the darkest of hearts crack open a window and hope for something.

And I can look out my back door to see this.

Anyway, it's been an odd week. A friend of mine had a breakdown and I went to stay overnight with her to keep her company in her sadness, my father went off on me for no reason, my mother has been going through phases of depression and über happiness, and I've been okay with everything going on. I'm handling it all well. That being the only reason this week wasn't particularly bad other than the fact that I had a great day on Saturday. I'm handling things well. That is so odd for me. I think it has to do with all the strifes I've been going through over the last few years.

Finally, they're paying off.

Aww, man. I just cracked myself up. "Strifes that are paying off." I said that like I purposely put myself through the loss of my personality, a bout with an alcoholic family member, psoriasis, parents constantly on the verge of divorce, endless work, and a broken heart mixed with a helping of "long-distance-relationship."

I'm feeling better because I'm letting myself feel better. I'm feeling better because I'm following my dreams. I'm feeling better because I'm listening to my passions, and, finally, I'm feeling better because I'm making sure that I'm doing what I want to do along with what I have to do.

At the same time I'm dealing with my old pains instead of letting them float in the muck of my mind, heart, and soul. Every time something comes back to haunt me I stab it with a knife or shoot it with a bullet. My mind likes to tell me how everything that went wrong in my past was my fault and that I need to regret it forever. It's one of my dragons that needs slaying. I haven't fought it for a long time, but (like I've said) recently I've been killing it. I've been taking hunks out of it. I am so tired of being haunted by my past. It would be a good thing for it to die, perhaps mourned a little bit, but definitely needs to be left cold and lifeless in an unmarked grave. I'll never forget what I've been through, but it's nice to say goodbye for it. And you, if you've read this blog at all, know that I believe "goodbye" is a thing said only when you mean never to come back.

I also believe that shit happens for a reason. I always knew that my ex came into my life for a reason, and I always knew he would never stay, but it took me months to figure out why. You wanna know what I discovered? It's that he taught me how to fight. It's not like he told me to, but he gave me something to fight for, so I indirectly learned the lesson from him. It was really God telling me to do something. It was God telling me to stop being such a pussyfoot, and it was God telling me to get off my ass and live because there's good shit out there mixed in with all the crap. I'm glad he did. Because now I can handle my current situations, which are all easy in my mind, but I can deal with them whilst that little girl so many months ago wouldn't have dealt with anything at all.

You've got to deal with things. When you leave stuff undone, that stuff will come back to haunt you. I know that well. I definitely know that well.

Stuff comes into your life for a reason. Live through the circumstances bravely and fight your dragons. Just don't forget to slay them.

~A Little Lonely Wisdom

"The hardest battle you're ever going to fight is the battle to be just you." ~Leo F. Buscaglia

A Little Lonely Melody

I've been seeing some strange things in myself lately. It begins with humming. I caught myself at it all day today, and it's been building inside me for the last few months. I've been so lost over the last year that I had forgotten everything that I ever was to myself—my best friend, a comrade, a beautiful woman of many passions. Somewhere along the course of the last few years I lost all of my passions. They all trickled into the dusty hourglass of time because everyone had been telling me they were worthless. My own father basically told me that my dreams were shit last year. Not in those exact terms, and maybe he didn't think they truly embodied shit, but they sure smelled a lot like it. He told me that they didn't and wouldn't make me any money in my future. They weren't secure enough for his tastes. It was at that point when I started killing myself, and where I started to slowly die on the inside, all relatively unbeknownst to myself. I spent the last two-three years of my life in denial, but it wasn't until last year that I truly lost everything that I ever was. It wasn't until last year that I had the last thing I hoped for taken away from me, and my voice went silent.


I was a very brave little girl. Nothing phased me. My mother is always telling me stories about how my teachers would mention in student-teacher conferences that, "the girl knows who she is." I never fell prey to the idiosyncrasies of youth. I never, ever, tried to conform to anybody. If anything, they were always conforming to me—jealous that I didn't seem to need all the trappings they did to feel human, alive, and individualistic. I was a bossy kid. I admit that, but it's only because nobody ever had the guts to stand up to me. If I said that we should do something, they never put forth any ideas as to what. I always tended to have to come up with the plans. Yeah, it went to my head a lot, but I was always pretty nice.


Anyway, that little girl could do anything. She had a semi-crappy life, but she could do anything. She knew that what others thought of her didn't matter. She knew that the only person in the world who had to love her was her, and that as long as she was okay with who she was and the decisions she made, she would always be satisfied with herself. She knew that being able to look in the mirror every day without flinching away in shame was the only thing she had to worry about. She knew everything.


It's hard to be in a position in life where you realize that you once knew everything that you gave up on later  because others told you to, and because of the harshness of the world.


Things I've had to reteach myself lately are shameful in their simplicity. Because of my mother, I've had to reteach myself that skin color is just a pigment, that religion doesn't automatically make a person good or bad, and that my worth does not depend upon whether or not I have a boyfriend screwing me so that I can give her grandchildren. (I don't really want children, by the way. She hates me for this. Legitimate hatred some days.) I've also had to reteach myself that my parents may not get along, but that doesn't mean that my future relationships will all end up like theirs. I've had to comfort myself that, just because they hate each other and I've never heard either of them say "I love you" doesn't mean that I'll end up that way. I've had to remind myself that I know the way I love, and that one day I'll find somebody who appreciates my past and who doesn't make me live in it. I'll find a man who isn't like my father (albeit, he's a good guy, he's over-controlling and doesn't know how to talk to someone, and ignores the world around him rather than deal with it when it comes to relationships) and loves/treats me the way I deserve to be loved/treated.


When I was a little girl I understood that accepting somebody for everything they were would get you a friend in anybody in the world. When I was a little girl I understood that judging somebody and assuming the end of a situation would just end with you in a very bad place.


I understood that trust was in a hug, love was in a kiss, and understanding was in a smile, and also that these three things coincided. I understood that there was no shame in asking for help, and that trusting somebody was a good thing...because you have to trust somebody to be trusted in return. I understood that the only way to get an answer was to ask for one, and sometimes you wouldn't like the answer, but that was okay...because at least now you knew. If shit hit the fan, you just moved forward instead of caring about it. You either fixed it or forgot about it.


Last, but definitely not least, I understood that my passions were what made me. I understood that trusting myself and doing things that made me happy were what kept me happy. I understood that doing things that I didn't want to do would make me sad and frustrated—I understood....I understood that if I didn't do at least some things for myself, I would always be in a very unhappy place.


I lost all of this knowledge over the last few years, but this year, especially, was bad. This year I stopped believing in love. This year I stopped drawing, I stopped writing, I stopped reading, and I stopped hoping. This year I forgot how much I loved the sun and it's warmth, I forgot that I loved my cat and my family, and I forgot that I'd ever loved anything...because I didn't believe in it anymore. I was a very dismal person for a long, long, longgggggggg while. Then I got my heart broken, and anything that I had left of my old self was just bloody gone.


I camped out in my basement and didn't come out for two months. I didn't eat, I didn't watch T.V., I didn't talk to anybody...I didn't even cry. I didn't know if it was night or day, and I didn't particularly care. I had stopped doing anything of any value to anyone, including myself.


And that brings us back to the beginning. That's why it was so weird to me today to catch myself humming. I wasn't humming anything in particular, I was just humming the sounds of my soul. That soft, warm, and rolling, lullaby with a beat that stirs the bones from sleep...gently—like the waves of a slow-moving river against the banks of its shores. Something warmed by the sleepy sun. Golden and full of life. Reminiscent of old Egyptian tales and times full of magic. That's what my soul sounds like. I haven't heard the sound of my soul since I was a very little girl.


For a time, I thought my ex was singing that song back to me...that's part of the reason I loved him so much. It occurs to me now that he wasn't. He came close...but it was more of a moody-blues version of my strong, luscious, twining beats. Every once in awhile he got the melody right, but it wasn't ever quite what I wanted to hear, or needed to hear. I do thank him though. And I thank God. He brought him into my life so that he could sing back to me a little bit of the song I'd lost so long ago. He reminded me of the base tune, while I was left to find the rest of it on my own. Now. Now that I know that...I am completely healed. Not just from my loss of him, but from my loss of everything. Apparently somebody had to come into my life and intervene so that everything else could be okay. It's too bad that he was one that would just walk in for a time, leave footprints, and then leave...but that'll be okay now. His footprints will always be here in my heart, like the footprints of astronauts will always be on the moon, but I don't need him or his presence anymore.

If this sings to you, then you've heard the sound of my soul.

I am still looking for somebody to complete my tune...make it more robust and give me a harmony. Not an exact one, but certainly closer than the one my ex had, and certainly closer to my heart.

I'm glad I hummed today. And I'm glad I can finally see everything again.

~A Little Bit of Lonely Wisdom

"But if you love and must have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody into the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully."

~Kahlil Gibran