Thursday, July 29, 2010

Breakeven Lyrics - Poetry...Sheer Poetry

In music, there is healing and I smile at the serendipitous timing of certain songs entering my orbit - groove to the poetry of moving through the pain of a love lost:

I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing,
Just prayed to a god that I don't believe in,
'Coz I got time while she got freedom,'
Coz when a heart breaks no it don't break even.
Her best days will be some of my worst,
She finally met a man that's gonna put her first,
While I'm wide awake, she's no trouble sleeping,
'Coz when a heart breaks no it don't break even, even no.
What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you
What am I supposed to say when I'm all choked up and you're ok
I'm falling to pieces
I'm falling to pieces
They say bad things happen for a reason
But no wise words gonna stop the bleeding
'Coz she's moved on while I'm still grieving
And when a heart breaks no it don't break even, even no.
What am I gonna do when the best part of me was always you
What am I supposed to say when I'm all choked up and you're ok
I'm falling to pieces,
(One still in love while the other one's leaving)
I'm falling to pieces,
(Cuz when a heart breaks no it don't break even)
You got his heart and my heart and none of the pain,
You took your suitcase, I took the blame.
Now I'm tryna make sense of what little remains, oh.
'Coz you left me with no love, with no love to my name.
I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing,
Just prayed to a god that I don't believe in,
'Coz I got time while she got freedom...

Shattered...

How many times can I break til I shatter?

Give me a break; let me make my own pattern...

Nod to O.A.R. - "Shattered"

Waiting to fall...

Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused - African Proverb

I want to be loved like this - I want someone to be able to see beyond my mistakes to my potential, to my hope.

To see beyond the darkness to my light...

To see my beauty through my tears, my ugliness or limitations...

To see and believe in my wholeness through the jagged fragments...

To see my innocence when I fuck up, get it wrong and fall face first, tripping on my own humanness...

To believe in my purpose, when I have no reason to believe in it myself...

I have high expectations...because I am worthy - I have lived my life with grace, which doesn't mean never fucking up or failing those I love but moving forward through it all because there is simply no other choice.

Life is ephemeral...

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Settling in...

...to a new way of being, to a peace - carefully managed but peace nonetheless.

I had a conversation with my dad this morning and I feel like I have a new perspective - like I have taken a breath and am ready for the next move.

My father is wise and because he is in the middle of his own self-work right now he speaks in a language I understand - one that resonates with me.

He reminded me that I am worthy even though I am fallible, he spoke so genuinely of my tenderness and wouldn't allow me to suggest for one second that I was somehow unequipped for what I am up against in my life right now.

He broke my cluster down into manageable pieces and laid them out before me one at a time and we talked about my choices...the promise of my life.

He also suggested I write letters to manage the emotions I have recently unlocked as a result of interrupted therapy - emotions surfacing from deep, deep inside of me. Letters to my grandfather and my mother...even him.

The suggestion alone nearly took my breath away because it's been the one task I've never been able to do each and every time a therapist has suggested it...but more so, that it came from him...a man I have clearly underestimated.

What came next unleashed the tears that had been waiting for their freedom - he said not to stop at my grandfather but to also include my mother and he for...failing to protect me.

I stopped breathing and wept into my tissue.

He has never said that and I've been afraid to lay it at their feet though my heart needed an outlet, the feeling needed expression and in that moment, he gave it to me...just like that - WE FAILED TO PROTECT YOU.

My father, my daddy - inspiring in all of his new found self-awareness - held me (so to speak) and held my words, my fears, my insecurities...he held it all just when I thought I might crumble under the weight of a past clinging to my present, wanting to own me but knowing all the while that time is almost up. I am working it out, I am determined to integrate the spans of time in an effort to claim the voice I have been in search of my entire life.

And so I write...not here but in a journal, FINALLY, for the little girl who never had a chance against those hell bent to break her and for those unaware that their oversight implicated them in the attempt at her destruction.




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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

One at a time...

When I hear the words exit my mouth, I think...keep coming, one after the other...just like that - don't stop talking because you might start thinking.

When I walk, I purposely place one foot in front of the other...deliberately moving my heavy body - heavy from grief, despair, confusion but also heavy from knowing...what I should have known, what I should have seen long before now.

My breath - in and out. I pay attention because I must - I startled myself awake when I realized I had stopped breathing.

One at a time - one word, one step, one breath - is how I plan to move on through the first week, first month, first year of an emotional quake that trumps any scale of measurement.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Monday, July 26, 2010

Head Space

So, it's no surprise to me that I am a person who spends a great deal of time in her head - thinking, evaluating, reflecting, wondering...and typically I embrace that as one of my charming eccentricities.

The world doesn't know what I think when I'm in here, doesn't know what I feel or want or dream or hope...so it occurs to me...what if I turned myself inside out for all the world to see?

Would that finally be enough...for anyone?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This I know...

I have entered territory I am not comfortable in...and I fear I am losing what I love most about me.

All of the elements of me that I have held as unique and endearingly odd, admirable and evidence of strength, are being widdled away by a force I have no power or will to fight.

I started reading the Invitation again today (by Oriah) and I picked it up just in time...just in time to be reminded that we are who we are and our fullness depends upon our embrace of those elements of us that color the world, drawing us to others as they are drawn to us.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thursday, July 1, 2010

My Voice...Part II

My voice is how I share, stand up, assures I am counted and makes me visible. My voice connects me to the others in my life, cultivating love and connection between us.

My voice also draws my line, establishing boundaries where they are necessary.

I was taught long ago that my voice did not matter. I constructed a place in my mind and I would go there when I felt threatened or hurt or humiliated - they couldn't touch me there. I called the shots and I alone held me safe.

I think of that 5 year old sometimes and how she was forced to self-possess - staring blankly into the TV, pretending his hands weren't there, buffering herself from his body - alive only in her mind.

It's safe to come out now - has been for a while and I choose a different way of being.

In the next couple of weeks, I will have my first counseling session in an effort to learn another way and this time, I choose.

I have come as far as I can with my practice, physical and mental, as far as this goes and now I extend my hand with nervous hope, taking hold of another, and chance that my healing is only just beginning and my life is more than I ever imagined - and I have imagined greatness.