For what it’s worth!

I don’t want a man to look at me unless I really want that man to look at me. Men are always looking at anything, at everything, and they don’t seem to be very discerning at all. If she’s naked or half naked or too young for them, or a billion images of projected ideas of what society thinks women should look like and how sexy she should be, and I just shun the embodiment of it all. I don’t want to feel like I’m one of the masses. 

I hate feeling like I am just candy for the eyes and how fleeting it is because half a second later there’s some other girl or woman to ogle and undress in their mind. So I have closed myself off to unwanted attention. I don’t dress the same. I wear a lot of black and not sexy gothic outfits either, just t-shirts and jeans with chucks. I haven’t worn a dress or heels in months. I just feel so fucking gross when a man stares at me now. I throw on yoga pants for comfort or chores or a brisk walk and cringe when I feel eyes on me. I run errands with no makeup and my hair a mess. Maybe it will stop the leering, it doesn’t. I know I can’t be pretty in this moment, I know I’m not hot, stop looking at me. 

What’s weird is I know It’s Not because I don’t feel sexy or pretty, but because it feels like men don’t genuinely appreciate beauty anymore. What difference does it make if I don’t want to get all dressed up or if I like wearing makeup? I still feel good, at least I do until I feel their eyes on me and then suddenly I am fighting an urge to gag because I know I’m not really seen. I love dressing up and being a fashionista, I love accessorizing and dressing to the 9’s but now that’s all ruined. It’s like all this unwanted attention or commentary that I should smile more or dress sexier have created this aversion for me to enjoy the adornment of one of my favorite things. So I just don’t and it’s feels better being invisible and unseen, for a moment. 

The attention has become so disenchanting and disingenuous that I try to make myself ugly. I don’t know when this started happening, I was always overdressing for every occasion and now I just want to blend in to the wall and be unseen. And I clock in to everything. I see men with gorgeous wives and girlfriends (women that are fucking iconic beautiful) and these troglodytes still stare too long at other women, even at me and I just cringe. I am not a man hater, I am Not a feminist. I don’t believe we are created equal, I fully embrace what it means to be a woman and I recognize that as a woman my body is built for the pleasure of a man. 

So what is going on, why am I so loathe-some to the idea of a man’s eyes appreciating my female form? Is it the shift in the world that there’s so much to see that it’s just not beautiful anymore? I still want to be seen, just not seen by every man. It just feels gross and I am rejecting myself and my beauty and sabotaging my body so they will stop looking at me. It’s not even like they look because I’m beautiful. You know the difference when someone looks, and it just feels like they want to fuck me and use me and I am starting to realize that I hate being pretty. I’m not even that pretty! Top it off with I can see all too clearly how many women take advantage of all these men and their ignorance and lack of self control and they disrespect other women by seeking the attention of a taken man. I feel myself distancing from these “beautiful women” because I can’t tolerate them using men and turning them into these hollow meat puppets of testosterone that do nothing but leer and lose their minds and make off handed commentary to the guy next to them. That look they give each other when they see a hot girl. Yuck. 

It’s such a downward spiral that I am turned off by beauty and they all just seem so ugly now. All of them, men and women. This creeping anxiety of watching a world so void of real respect, just vacuous and pathetic and desperate. The veil is off, the mask removed and no one is appealing. I see past the skin and see into their eyes, into their souls, into their hearts and see everything I wish I couldn’t. 

This isn’t bitterness or anger, it isn’t jealousy or fear, or growing old; it’s just an unveiling of the truth of who they are past the pretty visage. I don’t want to see them, I don’t want to feel the lack of depth behind their eyes or the shallow pool of what’s left once they’re stripped of the aesthetics. Is this projection or a revelation? I can’t unsee it. Do I still see beauty, yes - but I don’t really think I want to, I don’t want to see the onslaught of beautiful  gorgeous people lacking any real substance with no soul underneath; I hate this. I hate what I’m feeling. I’m so selfish for this and I’m so over it, but also fully aware of everything now and it’s turning me into a monster. 

I can’t disassociate fast enough. I don’t want to be awake. 

I need to add that I used to enjoy being looked at, but not just as an object and I really miss that. For what it’s worth!

I’ve been keeping most of my stories to myself. I like to talk but only to someone that’s really interested in listening. I guess I keep thinking maybe someone will want me to share all my silly stories and sidetracked conversations that sometimes lead in a dozen different directions. I feel like I’m stockpiling right now, so it makes me nervous because I gulp down the pain of remembering what that one dude said, ‘that I scare people away with my boundless energy and intensity, that I can be overwhelming’. He was a dickhead and boring anyway... so fuck him. 

I miss swapping stories with someone that makes time for me. Staying up all night giggling and just enjoying the space between us. There’s intimacy and then there’s intimacy. Intellectual connection is sexy. Perpetually learning about someone can be an incredible experience and I miss that more than sex. I mean I miss sex and fucking and touching but damn I miss being held and just being. I don’t know why I think about this anymore. I’m not even trying to date. Anyway it’s an errant thought and I guess I just needed a cathartic way to talk it out with myself, it’s a strong reminder that I need to keep healing. 

I found hope in a bottle and I love how the message washed ashore in my mind. It’s not lonely on this island but I wouldn’t mind sharing it. Well as long as there’s no lord of the flies type of shit. I don’t need any more power struggles in my life. I really do just want to be a gentle breeze that passes through the leaves, but I also want to be the waves crashing on the sand. 

Night falls

The way the wind whispers to the trees tickling the leaves and gently nudging the branches. And how the full moon speaks humbly with light pouring new colors out in twilight. No the breeze would not touch me the same racing through the tresses of my hair if the sun was still pressing its hot cheek against it. The allure of the dark vibrating in shades of midnight left to sleep during the day. Shadows breathe in deep and roam freely making haste of their haunting reign. They spill over my skin and laughingly send goosebumps creeping up my spine and feathering quietly on the back of my neck. The glowing eyes of a raccoon suddenly staring back at me, before scurrying away. There is no absence of life in the dark, just beauty; seemingly savage and yet calming and peaceful. 

Come back swinging

I’m not afraid to fail. Through failure I have learned how to do things right, how much stamina I have while in the fight, and if I have the gumption to keep going. I’ve failed countless times in my life. I’ve also gotten back up and come back swinging. At this point in my life I am more afraid I will give up on myself. With any luck and maybe even a little wisdom I jump back in, even as I stumble, even as I fall. I’m clumsy but I also do all my own stunts. One day this life will get the best of me, but I’m fighting like hell for it to be while I’m still living. 

A sign

I took it as a sign. The full pink moon ritual calls for three bay leaves and I had to write on them what I wanted to let go of, then burn each of them individually. I had to visualize the negative feelings attached to those words and the leaves so I can let go. It was almost too easy to choose but two stubbornly kept going out, so I had to keep lighting them on fire. It was a sign, I knew those things would be harder to let go. Looking upon the black ash, I could feel an easiness in the air and somehow I feel lighter. I have to believe some of that heaviness no longer weights me down. Manifesting good things to take their place. It was freeing and aromatic, I know that must seem silly to a nonbeliever but filling my senses with the soft fragrance of bay leaf and the comforting scent of fire and ash is paramount in my journey of healing. Letting go isn’t easy, so I needed a little extra help from the universe to conspire with me on these three. Time will tell. Today I feel good and I know my heart feels lighter.

For years people have asked me what it is. I want for my birthday. I honestly never know what to say. And I always feel incredibly awkward. It’s not that I don’t want things I really don’t need, I just don’t want to ask anymore for anything. 

I have been thinking about this more this year than any other, and likely because no one’s asked me what I want this year. And that’s not disappointment you hear, it’s just the facts. In fact it’s a good thing. I haven’t had to stumble thinking of answers or feel uncomfortable. 

I honestly don’t really want anything from anyone other than their time or warm wishes. That’s probably weird. My birthday is kind of a big deal to me but I don’t like for anyone to fuss over me at the same time. I just like to be remembered. That sweet not knowing what to say kind energy truly is enough of a gift for me. 

Back to my original thought on what I would like for my birthday (not that anyone is asking - and this is what makes me, me) what I want no other person could grant me. I say this in the spirit of asking myself what do I want! 

Of course I wish I could see all of the people I love but good god that would also be a lot and as I’ve matured (cough cough) I am no longer equipped to handle that kind of attention, it gives me anxiety. 

That’s not directed at the people I love. That’s a direct reflection of my mental state and crushing anxiety for feeling I have to be anyone other than myself, and quite honestly most people have an idea in their head of how they believe you may respond to their wishes, gifts or time.

I’m not diminishing my love, their love or kindness or who or what they are to me, but I have to take people in small doses now. It may seem unnatural that I enjoy my company more (however I choose to spend it) and despite how deluded that notion is to anyone that isn’t me. I cherish the time I have with the company I get to keep. Some moments are better than others and I don’t easily acquiesce to projections. In other words much like people have their ‘fill’ of me or my time, they disengage. I am no different than anyone else in that regard and I don’t need validation from anyone else to know I like my time alone. Although sometimes I glow when I’m with the people I love, it’s just that some people make you feel loved without ever having to ask to be, and that’s one of the most incredible feelings. Even when you don’t see eye to eye on everything. This does more for my heart than anything else, and some of them don’t even know they do this for me. I keep hoping they will just read this one day and smile. 

I digress. I still haven’t gotten to what I want for my birthday yet, literally no one is asking, but I have to have all side conversations in my head first. Since most people think I can be too much sometimes I don’t get to share like I would like. Yes that part stung a little but I also get it. Weird. Anyway. I’m getting there. This feels more like I’m talking to myself anyway. So while I may be churning and kicking out a hundred thoughts a minute I don’t have to worry about oversharing. Who, if anyone, that may read this - well you know by now that you read at your own risk and peril. I know I sideline and sidetrack but trust me it’s all relative. Besides I know what I want for my birthday.

Maybe much of it is processing, whilst talking it out with myself(s). I want a lot of things, I want another tattoo, to take myself kayaking, and go to my favorite park and walk barefoot in the grass and on the beach; things I can give myself. I want something no one else but magic could give me. 

As I sashay across my living room and dining room tile floor (listening to Duran Duran, “Come Undone” with socks on, so I can slide fluidly), I celebrate me. I have a lot to be thankful for and I learned a lot of lessons in my 51st spin on this merry go round. It’s my new year, so now is when I take a gummy and drink a few whiskeys, because I am on the premise of saying I lived another year what’s next? 

A little Missy Elliot to shake my hips and put my thang down flip it and reverse it. Barum pum pum, parrrum pum oum give you sum sum this cinnamon bun🎶 I am dating myself, romancing myself dancing with myself and my fucking god it feels good to be able to celebrate the anniversary of some doctor slapping me awake and making me scream and cry so I could begin for this fuckery. 

I got a headache and it’s not a tumor. 🎶 I got my first tattoo this year, my granddaughter’s name on my forearm. I love it! And I know what tattoo I want for my birthday. Hollar🎶🎶 (yes still Missy Elliot) whoooo’s that bitch?🎶🎶

Hush ya mouth 🎶🎶Get yer freak on🎶

Ernest Hemingway and Charles Bukowski both said they wrote from the heart while imbibing, so I am doing this raw.  I’m taking a stab at it. I often wonder what did they do as they sat with themselves and poured out so magnificently. That’s brilliance you just can’t touch no matter how much you reach out and try to grab it. Also I would never compare the excrement I write; comparing the eyes of tragedy with gods among men, fuck no! The way dead men seduce me is something altogether extraordinary. 

You let me violate you 🎶 You let me desecrate you 🎶 still dancing with myself. I know I know I haven’t said what I want and this isn’t sounding like the beginning of a love story. 

I mean it is, but I’m not worried about anyone that doesn’t get it. 

I think I used to have a voice 🎶 everyday is exactly the same 🎶 

Sirens in the distance, it’s an ambulance; I recognize the difference now. In my youth, I didn’t know which was which. 

There is no you there is only me, there is no fucking you, there is only me.🎶

I wear it like a tattoo 🎶 diamond life loverboy🎶sentiment is left to chance 🎶 love for sale 🎶

For one day, just one - I would love to be everything I am capable of being in one day, this alternate universe anti super hero but low key villain that rights everything in my life, just for one day. Be this girl that everyone thinks I should be or possibly even am. 

Maybe it will give me direction or enlightenment or whatever you kids are calling it these days. Maybe I will live this vision and want to just be the girl smiling back at herself in the mirror. Can you see me? *chuckles* yeah that’s one version. I’m a million different people in every alternate universe, just not sure what I am in this one. Anyway happy fucking birthday to me. May all my wishes come true. 

Keep bringing out the best in me. 

Salt on the wound

I’ve been rubbing salt on my wounds; edging myself on caustic pain, riding one agonizing emotional wave after the next, allowing myself to slowly burn; an intense climactic ascension into a collective pool of feeling the entirety of the last 51 years of my life. Groping at and tickling all my weakest sentiments, fondling them, luring them out into the open so they can be thrust naked and bare in front of me. 

My afflicted consciousness massaged into defenselessness and exposed with nowhere left to hide. I cracked open my pandora’s box emoting a universe of despair and anguish until I was helpless and forced to face every errant memory without the fear of reprisal and regret or threat of revenge or bitterness.

If I truly wanted to heal I had to do what I feared most; allow myself to feel. I had to let go of what I’ve continuously pushed down and locked away for yet another day to console, reconcile or escape. I cannot transcend this grief if I don’t reach within and touch every single inch of it, embracing it intimately in front of the mirror. 

All this wreckage that kept bubbling to the surface, taking bite after bite destroying me piece by piece with malaise and melancholy; it had to be met with patience and grace. I had to grant myself the kindness of understanding that some things, some people, some moments, some questions, some memories must be released from this bloody knuckled grip wrapped around them. The way I kept pretending I wasn’t coiled tightly, squeezing the life out of myself; shying away from meeting my dead cold eyes and hollow stare; the way countless snippets of nostalgia led me to believe that I wasn’t nearing deference to their convention. 

So I unlocked the cage and freed my angels, demons and monsters. I walked among them barefoot on shards of fractured affections re-introducing myself and allowing myself to finally sink deep into a blighted bitter darkness holding hands and snuggling close until I shrieked and cackled in joy, and lamented and scourged reminiscing about a girl with wide eyes, a wicked smile and no fear of herself. This delicate child who chose to remain trapped in her gilded dungeon slaying dragons on her own, losing the light of hope, and shamelessly bereft of love. I was on the precipice of abandoning her to remain invisible down there in the prison I created, built to protect my heart. But this was no little cut, this was a bloodletting gone wrong and I was hemorrhaging. 

It was more than an eye opening, it was extraordinary. I had merely been a shadow roaming the empty hallways of castles I built in the sky, for people that were no more than strangers now. I had nailed the gates shut to abandon the echoes grinning back hauntingly in the silence, though still leering and taunting  in the gaps between iron bars; the sneers belittling and shrinking me under the weight of all the love I still had yet to give. I had been resigned to believing all the beauty I had weaved for these people, these moments in time were now lost to me in sorrow. 

Then…

It was an incredible passing through saying goodbyes to the suffering I wasn’t meant to cling to, like a child’s hands on a railing. Then I felt that neglected child skip unafraid in the dark, chasing shadows into the light, reclaiming kingdoms and all those castles in the clouds of her sky. Roaming free with both demon and angel beyond the limits of her horizons, fires for  new sunrises and sunsets. Cradling the delicate obscurity of the girl I used to be and learning to cherish the woman I had become; tending to the feet of the empress and sovereign of my future. I will not go quietly. I’m a lovely work of art, a thing of beauty, a poem whispered on kisses and the promise of making her my muse. 

An exquisite surrender; painfully beautiful and bewitching. Rushing head and heart first into the unknown, fearless and ready to receive the kind of love I deserved - my love. 

I don’t know who wrote this, but I fear it may have touched the pulse on my wrist and put a spotlight on one of the many fractured illusions of love in my mind.

Do not think or speak of me as if you know me. I am so many different women, and too often shadows of the men I revere. No one gets the same version of me, not even my children. 

It is not for a lack of wanting someone to know and understand me, it is simply that I can only dream of who I can be whilst navigating my life and becoming all that I am. 

For anyone to fall silently in the belief that they know what darkness or what beacon of light lies hidden deep beneath this pale skin and raging blood, is foolish. I don’t even know me, even when I think I know who I am. For I am capable of such great and terrible things and only life can shine a light on the shadows of who that might be. And with every challenge I face and every breath I take and every smile that changes the look on my face, for every word uttered, every billionth thought kept quietly in the crevices of my mind and every emotion or action that reveals the many facets of my heart and soul; it all serves to alter the constitution of my being. 

And I am never the same person, I was one moment before. 

I can’t watch anymore

Some of you are so busy proving to everyone just how much you love yourself to ever even notice the ones that do love you. And honestly it makes me think no one could love you half as much as you love yourself anyway. 

Loving yourself is healthy but honestly there’s really no need to prove it to everyone. 

Meanwhile all the narcissists are hard at work proving to everyone just how important and special and amazing they believe themselves to be; while also thrusting themselves into the limelight in their constant thirst for validation. *Ahem, your insecurity is showing, someone please tell them their glow up mask hides nothing. 

Ad nauseam, ad nauseam. 

Then there’s all these really lovely beautiful people that  genuinely are hoping for love and connection, and it’s as if they’re having to compete for the attention the narcissists are getting. This whole damn thing just makes me so fucking sad and sick.

I think it’s time for me to take a break from social media again. All of this is breaking my heart. 

I can’t watch anymore.