pooh

If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together.. there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart.. I’ll always be with you.
-- Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh

friends

Sometimes I feel like

there's nothing left to say

to ease your pain

I find myself repeating

lines long ago ignored

that never worked anyway

knowing I would do anything

to ease the weight on your shoulders

but not knowing what is needed

I feel helpless

useless

but still I will stand here

still I will try

for if nothing else

knowing I'm always going to be here

seems to make you a little stronger

and somehow

a little happier

and that's worth it all

do you ever feel like the wind

gets knocked out of you

by something in your head

or perhaps, more accurately, your heart

by something you've never known consciously

but have always felt intimately

on the basic, core level of your being?

I can't explain this feeling

that often swells inside me

this overwhelming joy tempered

by an infinite sorrow

to be happy honestly makes me sad

as if happiness is a butterfly

in a violent storm

            no, not violent

a slow freezing night

that always, eventually, wins

the moments that the world is still and happy

blissful

are too far apart

too harsh against the bad

it's the happiness that feels harsh

like bright light to eyes

used to the dreary night.

… the wind being knocked out of me

and it's the breeze

the warm sweet-scented breeze

that my butterfly flies on

away from this cold inside

I used to wake up so early

in the morning

that it was still basically night

afraid of being inside any longer

afraid that I'd suffocate

in the fear and pain inside my room

and I'd climb out on the roof

to be safe in the breeze

to breathe again

only to find that feeling

that joy

that makes me sad

that knocks the wind out of me

because I know it

the peace

cannot last

will not last

minefield

growing up I lived in a minefield

where the slightest misstep

led to explosion after explosion

my mother had a hairpin trigger

and I often found myself

at ground zero

the aftershocks still echo

through my battered soul

and now that I have left

I find myself trying so hard

not to explode the way she did

that I find myself stuck

in a frozen implosion

just waiting for the super nova

and the eternity lost

in my self-created black hole.

friends

I am beginning to let my friends in, trying anyway. They are amazing people who I love dearly. They tolerate my bullshit and see the essence of me even when I try to keep them at arms length.

It's funny, someone asked me what I needed and all I could think of was being held. I'm not sure I need it for survival, but it would make life feel a million times better sometimes. I think in reality, what I really need is to feel like I'm worth fighting for, that my life, my happiness is worth struggling through all the other stuff. And strangely nothing communicates my being allowed to need, to be vulnerable, my worth like being held. It's one of the few times I feel worthy of being human and ok with all the imperfection that means.

I know I have to give myself the love I need if I am ever to believe others really love me too. I know I have to be the one to tell myself everything will be ok if I am to ever really believe it. I just don't really know where the line between what I'm supposed to do myself and receive help from others. The long I go along, the more I'm convinced that if it came down to it, I could probably handle most everything by myself if I had to, but I know that we as humans need one another. I could probably handle it alone, but should I?

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity - thoreau

help

Why is it that when I really need help I cannot ask for it? I let people in only so far. I'm completely willing to be there for someone when they need me, but cannot or will not let others be there for me when I'm really hurting. I let people help me with problems that I deep down believe I can handle on my own, but the ones that truly terrify me are not mentioned. Life would be so much easier if I could just trust that some people will be there for me no matter what. That not everyone will use a sign of weakness against me when it suits them. I'm in a lot of pain. Both physically and emotionally. The physical is starting to drive me crazy and the meds are not helping. I believe this pain is only adding to my difficulty coping emotionally with life at the moment. I find myself calculating when cars would not be able to stop if I were to jump in front of them. Find myself going over in my head the hangman's noose. I find myself obsessing the way I used to when I was younger. I don't want to admit it, for all that admitting it would lead to. I don't think I'd act on it, but none the less it's there.

I'm afraid what the doctor's appointment tomorrow will bring. I know something's really wrong, but feel unable to ask for the help and support that could make all this much more bearable. I feel shame in needing. and pain in my silence.