Of Glorious Fortitude

I've been getting rid of things. Trinkets and toys and forgotten clothes. Books and cups and various assortments of kitchen pots. The more I let it go, the more I see what I have. The more I have thoughts flying free, ready to grab like a key. With wings, flying around and around. Waiting for the one, just one that I need. Less and less things. Getting rid of 450 and more items, not dreams. Maybe I could even do it again, lessen the load a bit more.
Even as more suitors present themselves, I find myself ever so curious about her. About me. How she feels to be in this time of contentment and relative peace. I haven't cried, not really. Not longing and wishing or begging for a different reality. This is the only one I may ever hope to possess. What a glory, what a joy. I'm my own dream master, soup chef, and telephone telecaster. What does it all mean? Does it matter if it rhymes or reads with ease?
The zinc made my tummy ache and the chicken stock was warmly soothing, but didn't aid in relief. I set tonight aside to heal and fix and soak away the dread. What dread? I hardly even feel dread, really. Tomorrow shall come early and I shall rise, sooner or later, sooner the better.
Swimming in gratitude. Maybe a flotation device or round tube is all I see. Enough to keep me alive and give me air. This cat, this home, this lovely peace. Heaven has shown herself to me. It looks different to me now. Not really anyone is near to me. It's a new leaf or different shade, realities I never knew laying themselves bare. A gift that was carefully, but also haphazardly communicated. Mashed into life out of raging heat and searing pains. The broken iron pressed profoundly into this existence, leaving an unmistakable commitment to knowing truth. The real and revealing truth I never wanted to see, it's now all I see. I'm glad, now, and regrets are few and not in between.
The tears only come now from joy and heartfelt relief. That I've made it out, made it out in all the pieces. Melded and made stronger with golden bandages and heavily profound months and months and grueling years, really. We run and run and distract from this true reality. Because it hurts and it pains and rips us through. But that will happen anyway and the smiles you discover within the suffering are wide enough to bridge the biggest gaps and burned out holes.
You're strong and brave, they say. Now I know it to be unmistakably true. Those battles I threw myself strongly in to, the wounds I apologized for I've learned to embrace. To shed the layers of misleading representations.
Strong and brave, yes she is. Look at her hair, blowing on through. Running into the waves and channeling the flame, feeling it burn up and down, tip to tip and toe to toe. Walking and squawking and laughing a bit, too. So much strength in getting to know weakness. A warrior, a hero, a spirited goddess of glorious fortitude. Can't you see it now? If only you could. I'm here on my own, like I said. Taking baths, and eating veggie stews, and singing tunes. Writing to myself in this very time and space. You're a vision, my dear. Can't you see it? Look at you now.

Here

Tunes loudly in my ears.
I recenter the keyboard on my lap,
close my eyes
and breath deeply.
Look up and down my arms,
realizing I'm in this moment.
Ready to unwind and unleash
thoughts and musing and dreams
upon this medium, these keys.
Lady Gaga and laundry and Lara Croft.
I'm not in love with Judas, baaaby.
Not any more.
All the tension and fear I drug to and fro
has all but dissipated.
You've done so good,
done so good.
you've done it.
I splay my arms open,
acknowledging the immense relief.
Remember this. This space and sensation.
The breathing is not labored or calculated,
it just flows in and out. Out and in. In and out.
Wild hair, wild heart.
She's always here, always been here.
You can do this, Alex. You can do this.
You're doing this.
You've done so good.
Power mix, inspirational jams.
Who cares if this reads well or makes sense,
I'm alive.
I'm alive
after all.
Here. Just here. Thank goodness.
I'm here.

Focus. Try to focus. Write and focus.

Could I ever write enough to feel relief? No, doubtful. Because discomfort comes with the territory. Of being and breathing and being conscious. I write and write and scribble bits of this reality, this one I know. I woke up on time, gave the cat kibbles, and started a pot of coffee. I watched porn and fantasized and realized if used well, fantasizing can be a healing tool. I procrastinated and did things other than what might be wise. I contemplated more sleep and plans for the rest of the day. Work and structure can be helpful, but other times hindering. I do feel proud. I feel strong and accomplished and almost indifferent. It's good, it's all good. But even when it's not as good, it's ok. It's a continuum and I'm glad for the energy and focus to produce, to make this thing in this moment. To have the ability to think and dissect thoughts and ideas. To have the capacity for social connection and interaction. To reflect and know gratitude, even through the pains and aches.
I want to challenge myself, but not destroy myself. Hold myself accountable, but not shred my attempts at improvement or just getting by. Today is an off-day and a struggle, but not every day is and I've made positive and healthy changes. I'm in the midst of a med change. Focus feels out-of-reach at the moment, but I'll try more in the next few hours.

What Healing from Heartache Can Look Like: A Timeline

There was a stretch, immediately after, I found myself seeking a formula,

something to consult and reference for guidance. I asked all my friends and close confidants. 

Of ways to chop through the brush and breathe amid the noxious gas and poison.

I was looking to in-part, survive. To eventually thrive, but also to escape.

It introduced me, in big ways, to the intimate reasons folks use coping mechanisms and self-medication.I have my own ways, sure, but mostly none have impeded an ability to function. But now I understand, and more vividly understood why.

People share shards of knowledge, tried and true phases that feel somewhat infuriating in the moment. Time heals all, things happen for a reason, you're better off, isn't it better?, et al, et al. 

But...they made it. That strong person you know that was once broken into a million bits is standing, still. Look at them. One day that could be you. You'll get through. Just keep swimmin', just keep breathing. You're stronger for not being afraid to feel weaker. You hold your very heart in your hand, wondering how you ever found it a good idea to pass it along to a relative stranger, so unassuming. It's ok, really, it's a testament to the beauty and belief of love. There's little rhyme or reason, it's just a feeling that compels one to charge full-force, without reservation and over analyzation. Only later might you know regret or concern or fear for what you've done, the pieces of yourself you so willingly gave over. The unassuming pain of a love known and lost. It's just gone. And you hold yourself tight and dream of days when you might breathe again. 

Indeed, the first 6 months following the breakup were pure hell fire,

left me gasping and sobbing and burned into nothingness. 

I knew it was happening and hated it mostly all the way, yet embraced it.

Hoped for light on the other side, told myself this was a type of penitence 

and reckoning for traumas and trends never fully examined. 

Not that I deserved it, not more than anyone. But pain is painful.

And women in my line maybe thought they'd deserved it, too. 

A catharsis, in the way that happiness can be, too. 

I scribbled poems that seemed like emo lyrics, I wrote angry and impassioned letters to my ex lover,

ones that I never intended to send. But after realizing I couldn't do it in one letter, I started a notebook. It became a friend, something I held to and consulted when emotions boiled over.

In that time I learned what boundaries could look like, something I had never really practiced. Told him I couldn't text, couldn't talk, couldn't see him. And something I still practice now. Something I aim to do until I am at least indifferent. Indifferent to them and that past and dreams of what I thought I wanted and knew. All of it, gone. 

Made plans for myself, week-by-week and month-by-month. Things I'd been waiting on others to do or never believed myself capable or worthy. Planned more and more, made times just for me.
Haircuts and times of no cuts, just sitting still. Getting nails painted, having new experiences or old fears exonerated. Feeling angry at everything and then at nothing, because you start to see the waves just as they are. Not good or bad, just there. The only thing to do is to ride them. Design your board or piece of drift wood. Create a divot for your head and lasso yourself tightly.

Look to others who have survived and made it out alive. Remind yourself it won't be this way forever. It won't. And turns out, it didn't.

Months 7 through now, I grew sea legs and learned to start walking again.

Realized the time frame is much less noteworthy than what I do with it, what I've done. Kept thinking it meant something if I wasn't visibly healed or different or re-made. So much of this newness and growth is visible just to me, but still others see bits and pieces of the person I've morphed and come to be. The number of smiles I have to share or outfits I wear, the ability to somehow date again. I remember the moment I realized that's what my grief meant. Believed I had to be fully well and whole again to share time with others, but you get back to yourself ever so carefully. It takes months and months and sometimes years, still. It doesn't mean you can't open up to more people still and see yourself a bit in them and learn differently of what care and sometimes recklessness can be. Ah, those nights that fade into mornings. The ones you'll never call again, but are maybe glad to have stumbled upon either way. You're not that person that for so long you were convinced you must be. I would never, I could never. Turns out, sometimes you can and it delights your soul more than you knew. I'm wild and funny and carefree and indifferent and all so many things. Part-adventurer, part-homebody, all-Alexandria. All real. Part that person who might jump out of a plane or dance by myself and another time, got my car towed and cheeseburgers alone at 4am. All of her, all of me. Curious to so much, open to all and each situation, because what are expectations? I'm a Buddhist-inspired, open dating, come-what-may, dating goddess of the future. That's me.

And still, unafraid to be scared. So much so that when I encounter circumstances that feel so good and honest and connected, they are terrifying. But I don't stop. I take my pulse, gauge the emotions, communicate them, evaluate this moment, and keep moving on, feeling just as free. I speak of love and what it could mean, indulge in so many kisses and frantic grasps and longings, and fewer and fewer thoughts of who he was and who I used to be. Because growth isn't linear and the path might be wild, but it's filled with so much fun and moments to feel such freedom. In me. In living that early 20s existence or getting to know un-explored parts of just me.

There's this inconsequential and exceedingly sweet tactic that came to me, in a moment of pure fear and vulnerability and alone-ness. So simple you'd miss it if you were looking at me. I touch my own thigh and remind myself, "I'm right here, I'm never going anywhere. I'm with you and I love you. Always will." Nothing I needed from anyone, nor anything anyone could give me. That silly self-love that is touted and spelled out as a cure-all. Maybe it is real, but surely it looks different for each person, in each time and space. But these moments I have with myself, no matter who I'm with or not, I feel seen. I feel sweet love and joy and serendipity. "I've got you, boo. I'm right here," I say to myself, with a smirk.

And to think, this all came out of the biggest pain and heartbreak and anger and bitter and alone and hopelessness. It grew and got so big that I can no longer separate from who I am. Until you feel it grown in yourself, it feels impossible to ever believe it so. 

But I share this to even for a bit, help others know, it's possible. That feeling of worth and belonging and sense of oneness is there for the taking. Fake it in all the moments you don't think you'll make it. The phoenix teaches us something that usually feels corny to say and there's no exact image that might not feel tainted or sucked of real meaning. From fire and ash and nothingness can grow a new human, a renewed existence, a raging flame. To be, as they say, a wounded healer. To realize that often, on the other side of fear, there is freeeeeedom.

Thank you all for supporting me and seeing me through this chaotic and messy and necessary and self-making journey. In all the moments I felt so alone and impossible and far from reach, you saw and helped me. Thank you. xoxox Alex