Just for you

He showed me love that I hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever. The kind of love that crawls into your skin, lives in your shoes and listens to your favorite music. As quickly as it was given, it was taken. At some point I thought I would do anything for this man, maybe it was delusion, the love I had been withholding from myself because I thought I didn’t deserve it. My company, my reflection, wasn’t worthy of an emotion this deep.

You were there the night I got black out drunk and threw up for hours, you held the trash can, wiped the spit off my mouth and told me I looked beautiful. You cleaned my blood off the bathroom tile and you laughed when I peed on your leg because you stood guard while I squatted behind a tree in the park, you folded my laundry while I was at work and made sure all the shirts faced the same direction in the dresser. When you left all I could think about were the physical ways in which you had shown me love. I wanted someone, anyone to make me feel deserving of that kind of love. I let you into my life, despite the hesitation, and the doubts you had, it meant nothing to me because I was getting something I had wanted for so long.

Before you, I drove myself home after a late night out, I cleaned the throw up out of my trash can the morning after. Picked myself up off the floor during a crippling panic attack and found comfort in my solitude. I didn’t realize that I had been doing these things for myself before anybody had ever inserted themselves into my life. Now that I know those are acts of love, I see all the ways in which I’ve been quietly loving myself. I hope he knows if it wasn’t him, I would have fallen in love with somebody else only to come to the same realization. I have been here for myself longer than anybody ever has or ever will. While he continues to chase mirrors, looking for his reflection in-between the legs of somebody, anybody. I’ll be staring back at my reflection falling in love with myself over and over again. So one day I can look in the mirror and confidently say “I did this for you.”

The simplicity of pooh

My parents were the organized working type of hippies when I was younger. I’d throw fits and instead of first spanking me or locking me in my room they would sit me in a corner and give me three heavy metal balls with little bells inside that would jingle when they moved. I was to sit there and roll them in my hands and think about what made me upset. Of course when you’re seven years old and sitting in a corner you don’t appreciate the comfort the walls provide, and the jingle of the three beautiful spheres. Instead you throw them at what made you angry.

I was never allowed to watch caillou and I hated barney and every other show seemed a little too old for me at the time and since the barbie show wasn’t yet a thing I would make people read me books all the way until I was old enough to read on my own. Both me and my younger sister loved Winnie the pooh. I always wanted to be pooh or maybe Christopher robin because they were the most popular characters in the hundred acre woods. Tigger was cool but rabbit was always trying to get rid of him and I didn’t want rabbit to not like me cause I thought bunnies were pretty cute. Piglet was too anxious, sure he had fun but only cause pooh allowed him to tag along on all the adventures, and owl was too smart I didn’t want to give my self that much credit, roo didn’t seem to be as important as everybody else and I never wanted to be less than important,  and Eeyore was funny but too sad. And in my house if you’re sad you got the three jingly balls and the beautiful life book which were not something I wanted.

So I was pooh. I related to him and tried to attain his simple mindedness and good ideas. But the other day I read a story from Winnie the pooh a familiar one, my favorite one in fact. In this story roo and tigger are walking past a large amount of pine trees and tigger is talking about all the things tiggers can do. When roo asks if he can swim cause roo fell in the river one day and he can swim. Of course tigger says “yes I can swim better than any roo.” Then roo asks if tigger can climb a tree and tigger says “yes I can climb a tree.” That’s when Tigger and roo get stuck in the tree and everyone comes over to save them. After tigger falls out of the tree crushing everyone below him and everyone below him crushing Eeyore, tigger says “Of course you won’t find me doing anything like that again.” then when he’s asked where he’s going next he replies “Roo and I are going swimming.”

Tigger doesn’t know his limitations, he thinks a lot about what he can do and not what he can’t. Since he has yet to try doing everything then he doesn’t know he can’t do everything. As much as poo was loved for his simplicity, in my eyes tigger is loved for being much more than simple. Even though I always wanted to be pooh I never was. I was always tigger, loving pooh for his simplicity and being loved for my lack of simplicity. Because who knows, maybe I too can fly just as high as a bird.

Everything but wanted

Everyday I try to understand my self more and more, but I never have understood my complete lack of trust for people who care about me and the doors to my mind that I leave open for people who question whether I’m even worth their time.

It’ll begin with my father who begs for an explanation. He’ll start off with the synonyms of why. “Why didn’t you tell me you had your first kiss? How come you never said you had a boy friend? How did this boy get up in your room at 2 am? Where are your clothes? Explain to me why you don’t own any longer shorts? What are you thinking? How did this happen?” But I never did care, none of it ever bothered me. They’re just boys, I would tell my self over and over again. But as I got older and I found myself wondering why nobody loved me, why nobody wanted me. I would run through the synonyms of why putting every question under the same category ‘Why?’ even if it was never why or how come but just a riddle or a question. To me, it was still ‘why’ it was always ‘why’. Because why was it even a question I can’t be the only one whose bed is too big for one person I can’t be the only one who gets tired of hugging them selves.

I found the answer, deep in the blue eyes of a boy down the street who would bring me what I wanted when I wanted and I found the answer in between my legs, I found the answer in his name under the sheets. But after, I wouldn’t ask myself why because I had the answer laying right beside me. Every night I would tell the moon I did it, I found the answer and he found me and I’m going to be okay.

But when the answer turned into a question, when the answer became unreliable, when the answer told me I wasn’t worth his time he told me he was in love but her name started with a C and that’s funny I thought because my name doesn’t start with a C. So I started asking the moon “How come I thought I had found the answer why did you let him come in my room if you knew I wasn’t the question he was looking for.” But it never made sense because my unfinished metaphors never made any sense to anybody but me.

So I was back to the beginning, running through the synonyms of ‘why’. I convinced my self it was okay I could clean my room, I could stop crying, I deserved better. But it never ends that way, not with me because I’m not any other letter of the alphabet I am who I am and I always know I can fix things I’ll make him fall in love with me eventually, it’ll happen. The night he told me he didn’t love C anymore was the same night we joked about how one day I’ll see him on the big screen and I’ll remember that guy as a good friend of mine.

That’s when I realized, you can’t fix everything. You can’t change people and you can’t avoid the unavoidable. No matter how many words you count the amount you say will never be enough to change her mind, because the plants that bring her to a state of euphoria you have never reached, will never leave her taste buds or escape her sight despite the tears she cries at night. His hands will never touch your heart no matter how many times they’ve skimmed the surface and taken your breathe away you will stay the same to him, just a figure moving in the dark drifting further into his past so he can continue his future without you.

Don’t get caught up in other people, you have enough to worry about and very few chances.

Something more than nothing

All I ever wanted to be was important, meaningful, significant, different.The kind of person nobody could read, the main character of the story. The kind of person who could ramble on and on without having their thoughts interrupted. I wanted to be as courageous as Junie B. Jones, moody as Judy moody, to have a friendship like Calvin and Hobbes. I yearned to be someone important.

We all want to be more than what we are. When I was younger I would stare up at the stars and beg to one day be equivalent to all the specs of glitter that littered the night sky. I didn’t want to be a star, no I wanted to be more than that. I wanted all of my memories, experiences, thoughts and ideas, I wanted every single one to equal up to the amount of stars that you could only find late at night on my uncles farm. But as I built them up, one by one tossing them into the sky hoping they find their way, I realized none of it was worth it. I didn’t want to be as courageous as Junie B Jones, when I realized how much trouble she was always getting into. I didn’t want to be as moody as Judy moody when I realized how stressed she always was, and Calvin and Hobbes friendship was nothing more than an imagination.

As I got older, braver, and more intelligent I found myself begging to just be something more than nothing. For months that’s all I wanted. A life, no. A story. But recently I realized something; I’ve always been something more than nothing, I’ve always been as courageous as I could be, as moody as needed, and my friendships have been more amazing than I could ever imagine. I’ve always been Helen Forbes. The tall girl with an ever changing smile, the confident, loud, beautiful girl, that not every one loved but it’s okay because she loves herself. I love my self. I will always be something more than nothing.

Explanations

I was planning on posting this someday when I had tons of fans and followers and people who really read my posts and admired my blog and took my advice but lately I’ve been asked the same two questions over and over again, so here are my short explanations.

“Why did you title your blog ‘Allaboutbeingalive.’?” I made my blog one night when I was home alone and found out that it is virtually possible to make a blog. I kept asking myself what is it that I will be posting on here? Will I talk only about my past or about all of my exes? Will I make it a daily diary? What if it’s about my best friend? Should it be poetry? Maybe fiction? Then I thought why not all of it. I told myself I’ll disguise the names except mine that way I can show people I know and have proof that it’s mine. It’s going to be all about my life, scratch that, it’s going to be all about being alive.

“Why are there no spaces between the words in the title of your blog?” and here’s my answer to that, When was the last time life gave you space?

Lets never forget the forgotten revelation of death

As we got older and our generation became more and our knowledge became less we forgot that we die. That death is inevitable.

I can still remember the exact day my aunt died. But I try not to, I try to think about the sweet peach tea she would make on hot summer days as me and my cousins ran back an forth between the apartment and the pool, trailing along the water and sweat that would drip from our swimming suits as we tried to beat the heat. I remember the way she smelled like cough drops and my grandmas perfume. The way she held her purse and hugged me as if I was a teddy bear. I can still hear her voice high pitched with happiness as she brought her face close to mine “DON’T WE LOOK JUST ALIKE, SHE’S MY TWINNY TWIN TWIN.” She would say with a drunken laughter. I can still see her huddled in the corner of her bedroom with the thin blue rope tied tightly around her arm and the one needle that poked out of her skin. I remember the smell of smoke that would trail behind her. I remember the way she held her purse closely against her side using my body and existence as a police proof shell.

So I try not to think about her, I try to only remember the things I knew back then. I try to see it the way I saw it back in fifth grade. She loved me I knew that and I still do. But she was hurting and I’m trying to never hurt that badly.

Forgotten thoughts

I once told a friend, “I wish I could give you all my memories, lend you my eyes and let you see the world through my point of view. Because maybe then you would forgive me for not being sorry.” 

The one thought I have most often is the worry that nobody understands me. I will never be able to ask some one for advice and know if this is the correct thing to do because nobody has lived my life. Nobody has sat on the domino’s of my choices, living with the ripple effect of every decision whether I was happy with where I had fallen or not. At first, I found this as a bad thing, a terrifying truth. I would lay in bed thinking; nobody will ever know the painful turn in my stomach that I felt the night you told me I wasn’t yours and you weren’t mine. They will never feel the fear that sat at the bottom of an empty pill bottle and blossomed in the pit of my stomach. They wont remember the night I crawled down the stairs holding my stomach in pain needing nothing more than a bottle of water to help wash down the acid. They can’t say they know how I felt sleeping in an unknown bed miles away from home with a wall between me and the girl who saw my fate. They can’t tell me what it was like falling out of love with you, and the blurs of the high school walls that day are something they will never recall.

Then I woke up, I opened my eyes and I saw my thought in a brighter light. No one will ever remember the excitement and freedom I felt running down the midnight street with your hand clasped tightly around mine. Nobody will remember the sound of pebbles bouncing off your bedroom window. They weren’t there the night my best friend led me down the alley next to her house, holding my hand as I balanced myself onto a log and looked over the fence separating the two neighborhoods and the city lights that would shine through her window late at night. They can never say they know what it’s like to fall in love with you. They don’t remember the day we hid potatoes around the hospital, and they will never recall the time we ran down the hallways passing each class as if it were a blur of wasted time.

So, maybe you are alone. Because I wasn’t there for your first heartbreak, and I won’t be there when your falling onto your floor drowning in your own tears. But I wasn’t there when you fell in love and I won’t be there when you feel the warm happy feeling in your stomach for the first time. It’s all yours, every memory and every forgotten thought; the only thing that can never be stolen.

Meaningful

My biggest fear; Loosing meaning. Laying on my death bed with the realization that I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t build anything or break anything, I just went through life following the rules only to become another head stone in a graveyard of unknown meaningless people with lives that are long forgotten.

The back of the cop car lacked the sense of accomplishment I was seeking. The way you touched me meant nothing when that was the only thing we ever seemed to be doing, and the quick exchange of money threw sketchy car windows never brought me any closer to feeling the way I so badly longed to feel. The thin lined scars that I was promised would make me feel something never did and for far too long I was numb.

The scrawny boy in the back of the class keeps telling the same joke over and over again hoping somebody will stay long enough to hear the punchline. The girl who only ever wore long sleeves, even in the summer heat, dyed her hair vibrant colors to hide how meaningless she really felt. The sketchy kids who lingered in the hallway only felt something when popping the new pill on the street.

I started to wonder if I would ever feel meaningful or if I would always be that girl who was too easy to read. That’s when I realized Meaning isn’t something that can be found, its not something you have to go looking for, it’s hidden in the most insignificant experiences. Like when you wake up Sunday morning and there’s donuts waiting for you in the kitchen, or when you & your favorite person are cuddled up in bed watching a good movie.  Feeling like your life means something is the one thing that separates happy people from sad people. So I found it, not inside of pill bottles or written on the backseat of a cop car, it wasn’t etched on a lighter and I couldn’t steal it from a store.

It was everywhere and no where at the same time. It was the smile after a laugh, and the adrenaline rush of small kisses, it was etched in the bottom of my best friends pool on late summer nights, it was hiding in my dreams, and buried in between the lines of sweet nothings you whispered into my ear. Memory after memory, I realized I had meaning, I had never lost it and I never needed to find it.

What was your name again?

I remember when we sat in your room and you told me you still liked to play dolls I told you I did too. It’s been at least two years since that day and I still haven’t seen you as of then.

last night I got a text from an unmarked number and when I found out it was you the first thing I wondered was if you still played dolls. Have you grown up too or did you stay still and wait for somebody to break your heart and hand you a lighter. I’m never sure how to approach someone I haven’t talked to in a long time. Do I tell you everything that has happened since the day you told me you still played dolls or do I start off with last year when my life really began. Or do I lie and just tell you I’ve missed you.

The countless amounts of play-dates taught me what a real friend was. Who stayed when you felt sick and watched movies they didn’t like. So I remember when you looked at me biting your bottom lip as your eyes gazed over and I could see the wheels in your brain turning as you thought about what to tell me. But I didn’t stay around because I didn’t have time for you to try and get your brain to work and I wasn’t sure I wanted you to tell me whether you still played dolls or not. My life was more interesting than any story you were about to tell me.

That’s when I found out I was a terrible friend. I didn’t want to stay when you were sick, or watch movies I didn’t like. I wanted to keep moving to keep living and when doing that I held you back from the life you truly wanted to live, and for that i’m sorry.