Meeting her.

For many months I've wondered. My idle mind trying to conjure a reality. She'll be like me. She has to be in some ways. I often find myself comparing.

I see myself curled up in a wing-backed chair, socks, underwear and a jacket, a book. Coffee. Maybe my kids are running around the place, maybe they're at their dads. Does she know how to be present?

I imagine her working in the yard. Does she appreciate the dirt under her nails?

I see myself getting angry. Does she ever get mad?

I imagine her, but try as I might, I cant see her face. Is she happy?

I’m the person who let others write her story. 

I’ve been told I’m everything and anything under the sun and mostly I’ve believed all of it.

The youthful, naïve, hopeful, fairy-tale seeking, spontaneous girl who fell head over hills with a boy who would become the man who would shatter her. 

The trusting girl. 

The girl who wanted to be perfect, and more than that, loved.

The angel. 

The artist. 

The bitch. 

The drive of that girl moved mountains, she could lasso the moon. A gift, that drive. It's part of her magic and it survived the worst day.

***

I have been deeply sad, for longer than I care to admit. The kind of deep, slow, sadness that hurts my stomach, it makes me want to cry, scream and kick, sleep and cry all over again. It’s a physical sadness that makes my bones ache and the hair on my head fall out. It makes my eyes swollen and my jaw tight. My teeth ache. It makes my heart skip beats and my throat choke on the air I’m trying to swallow.

It’s the pain of regret and of fear. A pain that tells me to go against every bit of what I know I should do and run head first into anything that will help me question myself, question my lovability. A fear that tells me to run into arms, arms that can turn my world upside down and shatter it in an instant, repeatedly. Seek vices, go numb. Have no willingness to shed old habits that no longer serve me. Like clockwork, wake, try, seek sadness, sleep.

I’ve been lost in an ocean in a box, sometimes not knowing if I could keep my head above the water. I wished for death and life all at once. 

***

She is a writer, a fighter and a survivor. She knows how to be present. She appreciates the dirt under her nails. She does get mad.

She deserves to be happy. She is good enough. She is loved.