After climbing out of a particularly deep, dark hole, I have come to this realization. I know nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I don't know why I am here.
I don't know why I am not here.
I don't know what I thought I knew.
I don't know what I don't know.
I don't know what's truth.
I don't know what's a lie.
I don't know what I want.
I don't know why I want what I do think I want.
I don't know what's real.
I don't know what's fake.
Given this plethora of unknowing, I am left with a certain sense of freedom.
Fuqitol, if you will.
Apparently, this life is one big basket of playing it by ear, or whatever the expression is.
Wing it.
Fake it til I make it.
I don't even know why I am not writing in complete paragraphs.
Just seemed like the thing to do at the moment.
I don't know if there's a divine being.
If there is a divine being, who made THAT divine being?
I feel like I'm stuck somewhere in the middle of The Matrix and Inception.
Blue pill. Red pill. Dream. Reality.
What is it?
In this current reality, right here where I sit, with this newfound free-spiritedness, this is what I NOW know:
I'm done with expectations.
I am erasing whatever preconceived notions I had about much of what has come before.
If reality is like one percent fact, and 99 percent our perception of it, then I can make this life be whatever I want to be, right?
Shit will happen.
Things will begin.
Things will end.
I don't need to know if you're telling the truth in order for me to listen to how I feel deep inside. If you choose to lie, that's on you.
I may not know why I am here, but I also do not know why I am NOT here, therefore, I guess that adds up to I'm here for some reason yet unbeknownst to me.
I have to move forward.
I have to rebuild what's left of my brain and my heart.
I'm done with how I have felt over the past few weeks.
I'm done allowing anyone else to determine how I feel about myself.
I'm not everyone's cup of [insert beverage of choice here].
I am me.
The only person I am changing for is me.
I'm not waiting around to be loved, appreciated, or even noticed.
Come with me, or don't. That's up to you.
I don't know what's next, but I do know I'm about to find out.
This is how I feel about being erased. Have at it.
You can belittle me, degrade me, disrespect me, and attempt to erase me, but you will never be able to destroy my memories. Only time and nature have that kind of power.
You can't make me feel the same disgust you feel about your "past," and all that was in it. Because my memories and a magical metric fuckton of images tell a much different story. No, things were not always easy. No, we didn't have a lot. No, I was definitely not perfect, ever, and many people didn't hesitate to let me know how imperfect I was. But I remember from how I felt. I remember what I felt. And you don't get to take that away.
Never take for granted those little moments, no matter who you turn out to be. You never know when it's the last time you'll get to have any more of those times.
Like the clouds up there in the sky that look so solid, as if you could just lay on them and recline in billowy comfort, it all just turns to vapor. It's gone the second you try to hold on to it.
I also feel the same about lies.
Do not look me straight in the eye and lie, fumble, make excuses, play dumb, etc. Just don't. It's not a good look.
For fuck's sake, own your shit. If you want something, SAY you want something. If you no longer want something, SAY you no longer want something. It's very simple.
What is left of my heart and soul is now stashed away in my own three-lock box. Sorry, that song popped into my head the other day, and wouldn't leave ...
Suckers walk, money talks
But it can't touch my three lock box
This week, every day has been a struggle. The more I learn, the less I wanna know. Can I not just have peace? Can I not just have rest? Can I not just have the simplest amount of happiness once in a while? What happens when there's nothing left of my heart to break?
Photo by me at Full Cover - Total Eclipse 2024 (I don't know what blue/green streak is)
I’m so sick of me. I know that’s not the manifestationally
correct thing to say, but what else is there to say. I have allowed people and
situations to control my emotions, and my lack of actions, and I am so very
tired of not taking back that control.
I cannot control what any other motherfucker on this planet
does. Only me.
We got a very horrendous Chinese take-out meal last night,
and the only healthy and beneficial thing to come from it were my two fortunes,
pull from the guts of the two fortune cookies I consumed, one last night, and
one today.
Fortune #1: Sever the ignorant doubt in your heart with
the sword of self-knowledge.
Fortune #2: Bring something up from the back burner.
Oh, and I discovered that you cannot, and MUST NOT eat tuna
salad every day, sometimes twice a day, for months on end. I’m pretty sure I
have given myself a healthy round of mercury poisoning which has made itself
known by headaches, and an assortment of bumps, aka a rash that not only
itches, but bleeds when you scratch it. Yay.
I’m kinda sad about that because my tuna salad was the bomb,
and it was one of the few things I could eat for lunch that did not make me
groggy and ready to just go back to bed. Damn it. May have to go back to Factor
meals for a while, and no, they are not sponsoring this blog post, because I am
not a professional blogger, or “influencer.” But Factor meals are simple, and
if you have a discount code for $2.99 a meal, you could get a magical metric
fuqueton of meals for a pretty good price. Cheaper than frozen meals from the
store, cheaper than meal planning and cooking, not to mention faster.
Annnnnnywhooooooooo, back to the aforementioned fortunes. Yeah.
There’s been a lot of doubt, and a lot of pain. I’m not going to give you the
details because that’s not who I am. It’s a private matter, and just suffice to
say that I have been erased from a person’s life who was my world. I have been
eradicated, blocked, silenced, and completely eliminated and prevented from
communicating with them. Why? Because even though I support their freedom to
choose what works best for them, I chose to tell them my honest opinions, and
concerns. I kept their secrets, I lied by omission, and when I dared to share
what was in my heart with them, I was met with “Have a nice life, Deb.”
(Note, I am not talking about my Beloved, either. He
is my rock. Let’s just clear that up now. Without him, I surely would not be
here to write this.)
When I discovered this message, and that I had been banished,
I doubted my need to continue breathing. I felt like someone in a horror movie
that just had their heart ripped out of their chest, said heart pureed in a
Vitamix, and force-fed back to me through a cocktail straw. In that moment,
and THAT moment alone, I didn’t want to continue existing. I had to step away
from the door because a fleeting thought that passed through my brain was “Just
smash your face in the glass as hard as you can. What does it matter anymore?” That
was new. It was a very dark few moments.
I don’t tell you that for pity or sympathy or dramatic
effect. I tell you that because it’s as real as I can get. You don’t need the
gory details to know the pain of losing someone you thought would be in your
world forever. Many of you who read this have had your own losses that are definitively
deeper and more painful than this, I know this, and to each of you, you have my
undying love and understanding.
I tell you this, because, as the fortune mandated, I need to
sever the doubt with self-knowledge. The self-knowledge I have is this:
I am worthy of more respect than this person ever showed
me.
I did everything in my power to make sure this person had
the best life they could have, given they were stuck with me. It wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough to earn their respect. It wasn’t enough to make them
understand that I love them so much I would risk losing them.
Their decisions are not my cross to bear. Their decisions
will ultimately only affect them.
I will never again keep secrets for anyone. Secrets are a
form of manipulation that I will no longer entertain. If you talk to me, make
sure it’s something that anyone can hear. If there’s anything I loathe, it’s
game-playing, and toying with people’s emotions. Own your shit, or don’t tell
me about it.
I will speak my mind if I feel it is important.
Otherwise, I don’t have much to say. I’m more of an observer. If you don’t want
to hear what I have to say, don’t listen. Simple as that.
So, I know these things and, as such, I move forward, knowing
that I’m not for everyone including those for whom I thought I was. Blood is definitely
not thicker, apparently.
Which brings us to Fortune #2 – bringing something (me) up
from the back burner. I put myself there. Not necessarily on purpose, but I did
anyway. For decades.
I know my flaws, and my weaknesses. I know that something
has got to give before I completely run out of fucks and do something I can’t
ever take back. Which has been heavily on my mind this week. It’s not been a
good week. Thankfully, I have had distractions to keep it from being the only
thing I could think about.
I don’t know why I am here. All I know is I won’t spend the
rest of my time on this planet being a useless lump addicted to distraction and
putting everything off.
The only way to NOT do and be the things I despise about
myself is to NOT do or be those things. Again, no pity or sympathy. I don’t really
share the ugliest parts of me here, so trust me when I tell you there is a laundry
list of things on which I need to focus.
I’m tired of saying “Fuck it.” I’m tired of being depressed.
I’m tired of my brain. The incessant nagging thoughts of not being worth the
effort need to go. Who I am is not dictated by those who refuse to value me,
including me. Giving up is no longer an option. Just sitting here waiting ...
feeling washed up, used up, and heartbroken is no longer an option. Saying that
I’m going to do something, and then making a zillion excuses why I don’t do it
is not on the table anymore.
I cannot stomach this kind of pain and agony and just maintain
status quo. The only way around this is right through the middle of it.
Forward, not backwards. I fully realize this is Sunday, and I’m starting things
on a Monday again, but not really ... It starts now. I don’t know precisely
what IT is, but now is the beginning.
As Raymond Reddington so brilliantly put it: “I wanna stand
on the summit, and (probably not me) smoke Cubans, and feel the sun on my face
for as long as I can.”
I don’t have a summit here – maybe the deck out back – and I
don’t smoke Cubans, but I still smoke, and we still have sunlight. Lemonade anyone?
