I am certain of nothing, but somehow everything I know has changed. It has shifted. Life has a way of doing that sometimes. Of sneaking up on you and showing you that you can never know what’s to come. It’s really quite beautiful. The way the world is magnetic. The way it finds a way to reach inside you, pulling and tugging at your deepest desires. Somehow I’ve landed here, where I feel safe and whole. It is foreign land for me, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t completely terrify me. But the fear is good. The fear is right somehow. My life has shown me that. It has shown me how to trust the uncertainty. It has shown me how to praise the mystery. I feel good. I feel complete. I feel like my feet are on solid ground. Tomorrow might be different.. but I’m okay with that.

To truly know intimacy

To truly know affection

To know need

To know desire

To know concern

To know regard

Fearful yet fearless

Brave yet foolish

I know this is delicate

But I have never felt so certain

Of this fact

This fact…

That I am yours

This is a repost of mine from a year or so ago. I turned it into a monologue. The link is attached to listen to it. It would mean the absolute world to me if someone would listen to it and give me their feedback.

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/MoHqujziYaELTVQm8

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When I think about love...

I think about the people in my life. I think about the good, the bad. The love that comes as easy as breathing, and the love that comes with an indefinable struggle. It’s never been hard for me to love. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever experienced an emotion that came easier for me. Loving those who are built firmly into my heart in unbreakable bonds that define so much of me and my life. Loving those whom have once held me unimaginably close and seemed so real, and right at that time. And loving those who made me feel safe, and made me feel as though I wasn’t, had never been, and never would be alone.

When I think about love...

I often wonder what it would be like. To be me. To be the person I am, and to not hold so many scars inside myself where I have loved and lost. I think of the things, the people, the places that are now behind me. Stuck somewhere inside a past that seems blurred by the unsought gift of self preservation. For the most part, I can count my blessings within each person that I once trusted enough to hold the weight of me and my own heart. I can see the good where there is so incredibly much bad to be accounted for. I can find it within myself to smile and be grateful for everything that was said, that was done, that was felt, and that was endured. For the most part, I am better because of the people I have loved, and the people I have lost.

Because when I think about love...

It makes sense to me to feel so deeply all the places inside where there are gaps and holes. Those empty spaces that were once filled with a blindingly infinate amount of a person. One that I gave myself entirely to. It makes sense to me to look at the future, and the possibilities of another person and feel afraid for what may or may not happen. It makes sense to me to be unavoidably fearful and cautious in the terms and the laws of love. The way that it feels so much easier to fear it then to it does to trust it anymore.

But I believe in it...

I believe in love. Unbounded, unruly, unbelivable love. I do because I always have. Because in some way, and to some degree, I always will. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to have given up and lost faith in life, in people, and in humanity... but to live a life without love is to live a life without possabilities. Without compassion, or connection, or any of those things that make human beings so real, and so special.

I believe in love, and in every single last place that it has taken me, in every single thing that it has shown me, and in every last person that it has brought to me, and then taken from me. Those parts of me, and my life.. They were so real. They still are in so many ways the realest parts of me. They keep me constantly aware of what lives inside of me. Of what it is that drives me, and keeps me going in this life. Of that thing that keeps me alive, and of all the good in me that I have to offer.

Yes... when I think of love

I think of the capacity and capability of my heart. I think of the immeasurable, and incalcuable depths that it holds, despite all the suffering and loss that it has endured. And with it, I can let go. I can learn to live without so much.

Because with it, I already have everything I need.

Everything I have ever needed.

Because with it, it doesn’t matter what I am without. It doesn’t overrule what I have gained. What I have conquered. What I have discovered within myself.

So when I think of love... I think of the joy, the bliss, the experiences of my life. And with that in my heart,

I am whole.

Once upon a time

You were right here by my side

We chain smoked our cigarettes

On this very bench

Rocking back and forth

To the rhythm of our passion

Sometimes fast

Sometimes slow

So many days I waited for you here

To come down and join me

To come down and acknowledge me

Some days you joined

Put your hand tightly in mine

Other days you were too far away

Avoiding the nearness of me

But this was the place

Where our bodies first collided

Up the stairs to the left

Where we once slept each night

Side by side interlaced

Those nights I felt the safest

When we laughed under the sheets

When we were as close as can be

When things were so right

I’ve sat here with you so many times

In silence and in small talk

In arguments and in heavy laughter

We walked up and down these streets

And always returned to this very place

You’d work on your motorcycle in the driveway

While I made my hands sore scribbling in journals

Nonsense about how much I loved you

About how even when I had you, I somehow always needed more of you.

It’s nice to be in this place

That once was filled with you and me

Even though you’re further away then I could ever reach you

Even though you’ve been gone for some time

I still sit here sometimes and I smile

Because I think of what used to be

Because I think of the times with you and me

Sitting in this very spot

Together

Forever.

I'm okay with not always being beautiful

It took me years to reach a place where I feel comfortable knowing not everyone sees something worthy in me. I no longer feel defined by the desire that others do or do not feel for me. I don't know exactly when it changed but it did. I changed. And I am better because of it. The majority of my years I have spent starving for certain attention because without it I felt myself fade into nothing. I felt every flaw from head to toe magnified to the point that it consumed me - every inch of me, of my identity, of my worth, of my being. Maybe being alive long enough and having lived through so much has finally allowed me to settle into myself. For better or worse, this is who I am. I've spent enough time inside these lines to know there is a certain goodness within me. Within my truest heart and truest soul. A uniqueness that is made up of my courage to love unconditionally no matter who or what the circumstances may be. With it, I have learned to trust myself - even when I do not trust others. I have learned to love the person that I am. I have come to accept myself as a whole rather then accepting only the parts of me that others seemed to like. I am truly beautiful.. because I am kind. Because I am deeply caring. Because I am passionately loving. Because I am capable of forgiving. I am truly beautiful.. because I feel so entirely. Because I trust so overwhelmingly. Because I believe so undoubtedly. I am no longer paralyized by the way it feels to not be seen. To not be needed or wanted. To not be noticed. Instead I am comforted by the way it feels to be true. True to myself and the person that I am. The woman that I am becomming. The human being that I will always be.

I met myself beneath the weight of those I loved before.

I never knew what it would take to understand.

To willingly choose myself over you.

Over all of you.

It was a dangerous path that led me here.

One I am effortlessly grateful for.

For I have survived a thousand deaths.

For I have finally made it out alive.

All that is left is who I am.

A force that has set me free.

I have loved so loudly. Like a scream that shattered through windows of glass. Like the loudest noise that could never be heard. Like the call that got buried beneath the landscapes around it. Like the plea that got lost through the wind that blew through it. I have loved so loudly. Loved till it left me blue and beaten down. Loved till it left me further from myself then I ever knew before. Loved till it took everything apart and scattered itself, never to be found again. I have loved so loudly. While begging and pleading not to leave me in that place. While nothing could hurt anymore then it already had hurt. While the only way out was through death in itself. I have loved so loudly. In ways no one will ever know. In ways no one will ever truly understand. In ways that are only mine, to keep, to carry. Yes, I have loved so very loudly. Through wild nights and restless days. Through lands and lakes and rivers and canyons. Through life and death and all the places in between. And all I can say is thank you. Thank you, because there is more love left to give. Thank you, because I am still whole. I am still held together by the hope, by the faith, by the mercy. I am still standing, and I am still capable of love. Of loving so loudly. The kind of love that could never die. That could never freeze. That could never stop. To no end. To no beginning. I have loved so loudly.

I have always felt so much. A feeler of everything. I used to be ruled by these feelings of mine. Swept underneath their current, and consumed by the power of their flames. I used to know nothing but to give way to the feelings. The feelings of love, of lust, of longing. The feelings of need, of desire, of craving. The feelings of loss, of grief, of tragedy. I used to believe I was designed for these feelings. That I was a creature built up on the lines and loops of reaction. Of a tender heart. Of a vulnerable shape. In all my years I have battled those feelings. Attempted to stand up to them only to fall apart beneath them. Those feelings made me feel alive, they made me feel complete. They made me feel lost, and they made me feel empty. In all my years I have battled those feelings. Found ways to tell myself they were okay. Found ways to tell myself I understood them. I think I’ll always be a feeler. A person consumed and rattled by the way it feels to be human. The way it feels to be alive. The way it feels to be me. Throughout this I have learned so much. Lost so much. Loved so many. And I feel safety in knowing how to feel those things.

“What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I'd done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn't do anything differently than I had done? What if I'd actually wanted to fuck every one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”

Cheryl Strayed