Thankful? A Cynic's View on Gratefulness.

I know, I know, woe is me.  There's plenty of sadness and boo hoo-ness. I get it.  Suck it up and read my struggles to be thankful, because you're supposed to be....

Lately, I've found it very hard to be thankful.  But it has cause me time to reflect.  There are things that I am thankful for.

• I'm thankful for the people in my life that don't give up on me, the ones who like my kind of crazy, and the ones that are bystanders.  
• I'm thankful for my family, who support me always, even though I'm a shithead. 
• I'm thankful for my sweet dog who brightens my life.

Simple, basic, to the point (get it, bullet points?!? HA!).

Not so simple, c'mon this is me, you'd know by now it's never that simple.

There are much deeper things, things that are a multifaceted ball of bullshit that I am thankful for, so grab ahold of your soul before it blackens and read away.

1. Pain. 

As much as I pray for it to go away, I am thankful.  It means at one point, I felt love, and if I never feel it again, I am glad, that I felt it, if even for a moment.

2. Loss.

I'm thankful for my loss.  It saddens me, burdens me, and weighs me down.  It deepens the wound and furthers the depths of my depression, but I am thankful.  As much as I don't agree with it, as much as I want it back, as much as I want him, he didn't.  So I'm thankful, because this means happiness for him, and when you truly love someone, you want them to be happy - even if it means they won't be happy with you.  Typing these very words I'm holding my breath. 

The nausea turns in my gut and the breath is pressing hard in the empty cavern of my chest.  Tears streaming down my face, yet I will not make a sound.  It hurts, yes - but loss means I had something. I am thankful for one moment in time, I had something that was so beautiful, it hurts so damn bad to lose.

3. Memories.

I'm thankful for the memories that haunt me, the ones burdening my mind so I cannot seem to focus on the current reality I'm residing in.  How I can close my eyes and he's there, and I can smell him again, but as static ripples across a screen, I open them and it's just a memory. Memories, like the time he held me - our bodies carved from the same stone fit perfectly, like the puzzle piece I had so hoped he would be - and kissed me deeply, for the first time.  I died in that kiss. I died in knowing that was the last set I'd ever want to kiss.  Remembering his face the first time we made love, and how his soft blue eyes looked at me.

They haunt me every single day.  I try to not look him in the face when we speak, because it floods my mind.  Everything I love about him is right in front of me, and I can't touch it.  Wanting so badly for him to scoop me up like he had so many times, in those perfect arms of his, and hold me close - kissing my forehead.  Melting every ounce of pain or stress away.

I am grateful.  How wonderful is it to be constantly reminded of something you cannot get over? It's a fucking burden.  You want the light in the darkness? The I'm grateful because at least I was happy once. No, not happening. I am fucking miserable...

Crying out at night, lying on the floor, being tortured by the fact that this man you loved so much crushed what was left of your soul and it's all you've thought of every waking moment for the last month since he walked out of your apartment for the last time...

I'm lying. I am not thankful. I want it to stop, there's no light in this darkness because he was the light, and he left me, alone. I just want to feel nothing, nothing would be better than the constant nagging depression, the bouts of crying, the countless hours I've spent picking myself apart, wondering what I did wrong to lose him?

Was he ever really mine?

Be thankful. Be thankful for me, because I cannot.  I am not optimistic to be like "I'm alive, yey." No.  I'm not excited.  I'm alone, and still hurting and still praying that one day, someone will fucking just love me. Just put up with the fact I want to cook and bake and sing and dance, and cry with them.  I want to have a life with them...I just want someone to be my better half...give me a chance, and not give up on me.

Hug your friends, your family, your husbands and wives.  Hold them tight. Say you're sorry, don't fight about money, and be fucking grateful someone is there for you.  Because when you're like me, you sit alone at night wondering why you're alone.  You wonder why your husband is in prison and not sitting with you...wondering how you were blindsided by a complete lie he fabricated that you lived deep within...wondering how you made it out only to be used by every single man since.

You wonder if he thinks of you, if he's even sorry.

You wonder about J. The man you unwillingly fell for harder than bricks falling from the sky.  You wonder what he's thinking about and it's probably deer, or his mother.  I had so little room in his mind. And yet, you wonder why you still think of him...because every single thing about him just felt perfect...that's why.

You sit, and you dwell, and you cry.

So readers, this thanksgiving, be happy. 

You ungrateful fucks.

Love, loss and self destruction; a reflection.

Men.  I'm not sure why I keep trying, hoping that there will be one to live up to the extreme standards I have laid out for myself - but I do.  I hope he'll come, and we'll fall in love, and we'll cook dinner together, and go to brunch together...but he hasn't.  I'm beginning to understand maybe my path in life is to be alone, maybe it's what's in the stars for me.

When my husband shattered my world four years ago, it was a long hard road out of hell to come back from all the pain and heartache I had experienced.  I destroyed myself further during my healing process.  Drugs, alcohol, men, whatever could make me feel something other than the excruciating pain in my chest, the sting of the wind blowing through the hole he left deep within me.

My first experience was just awful...and unforgiving.  After a night of drunken debauchery, I had stayed with what I thought was my friend and her boyfriend.  The Xanax and alcohol had taken its toll on me and I was going to sleep it off.  The boyfriend's roommate said he had clothes I could sleep in.  I went to his room to get them and he shuts the door.  He insists I sleep in his room, I say I'd rather stay on the couch and he should just give me the clothes.  Somehow I ended up in the bed, after changing in front of him, all the while him gazing upon my body as if I were an English breakfast spread across the table for an orphan child.  "You're so beautiful."  Drugged and exhausted, I just wanted to sleep.  I laid in his bed.  Dozing in and out of consciousness.  He kissed me all over, kissed my mouth, he tasted like cigarettes and old booze.  He was a gross, greasy mess - fat and balding.  Fighting as best I could with steadily increasing loss of motor control, he eventually had his way with me, all 36 seconds of it.  Just enough time for him to intrude my body and squeal in delight at how I felt before he fell over fat and spent.

I lie awake crying silently, violently shaken from my drugged stupor, the dim lights still hazy.  I waited til he was fast asleep.  I took more pills, and then I snuck out of his room, which oddly enough was attached to his child's room, and the sight of her pink toys strewn about her dirty child like bedroom made me violently ill.   This was not what I wanted for myself.

The second, a marine, at the restaurant I worked out.  Our sex was filthy, disgusting, and he was very pig like.  To him, I must have been a goddess.  To me, I was a broken destroyed pathetic human with little to no self worth left within me, not after what happened.  Later I came to find our fling was not as private as I had hoped, and he was also cheating on his girlfriend/fiance with me.  I was the other woman, and it wasn't ok to me.  Why I picked the ugliest, most wretched, vile affair I could have for my first freeing experience, I'll never know.  Maybe I was too damaged to see what was unfolding in front of me.  Soon things became public and I lost my pathetic job.

He was the first step in my self destruction and dissolution of any hope I had for myself.  Next it was a long stretch of late nights trapped in bars, drinking away my pain...dancing, taking pills, smoking, whatever it could be to feel numb.  Sought after the attention of men, but never took on any advances, I just enjoyed the attention.  I had become everything I had ever hated.  Those sad pathetic girls, drinking til their makeup melts off, sweaty thrusting bodies in a crowd of desperation.  I filled this hatred with bouts of crying in bathrooms, and shots of whiskey.

Then one fateful night, many months later, I had gone out for just a girls evening.  I stumbled across this gorgeous vibrant cocky son of a bitch, who decided to flirt and insult me at the same time...I was taken aback by his ways.  He kissed me long and hard on the dance floor.  He wore a cobalt blue shirt, a vest and slacks, as if he had just left homecoming and snuck in to hang with the adults.  I thought he was the shit.  Finally an attractive funny guy, who was so hard to get, I wanted it.  Shortly after meeting, we started seeing each other and then was our sex.  I should have known the first night we met it was not going to be a smart choice.  Then again, my head wasn't on right, and I was not concerned with anything that could be remotely considered a red flag.

He stayed at my house.  I told him to sleep on the couch...of course that didn't happen.  Whatever, he slept in my bed.  I woke up and rolled over to see him, shirtless...and very sexy.  Tattoos covered his body, he had piercings, and jet black hair, a strong jaw line...he was in my bed, and he was hot.  I seemingly forgot how he arrived there, but I leaned in and kissed his nipple, smelling him and taking it all in before rolling over and passing back out...all to be woken up with his hand down my pants trying to penetrate me. I slapped him away.  Did I not see the clear violation? No.  We dated for two years.  Finally ended when he beat me and broke my ribs.

After him where three other flings and then I quit...my healing had become apparent.  I hated myself and broke down.  I wanted to change, I wanted to stop being an object.  I wanted someone who wanted me for more than my body.

Then there was him.  My prince charming, tall and handsome, and good.  Riding a white steed...I pined after him for a year before we got together, and well, as we've read, the rest is history.  He was my one.  The one I had prayed for.  The forgiveness I sought to be able to have such a man, my dream guy. I prayed for everything...begged.  Then he was mine, or so I thought.

I've spent the last month trying to get over this loss, thinking I had finally healed from all the shit I put myself through.  I've worked hard over these four years and these many flings to become a stronger woman, an independent woman who has fought for everything she has.  I've finally reached something close to content with myself.  I wanted someone finally who would be good to me, who I could take care of.  Someone to just be with.  Someone to fall in love with.

I did. He didn't.  And that's how my story goes.  I finally worked over my demons.  I sought forgiveness, I changed my life.  This wonderful man comes in, when I was content being alone.  I thought it was a sign. I thought...

Well I was wrong. He was the second man I've ever loved.  The first being my deceitful husband who sent me into the spiraling abyss of madness and chaos.  J - the second, and truest man I've known, left me sobbing on my couch, and walked out of my life as my lover, forever...and he's gone, and as much as sadly, desperately I've tried, he's not coming back.  There's no working it out.  He does not love me, and I cannot make him.

Nor can I make this void in my chest full again.  I feel I've finally lost it...I've lost my will to love, I don't think I can again.  It's too trauma inducing, it's too painful.  I'm never loved in return.  At this point in my life, I'm too afraid for another goodbye....

Goodbye J.

"I just don't love you.  I've tried, I've waited, I've given us a shot, but it's just not there."

That's how my love story ended.  October 23rd, 2014.  After all the heartache I have come to find, he was there.  It was his eyes that caught mine.  His very being was so fulfilling in the void I had carved in myself.  I yearned for him for a year before we went on our first very nerve racking date.

He was everything to me.  I could kiss his lips forever, and in my mind, I knew that they were the last ones I would kiss.  Our bodies fit together as if they were carved for each other.  I felt better around him.  All this whirlwind bullshit that encompassed me was abruptly ended by the fact he felt none of those things.
My heart still aches.  It hurts every single day.  I'm just supposed to pick up and move on. "You either get married, or you break up, that's how it works" I've been told...I've been told to many times I'll be ok.  Life goes on. Whatever dumb shit people say.

The problem lies in the fact I've waited so very long to feel that way for someone again...I didn't think I could, and when I prayed, yes folks, actually prayed, for each thing in our relationship from beginning to end, it was answered with yes.  I thought possibly after all I had been through, this was my blessing....I honestly felt it, and in a snap, it was gone.

All that's left to do now, obviously, is to look inward.  I have to analyze every single fiber of myself.  I want to be loved. I don't like being alone.  I'm not outgoing, but god damn I am fucking lonely.  I used to be fine with my isolation, but when he came along, and lit me on fire, my heart was so thrilled to be connected to another.
I miss being held.  I miss kisses on my forehead...jokes that we had...all gone.  How does one move on from it?  When you love someone so much everything including their flaws are perfect to you? I mean, he was SUPER skinny, he had a strange patch of fur above his belt line, and a very, very large nose, all of which, to me, were endearing.

Apparently my quirks weren't for him.  There was nothing about me he adored.  It's such a painful realization.  I don't know how to move on...and it hurts. SO. FUCKING. BAD.

The last time this pain hit me, it took months for me to be willing to move on, and years for me to try again, and lots of drugs and alcohol to drown it out.  I don't want that.  It never stopped hurting I don't believe, which is why this one is so great, it's like reopening an old wound, freshly scarred over.  The old pain turned into bitterness which I still harbor to this day even though I want so very badly to let it go.

This man was special to me, so very special my mind cannot comprehend what's actually going on, and I don't want to hate him to be able to move on.  I want to just stop feeling, but I can't.  I can be completely fine and then all the sudden, I start crying and I cannot control it.  I feel as if my soul finally found it's mate and he was ripped away from me by the cosmos.

Now, I'm wandering around lost...trying to find solace from this pain that's filled me once again.  I've finally understood the weight of this situation and his feelings toward me.  It is over, and I have to move on.

As I sat on my couch after hours of us talking and me crying, and my unsightly panic attack on the floor, him sitting with his head in his hands, eyes reddened from letting me down, it - us, and our conversation came to a close. With tears streaming down my face, he stood, left my house for the last time, and as I sat shaking staring at the floor in complete disbelief of what was actually happening. He said goodbye,  and took with me, the last of my heart I had to give.

Goodbye was the tragic end of what I thought would be true love, finally.  Goodbye means it's a month later, and he's already forgotten me. I'm no longer emotionally connected to him, and I am just another person in the crowd.

I wish I had that switch to turn off these tears.

Goodbye meant he was finished.  Goodbye meant, I wasn't done fighting.

He's gone.

Goodbye, J.