Feigned Love - Part 1

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As I approached my 30s, I was hopeful that some good would fall into my lap. That I would fall in love and move on to the next stage of my life. I didn’t do so blindly. I took a few necessary measures. At the time, I was entertaining two men romantically. One of them, whom I now believe to be a selfish moderate sociopath, and the other I had little to nothing in common with. Well, a few days after I turned 30, I stopped talking to them both in order to make room in my heart for someone much more deserving. 

The selfish moderate sociopath was very mentally stimulating and connected with me in many ways. But he was also a liar and would ever so often be unnecessarily critical and demeaning. Despite being married, he downplayed it and pursued many others outside of his relationship... including me. The other, was a man who only petitioned for the pleasures of life and didn’t feel the need to work hard for anything. He drank heavily, partook in cigars and hookah during his down time, ate horribly, and was overtly sexual - only fluently communicated  about sex and when we would  talk about other things (which rarely occurred) it bore me to the point of no return. Everything about him was uninspiring! But he carried himself as if he was god's gift to woman. Both of them did.

They say that who you are in a relationship with is a reflection of yourself. And despite me not being in a relationship with any of these men, I have to look back and ask myself “What the fuck was I thinking?” While I didn’t sleep with the moderate sociopath… I did sleep with the boring slob and it was unmemorable. I remember at some point of our “situationship”, I convinced myself that I liked Mr. Boring. I tried to convince myself that he was something to hold on to. He was tall, attractive (he was cute facially but his personality was so dry it was suffocating), owned his home, someone I thought to be financially well off (until he revealed some telling signs of having financial issues later on) and he was single. What more could I ask for? Why not just be with him. I can grow to like him… as long as he treated me right (which he didn't... but at the time how I defined "treating me right" was very obstructed).

To make matters worse, at one point I thought I was in love with the married sociopath. He asked me questions no one ever cared to ask me.. He knew my interest and stimulated my mind. Despite him being in a relationship, he found time to court me and proclaimed that I was the “one that got away”. I found that phrase very endearing at the time. The only thing you can build with a married man is a bed of lies and mistrust. Not only that... he was dogmatic and arrogant. Traits that I do not find very appealing. He would tell me that every man cheats, as to say that it was something I should just accept. A mentality that would help justify his [our] behavior.

Ultimately, my biggest downfall with both men was that I sold myself for cheap. That is the reflection that I see when I look at those two men... someone unworthy of pure unadulterated love. Here were these two unsatisfactory men that presented themselves. Broken. Not whole. Lacking. Insufficient. Sponges. And despite knowing and feeling that it wasn’t right, I entertained them. I gave them more of me then they should have ever deserved in this lifetime. I was looking for companionship. And with that, my definition of love was so incomprehensible I couldn’t read the fine print anymore. Were the lies considered love? Were the sex fueled text messages love? Was the rejection after I refused to have sex love? Undoubtedly so, I was seeking love… was I not? So why did I entertain things that were obviously not love?

I have never been in love. I’ve had verbally abusive relationships. I've dated many men that made me feel like I was just an option and not a priority. So if I walked away from every guy that treated me poorly, I would have never had a boyfriend. I would have been single 'til this very day. So I date these guys, even though I know it isn’t right, just so that I could experience some form of companionship. I thought those experiences were worth the inevitable heartbreak. I thought those few superficial embraces were worth me potentially dying more inside. I wanted to seize any fugacious moment of intimacy because I knew tomorrow would bring it's sorrow. I thought those experiences were worth the damage that would be done to me at the end. I felt that way up until the last guy I dated. 

The last guy I dated... He wrecked my fragile world. And now I realize, some experiences don’t need to be had. It was an experience that I can honestly say I could have lived without. He could have easily been the master of my destruction. He had a hold on me that I didn’t know was possible. I will call him Perturbado...

[TO BE CONTINUED]

The Army of Negative Thoughts

So this is how it feels to go insane. 

All this time I was expecting a  grand, traumatic event to collapse my rotting stability to dust. How did this happen? Did someone die suddenly? Was she raped? Did she experience trauma in her life?

Not quite. 

Just fickle minded. 

They will look at me through the thick cloudy glass window of the psych ward door, with a pen and pad in hand and scribble 'pathetic' on my evaluation. 

Puzzling to some, but the only trauma I faced was the worldwind of negative thoughts spinning around my head. So many of them, it began to sound like a crowded auditorium right before the show started and the lights were dimmed. They spun around so fast, and so randomly that they started colliding into one another. The words were no longer coherent. Just tormenting. Relentless. 

I felt like I was going insane. 

SHUT THE FUCK UP! 

That worked. For a second. Picked up the phone. Texted him “ Can’t sleep”. No response. I need to keep my mind occupied. Sent several other text messages out. “Are you up?” No response.  I need to talk. I need to distract myself from this. Is this happening because my period is on? Is this happening because I am miserable at work? Is this happening because I am scared that he’s going to be just like the rest of them? 

UNIVERSE! Work with me. 

Boom. Got a text back. My good friend, Phil. Supportive. Grounded. He’s experienced many hardships in his life. Phil, help me. My life is changing and I can’t recognize it. My dad just moved away. I am working at a job I hate… with no friends… I feel alone. Phil reminds me that change is hard. Thank you, Phil. I never realized how hard change could be. Seriously.

Knock knock. My roommate is at my bedroom door. Its 1:48 AM. She’s checking on me. I am crying. How can I stop these negative thoughts? I say the same thing to her that I told Phil, but I go into more detail regarding my potential future boyfriend. My roommate says positive words. At this point, I realize the thoughts have subdued. She sleeps in my bed with me. 

I lay there.

What’s happening to me? Who can understand this? Am I doing this to myself? I am driving myself insane?

YES.

Under the surface...

How little worth I apply to myself... Where I constantly feel undeserving. 

How can I slay this dragon. This massive cancer that feeds on my insecurities. If it comes back like a thief in the night, you can no longer retreat. You can no longer run and hide… folding into fetal position.

At last, you will take up arms. You will destroy the demons that conspire to feed on your soul. The smell of vulnerability only intensifies their hunger.

Carry your sword. Stab every negative thought in the heart. Not only are you the king, but you are the queen, the rooks, and the bishop AND you are also the knights. Protect every morsel of your being. Rule on a throne pure and forgiving. Cut out cancers. Ignore them when they call. You are on your way to infinite bliss, and can no longer be distracted.

You have been crowned. Protect the realm.

This Is Thirty - My Mortality - Part One

My Mortality

Edited 4/23/2017

It slept outside my front door unwilling to come in while I still had company. Despite it granting me such a courtesy, its presence was never forgotten. It taunted me, casting his elongated shadows in my foyer from under the cracks of my front door. My friends were in town celebrating my 30th birthday. A milestone that has stopped me in my tracks and has forced me to come to terms with my own mortality. It's unsettling, a 30 year old girl still in the prime of her youth, crippled by the thought of inevitable lifelessness and despair. 

I should be happy right now. But with it sitting outside my door, I knew misery awaited. While I slept that weekend, I could feel it grow at my front door step. I felt its presences more and more: minute by minute. I was surrounded by friends, but my mind was be preoccupied with the culprit that waited. 

I'm 30 now. A friend joked and said that my best years were behind me. Terrible joke, might I add. It seems like it's me against the clock now. Literally. My body won't promise me a chance at motherhood for much longer. 10 years the least. 10 years use to sound like a long time. But now I know 10 years can happen in a blink of any eye. And I've already blinked three times. 

By Sunday night, I dropped my friends off at the airport. I played BBC World News on the radio on my way back home to drown out the sound of my heater blasting. The temperature outside was below freezing… which complimented my anxiety. After arriving home, I reluctantly climbed the two stories of stairs, limping due to my right knee. I was terrified to reach my condo's doorstep, not knowing what I would find. I tried to come to terms that the culprit that sat outside my door, accepting that he would now devour me because I was finally alone. I was vulnerable, left with only my pessimistic thoughts and harsh realities. My cynical outlook on what's to come. I felt it suitable to drown in my emptiness. 

When I got to the door, the culprit wasn't there. I should have felt relief that he wasn’t waiting in the corners of the building halls. But I think that I became addicted to a certain kind of sadness. My ambivalent relief was short lived. He must have thought me to be a fool. His natural instinct to prey on the weak would not deter him from having me as his prey. I knew he had to be close by because I could still smell his odor... Like wet rags soaked in dirty mop water. He was a filthy thing that enjoyed the illusion of being clean.

As I put my key in the door, I happened to look down. That's when I realized that he slipped under the cracks and now resided inside my home.

After an entire weekend of fearing our confrontation, I realized that more so, I was fearing fear itself. Can anything be more crippling than knowing he stalked me all weekend? The anticipation was torture… confronting him head on... our first face to face encounter was now something I yearned to get over with. 

I opened the front door. My living-room was dark but the TV was still on, casting dark shadows that flashed with every change of brightness coming from the screen. In the shadows, there he laid on the floor. His eyes didn't move. His face expressionless until he cracked a sinister smile. 

“Time is ever fleeting. I can hear the thumbing of your heart... as evasive as each second”. 

His voice was like a cold knife running effortless through my spine. The hair on my arms stood to attention, the only thing on my body that was mobile while the rest of me remained paralyzed with fear.

It wasn't that long before he moved from his positioning on the floor and seeped into the air. He disintegrating from  this creature from the pits of despair to a thick smog of black smoke that infiltrated my airways the closer it moved towards me. And from my airways it filled my lungs with a stench deathly foul. 

How can I escape this demon that now lives inside of me? A question that I ask, knowing there is no answer.