Life isn’t meant to be easy, only simple. We aren’t meant to make it through unscathed but with stories and lessons. The people that you’re meant to keep around won’t make you feel bad for being who you really* are. If you never have to tell someone that you’re upset, hurt, or “no” in the span of knowing them, you’re likely not being completely honest with them even if it’s just about what you want. I never again want to share space with someone that makes me feel like I have to maintain my composure but I’m finally accepting that it doesn’t mean I don’t want to allow space for someone.
Weekend Falling
I’m pretty sure that I was myself this weekend, falling apart – it’s one of my favorite ways to be.
I’ve never felt so safe falling apart in the arms of someone that has the power to shatter me.
It happened two days in a row, two meltdowns over the same topic – these explosions have been going off my whole life, I just do my best to keep them hidden.
The first eruption boiled up inside of me first as fear, then quickly covered by anger – I haven’t let anyone close enough to hurt me in a while and I forgot how vindictive I instinctively become.
I’ve been fighting myself for my whole life and usually the cost has been tearing myself to shreds but when I notice my thirst for revenge I pop the crystal clear skull out of the ice tray and squeeze it between my hands until it’s fluid, ready to flow – skull crushing, cold, I’m coming down.
Grabbing for more ice I wonder how cold your fingers have to get before frost bite sets in, only for a moment, before redirecting my attention to the drip, – drip, drip, drip – warmth turning the rigid into a puddle but this time I don’t mean that I’m using sex as a coping mechanism.
When my hands felt frozen, just barely numb, I trusted that I was grounded enough to plant myself, right back on the couch – so I did.
I buried my hands first. It felt counterproductive to tangle the cold that I had just craved into the warmth of blanket. I used to love it before I found my truly favorite tangle.
The blanket was just warm enough to start melting the ice inside of me and I didn’t know that water could flow upwards but that has to be the only explanation for why it leaked from my eyes as it was my hands thawing.
Anger trickled back in and my hands turned fists and the screaming inside of me started telling me to run, fast.
I think back to the way we both said we hate being yelled at – it’s absolutely no way to get someone to listen. The louder it gets, the more I tune out.
Beneath the screaming, I heard a whisper tell me that I was going to be okay, I’m safe.
I focused on the whisper as I picked up my phone and typed out the words I kept choking back. I focus on the whisper as it reminds me that I can handle this whatever way I need to but that I need to handle it instead of running. I focus on the whisper and it acknowledges the fear.
I asked the fear to acknowledge the whisper and it screamed louder – run. So I told the fear to run right back to wherever it came from, it’s not mine, and asked for the love back that I knew I could handle this with.
When his arms wrapped around me, I swallowed the urge to scream don’t touch me. The urge didn’t come from not wanting to be touched, because I desperately just wanted to be held as I cried.
The urge didn’t come from anger and it had nothing to do with him.
Don’t touch me was fear knowing that love is taking over, a last-ditch effort to keep me under it’s hold.
Within minutes I was laughing again, safe.
The second time I fell apart, the topic crept back in while I was the only one awake. It had unanswered questions that it though I wouldn’t dare to ask. It had unanswered questions that it thought it could plant, water, let grow into problems – I cried a lot that morning, but I asked the questions, proved fear wrong, ripped it up at the roots so it can’t grow back.
This weekend, I fell apart and felt like myself. When I say I want to be naked all of the time, half of that just means I’m tired of having things to hide behind – let me be exposed.
This weekend, safely, I felt exposed.
Much love, until next time.
Madeline May I... 