having courage fucked me up

came across this today on my fb timeline from 2 years ago.  having courage seems to have fucked me up.  i followed my heart, i took risks, i pissed people off, i believed in love, blah, blah, blah.    that courage has gotten me two years worth of regret and two years older. i guess i was the only one brave enough to actually put it on the line.   

Have the courage.

Have the courage to try.

Have the courage to be you, who you really are.

Have the courage to piss people off by making choices that align with your heart.

Hell, have the courage to follow your heart.

Have the courage to love.

To hope.

To believe in forever.

Have the courage to leave masks behind.

To say screw make-up and beauty products that convince you you’re flawed.

To be real, messy, fleshy, dirty and absolutely delicious.

Have the courage to dismiss labels and styles and to look beyond appearances to souls.

Have the courage to live a life you love.

Really.

To say no. And really mean it.

To not apologize, justify or even offer to make up for it.

Just No.

Have the courage to leave behind the script for normalcy and not feel guilt because it never felt like it fit.

Have the courage to call out fakeness.

The courage to ask for what you need and to walk away from anyone that can’t offer you just that.

Have the courage to believe in the once in a lifetime kind of love.

Have the courage to have confidence in yourself and dreams.

In your visions and beliefs.

In the life YOU want to live.

Because I promise you there’s no gold medal at the end of all this for following the rules of men.

For being or living how we’re supposed to.

How others think we should.

So have the courage...

The courage to truly live.

Author: Kate Rose

the quest for a spotless mind

i told myself i have been writing too much.  is that a thing?  i think it can be in my case.  but the thoughts...the thoughts are constant in my head.  it's like i have to put them down in type or ink to get them out of my head, to get rid of them even if briefly. 

i need to get over it and on with it just like i've had to do with everything else in my life.  it takes me awhile because i tend to cling to the past.  i guess that's normal with great loss.  i feel great loss.  that itself seems ridiculous this time around because what i lost was never really mine to lose.  it only felt that way.  but i was his. 

i take my phone to the bedroom each night, i turn it down so as not to disturb my sleep.  it's a habit i got into when he would send me songs every morning.  the first thing i would do before getting out of bed was to check my phone for that email.  i put a stop to those emails because i was becoming dependent on them.  but after that i would still check my phone each morning, looking for a text, to see if he'd played the word game we shared or left a message there.  i put a stop to those things as well.  i felt like he gave me no choice.  i didn't want to carry this need or dependency for someone or something that seemed futile.  i was too attached and trying to detach.  i still am.  the point is, i wake up every morning and check my phone, then the sadness overwhelms because he's not there.  

i want these feelings i have for him to recede, to at least let up enough i can wake up without him in the forefront of my thoughts each morning.  i carry him with me every single day and it's killing any hope in me for a normal life, or any kind of life without him.  but i can't have a normal life with him, either, unless he would want that.  so right now i guess i know where i stand.  i can acknowledge that over and over but accepting it is far more difficult.  

so here i am again, writing, trying to come to terms.  how does one accept a life like this, where any semblance of joy seems feels so far out of reach it seems inconceivable?  i feel like i need to fix myself, like there must be something wrong with me.   

i feel like i'm joel in "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind", wanting it all erased.  but in the end, having had their memories of each other erased, he and clementine had a connection that overpowered even that and they began again.  only for us, the memories won't be erased.  and the odds of beginning again?  well, that's up to him.  it always has been.  

so how do i fix my broken self?  i'm trying to find grace within myself but my mind is a hot mess.  to paraphrase clementine, "too many guys think i'm a concept or i'm gonna make them feel alive [and that i have], but i'm just a fucked up girl lookin' for my own peace of mind..."