Wants

I don't know how to let go. I am supposed to crate my dreams in a bubble and send them out for the universe to create for me, to let them live and breathe, grow, bloom into amazing clarity and reality.
I hold them tight, they are precious to me. I mold and re-mold, change their shapes, try to train them to do my bidding, tell them: This is how you will deliver. This is how it will happen.
I have to set them free from my chains of pervasive desire so I can escape from my gaping pit of need; transcend from I Want..to I Have.

Gettin' By- An Apology To Everyone

I'm doing the best I can. Really.

If you don't get every single thing you want for Christmas. I'm sorry, I don't have money coming out of my ass.

If I get pissed because you borrow my tools and don't return them, I'm sorry. I just wanted to know where the fuck they were.

If I give you extraordinarily bad advice about your marriage, I'm sorry. I'm clearly bitter and small and not the one to ask right now.

If my house is a fucking mess because I was too tired to vacuum up the dog hair, I'm sorry. I had to go to my yoga class so my ass will stop falling.

If I didn't call you back, didn't respond to your request, didn't pack the kids' swim suits, didn't take you for a walk, didn't make sure my checking account wasn't overdrawn, didn't listen while you were talking, didn't make you a USDA approved and perfectly balanced dinner, didn't supervise every scrap of homework and generally micro-manage everyone, every minute of every goddamn day-

I'm sorry.

I'm doing the best I can.

Every Other Weekend

What is it about being alone that's comforting and terrifying all at once? Not too long ago, all I wanted was to be alone, just for a few hours. Now have many hours alone and I wander through them like a pale ghost, a loose end, frayed, unbound.

Before I fought for every second of silence and now I fight silence, with media, tasks, craft. I am hungry for conversation, I do not always get it. I talk to the dog. She listens attentively.

Some day, soon I think, I will welcome the stillness, the vast quiet pool of deep thoughts. I will enter it eagerly, I will float, dive, hold my breath and emerge with a charge from a muse. Some day soon, I will say no I cannot talk I am busy breathing and being alive and creating the universe.
Some day soon...

Now...the voices are back, the mess, the noise, the chatter, the chaos that left on Friday has returned and I have missed it. In 2 weeks, I will miss it again, but just a little less...

Sharing the Book

As I ponder some of my questionable behavior (the early am beer, I'm sorry but it's just one and it's really tasty) it occurs to me: how much information is too much? How much do you reveal, what do you hold back? Should I carefully craft the story of my existence with severe and disciplined edits, or do I let it flow, stream-of-consciousness, like a waterfall that springs from my soul?
My concern has been: if you truly know me, what will you think of me? And I wonder if I will be loved for the self that happens organically, or for the story others weave about me, gleaned from my carefully chosen words, my artfully posed actions.
If I could express, articulate, what is actually sprung from my mind...how will you see me, and how will that affect your perception?
I have roles, I play them well; I do not find this incongruous with my dedication to reality because not everyone is deserving of meeting the silent witness, the observer, the pilot of my soul.
But for those whom I care, those whom I feel just might...really want to know...I wonder, do I open my life like a book and let them browse, study, pour over it knowing there are secrets that will be cracked, exposed, laid bare for scrutiny?
Whereas I am no fan of rejection, I have kept it closed, this tome, this bible, this book of self, wherein lies all faults and joys and defects and righteous musings.
Shall I pop the lock, flip the cover, flop it down on the coffee table?
Will I?

Les Bon Mots

I used to rely on the words, their fixed blackness standing out on the stark white screen somehow made them immutable and permanent and meaningful. They are powerful, they are real. But they are only WORDS. Words without actions are gossamer thread, pretty and useless.

I used to rely on my guts, my emotional reaction, my deep understanding, my outward expression of love. And that my transparency would make me understood and make everything else right. But I have exposed myself forever, the heart on my sleeve served only to induce others to target practice. And some of you were a pretty good fucking shot, weren't you?

I used to think that being honest with everyone was the way fix everything, let's talk about and get to the bottom of it...but, but...I never got up from the bottom.

So....now I still have words, they are amazing and amusing, and they remain on the page. They may move me but only to reply.

And I still have my truth, it's inaccurate and occasionally bitter, but it's mine.

And I will share my love, but only with you who know my heart, because you ask, because you DO, because you will call me and make sure I'm still alive. I will only love the ones who love me back.

And you all know who you are.

Shortage of Love

I can't remember now why I thought I ever had a shortage of love. I don't know why I felt unworthy, base, wretched, low....unapproachable, unlovable.
That is not me, or rather I am not not that.
There is love everywhere, you can breathe it- all the time, really. Like lavender and rose, like clean sheets, jasmine and the ocean. I am doing that now, its scent wrapped in my hair, in my dress.

Letters

I long for many things Victorian, among which is the letter. Part craft where we build our empire of words and self, part art where the blank canvas of paper accepts our vision. We are revealed and set free from the restraints of body language and stuttering fears, of being interrupted, misunderstood.
Here we can carefully explain ourselves, or vomit bile, mock, lament, hate/love, establish ourselves in permanence until the ink fades, the hard drive fails.
What I write is my truth at the moment I write it, concrete and undeniable. When the truth changes the words cannot, new words are written but the original text still stands as a challenge to keep us true and to make sure we know how each phrase has an immortal life, creates a map, a path of our geniuses, our misperceptions.
I crave the formality of the 18th century note, the language flowery and filled with metaphor, polite inquiries, and illicit intentions; written as a labor with a quill pen by candlelight, artfully folded, sealed with wax and delivered by post.