tell me it's a sin

tell me it's a sin to brush her hair behind her ear
to see rain bounce off her black eyelashes
to hug her for too long

tell me it's a sin to rest my forehead on hers
to put my left hand in the cradle of her back
to inhale our mixed breath

tell me it's a sin to miss her when she's not there
to smile a crooked smile when I see her
to dream about her wanting me too

tell me it's a sin to love this deeply
to disregard everything i've been taught
to risk it all because she wants me too

tell me it's a sin to laugh every day with her
to fit into the hollow of her body as she sleeps
to make her coffee in the morning

tell me it's a sin to lose my breath when i see her in that tshirt
to get butterflies no matter how often i see her
to feel heartbroken because i love her so wholly
sometimes i forget how to be wholly alone

the more i know myself, the more i like myself

I'm screwing up everyday, embarrassing myself constantly, and never "doing enough." But I'm finding myself. Everyday it gets easier to love myself. I'ts easier to love the decisions that have created the journey behind me and that will form the steps ahead of me.

I want to listen to angsty pop punk, cry, and sing along too loud. I want to ramble to myself on blog posts that no one reads. I want to dance with strangers and sing karaoke with my friends. I want to remind every person I meet that there's no right way to love, no right way to live. I want to kiss people I'm not supposed to and love harder than the world allows. I want to pick up and drop a new hobby every month. I want to dye my hair every color I can find in a box. I want to be in the sweaty crowds of every music festival I can make it to. I want to laugh at the nights we wish we could forget. I want to hop on a train and see where it takes me. I want to allow myself to be hurt if it means another chance at friendship. I want to have jean vests covered in iron on patches. I want to get haircuts I regret. I want to keep tripping over the Spanish I'm still learning while trying to meet locals. I want to make as many people as I can feel happy to be alive. I want ironic bumper stickers covering my car. I want to accept the idea that my happiness is more important than others' exceptance. I want to take too many pictures. I want to yell the wrong lyrics in the car with my friends. I want to live like I'll never die and I want to live like I'll die tomorrow. I want to contribute to the absolute insanity of our existence.

I want to be so radically alive, so radically here, that other people want to challenge themselves, challenge their society, challenge their rules.

Half of this life hurts so much--just to exist in this world is a burden impossible to explain. But the other half? The other half of me can't believe I've had the privilege to experience this world at all. I've seen sunsets I couldnt never begin to paint, cried when someone finally hugged me on a bad day, fallen in love with a few souls. I've been hurt, I've hurt others, I've hurt myself. I've taken a hundred selfies in a day and stayed in bed for 24 hours straight. I've binged watched telenovelas and gotten on roller coasters I was terrified of. I've shaken hands with people I'll never see again. I've interviewed for scholarships I'll never recieve and been given scholarships I didn't deserve. I've tried and tried and tried and had days where I didn't do a thing. I've cried from frustration and I've cried from happiness. I've gone skinny dipping in the ocean and kissed my friends. I've loved people more than they loved me and failed to reciprocate the love of others.

I've made this life my own. It's mine, it's mine, it's mine and my God do I love it.

childhood landscape

I grew up fast. Faster than most. It’s not that there was a particular reason for it. There wasn’t a specific world-altering even that rattled me into adulthood early. In some ways, a lot of people might perceive my childhood as pleasant. I remember living in the big brick house smack dab in the middle of the cul-de-sac with vine-encased handrails following me up the staircase. It always smelled like honeysuckle and sometimes I can still taste it when I think of home.

There was a little creek in the backyard that my sister and I named Rock River. We didn’t have time to think of anything more creative; we were too bust collecting skinned knees. Sometimes Momma would bandage them up and sometimes Momma was too busy smoking cigarettes in her pink-wallpapered bathroom even though Daddy didn’t like it. If we made her angry he’d go an buy her a fresh pack even as he disapproved and shook his head when she started coughing. Momma smelled like baby powder and an ashtray all at once and her scent is a fair comparison to her personality.

At least Daddy came outside. He watched me play basketball in the driveway by myself. When he left, I pretended to be a basketball star named Trixie. I would dribble the ball around the cracked concrete, pretending I knew a hundred tricks to confuse my opponents. I remember the path a pebble’s throw from the driveway that led to Mrs. Bull’s house. She was supposed to teach me piano but she mostly made me cry. Lauren lived over beside Mrs. Bull, and I spent hundreds of sunny afternoons rollerblading and biking in front of her stucco house on a hill. We pretended our skates were turtles crawling towards victory in a race. We pretended our bikes were ponies with names like Lady and Dizzy. Lauren’s dad was a dentist and he smiled a lot, which I guess makes sense. Lauren smiled a lot to. Maybe she inherited it, or maybe she was taught it. People were always telling me to smile. They thought I was so angry all the time. To this day, I slap on a big fat frown when strangers tell me to smile. Momma smiled sometimes, mostly next door in the garage of Mrs. Brenda’s pink stucco house while they each took turns lamenting their empty lives.

Up the street, which was really more of a hill than a street, lived Ross and Stacy in the white house with red shutters. Ross shot bee bee guns and relentlessly teased Stacey. I recently found out that Ross shot himself in his bedroom where we used to play xbox. I can still hear the “pew-pew” of his little black gun that shot bee bees that only stung a little. They didn’t kill people. When Momma found out she cried and Daddy shook his head and told me to never consider What Ross Did as an option.

His panic made me realize that he recognized how unhappy I was, that the thought had crossed my mind. I don’t feel that way anymore. Either way, the images of our silver sedan encased in crusty yellow pollen and the neighborhood pool filled with foam noodles and the dying rose bush in the front yard are still tinged with sadness in my memory.

Blake

I remember not knowing how to give him directions to my house. I remember asking Holley to help me tell him where I lived. I remember his mom’s blue minivan that didn’t seem to match his personality. I remember realizing that he even had a mother that would be bringing him to my house. I remember his grey and black jacket with the fur-lined hood that I later learned was a gift. I remember his unnaturally dark black hair and the way it fell past his shoulders .I remember that it used to be purple, just to make people laugh.  I remember saying “let’s take a walk” before he even got a foot in the door. I remember it was the coldest November in recent memory. I remember sitting on the curb and the hum of the transformer. I remember him holding my cold hand even though I couldn’t feel my fingertips. I remember the open house for sale in my neighborhood and the way we crept inside. I remember when he kissed me for the second time. I remember our lips were chapped but we were 14 and didn’t care. I remember two weeks earlier when he held my hand Halloween night. I remember sneaking out of Anna’s house to meet him at the park. I remember him giving me that grey and black jacket with the warm fleece interior. I remember being scared all the time.  I remember being scared he would like me and I remember being scared that he wouldn’t. I remember writing him notes with little doodles of us and who we would be one day. I remember when I broke up with you because momma says only good Christian boys are worth talking to. I remember how she manipulated me and I remember how you said you loved me for the first time.

I don’t remember why I thought meeting my family would be your first and last visit to my house. I don’t remember why I thought that house was inescapable and that we had no future. 

I remember you teaching me that I am more than my family and more than my past. I remember growing up with you and finally escaping. I remember sleeping beside you in our bed last night and I remember kissing you goodbye when I left for class this morning.

Ten Strong

We were losers.

We were about ten strong, ten outcasts.

We were too liberal, too sarcastic,

and we always smelled like bonfires. 

We were the top of our class,

ranking the highest on the PSAT.

We were infuriating;

you can’t smoke dope and be the valedictorian.

We were reckless and stupid

and we learned our lessons the hard way.

We were in love with life and our friends

and we weren’t afraid to be alone with one another.

We didn’t need the approval,

we didn’t need to fight back when we were chastised for trying to be “different.”

We were different, and we would have suffocated if we weren’t.

We were too smart for our own good,

we were questioning things with no answer.

We were waxing philosophic in rooms full of smoke,

we were skipping class and making straight A’s.

We were hated by the majority but adored by one another.

We were sad and trapped but heroic and determined.

We were indifferent and energized, apathetic and ambitious. 

We were losers.

We were about ten strong, ten outcasts.

We were too liberal, too sarcastic,

 and we always smelled like bonfires.

note to self: hating yourself for the past won't change it

"the feeling you thought you'd forgotten"

One of the number one qualities about myself that I dislike is the fact that I vocalize everything. I never quite got the hang of the whole "think before you speak" adage. Not that I'm not constantly thinking--trust me, my brain is running at a hundred miles an hour. These two aspects of my personality can be pretty disastrous at times. There's not a distinct instance I'm thinking about, but instead the general feeling of embarrassment that I know hovers over my past. If I think about it for any period of time, those knee-jerk reactions float back to the surface of my mind and I physically flinch. "Why did you say that? Why did you do that? God I'm so stupid, this is why I don't have any friends."

How much of my time have I spent in my own head, shaming myself for the past? And how much good did it do? Looking at my past self, the girl struggling with self harm and eating disorders, my current struggle with self hate seems comparable. I mean, the physical outlets were an embodiment of the shame and hatred I felt internally. So how can I truly believe I'm on the road of recovery if I'm still inhibiting my own growth by refusing to acknolwedge that I can't be perfect?

With all of these thoughts bouncing around in my head, I've begun to wonder, what's a healthy way to forgive myself? What's a healthy way to move on from the past without dismissing the mistakes that I don't ever want to repeat? I want to remember those instances for what they are--lessons to be learned, not reasons to hate myself.

There's a difference between a motivating and a demotivating stress, and I believe that's the key to dealing with guilt, shame, and embarrassment appropriately. If obsessing over a situation won't reap any benefits, why am I doing it? And how can I train myself to stop?

Well, as I delve deeper into this search for answers, psychcentral offers this advice for overcoming ruminating:
1) "Identify the thought or fear."
Name it, own it, overcome it.
2) "Think about the worst-case scenario."
You can handle it.
3) "Let go of what you can’t control." 
If you can change it, still look at it realistically. Create small goals.
4) "Look at mistakes as learning opportunities."
“The quickest way to find success is to fail over and over again.” -David Burns
5) "Schedule a worry break."
Take this time to create goals and organize your thoughts.
6) "Mindfulness."
Instead of stressing about the past, focus on what you can do in the here and now.
7) "Exercise"
Exercise is a form of self love AND it releases endorphins--win/win!
8) If this isn't working, "try therapy."
If your obsessive thinking is lessening your quality of life, seek help from others.
(http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/02/16/8-tips-to-help-stop-ruminating/)

I don't have the answers, and I don't know how to love myself or others perfectly. I think what I've realized is that I never want to become complacent. I never want to stop questioning and I think that's why I won't lay my past to rest. But after a certain point, there's no more analyzation to be had, no more hidden meanings to be deciphered. At some point, I just have to forgive myself and let it go. Because I'm worth my own forgiveness.