even though...

I look back over everything I wrote in the past 6 months, and over and over again, I told myself to go home.

[2/26]: I have been blaming this feeling on New York, but maybe that's unfair. This emptiness in my chest, when it feels like all the warmth is gone. Like nothing is sitting right. I can feel the knot in the bottom of my throat; my emotions sit right there, with no layer to protect them.

I grasp for easy coping mechanisms...I scroll through other people's thoughts and pictures, looking for something that feels right. I call people I love, hoping it will be *that* conversation where we connect. I have started reading again, but that's risky. Sometimes books wrap me up, and other times books strip me down and disclose my fears. It hit me today as I scrolled that I wasn't just looking - I was looking FOR something. I was looking for a quote or a picture or an experience that made me feel less alone. It's why coming home to Nala is the best part of my day. Her eyes love me without requirements. But then I take her outside, and she's cold and scared, and the knot rises and exposes again.

This city makes me feel more. This city exhausts me. This city forces me to be brave, it forces me to care so much. But I haven't found the right things to soften the experience.

"Go, even though you love him.
Go, even though you once said you would stay.
Go, even though you don't know exactly why you can't stay.
Go, because you want to.
Because wanting to leave is enough."

And that's the thing - it's about softening the experience. It's not about forcing it to work, about putting one foot in front of the other, about doing what I said I would do. It's about joy and love and healing and all the other cliche sounding healthy wholesome feelings.

Babble

strength to endure whatever it takes to make it work/
the fear of letting go of control

introversion, boundaries, and skepticism/
the fear of not being loved

intuition for others' reactions and enough humility to apologize often/
the fear of losing love because I am weak, or because I made a mistake

hiding/half awake [12/2018]

I call it "anxiety" - this gripping feeling that takes over my chest as I feel my heart softening. (It's not anxiety.) It's like my ribs are straining to grow over this newly vulnerable piece of me as my emotions try to push themselves out. How can you feel two things so different at the same time? So strong and so weak, so scared but so brave.

I've been trying to do all this "work" - I tell myself that what matters is the concrete, the actions, the interactions. I let myself hide my emotions because, quite frankly, they make me tired. Have you felt what it feels like to let your heart out of your ribs? To let it grow? To let it break? To let it grow and break again, every day, every few hours.

Does everyone have the same capacity for love? Do some people love harder love, deeper? Is it because they can, or because they let themselves?

It's time to stop telling myself I'm working on the people around me. I need to be honest and make myself better.

"There were things
you wanted to tell me
and there were things
I was dying to say

But you were scared
and my voice faltered
so we both sewed our lips shut
and buried it away."