What are we capable of?

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other night. We were taking about her father and the unspeakable things he had done to her mom at some point. My response to her was that it was scary to think about these people being capable of terrible things - and how the wives or husbands of murderers and abusers never saw it coming. I said how it's scary to think you might marry someone - not knowing what they are capable of that kind of violence. She responded that she believed from her experiences that humans are all capable of everything given the right conditions. She believes that you or I could kill if we are put under the right conditions. I was shocked. I thought to myself "I'm not capable of that! Never!" Then I got to thinking about this and realizing that to a point she was right and I too had felt that way... It lead to me taking an unwanted visit to my past... Recently, I was talking to another friend of mine about not wanting kids and how I had never wanted them. She was asking me why I felt that way. I gave the answer "Because I have never wanted them". This was true... But I then had a flashback to the original moment these feelings became real. My life as a child was very different. My house was violent and dark. I remember feeling terrible and hiding in the closet trying to stay unnoticed. I remember blood, and bruises and screaming. I remembered the day I decided I wanted to take my own life... And It all came together. I am a rational, lucid, and reasonable person. I have a good heart and a world of happiness and positivity, but when put under the right conditions I wanted to take my own life. I remembered thinking that and looking at different family members who show evidence of mental illness and instability. I have watched these people break and do unspeakable things. My own grandfather took his life when my mother was just a baby. My mother and my sister both show signs of potential violence. Who is to say then that I don't have the same capability. I remembered this thought. I remember the moment of desperation when I decided that if there was even a speck of that inside of me I would do the world a favor and not have children. I couldn't live with myself if I ever inflicted that kind of pain on a child. I'm terrified of what kind of mistakes I could make if another life was entrusted to me. Could this break me too? I think I would rather not find out...

Heartache

I asked the universe for a lover - for someone who could speak to my heart. I thought it answered my call. Then why does my heart still hurt... Your words kill me every day... the ones you refuse to say, the affection you refuse to give, and the trap I feel I've fallen into. I want a man who puts his arms around me when he greets me. I want him to want me - to show desire, and caring. I want him to want to share himself with me. I'm tired of being the last one to know. I'm tired of feeling unimportant. I know he cares but he can't show it. I need more... I won't let this break me down. I have been through too much to compromise myself again.

I just found this post in Saved drafts from 2009. I never posted it and I forgot that I wrote it, so I'm posting it now. What an amazing summer this was... The sun is setting over my summertime life. I can feel the minutes and seconds ticking by almost as if they are counting down the time I have left on earth. I love the life I will be returning to, but right here, right now, in this city and with these people I feel happy and safe in a way that I haven't since the passing of my grandmother. I am holding on for dear life, gasping for breathe and trying not to think of this as the end to my time with these people who have become my family in every sense of the word... Tonight we sat around a table together telling our favorite memories of eachother, and I realized that I can't imagine my life without these people. My boyfriends, it seems, come and go, but through it all, my heart continues to stay in the same place it began 5 years ago... In the city by the bay.

This concept of "home" as it seems, does not have a street address, and sometimes changes with the seasons, but the people I identify it with have faces, and names, and amazing qualities that make my heart sing. They give me love, comfort, and most of all Laughter. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, instead of sending me a lover, my soulmates were sent to me in the form of my closest friends.

With each pasing sunset over my life, a new dawn is born. I have been coming and going for so long that I dont think I can even tell the difference between the two anymore. It seems in my life that I have set up so many different lives that I am always missinig someone. Always saying goodbye to some, while saying hello to others. It's impossible to explain the role that all of these people and places play in my mind, but each has its own unique chamber in my heart and shapes me into who I am.

This summer was a shot in the dark. I almost emded up someplace else, but somehow I feel that this is where I belong right here and right now.

Inspiration for difficult times

I found this poem today and it absolutely touched my soul, so I wanted to keep it in a spot that I turn to when things are difficult. Right here on this screen. Enjoy:
The Invitation
Oriah Mountain Dreamer Canadian Teacher and Author

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

This year

This year I will find a man who loves me for who I am. Someone who makes me feel at ease. He will accept my past as part of me. He will be patient with me and allow me to open up as I go. He will share his life with me and allow me to share mine with him. He will not judge me for my shortcomings. He will inspire me to want to do more and be more We will not be jealous. We will be supportive of one another. We will be a team instead of rivals. We will be honest, respectful, and faithful. We will be adventurous and spontaneous. This year, I will stop compromising who I am and what I want. I will be honest with myself. I will cure my own insecurities and save the best parts of me to share with the people I love.

I carry them with me

I carry them with me. I carry every failed relationship, and every possible scenario for failure and heartbreak. I called my best friend up the other night because I had a dream that the new man I am dating was telling me he didn't care about me. This man seems so gentle and genuine, but my dreams portray him as a predator with other women on the side, and dark intentions. He shows up and does to me the same things others have done to me. I know I'm not ready to make this into a relationship just yet, but I felt insecure that he hadn't brought it up. I love that I have free time and that he is involved in so many volunteer organizations, but then I found myself doubting his intentions toward me because he got busy one week and couldn't see me. I haven't voiced these things to him - because I know they are completely irrational and not at all related to anything he has done as it is related to my own insecurities. I will share these feelings only with my friends.

I'm disappointed in myself. I am not a jealous person, and I'm not a needy person, but this relationship has thrown my entire world off balance. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to put a stop to this right now.

For years I have been a self fulfilling prophecy in my relationships. I discredit my ability to be loved and to love others. I let myself feel cheapened, and unimportant. I treated men who loved me like they were expendable because I didn't know how to show I cared. Finally, I have been letting these people who have done me wrong hinder my ability to trust others. I'm putting these words on this screen so they are real. I'm giving myself the next couple hours to feel insecure, and unemotional, and then I am going to suck it up, place these men on the back of the self in my mind, and move forward stronger and happier without their restraints to tie me down. It ends tonight. :-)

I can't remember her funeral.

I was watching a movie tonight about a funeral and all the people this loss affected, and it turned me into a frenzy of thoughts and memories. I had a nightmare a few weeks ago. Not the kind of nightmare with boogiemen and spiders, but one about something that could actually happen. It terrified me. I dreamed that my father had a heart attack. We were on vacation someplace. He collapsed onto the floor, and I screamed. I tried to call for help, but I couldn't get my phone to dial 911. I kept trying but I kept pushing the wrong numbers and my hands were shaking. There were people all over the room staring at him convulsing on the floor, and no one was doing anything to help. I was yelling at my sister to dial, but she just stood there with a shocked look on her face unable to move. I started yelling "someone fu**ing call 911! What the fu** is wrong with you people. We have to save him." I got down on the floor and I said I know CPR! I will save him until the paramedics get here. I reached over and rolled him on his back to start, but when I looked at his face, his eyes were rolled back into his head and his mouth was full of yellow bile... I screamed, and then I woke up. It was terrible. I am still haunted by this Image. I can't imagine what my life would be like without him.

I got to thinking about my grandparents and saying goodbye at their funerals. I remember my mommom's funeral when I was 13. She was in a pink casket with gold roses on it. There were pink flowers and she was buried in the dress she wore to my mother's wedding. I didn't understand what was going on or why. I had never been to a funeral until then. I remember I had a moment of realization on the way out of the graveyard. I always waited for her when we went places. I would walk with her and hang out with her. When we were leaving the chapel at the cemetery I remember that moment when I thought to myself "I should wait for mommom" and paused... then remembered that I was here because she had gone. I think that was my first moment of truly understanding what it meant to lose her. My heart broke 1000 times that day.

I remember my grandfather's funeral when I was 19. I remember the casket was the same color of carolina blue as his car. It had a silver cross on it. He wore a gray suit. I remember thinking that his face didn't look quite right, and then realizing that until then, even when he was relaxing alone, his face always appeared to be smiling. This was the first time he looked truly unhappy. It freaked me out. I remember when they went to close his casket I looked at my cousin K and started sobbing that they were going to close it and we were never going to see him again. I couldn't stop crying. I remember dropping a rose onto his coffin at the graveyard and I remember my father began to cry. Fast forward to Thanksgiving day 8 months later. My grandfather was always the center of every holiday. I found myself missing him. After dinner I went to the cemetery to leave a flower on his grave, and I remember feeling like someone punched me in the stomach. I started crying saying out loud that he should be home in the warmth - with his family who loves him - not out all alone in this cold dreary cemetery on a day that was supposed to commemorate the people we are blessed to have in our lives. I felt so alone.

I have these clear memories of these funerals and send offs for my grandparents - except for my mommom who passed away the most recently - about 4 years ago... I was closest with her. She was my heart, and I loved her more than anything in the world. Maybe it's because I was living so far away when she actually passed. I remember the flight home. I remember the empty house, but I don't remember a thing about the funeral. Not the casket, color, flowers, viewing, her face, absolutely nothing. I remember that my sister didn't show up for it. I remember hating her for it. She stayed home and tried to tell me it was our fault she wasn't coming. I spent the day being asked over and over again by my whole family where she was, why she didn't come, and what exactly she thought she was doing. Her husband was there - but not her. I don't think I have ever forgiven her for this. I don't remember which church the service was held in, or who I sat with. It's the strangest thing. The only thing I can remember about her funeral was that my sister abandoned me and made me go to it alone. and I really have no idea what to make of it. It's amazing which details of our lives our minds have chosen to hang on to and which ones to let go...