Messy

I'm taking a leaf out of M. Tahmasian's book here and just writing without worrying too much about editing, or having it make sense. It's getting back to the spirit of a freewrite - it doesn't matter if it's eloquent or even very sensical (if nonsensical is a word, how come sensical isn't?), it just matters that you write. Get it out. 

Sometimes I talk too much. A lot of the time I think too much.

I think about you a lot - far too much for someone who's supposed to be over you. But that's not right; I don't think about you too much, I feel you too much. You can erase someone from your mind, from your thoughts. Getting them out of your heart is another story. And that's just it. You're a story written on my heart and no matter how hard I try or what I use, I cannot erase or destroy you. Even if that was actually what I wanted. 

Because I don't want to forget you, I just want the memory of you not to sabotage me. Some days I'm happy you're gone; it's opened a place in my heart and mind for others. I've had a fire lit under me that is making me burn to connect with others, to find those that could be who I thought you were all along; friends, companions, confidants, lovers. All stable - constants in my life. That's what I'm really yearning for; constancy. Someone who can see who I really am, deep down into me and say, "yes, this is where I want to be - with you". Other days I see your name pop up on my computer screen and want to throw it across the room. Instead, I just mutter obscenities under my breath or list all the ways in which you were a disease in my life. It's these days that I realize how much my heart really hurts. Because on these days I know that, even with all the negative, I'd most likely jump at the opportunity to make things right again. These are the days when I know that I don't hate you; I'm just disappointed you turned into everything you said you'd never be. On these days I realize just how much I miss those moments. We don't remember days, we remember moments.

You should have opened your eyes - I was crazy for you.

How can you forget someone who gave you so much to remember? You're not very easy to forget.

Because Counting Crows will always remind me of you - his raspy voice sends me back to that sunny day in your car when I heard it for the first time. And Five For Fighting always makes me nostalgic and sad. And I couldn't tell you why, except that a song of theirs always seems to follow a Counting Crows song. But that's ok because most times I'd rather be somber than angry at you. And whenever I see a red Audi convertible, my hair remembers getting tangled by the lively wind, my lungs remember laughing until there was no air left, and my mind remembers racing with new ideas to consider and more significant looks to analyze. I can't think of LA without thinking of the day we spent on the beach, or southern Overland park without remembering all our old haunts. Art and coffee and broken curfews will always stir up memories of moments we shared.

With the memories come the tears. They walk hand-in-hand these days. I hope someday Tears will find someone else with whom to spend their time and I will be able to look back on these things with warmth in my heart. 

Saudade is a Portuguese word that describes the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love which is lost or in the past. Rather than being a verb, it is a noun and expresses a more intense state of emotion than the usual translation of "missing". It's a beautiful word and more eloquently describes that deeper feeling of "missing" someone. I hope that soon I won't understand it quite as well as I do these days.

You are not easy to forget.

I really enjoy the melancholy once and a while; it makes you think. And lately I find myself musing about love. Not too surprising, all things considered.

These days it's a different kind of thinking though. It's less frivolous, more wary. The idealism remains, perhaps foolishly, and the longing is still there - oh yes, the longing. But these things are kept closer to my heart, further from the contaminating fingers of the world. I still desire to give love and yearn to have that love be returned but I am sadder, more reserved. Perhaps I should teach myself how to be more cautious.

Here's the thing: I find it's really easy for me to fall for someone. I can identify in many some of the qualitites for which I'm searching. The trouble is getting them to fall for me, too. Because, you see, I'm just not the kind of girl guys fall in love with.

I wish finding someone to love you was easier. But, I guess, would it mean as much then?

Crushing

The French have this saying, "l'appel du vide".

It describes the feeling you get when standing on the edge of a cliff and have the unexplainable urge to jump.

That's kind of how I feel whenever I'm around you.

I want to drive you wild. I want you to look at me from across the room and be in awe. I want to swim in your brainwaves. I want you to slow dance with me in the sleepy hours of the night, breathing in the perfume of my skin and listening to the lullaby of my heartbeat. I want you to rescue me from my own destruction. I want to be vulnerable with you. I want you to sing me to sleep. I want to be your someone. I want to give you my love and be loved by you in return. I want you.

You're like the wind; free and gentle. I feel you close for a second and then you're gone, drifting away like a summer breeze. I want to get a glass jar and trap you inside, so you can't roam away, so you'll have to stay on my desk all the time or next to my pillow or in my bag when I go to class. It won't be a problem; I'll take good care of you, I promise. But that won't make you love me, will it?

Why do you tease me so? One moment you're smiling at me and talking to me and looking at me with that look in your eye that I can never define and the next you're brushing on by, leaving the hair standing up on my arms the only proof that you were even here. I feel so trapped between the earth and the sky when that happens. I turn into a dithering mess of emotions.

You're the wind and you know no bounds, you see no end to anything. And it's beautiful. But if you're the wind, how could you possibly love me?

You don't see yourself the way I do. You think you're awkward and unlovable and really kinda strange. But none of that is true; you just don't fit the stereotypical mold. That's what I love about you. You see your quirks as flaws; but are they really considered flaws if someone's in love with them? Cause I'm in love with your idiosyncrasies. It's not about your looks or how smart, cool or funny you are. You've got a heart of gold. That's all that matters. That's all I want.

I'm sorry I get attached so easily. I don't plan to, it just happens.

The End

So here I am, a heartbroken girl writing about lost love. I know, I know. How cliche. But I suppose I knew it had to happen sometime.

It appears you and I have reached our end. One who is less blind than I could have perhaps foretold this outcome, but I was to headstrong to consider the possibility. Nevertheless, we have come to a close, whether by your volition or mine, I cannot say. Our story is over, the book shut, the empty page to remain as such. All this I have come to realize, though probably not come to terms with, but I don't know if I will ever be able to understand or forgive your behavior.

I was so sure, so completely convinced that, no matter what happened, regardless of all obstacles life put in our path, you and I would have a whirlwind romance. The kind of affair that stands strong and unshakable in life, the kind that laughs at death's jealous attempts to separate. Our love would be talked about among our loved ones, read about in stories, seen portrayed in plays and on film. A romance that would leave its mark on the page of history, that would make the whole world stop and wonder. How could it not?

But maybe a love like that is only meant for times past and storybooks. Or perhaps, more honestly, a love like that was never meant for you and me. After all, love does not boast and is not proud or envious. And most of all, love never fails.

So maybe I didn't love you. Maybe I was simply captured in the foolish daydreams of a child, the imaginings of a hopeless romantic. But I thought I loved you. And maybe that's all that matters; it is certainly enough to cause a fragile, fanciful heart to break when the realization that it never will be comes crashing down.

I recently read Persuasion and couldn't help but wonder if, many years down the road you and I will realize that we were always meant to be together. But no, the lovers in the story had the blessing of someone separating them; we have only ourselves to blame.

I know that someday, someone will come along and sweep me off my feet and you will be banished from my mind, nothing but a bittersweet memory locked in the deep places of my heart. Or maybe a quieter love will conquer me; it will gently walk beside me and sweetly grasp my hand, the reassuring hold of an unassuming love. I look forward to those future days of love, or even simple infatuation. But until then I wait while my heart tries to heal that which may not be mendable. And I will learn how to live with you no longer being a part of m life. A new, independent me with a life full of possibility, free of what was and what could have been, looking only to what could and will be.

Chapter One; Or, Tongue-in-Cheek

I'm smart - a straight A student my whole life -, friendly, well-read, fairly creative and artistic, and have been known to have the occasional moment of witty genius, and I'm fat. Not morbidly obese like those hapless people you see on extreme makeover shows, but my chances of becoming any kind of model other than the plus-sized variety are impossible at best. You see, I was unfortunate enough to inherit the MacNeil genes in regard to my size. The MacNeil family is descendant from a clan from the brutal Scottish north and as such have a habit of producing tall, burly, strong men that, at least in the old days, chose similar women with whom to mate. After many years of this pattern, it came as no surprise when Shirley MacNeil produced four such Viking-esque children that grew to be men that averaged 6' 4" and 250 lbs. The second youngest of these offspring happens to be my father. And while he broke with the tradition and married a petite (at least by comparison) woman, my father ended up having three tall, strong sons. Oh, and me.

You see, rather than having the good sense to give me the Stranz family genes, which happen to be much slimmer and more suited to a female, God decided to saddle me with the MacNeil genes. Which mean I'm 5' 10" and have been struggling with being overweight since I was 10. Because, as everyone subconsciously knows, it's ok for boys to be heavier - they can play football, rugby or wrestle and are valued for their size. But a girl who's heavy? Yikes. There's no place for her.

Now, it's probably not fair for me to blame all of my weight issues on a poor choice by His Holiness when I was in the womb. I've always had a good appetite and an early discovery of my fondness for sweets and their power to solve all problems most definitely contributed to the crisis in which I currently find myself. All I'm saying is this: if He had seen fit to bless me with the slender figure and high metabolism of the Stranz clan, I doubt I'd be the disaster that I am.

Angst

Thoughts at 12:22 a.m.:

Since when did weight have anything to do with beauty? Why is it that how much you weigh is directly proportional to how attractive other people find you? It seems to be that as long as you are thin enough to be right on the cusp of being dangerously skinny, you're attractive. And the further you are from that precarious point, the more extra pounds you carry on your frame, the less beautiful you become. But why?

Maybe it's naive of me, but I though someone's beauty had more to do with their personality. That beauty meant empathy. Being attractive meant being compassionate, loving. I was under the impression that generosity, kindness, and a genuine nature mattered more than body fat percentages and clothing sizes. How silly of me.

It has never been more clear to me than this summer that beauty is dependent on weight.I've gained a substantial amount of weight recently, presumably because of my under-active thyroid and the depression that resulted as a side effect. And while I've never considered myself to be much of a beauty, I've noticed quite a change in the way I'm treated by people, strangers and friends alike. Men no longer look at me, their eyes sliding from my wide hips to the trim figures of my two best friends. I didn't often get many second glances, but I was at least considered in the days when I weighed less. There was a time when fellow young women would admire my hair from afar or perhaps steal an appreciative glance at my outfit. These days, I'm fortunate to get a small smile. At least I'm not as fat as her. Even my friends have stopped giving me the occasional compliment, The "your hair looks nice" or "I like your makeup" or even "what a cute outfit" days are long gone. But a mere memory from the happier, skinnier days.

Even though when I'm taking the measure of a man, I look for honesty and conversation skills and pass up the gorgeous-but-arrogant ones, I've begun to realize the rest of the world views things differently. So I guess I have to hit the gym and forget the ice cream or never be "beautiful" again.

Perhaps I'm as bad as everyone simply for noticing these things.

Anti-Love Letter

I find that my heart is sick - it is a sickness that eats away at my very being. I fear that the only cure for my tattered heart is your face, the sound of your laughter, the warmth of your hand entwined with mine. However, even if this medicine were readily available, I could not accept it. We are far beyond that point.

My reason cannot help but tell me that you are not the last man I will love. But this only makes my heart break all the more. I had so wanted you to be the love of my life. To grow old with you, to die with you. For us to have a whirlwind romance that would shake the very earth beneath our feet. To love as none but Tristan, Isolde, Romeo, Juliet, Darcy and Elizabeth would fathom.

I so longed to be in love when I was younger - little did I know. If this is love, then I want nothing of it. My heart breaks anew with every thought of you. It is unbearable torture. To have my soul weep within me and have no one to blame but myself. What a fool I am.

This is my favorite time of year - the flowers in bloom, the breeze playing an ever constant game of tag with the trees, and the sun smiling down on it all. I believe I would enjoy it immensely, if the remembrance of you did not weight so upon me. Ask yourself, my dear, whether you are not very cruel to have so tricked me, so destroyed my freedom.

It was long ago that you absorbed me so fully and yet I find myself still entirely unable to separate my soul from yours. Perhaps this is just an illusion though, for you appear to have no such difficulty. You seem to have forgotten me, detached yourself from the pieces of me and flung them aside without a backward glance. So I am left to gather them alone, to mend what I can, and to hope that one day I will stop loving you.

Beauty

I saw a handsome man today

he passed by me in the street

I smiled to myself

as I admired his style

and thought of the artistry

of the One who created him

I thought of him throughout the day

but when sitting across the table

from a most beloved beau

I realized that beauty

isn't what it seems to be

beloved beau

your eyes are more alive

than his will ever be

looking into them I see

the story of you and me

I read our history

in their green depths

your eyes may not be

framed by long dark lashes

but they are far more

enchanting to me

is beauty then all

that it seems?

or have we distorted it

confined it

limited it

created something

it was never meant to be?

that model may be marvelous

by typical standards

her features symmetrical

her lashes long and lush

skin clear, eyes bright

ideal body

and that is beauty

one part of it

not the whole picture

Dearest friend

cherished like a sister

your smile isn't beautiful

because your teeth are white

and somewhat straight

it's beautiful because behind it

I see the love

and happiness there

it's beautiful because

it lights up your face

and I can see

the worries fall away

the tension eases

and your stress lines

become laughing ones

your eyes

wrinkle with wry humor

so yes, stunning stranger

your fine figure caught my eye

but you will never be as beautiful

as my bosom buddy

your visage

though rather radiant

will never be as dear

as that of the friend

who was there through

thick and thin

beauty is more

than just symmetry

and sex appeal

it's the memories and moments

the love and laughter

captured by your features

so the next time you feel plain

remember that someone

thinks you beautiful because you

are quite simply

you.