I've spent a lot of adolescent and young adult life so far being broken. I get hurt all of the time. I always assumed it was just unlucky or that I was making friends with the wrong kind of people. I've always known that my own suffering was self-inflicted - I could never solely cast blame on another person because I know a lot of the reason why I get hurt is because I have allowed myself to become hurt. While writing to God this morning (yes, I write to my God), I suddenly found myself having somewhat of a revelation - maybe this hurt is being used by God in some way... what if being broken has been the best possible thing for me?
I've always been a big believer in God using negative circumstances and situations to create something beautiful and filled with love. I believe that to the point where I can say I have complete faith that nothing evil goes unanswered by God - it may not be treated as we expect but God doesn't simply standby while we suffer. He is always working.
So for me personally, the evils in my life come with failed friendships. I'm not talking about simply drifting apart from others - I am referring to what I have always experienced as abandonment. I feel like people always leave and I've never really considered that my mistakes were usable. I thought I was just a messed up teenage girl who took life far too seriously. I thought brokenness was just an inevitably and a bi-product of my personality. I didn't see how being broken could be invaluable and how it could bring me closer to God.
It is probably not a surprise to many that I have a unique way of loving people. I am very much a giver when it comes to my friendships. I give as much as I can to people... even if they don't actually deserve it. I love too hard. I've realized that I tend to love people the way that I am supposed to love my God. I get distracted by and become absorbed in my friendships. I lose myself in people and I lose sight of God while trying to find perfect love in imperfect places. That's why I get hurt... That's why I am constantly being broken. My love is not meant for people who have the inclination to abuse it. My love belongs with God first.
When I am broken, I am humbled. I am brought back down to a place where the only place I can look, is up... And that's when I see Him. That's when I'm reminded of God and of the fact that He has been there all along and will always be. Even in the midst of my distraction, He waits and uses the consequences of my choices to bring me back. I always choose to put my love elsewhere and to love people who can't love me back like I truly need to be. The beauty of God is that he gives us the choice to walk to him or away from Him... but in reality, He never actually leaves - it's just up to us whether we see Him or not.
In pain, I look for healing and my God is where I find that. I am reminded of my imperfection and my poor choices. I am reminded of the love He has for me despite my sinfulness... Even though I choose not to put Him first, that doesn't alter His love for me. My favourite way of thinking about God's love is in the idea that "God is jealous for me." God isn't jealous OF me, He is jealous FOR me. He wants me to know Him and to be His... and I am.
So perhaps all of those times before, I was meant to be broken so that my eyes would be opened. Perhaps the pain was necessary to bring me to my knees and to be washed and overcome with the love and the healing that can only come from God.
--J.
Sunday 26 January 2014
Saturday 18 January 2014
The Phases of You
The problem with being home is that it reminds me far too much of you. For a while, you were the best thing about my life - you were the best thing about being here. For all too brief a moment, you were home to me.
I go through these terrible phases - either I'm able to completely forget about you and then other times I become completely depressed over the fact that we're no longer friends. I hate that I'm so hung up on this. It's probably because I'll never understand your logic in full. It can be explained to me a million times and I will not hesitate in accepting and respecting your choices but I can't pretend that I completely understand... simply because I know that I could never have done what you did if I were ever in the same type of situation. I know why you did what you did... I get it. I wish that I didn't care anymore and that I found it easy to let go. I wish that I didn't have to rely on a phase and that you just never entered my mind because I know with great certainty that you don't waste a moment on the thought of me.
I feel so stupid and pathetic. I'm still hurt over something that came about almost a year ago. I haven't spoken to you for the larger part of 2013 yet I wish that I could send you a message to find out how you're doing or to wish you Merry Christmas. I shake my head at myself for being so helplessly ridiculous. I am astounded at my inability to adjust to this. I also hate just how much it makes me look like a complete freak. That being said, I hate knowing that I could be proving you right... I could be proving everybody else right - what if I truly am just some freak that can't help but be "too intense"?
I know that I need to stop doing this - I can't keep making these crazy and emotion-laden blog posts about you. I hate that this consumes my mind at the most random of times. I wish I wanted to let this go and to let you go... Listen to me, I sound like some obsessed ex-lover when truly I am just a friend that you grew apart from. That's always been how it sounds but that's not what's going on in my head. I just adored you and I'll always love you... because that's the kind of person I am and when I love someone, there will always be a part of me that will love them even if circumstance works against that. In addition to me simply being who I am, there is the major contributing factor of you simply being who you are. I can't help that you were an amazing friend and probably continue to be an amazing person to the other people in your life. Am I really that much of a freak because I hate that I've lost a friendship that was valued above most others?
There are some things and some people who have the power to quietly consume you. Even when you carry on with life, thinking that you've managed to get over it, it sneaks up on you at the most inconvenient of times and it manages to take over your entire mind just as it had before. There are those people who's actions and memory just bleed you dry... No matter how hard you try to enjoy being alive. Even surrounded by beautiful souls who love and care about you, the quiet manipulations of one person have the power to completely isolate you from everybody trying to reach out and hold you.
I go through these terrible phases - either I'm able to completely forget about you and then other times I become completely depressed over the fact that we're no longer friends. I hate that I'm so hung up on this. It's probably because I'll never understand your logic in full. It can be explained to me a million times and I will not hesitate in accepting and respecting your choices but I can't pretend that I completely understand... simply because I know that I could never have done what you did if I were ever in the same type of situation. I know why you did what you did... I get it. I wish that I didn't care anymore and that I found it easy to let go. I wish that I didn't have to rely on a phase and that you just never entered my mind because I know with great certainty that you don't waste a moment on the thought of me.
I feel so stupid and pathetic. I'm still hurt over something that came about almost a year ago. I haven't spoken to you for the larger part of 2013 yet I wish that I could send you a message to find out how you're doing or to wish you Merry Christmas. I shake my head at myself for being so helplessly ridiculous. I am astounded at my inability to adjust to this. I also hate just how much it makes me look like a complete freak. That being said, I hate knowing that I could be proving you right... I could be proving everybody else right - what if I truly am just some freak that can't help but be "too intense"?
I know that I need to stop doing this - I can't keep making these crazy and emotion-laden blog posts about you. I hate that this consumes my mind at the most random of times. I wish I wanted to let this go and to let you go... Listen to me, I sound like some obsessed ex-lover when truly I am just a friend that you grew apart from. That's always been how it sounds but that's not what's going on in my head. I just adored you and I'll always love you... because that's the kind of person I am and when I love someone, there will always be a part of me that will love them even if circumstance works against that. In addition to me simply being who I am, there is the major contributing factor of you simply being who you are. I can't help that you were an amazing friend and probably continue to be an amazing person to the other people in your life. Am I really that much of a freak because I hate that I've lost a friendship that was valued above most others?
There are some things and some people who have the power to quietly consume you. Even when you carry on with life, thinking that you've managed to get over it, it sneaks up on you at the most inconvenient of times and it manages to take over your entire mind just as it had before. There are those people who's actions and memory just bleed you dry... No matter how hard you try to enjoy being alive. Even surrounded by beautiful souls who love and care about you, the quiet manipulations of one person have the power to completely isolate you from everybody trying to reach out and hold you.
I can't begin to describe the pain that comes with losing one of your best friends and watching a cherished friendship fall apart before your very eyes without being able to do anything to prevent it. The people who know me and those who follow my blog will know just how much I've had to say in this regard to the extent that it probably comes across as obsessive to most. I can't help it. I really can't rid myself of the hollowness that I experience every time I am afforded sufficient time to become aware, once again, of the friendship I have lost. I can't help but speak about it to avoid from going insane. It's enough that I have managed to remain relatively far from a state of depression within the last year despite the effect that the series of events has had on me. I hate being that person - that nag and that girl full of nonsense... but that is what this situation has brought about in me. It has managed to reduce me to an irrational mess - a side of me that I have become increasingly sickened and ashamed of. Thankfully, I've refined my acting to a point where I successfully fool myself for brief periods. However, the fact that you're gone is never too far away from my awareness.
Every time I think of you, all I can see is blood. If I allow myself enough time to dwell on the thought of you, my world turns dark and my body goes numb. My mind is sent reeling with the abundance of mistakes I made and the possibilities of everything that I could have done differently to have avoided this current reality. I have tried a million times to try and figure out why I feel so strongly about this and I have tried to no avail to convince myself that I need to let go and move on. I wish you no longer had any power and that there was nothing tying me to you. I wish I knew what to do... I've tried to do nothing and to just live my life day by day and to hope that my desire to be your friend like I once was slowly dwindles until there's no feeling left within me. It doesn't work - or at least it hasn't up until this point.
I'm an idiot. I'm sitting here and laughing at myself right now. I really am incredibly stupid. I've done so many nonsensical things that make me wonder whether I'm worthy of having a brain. I look back now and shake my head at the way I handled things - not only with you but with every other relational screw-up I've had in the past. You were right to rid yourself of me. I think perhaps what hurts though is the fact that you were the only person to ever promise not to hurt and leave me. That just goes to show just how messed up I must be or must have been to be able to drive even you away - just crazy, right? I was terrible and probably was a freak. I'd be lying if I said I didn't know it would turn out this way. I told you that you'd eventually run and you'd think the same things as everyone else. I know how much of an idiot I am - don't think I'm unaware of the crap that I put people through...
I didn't want this to happen and although I dreaded it profusely, it was something that was as inevitable for us as death is to mortals. I predicted it in multiple letters I wrote to you that failed to ever be sent. It goes something like this:
"It hurts that for the majority of the time, I love you in vain... Or so it seems.
You're on cloud nine since you've gotten your new girlfriend. She seems nice enough and you speak very highly of her but then again why wouldn't you. Regardless though, I've never really liked her. I don't mean it offensively but it's normal for everybody to just not always get along with certain people who rub them the wrong way. She doesn't have to do anything to annoy me, she just does. I'm sorry because I'm supposedly your best friend which obliges me to a bit more supportive in this kind of situation but I can't possibly be. It's not like my opinion matters enough to faze or stir you in any case...
I can sense that the skeptics who are tentatively reading this are probably thinking the question, "Does she have feelings for him?". Before you proceed to analyse my saying this, I merely thought it appropriate to cover this topic seeing as I have already been badgered with the same question(s). I don't have feelings for you and I will probably never have to worry about that because the truth is, I know you too well... And you know me way too well.
I miss you. I miss you more so now because of the amount of time you're spending with your new muse. I'm not saying I'm jealous or that I wish you wouldn't spend so much time with her... I just want you to know that I miss you - I'm not asking you to do anything about that.
I suppose the benefit of missing you is that when I see you, I am so amazingly happy and every moment is good because I'm with someone that I love and care about a lot. Having limited time with someone forces you to cut out the crap and any petty stupidity... Wasting time on negativity would be senseless.
It really should go without saying that I love you... I just enjoy saying it though because I really do love and care about you... Sometimes I wish there was a way that I could prove that to you for absolute certain. I never feel like I've done enough for you... I actually generally feel as though you deserve so much more than I actually give you.
I spoke quite a bit to your girlfriend today. I'm trying, you see? I'm not completely convinced yet but I'm going to put in the effort because I love you and for some reason, you love her. I don't quite like the fact that she assumes that she knows me just because she knows you and you tell her stuff about me or whatever... It's not like she can claim to know me by dictating my personality to me just because she comes into contact with me through indirect association.
Sigh, anyway... I really miss hearing your voice... I would honestly use up all my airtime just to hear you for a bit... It's been almost a week buddy... i.e. too too long.
Now that we're technically no longer going to school... Things are going to change."
All that I feared at the time of writing those notes came into fruition. My nightmares somehow came to life and ran rampant over all that I held dear. Even when I was the happiest I had ever been, I was unaware of the slippery slope that I was on the verge of crashing down. I wrote a poem about the happiness that came with being your friend... not long after, that happiness evaporated into thin air - as though I had jinxed myself in the cruelest of ways. I guess I wrote this too soon:
"Happiness - Jillian Lawrence
I thought
Darkness
Was my only friend.
I thought
Death
Would become
My only vice.
I thought sadness,
I thought pain
Would bring me closer...
Closer to you.
Closer to your heart.
It only showed you my
Face...
You turned away
At the sight of my scars
My blood haunted
The tips of your fingers...
Because you decided
For some unknown but
Not unwelcome
Reason...
To love me.
To love the girl
You could finally see...
And the girl,
Deep down,
You wish I'd be.
You picked me up
You dried my tears
You held me
You listened...
I fell for your friendship.
I wanted what
I hated...
The thing I thought
I'd never have -
Happiness.
Because now there was
Openness
And you knew
Of my brokenness.
You touched my soul
With a devilish grin
With a laughter
That made the earth
Shake.
I thought you'd made
A dire mistake...
That your choice
To love me
Was not at all
Planned.
That you didn't mean
To see the
Butterfly scar in my hand.
But you're here
And it scares me
Because I love you
Too much -
Too much like a single mother
Loves her only child.
It hurts to think
You'll be smart
And take me back
To where you found me...
The cold, empty
Darkness -
My only surrounding.
But you love me.
I hope it's enough
Because others
Still love me
But are no longer here
I've poisoned their minds
And racked them with fear.
So they stand from a distance
They watch from afar...
Because they can't be near
What I've become
Or what I became
Before you decided
To stay.
Please...
Don't ever go away
because I'm only just getting
Used to...
Only just starting
To love...
Because I've only just begun
To want...
Happiness."
I was in denial for as long as I could possibly have been - that's something I have always done. I drag things out in my mind and I hate to let go because I can't bear to admit that I'm broken and that I've been hurt and tossed aside yet again. Even after you a terrible phone call where you were not at all sober and callously told me that everybody, especially your girlfriend, thinks that I am a freak and that I am too intense, I refused to fully give up on you. I fought back tears brought about by a concoction of hurt and anger and I told you I'd call you in the morning - not knowing that the next time I would speak to you, you would proceed to rip my heart out. The poem I wrote in response to your "you're a freak" speech is evidence of a massive emotional breakdown into words. I addressed almost every insecurity that I had bottled up inside of me and channeled my anger and emotional distress. I voiced the stark loneliness that you had cast upon me that I experienced as the malicious voices inside of my head.
"Hey you
Girl over there
The one alone in the corner
With the curly brown hair
Get out
You're freaking me out
Get out
Get out
Get out
You freak everybody out
You do nothing but stare
You sit there in silence
You watch and you stare
You're weird
When you open your mouth
You're weird
The words you let out -
It's too much
Go back to being nothing
You're too weird
Too much
Please shut up
And get the fuck out
Because you're freaking me out.
Hey you,
Why are you still here?
Hey you
You're too much, my dear
I fear...
You freak everybody out
So you've got to get out
Get lost
Get gone
We can't wait until you're gone
Because you're a creep
You're a weirdo...
You're the girl
Sitting over there
The one with
The curly brown hair
The hair that doesn't
Match her face
But nothing matches your face
That disgrace
Your nose is too big
Your lips are too dry
Your eyes look so sleepy
You're even more ugly
When you cry
You're the furthest thing
From beautiful
Depression oh so clinical
Ugly on the outside
Ugly within
You're too intense
I don't know how to begin
How to describe
The demon that is alive
Inside of you
Everyone's scared of you
No matter what you do
Hey you...
Get out, get out
I'll say it nicely once more
Before I start to shout.
Get out...
You freak everybody out."
So you see, I didn't ever want you to go but you did... And my naïve dependency on my friendship with you caused a devastation within me that I have not yet conquered or moved past. That being said, I know that I'm not what you need in your life right now and I've been aware of that from the very moment you told you were fine without me and that you wanted me to move on with my life. I wrote a poem about that too - it seems there was one for every stage. Even in realizing that my life and yours had reached what has proven to be a final divide, it didn't exactly help me in simply letting go... But I suppose that will take a lifetime.
"NEED - Jillian Lawrence
I miss what I need.
It's not greed...
I'm just pleading -
Begging you to love me
Like you used to...
Because I'm no good
Without you.
You're the only good in me.
You taught me to see...
Infinite beauty and magic
Oh, this is tragic
Now that you're gone.
You're carrying on...
And I'm left in the dust,
Watching you go -
I do what I must...
I'll let you go.
I hope you know
Just how much I love you
Yet there's nothing else I can do...
Because I'm not what you need."
The phase that followed an all too brief acceptance of an ended friendship was one of pitiful regret and remorse. I can't say that this was my favourite space... This was where I mentally begged that you would change your mind and that all the things you said would become null and void. Yes, there's another poem marking my emotional instability as this point as well... I speak of you as though you died because that's kind of what it felt like at the time. I was a mess and this poem consists of the broken pieces of me that were held together by a weak and frail physical body that wanted nothing more but to get you to change your mind. This is a poem where I used my words as my own chains and cemented my insanity:
"Come Back To Me - Jillian Lawrence
I thought I was dead
But I'm hanging on by
A thread.
Here we go again
Morbid the misery...
There are ashes in my eyes
There is dust on the ground -
Markers of the place
Where you uttered your
Dying sound.
You were everything to me
Now you're gone...
Totally gone from me.
I can hear your breathing
Heavy against my chest...
You told me you were leaving
I wasn't ready for you to go yet.
Open your eyes. Please.
Come back to me,
Tell me it's okay
And that I won't be lonely...
Breather yourself back to life
I know death may seem so comfortable
But I'm so miserable
I just want to hold your hand
Again.
I want to hold you for a moment
And then...
Go with you into the night,
Into the dark, into the death.
You'll forget me here
I won't remember anything else,
I fear...
So don't go now...
I'm begging your heart
To beat again somehow...
Because I can't make it without you,
I don't want to.
Can I bring you back to life?
My chest is pulling tight,
As the tears fall from my face
To yours...
Wake up.
Sleep will wait for you,
But reality runs away...
And mine will cease to be at all
Unless you choose to stay...
Can we find another way?
Because it's not time to say goodbye
I don't want to cry
Please, can't you try...
Come back to the world that
You left behind.
I can't let you go,
It hurts too much to know
That you won't be here tomorrow.
Turn back the time
Rewind, rewind, rewind.
So I can keep you in my mind,
So I can keep you in my heart...
We'll never be apart.
I can only hope.
I try and I try.
Don't ask why,
But I'm no good at goodbyes."
I know how I sound and how my actions were viewed... People think that I am obsessively in love with you. I know it's very hard to believe that I'm not and that I never was in love with you. I wish you would take my word for it but unfortunately, all the evidence points to something else. I'm not everybody else, I don't love like them. You should know by now that I've never been one to do things by the book... I do things differently. I love differently. I love with a burning passion. That is something I would be foolish to be at all ashamed of. I can't help but love my friends more than I should and therefore I cannot help but look like a freak for being so starkly different in that regard. I loved you then and I love you now but I have never and will never be in love with you. Stop believing the lies that everyone else seems to telling you and listen to me. I know how I feel and I nothing that anyone else says will alter my own conviction.
"I couldn't love you
If I tried.
Not if they held
Me down
Until I cried.
Your girl -
She's crazy.
She thinks that I'm evil,
I'm not.
She's just insecure as fuck...
Just like me.
So when you tell me things
Like:
'We can't be so intense'
'I can't be your boyfriend'
I get confused.
I hate myself.
I would never love
You like that.
I've never loved
Anyone
Like that, in fact.
How dare you...
How dare she...
What have I done
To make you both
Blame me.
Hardly a word we spoke
Yet now I'm
The Most Wanted
Charged for being
A homewrecker, a whore
I'm waiting for you
To tell me more.
Tell me my crime
Convict me
I'll do my time...
But innocent
Until proven
Guilty.
Otherwise,
Don't blame me
Don't judge me...
Because she thinks
I want you
I don't want you.
I love you.
But not like that,
Not like she thinks.
I'm not some
Wayward, seductive minx.
So you see,
Get it into your mind...
I could never be
In love with you -
Not even if I tried."
I've given up on ever being given the chance to make it up to you - there's nothing I could do to reverse what I've done and what has happened. I've apologized to you a million times on paper but I fear that I will never have the chance to do so to your face. I'm not sure I deserve the privilege of your forgiveness. Perhaps that is what I have needed to come to terms with. This empty and aching feeling is the consequence for ruining something that was truly wonderful. Maybe the internal burning is just punishment for going about this all wrong. It is completely possible that I am not meant to forget - my burden to bear is the memory of a cherished friendship woven into the reality of a bridge that has been so badly burnt that I cannot even see you on the other side in the distant.
I'm going back to Stellenbosch in a week's time and I'll be going back to a different life... to a different home - a place where no one knows who you are and nothing reminds me of you. Hopefully I won't find myself thinking of you when that song comes on the radio - the one you begged me to listen to. Hopefully I won't come across that drawing I did that you said you really liked. Hopefully I won't see one of your girlfriend's tweets talking about how amazing you are. Hopefully I won't feel like I need you in my life any more.
Hopefully this will be the last time I write a post like this about you...
--J.
I'm an idiot. I'm sitting here and laughing at myself right now. I really am incredibly stupid. I've done so many nonsensical things that make me wonder whether I'm worthy of having a brain. I look back now and shake my head at the way I handled things - not only with you but with every other relational screw-up I've had in the past. You were right to rid yourself of me. I think perhaps what hurts though is the fact that you were the only person to ever promise not to hurt and leave me. That just goes to show just how messed up I must be or must have been to be able to drive even you away - just crazy, right? I was terrible and probably was a freak. I'd be lying if I said I didn't know it would turn out this way. I told you that you'd eventually run and you'd think the same things as everyone else. I know how much of an idiot I am - don't think I'm unaware of the crap that I put people through...
I didn't want this to happen and although I dreaded it profusely, it was something that was as inevitable for us as death is to mortals. I predicted it in multiple letters I wrote to you that failed to ever be sent. It goes something like this:
"It hurts that for the majority of the time, I love you in vain... Or so it seems.
You're on cloud nine since you've gotten your new girlfriend. She seems nice enough and you speak very highly of her but then again why wouldn't you. Regardless though, I've never really liked her. I don't mean it offensively but it's normal for everybody to just not always get along with certain people who rub them the wrong way. She doesn't have to do anything to annoy me, she just does. I'm sorry because I'm supposedly your best friend which obliges me to a bit more supportive in this kind of situation but I can't possibly be. It's not like my opinion matters enough to faze or stir you in any case...
I can sense that the skeptics who are tentatively reading this are probably thinking the question, "Does she have feelings for him?". Before you proceed to analyse my saying this, I merely thought it appropriate to cover this topic seeing as I have already been badgered with the same question(s). I don't have feelings for you and I will probably never have to worry about that because the truth is, I know you too well... And you know me way too well.
I miss you. I miss you more so now because of the amount of time you're spending with your new muse. I'm not saying I'm jealous or that I wish you wouldn't spend so much time with her... I just want you to know that I miss you - I'm not asking you to do anything about that.
I suppose the benefit of missing you is that when I see you, I am so amazingly happy and every moment is good because I'm with someone that I love and care about a lot. Having limited time with someone forces you to cut out the crap and any petty stupidity... Wasting time on negativity would be senseless.
It really should go without saying that I love you... I just enjoy saying it though because I really do love and care about you... Sometimes I wish there was a way that I could prove that to you for absolute certain. I never feel like I've done enough for you... I actually generally feel as though you deserve so much more than I actually give you.
I spoke quite a bit to your girlfriend today. I'm trying, you see? I'm not completely convinced yet but I'm going to put in the effort because I love you and for some reason, you love her. I don't quite like the fact that she assumes that she knows me just because she knows you and you tell her stuff about me or whatever... It's not like she can claim to know me by dictating my personality to me just because she comes into contact with me through indirect association.
Sigh, anyway... I really miss hearing your voice... I would honestly use up all my airtime just to hear you for a bit... It's been almost a week buddy... i.e. too too long.
Now that we're technically no longer going to school... Things are going to change."
All that I feared at the time of writing those notes came into fruition. My nightmares somehow came to life and ran rampant over all that I held dear. Even when I was the happiest I had ever been, I was unaware of the slippery slope that I was on the verge of crashing down. I wrote a poem about the happiness that came with being your friend... not long after, that happiness evaporated into thin air - as though I had jinxed myself in the cruelest of ways. I guess I wrote this too soon:
"Happiness - Jillian Lawrence
I thought
Darkness
Was my only friend.
I thought
Death
Would become
My only vice.
I thought sadness,
I thought pain
Would bring me closer...
Closer to you.
Closer to your heart.
It only showed you my
Face...
You turned away
At the sight of my scars
My blood haunted
The tips of your fingers...
Because you decided
For some unknown but
Not unwelcome
Reason...
To love me.
To love the girl
You could finally see...
And the girl,
Deep down,
You wish I'd be.
You picked me up
You dried my tears
You held me
You listened...
I fell for your friendship.
I wanted what
I hated...
The thing I thought
I'd never have -
Happiness.
Because now there was
Openness
And you knew
Of my brokenness.
You touched my soul
With a devilish grin
With a laughter
That made the earth
Shake.
I thought you'd made
A dire mistake...
That your choice
To love me
Was not at all
Planned.
That you didn't mean
To see the
Butterfly scar in my hand.
But you're here
And it scares me
Because I love you
Too much -
Too much like a single mother
Loves her only child.
It hurts to think
You'll be smart
And take me back
To where you found me...
The cold, empty
Darkness -
My only surrounding.
But you love me.
I hope it's enough
Because others
Still love me
But are no longer here
I've poisoned their minds
And racked them with fear.
So they stand from a distance
They watch from afar...
Because they can't be near
What I've become
Or what I became
Before you decided
To stay.
Please...
Don't ever go away
because I'm only just getting
Used to...
Only just starting
To love...
Because I've only just begun
To want...
Happiness."
I was in denial for as long as I could possibly have been - that's something I have always done. I drag things out in my mind and I hate to let go because I can't bear to admit that I'm broken and that I've been hurt and tossed aside yet again. Even after you a terrible phone call where you were not at all sober and callously told me that everybody, especially your girlfriend, thinks that I am a freak and that I am too intense, I refused to fully give up on you. I fought back tears brought about by a concoction of hurt and anger and I told you I'd call you in the morning - not knowing that the next time I would speak to you, you would proceed to rip my heart out. The poem I wrote in response to your "you're a freak" speech is evidence of a massive emotional breakdown into words. I addressed almost every insecurity that I had bottled up inside of me and channeled my anger and emotional distress. I voiced the stark loneliness that you had cast upon me that I experienced as the malicious voices inside of my head.
"Hey you
Girl over there
The one alone in the corner
With the curly brown hair
Get out
You're freaking me out
Get out
Get out
Get out
You freak everybody out
You do nothing but stare
You sit there in silence
You watch and you stare
You're weird
When you open your mouth
You're weird
The words you let out -
It's too much
Go back to being nothing
You're too weird
Too much
Please shut up
And get the fuck out
Because you're freaking me out.
Hey you,
Why are you still here?
Hey you
You're too much, my dear
I fear...
You freak everybody out
So you've got to get out
Get lost
Get gone
We can't wait until you're gone
Because you're a creep
You're a weirdo...
You're the girl
Sitting over there
The one with
The curly brown hair
The hair that doesn't
Match her face
But nothing matches your face
That disgrace
Your nose is too big
Your lips are too dry
Your eyes look so sleepy
You're even more ugly
When you cry
You're the furthest thing
From beautiful
Depression oh so clinical
Ugly on the outside
Ugly within
You're too intense
I don't know how to begin
How to describe
The demon that is alive
Inside of you
Everyone's scared of you
No matter what you do
Hey you...
Get out, get out
I'll say it nicely once more
Before I start to shout.
Get out...
You freak everybody out."
So you see, I didn't ever want you to go but you did... And my naïve dependency on my friendship with you caused a devastation within me that I have not yet conquered or moved past. That being said, I know that I'm not what you need in your life right now and I've been aware of that from the very moment you told you were fine without me and that you wanted me to move on with my life. I wrote a poem about that too - it seems there was one for every stage. Even in realizing that my life and yours had reached what has proven to be a final divide, it didn't exactly help me in simply letting go... But I suppose that will take a lifetime.
"NEED - Jillian Lawrence
I miss what I need.
It's not greed...
I'm just pleading -
Begging you to love me
Like you used to...
Because I'm no good
Without you.
You're the only good in me.
You taught me to see...
Infinite beauty and magic
Oh, this is tragic
Now that you're gone.
You're carrying on...
And I'm left in the dust,
Watching you go -
I do what I must...
I'll let you go.
I hope you know
Just how much I love you
Yet there's nothing else I can do...
Because I'm not what you need."
The phase that followed an all too brief acceptance of an ended friendship was one of pitiful regret and remorse. I can't say that this was my favourite space... This was where I mentally begged that you would change your mind and that all the things you said would become null and void. Yes, there's another poem marking my emotional instability as this point as well... I speak of you as though you died because that's kind of what it felt like at the time. I was a mess and this poem consists of the broken pieces of me that were held together by a weak and frail physical body that wanted nothing more but to get you to change your mind. This is a poem where I used my words as my own chains and cemented my insanity:
"Come Back To Me - Jillian Lawrence
I thought I was dead
But I'm hanging on by
A thread.
Here we go again
Morbid the misery...
There are ashes in my eyes
There is dust on the ground -
Markers of the place
Where you uttered your
Dying sound.
You were everything to me
Now you're gone...
Totally gone from me.
I can hear your breathing
Heavy against my chest...
You told me you were leaving
I wasn't ready for you to go yet.
Open your eyes. Please.
Come back to me,
Tell me it's okay
And that I won't be lonely...
Breather yourself back to life
I know death may seem so comfortable
But I'm so miserable
I just want to hold your hand
Again.
I want to hold you for a moment
And then...
Go with you into the night,
Into the dark, into the death.
You'll forget me here
I won't remember anything else,
I fear...
So don't go now...
I'm begging your heart
To beat again somehow...
Because I can't make it without you,
I don't want to.
Can I bring you back to life?
My chest is pulling tight,
As the tears fall from my face
To yours...
Wake up.
Sleep will wait for you,
But reality runs away...
And mine will cease to be at all
Unless you choose to stay...
Can we find another way?
Because it's not time to say goodbye
I don't want to cry
Please, can't you try...
Come back to the world that
You left behind.
I can't let you go,
It hurts too much to know
That you won't be here tomorrow.
Turn back the time
Rewind, rewind, rewind.
So I can keep you in my mind,
So I can keep you in my heart...
We'll never be apart.
I can only hope.
I try and I try.
Don't ask why,
But I'm no good at goodbyes."
I know how I sound and how my actions were viewed... People think that I am obsessively in love with you. I know it's very hard to believe that I'm not and that I never was in love with you. I wish you would take my word for it but unfortunately, all the evidence points to something else. I'm not everybody else, I don't love like them. You should know by now that I've never been one to do things by the book... I do things differently. I love differently. I love with a burning passion. That is something I would be foolish to be at all ashamed of. I can't help but love my friends more than I should and therefore I cannot help but look like a freak for being so starkly different in that regard. I loved you then and I love you now but I have never and will never be in love with you. Stop believing the lies that everyone else seems to telling you and listen to me. I know how I feel and I nothing that anyone else says will alter my own conviction.
"I couldn't love you
If I tried.
Not if they held
Me down
Until I cried.
Your girl -
She's crazy.
She thinks that I'm evil,
I'm not.
She's just insecure as fuck...
Just like me.
So when you tell me things
Like:
'We can't be so intense'
'I can't be your boyfriend'
I get confused.
I hate myself.
I would never love
You like that.
I've never loved
Anyone
Like that, in fact.
How dare you...
How dare she...
What have I done
To make you both
Blame me.
Hardly a word we spoke
Yet now I'm
The Most Wanted
Charged for being
A homewrecker, a whore
I'm waiting for you
To tell me more.
Tell me my crime
Convict me
I'll do my time...
But innocent
Until proven
Guilty.
Otherwise,
Don't blame me
Don't judge me...
Because she thinks
I want you
I don't want you.
I love you.
But not like that,
Not like she thinks.
I'm not some
Wayward, seductive minx.
So you see,
Get it into your mind...
I could never be
In love with you -
Not even if I tried."
I've given up on ever being given the chance to make it up to you - there's nothing I could do to reverse what I've done and what has happened. I've apologized to you a million times on paper but I fear that I will never have the chance to do so to your face. I'm not sure I deserve the privilege of your forgiveness. Perhaps that is what I have needed to come to terms with. This empty and aching feeling is the consequence for ruining something that was truly wonderful. Maybe the internal burning is just punishment for going about this all wrong. It is completely possible that I am not meant to forget - my burden to bear is the memory of a cherished friendship woven into the reality of a bridge that has been so badly burnt that I cannot even see you on the other side in the distant.
I'm going back to Stellenbosch in a week's time and I'll be going back to a different life... to a different home - a place where no one knows who you are and nothing reminds me of you. Hopefully I won't find myself thinking of you when that song comes on the radio - the one you begged me to listen to. Hopefully I won't come across that drawing I did that you said you really liked. Hopefully I won't see one of your girlfriend's tweets talking about how amazing you are. Hopefully I won't feel like I need you in my life any more.
Hopefully this will be the last time I write a post like this about you...
--J.
Thursday 9 January 2014
The Definition of an Escape
I think someone should video and/or interview me when I am painting or when I'm drawing. I sit and I listen to my own mind as everything that I've kept in suddenly pours out... Every emotion, thought and memory seems to run to my fingertips in an attempt to spill over some imaginary threshold in order to find it's way to the page acting as my canvas. This is the definition of an escape.
I have a lengthy track record of being inappropriate... and perhaps not in the way that people are usually inappropriate. My emotions never fit convention and often they're overwhelming to a burning degree of intensity - I can't help that I feel far too much. I can't help that my head and my heart are intertwined in never-ending fist fights and that they can never agree on anything. I bet the majority of people who know anything about me would be surprised at the amount of emotion and thought I actually end up suppressing. I don't even realist it until I have a quiet moment to myself because when everything is supposed to be at its most peaceful, that's when I hear the screaming at maximum volume. In the extreme silence, I am plagued by the noise that resides within me. That's why I need something to let it out without freaking everybody out with my mental insanity. That's why there is such a thing as a vice, an escape, a coping mechanism. I have many and have tried even more.
Being the psychopath that I have been labelled as, it is no surprise that I have experimented with vices that are not considered to be healthy. I tried the whole alcohol thing - it thankfully didn't work out for me... Sometimes I enjoyed the numbness but I hated the sense of not being within a solid reality... I wanted to find something that helped me within a sober reality so that I would be okay 'here', you know? I don't want to stay 'there' where alcohol can take you. I want to be conscious of my happiness and more importantly I want my happiness to come from my physical life and relationships and not from the haze used as a means to block them out.
I tried cutting and that worked for a little while until it became an addiction and essentially more the problem than the solution. It was a means for getting attention, releasing what I thought to be unbearable pain and trying to convince myself that I deserved the punishment and self-mutilation... I hated myself - every cut was a hit, every scar was a bruise. My tears coincided with drawing blood. It felt like bleeding the little that I did was a way to let my life slowly seep from me so that it wouldn't be so harshly and heavily thrust upon me. With cutting the numbness came within sobriety so it did for me what alcohol could never do. The addiction meant that it became a tired act and its effectiveness was no longer in existence. It grew from being a vice for emotional pain to a regular occurrence on nights where I couldn't sleep or at times where I had managed to get a look at the eye-sore that was my body before I got into the shower. It was my form of self-punishment for every shred of mediocrity and futility that I felt resided within me. I wished to strip away the ugliness one scar after the other. I was so blinded by the somewhat enjoyable sting that came with my masochistic tendencies that I didn't see the horror in my best friend's eyes when he begged me to stop. I fed the fear for my life that built in the mind's of some of my friends. I couldn't remove myself from the mess long enough to see just how blood-crazy I had become. I didn't even recognize just how much it had contributed to my unhappiness instead of helping to end it. I was stuck in a vicious cycle that was characterized by hatred, suicidal thoughts, selfishness and cowardice. My addiction slowed and I entered what I view as a recovery period after I had hurt and lost too many of my friends to my insanity to remain in the cycle with comfort. I relapsed on occasion but I never re-entered the consistency of self-harm that I had experienced for so long. In fact, what has (up until this point) gotten me to stop cutting was not therapy or a positive support network... It was the callousness of someone who cared very little about me and knew me as well Thamsanqa Jantjie knows sign language (if this comparison is lost on you then just know that she had no true knowledge of me - she had an idea but knew nothing of substance). My roommate in my first year of university reacted to my cutting in a way that I had never before experienced. I was used to the reactions of my friends - the worry, the desire to get me to stop for my own sake, the care, the attention, the love. She reacted as though I was an escaped resident of a mental asylum who would, at any moment, cut myself and anybody else without warning. She made me feel like a bloodthirsty serial killer. She worried after her own safety instead of the safety the person that my cutting was most effecting - me. I was taken aback by her reaction and for a while I couldn't understand her selfishness... Until I recognized my own. I realized through that experience that I had hurt and scarred so many other people that I had not intended to. I saw the ugliness behind it and for the first time I understood it. It came to my comprehension that I couldn't be that person any more - despite the temptation of a blissfully numb experience within an all too vibrant and demanding reality, despite the relief that came with losing myself... Although I was originally hurt by the insensitivity of my old roommate, I really can't thank her enough for delivering the final blow that knocked me backed into whatever normality and sanity I could still cling to.
My realizations never took away any of the pain and it certainly did nothing to lessen the noise that crashed around in my mind like waves against a cliff face. I was just left with the dilemma of having no vice and the challenge of finding one that was not considered to be psychologically and physically unhealthy. I have always been a creative person, I have always enjoyed writing and painting and drawing. Even throughout my experimentation and addiction phases, I had my blog and I always wrote and drew. I never made an intentional effort to make use of them as vices. I was stupid in that I dreadfully underestimated the effects of creative channeling. I soon found it in everything - acting, writing, painting, drawing, singing, making videos, playing games with kids, listening to music etc. When I did the things that I had always done but while viewing them as vices or escapes, they became that.
The noise never truly subsides but I don't view that as a negative anymore. When I use creativity as a channel for everything that is going on within my mind, I find that the fruits thereof tend to be so much more amazing. I look at my work with a greater sense of pride because it feels like something that is a physical and tangible part of me. My escape has now not only caused me to be that much happier as a person but it causes me to produce work that is so much more substantial and meaningful. I feel like I've found my purpose - to create... To create that which only emotion can render.
That's why I feel that when I paint, draw, write, etc. someone should really be writing down the abundance of thoughts that run to escape the confines of my mind. While the vast majority of them are pretty average and run of the mill kind of thoughts... Some tend to be slightly above that line of mediocrity. Some of the things that go on in my head make me laugh, some make me cry - some make me proud and other thoughts are cause for concern. Some thoughts make me think more others make me want to close my eyes and never think ever again. Some thoughts are holy and inspired while others come from a depth of hell that I didn't even know I was in. The spectrum varies from one end to the other and back again... Nothing is normal but yet everything that I think is understandably a typically "Jillian-thought". My mind surprises and shocks me, bores me and occasionally brings me to my knees at the verge of life and death.
As scary as it tends to be, I wouldn't trade my mind for anyone else's. I wouldn't want anyone else's peace of mind - I'm madly in love with the chaos that resides within me and the ability for creativity that it affords me. I've embraced the abnormality and insanity and I don't expect nor require the acceptance or understanding of anyone else to be able to appreciate who I am. I consider myself to be terribly lucky to be able to think in the way that I do - it enables me to be compassionate, to be obscenely and sincerely generous and to be genuinely empathetic. I am grateful for my mental hardships as well as the moments of clarity that I occasionally experience because both have shaped me...
Both have made me who I am - blissfully, wonderfully, happily and willingly insane to a point where I have become my own escape.
--J.
I have a lengthy track record of being inappropriate... and perhaps not in the way that people are usually inappropriate. My emotions never fit convention and often they're overwhelming to a burning degree of intensity - I can't help that I feel far too much. I can't help that my head and my heart are intertwined in never-ending fist fights and that they can never agree on anything. I bet the majority of people who know anything about me would be surprised at the amount of emotion and thought I actually end up suppressing. I don't even realist it until I have a quiet moment to myself because when everything is supposed to be at its most peaceful, that's when I hear the screaming at maximum volume. In the extreme silence, I am plagued by the noise that resides within me. That's why I need something to let it out without freaking everybody out with my mental insanity. That's why there is such a thing as a vice, an escape, a coping mechanism. I have many and have tried even more.
Being the psychopath that I have been labelled as, it is no surprise that I have experimented with vices that are not considered to be healthy. I tried the whole alcohol thing - it thankfully didn't work out for me... Sometimes I enjoyed the numbness but I hated the sense of not being within a solid reality... I wanted to find something that helped me within a sober reality so that I would be okay 'here', you know? I don't want to stay 'there' where alcohol can take you. I want to be conscious of my happiness and more importantly I want my happiness to come from my physical life and relationships and not from the haze used as a means to block them out.
I tried cutting and that worked for a little while until it became an addiction and essentially more the problem than the solution. It was a means for getting attention, releasing what I thought to be unbearable pain and trying to convince myself that I deserved the punishment and self-mutilation... I hated myself - every cut was a hit, every scar was a bruise. My tears coincided with drawing blood. It felt like bleeding the little that I did was a way to let my life slowly seep from me so that it wouldn't be so harshly and heavily thrust upon me. With cutting the numbness came within sobriety so it did for me what alcohol could never do. The addiction meant that it became a tired act and its effectiveness was no longer in existence. It grew from being a vice for emotional pain to a regular occurrence on nights where I couldn't sleep or at times where I had managed to get a look at the eye-sore that was my body before I got into the shower. It was my form of self-punishment for every shred of mediocrity and futility that I felt resided within me. I wished to strip away the ugliness one scar after the other. I was so blinded by the somewhat enjoyable sting that came with my masochistic tendencies that I didn't see the horror in my best friend's eyes when he begged me to stop. I fed the fear for my life that built in the mind's of some of my friends. I couldn't remove myself from the mess long enough to see just how blood-crazy I had become. I didn't even recognize just how much it had contributed to my unhappiness instead of helping to end it. I was stuck in a vicious cycle that was characterized by hatred, suicidal thoughts, selfishness and cowardice. My addiction slowed and I entered what I view as a recovery period after I had hurt and lost too many of my friends to my insanity to remain in the cycle with comfort. I relapsed on occasion but I never re-entered the consistency of self-harm that I had experienced for so long. In fact, what has (up until this point) gotten me to stop cutting was not therapy or a positive support network... It was the callousness of someone who cared very little about me and knew me as well Thamsanqa Jantjie knows sign language (if this comparison is lost on you then just know that she had no true knowledge of me - she had an idea but knew nothing of substance). My roommate in my first year of university reacted to my cutting in a way that I had never before experienced. I was used to the reactions of my friends - the worry, the desire to get me to stop for my own sake, the care, the attention, the love. She reacted as though I was an escaped resident of a mental asylum who would, at any moment, cut myself and anybody else without warning. She made me feel like a bloodthirsty serial killer. She worried after her own safety instead of the safety the person that my cutting was most effecting - me. I was taken aback by her reaction and for a while I couldn't understand her selfishness... Until I recognized my own. I realized through that experience that I had hurt and scarred so many other people that I had not intended to. I saw the ugliness behind it and for the first time I understood it. It came to my comprehension that I couldn't be that person any more - despite the temptation of a blissfully numb experience within an all too vibrant and demanding reality, despite the relief that came with losing myself... Although I was originally hurt by the insensitivity of my old roommate, I really can't thank her enough for delivering the final blow that knocked me backed into whatever normality and sanity I could still cling to.
My realizations never took away any of the pain and it certainly did nothing to lessen the noise that crashed around in my mind like waves against a cliff face. I was just left with the dilemma of having no vice and the challenge of finding one that was not considered to be psychologically and physically unhealthy. I have always been a creative person, I have always enjoyed writing and painting and drawing. Even throughout my experimentation and addiction phases, I had my blog and I always wrote and drew. I never made an intentional effort to make use of them as vices. I was stupid in that I dreadfully underestimated the effects of creative channeling. I soon found it in everything - acting, writing, painting, drawing, singing, making videos, playing games with kids, listening to music etc. When I did the things that I had always done but while viewing them as vices or escapes, they became that.
The noise never truly subsides but I don't view that as a negative anymore. When I use creativity as a channel for everything that is going on within my mind, I find that the fruits thereof tend to be so much more amazing. I look at my work with a greater sense of pride because it feels like something that is a physical and tangible part of me. My escape has now not only caused me to be that much happier as a person but it causes me to produce work that is so much more substantial and meaningful. I feel like I've found my purpose - to create... To create that which only emotion can render.
That's why I feel that when I paint, draw, write, etc. someone should really be writing down the abundance of thoughts that run to escape the confines of my mind. While the vast majority of them are pretty average and run of the mill kind of thoughts... Some tend to be slightly above that line of mediocrity. Some of the things that go on in my head make me laugh, some make me cry - some make me proud and other thoughts are cause for concern. Some thoughts make me think more others make me want to close my eyes and never think ever again. Some thoughts are holy and inspired while others come from a depth of hell that I didn't even know I was in. The spectrum varies from one end to the other and back again... Nothing is normal but yet everything that I think is understandably a typically "Jillian-thought". My mind surprises and shocks me, bores me and occasionally brings me to my knees at the verge of life and death.
As scary as it tends to be, I wouldn't trade my mind for anyone else's. I wouldn't want anyone else's peace of mind - I'm madly in love with the chaos that resides within me and the ability for creativity that it affords me. I've embraced the abnormality and insanity and I don't expect nor require the acceptance or understanding of anyone else to be able to appreciate who I am. I consider myself to be terribly lucky to be able to think in the way that I do - it enables me to be compassionate, to be obscenely and sincerely generous and to be genuinely empathetic. I am grateful for my mental hardships as well as the moments of clarity that I occasionally experience because both have shaped me...
Both have made me who I am - blissfully, wonderfully, happily and willingly insane to a point where I have become my own escape.
--J.
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