I’m giving you a chance, so take it

Trust is a funny thing. For some people it’s easy to give away. For some people it’s hard to give. But its always easy to lose. One slight bump and it’s gone. And gaining it back never is as easy as making friends in grade school. It’s not as if “I like your crayons” will seal the bond again. It takes a buildup of events and a conscious decision to make amends. Even then, it’s always that piece of china that was shattered and then pieced together, the strength weakened.

Gaining my trust can be both easy and hard. Easy if you find a way to weasel your way into my heart, but hard if you’ve just taken the normal route. I build these walls to protect me, because I’ve had bonds of trust broken repeatedly by the people who are supposed to nurture you and love you unconditionally. My teacup has been broken time and time again so for me to hold my cup out and allow you to fill it, it’s something amazing and completely frightening all at once. Because I love too hard and forgive too easy, I shatter rather quickly as well.

I'm relying on my best memories

Life is strange and constantly surprising me. When I feel like I’m most invisible someone always seems to see me. When I’m trying to keep a low profile, someone seems to see me. You forget what it’s like to laugh sometimes, and how it feels to smile. And then you forget what it’s like to look forward to things and want more because you’re too busy trying to be invisible or keep a low profile.

When do we figure out that life is about being heard and seen? When do we stop trying to hide and embrace what life has to offer us? It’s hard to change that thought pattern of existing and just getting through each day. But life puts things in our way to make us see something. Make us learn and adapt.

What’s the lesson here I wonder?

It's a foot in your face or its looking like rain...

It’s true that you never truly understand loneliness until the night seems to creep in. Lately I’ve been feeling pretty detached form society. Again, I find comfort in the warmth, darkness and solitary feeling of my room.

I have a lot of speculations on why I’ve been feeling them, most of them just seem to be the same regular demons that manage to creep their way into my mind. But I’ve noted that I’ve become accustom to certain people being around, being a constant that when they’re no longer a constant I start to feel detached. And then the demons really crawl in. As a pretty self-sufficient lady, it kills me to feel this type of dependency on another person, but then you grow used to them being there.

“Get used to a feeling, used to a friend, start taking for granted the sight and the scent. One day it’s over alone in your skin, how do you begin again?” – Ryanhood (Used To)

It’s always hard for me to make connections with people because I’m so guarded that it’s definitely a process to get past, and the rejection I feel once I do let those guard down and am easily dismissed seems to mess with me more than I care to admit. I suppose that’s the reality, people come and go there isn’t always a constant. We all want a constant though, don’t we?

“There's a look in your eye like you can't even cry, so you sigh.” – Ryanhood (Used To)

Don't pay no mind to the demons, they fill you with fear

In an act of my teenage angst still boiling within my veins I dyed parts of my hair red and headed off to New York City/New Jersey for a bit of an escape from my real life. My real life which is boring and every day lends itself to the same thing. Wake up, class or work, eat, rinse repeat. I have to argue is this all there is to life? Is it just these mundane appointments to be kept? I can’t seem to fit into this life happily. I don’t like the continuous monotony of my life. I never have. I want adventure constantly, if I’m not going 180 mph I feel as though I am at a standstill.

My trip was amazing and full of old and new friends. It was relaxing but I also felt needed and wanted. New Jersey is a place where I feel home. Amongst millions of people (who are probably judging me,) I feel home. Maybe it’s because I have friends there or maybe it’s because I can find peace in the quite glowing lights of the New York City skyline. I feel the rush of endorphins pumping through me and everything goes at the pace I like to keep. So why did I leave it? I left it because I couldn’t afford the addiction, the rush. I couldn’t afford the lifestyle if I wanted the education, but I miss every moment away. And then I am home and I come to a standstill.

When I’m at a standstill I seem to sink. I start this process in which I regret everything and anything. Then I start to feel like I’m getting nowhere. I feel like all my efforts are for nothing and I find myself wanting to give up.

And then the sleep comes. It pains me to get out of bed and I’ll spend days wrapped in the silence of my room. It is better to feel the warmth of the covers encasing me and protecting me from the realities of life. Realities that say I’m not progressing but regressing. It’s a terrible place to be when you know that this moment will pass but you can’t do anything to will it forward. Depression is an ugly thing that only sucks me down.

I’m working hard to be happier and I am arguably happier. There are a lot of positives in my life and I keep pressing forward, but sometimes, the monsters inside your head seep in and you don’t get a choice. There isn’t anything anyone can do to help push me through these phases either, they just hit me and I sink. I forget my responsibilities, I hide. Life doesn’t allow these moments. You can’t break down and avoid life. You can’t forgo those responsibilities. The classes, the homework and midterms, they’re still there. Your responsibilities knock impatiently at your door demanding to be complete.

Nevertheless it’s so easy to turn the lights off and shut the door. The anxiety leaves me as I drift off into dreamless sleep. And the monsters are at bay if only for an instant.

“Settle down, it'll all be clear don't pay no mind to the demons they fill you with fear. The trouble it might drag you down if you get lost, you can always be found…”

Carnal Instincts

Carnal Instincts

I want to sketch you into my memory
my fingers electric on your skin.
I want to taste the salty softness
Of the curve of your hips.
And stain each thought with the imprint
Of your nails down my back. -JC

Love Scene

Love Scene

Our love is not a love of intrigue and sport
It’s a painters brush on canvas
fluent in the curves of each others' lips.
And our love is not so demanding
But effortless and pure
A temperate silence of the first winter snow.

-JC

I'm coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing just fine

I saw the above statue at The Art Institute of Chicago and I decided that I would look into it more because the name plaque caught me and how I felt I needed to look at life. The bottom is something I found in passing, but felt it would be best posted with the above photo taken by me.

This elephant represents "The Remover of Obstacles" and I think that is something I generally fight with. The letdown I feel with all of the obstacles life as put in front of me. I get angry because I feel like I’m getting more than my share of obstacles and challenges. Why me? I constantly wonder. And that is a selfish way to think. Everyone has their road to travel, their obstacles to overcome, and the difficulty of overcoming said hurdles relies entirely upon the person. One person’s casual leap could be another person’s tumble.

This year, I resolve to think big, talk less (or more in places I don’t talk enough.) I resolve to listen more, concentrate on what I need and don’t need. Rebuild the relationships I burned and learn to decipher the good from the bad better.

Sounds Like Crazy

It sounds like I’m crazy
When I think of no one else but you
It sounds so strange
When I see my future in you


But I’ve got to hold on to my thoughts
For they seem to escape me
And this dreaming and wishing
Only gets me so far.

-JC

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

When you’re little the world is full of curiosity.

I remember feeling that wonder and amazement, I remember believing in Santa and getting excited about Santa taking time out of his ever-so-busy schedule to show up at our yearly Christmas Eve parties for my family. It was exciting for me and still to this day fills me all the warm and squishy feels. And I think that is perhaps what keeps me from being a complete Grinch on Christmas. Christmas changes when you’re an adult and no longer have children constantly around.It’s filled with less wonder and admiration. It’s filled with less belief and magic. I miss that.

I recall late one evening my grandparents were driving us back to my home after the party and I was leaning my head against the car door starring out at the sky. I remember specifically that it was a clear night, but chilly. I could see my breath on the window pane as I breathed in and out. And I recall getting excited because I saw something bright shoot across the sky and I can’t remember if it was my grandmother or my grandfather who said this, but someone told me it was Santa delivering presents. The idea of this excited me so much and to this day, if I see a shooting star in the cold December nights on Christmas Eve I think to myself, there goes Santa.

The relevance of why that shooting star was important on that night was because when we got home, my mom had wrapped herself in a box and we got to open that gift when we got home. She told us that Santa had just left and he wrapped her up for us. I don’t recall why she did it because it wasn’t like we hadn’t seen her in a long time. This wasn’t the case of her being in the service and gone for a long while, she just did it. And even still it was thrilling for me.

My heart tries to be harder than it is, but not everything about my childhood was terrible and it’s memories like this that help me create the idea of the kind of parent I’d like to be. I will tell my kids that that light across the sky was Santa delivering presents.

Mile High

Some how this got deleted and I wanted it here. So, I'm re posting.

Mile High

My heart breaks every time I see your face
I am reminded of the bareness that has
taken over in the cavity of my stomach.
It’s not that I want you; it’s that I need it.
I must feel this warmth and taste
sweet words on your lips.
But these honeyed verses are not meant for me,
They are designed for another.
And your lips are not meant,
to be so close to mine.

- JC

Don't just stand there, say nice things to me

Sometimes I feel like perhaps the world is fucking with me. Like seriously fucking with me. But then I remember that the world does not in fact revolve around me despite my thoughts on the contrary.

Here's a picture of a tree I took while at a rest stop somewhere in Michigan.

Also, This is the song that's captivated my heart for the moment.

Black velvet with that slow southern style

I have always loved coming back to the place where my mother grew up. It gave me a sense of peace and connection.

Specifically I enjoy driving random roads and imagining that my mother once drove down these roads. I think about what life must have been like for her when she was a teenager and where she must have gone. I drive by specific places that have been land marked in stories and pointed out and I can see her face. I can hear her laugh, but then I also see her pain. I feel it.

I try to think how drastically things have changed in the ways that every time I visit Tucson, something has been built up, added or destroyed. Or perhaps the only change is that the shops now house things with a Spanish and Mexican flair.

I just know that when I’m here, I don’t feel so rejected or alone. I feel… home.

I need your grace to remind me to find my own

My dad is paranoid schizophrenic.

I’ve known all my life that there was something wrong with him, but I always thought it was the drugs. And since no one in my family could give me answers on what it meant to be schizophrenic I did my own research by way of many psychology books. For a long time I feared the genetic pass down of the disease and even still do. I was always afraid that I would be crazy, crazy like my father. And that scared me so much. It made me cry myself to sleep many nights. Everyone looked at me differently, my father didn’t have money, but he remembered what was important.

When I was 16, I found a card amongst my mom’s personal papers that my father had given me. In it said “To my baby girl, Here are two pairs of tights, so you can wear some outside and for fun and some for dressing up to go to church with your siblings.” He knew I loved tights and he also knew I was a pig pen and loved playing in the mud and outside. It was something so simple and yet, it caught my heart. The language isn’t big, and I probably couldn’t even read at the time, but I could hear his voice telling me this, like he always does, like he would when I would come over in my late teens with a new tattoo. He’d semi scold me and then show me the sparrow and sun on his arm and tell me when he got it. He always tells me the same stories, just like he always used to point out my tight obsession. But hey, a girl got to have some clothing they like? Because as I hear it most of my life from birth to 4-years-old was spent naked.

I remember watching I am Sam in the basement of my friend’s house and there was a part in the movie where I just burst into tears. The movie hit me hard as a child who struggles with a parent with a mental disability. In the movie Lucy (the daughter) is reading a book to her father, but she refuses to read the word. And Sam, her father knows she can read it, the dialogue goes as so:

Lucy: I won't read the word!
Sam: I'm your father and I'm telling you to read the word. Cause I can tell you to because I'm your father.
Lucy: I'm stupid.
Sam: You are not stupid!
Lucy: Yes, I am.
Sam: No, you are not stupid 'cause you can read that word.
Lucy: I don't wanna read it if you can't.
Sam: No, because it makes me happy! It makes me happy hearing you read. Yeah, it makes me happy when you're reading.
Lucy: [Lucy reads again]

In that moment I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face because I spent a good chunk of my life feeling that way. Feeling that because I was smart it was somehow a bad thing, not because anyone told me that, but rather, because I didn’t want to seem like more even though both of my parents promoted my reading and writing abilities. It still stung the emotion in the moment of this movie. Being a child scared of losing her father because she was smart. I fear that even now and I know I don’t make the effort I should to be closer to him.

I remember on my 9th birthday, my dad was wearing Kleenex boxes on his feet and completely out of his mind off his medication but he was walking down our street carrying a birthday cake for me. My mother did as much as she could to protect us from him, but sometimes she wasn’t able to foresee things like this. And in these moments I feared becoming crazy. I feared being like my father. I saw how other people treated him and how my mother talked about him with disgust. The way my family talked about him and the way people say “well you didn’t have a father in your life.” And because of this, it afflicted me. Even though my dad has the IQ of an 8th grader and he has somehow managed to be a better parent than my mother ever was. I had a father in my life who taught me compassion.

Most of my memories of my father are pleasant. They are good things that warm my heart and make me realize that crazy doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability to love. Crazy doesn’t mean you can’t be there for your child. Crazy doesn’t mean that you are any less of a person. Crazy just means you’ve got something that isn’t firing right inside your head. In his instance, it didn’t affect his ability to give me good memories. It doesn’t affect his ability to call me and see how I am doing. To tell me how proud he is. To tell me that he has the photographs I sent him taped on the wall and how he tells all his neighbors about his little girl, living in the big city (when I lived in NJ that is.) Crazy hasn’t affected his ability to make me feel lucky.

It's a blue day and I hope love lies down this road...

Why did I let people change who I was? Why did I let someone else’s thoughts of how I should be persuading to make adjustments?

First in New Jersey there was the relationship that never actually was. I allowed his negative talk and view of the world around him to scare me into the house. I stopped wanting to be in public, I stopped wanting to be the center of attention. I stopped participating in conversations. I stopped getting out of the car to view and see things. I stopped being me.

And then there was Daniel. And he was afraid to be in public with me. Afraid because he was not secure in himself that being seen with a fat chick was scary for him. He made his excuses and said I was wrong, but his actions then and now speak volumes on how he really felt. He was fine with me as long as it wasn’t a show. He was fine with me as long as it was in the basement or behind closed doors.

And so now, I’m introverted. The girl who midway through high school came out of her shell and used to be the class clown. The girl who could spit fire at anyone who doubted her. The girl who random people came up to in public places and said “aren’t you So-an-so, I read that article you wrote, it was amazing.” I was a voice. I was something.

And now, I hide in my house. I hide in the back of classes.(except British Lit, because he gives me a nerd boner)

I’m only myself at work, in a small office of people with learning and physical disabilities. The moment I walk out of there, I’m in my shell.

How did this happen? How did my strong-tongue-spit-fire-self let others dictate how I would feel. How did I let the illusions of their interest in me blind side me? I suppose when you live the life I have with the abandonment I’ve had… You develop this need for love.

You crave any type of attention and need it so much that you don’t realize when it’s just a visage.

Seriously? How did I become that STUPID girl?

This could be para, para, paradise...

I hate that my mind creates these scenarios.

The writer in me feels differently about things. I fall in love with characters and thus cry easier. Little moments can bring tears to my eyes because its emotions I’ve long to feel either through the creation of characters or real life.

Tonight I was walking to the front porch and there was a perfect slight chill in the air and before I could stop it, I suddenly felt lonely.

The weather was make-out weather.

Where the wind is blowing just enough that if I were close to someone they could brush a strand of my hair from my face and kiss me. I could feel the moment like it had happened to me before. Laying by the nearby lake on a blanket wrapped into each other’s arms, while we talked in the slight glow of the moonlight through the rain threatening clouds. And even if it rained, it would only make the moment more perfect, because I long so much to be kissed in the rain.

So I sat outside, listening to the leaves rustling above and felt the romance consume me before a sudden chill brought me back to my senses and I drew my arms around myself.

And I feel the loneliness creep back...

...Or I’m channeling my inner Nicholas Sparks.

I'm in repair, I'm not together but I'm getting there...

Today I told my boss that I’ve started feeling more confident about myself again. I told her I decided to be okay.

I decided to not worry about how come I was left so easily and decided to think about all the things he lost. I am an amazing person, if he doesn’t see that its because he chooses not to.

I am loving, I am kind and I am supportive. And most of all, I am a fox, even if I am overweight. I am a catch. I am a big deal. I am smart, compassionate and funny. I am full of myself but humble, and I am tired of feeling bad.

I’m tired of thinking “maybe if I had done this, instead of that.” Because I am human so I make mistakes, but the people who pick me, and choose me in their lives, they are getting a great human being, because I am worth the hassle.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Paper Towns

“Each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And these things happen - these people leave us, or don’t love us, or don’t get us, or we don’t get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack open in places. And, I mean yeah, once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable. […] But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And it’s only in that time that we can see one another, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs. When did we see each other face to face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get out.”

- John Green (Paper Towns)

Intro to Human Psychology

The thing about life is, I’m not choosing to live for the sake of me, because let’s face it, that ship has sailed.

Nothing I ever do is really about me or not often do I do things because I want to. I have this tendency to live for other people. Live to make other people feel better. Although sometimes I cause pain to people when I do suddenly take interest in myself and my own feelings. I get trampled on far more times than I’d like to count, but I never seem to learn. I just continue on the path and move forward and forgive, but never forget. And it’s in that “never forget” that I make tick marks on the wall inside of me.

How many times will I let a person cross me before I snap? I’m not sure I even have that answer now. I find that people may think I judge them because I am someone who judges things, the thing about that is, I tend to forgive my judgments completely. When I find myself at a cross point where someone is doing something I might not agree with, I think it comes off as me trying to tell them to change themselves or as me passing judgment on what they are doing. I think I make it seem like if they don’t modify their behavior, I have no use for them. I come off mean. But the reality of the situation is that I’m actually just saying “hey, this is not something I expected, it’s not something I want to be part of and I want to back out.”

What I guess I don’t know how to do is be supportive and be around when things make me uncomfortable or don’t exactly mesh with my ideals. I think I come off more as “unfriendly” or “A party pooper.” I also have a problem with lying about how I feel about a situation. I tend to be the friend who tells it like it is, or as I see it, because there are always multiple realities. People want to ask for opinions, but don’t always want to hear it. And sometimes I give an opinion when I shouldn’t. Sometimes I should just be quiet.

I think the problem is, I want others to have it better. I feel I’m a tortured soul and my ship has already sailed that I want to make sure people have it better than me. You can’t always protect people and sometimes in protecting them, you hurt them.I hurt people a lot I think in my attempts to protect. I can’t change what I’ve done all I can change is what I will try to do in the future.

I know that it’s not as simple as “letting it go.” Because emotions like mine are not something you can just switch off and on. Because the very words “let it go” to me, demand an instant reaction. As in, don't be mad. Just be happy. Whereas, it’s not always that simple I suppose.

It creates a black and white ideal and this stigma that there’s something completely wrong with me because I can’t just “let it go.” It’s not ever about being mad, mad I always can just switch of, it’s hurt that takes a bit more processing for me.

Chasing Pavements

I’m feeling the urge to run again. And maybe I’m being a bit melodramatic when I say that life seems to hit me hard when it hits me.

Arizona this summer was a bust. There were good parts to it, but mostly it was a bust. And everyone knew it would be the collapse of my relationship except m. Because being away from Daniel made me realize the things I missed about him. It renewed my sense of need for him in my life and the things we did together.

My grandma’s house being sold was a major blow for me. Watching pieces of her stuff be carted off to different people’s homes or even walking through the hallowed existence of a place I called home for so many years broke me. It hurts me now. It feels like closing her estate meant the closing of my family, everyone can say that I haven’t lost them, but it doesn’t change the fact that I feel like they’re gone from me too. My family is broken, and while it always has been I feel like even more so now. I feel detached from my siblings and worlds away because I chose to leave Arizona.

So, this whole “Jenn having a nervous breakdown.” is not because Daniel left me, but it is part of my fear of abandonment.

I fucking hate my mom. It’s easy for me to say that, but it hurts just the same. I know that she gave me life and I should appreciate it, but she only gave birth to me, she did not provide me with a life any one should have to endure. So, yeah, I have a chip on my shoulder. And my fear of abandonment is her fault. My need to run every few months because she wouldn't let us go to people who could actually care for us and provide us with stability. But no, instead kept us so she could maintain a government check... but provided the most unstable living, constantly moving.

The first time I actually completed one whole grade in the same school was in 4th grade, between Kindergarten and 3rd grade I don’t know how many schools I attended, but I know it was a lot.

And then she has the nerve to ask me to go out to lunch or dinner with her while I was in Arizona. Why would I want anything to do with her? But still it hurt for me to tell her I couldn’t have a relationship with her, because my heart so desperately wants a mother...but I know it’s just always going to be about her, and she'll break my heart again, just like she did every weekend when I was a child. She broke my heart every time she did drugs and every time she picked alcohol over us. The time she just moved to Las Vegas while we stayed at our grandma's for the weekend.
So my ability to cope with a relationship break up has seemingly been escalated because my heart just feels abandoned and all of these painful memories and hurts seem to come into the light. Memories I thought I’d extinguished. Things I thought I had overcame.

I came home to emptiness and particularly a couple losses, friendships and otherwise and I tried like hell to find something to refocus my attention. So I picked school, and I found out I’m about 3 semesters behind in school, which in the long run doesn’t seem like much, but when you’re in the position I am, it’s a lot.
I have very few friends here and when I attempt to make friends I just end up feeling like a fucking third wheel or desperate case. I fear talking because I’m just another basket case with issues. I feel like I’m placing the burden of my sadness on other people.

It takes away my breath and leaves pieces of me fragmented and lost.

And I'm in love with a guy that logically my brain says "Let it go" but my heart can't. My heart hurts, every fucking love song makes me cry, every break up song makes my heart ache, and everyone around me seems to be so happy in love and I'm here like... "I’m sorry that I'm sad, I just hurt” or I fake happiness so I don't make them feel bad because I feel bad.

And I feel like everyone is just waiting for me to fail. Like I have to keep treading this water because everyone expects me to be strong and push forward because I always have. Like a cat, I always seem to land on my feet.
I’m too sad to land on my feet. I’m too heartbroken to stay afloat. I’m too tired of fighting and I can’t figure out how move forward.

I’m stuck and I want to run from safety.

"Should I give up, Or should I just keep chasin' pavements even if it leads nowhere..."

You don't really care for music do yah?

One of my first boyfriends introduced me to a lot of fantastic music. I remember nights we'd fall asleep on his sister's couch or his bed listening to a play list he created and I used to wake up specifically to two separate songs, but I wasn't completely sure what they were. I just know it was always the same similar sound and cords every time. But I remember I would open my eyes and then snuggle close to him. I felt calm and safe in those moments, probably the calmest I'd ever felt in my life.

This was almost 8 years ago.

About a year ago, I was driving and a song came on the radio and I felt this wave of calm flood over me and I cried. It was a particularly stressful week and my body was in knots, so to have this emotion flood was really interesting.

It wasn't until much later that I realized that the song that I became obsessed with during the next few months was actually one of the songs that I woke up to when I was with David.

Even now I hear it and I feel a sense of calm wash over me. It's one of those moments in my relationship that even though that relationship has ended and it hurt.

I truly love to relive the moment, if only to feel the breath of calm.