I have a spectrum of fragments of relationships. pieces of me are given away. but never enough to make anything real.
Although i want more… I can’t help but create, relish these relationships. the fragments that i own, i own. they are mine. i can control them.
they never want enough.
my expectations are my enemy.
they let me down over and over again. and i continue to fall for them – they lure me in with sunshine and happiness only to let me fall into an abyss.
an abyss of self-loathing and darkness. of being let down by the one person that i thought understood me. loved me. but once again, the possibilities fall out of line. this is not a fairy tale. this is not a happily ever after. and my anticipation knows that – harness it and fosters it – and uses it against me.
just like every year, my sunny childhood built up a possibility of glee and delight. only to come crashing down around me. and i only have myself to blame.
my maturity and years don’t help to squash the dreams of the possibilities.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
i can still smell you on me.
but the smell is fading. faded.
the smell, your smell reminds me of you. of days when it was less complicated. days when i didn’t want, when i didn’t need more.
days when i was content wasting time talking to you. discussing music and books. listening to the playlist you made me.
your smell.
it has washed off of me now. and i don’t think i will ever get it back.
but i crave that smell. I need it.
a time when nothing made sense, but everything made sense.
now it is a puzzle. unsolvable.
i wish that i could take it back. but i know, if given the choice i would still love you.
and nothing would change.
and once again my choices betray me.
you want me but you don’t.
you wont let me go but wont ask me to stay.
you ask me to stay but only when you know that I can’t.
you want me. but only so no one else can have me.
you drag me down this path of deceit with you. you want me. But for all the wrong reasons. Not for who i truly am.
you won’t let go of me. even though you need to.
you won’t set me free.
you want me.
but you don’t love me
you desperately cling to me. unable to give me up.
but you don’t love me. No matter what you say.
you know better. you have to know better. but despite that, you won’t let me go.
I am messy. I am dysfunctional. I am fucked up. But I only let you see the pieces that I’ve carefully crafted. The pieces that I want you to see.
you think you’ve seen my messy,destructive behavior. you think you know all about me. and you think you love it all. But you don’t. All you see is a manipulation. An image pieced bit by bit together to give you what you want, what you crave. an arranged construction.
everything you see is a projection. none of it is real. a blueprint of your innermost desires.
and to you, I’m just an innocent. just a girl. a girl that you enjoy corrupting.
But you are wrong. I am a fucking woman. And you have no clue what you’re dealing with.
And with a woman, you don’t realize until it is too late.
I suppose cliches happen for a reason.
Like they are relateable. Like they happen time and time again.
So here I am being predictable and cliche, writing about grass being green. Usually when it is on the other side.
Once it is gone, I miss it. For years, it was watching over my shoulder…pushing me to pull me closer. And I resented it. I was fearful of it. I repeatedly held back, pushing it away. And now, all I want in the world is to hold it so tight and never let it go.
And now that it is gone I miss it. I only appreciate it now that it is gone. What a damn cliche.
“The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.”
“Maybe there’s something you’re afraid to say, or someone you’re afraid to love, or somewhere you’re afraid to go. It’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt because it matters.”
John Greene, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
When you leave, and you always leave, you leave me unsatisfied and empty. I’m drawn in with the allure of something more, something special. And even with your valiant efforts and persuasive words, you leave me empty. It happens time and time again, you fill my mind, my body, my heart with anticipation and love only to deflate it once you appear.
Giddy anticipation fills me till we break, my expectations vaporize, leaving me more empty than ever before. My air is filled with words, but they are only words, and they mean nothing. And that’s all you are, words and broken emptiness. You presume yourself chivalrous and forcible; unaware that all you have ever given me, all you ever leave me with, is angst and attack. You are not real, you do not exist, my imaginary boyfriend.
You are a facade, built up over years of anticipation of the possibility. The ‘love’ created in our imaginations is so surreal and beautiful, that any promise of reality was shattered when the word was first uttered. It is paradoxical really, the premise is miraculous and forever untouched, yet it demolishes us and our reality. You are not real, we do not exist. I am merely a piece of your imagination, as you are of mine
You are, always have been, and always will be my imaginary boyfriend.
There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.
-Alfred Hitchcock
Why is it so difficult to learn about, to figure out who we are? I am who I am, right? And I have been that person for 24 years…I would think that would automatically give me some pretty good insight to who I am, what I want, and why I do the things that I do.
Unfortunately that isn’t the way life is, at least not for me. As I go through life, gain new experiences, essentially as I grow up, I realize how little I actually know about everything – most importantly myself.
I wonder if this is common during these “change of life” times in our lives, where everything is up in the air and we are forced to make ridiculously difficult decisions. I am finishing up my masters degree this December and trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I see so many options, so many paths forward, it terrifies me to choose one. But to semi-quote one of my favorite movies, even not making a decision is making a decision. Whether I like it or not, me sitting around putting off my life isn’t doing me any good. It is just pushing me towards to the one path I know that I don’t want to take. So why is it that I am doing it? Why can’t I pick another path?
one of my good friends sent me this article about the goddess of never not broken. i think it is amazing. and very true. I think my favorite quote is,
“All the places where you’ve shattered can now reflect light and colour where there was none. Now is the time to become something new, to choose a new whole.”
My new fav goddess, Akhilanda
You know that feeling when you have just gone through a breakup, or lost your job, and everything is terrible and terrifying and you don’t know what to do, and you find yourself crying in a pile on your bedroom floor, barely able to remember how to use the phone, desperately looking for some sign of God in old letters, or your Facebook newsfeed or on Glee, finding nothing there to comfort you?
Come on, yes you do. We all do.
And there is a goddess from Hindu mythology that teaches us that, in this moment, in this pile on the floor, you are more powerful than you’ve ever been.
This past week, I have been deeply inspired by a talk I heard on the Yoga Teacher Telesummit by Eric Stoneberg on this relatively unknown Goddess from Hindu mythology: Akhilandeshvari.
This figure has snuck up inside me and settled into my bones. She keeps coming out of my mouth every time I teach, and she’s given me so much strength and possibility during a time of change and uncertainty in my own life. I wanted to unpack a little bit about who she is for those that might be, like me, struggling a little bit in that pile on the floor and wondering how the hell to get up again.
The answer, it turns out, is this: in pieces, warrior-style, on the back of a crocodile. Yee ha.
“Ishvari” in Sanskrit means “goddess” or “female power,” and the “Akhilanda” means essentially “never not broken.” In other words, The Always Broken Goddess. Sanskrit is a tricky and amazing language, and I love that the double negative here means that she is broken right down to her name.
But this isn’t the kind of broken that indicates weakness and terror.
It’s the kind of broken that tears apart all the stuff that gets us stuck in toxic routines, repeating the same relationships and habits over and over, rather than diving into the scary process of trying something new and unfathomable.
Akhilanda derives her power from being broken: in flux, pulling herself apart, living in different, constant selves at the same time, from never becoming a whole that has limitations.
The thing about going through sudden or scary or sad transitions (like a breakup) is that one of the things you lose is your future: your expectations of what the story of your life so far was going to become. When you lose that partner or that job or that person, your future dissolves in front of you.
And of course, this is terrifying.
But look, Akhilanda says, now you get to make a choice. In pieces, in a pile on the floor, with no idea how to go forward, your expectations of the future are meaningless. Your stories about the past do not apply. You are in flux, you are changing, you are flowing in a new way, and this is an incredibly powerful opportunity to become new again: to choose how you want to put yourself back together. Confusion can be an incredible teacher—how could you ever learn if you already had it all figured out?
This goddess has another interesting attribute, which is, of course, her ride: a crocodile.
Crocodiles are interesting in two ways: Firstly, Stoneberg explains that the crocodile represents our reptilian brain, which is where we feel fear. Secondly, the predatory power of a crocodile is not located in their huge jaws, but rather that they pluck their prey from the banks of the river, take it into the water, and spin it until it is disoriented. They whirl that prey like a dervish seeking God, they use the power of spin rather than brute force to feed themselves.
By riding on this spinning, predatory, fearsome creature, Akhilanda refuses to reject her fear, nor does she let it control her. She rides on it. She gets on this animal that lives inside the river, inside the flow. She takes her fear down to the river and uses its power to navigate the waves, and spins in the never not broken water. Akhilanda shows us that this is beautiful. Stoneberg writes:
Akhilanda is also sometimes described in our lineage like a spinning, multi-faceted prism. Imagine the Hope Diamond twirling in a bright, clear light. The light pouring through the beveled cuts of the diamond would create a whirling rainbow of color. The diamond is whole and complete and BECAUSE it’s fractured, it creates more diverse beauty. Its form is a spectrum of whirling color.
That means that this feeling of confusion and brokenness that every human has felt at some time or another in our lives is a source of beauty and colour and new reflections and possibilities.
If everything remained the same, if we walked along the same path down to the river every day until there was a groove there (as we do; in Sanskrit this is called Samskara, habits or even “some scars”), this routine would become so limited, so toxic to us that, well, the crocs would catch on, and we’d get plucked from the banks, spun and eaten.
So now is the time, this time of confusion and brokenness and fear and sadness, to get up on that fear, ride it down to the river, dip into the waves, and let yourself break. Become a prism.
All the places where you’ve shattered can now reflect light and colour where there was none. Now is the time to become something new, to choose a new whole.
But remember Akhilanda’s lesson: even that new whole, that new, colourful, amazing groove that we create, is an illusion. It means nothing unless we can keep on breaking apart and putting ourselves together again as many times as we need to. We are already “never not broken.” We were never a consistent, limited whole. In our brokenness, we are unlimited. And that means we are amazing.
find the article here: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/
color and chaos 