30 days: Day 13

Day 13- a letter to someone who has hurt you recently

Ok, it goes like this:

It wasn't long lived enough for me to pretend like you really hurt me, but I certainly didn't feel great standing on the corner with you standing across from me with your hands in your pockets like I was the garbage man and you were watching me work. Scratch that, you would have probably engaged him in some witty banter or at least acknowledged him, told him to have a good day, waved goodbye...

If you were trying to be coy, it came off as being an asshole. If you were trying to be cool, it came off as being a snob. If that was flirting, it was a fail. It is true what they say. People might forget what you say and what you do, but they won't forget how you made the feel. Disposable is what you to Styrofoam containers and diapers, not the girl who just spent the better part of the day with you. From 60 to zero in one cold, emotionless walk to the car.

I haven't thought about it much until this 30-day challenge just stared me in the face but you see the thing is just as easily as it's written, we're flipping to a new page.

Signed,
Too Good for You, Your Corner, and Your Time

30 things: Day 12

Day 12- how you found out about blogger and why you have one.

Oh, Blogger. How did I find you? I think I just did.

Why did I seek you out? Because I needed to find my sanity.

I needed to find some peace of mind.
I needed to get "it" out of my head, my heart, my mind...
I needed to see the words to know that some of this was real and not just a series of disconnects floating around in my head.
I needed to feel.
I needed to breath life into my hopes, thoughts, wishes, desires, dreams.
I needed therapy.
I needed a place to look back to, to see if/when/how I have changed, grown and lived.
I needed to find me.
I needed my words to be a mirror.

Because for some, the eyes might be the window to the soul, and for others, I believe their words are.
Because I can write...even if I forgot I could. Mrs. Johnson told me that, with conviction, when I wasn't even in high school. I will always remember her for that.
Because I was meant to find my writing soulmate.
Because some of the stories, were way too damn good to keep to myself.
Because some day when I'm old, I'm not going to remember the details, and as they say, God is in the details.
Because...this is my story, my one and only story, and it's now or never.

Namaste

Stretching forward, all the way forward, slight bend in my knees, hands planted flat on the ground, head hanging low, feeling EVERYthing stretch, stretching further and deeper with every inhale, knowing there was nothing to be done about the stream of sweat running literally running off my forehead, down my nose down into a puddle in front of me, I just had to give it all up. This was no little drip, this was impressive. I know it sounds gross, but it's nothing short of rewarding to walk into that room and feel the heat, literally and physically feel the heat, and know that I have managed to talk myself through the mental game of wanting to just give up and walk out half a dozen times already. But I don't. I don't want to walk out, despite the heat and the secondary lapses of feeling light headed. This is one of the most serious physical challenges I have ever put myself through and I'm loving it.

Tonight, sleep deprived, back already sore from life, lifting, moving, being on my feet all day, just doing my best to keep up and push my limits and work out some of that deep settled in scar tissue from years and years of bad posture and self-neglect, I find myself trying to dissect the playlist on sound alone...I instantly recognized this song by John Hiatt, more for myself than anyone else. A reminder to have a little faith in myself.

In the dim room, breathless, sweating beyond my control, shoulders burning, legs shaking, despite the fact that there was a room full of other people each concentrating on their own pose, nothing less than being forced to just concentrate on my breathing and let my mind wander into thinking about just me, there's a song (that for the life of me, I can't find online right now) that has gotten me twice now. No one any the wiser, lost in having to just give in and work through the challenge of, I started to cry, tears and sweat running down my face. No point in keeping it in or trying to ignore it.

From the instructor "Listen to your breath. Feel your heartbeat. Breathe in strength and beauty, release all the negative, it does not serve you now. It does not serve you in this moment."

I released the long, sleepless day, the previous weekend's feeling of being disposable, the feeling of being locked up and having no place to call home, the worry about not being good enough to capture the beauty I see all around me, the thought that I've wrecked my body in a few short years, that I'll never be able to get this pose, that I'll never find love, wondering how I'm going to pay for all of it, the bad feelings, the shitty things I've said, the shitty things I want to still say, the feelings of hopelessness and insecurity, I let it all out, sweat it out, exhaled it out, cried it out. Just let it out and in that last few moments of class, cooling down, eyes closed, legs crossed, focusing on the steady in and the steady out of air into my lungs, EVERYthing was peaceful. EVERYthing was calm. EVERYthing was right for me in that moment.

Namaste.
"Let it be."
"I bow to you."
"The spirit in me reflects the spirit in you."

.

"Don't ever let yourself be someone's slogan, because you are poetry." ~ 28 days

I was short of a slogan - I was more like someone's punctuation mark last week.
Funny, because I stood up for my words a few days before and then I went and compromised myself.
I even knew what the ending was going to be, but I let myself be part of the story, absolutely willingly of my own accord.
Then, I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered what part of me had been calling the shots.
It was the part of me that just wanted to be connected to someone, no matter how temporary it was.
I used to wonder how people "my age" got to be the way they were. I say that generically because not everyone is the same, but sometimes we all are.
I'm not playing the victim. Put away the body outline chalk.
I am an adult and I do live in my own world with the scenes that I choose to paint, sometimes, I just wish there was more fluidity between the brush strokes.