Purging

Relentless whispering spirit blows strangely after me.
Wandering like a plum moon--deep summer sky
He comes as gold breath...shadowy storm
Will time tell why dreams secrets celebrate
Soft evening. Perfect morning
Are you my spring? Universe? Sun?
Ever felt this sleepy song?

i wrote this a million years ago while hanging out with a bestie in her apt in Lexington (i think) she had those little magnetic words where you make nonsense out of it. we were in college, the world was at our feet and we were so completely clueless about the real world. Being naive is a fantastic thing! That poem was happy and wistful. Full of hope and dreams and romantic. All of the things i was all those many years ago.

Now, I have encased myself so securely in a shell of numbness. With mindless tv, alcohol, and superficial answers and thoughts--I don't really recognize myself some days. The girl who wrote that poem died a long time ago and I am still trying to resuscitate her. I find glimpses of her sometimes. Staring at me with disdain, shaking her head at me as i flail and drown in despair. She doesn't offer help. She just looks at me with eyes full of loathing disgust. That is about the only thing that cuts through the numbness and pierces to my very soul.

I went to St. Louis to visit my best friend and reconnected with a few other friends. Impromptu girls weekend. (when impromptu means a couple weeks of planning because we are all adults) Tons of fun was had. During the weekend, HE came up. Everyone has an opinion of the relationship, how it happened, how it ended and him as a person. But everyone has an asshole to so there you go. What they can't understand is i still hear his voice--I still know what his laugh sounds like. I remember his touch and how he smelled. It has been years. I haven't been able to move on. I haven't wanted a rebound or a boyfriend. I am not ready to let go of him. I don't know how to let go of him. It is becoming relevant because i am so stagnate right now.

i quit after him.

i quit living. i quit enjoying life. i let him break me. I let my life spiral out of control.

And its worse because there was no closure--without any answers

What i felt and what i know we had was real. Deep to the soul real. And then it wasn't. Therein where my brain cant reconcile with my heart. That is where the struggle is.

How do you love someone so hard, so long, convince them to stay countless times to only pull the rug out from under their feel and leave them on their ass to get up on their own. How does that work? I just have so many questions and my nature doesn't do well without answers.

But, being stagnate isn't fun...i miss fun. I miss laughing til my stomach hurts just because life isn't that serious. I am ready to get over the fact that I will never have answers. And maybe that just has to be ok. But then...she is looking at me...my inner self and she worries desperately that if I let go. Truly let go, find my closure within myself...i will run into him one day. And the mountain of unanswered questions and feelings will tumble like an avalanche down around me. So it begs the question...do i hold on just a little bit so when i eventually run into him (because i know it will happen--they ALL come back on some level--ALWAYS) that i don't fall completely apart or do i just let it all go. Live my best life while pushing him completely out of my mind and pray that when the gut punch comes...i can take it.

I have been punched before...I think I will take the risk. I am stronger now. I am tired of the case i am in. And i am damn sure tired of the feeling of abhorrent despair and pity when she looks at me.

unsure of where i am going with this

Last September I wrote a post and just quit in the middle of it...I have been struggling for a few years now. Dealing with a shattered heart and life honestly. I feel like i am starting to find my way again. Am I still lost? Absolutely. Am i still misguided and searching for my path. Yup...but i am doing better and i am starting to feel a little bit again. My smile isn't as fake. My 'I'm peachy" isn't just a sarcastic comment anymore that no one gets...i mean it most days. So i am going to work on that post now and maybe share with you guys. I dunno...maybe when i finally write a book and i have all these fragments of ramblings, they will have played a part in some form of success for me. We will see. But for now...on this gloomy saturday morning...it is a place for healing and reflection for me. So...i guess just in that rite it is meaningful.

For quite a while i had encased myself so securely in this shell of numbness with mindless tv, alcohol and superficial answers and thoughts...i didn't recognize myself anymore. I thought it was time for therapy...(but that is another awful story for another time) i was constantly trying to figure out what i needed to do to be me again. Nothing was working and i felt like a failure because i couldn't shake the funk that had taken over me so solidly. It was so real and so deep, i didn't know what to do. So i sat in it. i dwelled in it and just let it have it's way with me. Was that the best decision? i don't know...but i still smiled every day. i still went to work and forced myself to do as much as my psyche could handle on any given day.

But now...i am comfortably lost. Still looking for the path, still stumbling around but i am more confident. i am more hopeful and i have something that i haven't had in a long time. PEACE. I am not quite the shell that i once was. i am finding fragments of myself again...the pieces are starting to fit back together. There are still quite a few missing...and i am sure there are some that i will never get back. But maybe that just gives me some blank spaces to fit in some new pieces...to create new love and endeavors.

i realized i needed to quit trying to make him the center of my narrative...the basis of my story. He isn't my story. He played a role in it and he did some damage when he left...but the story didn't end there. That chapter is over and has been for some time...but i kept re-reading it. i think i am ready to live it where it belongs...and that is behind me. He affected me in so many ways...mostly were phenomenal but then it went away...and it is hard to say good-bye to something if you weren't ready for it to end. You can hold on to water as tight as you think you can...but it will still slip through the cracks.

The moral of the story is I have been broken and knocked flat on my ass...and i sat there for a long time waiting for someone to help me up. But guess what, i had to be the one to decide it is time to get up. There will come a time that i will get knocked down again...and i will try to remember this post and remind myself how i am feeling as i am writing this. Hopeful, content, aspiring to greatness and comfortably lost.

Taking a step back in order to move forward.

So i have been trying really hard to get back into writing again, making myself write something, ANYTHING...even if it is total crap. Because, hey, you gotta start somewhere right. Well, lately it seems like i am just putting words on pages. No real meaning, no real message, flat and almost boring. Maybe it is time to re-evaluate my topics. If i am writing about things that i am not passionate or into right now...how are my words going to create a picture worth viewing. I have tried to focus on love and healing. but maybe, i am still numb and a bit broken and far from healed...how in the hell am i supposed to write about those things.

Healing is a process, we all know that. Maybe i should read up on the "healing process" and maybe put myself through an impromptu counseling session. Take a step back and identify my behaviors and where they are stemming from and start writing about MY process. What i can remember of it? I am not sure if my journals reflect any of that. i don't think i let myself feel a lot of anything for a while.

I am stagnate and unsure where to go from here. i know that i want to "live my best life" and to some degree, i can picture it...but i don't know what steps to take to make it happen. I want to laugh more, drink socially (not to function) i want to be healthier and eat good food. i want to be a better friend and a more present mother. i want a beautiful home. Most importantly, i want to feel like the sun is shining even on the cloudiest days. i want to get out of this fog and out of the gloom that has engulfed me. My life has some really bright spots in it. Even though they feel very dim through my lenses right now. I need new lenses. I don't know where to start.

the processing of brokenness

I am trying to do something that my heart, mind and soul has not allowed me to do for almost a year. and that is truly and completely say good bye to james. Maybe if i tell my story, in some kind of way, i can begin to let go. Maybe if i can find the words to say all that he made me feel and believe, the process of healing can finally be complete. Until today, i have been numb. i have pushed the pain to the depths of my core to ignore. i rarely speak of it...and when it has to be spoken about it is as if i was a part of a social experiment gone terribly wrong. Scientific, exact, and logical. As if a disclaimer could be used that states, "No hearts were broken in this process."

But there is not one statement that could be further from the truth. At the end of one of my posts, i stated that "he had broken my heart but he hadn't broken me." James...he broke me. Shattered me to the depths of my soul. I was literally a shell of myself for months. And as i sit here...after many days and tears later...i can say that the pieces are starting to fit back together. Not without damage, and i think i can say that there are still some pieces missing that he took with him...but i survived.

As i write, i notice that i still am not talking about him...i don't know that i can? What does that mean? That i can't talk about how foolishly silly he was or how safe he made me feel. That i am unable to verbalize or think about how he single-handedly made me believe that i WAS Wonder Woman, capable of any and everything and that no one around me deserved my level of awesomeness. He had me believing that my time and love and effort was the most prized thing that anyone in my life should not only appreciate but but completely honored that i shared with him...he made me feel irreplaceable.

Maybe i need to take a break, go to the grocery, pour a cocktail and come back to it...because the memories...as they start to flood my mind might just be a bit too much for me to day because when i tell this story...i will feel foolish. I will remind myself that i knew better. That i walked into a hopeless situation with eyes wide shut. But yet even though i know that i lied to myself countless times in our relationship to justify everything...i still want to defend him. i still want to give him the benefit of the doubt and i still hurt because i can't believe that my inner voice was right...and you know what? sometimes being right really sucks!!

inspiration

Finding my voice again. Sigh. Someone wants me to be inspiration to them. Are you kidding? I can barely inspire myself. I am in a stunted, drinking too much for my own good, trying to hide and just ugly state…How is that inspirational? I am trying to live my truth while everyone around me is trying to make you work so hard to be better, feel guilty cuz you aren’t better. But you know what??? I used to be the best…and now…I am just trying to figure it out. You know why? Sometimes you can’t always be the best. And when you are the best…folks try to align themselves with you and it just makes you doubt, and fail, and fall. So what am I inspiring? Being pitiful, apathetic and drunk? That isn’t what I want my legacy to be. I can’t inspire anyone…but he has a voice, something to say…important things to accomplish. He is amazing and has so much to contribute…while I am just trying not to drown in my own ugly. I am lost…remembered for past accomplishments that mean nothing now and its time to acknowledge that I am nothing now. I can’t inspire anything. And that hurts me and it makes me cry but it is the truth…and you have to live in the truth in order to make any changes. After years of being exceptional…I am average. I can’t inspire when I am not inspired. I survive everyday…in the midst of all I feel, know and believe. I am still here, I am still standing (even though its barely) So find your inspiration there. 

Be My Sunday Morning

What Kind of Love are YOU Looking For?

Out and about running errands this morning, I heard a lyric in a country song that said…”I wanna be your Friday night.” And it made me stop and think. I don’t want someone to be my Friday night. I want to find the man who will be my Sunday morning.

I am waiting for the man that will enter my life…not for lots of drinking and sex with wild abandon. The one who skirts real conversations and deep connections but wants fun, laughter and all things easy. (not saying that any of those things are bad or even unnecessary in a Sunday morning relationship)

But I want the man who is my Sunday morning; who is calm in the storm, who speaks peace and contentment to my soul. The one who wants breakfast with his family before praising God together. The deeper connections, the foundation of strength and the ability to lean on his woman while she leans on him. The man who will truly embrace the Proverbs 31 views of a woman.

Proverbs 31 is at the base of my soul right now. Striving to be that amazing woman that surpasses them all.

“Many women have done excellently, buy surpass them all” Proverbs 31:29

I am working daily to pray harder and more earnestly. To teach my children how to pray in a voice that God will be pleased with. I am working on my financial status…to be a blessing to the husband that one day God will send me. I work on my education…studying, writing, stretching myself to challenge and inspire the people around me. I try. So. Hard…daily to be the woman you see on the street whose aura and presence is so strong that you may not know what makes her different…but you know that she is and you want to be like her. That is my mindset, that is my truth, that is what I am striving for…and finding a man or even friends and colleagues that just want to be my Friday night…aren’t going to allow me to get there. I need Sunday morning…what are you looking for? And what are you doing to attract those people? Think on it…and be blessed. 

Just have to chew on some things

Love...

that is the theme lately...it overwhelms me, it consumes my thoughts, it is my heart’s desire. I have loved in my life. I mean...I am 35 years old. With no true role model of what love was, I forged ahead to try and figure it on my own. I am in love now...it has its days when it is the fairy tale I have dreamed about (as cliché as it might sound) and other days it is the ocean...seeking to drown me because I am too tired to stay afloat. Love is hard, love is vast, and love is what makes it all worthwhile. Love is what I fight for daily...sometimes a losing battle and sometimes my sweetest reward.

Today, it was my losing battle.

I love hard, intensely, and deeply. I love with everything that I have within me. I give my heart and soul to whoever the object of my love is. Does that always work out in my favor? Not even close...But God has granted me with the ability that no matter how badly I am hurt, I can (in time) offer my heart to another. Sometimes that is a blessing and a curse.

Today it was a curse.

As I was chatting with the man that currently has my heart, a man that for a few weeks I could tell that the end was near but I had promised him from the beginning I would never quit. I would never walk away…unless he told me that is what he wanted…in the midst of conversation today I receive this email:

 “i do not mean or intend to be disrespectful. i can love different people, you even mentioned understanding what that feels like. but you are right, i need to focus on one person. it is the part of growing and making a decision. i don't want anyone to be upset with me and so, i try to balance and juggle everyone as often as i can and it just gets to be too heavy and burdensome. eventually, i fall and so does everyone else i've been trying to handle. scriptures tell me i have to be true to God and true to myself. not doing so doesn't do He or me any good.  

i am going to focus exclusively on her. i loved her since i was a kid and i hurt her by not choosing to be with her and instead settling for what was safe and convenient to me before...a person who loved me in the way i love her. but love involves risks and faith. and i've learned that it should be selfish, not shared, exclusive and not collective. wanting to be with her will cost me a lot, including a lot of lonely and quiet nights, which i hate. but, she is worth it. i know there will be things that she does not bring to the table that i know that you do, and thus, the decision to pursue her might seem foolish. but, it's where my heart is. if i seek something with her and it doesn't pan out, and i lose you in the process forever, then that is the chance i take and consequence i live with. 

i love you dearly, danielle. but, i've got to follow my heart and it is with her. it always has been. she is the love of MY existence.”

He has decided it is time to give his whole heart to this women…someone that came back into the picture after we had been involved for some time. But that is his choice. Love is a choice. Sometimes the choice hurts.

The ironic thing is I understand completely how he feels. I have loved more than one man at a time. I know what it is like to want to split yourself with two people sometimes even three because sometimes our feelings don’t follow logic…but we have a choice.

He has made his choice.

I have made similar choices before. I can honestly say, I have loved every man that I have ever dated seriously. And I can honestly say, that it has never worked out in my favor.

A friend recently shared a quote that he read some time back. The quote simply states, “All women have three men ~ the one she loves, the one that loves her, and the one that takes care of her”

Well, I have not found that to be true in my life. I have had “the man who I love”, I have had the “men who want to love me but claim they don’t know how”, the “man who would love me if only XYZ would change.” You get my point. Real life is never as poetic as the writers and those we quote make it out to be. But, I think the more interesting question to ask is, “Can men and women love more than one person at a time?” Because that is what consumes me? When do you decide who gets your whole heart or is it better to fragment it here, there, and somewhere else?

So, I believe that no matter what…we can love multiple people at one time. We can attempt to share our souls with more than one person at a time because different people inspire different things at the same time. I have never inspired anyone to love me wholly…to pick me in the midst of the storm…to say I. Am. The. One. That. Is. Worth. It. Now, I am heartbroken but not broken…I am sad but not without joy…because I know that at the core of it all I am so close to the Proverbs 31 woman that God would have me to be. I am better because I have lost…I am hard to remember yet impossible to forget. I love you too…but…it never seems to matter because who I love never loves me back in the way I desire. I obsess. I fantasize about. 

Starting from the Beginning

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." Ecclesiastes 9:10

Joyce Meyers says in order to develop your potential...you have to start from the beginning. You cannot start at the finish line. You can't wait until things are perfect...but you must do. something. NOW!!! Just lay your hand to whatever is in that is front of you. Just move forward. One step at a time. I need to practice that myself.

Just. Move. Forward.

Doesn't it sound so much easier than it is to do?

It is such a process. And if you are anything like me, you need to have quiet in order to figure out where to go. To mediate, to seek God's face, to really know where you are heading...don't you need quiet? I have goals and lists and plans and projects...but can't figure out how to start...how to move forward. I am encouraging myself but I just need to start from the beginning. Where is the beginning?

Trying to Figure It All Out

Yet i am not figuring out anything. I need to write, I want to write...

I started this blog months ago with that one simple sentence. How do we figure out how to accomplish all we want to do with all that we need to do. It seems daily my list of things to accomplish from day to day only grows longer...with no relief or help in sight. However, as a God fearing and knowing woman...my soul says that isn't true...so where does my first step begin. How do I became a fantastic woman of God, that is an amazing woman and thoughtful giving person. That is a model employee, avid scholar, aspiring law student and painter, writer and fun?! That seems like a lot to be aspiring to be...however, I know...that in my heart of hearts it is possible and i will be fabulous...once i arrive there...but how do i start? Does it start with a new better paying job so that my mind isn't always focused on living with just my children again? Does it start with a new place regardless of what i am making and i just lean on God to help me work it out? How do i find the time, space and peace in my current living situation to do the creative, fun, wonky things that I like to do without fear of criticism and judgement. It is enough to make someone crazy. Literally and figuratively. But for now i will continue persevering knowing that i am getting close. i can almost feel the life i am meant to be living. i am going to continue to make steps forward and continue my faith and belief that my breakthrough is around the corner. I know it...in my heart and soul i know it.

Until next time.

Danibelle

Failing

So that quickly I am already failing at my goal of writing every day. I didn't write yesterday...but I am going to do more today. I am in a different type of place right now...I am sure I touched on it the other day that I am unhappy. I was so unhappy, I quit my job and was staying with family. However, I learned quickly and with a lot of sadness in my heart that you can't always depend on family to do what is right. So again, I was left to make the decision to get out of a toxic environment. Basically, they just wanted to loaf off of me...no jobs and no income other than what I brought to the table. I am still working through a lot...for example, how I tend to journal more than blog...I need to evaulate what the difference is. Read other's stuff and figure out for me what makes a good blog...basically do my research. And then decide what do I have to offer that maybe the next great blogger doesn't. I want to make the life that I want...and I am just stuck! So for my prayer warriors out there...say a little pray for me. For those that don't get down like that...send me some good mojo and well wishes. I am in a rocky place but like a good friend told me the other day...coal becomes a diamond by withstanding the pressure...so all the pressure that I am under can only lead me to beautiful and great things!!

Until next time!!!

WOW

So I have been gone for a while and things on here are totally different. I am going to have to learn to blog all over again. Things in my life are upside down! But I am pressing through to make things better and to get them back on track. One of my daily goals now is to write everyday...SOMETHING...anything...just write. Get it out there. I'm desperately trying to figure out how to make my life exactly what I want it to be...and I don't know how. But, the important thing is I am trying. I have quit my job, I am technically homeless (not really but I don't enjoy living with folks) while I am trying to figure it all out!!! Thank God, that my children are awesome and adaptable and amazing...I am overall blessed and I can't complain. It will all be ok. So for those of you who keep checking on me...thank you. I am back and will keep coming back...check me out on twitter...danibelle_1920

Thanks!!!