SIMPLY ME

I was straightening my hair last night when I had an epiphany.  I was listening to Pandora, and the song that was on was about a break up.  I had been telling people the basis of the epiphany for years, but could never quite sum it up the right way until last night – people have lost the purpose of being single!

I was always the type to be happy when I was single; however I was also happy to be in a relationship.  It baffles me to see people who celebrate a break up as if they were just released from jail, or moped around as if the world was going to end.  In my opinion, if you are in a relationship that feels as if you are in a penitentiary, you should really reconsider your choice in relationship partners. 

Yes, we are all going to be hurt when a relationship ends, but there is a major difference between being sad the relationship ended and being upset because you are single and lonely again.  Loneliness is not something that can be cured by being in a relationship.  It can only be cured by realizing that regardless of your relationship status, you are happy enough with yourself that you don’t need someone else to make you happy. 

I am the kind of woman who periodically does “mirror checks” on myself.  I will look in the metaphorical mirror and ask myself what I can do to make myself better.  I do this a lot, no matter where I am in my life because I can always be a better woman.  Circumstances change, times change, and people change, so it only makes sense that I would change, too.  I have a love-hate relationship with my mirror checks.  I love it because I learn about myself, but I hate it for the same reason.  When a relationship ends, especially, I think it’s extremely important to look at yourself and ask how you have changed, what you have learned, and how you can become better. 

I used the analogy yesterday of a dirty sink.  Your flaws and burdens are like a sink filled with dirty dish water.  Your new relationships are like clean dish rags.  You can put as many new dish rags into the sink as you want, but if you never drain the water and clean the sink between washes, the rags will always end up dirty and useless.  For those who didn’t get the analogy, let me put it this way – you can enter into as many new relationships as you want, but if you don’t change yourself for the better during your times of being single, your future relationships will always end up the same, for the same reasons. 

Those things are things that you rarely see now days.  This generation has lost all accountability for the demise of a relationship.  I find it funny that people are quick to take credit for their contributions in the happy parts of a relationship, but as soon as things get rocky, they point the finger to the other person.  I was under the impression that relationships were two people working together. 

Becoming single is not a curse.  It’s also not supposed to be one big bachelor/bachelorette party.  It’s supposed to be a time to focus on yourself.  Too many times I see people who analyze what the other person did wrong in the relationship and will avoid new people who show an interest because they look, talk, act, or did something that reminded them of an ex.  On the contrary, I also know people who break up and have no clue how to be single so they go looking for love – they find someone who is just like their ex.  They hop from relationship to relationship, not taking time to breathe and enjoy themselves. 

I am not saying relationships are bad, or being single is bad.  I am saying that this generation has lost the purpose of what being single is supposed to be.  We are so scared of being alone that we cling to bad relationships for the sake of simply having someone.  Being single doesn’t mean we are flawed.  It means we value ourselves enough not to settle, or that we are mature enough to realize that we are simply not ready to commit to someone.  Relationships require work, and it’s okay to admit that you just don’t want to, or aren’t able to, put the work in. 

We are so scared of being tied down that we run from commitment.  Those people who are always giving horror stories of relationships and how marriage is horrible are the same ones who will complain when they are single about how lonely they are, and then blame everyone else in the dating pool for their single status, instead of taking responsibility for their lonliness. 

Being single is just another phase in life.  It’s a time for us to enjoy ourselves.  Being single means you should focus on making yourself better.  It doesn’t mean we try to be the quintessential man or woman – the fabled “total package.”  It means we become a better person for nobody else but ourselves, and someone will cross your path that will fully appreciate that.  It doesn’t mean that we will end up in perfect relationships.  It just means that we will be in better quality relationships.  It doesn’t mean we don’t try to make ourselves better ONLY when we are single.  We should always try to become better than we are.  It’s called growing.  It just means we work on us so WE can be happy with who we see in the literal and metaphorical mirror every day.  After all, if you can’t love yourself, how do you expect to love someone else?

Sometimes, there is just nothing left to say.  Even when you want to say something, it’s pointless because it will only end up hurting the person unnecessarily or it’s already been said numerous times. 

Sometimes, you just have to walk away and realize that you are the only one fighting, the only one who cares, and the only one who cares enough to show it. 

Sometimes, you try so hard for so long, as if you are scraping by on the skin of your fingernails that your mind and body literally just shut down. 

Sometimes, no matter how much you want to just scream “WHY DON’T YOU GET IT?” you just have to disappear.

Sometimes, no matter how mad you get, how resentful you are, how much you wish you didn’t care at all, the only thing you can do is cry because you know that you can’t deny the fact that you love them with everything you have - despite them not loving you at all…

Sometimes, you just have to take the gloves off and stop fighting for someone that doesn’t want to be fought for. 

Sometimes, the worst part is admitting that no matter what you do, that person will never love you, and they quit trying a long time ago.

Sometimes, despite how you feel and what you want, the best thing to do is let the other person go because they obviously didn’t want to be held onto in the first place…

Sometimes, the most painful thing is realizing what you really were to that person - nothing, as opposed to what they said you were, or what you thought you were. 

Sometimes…

Who fucked us over with emotions and the worst feelings on Earth. Who taught us so much, yet gave us so much pain. Who you gave everything to, and didn’t get as much back. But we all have that ex, who made us give up a little on love.

What I want, what I know, and what I fear all rolled into one…

I got a Facebook message from a girl the other day that made me laugh.  She asked me if I still found her beautiful like I did the day we met.  My first thought was that she was certified crazy.  We have a mutual friend that introduced us at the club that night, and we danced together to make her girlfriend jealous, but I knew nothing about her and the conversation never went beyond her drunken statement of “I think you are so sexy!”  I haven’t spoken to her since, except the random crazy messages like that.  She was cute, but I suppose something told me to stay away.  Anyway, I asked my friend what her deal was, and he told me “Don’t bother.  Trust me.  She’s damaged goods.”

For the longest time I laughed at it, until recently.  Not because I realized how he talked down to her, but because I paused and asked myself, “Damn… I wonder how damaged I am.”  I began to wonder how others saw me.  I wondered if others could tell that I was no longer the spunky, innocent, happy-go-lucky girl I used to be.  I am the skeptical, cold, calculating woman you see in the movies. 

Physically, I am not damaged goods, but emotionally, I am scrap metal.  My heart has been stomped on so many times I don’t know if it has a shape any longer.  My mind has been so polluted by lies and masquerades that someone with no ulterior motives can become public enemy #1 in my head.  My logic tells me something doesn’t seem right, but my heart says that it feels everything but wrong. 

I try to move on, and I literally have to fight myself to avoid contacting you.  I drown in hurt because it’s so deep, even if I fight to get to the surface.  I thought it was funny because you told me you “stalk” me - check my pages and such.  I fight myself not to do the same with you, but I’ll be honest, after you told me that, I broke down and finally did the same yesterday.  ::Shrug:: Sue me. 

Since I am being honest, I guess I might as well say that I was literally shaking when I was talking to you the other day.  Why?  I don’t know.  But I was.  I’m still hurt.  I’m still angry.  I still love you.  But I am still damaged goods.  I try to distract myself but I can only do so much.  I still wonder why you contacted me, because the whole “I just can’t stay away” thing sounds like pure BS. 

Still don’t believe I am that damaged?  When you joked and asked me if anyone was hiring out here, the second thought in my head was “Why?  So you can move up here so you can leech off of me and I will end up taking care of you?”  … Yup.  It isn’t necessarily you.  I’m just damaged. 

It’s not so much as an excuse as it is a cry for help, I suppose.  I don’t know how to fix me.  Maybe I can’t be fixed.  I thought about that more than once.  I’m irreparable.  Doomed to a life of doubt and pain, because I am convinced people don’t change.  I’d rather be cold than hurt again, so I just hide in my shell.  I don’t say much any more.  Not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I’m scared of what will come out.

I’m no longer the Rolls Royce - I am the scrap metal.  I’ve become so callous for so long that I am almost like a beautiful zombie.  My physical body goes through all of the motions of living, but there is no soul.  Just a corpse.  A rotting, stinking corpse.  I thought I could have gotten over you the same way most people do with any issues they don’t want to face - just ignore them.  Out of sight, out of mind.  But it didn’t happen that way.  I became so frustrated during our conversation that I was close to screaming “What the hell do you want from me?”  Because in my head, that’s all it is to me - that’s the only reason people stay around me - because they want something.  Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know, but it’s a sad state of affairs when thinking that way is almost an instinct.  But, as I am so apt to say, “I’m used to it.” 

Since I am being so honest, I won’t lie and say I forgot about you.  I think about you all the time - probably more than I should.  But I don’t know what I can do to stop it.  I don’t know if I want to.  I tell myself I have to just get over it, but how can I tell my heart not to feel?  I think about all of the good times, and then I am reminded of all the bad times.  I remember what brought us here in the first place.  And the other day after hearing your voice, I began to fantasize about us being the way we were in the beginning.  I thought to myself, “Oh, how wonderful it would be for us to be that again…”

Then I began to doubt it, and I remembered the reasons for all of my tears.  I began to ask myself if any of this is even worth it.  What will come out of it?  More pain?  Or perhaps nothing at all - like it has been for so long.  Is the pleasure worth the pain?  Are we just hanging onto a memory?  What’s the point?  Friendship?  I don’t want that.  The bad thing about my “all or nothing” mentality is that if we chose the latter option, I end up even more empty than I am now … if that’s possible.  It’s not that I don’t want us.  I just don’t know if I am what you want. 

The mountains we’d have to climb, the walls you’d have to break down, the skeletons sitting in the closet… I mean, who wants damaged goods, anyway?