F*ing Love
/Love is such a subjective thing.
I’m sitting outside and the traffic is mesmerizing. I love the way motion catches my attention and I spend a second to acknowledge the color and speed of the passing object. It almost like mediating.
It all sounds very romantic until you realize that the is just a distraction.
The noise of screeching breaks, the smell of exhaust and occasional honk from a distressed traffic sufferer raging inside a two ton metal box.
The contrast is kinda what love looks like, possibly an over used analogy…
I’ve been thinking a lot about how love is felt.
I don’t feel loved. I know I am, I hope I am loved but I cant FEEL it.
Where have my butterflies gone? Why are things colorless and tasteless? I struggle with depression. I think that’s evident in my writing as a whole but there has been a new sharper twist to it lately. Like needles, not unlike a fresh tattoo, except this feelings tattoo is infected.
Each remembered touch of a lover adding more salt to a wound that never seems like anything other than fresh.
From the poet that made me watch them scratch the word love out of every letter they ever wrote me and then burn them while I cried.
The drunk that I shouldn’t have been loving but did in such a way that they never had to hit me to make me ache.
Or the being out of time that I pursued and when they refused my advances, my insecurities created tears so violent that my eyes swelled shut, all the while asking myself why I wasn't good enough.
What have I got for people to love? Why do I think that knowing will bring happiness?
One of the most irritating things about trying to talk to people about this train of thought is the first cliche to fall from their well meaning lips is “You’ve got to love yourself before someone can love you.”
I don't love myself… does that make me undeserving?
I’m a mother now so romantic love isn’t the only love that I have to manage in the grey matter.
The love for a child is so damn intense. These parasites you bring into your home, that you feed, clothe, shelter… the little shits that say “I hate you!” One second and then “I love you more than anything ever!” In the next…
I would do anything for that little human but even that love… isn’t enough sometimes.
“You can't kill yourself, your a mother now.”
Ahhhh yes because this tiny human needs me and my suffering, no matter how great, should always be trumped by that fact.
It should ALWAYS be enough.
Sometimes it simply isn't.
I wish to whatever higher being that might be around that it was but some days it’s an accomplishment to even lift your head from whatever horizontal surface you’ve landed on.
But my kid knows nothing about my suffering. It’s not their job. Being 6 and a half shouldn’t be about managing your parents mental health issues.
My kid knows that mom, dad, step mom, step dad, and step sisters are all team Penny. Her village is massive and she will always be lifted up and if that’s my only accomplishment in life then fuck it that’s it.
I started writing this in July of 2019. I think there is a lot to be said about how time and change are the only constants and although right now my heart seems like it is completely empty… i’ll get up tomorrow.
Its going to suck. I don’t WANT to do it…
But I will do my best for as long as I can.
