Bricks and Pieces.

I reach out to feel it, the coldness and the pockets and grooves in the bricks. The cement in between each one.
This is most definintely a brick wall.
I pull back, the wall getting smaller as I pull away from it, already sore from before. As fast as I can, with all of my strength, again, I throw myself. Because everything I need is Inside of that wall and I need to get into it. Not on either side, INSIDE. so I try again. Gearing myself up, I connect with it, and ricochet off, again. I can feel the bruise pooling under my shoulder, the same one I've always used, a new fresh bruise where the last one was just starting to go grey. I want to cry. I have that feeling just under the skin, just behind the parts of myself I can feel, welling up. And I know that she is coming because she always comes after I connect with the wall instead of melding into it. The voice in my head that starts to tell me unless I take the wall down brick by brick and rebuild around myself, I'll never have a chance at being in the middle of it. I'm not a stone mason, I dont know how to build a brick wall.
So I sit. and I look at the wall. It's been there forever. I've never so much as put a chink in it, and I never really will.
Then she starts to whisper, in her darker voice, that I feel in the back of my head and the pit of my chest, because she is  a feeling more than a person, that I should just simply walk around and see whats on the other side.
  And this time, like every time before, I come a little closer to standing up and walking around it like she's asking me to. And every time I wonder how many more times before I do.

What happened to thinking that the world was flat? What happened, what happened to that ?

It's like breathing, The way if you think about it , you have to think, for the next few minutes, "Breathe in, Breathe out", you have to do it manually, even though if you forgot, your body would remember, Your body would slip into that circadian rhythm and do it for you. My heart is like that sometimes. Even when I forget that the ache is there, my body, my heart remembers to keep feeling for me, to keep missing, to keep breathing in hope and out the exhaustion that comes with it.

I'm all caught up in myself and most days I don't even realize, most days I think I'm perfectly normal, but my heart remembers all the time.

" I saw pictures in my head, and I swear I saw you opening up again"

My new years resolution?

I made a whole posterboard. But, really, it boils down to

Stop impeding your own progress.

promises promises

I will not apologize for my feelings to anyone, regarding anything. Write a one act play. share myself in a real way again. come from a place of yes. treat writing like a career I will not wear a scarlet letter. Dress the way I see myself. Go back to school. Take some kind of vocal lesson. Stop trying to earn back people who do not deserve me. Mend my heart. Apologize to those who deserve it, let go of those who don't. Blog. Read Literature as much as possible. Create a youtube channel. I do not hide how I feel in order to protect relationships. Choose my words carefully. Think of myself as woman, not a girl. Ask for help when I need it. Forgive her. I will continue to let my heart be my compass. Have sex again. Write lyrics and don't be afraid to share them with others. Further my independence. Little victories. Journal the way I used to. Take care of and love my body. Perform at an open mic night. Tattoo. I will not apologize when it's not my fault. Write letters to adrienne weekly. I will allow my self to experience my emotions as they are happening , regardless of what they are. Love Fearlessly. Reclaim my life.

These are promises I've made myself, the things I wrote all over my 2011 poster. Vows I made to myself, definitions of who I am that I'm going to live by, things I aspire to, things to remind myself. This blog, is not going to be a blog for me to lament and complain about 201o. This is not what this is.

" all the pieces, pieces, pieces of me "

(Excerpt. To be entered in a local " narrative short " contest.)

The night of our first kiss was nothing short of cosmic. Truly. The kind of feeling you can only hope for, and at the same time, tell yourself isn't real, as you watch all the clark gable and cary grant "swept up in you" Notting hill kind of moments.

We drove out of town, talking the entire way. Partly because I wanted to fill any silence that might become awkward and spoil the momentum we were slowly building, and mostly because the conversations I had with him were better than any other one's Id ever had. God, I realize now how young I was -- how full of idealism and dreams. I wanted to stop talking alltogether, unless it was to him. To save up all of my words an ideas for him, for us.

He pulled the car over, into the quaint parking spaces of a park. "Let's walk" he said, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car. I willed my knees to stop knocking , though this seemed impossible.

One of the many things that played in my head, in the weeks after, and even now, is the act of taking his arm. It seems so simple, but it was crossing a barrier. IF we touched before it was just touching, but now it was something more. It was myself folding into a fold of him. My young romantic self took note of everything.

We walked in the lightly sprinkling mist, across a cement path that cut through some grass. It occured to me for but a moment to worry about being seen and by who, but this was outside of my world, a different place. My heart was racing too loud to let my voice of reason get a word in edge wise.

He steered me towards a park bench. It was cold out, moist, and chilling. To be honest, I was freezing. My teeth were chattering and he was looking at his hands. The same ones I stared at whenever I had a chance.

We had a few moments of conversation. I remember we talked about movies, and jokes. He reccomended a song. I laughed a few dozen times too many. And then it got quiet.

" I don't want to scare you. I don't want to be some creepy person who hurts you or makes you feel like you owe me something. That isn't what these feelings are."

The breath before my reply was the deepest one I've ever inhaled. Every word, needed to fall carefully. It was now I needed my strength of word choice, and now when my mind was failing me. If being well worded my superpower, his proximity was kryptonite. But I carried through.
"I know what I'm getitng into. I can't ignore how I feel, and I'm not afraid of you."

"Ok then" he said, like it was the simplest answer in the world. His arm slid up around my shoulder and he pulled me in.


I vividly remember, every single detail about those next ten seconds. The way his head turned, and the way , but a few seconds before, the mist had turned into those drops that come in warning of a pending rainfall. He tasted like stride gum, coffee, and everythign Id ever dreamt of. I giggled, in a knee jerk reaction, and pulled back just a bit. I apologized, and he slipped his tongue into my mouth. He had was on my face, soft and at the same time, the kind of worn that comes from working to create something beautiful. I wanted to kiss him until I ran out of oxygen. Until I forgot everything I'd learned up until that moment. It sounds cliche and probably anti feminist, but I was restructured that moment in the park twenty minutes outside of town. on an old bench in the almost rain.

Who I was didn't miraculously change, rather, she burst into something she'd always wanted to be. Not because of him, but because of who I'd let myself become, because of the fear I'd thrown aside, and the choice I'd made to love with everything I had, at the risk of everything I had, for as long as I had.

"Isabelle what can I do? The last thing I need is to end up askew"

When I up and left for San Diego, I had no idea where I was going. Half thrown out of my parent's house, and half running away to never look back, I landed on my aunt's couch without any idea where I was going. Terrified. Angry. Blaming my parents for every mistake they've ever made to screw up my life. Trying as hard as I could not to let anyone see why I wasn't okay. Trying to not let myself see that I wasn't okay. Nursing a feeling of mistrust and a lack of faith in people in general that my last year has given me, and wishing I could just turn off the way I did in September. climb in bed for a few weeks, and wait untl the storm blew over. My first morning here, my beautiful aunt took me out and told me, pointblank, that If I wanted to stay I could, but it wasn't going to be easy. Those first weeks in San Diego, were grueling. I went to be freezing every night -- only to get up and down a million times, to pace the unfamiliar house, watch the television, and ache for the comforts of a home long gone. I didn't just grieve my home, I grieved the family I thought I had. I grieved the way it used to be, at least the better version of who we were. I graved coming home from a long night at school to a note on the counter and some food in the fridge. I grieved when my father was simply a hardworking jerk who cared about his family and did everything he could to provide. I grieved the sanity of my mother. I grieved the friendships I spent years cultivating. I grieved my relationship, all over again, because I was in a new place -- and if my old bed had felt lonely, my new one, the strange one I couldn't ever place a memory of having been held in, seemed as vast as any dark forboding body of water. I grieved my friendships with friends who I hadn't realized I cared about. It's easy to see the goodthings about people you wrote off, when you're a million years away from who you were, and all alone. I felt as though there wasn't a single person in the world who wasn't going to look at me and say "there she is, Hester with the scarlet letter" or something less dramatic but equally implicating me as a whore. I was tired. and Cold. I was afraid and anxious. I was realizing for the first time how on my own I truly am. I felt pressured, I felt scared. I felt like my wonderful aunt who so kindly saved me from destitution, was riding me as hard as possible, and I couldn't do anything right. Be awake by six thirty. No wearing pajamas after seven. No idle time. etc. These are all things I'm going to say, are great. But I wanted them to be decisions for myself. I knew she was helping me, I was just terrified of the level of maturity she had set for me to reach. The bar was too high. I missed highschool. Gradually though, things shifted. I found myself waking up on my own, earlier and earlier in the morning. I grew to enjoy the habits my benefactor was trying to help me develop. I began writing down my goals, making to do lists, looking for work, and exploring the new world around me. By the time Haylan came to visit, I was ready to break out of the glass case I'd set up around myself in the middle of september. I found a reason, to get out of bed in the mornings, without forcing myself, without contemplating utter defeat, without wishing I could stay in my sweatpants all day. In a swift 24 hours, Haylan saw the things that I see. And I had a partner in crime. The whirlwind that was our decision to move into a converted garage studio behind the house, and find jobs, happened in a matter of 48 hours. There we were. In business. Here I am now, a different person. I wouldn't describe myself anymore as the girl who lost her way. I am a woman, who can take care of herself. I am a woman who goes to work and balances a budget and cleans her apartment and cooks meals. I go to work with AMAZING people, and I have friends who say things like "What are we doing after work tonight ? " I get excited to get ready for work, and I get excited to come home, to MY home, that belongs to ME. To decompress, to lounge, to think. I found things I want out of life that I didn't even realize I want, and I found things that I didn't know if they even existed. I've always said I want to get up and love going to work, no matter how menial my job is. I LOVE going to work. I love talking to people, and raising awareness about a cause I really truly agree with. I love san diego. The coffee shops. The stores that are open 24 hours. The jackinthebox behind my house that I've already frequented WAY too much. I love having dinner a couple nights a week with my roommate and my aunt. I love having a glass of wine when it's late and we're eating dinner under the stars . Hell. I just love having a glass of wine. I have my days, believe me, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. There are nights when Haylan is with mike, or I turn down what may have been a date, or a certain song plays on the radio, that I know I'm having a bad night. But I get through these, I push past loneliness and fear and anything else that tries to creep in and make me crazy, by pushing forward. By continuing to build a life for myself that I can share when I'm not so lonely. I'm ten times the person I was six months ago, and I know I can only grow exponentially more. I guess this is all really written for me today, to tell myself that I'm okay. That I've gotten out of the town I hated, and created a life for myself. This is a reminder to myself that everything else I want that seems as far fetched as that dream I had to run away and start over as a starving artist, is just as attainable as this was. I'm going to keep focusing on getting the things I want out of my life, that are in my control to achieve. I'm kind of a big deal.


current jam / guilty pleasure : This Album. This Song.

"Tomorrow if a golden train came to take me away, would you go or would you stay?"

I don't have the most commonplace idea of "Family."

We hear so many times "You can't choose your family" or "I love them because they're my family" etc. I don't believe that this is what "family" is. "Family" Is not the people you are related to. The parents I was born to, the siblings I grew up with, these people are my Relatives. I'm not saying Family and Relatives can't be the same people, but they are not synonymous definitions. To me, Family is defined by the people who you want in your every day life, your support system. the people who make you feel safe to be who you are, to be open and warm and loved, those people who you know don't ever want to hurt you, those who lift you up, fight for you, would die for you, help you and want to see you do well. Maybe I'm biased, but this idea of family, is not what most people's "relatives" are.

I have some pretty shitty relatives.

My children, will not be my relatives. they will be my family. My best friends, the two of them are my family. The love of my life is my family, my sister is my family. My aunt who took me in when I had nothing and helped me build a new life, is my family.

The people who sat with me and held my hair back as I shook and cried and was sick with grief, who told me to get out of bed and move on, the people who stayed in my life when everyone else walked out, the people who I'd do the very same for,

They are my family.

My family is a wonderful group of people. And I'm so blessed to have them in my life, in whatever capacity they can be. I love my family. Even though I've built it piece by piece on my own, at this point in my life, I wouldn't have it any other way.