Ashes

I have spent years running from the idea that there is anything healthy in an all-consuming love. The type of love you read about in every fiction book involving relationships – the type of love that exudes passion, desire, constant state of need/want of the other person. Never a moment when you don’t want to devour the one you love. Even in the moments of fights, you still want to touch and when you let something separate you – you literally spend weeks starving, sad, hurt and realizing that you can’t really run away from the one that is love.

 

I have chosen comfort, consistency and family. A family I never really felt I had on my own, one that chose me for me, not loving me out of necessity to help a child survive. Don’t get me wrong, I have great love from so many that stepped in to love me and ensure that my needs were met above and beyond. It’s strange though, my blood family may have seen one another often and kept this illusion that they all had one another’s best interest at heart, but the reality of it is – out of sight out of mind in my experience.

 
Seven years ago, I met a man that is without a doubt one of the most honorable men and best people out there, he cared for me in a gentle way - without expectation, agenda or a need to tell me that I needed to be anything other than me. He showed me and has continued to show me that I have to love myself, I can’t be ruled by the brokenness of the past, I can’t let the hurt or insecurities developed over time dictate how I take the words or care given to me now. It may seem cheesy but it’s in that care that we have woven together so much beauty. I would hope that similarly there have been many things that I have been able to provide for him as well. We are not married, and never will - that has often plagued me with confusion and frustration; but over the course of the last year I have realized, it’s not really necessary for us to wed in a traditional sense to prove to ourselves or others that we have a relationship that surpasses a traditional concept of matrimony. I would say we have what many people desire seeing in their own relationships: we have communication, freedom, foundation of care, family, financial stability, adventure and comfort. It’s quite beautiful. I love it, it’s not easy – it’s not the ‘norm’, but it’s us.

I do know what the all-consuming love feels like; I felt it. It’s there always desiring to consume me. She’s always ready to hand me her world, because I know that I am the world to her… I fight it most days, but she’s etched into every part of my being; music, shows, the leaves changing colors with the season, the minuscule weirdness of getting an appleTV, and so many places I go – I see her, hear her and I feel her every day. I am certain I have for 10 years – I tried so hard to not like girls then, but we knew. Over the years, we tried – seems we could never fully keep away. The brush of our arms touching on a drive, the lingering sensation with every hug, the days coming and going wanting nothing more than moments of conversation or the inability to not melt into one another’s bodies – it’s intoxicating.

But… I am incapable of letting myself take the risk for either of us that is always waiting on the other side of us choosing us. From the beginning, I have made excuses; I have ran, hurting her – honestly all while hurting myself; but I can’t phantom the reality of what choosing me would do to her. She never had to know what not having family was, it’s so tangled into who she is, she was given a family that she loves and I will never be one of them. If they did ever one day accept who we are, they would love me only for need of maintaining what they want, it would have nothing to do with genuine care, without wishing I / we were something different. I’ve never been capable of asking her to make that sacrifice, though I have on many occasions, I in the end always HURT us….

 
I used to hope that she would make the choice, pursue the freedom that I have been allowed to have with the family I have become so close to, but there’s still so much weirdness – and I struggle to trust her. I struggle to trust that at the end of the day, she would pick me; especially, when picking me results in heart ache so extreme of losing what she loves. I don’t feel I am worth that type of separation. Because even if we surrendered to the consumption, it would not be with ease. I am still working on me, the work to heal.

I snap, I break, I am not always successful at not letting the past hurt and impact how I respond and react.

 But when is it too late, when do you stop hoping that beauty from the ashes will be yours? There’s so many choices along the way that hinder the ability to see choosing passionate love is healthy. I think I sabotage so much of us along the way because I am scared, I am scared to let myself need and want her. I fear I will always be running, I am always one step away from crushing you / crushing myself. The consequences of my actions project a perception that I don’t love her the way she loves me, it’s not real – I to hate living without her and I believe that I love her as far as I am capable. She’s never suffering alone, but instead of not suffering by choosing each other, I continually make the choice for us to suffer alone.. Separately.

 When we are together, I fail. When we are apart – I am failing, she’s in every part of my day, but I can’t touch her – I am too often left with my tears. Too often left trying to sour her existence, sour us. It’s so easy to throw in the towel and use the hurt and the past as an excuse to push us away from one another. But at the end of the day, I have ran. I have ran from the adversity, the confusion, the potential loss. Run so far, how do we heal?

 

I have a plethora of imperfections, scars I am hiding and with the constant fear of brokenness. In allowing myself to be consumed by the fear, acceptance that consuming love is unhealthy, I have let brokenness consume me. The heart break here, is not a season of heart break – but rather a reality that the heart will remain broken as long as I am running, excusing distance, trying to destroy and reject.

"All I ask is, can beauty come out of ashes?"

***Tears from turbulence

What do I have to be anxious for? 

If the day is the last, what's left when I am no longer present... 

will my tomorrow be a heaven? 

What control do you have anxiety?

I'm so tired of your presence, anxiety. 

I've lived a life that has with open arms welcomed your characteristics. I too often encourage mistrust, with my my less than honorable actions - that plead to be anxious and see things that are not. 

When I'm gone some of my days of shame and regret will hurt... And for that I'm pained. 

In my humanity, the impulse to live out desires - to control... has not always led to actions worthy of respect. 

I don't blame anyone - since an early age I've always known I've needed control. I'm not sure where it started or when.. the insecurity - hardness in my chest afraid someone won't love me, the lack of air when I'm afraid of being alone.. the deafening sounds of silence! 

Always, always wanted control. Control is protection from those things, right? As if! 

Men in my life and women - not just a male Sex power struggle. But 'people', often took control of me, violated my space without permission, touched me too close or never came home to hug me close enough. 

When you spend so long seeing touch being too much when left up to someone else, but also hurting in its absence - how do you win? 

I often take matters in my own hands and push boundaries, to see how far I can go.. how much can I push and remain in control, remain the one to know the next hand to be dealt, to be one step ahead. 

It bites me in the ass more than not.

I have come so far, forgiving those that crossed too far, and loving those that were once not close enough! 

I don't really believe we can right all of our wrongs. We can't force a feeling, thought, or healing process on anyone - we can offer apologies.. where there's true sentiment / regret, but that doesn't always right the path - and can't always be the solace someone else may need! 

That's the danger of always wanting control, you risk truly hurting someone else. And usually the ones you wish to love the most. 

Be it your double standards, or lack of freedom, control is stifling. It feels like such a high in moments, but with control - anxiety, worry, pressure, regret and the weight of the world is often there to follow! 

In the past, I thought it best to "let go of control", but as I grow I'm beginning to wonder/ realize the beauty is truly in how you utilize your talent.

Maintaining a position in which you carry the variety or the masses, is talent. Analyzing things to know more, question more, see beyond - predict next steps with data collected, pivot quickly, listen intently; these qualities come as characteristics of the talents..  being able to lead people requires control. 

Leading others, directing an event, mastering certain skills, all of these positive possibilities require control - and how you use determines the sweetness or the bitterness experienced next. 

But Fucking anxiety - how do I hand over the control I've worked so hard to obtain? It's baffling, constant vicious battle! 

Controlling things out of your lane, fosters anxiety and then anxiety, somehow can gain control of you. 

See when you work on controlling things that aren't yours, you may just find either someone else that's stronger, more capable of the evil use of their talents, or the dark angel anxiety. 

I claim anxiety as a dark angel, saying "demon" sounds too harsh, because I think a bit of anxiety, is good to keep you in check - it does foster questions and questions foster curiosities and curiosities hope for growth!  

Riding on a plane once, the turbulence almost brought me to tears... but then, I thought to myself, working my heart beat up isn't going to change any possible outcome. I had to laugh at myself - "yea girl, your tears ain't gonna drive this plane into safety!" 

When you can laugh at yourself hard enough, to check yourself - you know that from that moment, change has to occur. 

I'm not sure I will ever fully have a healthy balanced relationship with control, but I can strive to remember to laugh at myself sooner than later to realize - I'm not always the Boss of a moment, but I'm always the boss of me. How I chose to see, hear, reflect and move - that's on me! 

I do not need the power to control someone else's actions to protect myself, I must protect myself in realizing that it's not always my move! 

"If I can't control it, I'm not going to let it control me...

Why waste energy on the what ifs of things you can't control.."

Journey to Happiness

Do you ever sit back and take time to appreciate, You?

Yea, me either. However, I think I realized that sitting back and appreciating yourself is truly key to being able to be ‘happy’ in your moment (sure I will have to realize more often than not – much easier to bitch and complain). The last two months have been challenging, overwhelming, 6 plus flights from Jamaica to Maine and over 3,500 miles of driving; but as I sit and reflect over where I am – it’s been the most rewarding two months of my life in many ways. I have made mistakes, had anxiety attacks, yelled, been hella aggressive, but I have also been able to celebrate success in honesty, success of not having an anxiety attack as a passenger in a car, spoken softly, genuinely tried to listen, and seen my moments where aggression isn’t the answer – it’s sometimes just best to bow out gracefully, well sometimes I am the least graceful human alive – but one can try. Those successes are however not entirely of my own doing, there’s no way on Earth or in this Universe that I would have achieved these moments without my community.

Community is a strange thing, home is a strange thing. Until I moved to Denver almost 3 years ago (seriously two weeks from 3 years??), I never envisioned myself being successful in anyway outside of a far-fetched dream. I definitely never imagined having the community of humans in my life that I do have today – some have existed for decades, but regardless of the time present in my life or how often we are able to see one another - the humans in my life literally make me. It’s hard to explain to some how much they mean to me, especially when I am not physically present as often as I would like – but truly the people in the community I get to exist in, absolutely make the world look a WHOLE lot better! Seriously, every single one of them.

It’s been a trying season not getting to be settled in my own ‘home’, a life on the go seems fun at first; but reality, it is HARD. I mean, it is fun – I love getting to visit with my community all over the country, making all the memoires to add to the books. No joke though, having to separate yourself from familiarity is often the exact medicine you need to evaluate what you have. Sitting in this random ass town outside of Boston, Mass. – I am able to see a bigger picture of this random crazy life I get to live. Sitting here, I am able to look back on these last few months and plan for the upcoming even crazier travel months, but reflect on the journey. The journey that’s definitely been full of real human shit: good, bad, ugly, pretty, prettier, ugliest and all of it…. Which makes you realize, ‘you da been through some shit, dude!’, but it’s in the same breath that you ask yourself, ‘how in the fuck did I get so lucky?’… like seriously!

Having to take a moment & sit back to ask myself: what does success really look like for me? What does it take for you to realize how lucky you are to be alive? Do we ever really reach happiness? Is it all just the pursuit of happiness? Really, what are you trying to do, Pam?

I am not stating a fact for anything other than my own reality and I would have to say; success looks like you! I am hella lucky to be alive. Who the fuck knows what Happiness really is? I think the goal is really just to pursue it – pursue the FUCK out of shit that makes you, makes you tick, and makes your heart sing kind of stuff. Success looks like the damn journey of ALL of it! Self-talk for real - the moves you making dude, isn’t it literally every damn thing you ever dreamed of and more? It truly is – everything and more.

Really taking time to process through the journey I have been on since November is crazy. Doing it all sometimes isn’t possible, it hurts… it’s hella easy to start beating myself up for the shortcomings, but it’s so rewarding to step back and appreciate yourself before you beat yourself into a place that’s really hard to get out of…. I don’t want to go into a hole or be known for complaining and existing in excuses. I want to rejoice in the pursuit of happiness. Trying my damndest to make it through, love on all the human I have, and all the opportunities.

Now, let’s be real – sometimes I suck epically and you have to deal with that junk. You have to have the people in your corner that aren’t afraid to tell you that you are being fucking cray or screwing some shit up. Those people, are usually the real ass soul mates! Sometimes I suck at not being thankful for where I am or how I got here, sometimes I wish for something different without really evaluating what I have – don’t recommend that space for too long.

Fact of it all is, I am realizing that though I have preached it for as long as I can remember – Life is a journey. Finding happiness shouldn’t be the ultimate goal, but pursuing it – sure the hell doesn’t hurt and helps enhance you! Success isn’t comparing yourself to the CEO, comparing yourself to the married girl sitting next to you with pictures of the cutest babies, the house your best friend was able to buy and you still can’t – it’s actually being authentically you and in pursuit of what makes you and what you will make next step to only elevate you into the next steps of your journey. Community is key for it all though, no joke – hug your humans, text them, call them – introvert or extrovert, don’t forget that we were not meant to exist as an individual – but truly an authentic you that plays your part right where you are.

This isn’t the message maybe for everyone, it’s not absolute truth for the entirety of man – but it’s me. It’s the place I exist in, it’s the success I am choosing to rejoice in & it’s ultimately the truth that I will be rehearsing.

“Happiness is a deep sense of flourishing, not a mere pleasurable feeling or fleeting emotion but an optimal state of being.” – Matthieu Ricard