Contemplations of a Troubled Mind

When I'm feeling, I write it here.

[keepcalmandwrite]

It feels strange to type here again, yet I find myself needing to. I don't know when the writing left, when the creating no longer became an outlet, when the spark faded. But it did. Sucked into a world of grey and numbness. Of feeling exhausted. Of dragging my feet. A month away from what I've worked for for SO long. For literally 10 years. And i don't even feel joy about that? Insane. Truly. I feel so lost and distant from the person I thought I was, from the person I wanted to be. Scrolling on my phone for hours. Anxious. Depressed. And so tired. I feel like I've closed my true self off from everyone. I feel alone, even though I'm not. Somewhere vulnerability became weakness. Somewhere the parts of myself that felt, that cried, got locked away in the darkest depths of my soul. Is it really just my job? Or is it my life? Is it not doing things that bring me joy? And i sit, a hypocrite, telling people to find those things again. Yet i don't even know where to start, so why should they? I want to cry but I can't. I want to scream, but I can't. I want to crash out, but i can't. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. But what if I can't anymore? What if I can't but I still do? What happens then.

[keepcalmandwrite]

To be honest I've been really fucking mad at you. It's been 2 1/2 years (tbh almost 3) and i am STILL processing what our relationship was and how you treated me. For awhile I felt at peace. But lately I've just been dreaming about how fucked up things used to be and the hell I went through trying to save such a broken relationship.

I know i wasn't perfect either but I deserved more than that. I deserved better than that for a first love.

Also fuck you for saying good relationships are made from hard conversations. I knew that and every time I tried to have one with you you got upset. It sucks that you couldn't have been that for me. I wish i could look back and be grateful for all of that. But im not. Im not at all.

[keepcalmandwrite]

It's been so long since I've written anything...at all. Although I wish COVID would've brought me some creative inspiration and growth, it instead brought a boat load of depression and a lull of any inspiration at all. I've been going to therapy, trying to work out some of the hurt from past loves, unlearn some unhealthy behavior and try to remember how to be happy again. It hasn't been easy. I can't tell if it's getting better or not honestly; all I know is I am exhausted. You are the only constant and even then I feel anxious about us. I guess I'm just hoping that some day soon I'll reach happiness again. And that maybe this time I'll really love myself

[keepcalmandwrite]

Constantly torn between “am I asking for too much” and “I deserve more”.

[keepcalmandwrite]

I’ve been trying to find something that encompasses the feelings I have about you - but it’s been impossible. Maybe it’s because a love like this is indescribable. I think that’s why there’s so much I haven’t been able to write about you.

Loving you is like coming up for fresh air after feeling like you’ve been drowning in anxiety and worry. Its breathing a sigh of relief when I see your face because, with you, everything disappears. It’s wanting to wake up to those bluish green eyes every day for the rest of my life. And I know it, deep down in my soul, that it is you. There are no doubts, no questions, no worries. Just a gratefulness that radiates from my heart because I know that what we have is rare. And that the love I have for you is something that could never diminish, but only grow.

When people say they can picture their lives with someone else, I thought I knew what they meant before you. But now that you’ve come along, I fully understand what they mean. I see us waking up on Saturdays and making breakfast. I see us going frisbee golfing on a Sunday afternoon with our dog. I see our kids, running around the yard, you playing with them and being a goofball. I want my kids to grow up to be like you, their dad. I want that more than anything.

I couldn’t imagine life without you. I don’t want to. You make me feel loved, cared for, appreciated and respected.

You’re the fairytale I always wanted but never thought I deserved. I never could write fairytales. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to write about you.

[keepcalmandwrite]

I am not doing well. I really don’t know who to tell at this point; I don’t really feel like I can tell anyone. If I tell you that puts a burden on you and our relationship that I don’t want because we have had the most perfect 7 months together. I’m scared to tell my best friend because I don’t want her to worry on top of everything else, and I’m scared that she will think I’m doing it for attention. Fuck maybe I am? Telling my mom will just make her worry. It’s funny when you think you always will have someone to tell when you’re feeling so low, but then you get there and you feel like you can’t tell anyone.

I don’t know what’s running through my brain anymore. It’s so full of static, fear, worry, anxiety, confusion loneliness. I can barely get up to function. I mean for fucks sake I’m sitting in my closet sobbing because I don’t know what’s going on in my head and why I’m feeling so fucking low. I haven’t felt this low in such a long time. And i truly don’t know what to do or who to be or where to turn.

The worst part is i can’t even creatively write. My brain just needs to throw everything down on a page because that’s the only way I’ll feel even remotely better.

I want to get help but i don’t even have the time. Or the energy.

I guess i just want someone to question if I’m okay even when i say i am. Someone to understand my soul. I don’t think I’ll ever get that.

[keepcalmandwrite]

I am chaos; there’s really not much more to it. Frankly, my head is full of jumbled noise, constant nagging, and never ending what if’s. But when I’m with you...the noise often quiets, the air becomes a little easier to breathe, the room becomes a little less tight. Time stops, my worries cease (even if just for a second) and I am immersed in you. My heart has never felt these things. I think I thought it did once but they were never as real as they are now, with you. Because with you, it’s stillness, it’s calm. Even with the occasional pull of worry and anxiety, the feelings I get around you feel like home. I know I am complicated; I’ve known this my whole life. And although the complicated can send me into very dark places, it can also send me into places of pure bliss, full of sunlight and trickling streams. With you, love, it’s all sunlight. You quiet my chaos // d.k.

[keepcalmandwrite]

I can’t post this. In fact, I probably have to be careful about where I keep this at all, as it was buried in a compartment in my heart and brain so deep and painful that turning the key opened up a sort of Pandora’s box.

It doesn’t feel good to feel like, maybe, you’re falling out of love with your best friend. The one you pictured life with. The one you saved a spot for in your future. Especially when you’re drawn to something else. Something just slightly different but enough to intice you and leaving you wanting more.

And this is the thing. I don’t know where any of this is coming from. If it’s coming from the inticement of something different or if rather, it’s coming from a darker place full of uncertainty, fear and heartache. A fear that you won’t figure it out; that we will be broken apart because my heart yearns for stability and yours yearns for new adventures Something that easily could drive a wedge between us and stop us from pursuing the future we have so elaborately planned out.

Or if rather it is this other thing that i am so drawn to. The energy I thought we once had but maybe is lacking now. The excitement of new, the smell of vulnerability. As i write this my heart aches. It’s tired and sad and yearns for just you, but is confused by this thing that is now distracting it from you.

Part of me is curious and yet the other part of me is screaming no. And there’s too big a part of me that is uncertain why I am drawn to this thing to cause me to make any decisions. I just hope time will tell, and it’s just a blip in our story that will be forgotten as we find our peace, love each other unconditionally and begin our future together.

When your heart tells you this, LISTEN // (d.k.)

[keepcalmandwrite]

Yesterday you told me some things I always thought you were feeling, but were never quite sure if you knew how you felt or if you meant them. Our relationship is mainly joking around, roasting each other, lots of sex, and lots of laughing. It's passion, and carefree, and happy; a happy and freedom I've never felt. So when you stopped to look me dead in the eyes and tell me that you want me to be your forever, that you want me to eventually be your wife and have your kids and that someday, hopefully, this will be true, you stopped me in my tracks. But I knew you meant every word you said because of the way you said it, and the way you looked at me; the way you look at me every morning. It took my breath away. And I'm not exactly sure where that puts me now. Of course I'm terrified; I'm not there yet. Nor will I be for awhile, I'm sure, given the nature of my last relationship. But the thing is, I know I will get there. I can feel it. And I know that this time around, this could actually be it. You could actually be it. And although I'm scared and excited, I just feel so calm. Calm to know that, maybe just maybe, I'll get to open my eyes every morning to yours for the rest of my life.

This could be it // (d.k.)

[keepcalmandwrite]

It’s different with you. I knew it would be, but I wasn’t sure in what way until I started to fall in love with you. The chemistry between us is explosive, like stars in the night sky, particles scattered across a black sheet after a chemical reaction. Your demeanor when I’m upset is calm and collected; patient and willing to listen making me feel safe, like a home with a crackling fireplace in the freezing cold. The stitches in my side are more often there from laughing so hard rather than from trying to fix the shattered piece of glass that cut me. Most importantly, though, I’m different when I’m with you. I’m happy, I’m free. I feel as if I am complete, not because of you, but because of me. And you are just the icing on top of the cake, the cherry on top of the sundae, the ranch dressing to the mozzarella sticks. Being in love with you is so different, but in every best possible way.

You’re a breath of fresh air // d.k.

[keepcalmandwrite]

I hope you’re doing well. I hope one day we can talk and I can explain what happened (or not, if you don’t want me to). I hope you know that I never allowed anything to happen when we were together. I hope you know that I want the best for you and want to see your life, even though you’ve blocked me on everything. I hope one day you can reach out and we can talk. Because I feel like I just want to remain civil, even if we aren’t friends.

You’ll never read this but maybe putting it into the universe will help (d.k.)

[keepcalmandwrite]

I’ve been feeling a lot of things lately. I’ve been feeling the sun on my face again, like a plant that’s been in the shadows for so long and is finally filling her hunger for the sunlight. I’ve been feeling a complicated emotion of guilt and well wishes, a heart that wants to explain to you what you don’t know but knows that no matter what I say you won’t even have a chance to understand until you are ready to listen. I’ve been feeling love again, and the fear and excitement that comes with falling, something you can’t stop even if you wanted to. I’ve been feeling the doom of all of my best friends leaving, and the change that is about to take over my life, ripping what I’ve known an grown to love right from under me. But most of all I’ve just been feeling grateful. Grateful to have what I have, to have experienced what I have experienced, grateful for what we had and for what I now have. Grateful that I’m here and I’m learning and growing, even if I may fall a couple times. I’m grateful that I can and feel these things so deeply, because it makes everything that much more beautiful.

Growth // (d.k.)

[keepcalmandwrite]

I don’t know if you still read this. Part of me hopes you will find your way back to this page and read this when you’re ready. Because I feel like there was so much I didn’t get to say to you...

I didn’t get to tell you how much I loved us. How happy you made me. How I don’t regret anything about us for a second or in any part of my heart. Because our love was so strong. Our love was magical and there were moments of our time together that I felt as if I was in a dream. God, I loved you more than you will ever know. I still do, and I probably always will.

I need you to not blame yourself for this. I know you tried to make things better and I did too. I know we both fought so hard for this relationship. There just came a point where my heart was tired of fighting. Where I felt like this shouldn’t be as hard as it was. And that our future together, if there was one, was going to be one with more problems and pain. I didn’t want us to end in me resenting you or for us being deeper in and then even more broken when it ended.

Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And these past few days have been some of the shittiest and most confusing days of my life. I’ve tried to drown myself in busy plans and alcohol but the second I sit down by myself I fall apart again. I think about how bad I hurt you and how much I miss you and how much I wish things were different. But in the end, I think it was time for us to end this chapter in our stories.

I hope you find a love more magical than ours one day. Someone who can do better than I did. Someone who makes more sense. I hope that maybe one day you can tell me about them. But if not that’s okay. I just hope you find all the happiness and love in the world. Because you deserve it.

For J // (d.k.)

[keepcalmandwrite]

And just like that there was a distance between us so large that even our love couldn’t build a bridge.

Tough realizations //d.k.

[keepcalmandwrite]

I know my relationship isn’t perfect. I understand there are wrinkles we need to iron, cracks we need to fill, problems we need to work through. But I also know that the love we have is deep. It’s rooted deep in the heart, its long flowering vines growing through my body to my fingertips and toes. It’s the spread of warmth that seeps through you after you sit by the fireplace after a frigid day. Laughing until your stomach hurts, smiling until your eyes grow crow’s feet, talking until you lose your voice. It’s hearing a song for the first time that shakes your soul, the one that stays on repeat for years. It’s a storybook, once in a lifetime type of love. And that, that, is something I will forever be grateful for.

Things change when you fall in love // d.k.

[keepcalmandwrite]

I don’t write much anymore. I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t have time or if it is because writing is my escape, my safe haven from the fire and chaos that surrounds me. Because I haven’t felt the need to escape much lately. I am surrounded by light, by laughs, by morning coffee talks, warm hugs, kind words, and endless support. It’s like I finally feel like I’m not alone here. As if, after all this time, I am home.

It gets better // d.k.

[keepcalmandwrite]

Realizing your parents maybe were never meant for each other is one of the hardest realizations of becoming an adult.

No longer naive (d.k.)