To hell with them.

It's been a while. I haven't written in long. I've allowed myself to become closed off, I'm afraid. The past weeks since I last wrote, the weeks of January, February, and most of March have been days of trial. I've had devastation and some real big problems. Yet, I still find the courage to smile, to laugh and to love as best I can, because I've had hope.

Mostly.

I'm always worried what others are going to think. I hate that I barely write. It used to be my essence. I was personal. I shared myself with others. It has been what I do. I have began to understand I am a personal being. My writing is personal. It is the very definition of me. I used to think this was bad, that I was too open. But, so what? 

In being this way I have come to learn that people pass judgments. Friends come and go, as do relationships. Even family members. Sometimes, through my writing, others are inspired. Or forgiving. Or patient, as I unfold myself. Unfortunately, some have been cold. It is these salty sorts which I have allowed to effect me. instead of listening to myself and my gut.

Rarely now do I pick up a phone or sit down to an email and write to a dear friend for advice, asking "what now old pal?" Or, "can you help me?" It has become a resolute fact, this disappointment. And so I have tried to work myself out on my own, seeking the comfort, compassion and empathy of no one, except for a man I sometimes cry to when the burden is unbearable.

I feel glad I can confide in someone, that he is out there and even if I were to write down my entire life's story for everyone on the internet, I would rather tell him my most happiest of joys and darkest of sorrows if I knew I could pour all of it into his lap and feel certain he was strong enough to have it. But now the pressure is built up inside of me and I can't take it anymore and I wish to put it all down for what it is, damn the consequences, damn the backlash. I want to release it and speak of how I feel and let it flow out of me as it comes, whether it be ugly. Whether it be smeared. Whether it be shades of blue, red, black, white. I just want to be me again and do as I do.

I do not care if the things I express are not colored as others picture the painting on the wall that is me. Yes, I chose to put myself on display. But it is what I do. I am not always vibrant. I do not always appear in clarity. My colors may run. I am what I am. I do my very best to be as good as I can be. Yes, my actions, my choices may not always be the best but can I at least share them for myself? Can I at least be allowed to be imperfect, humble, to run my colors, to bleed out?

I have cared too much about what others think of me. I got so melancholy at losing people's faith, friendship or whatever it is they previously had to "give" only to take away, based on their moral high ground. This is my life. It is what it is. Judge me, hate me, encourage me. I don't care much, yet I care enough to show I am at least trying! It, this thing called life, redemption, lessons learned, it matters to me, that I prove to myself. I haven't gathered the proper tools to complete what it is I truly want to be, and to redeem.  I want to be good, to grow and be better. I want to follow my dreams and my heart. I don't want to be a woman lacking  ideas and sound character.

It's only been barely a year since I took my life and went in another direction and confessed how I truly felt. I've made some terrible, hard and bitter choices. Yet, I feel I've defied many. I've made successes in the midst of hard decisions and mistakes. Along the way I've grown, a lot in fact. At least while I've internalized so much burden I've allowed myself room for expansion to hold it all less I erupt in a fit of rage, hopelessness, or desperation.

I guess when if I finally do erupt, I would like to imagine it instead of a giant, grenade-like, volcanic dysfunctional mental splatter, but rather instead as redirecting it all right out of my ass, onto the very people who thought they were so much better, clever and more human than me.