Levick Avenue

This was a lonely weekend.  Friday was filled with love and laughter, but Saturday and this morning have been filled with sadness.  Yesterday I was scribbling and wasn't paying much attention to what I was scribbling.  Today I looked at the pad of paper and realized that I scribbled a bunch of balloons with sad faces on them.

I woke up early this morning and my whole jaw hurt.  Bruxism.  Happens when I'm having issues coping with life.

I got in my car and brought it to the car wash.  I left and it was still pretty dirty.  (Haven't washed it in a year or so, so the dirt is sort of embedded into my vehicle's soul).  I cruised through northeast Philly.  I ate my breakfast in a parking lot off of Frankford Avenue and observed the people around me walking on the sidewalk and looking busy.

I came home to my messy room.  (If there's one thing that my best friends know about me, it's that when my room is a mess.. it's merely a direct reflection of my brain.  I'm a disaster these days.)  There's poetry sprawled out all over my unvaccummed carpet.  My hands are covered in dirt from the car wash.  I smell like grease.

Last night I said to Alex, "I'm so fed up."  And I am.  I am just so fucking fed up.  I'm trying to see the sunshine in the cave that is my current life, but caves are caves and sunshine doesn't adventure through those.  I need to bust through the rock and head out to a beautiful meadow, but it's so hard.  I'm starting to realize that some things are just out of my control.

And I'm just so discouraged.  It's been letdown after letdown after letdown for over a year now.  I just want to be happy.  I want to look out my window at the leaves blowing in the wind and I want that to be enough.  When I drive down Boyer Avenue and talk through my window to the friendly biker riding his bicycle down the road, I want his smile to engrave itself into my mind and bring me happiness that lasts longer than a millisecond.

It's hard.  Life is hard.  Doesn't matter what your struggle is.  You're undatable.  You can't find a job.  Your dad is in the hospital.  You have nobody.  You are in debt.  Every struggle is a struggle, and every struggle hurts.  And I wonder, is this just the tip of the iceberg.  I'm 26 years old and I've cried more in the last past six months than I've cried in my entire life.  I'm apathetic but I'm also hurting.  I'm jaded and I pretty much give up.  I feel scared to know that it could get worse.  There may be years where it's harder than this.  There may be days where I'll feel even more worthless than I do right now.

That hurts so much.  I want to enjoy this beautiful earth.  I want to feel the cool summer breeze on my pale skin and I want that to make me smile.  Is that so much to ask for?  I'm trying with everything that's inside of me, but I'm starting to realize that this is not in my hands.  Happiness isn't something that you can just take whenever you want.  Sometimes, even if you have the most positive attitude in the whole entire world, nothing heals your wounds and nothing changes anything.  You look around and everything is still dark and empty.

I want to fill up the hole in my heart.  I want to run to Home Depot, pick up some cement, mix it up and pour it into the large empty hole.  But that in itself hurts.  I don't want to have a hard cement heart.  I don't want to feel desensitized or broken.  I want to find someone worth loving and I want them to have a nice, beautiful healthy heart that's free of cement and holes.  I want it to be sensitive, and I want them to be careful with it.

So how do you heal a heart?  Time isn't doing a thing.  It's making me colder and colder and, in general, just so careless.  It's a "if you can't beat them, join them" mentality that's growing inside of me.  If the world is going to give me a cold, empty heart.. at some point I am just going to have to be a cold, empty person just to get by.  You can't be a happy person with a ruined heart.

I don't even have any dreams anymore.  Where did they go?  Even two weeks ago I had a few dreams left and they seemed to have fallen into the black hole that lives in my chest.  I don't want a black hole, I don't want an empty heart, I don't want to feel jaded, I don't want to be discouraged, I don't want to feel unimpressed with this beautiful world, I don't want to hate myself, I don't want to be dreamless...

But some things, as I now have learned, are the way that they are. Like dad once told me.

Couldn't make it to 10

It's like I forgot how to live.  Time for a freewrite.  It's 3:34.  I'd like to do this for at least ten minutes:

I'm sitting on the floor.  The air conditioner is on and I'm eating baby carrots out of a bag.  I'm bare footed and wearing those yoga pants that I get so much attention in.  I'm wearing a form-fitting tank over a bright purple sports bra.  I like this.  I look in the mirror and see my beautiful little curves that fall in all of the right places.

Today I got into my car and I was determined to pay off my car loan.  But I drove past the bank by accident twice.  TWICE.  So I drove down to South Philly to buy a bike.  But they didn't have what I wanted.  So I drove back up to North Philly to the bike shop that had what I wanted, and I didn't buy one there either.  Instead I sat in a food court slowly eating a salad.  With each bite I could feel the tears welling up in my pathetic little eyes.

It's like I forgot how to live.  I don't remember how to smile a genuine smile anymore.  It's all filler and "I'm being nice."  So I got home and saw an envelope in the mailbox.  Opened it up.  Apparently my last place of employement opened an IRA for me without me even knowing it.  So Old Nicole is $908 richer.

Instead of being happy, I just thought, "Great, if I fucking make it that far."  59 and a half is a tall order for such an empty girl.  Such a tall, tall fucking order.

I just don't know how to be happy.  I went to visit my family this weekend and smiled fake smiles.  I left early because I just couldn't take it anymore.  I don't even know what to do anymore.

I swear, I just flat out forgot how to live.  I don't want to do it anymore. I barely make it through each fucking day anymore.  I said to my sister, "Marie, just making it through the fucking day is one heck of a fucking struggle."  JUST breathing.  It feels like such a fucking task when you don't even have a reason to breathe anymore.

Why the fuck do I even exist?

I hate what you've done to me

I'm going to get to the bottom of this.  10 minute freewrite, minimum.  Starting at 6:40.

I hear the air conditioner humming to my right.  I have the light on above me.  My sheets are under my warm legs- You know, you've slept in them.  You rolled in them.  Your warm body was so beautiful and I kissed your tattoos.  I said "I love you" and "Go ahead, go to sleep, I don't mind."  I went downstairs and talked to a somewhat stranger at the party about our relationship.  He was impressed.  He said I was lucky.  I felt like I was.

But then you broke me.  You broke me and shattered me like a piece of China and I'm still shattered on the floor.  No one even swept me away yet.  I just lay there as helpless as can be, staring at the wooden floor below me.

My life hurts so bad right now.  It hurts to live.  To breathe, to think.  I know I'm capable of great things.  I know I'm beautiful, healthy.  I know I'm smart, fun, funny.  But I just hardly make it through each day.  Even when I indulge in a smile here and there over silly things, deep down my heart is so broken that the happiness over silly things fades quickly.  A friend just leaves the room and I'm instantly back to extreme sadness.  I feel it crawling on every extremity on my body.  I feel it marinating in my brain, blocking my eyesight.  I can't see anything worth seeing anymore, it seems.

I just live.  I just make it from day to day mourning over you.  Hating myself with every fiber of my being.

I don't understand what I did to deserve this.  This better lead me to a beautiful meadow with tall grasses and beautiful flowers.  Never in my life has my soul suffered this much.  Never.

I went crazy last night and blew some of my savings by paying off a student loan that I probably wasn't ready to pay off yet.  I canceled the LSAT.  I returned my study materials.  I don't even want to live.  How in the fuck can I get a good score on the LSAT if I don't even want to live?

So I went to work and made it through the day.  I was more tolerable than usual, I think, because I only had one thorn in my side (you) and not two (studying).

My insomnia is back.  I tossed and turned for hours last night, eyeballs burning with tiredness but body tossing from side to side, unable to sleep.

Sunday was good though.  My mom and dad came down.  We went to Manayunk, then South Street for a restaurant.  We went on a long walk to Penn's Landing.  We stared at the Delaware. My parents told me that they loved me.

They love me more than I love myself.  I hate myself.  I hate myself for being whoever I am that made you not want me.  I don't know what to do anymore.  Casual sex?  Hiding from the world in my blankets?  Drinking myself to a stupor?

I'm running out of options.  And I don't even want to be alive anymore.

Being myself

"I fell in love with you and you backed up."  Is that so, Chris?  Because that's not how I remember it.  But I have shitty memory so I could be wrong.

I told him that we both fucked up.  We're both guilty.

Everyone keeps saying that one day Andrew will be having a similar discussion with me.  I hope not.  I hope I never have to hear his voice or see his face or read his texts or type his name ever again.  I threw away his rose today.  I threw away his pen today.  I deleted all of his texts today.  I am FURIOUS.  I fucking hate him.

I hate him because he made me hate myself.  I hate the way I look, the way I feel.  I hate how unintelligent I think I am.  I hate my voice, my eyes, my hair, my body.  I hate my soul. I hate the girl that cries in her bed every night.  I hate the girl that can't even fake being happy around the people that she cares about.  I hate the girl who has been binge eating.  The girl who was starving herself a month ago.  I hate myself with makeup on, makeup off.  I hate my skin tone, my lack of desire to do any fucking thing other than study and mope.  Study and mope.  Study and mope.

For about five days now, the only thing I've wanted to do was die.  That's it.  Just die.  What have I done to deserve this much torment?  Was it my lack of empathy when Brian was killed?  Was it the fact I broke up with Kevin?  Was it my backing away from all of the people who've fallen in love with me because I wasn't ready?

I don't think any fucking thing I've ever done could ever warrant this amount of mental anguish.  It's not fair.  I just want to be Nicole again.  That's all.  I've never struggled this hard JUST TO BE MYSELF.

Human suffering

When I was younger, I didn't get it.  I hated going to visit family.  I always felt like the black sheep.  I always felt like no one truly cared about me, despite the fact that they often told me otherwise.  Now I'm older and I get it.  I was a selfish child.  Family isn't about selfishness.  It's about selflessness.  It's about looking at the smile on your little nephew's beautiful smiling two year old face and loving every second of his happiness, despite how empty you yourself might be.

When my other nephew graduated from high school and he stood there in his cap and gown making silly faces with me into the camera, I felt the same happiness that was flowing through his veins.  I am so happy for him and his future.  I hope it is the most beautiful one that the world can provide for him.  I hope that for all of my nieces and nephews.  All of my family.  My cousins, my parents, my grandmother.

I sat in a chair while my sister talked about her brain cancer this weekend.  How she was afraid that she was going to die alone.  I cried.  I love my sister so much, and when she hurts, I HURT.  It hurts so bad.  And it makes me look at my life and say, "Things are okay.  If my sister can do it, I can do it."

When I sat in the car for three hours talking to my mom about my 401k and how I made my dad the number one beneficiary because I worry for him, since my mom is so much older than my dad and he really doesn't have much of anything and she's not married to him, it also hits me. I love my parents more than anything in the world and I want them to live comfortable lives when they get older.  I worry so much.  They've worked so hard their whole lives to provide for me and I want to make such a good salary when I get older so that when need be, I can support them AND myself comfortably.  They deserve that.

It hurts so bad to have a missing spot in my heart.  I hate not having someone to love and hold.  Someone to care for.  Someone to buy gifts for.  Someone who picks a pretty flower for me when he sees one on the side of the sidewalk.  But this is an okay time for me to be single.  I really want to work hard and have a great career and maybe a man would distract me from that.  I can't have that.  It sucks so bad, it hurts so bad, but it's the truth.  And nothing worth having is easy to get.  A good salary and a comfortable life for my parents is worth having.  It's a shame, but it is what it is.

I wish hearts were like teeth.  You could just go to the dentist and get them filled.  I wish I could just fill my heart back up.  It hurts so so bad and I feel so incomplete.

But I have so many things to be extremely thankful for and I should never forget that.  I have a beautiful family, beautiful friends, a beautiful city, a great career (already), dreams that are worth chasing, a healthy body, and so many reasons to smile.

It's just so hard right now.  I wish it wasn't.  And I can't say that it's not fair.  Because everyone suffers.  It's a part of human existence and I'm a human.  Every human goes through suffering and it makes us stronger, builds character, and makes this world a better place.  It makes me a better Nicole.  But the journey is just so rough sometimes.  I've cried more this last year than I have in my entire life.  My entire 26 years on this planet.

I hope I can hold onto all of these lessons I've learned.  They're so valuable.  Each tear is bringing me one step closer to being a better person, as much as it hurts.  And let me tell you, it hurts more than any other pain I've ever felt in my life.

It's just so exhausting.  If I didn't have mild insomnia, I don't think I'd ever be awake.

Good grief

How does "We all want to be home by midnight!" turn into "It's 3:15am and we are now all finally home."

I studied for an hour, Keith came over, we went on a nice little cruise.. then we invited Ricky out to go see my friend's band play.

A few beers later and I'm incorporating my beer glass into yoga poses, I'm petting some randos sideburns and pinky swearing that I will have sideburns the next time that I see him, I'm unclogging a toilet that someone else clogged, I'm climbing on the roof saving my best friend from jumping off, and I'm picking up my friend from a corner several blocks away because she drunkenly wandered off and never came back.

Clearly I'm the levelheaded one since all that I did was do yoga, admire facial hair, and save people.

Andrew who?

One of these days it will all make sense.

I walked into a young lawyer's office today.  She was frazzled, like me.  She only knew half of what she was doing, like me.  That's part of life.  And then one day you walk into your office and you got that shit under control.  Things are always out of control at first.  The fun is found in trying to make your world stop spinning.

When Andrew hurt me for the last time, I was sitting in my car dropping him off at his stupid little corner apartment.  He looked over at me.  The sound of defeat was in my voice as I talked about Kevin and Chris and how I've always been the one who gets stomped on.  And I implied that this was Andrew's turn.  He was the next man stomping all over me.

He looked over and hugged me.  He hugged me so tight.  He said "Are you gonna be alright?"

I was made FURIOUS by that question.  Who do you think you are telling ME that you think I'm not going to be alright because of YOU?   I said to him,  "Am I alright?!  I'm ALWAYS alright! I've survived just fine every other time."

He said okay and got out of the car like a scared puppy with his tail between his legs.  That was it.

Today I was listening to Cake's cover of Survive.  "Did you think I'd crumble? Did you think I'd lay down and die? Oh no, not I.  I will survive."

One of these days my world will stop spinning.  I'll wake up in the morning and I won't even remember him enough to think "Andrew who?" anymore. I'm already at the stage where I want to rub it in his face.

Andrew, I am so much better off without you.  Thanks, you did me a fucking service.

Rest

I'm okay.  I had a rough little patch there and my dad pinpointed the reason.  I needed to REST.  You know, that thing I haven't really done for at least three months.  So I crashed.  There was a night with no law school preparation, no gym, no friends, no family, no errands.  I stared at my pillows.  I got up to pluck my brows and give myself a nice relaxing facial, then back to the pillows again.

I needed it.  The next day at work was fabulous.  I need to remember to REST.

This weekend was alright I guess.  Thus far.  Studied.  Went to an arts festival.  Drank a couple of margaritas.  Napped on a blanket in pretzel park and watched the stars appear over my head.  Went out dancing at a club.  That's sort of where it went wrong.  I shouldn't have went out dancing.  Because I intend on studying today and I don't want to burn myself out yet again.

Life is a struggle.  Finding a balance is hard and sometimes I find it hard to tolerate myself.  I don't know what to do anymore.  I think I give up.  Just gonna keep pushing for my dreams and hoping I don't fall over too many times.

Been lying to myself

I hate you Andrew.  I've been saying that a lot and I mean it with every fiber of my being.

I hate you for making me feel small, insignificant, unintelligent.  I hate you for making me so burned out tonight due to studying my ass off, working my ass off at my new job, hating myself for not making it to the gym tonight, not remembering to pay my bills because I'm so exhausted that I can hardly form sentences.  You're the reason for all of this.

I study because you made me feel stupid.  I want to prove you wrong.  But maybe you're not.  I work my ass off at my new job because you made me feel like my old job wasn't good enough, and now I'm tired.  Fucking dead tired.  And I don't even know if I want this career growth that you made me chase. You're the reason I go to the gym because you made me hate the tiniest bit of body fat.  Because you made me feel ugly when I forgot to pluck my eyebrows, do my nails, buy pretty things, give myself facials.

So now what?  How the fuck do I fix the disastrous mess hiding in her bed at 7:56pm.  My hair is unkempt, my brain is neglected, my bills are unpaid, I didn't call my parents today, I didn't go to the gym today.

Is this okay?  Is it okay to not be perfect all of the fucking time?  You made me feel like it's not.  BUT LOOK AT YOU.

I think I need to figure this shit out sooner rather than later.  I cried on the way home from work today.  Almost died- nearly got t-boned by a car who ran a stop sign doing at least 45.  My heart raced and the tears poured harder.  I entered my home and ate a snack, immediately headed to bed.  Slept for three hours. Woke up hating everything about myself.  My decisions, my life, my past, my body, my soul, everything.  I hate myself tonight.

But I hate you more, you fucking asshole.  You broke me.  Who are YOU to break ME?

Stupid fucking mind

Today was a weird day.  I felt rather pensive.  I woke up missing your beautiful shining eyes.  Your shaking hands, your nervous gulps.  I was so thankful when I entered the office.  I focused on preparing motions and dealing with clients all day which helped me regain some happiness, but when five o'clock rolled around, your sad eyes and dry lips poured back into my brain.

So I made dinner and sat at the table talking to Ricky for an hour.  I went to the gym and worked out.  I went to a coffee house and meant to study for the LSAT but I spent most of my time writing poetry about you.  About how much I fucking hate you.  About how much I miss you.  I e-mailed my brother back while I slowly sipped on my iced rooibus tea.  I cruised down Main Street with the windows down looking for you.  I've looked for you everywhere today.

When I got back to my neighborhood I cruised to a few stores looking for a gift for my friend Annie.  Couldn't find anything so I got a candy bar, sat by a dark park and wrote another poem about you as I devoured my chocolate.

Came home to my laughing roommate and her laughing girlfriend.  We joked around.  But here I am in my room again feeling down.  When will this go away?  Is it simply that you're filling a void in my heart and that it's not really you that I'm mourning?  Am I truly just mourning my empty spot?

I don't think anything at this point in my life can fill up that void.  Nothing.  I have every other piece of my heart filled to the max except for that one little tiny spot that needs to stay vacant until I'm done working on who I am.  I don't want to give myself away to someone until I'm the person who I want them to fall in love with.

But you loved me.  I loved you.  And now you're gone.  Maybe they'll leave too.  I don't know.  I try to not think about it.  I try to fill my brain with law law law.  Law and Keith.  Law and family.  Law and poetry.

But who in the actual fuck am I kidding?  You still hurt pretty bad. And I bet I don't even cross your stupid fucking mind.