Things have changed

These days are unlike any others that I have had.  I have been alive for nearly 29 years.  I have most certainly risen to over 10,000 sun rises, and yet these days have been so out of the ordinary.  They are the most beautiful blue I have seen.  Not just from the waves crashing upon the white-ish sand.  But also, your blue eyes shining as bright as the water diamonds.

When I return home the scene is certainly different than it was last month this time.  I walk around the corner as geckos cross quickly under the white fence.  Palm trees pierce through the openings and gently brush against my sandy blonde strands.  The wind blows my hair across my sunglasses,  And as I stroll up to our mountainside home at Malo'o Place, there is usually a gorgeous calico or black cat basking under the tropical sun, looking gently towards my smiling presence.

With each step up the broken bricks under the shady swaying leaves, I become closer to the door that houses our small living space.  One bedroom, a large closet, and a bathroom.  But so much love flows through that tiny space, I can feel it so softly but clearly when I lay on his bare chest at night, his soft lips kissing my forehead now and then.  His sleepy slanty eyes so peaceful as he rests his head once again to the side.

And then as I go to work, feet quickly hopping down the hill, I am greeted by aloha grins and "good mornings" so genuine that the mountains shake, beautiful rainbow piercing into the whitest of clouds.  Upon entering the bus I am in such a pleasant quiet place as we pass the prickly pears and beach park.  The marina shines brilliant green as the water softly bounces about.

When I am left off downtown and I enter the cafe area, I quietly meditate as I enjoy my breakfast.  I am ready for the day.

Up on the 26th floor I feed my attorney's eight black fish, turn on his light, and quietly sit at my desk typing deeds and mortgages.  Friendly people walk before my desk, all acknowledging my existence and asking me about my previous day.  Each second of this is beautiful.  Just as it is beautiful as I enter my other attorney's office, ukulele strumming from his radio.  I hear alohas and mahalos.  My attorney cutely requests that I punch "pukas" in the papers that I give him.  The girls in the office excitedly order from the bento place down the street for lunch.  As I walk into the lunch room, girls sing and dance and candy or asian treats of some sort are usually found on the table to share.

Aloha Friday is the most enjoyable of days.  Popcorn is served in the summery courtyard, coworkers playing ping pong and live Hawaiian music filling the air.  And no matter what day of the week, the cafe woman recognizes me immediately at the register and the cook smiles at me, nodding his head like we've known each other for years.

The ride home is as pleasant as the ride to work, gentle people sitting next to me quietly, all respectful of my space.

The best part is being dropped off at the "kiss and ride" seeing that muddy botanist car pulling into the small parking lot.  He kisses me when I enter the car.  I tell him I love him.

Besides the beach walks, shopping center adventures, cafe writing adventures, and tasty restaurants, I also just enjoy being in the car with him holding his hand as we wind around the twisty mountains beach-side roads.  I believe my grandmother is over the shining sea, watching us with a smile on her face.  I miss her so much.  I believe this is all a gift she sent to me.  I know she only ever wanted me to be happy.  Well, I am.  And I am still forever grateful to her.

We have also ventured up a mud-covered road to John's greenhouse, bananas, mangos, papayas, avocados, vanilla, cinnamon, coffee, so many things growing green and beautifully.  It's so wild up there, with a waterfall up the muddy path.  I often tell him it's like you can find a dinosaur hiding somewhere in the thick forest.  We stayed in a home up there and were feasted upon by mosquitoes as we scooped soft papaya pieces out of the fruit.

I think it is truly beautiful here.  It's such a blessing to be able to spend a portion of my life here.  Everything is more than I could have ever asked for.  My life went from dark gray to such a brilliant sunny blue.  This is a gift from my grandmother, for sure, and I am thankful for every breath I get to breathe.  I am thankful for the glowing sun, the rustling leaves, the pretty cacti and lighthouse around the way.

And most of all, I am thankful for such a beautiful, intimate relationship with John.  I have never felt so in love.  I love when we kiss by candle light after a warm lavender foot soak together.  I love resting on his warm chest, listening to his cute heartbeat.  I love holding his hands and telling him how beautiful his eyes are.  I am so thankful he exists.  I am so thankful for such a connection that I begged and begged for.  This is what I asked for.. and now that I have it, I must not take it for granted.  I must enjoy his beautiful white smile, he cute perfect laughs, all of it.  I must listen to his heartbeat every night and run my hands through his soft hair every night.  He has my heart.  I tell him all of the time, but I don't even think he understands how much he means to me.  How important he is to me.  How I enjoy every single second with him, even when I'm cranky or he's cranky or we're both cranky.  It's worth pushing through each second.

In general, I am just so thankful for what my life has become.  I wish this upon everyone in my life.  I hope my parents have the same happiness that I do.  I miss them so much but for the first time in a long time,  I feel fulfilled.  I feel happy just to be alive.

2016

I am tired of lying.  I hate my life with every single beat of my heart.  I wish every single day that I will somehow be lucky enough to die.  I do not want to be here.  There is absolutely no reason for me to be here.  I hate myself and I hate the person that I am.  I hate the life that I tried building for myself.  I hate everyone else for having it so easy.  I hate everyone else for having everything that I worked so hard for.  I hate all of the mistakes I've made, the people I've wronged, the horrible decisions I've decided on.  I hate this city because it is a reflection of me giving up.  It reminds me of how much I have failed at everything.  But I also don't want to move because there is nothing to be found any where else either.  I will fail there too.  I hate that I'm a disappointment to my parents, my grandmother.  I miss her so much.  It hurts.  I cry every time I think of her gentle smile and the person that she wanted me to become.  I hate how I've let so many people down.  I hate that I have been merely a magnet for that is wrong for the entirety of my life.  I'm tired of trying and trying and trying and trying and not getting anywhere.  I'm tired of praying about things that seem to always fall on empty ears.  I'm tired of all the years and years I gave and gave and gave and gave and then - the one year that I'm trying to receive, for the sake of my sanity, and nothing is coming.  I just truly don't even want to be here anymore.  I hate the person I've become.  I hate this city.  I hate everything.  My parents would be better off without me.  Everyone in my life would be better off without me,

It is 9:56 in my apartment.  I'm wearing underwear and a bra.  My cheeks taste salty and the corners of my eyes are sore with tears.  I can look down and see the wrinkles forming in my fingers.  I look around my room and I see nothing.  I have build nothing, I have earned nothing, I have won or received nothing.  I have planted so many seeds in this world only to see nothing pop up out of the soil.  I just hear the locusts and the sound of cars racing down the road.  All of the lights are out in my apartment.

I don't want to be here anymore.

I want to run away.  I want to go downstairs with a new outfit on and new makeup and new everything and I want to run far away to a place where I can just hide forever.  I don't want to leave the new place ever again.  That's the place where I will die.

If you knew how many times this month I've closed my eyes and thought - "I wish I could just close my eyes and wake up when I'm dying."  I want to fast forward.  I literally hate everything.  I don't want to be here anymore.

Days were grim for awhile.

But then I opened my eyes.

I haven't felt so insufficient in a long time.  God please show me the way.

It's chilly outside to the extent of my hard nipples poking high into my shirt, cold raindrops racing down my cheeks alongside warm streams of tears.  I don't understand the point of being here.  I don't understand the point of living, breathing.  I don't want to walk anywhere on this earth anymore.  Here, there, nowhere.  I want to lie down 

and just never, ever wake up.

Now

"It's not so bad,"  he says, life pouring out of his eyes with glowing embers falling down to my ankle.

I'm not so sure, I think, as the tick tocking of the terrible clock, with each click, pulsates my temple.

The universe has boiled down.  There was a time when the pot overflowed with hot summer leaves and cold water from the garden hose.

I'm down to the bottom of the pot now - drying tree twigs lying lifeless against the cast iron.

Writing Assignment 1

Topic:  You'd just die if anyone ever saw this diary entry

I am a jealous woman.  I am a woman with curves from here to the end of the Appalachian trail, eyes as wide as Lake Nockmaxon and a smile as bright as the summer clouds pierced by the top of a steeple.  I am nothing to be ashamed of.  Thighs so thick that the thunder clapping in the background makes him roll his eyes back into his head with exhaustion, mouth gaping wide as his legs open wider.  My hands are as fragile as my grandmother's as I type and look this way and that, as sensitive as a bird flying away as soon as a tree branch drops.  Why am I this way?

You don't look at me the way you used to, talk to me the way you used to.  You blankly stare into the summertime blue abyss biding time as the petals from this month's blooms float past your distracted eyes.

I do feel like I'm nothing to you.

Here

I listen closely and although you tell me that the only other sound's the sweep of easy wind and downy flake - I hear much more than that.  I hear the branches cracking under everyone's feet but mine.  I hear the lake pouring over into my childhood basement.  Nothing feels right.

I have lived through several hurricanes, roof shingles and aluminum siding panels flying madly past my clinking windows.  I have moved my vehicle to another street just to find the car directly next to it with a cracked window, as if location hardly means a thing.

I feel so lost in this gigantic world and truthfully I wish it would just all end.  I have been hoping this for a while now.  I watch as the gray clouds suffocate my lonely apartment, condensation bubbles on my windows blocking the view of whatever's outside.  I don't even know what's out there anymore because I don't go outside.  I create a warm den with my red blanket and sweat in my overheated bedroom.  I cry a lot.  My warm tears might be what causes the condensation on the windows.

I can't see any reason at all for me to be here.  I no longer see a reason in my parents' watering eyes.  I don't have a grandmother to cling to anymore, a family that needs me in any shape or form.  They all made it without me and here I sit in front of my empty refrigerator not eating, not drinking, but rather, hoping I accidentally starve myself to death from food apathy.  I don't feel the need to sustain my earthly existence.  I want to blow away like my grandmother's ashes, tears no longer bubbling up on my dusty windows.  I want my skin to be accepted by the beautiful earth, trees growing into the summer sunlight, children swinging on my strongest branches.

There hasn't been a reason for me to be here in years, it seems.  I'm just waiting around for my death, eyes either too wet or too dry - dry from never blinking.  Sometimes I stare into space for hours, eyes melting into the planets, stars, galaxies.  I wish for another earth out there.  I wish that gravity would turn off and the laws of the universe would change so I could float to another earth.  With this, I'd have hope that under a new atmosphere with new rules of time and space, that I would find my purpose.  That I would find a reason to continue my existence.

These days have been so grim that I can't pretend anymore.  Mom, dad, everyone, I cannot lie anymore.  I know it hurts when I express my desire to move to another dimension, but it is the most freeing thing that my heart feels these days.  That is the only thing that gives me hope.

The hope that I won't have to fucking be HERE anymore.

You

It s 7:14 p.m. and all that I can think about is you.  The gentle waft of your scent exits the fibers of your shirt, flowing up to my nose.  I miss you.

Blizzard

I woke up in this blizzard surrounding my warm, cozy apartment and made a breakfast for one.  I brewed one cup of coffee in my french press, I poured one glass of orange juice.  I exercised, I watched television, I read a novel.  And then you called and the world over here was put on hold.  The snow stopped falling.  My show was on pause.  I left the dishes in the sink.

Your voice calms my quickly beating heart to a nice, even, perfect pace.  I miss your beautiful eyes more than I've ever missed anything.  I miss your gentle touch, the way you wrap your legs around mine under the blanket.  That beautiful smile you left me with, that broke my heart the first time I saw it tore a chunk out of my soul when you left, flying fast into the winter sky.

I don't know how to go on without you, some days.  I wish you were here.  I wish I could pour your favorite tea, massage your aching back, kiss those perfect lips.  I overuse the word perfect when describing you, because that's what you are to me.  Each piece of your body was made for me, it seems.  Every section of your soul, feeding my hungry heart, building a strong, firm smile on my resting face.

I can't wait for you to come here.  But all the best things in life are worth the wait.  Each minute, second, millisecond bringing me one instant closer to your gentle kisses.  There isn't a single thing I would change about you.

I feel like everything has finally come full circle.  Mom always said blood is thicker than water.  I love my family with every bit of the love that roams through my body.  When they smile, I smile.  When they're sad, I want nothing more than to help them lift the sides of their drooping lips.  But I've always loved my friends, thinking of them as an extension of my family- never to be lost or forgotten.  Always to be loved, even when they pissed me off.

And now here I am, alone in my warm apartment looking around wondering what I have done with my 28 years.  It's clear that I've figured it out.  I know now what is important.  Myself, my family, my friends, the man who has stolen my heart from 5,000 miles away.  In these 28 years I've built a career that I'll never lose, a history that will never be taken away from me.  I am building something, is what I'm doing.  I'm alone now, and it sucks.

But at the same time the silence is so peaceful.  I feel as though this is the calm before the storm, and I must enjoy every second.  There's a beautiful blizzard on it's way, and I'm going to enjoy every second of that too, because that is what I've been waiting for.

I'm hoping that one day my patience will pay off.  I'm hoping that one day I'll be surrounded by the people that I love.  I hope that one day this all makes sense.

What I know right now is that I miss you.  I want you to lead me to my beautiful blizzard.

Leaving

This is what it feels like.  Last night I lit a candle and it glowed long and perfect, the wind pushing it this way and that occasionally.  The wind was pouring from us as we held each other in our arms, kiss after kiss, hands held tightly against hearts and smiles beaming through the warm atmosphere.  I sat there with nothing to say because you grabbed my words, you put them inside of yourself, because you know me so well.  I only had to look into your soft blue eyes and you knew.

The summertime is long gone and it's winter now, dead branches falling onto my muddy footprints.  The snow is hiding in the clouds but it's there, I know, waiting for us.  It blows my mind the connection between two people, lips as gentle as drifting snowflakes, kisses as genuine as the mountains to the north, rivers to the east and south.

You shook me, my silent chest going up, going down, cheeks sore from all of that grinning I've been doing. You help me become who I am to the fullest degree.  But in a few short days..

You're leaving.