The Myth of the Band Aid

Remember when you were a small kid and you would fall and scrape your knee? You would burst into instant tears and race over to mom. She would smile at you, give you a hug and sit you down. She would look at your knee and tell you it would be right in a minute. Then she would grab a band aid, stick it on the scrape and kiss it all better.

Simple, right? It worked like a charm too! In a matter of seconds you were back on your feet running and jumping and scraping more knees, crying and getting more band aids. As we grew up the power of the band aid remained fresh in our minds. No matter the situation, if we got scraped or cut and it hurt, we would grab a band aid and stick it on. It was the equivalent of ‘kissing it all better’ which remained with us throughout adolescence. We thought everything could be fixed with a band aid.

Well, most external wounds I guess. The internal ones though, they are incapable of healing with a simple band aid. Yet, some people even late into adulthood still feel that if they stick a 10cm band aid over a 20cm gaping, blood gushing wound, that it would fix it up and you would be right as rain. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking is difficult to reverse once it’s so ingrained in the skulls of people.

And broken hearts? Don’t even get me started on that. As I sit here and type this I am nursing my own little broken and crumbling heart. Someone might even call it a manipulative heart (this I say with distaste and is half the reason I am in a state of nursing). I am one of the vast majority of people who have come to terms with the myth of the band aid. Yet, the reason I am sitting here falling apart and barely able to smile is that I have found myself with the converse. A person who easily believes that putting a band aid over my broken heart will mend it up in a jiffy and everything can go back to normal. I mean, he put a band aid on it for goodness sakes! I should have no reason to be downtrodden or emotional or even slightly unbalanced. The band aid is magic! Once it is there all the problems magically disappear along with it just like the pain did when mom kissed you all better.

I wish that were true. I wish all it took was a band aid to forget the words that were said and the words that were not. I wish it could clear my memory. I wish it could make up for the lack of care and love deserved to myself when I needed it most. I wish it could undo all the tears and the nights spent crying myself to sleep waiting for him to care. I really do wish the band aid was magical. Maybe then I would not feel like we were sweeping problems beneath the carpet while the band aid was being soaked by a wound too deep to be simply patched up.

If only mom could kiss it all better.

Unfortunately the band aid was a lie.

And I continue to bleed out…

You Did Not Call

I sat up all night waiting for you to call. Why didn't you call? Why did you leave me to cry myself to sleep all those nights? Why did you not care enough to realise that you were killing me inside little by little and taking whatever was left of my already disfigured heart and breaking it more? Why didn't you call?

Yeah I said some things. They hurt you I am sure. Yet, they were not untrue. You always told me to speak my mind and share what bothered me but as good as I am with words on paper I struggle to be as diplomatic and passive when emotions cloud my judgement and I am feeling slighted. I thought you knew me. You know me don’t you? You know my heart and my soul and my mind and its weird and wonderful intricacies that make me… me. Still you did not call.

I sat up all night wondering what I could do. Would I lose him? Would I be left to start my life all over again? Would he further break me apart despite promising to never do so? I cried and in my agony and pain I turned to God and I prayed. I prayed for my heart to find peace and my mind to be content and above it all I asked God that if he was not the one for me to give me a sign and then the strength to go on living without him. Still you did not call.

I checked my phone every moment I had. I searched in every space and corner of my mind. Why would he let his anger win? Why are his feelings more important than mine? Are we not equal partners in this relationship? Do I not deserve more than just an ‘ok’ in response to my broken heart? As I searched, and cried and prayed I could not help but think that he had been so blinded by his anger that he would never see how he is murdering my soul. He forgets that he is not the only one hurting. I was upset and said what I said but that only goes to show that I too have feelings and I too am hurting. His absence and failure to communicate was only hurting me more. Still you did not call.

I love you with all my heart and yet you left me to suffer for so many days. Following all that hurt the only plausible emotion to follow was anger and a blinding rage took over my heart driving the melancholy into a corner afraid for its life. How could you be so heartless and cruel? How could you think that your feelings suddenly trumped mine? What gives you the right to leave me suffering and crying because you think it is better to not talk than to actually feel for once alongside me? I was angry, broken and falling to pieces. I decided to remove any contact we could have besides phone calls. I had to do it or fear tearing you apart with my anger or falling into the trap of throwing out self-respect and begging you to talk to me. Still you did not call.

So, that night as I cried myself to sleep for what felt like a hundred nights I vowed that should you not call I would walk away and accept it as God’s ultimate plan. The next day you called… I do not know which I preferred: when we did not talk at all or when you tore me to pieces. You spoke words so harsh I felt my heart crumble completely. You called me things that you knew would hurt and when all was done and I stood in the aftermath of your quake; I could not help but think, 'What did I ever do to deserve this?'  I may have been harsh but you were cruel and everyone knows the difference between the two is as vast as the Pacific Ocean. After leaving me to myself for days on end, instead of coming forward cool-headed and calm you rained a thunderstorm of anger and despair on my life.

I wish you did not call.

Mother always said, 'Be careful what you wish for.'

I wish you did not call.

Imperfectly Imperfect

I hate myself

I never thought I would find myself in a position where I would loathe the person I am externally. I have always prided myself on the fact that no matter what, I always had the self-confidence to override my lack of external attractiveness. Apparently not…

In the animal kingdom the females are seldom beautiful. Their function is simple – to scorn male advances until a suitable mate arises and impregnates the female to ensure the survival of her species. However, in the world of humans it is not so simple. The coloured feathers and slender limbs of the peacock fall to the role of the female. It her prerogative to ensure that she is slim, sexy, and beautiful. If she lacks in attractiveness she is sure to fall short in this world.

I guess I am the equivalent of the female sparrow – brown and dour and altogether unattractive. That never really bothered me before. Sure the odd time someone made a comment about the colour of my skin or referred to me as the literal black sheep of the family it stung, but I always managed to pick myself back up and move on.

Not so now. Now I hate the very skin I find myself in and loathe myself further for the fact that I cannot just be happy with whom I am. It burns into the soul when the people you love and trust with every fibre of your being are the ones to turn around and tell you likewise. You are fat, unattractive, your sister is so much prettier, what happened to you… the list is endless and the scars it leaves never fades.

It is okay to be imperfect, I accepted that. I was comfortable knowing that as long as I was perfect for the right person it didn't matter. Yet, when that person can so easily point out that your sister isn’t fat but always pick on you, lines become blurred. Suddenly you aren't really perfect for that person but apparently your drop dead gorgeous older sister is. You constantly fall short and forever find yourself at the back of the line… the reject… doomed to remain imperfect till the end.

I hate myself.

I hate that I am imperfect.

I hate that I can never live up to societal expectations of who I should be.

I despise the skin I am in.

I wish I was someone else… anything but who I am right now….

I hate myself.

Reality

A profound sense of loss settles in the centre of the abdomen. With it come sadness, emptiness, loneliness and generalised dysfunction. Considering the possibility that I might be a manic depressant does not seem that far-fetched when accompanied by the constant ups and downs of my emotions in the space of an hour.

Yes, it is not wise to think I have a problem when so many people out there actually do suffer from bipolar disorder. It just feels lonely out here at the edge of civilization. Cell phone service comes and goes and my relationships with the people I have left back in the big city feels tenuous at best. Coming back to the little farm town that is my home always makes me feel afraid. Life has a way of changing. It feels that when I am out of sight I am most definitely out of mind.

It is like a rollercoaster of emotions. It feels as though I will never be able to just be the simple carefree small town girl. The city has changed me. In many ways I have become a far better person than I ever was back home but in many more ways I feel like I have digressed. I find it so hard to just simply be happy and it feels as though I expect too much from life and the people I love. Expectations generally do lead to disappointment but should that be applicable when what you expect is not really far-fetched or unrealistic.

When I met him I never thought it would be so difficult for one person to open up to me. The ability to express my emotions has become that much easier and yet for him it is a labour. He cannot find it in him to share the emotions that course within him amygdala and constantly says it is for my own good. For my own good? What sort of bullshit is that!? How can it be for my own good when the only idea that I am left with is the realisation that his inability to share his feelings simply means he feels nothing for me. I get that some people are wired differently and their ability to express emotion is deterred by their fear of being hurt etc. Yet, how do I keep living in this world of supposed happiness when I never know where I stand in his life. How do I be happy knowing that I am giving up every piece of me to one person when they cannot do the same for me?

The reality is just that – he can walk away with his life intact while I am falling to pieces all because I am too caught up in this whirlpool of irrepressible emotions for this one human being while he feels nothing for me. That is the truth… If he felt even an iota of emotion toward me he would see how his detachment is breaking me apart, how much I am falling to pieces. He is incapable of freeing my soul from this constant uncertainty and sheer despair.

I have to accept the facts:

I am alone in my emotions

He may be fond of me but in no way does he love me

I am in too deep and falling too fast

I will be crushed

My world will collapse

And I will be alone again

And he will be unscathed

Canopus

A dedication to my muse – my everything

There is an old Greek legend that states that humans were created with two heads, four arms and four legs. Fearing their power, Zeus chose to split them in half and condemn them to a life constantly in search of each other.

It is one of those legends that encourage people to believe that out there exists someone to make them whole. It enforces the principle that soul mates do exist and that there really is only one person for each of us. This is pretty hard to believe when one realises that the ratio of females to males is so disproportionate that a lot of females out there will probably spend eternity searching and never finding the elusive one.

I always gave in to this cynical perspective. Being young and naïve it only seemed fitting that the chance of me finding a partner who was made for me was all bullshit. The world is filled with harsh truths and what makes it harder is that most of these truths are hidden behind well-disguised lies in the form of legends and fairy tales that we constantly repeat to our lonely and pathetic souls in hope that we can find a reason to wake up each morning. I never saw the point in doing so and my sole purpose for getting up each morning was to set out and make other people realise the same.

I guess one can say that I was pretty fucked up. However, I cannot be to blame for the sucker punch that life so ardently dealt out to me that made me become the cynical soul-sucking bitch that I was. I guess that’s the beauty of life. Sometimes you are allocated a not so fair proportion of pain and disappointment to make the beauty of what is still to come that much more amazing.

That’s the story I guess. In the midst of my crap storm upon humanity a male counterpart with one head, two arms and two legs stumbled into my life with as much grace as a bear doing ballet. The impregnable fort was just that though… no matter how hard I tried, and try I did the idea of giving up on my rant against soul mates and happily ever after continuously struggled against the reality that I had found it all in this one person.

If I thought I was an impregnable fort I have no words to describe just how impenetrable his defences were. He was (and still is) the Berlin Wall meets the Great Wall of China meets the Pentagon meets an overprotective father with a teenage daughter. The idea of letting me in terrifies him. He has all these booby traps set up for every time I make it passed one of his many layers. He fears the idea that he may need another person, may rely on them and fears more the idea that another person could care for him so truly and so unconditionally that they would spend years trying to get pass all those defences.

And that is what draws me to him. The vulnerability that resides within those walls, the person I have briefly glimpsed behind that fortress speaks to my soul. He is not a soul mate, he is not the one and he is none of the other things countless women spend their lives in search of. He is me. He is a part of me that hides behind years of heart ache and disappointment. He is the me I want to be, the me I strive to be and the me I never knew I could be. He sees all my flaws and is constantly at the receiving end of my bitterness with life, my bitchiness, my insecurities and my fears. Despite all of this he sees the me hidden in the darkest corner of my soul. He sees the person I am underneath it all – my potential and my capabilities – and strives to make it a reality. He deals with all my fucked up moods and crazy rants because he knows who I am. He knows that I am him.

Yeah, I am paranoid and pretty messed up. I fail to see the good and always expect the worst in situations and I always live with the fear that this is too good to be true. He knows that. He knows I am a terribly emotional, dead-beat gothic type creature who has had it rough in the world. He accepts that I am the darker side to him. Where he is the light that brings meaning and understanding, I am the shadows cast as the light shines, hiding all the imperfections but also bringing cool and shade from the brilliance that is him.

He calls himself Canopus, the second brightest star in the constellation.  Little does he know that to me he is Sirius, the brightest of the stars. He is the furious light that illuminates my world. He awakens my soul and brings life to the trembling child hiding behind her fortress. He is my Canopus.

Adam

She was doing that nervous habit of hers. Whenever she found herself in a particularly nerve-wrecking situation she would immediately start to click her nails together, the sound echoing through the deafening silence.

He smiled astutely to himself. Where once the sound grated at his nerves, it now sounded as a steady reminder of why they were meeting today. He studied her profile as she stood across from him. Her unruly waist length hair moved gently in the breeze with no semblance of order. Her dress, as always, fitted a little too tightly upon her chest but showed off her shapely figure just the way he loved it. Her face, though half covered by her mass of hair, displayed the obvious signs of distress. He knew that look well. She was afraid and most likely on the verge of tears and, judging by the fact that she was biting her lower lip, doing her very best to stifle a sob. She was breathtakingly beautiful.

“Come on Adam! Just get to the point of this meeting. You’re leaving, this is goodbye. Can we just hug and get it over with?”

She was the epitome of adorable when she was flustered. She had no real idea as to why we were actually meeting. She had made it clear – when I got that job I had applied for and would have to leave town she did not want to see me. She made it explicitly clear that she never wanted me to see her cry and yet I had defied her wishes and called her here today.

Our relationship was rocky at best. We had explored all possible avenues. We had been best of friends, lovers, even dated a little. When life took a turn for the worst for me, I found myself completely lost and confused and chose to end our relationship. We tried to stay away from each other, to let distance grow and have the relationship die out completely. However, just like the gravitational attraction between two objects, we found ourselves drawn back to each other. No matter how hard we tried to stay apart we ended up together. Now we stood as friends.

Friendship could not do justice for the depth of emotion I feel every time we speak. We are one and the same. If I were akin to the body she would be the soul that breathed life into me. We are in tune in every aspect of our beings. Not a second can go by without my mind straying to thoughts of her – be it her smile, fingers, moods or silly quirks. She consumes me.

“Anna… Don’t be so moody. It’s a glorious day and might I say I cannot for the life of me stop looking at your breasts.”

“Adam! Be serious here! I begged you not to call me up. You know I can’t say no to you. Please, can we just get this over with?”

“But Anna, where do I begin?”

“At the beginning would be a good idea?”

“The beginning of this life that I love starts from the moment we met. I know I haven’t been the best guy for you. I have hurt you, believe me I know. There were moments where I wanted to kick myself when I recalled the pain I inflicted upon you. Leaving you in the lurch like that, throwing aside my feelings and not considering yours when I went off to find myself. That was not fair on you. Yet you stuck through it all, you never abandoned me. Why are you so perfect Anna? I thought I would leave and this would be the end of it. One of us would go off and find another partner, get married, our friendship would fade… but when I think about that I feel a weight in my chest. I cannot breathe, Anna. Do you understand? The thought of going a second without you, the thought of you finding someone else, it tears me up. Anna I know I have not always been the best for you. I know you have to stay here for a few more years but I do not, for the life of me, want to leave this town knowing I will be leaving the only person who will ever love me the way you do.”

“Adam… I … what are you trying to say? I don’t understand.”

“Anna, all that I am asking is that you give us a try. We can do this. I love you and I know it has taken me far too long to realise this and I also know I hurt you plenty along the way to this realisation but Anna, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Please say yes. Please say you love me too. Please say you will make this relationship work long enough for us to be united forever.”

The nervous tick is back. Click click click. I can see a tear roll down her cheek. She is biting her lip even harder now. I can actually see the delicate skin begin to split. My heart is racing. I never thought I would find someone this amazing and now that I have I cannot stand the idea of losing her. Please say yes Anna. Please!

“Adam, I never took you for the kind of guy who speaks so openly about his emotions and now that you have I… I always have the right words to say and now all I can think about is how much I cannot stand to lose you. But this is all too fast. I need to think. I need to go Adam. I’m sorry.”

She turned to leave. Her pretty orange dress swirls in the breeze as she takes off in a hurry and I cannot help but think this is my fault. I hurt her far too many times with my uncertainties. I constantly pushed her away when all she wanted was to heal my many wounds.

I quietly dig around in my pocket for a lighter and as I blow the cigarette smoke into the air, I cannot help but think I have blown out the flame that was Anna. The flame that burnt so bright. Dimmed by the pain of the heart I broke.

Change

Change is scary. If anything, it puts you 5, maybe 6, feet back instead of having you move forward. The scariest thing about change is when it appears out of the blue with no forewarning.

If someone had asked me two months ago where I expected to be in 2014 it would have been vastly different from the reality I find myself in. I never thought this year would start in much the same way that the previous year did – broken-hearted and lost. The proverbial Dear John letter was something I never foresaw in my future so one can only imagine the shock I found myself in when I received the “we should just be friends. It’s not you, it’s me” talk. This definitely did not bode well for the rest of the year.

So teary eyed, confused and scared I did the only logical thing I could think of. I shut myself off from emotions, from feeling anything. It worked well in the beginning but given the depth of emotion I put into this one singular person it is no shock I found myself slowly going insane. I admit, I tried really hard to hate him, at least that way I could find a way to move on, but the reality was and still is that love cannot be marred by hate. As clichéd as this may sound, the proof is in the pudding. I cannot hate him.

Anger became my best friend. Oh the thoughts that swirled through my mind for days on end served as my only solitude. I was baffled as to how all this came about. When I look back I realised just how much I held back, how afraid I was. I was so unsure as to what I was doing that the first time around I found myself stammering through the Dear John speech. Yet, he stuck by me through it all and when he deemed it fit he planted that sinful kiss upon my lips beneath the star strewn sky and sealed our fate. If that is not enough to confuse a person, his profession of love to me was the signature at the end of the contract. For long I knew exactly how I felt about him but fear and trepidation held me back and yet there he was, casually expressing his feelings to me. Little did I know that later his feelings would fade into the background as they have done in previous relationships, whereas I would find it impossible to forget how I felt. What served to perplex me further was his constant optimism. While I was comfortable living with the idea that this encounter would come to naught, he constantly questioned my reasoning insisting that there was a future. After all I possessed “all the qualities he was looking for in a wife”.

It is no surprise that when he confessed to being unsure whether I was the one or what he wanted in his future I was terribly taken aback. Having given in to him completely and shedding all my trepidation it shocked me to hear him say “sometimes love isn’t enough”. It was clear as day that he never loved me at all. He confused whatever lust and enjoyment he gained from my presence as love and in so doing pushed me down the rabbit hole.

I loathe change for it has achieved nothing short of unhinging me and turning my world upside down. I have found myself friends with the only person I ever loved and as much as it tears me apart I am so afraid of losing that constant in my life that here I am trying my hardest to separate love from friendship.

While change is meant to push you forward and open you up to new experiences this change is the most daunting I have ever had to face. The heart wants what the heart wants but life has other ideas. There is nothing else to do but soldier on and pray that this time change will work in my favour.