One a Day for Woman

Haha I crack myself up with the vitamin reference, but this emotional purging will be like B1 for my soul. The plan is to talk about one feeling each and every day in hopes that it will break the heartless cripple that I have become. So here goes...

Guilt. I'm starting here because i've been carrying this one the longest and I pick bits and pieces of it up all over the place like litter that I still haven't found a trash bin for. Guilt and I go way back, as far as I can remember. Guilt about my parents marriage and guilt over their divore. Guilt about my moms hard knock life and her lackluster coping mechanisms. Guilt about being a kid who could get in loads of trouble without getting caught. Until I got caught.

Having a sexual relationship with a 29 year old man is legal if your 16. How fucking crazy is that? Working at a rape crisis agency you learn a lot about sexual assault, how it's all about power and control, and you wonder who has the power in that relationship? Oh well. Past is past. Really?

We are aware that our society runs rampant with victim blaming. It's the perpetraters who commit the crime, regardless of any choice the victim made, good OR bad. As an advocate, it's easy to tell a person "it's not your fault, this never should have happened to you." But when your the victim being blamed...by the police officers investigating and the "justice" system, by your friends, by your own parents...it's a lot easier to feel guilty.

And so I do. I know it was not my fault. I know it shouldn't have happened to me. I was a naive and curious, perhaps a bit stupid but definitely neglected kid. He was a grown ass man. Funny, I just realized that ALL the men in my life have problems taking responsibility. Sure puts a shit ton of weight on my shoulders.

To be honest, maybe I like it that way. It's my comfort zone, the brand of "normal" that I"m used to. With the side benefit that if I pull all the wieght I can make sure it gets done. I'm in control. I can't get hurt.

Right?

But I do get hurt. I have expectations, wants and needs that can never be filled because I never speak them. I try hard to forget them, turn my back and close my mind. Childish really, holding my hands over my ears and squeezing my eyes shut tight while screaming "IcanthearyouIcanthearyouIcanthearyou." Thats a whole lot of effort being put forth to tune out myself. I'm very familiar with being unimportant. I take care, good care, of everyone else. But me.

I think someone should have the job of taking care of me. It was never my parents priority...I took care of them. It was never my boyfriends' priority...I took care of them. It has never been my priority, yeah you guessed it...I took care of THEM. Mom, Dad, Jeff, Jamie, Molly, Tommy, Sarah, Jim, Nic, Dave, and now Hayden. When will it STOP?

I want someone to take care of me, but I don't want to ask for it. It's less than convienient that I tend to push away people who try because to me they seem stupid or weak or ...too strong, too healthy, and too likely to hurt me when they see that I'm putting on a show. The "Jenna is fine and functioning show," welcome to it.

We are all broken. I'm learning to accept myself as part of that "We" but I can only take one step at a time.

Lost in Dark Depression

Lost in the depression,
not knowing where to turn.
I openeded the windows to my soul
to see what i could learn.

I swepped up depression,
scrubbed the sadness and the hurt,
I put it all in trash bags
and set them out by the curb.

I found, stashed in a corner
tucked high upon a shelf,
a treasure chest of knowledge
that I could love myself.

And wherever my future takes me
I know that I will win,
because I opened the
windows to my soul
And let the light shine in.

Speak

When I think of myself as a mummy, this image comes to mind. Yes, I am a bit like a hot dog. My Grandmother would disagree. She thinks all my ex boyfriends are hotdogs. Once she refused to allow an ex of mine to be invited to a BBQ at her house saying "why bring a hot dog to a picnic?" But Grandmother isn't here, and sometimes I do feel like a hot dog.

This photo depicts my thoughts for this blog on a second, much deeper level. These mummies have no mouths. Perhaps so the chef could enjoy the tasty morsels without their annoying protests. Perhaps it's so they deliberately appear less human; anything without a voice cannot have an opinion and without an opinion no person really exists.

And we have reached the moral of the story. I am a person. I AM! I have an opinion, I have a voice, I have a mouth! I will no longer allow it to be muffled with linen or bound with cloth. I am, this very day, ripping off the band-aid. Swift and not quite painless I will open my lips in a sleepy yawn, stretch my vocal cords and begin to speak.

Definitions...?!?

I always like to begin explaining things to people, in particular myself, by using a definition. As if I dont already know or couldn't accurately guess what Old Webster has to say on a given topic. For me, it's a focal point, a starting point, a definite point... I feel like I need a foundation of fact before I can legitimately make a point. Not sure why, but it's boring and it's a habit I blame at least partially for my abandoned blog.

Off topic a minute, other things to blame for my lack of blog-ivation; no time, nothing to say (ok thats a lie), fear that no one cares what I have to say or that I will be totally and obliviously uninteresting, and most of all having put myself through a total mummification process all the while forgetting to actually die in the physical sense.

So, I believe that in the "real" mummification process the person has to be dead and deemed important. I don't think of myself as important, which is a true shame...I'm important to someone I'm sure. Anyway, the body than gets embalmed which is cool but totally disgusting and then tightly wrapped and properly buried.. Which is how I feel. The only feeling I"ve allowed myself in quite some time.

So, this blog and the next several might be boring (you've been warned) but I think this is the first step to progress. I am admitting I have a problem (ok several problems). I have however successfully blogged without any definitions (though I was tempted by embalming). I am going to TRY to stop caring whether anyone cares to read this or finds me interesting, make time, and put some feelings on paper. Or at least onto a page.

Time to start un-wrapping. Wish me luck.

If love was enough...

So last night while stuffing my face with smores and watching Greys Anatomy, a dying patient on the show made a comment that set me into a crying frenzy for the first time in months. She asked Dr McDreamy to tell her boyfriend who was not going to make it to say good bye in person that... "if love were enough, I would still be here with you."
My first thought was "oh fuck, here we go" and as I processeed what that meant for me...no longer waiting, no longer hoping, no longer expecting...anything to be better, or different....I realized how far I've come and how far Ive yet to go. More importantly, I realized that, if love were enough, I would still be here with him. And He would still be here with me. I guess love is not enough. Some things may in fact be far more important.