Beginnings

I started writing this at a strange time. There was a lot happening, a lot coming to a close and so much more yet to begin.

It felt like the right time to write. For me, writing it down makes it more real. It is as though nothing really happens unless I write it out. I want to write more, I want to experience more and set it in a place with words written on the page. This is who I am, a writer. And when I make that statement there are often surprised tones of voice and raised eyebrows, as if I had suggested attending a burial for the fun of seeing the faces people make when they try not to cry. Maybe I just hold this part of my life too close for anyone else to see, afraid to show the cards I hold.

I'm shy though. This is something I try to overcome with every action and every breath of every day. It comes on and I become so insecure I can barely move, but if I am brave and push myself to the point I am hardly still inside my own body it can be managed. So I write and keep it secret, never showing others what it is I can do partly in fear and embarrassment. I've tried being honest with people I shouldn't have been and had it all turn against me in the end. I've tried to not let this affect how I act in new relationships, but more of the same happens and I become just a little more guarded. Except when I don't. There are the times when I fall into a beautiful trap and feel safe enough to allow myself to feel. And so it begins once again.

This year has started very confusingly. There has been quite a bit of heartache, but also a lot of happiness. I've found a prison and a freedom in it all. I feel trapped by a love that will go nowhere but into the past as if as a fast moving car in reverse. It was once clear and present, now farther away and quite blurry. Still the love lingers and causes just enough pain to make it seem oh so important and real, even though it lost relevance some time ago. There is a new interest though, someone not looking for a committed love or even relationship. And so I am free to be with someone that may or may not be important in the long run, but for now can offer a way to heal a broken heart and ego.

I'm new at relationships and being with another person is still so strange. I haven't learned all the lessons I might have if I had started this whole thing as a teenager, there's a lot I still need to experience. As long as I'm having fun, I guess I can see riding this out. And though I feel utterly broken, I know in time things will get better. They already are. It doesn't help that this city is so small, the circles tend to be pretty intimate. The person I'm trying not to see is still around, still within a community that prides itself on working together toward a common goal of change. Sometimes it is pretty crowded and you can get lost in the masses, other times the turn out is quite small and not so easy to hide within. Even then though the process of healing and moving on continues. Even when it feel like thing aren't getting better, they are.

So I write to make it real, to remember what it feels like and to remind myself that this did happen. I fell in love because he let me, I moved on because I had to. I wrote about it because it was never questioned. As I begin again I hope to keep writing and to be honest through the joy and the pain.