Trying to figure it all out...

I am a lost child. Confused, alone, broken.

I dont want to feel this way. Dont want to continue to be afraid of how life will disappoint me next. I want so bad to just love life. I want to feel its intensity and embrace each moment. But I feel sometimes like Life will not let me. Doesnt want me. Denies me acceptance to the things I want so desperately to feel.

I want so bad to be in love. Perhaps that is why I hold on so tightly to my memories of Ryan. He was such a true, pure thing in my life. I loved him without fear, completely uncompromising, as one would love their own child. Why cant I find that again? I know I cannot go on loving Ryan alone forever, and yet it scares me not to. The thought of not loving anyone... I will be the emotionless vessel that i am trying desperately to not become.

I just want life to open up for me again. I want to be moved. I need to be inspired. Before I surrender completely to being nothing...

Inspiration

While I cannot take credit for writing this, I do feel proud to have inspired it... Thanks Kel...

cigarettes and ny fire escapes...

last night i had a date on my fire escape...
cigarettes and intense, soulful conversation...
she asks herself... who am i? where am i going? how can i inspire those around me?
she doesn't realize these are questions you are supposed to ask yourself on this journey we call LIFE...
she doesn't realize you're not supposed to know the answers...
she doesn't realize she is already on this journey...
she's afraid... be afraid little one...
embrace the struggle... face the challenge... let life kick you while you are down...
will you surrender? will you be defeated?
no... she is too strong for that... she is too smart for that... she just doesn't know...
its time... its time...
now ask yourself... ?

Filling the void

Lately I feel empty. Its not even that I am sad or unhappy... I am nothing. Part of me thinks that is even worse.

I have become emotionless. Things dont feel like they happen by me or to but rather just simply around me. I am not touched. I am not hurt. I am not joyed. I am not pained. These days I just am...

Is it New York that is doing this to me? Kelly's friend told her the other day that we have become part of the "Metropolitan Abyss." There's nothing shocking, nothing interesting, nothing immoral or disloyal... things just are...

My best friend growing up told me yesterday that she didnt think we had much in common anymore and didnt see the point in even talking. Have i changed that much? The comment hurt me more than anything had in a long time, probably cause it made me realize just how vacant I had become. I am ashamed of myself and my unfeeling nature. And the worst thing about it is, I almost dont really see whats is so wrong with it...

I have become the empty shell in the city. Like so many other souls wandering the streets I no longer blink at the strangness of people around me, I hardly notice when I am gawked at or hollered to, I cannot be bothered to slow my pace on a crowded sidewalk. I have become nothing. No more than another city dweller trying to survive in a place that will literally eat you alive if you take anything to seriously.

There seems no way around it. If I had emotions, surely I would have abandoned New York by now. If I knew how to be affected I would have been knocked down enough times now to feel that something was not right.

But I can't feel a thing. My life has become a vast wasteland and I simply sit back and allow the emptiness to wash upon me each passing day until they all blend together into one...

Ryan

He makes me so happy...

We haven't seen each other in almost 2 years and we stopped speaking for close to 1 year and yet he still makes me happier than anyone else possibly could. Just having him in my life makes me more of an optimist. Makes me believe in love. Trust in the world. Not feel so completely lost.

If Ryan and I can be so close again, i think i could have faith that anything really is possible...

Unemployment

Lost my job yesterday. i think i should be really upset. or reeling with anger... and yet all i really feel is relief. like this incredible burden has finally been lifted from my shoulders. i have hated every single day of my life since getting back from france and have been way too weak to do anything about it.

it was like in high school when i wanted to break up with someone but couldnt face the confrontation i would just try to make them break it off with me. and i will admit, since becoming disillusioned with the job and my boss, i have not put in the time and energy that i used to.

i hated being there. i woke up each morning dreading the day. i felt i spent my life trying to distance myself from my job. leaving for weekends. not volunteering to stay late. i wanted to be far away. i had even begun my search for a new job weeks ago, sending out resumes and having dinner meetings with potential contacts. so its a gooud thing. a bruise to my already fragile ego but a blessing in the long run. staying at that company would have only continued to harden me and i like being a nice midwest girl. i dont want to have to trick people, and win them over. i dont believe in infidelity. i dont want to support immoral behavior or be dragged into it.

i think i will dye my hair red tomorrow and get a new tattoo. its time for the real me to come back. this is a gooud change, a fresh start... right?

I feel complete

Ryan and I spoke yesterday. It was the first conversation we have had since the 4th of July (our would-be anniversary) last year when i called from that busy Chicago street, using a payphone cause my phonecard wouldn't work with my mobile. And it was like speaking to a whole different person.

A year ago was a struggle for conversation. I would ask how he was- "Fine"... how is his family "Ok"... how is work "Going back to school"... There was nothing there but silences and unspoken conversations that i could feel but hardly comprehend. When we were ready to hang up, the tears streaming down my face i apoligized for calling saying that I won't call anymore. "No, its fine. I'm glad you did," he assured. "I just mean there's no real point to it though anymore, is there?" I asked. "No. There really isn't." And that was it. Our final goodbye.

Until now.

It was a real conversation. An actual 30 minutes of back and forth talk. We laughed and joked, told stories, and did the basic catch-up. We didn't get sentimental with words and I didn't even have to try to hold back tears. It was just a nice coversation. And it makes me feel as though a huge weight has been lifted.

I feel like I may actually be able to get on with my life finally now. Being able to maintain a friendship, or just any form of contact relieves so much of the pain that I have been holding in for these past two years. I needed to know that I was not alone. That he missed me and thought of me. That even if we never end up together again, we both know how special what we had was. I didn't want to go on believing that I was the only one who cared, the only one who hurt, the only one still feeling the effects of our relationship. And i needed to know that it was ok to miss him still. I needed to know that there wasn't something wrong with me for still missing him so much after so long. And I asked him that in the end of the email I wrotre after he and I hung up the phone...

"PS- I miss you. I hope its ok for me to say that..."

I woke up this morning with an email back, subject line "Of course its alright" and then it went on to say in the letter "Just want to let you know that of course it is alright for you to say that you miss me and i miss you too! there is nothing wrong with that cause that is just the way the world works my dear" I missed the way he writes in the way he talks, an endless ramble lacking most punctuations other than exclamation points!!!! He is such like a child and I always loved him for that.

The mission has begun

I have finally come to the conclusion that i cannot just sit around waiting for some sort of resolution to my Ryan situation. i'm tired and i'm lonely. i don't want to have to wait forever for something that may not even be there anymore.

i took the first step today. i called tyronne at his work in london. i don't know his number and i hadn't heard back from my emails to him. i googled the paul smith shop in covent garden to get the number. i called this afternoon to see if he was possibly at work. he was there. i apoligised for disturbing him at work.i explained that ryan called my parents' house looking to get in touch with me and left a message on the answering machine without his own contact number. i wanted tyronne to make sure he got my number. he said he was texting ryan's dad after work for ryan's new number anyway and he would send my number along as well.

step 1 complete. i think i'll give him a week to call me before trying tyronne again to get ryan's number.

i would rather not push the tyronne card too far. don't want his friend's all thinking i'm crazy. although when i saw tyronne in london, he knew without my saying how i still felt. we had chatted for a minute and then he just looked at me and said "you still love him." i was a bit thrown off guard. i just kind of mumbled i didn't really know anymore but i have no idea whether that was convincing. he still loves me though, i know it. when i asked ty if ryan was seeing anyone he just laughed. "ryan is always single" he told me. "he hasn't dated anyone else since you." i asked what about his friend tamsin whom i heard he dated for a week. he told me it was more like two days and then ryan ended it abruptly.

i also have one of our investors who happens to live in cape town searching for him. i provided cecil with ryan's full name (ryan christopher williams) and former employment (bartender at mount nelson). he told me if he had been at the mount nelson he should be pretty easy to track down. he probably is. i've just been too afraid to do it myself.

it has gottent to a strange point where little by little he ceases to exist. i don't have his number. i don't have greg's number. when my apartment was robbed the video recording i had of us in london was taken with the camera. all i have is still image photos and those are not the same. they could be anyone. i have pictures of colin farrell doesn't mean he exists to me. the video was different. it was us. it was us living out a life together at a moment in time. that tape was our love. maybe i should take it as a sign to give up. i took it as a sign to finally start trying.