I’ve spent a good deal of time this past month plotting out my back quarter of 2014. 

To say that things have not gone as planned for me would be a lie. The truth is I effectively stopped planning my life in 2009. Yes I’ve made moves but planning not so much. I’ve been reacting more than planning. I won’t say that it was intentional but since I haven’t been very proactive to say the results are not as expected is a tad bit ummm false.

Ive tried once or twice to be proactive. The results are promising. More good than not came from my purpose so I will count that as a win. I could use a little more win this week and in the last quarter.

Since the late 1990s my life has a recognizable pattern to it I am desperately fighting to alter. I’ve been here four other times and in each refractory period I’ve struggled more. Yes I am weary of the struggle and I am doing all that I can to leave that struggle behind.

Ive always considered that I am more than what’s been given and I’ve always returned to what feels comfortable. I love that comfort zone even if I do not love the time alone in it. Typing this isdifficult not just because I am currently doing it from the iPhone.

I have to admit my flaws – expose them to not just you constant reader but also to myself. I have to type in riddle because of a promise I made years ago to someone who has broken every promise they ever made to me.

That shit ain’t cute, when my first reaction is to slice and dice so that they feel what I felt, and in some ways still feel. I want to hurt as I’ve been hurt but I cannot be “that girl” anymore. Even if she is my default, I have to make the space for a different girl to exist and take root.

I know what I want for Christmas this year. Yes I know I don’t celebrate Christmas or believe in the carpenter’s son from Nazareth. I have a Christmas wish none the less. It involves a new kitchen, where I can cook again. It involves a sliding glass door with a patio to sip coffee on when spring returns after the long winter ahead. It involves 2 bathrooms where Bonnie & Clyde will still try to talk to me while I am on the toilet and Onyx will still sit on the side of the shower because her cat brain fears I will wash myself down the drain and leave her. It involves new living room furniture not covered in plastic as my elders imposed on me.

Santa I want a new address.

It won’t stop the force of nature that is Gei, if he ignores my pleas and sets back into motion the merry go round we’ve been riding for almost 20 years now…..but it will stiffen me in my resolve to STAY off that ride.

I had that resolve once before when I left that suburban courtroom weeping in both gratitude and desperation. That resolve did not withstand the conditioning that comes with this existence – not living.

The need for escape can overwhelm sanity if I am being honest.

While I don’t  necessarily regret 2010 and beyond, I do know why it happened and that why goes BEYOND the universe doesn’t make mistakes.

The place I am in now is a precarious one  where one misstep can destroy more than my resolve. So I need not want need to make these changes and break the cycle.

I once asked Gei, to break it for me. Shit more than once keeping it 100.

I always thought of him as the stronger of the two of us but when I look at who I am today, I understand it does not get stronger or tougher than me. When I look at these past 2 years the number of people who could still stand after what I’ve gone through is very small.

What I have withstood in all aspects of my life these past 2 years would kill someone not as tough as me. While I have not done it alone, I have done it without the support one needs in my opinion. I can see the finish line that life keeps moving on me over and over. It is within reach- it can be crossed – if I do not force us all into that place again.

The dreams have begun. Those dreams when I look historically tell me that the carousel is spinning  again. Historically I have always chosen to get back on.

Do I think he was the love of my life? Sometimes I do. It was intense and permanently altering. Do I think I want to try again? Unqualified no.

I love B more than I thought possible, he makes me happier than I think I have the right to be, and he helps me be the woman I thought I could never be ever. I am never letting that go on purpose ever.

I fear at the same time though that merry go round. Even without getting on it can fuck things up, and right now…..I cannot afford to have things fucked up.

I see new schools, new opportunities. I see a safe place for both me & B. I see that patio the most though. I see me turning inside when he calls my name, I see the smile on my face as I look at him.  I feel his arms around me and I feel safer in them than a tank.  I need that safety I haven’t had many safe places along the road and in him there is safety.

I want security. I’ve been dizzy since my 20s. It’s cost me damn near everything. I want a new address. We are so very close. I want that patio.

I almost think my sanity depends on it.

 

Aphrodite Brown