Wedding Bell Blues

My wedding day is something I have always dreamed about. It is perhaps the most girlish childlike fantasy I have ever had. My entire life I have searched for love. I have needed to be loved. I thought at a young age that once I found it I'd be fulfilled. I'd find this wonderful man who would adore me and make me feel like I mattered. Make me feel like I was worth something. Then he would one day ask me to be his wife in a grand expression illustrating his great love for me. I'd throw myself into planning a wedding, and that day will come and I would truly know happiness. All that dreaming has just set me up for disappointment and perhaps put too much pressure on everyone involved. I like to think I don't ask for much, but maybe I do. And maybe that void in me is too big for anyone to ever fill. Love has not brought me everlasting joy. It has caused me great pain and make me doubt everything.

I'm scared of so much. I want to be confident but the smallest thing makes me run back into my well lived in corner. I have buried anger stinging beneath my tears and I walk around in this constant ache. I don't even know what I'm looking for anymore or what direction I'm heading.

I want to get excited. I want to have the freedom to dream. I want to share happiness with those important to me. But I think I'm standing alone and there is this huge possibility that I'm not even standing. I'm more crumbled up in a ball on the floor.

Shattered

I feel broken. Like I'm walking around missing pieces of me. And the pieces that are still there are barely intact. Every step I take just hurts. I'm hollowed out.

I don't know how to be whole again.

And I'm running out of words to say.

Enter Sandman

Sometimes, on my good days I have this dream. I wake up, and the sun is shining. There are clouds gracing the sky and they're the kind that make you wish you could go jump in them. The temperature is exactly 72 degrees and everything feels perfect. Then in a flash I'm in this room, and I'm staring at myself in the mirror. An unfamiliar satisfaction enters my mind. I can't help but smile at myself because for the first time in my life I see my reflection and the first word that came to mind was beautiful. Then in another flash I'm looking at you from a distance. Your eyes are lit up in a smile, and a wide grin is spread across your face. You look down at your feet quickly in embarrassment and then quickly back at me.  Our eyes lock and then everything freezes. I just breathe in that moment with you and it lasts until something stirs me awake.

Dreams are stupid.

Inner Child

I am not a little kid. I don't even know when I stopped being a kid. It was before most, I'm sure. However not being a child did not make me immune from being naive. It did not prevent me from attaining a type of immaturity that only time and hard life experience can take away. I've had to grow up a lot over the years, and even now I am not afraid to admit that I still have more growing up to do. I have not been fully molded yet, and perhaps the idea that one day I will be is another example of how much more I need to grow.

It is with this that I find myself overly frustrated. Completely exhausted over the fact that at their rawest point my emotions are child-like. Like a spoiled child who hasn't gotten her way, I'm internally throwing the biggest temper tantrum ever. Perhaps I am outwardly as well. My heart is consumed with jealously, and anger that cannot be fully rationalized. I want to scream for this life that I almost feel entitled to but the fight in me is distinguished. I just sit in the corner, arms crossed, and lips extended in a pout.

However, at the root of all my emotions is a feeling a child, I believe, cannot fully grasp. For once this emotion is felt to this extent, childhood is but a distant past. The pain, hurt, and betrayal that weigh me down are fully grown. They are a lifetime's worth.

I keep being told that love isn't easy. I never expected easy. But how much pain can love bear before it stops truly being love?