I need you so much closer

I never thought that I would end up here. But here I am and I'm lost, and I'm alone, confused and broken. I don't know what to do now, or next and I'm not even quite sure what to say. Usually through the dark crevices of my brain words can flow freely from my fingertips to document the times and the feelings, the events, and the troubles. But not this time. In a few short days I will be without a home. Stuck in a place with no address and no belongings that are mine. Over the past several days we have begun packing our home. The place that was ours for a year and four months. The place that has seen the highest highs and some devastating lows, the place that I will cry, and mourn for once the keys are out of our hands. This is quite possibly one of the most difficult times in my life. And it is exceedingly difficult to believe that things will get better eventually. There isn't one area where I feel secure. Not one place in my life that is a constant. That I feel like I can breath easy and sleep with confidence that at least I have this. Or at least that will not change. And while I sit here in the bare room of the house we worked so hard for I cant help but feel like the walls around me are cracking. That the world is crumbling around me and I am just desperately trying to shelter my head, trying to cover my face, trying to protect my body from as much damage as possible. I don't know where to go from here. I don't know where to start piecing the fallen bits of my life back together and how to create a new life from scratch in place of the old one.

I have just been in a constant state of near tears. Doing everything I can to hold back the tears with the dams that are my eyelids, trying to stay strong, be solid and grit my teeth through it all. But I wont lie and say that it has been easy. Packing up a home with 7 years of memories in it, boxing up love and hope, bagging your past present and future with a man whom you always thought would be the one is perhaps one of the most difficult things you could ever do. And while my heart is saying one thing I know that I must listen to my head, heed the warning in my gut and go with what they say. Because your heart can play tricks on you. It can lead you to believe that love is enough. That just because we have the bond that we have, since we have the love and the history that we have, since this is all tearing me up inside that we should stop this all and go back to who we were. But in the end I know that that is wrong. And as much as I would love to believe that love is enough, it really isn't. Because right now we are broken. There are so many things that need to change, so many lines that can never be uncrossed, so many cuts that need to heal before we can begin to make decisions for our future. And the world has a way of making the difficult, excruciating. Because while I would love to use this time to run on auto pilot. To clear my brain and think of good things it is impossible. The pictures and the cards from years passed that I run into while packing and unpacking make it impossible to not shed tears for times that once were. It is mourning a past that should have been the present. It is laying to rest a future that may never happen.

And I feel alone. Because over the last 6 and a half years you have been my constant. You have been my rock, and my foundation. You have been there for me when no one else would be. You have shown me what it is to love a persons faults. You have laughed with me, loved me when no one else would. You have rubbed my back as I threw up, sick enough that I felt I would never get better. You have covered my bare arms with a blanket that I was too weak to pull up on my own, sick from a flare that I felt could end me. You have filled my tank when my pocket was empty and you have filled my spirit when it was just as empty. And even now after the decisions have been made you continue to offer support to me, your best friend.

In a few short days I will be sitting in the house of near strangers. A friend so generous to offer me a place to stay until I can find my own, but with his parents presents the difficult part. I will be a guest for two weeks. Stuck in a place of uncertainty. With no place to call my own. And while this will be such a challenging time for me I hope that I can begin to heal. That through the process of being on my own. Of signing a lease into my own name and filling an apartment with everything that only I want I can begin to self reflect. To mend my broken self so that in turn, we can mend what has been broken between us. I hope that I can finally create the life that I've been speaking of for so long. I hope that I can overcome my fears, beat them to the ground and accomplish the things that I should have long ago. My goal is to work on enlightenment mentally, physically, and spiritually. Because it is never to late to create the life that you dreamed for yourself and it is never too late to be the person you know you should be. I don't know what the future holds, I don't know what God has intended for my future, And I don't know what is going to happen to us in the end. But the one thing that I wish for the both of us, the one thing that I want for you more than anything and the one thing that we both deserve is happiness. In whatever we are doing, and wherever we go in our futures I pray for nothing but peace and happiness for you. And to know that whatever has happened or will happen,

I will love you forever and always.

You could be happy

Because this is it and now its over and I don't know how we got so far away. Away from the people we were and who we were going to be because I cant even recognize you. Or us. Or me. I never thought this would happen and I never wanted it to end but it happened without any ones consent and now I'm lost and I'm broken and I never wanted that car ride to end.

I tried to hold on. I tried everything I could think of to not let go of everything we've ever had. So much history, way too much to just let go, and I tried. I tried so fucking hard to grasp those last few pieces we had left. I held on until my knuckles were white and my palms were bloodied but it didn't matter how hard I tried or how much you wanted it because the pieces slipped through the thin cracks between my fingers and fell to the ground. And it was a futile attempt from the beginning of this all and you know it because you cant force whats not right but we both tried so hard. So fucking hard.

And I don't know what to do when its just me and I'm without you because baby you've been my lungs and my soul and my heart for so long now that it feels like my chest has just gone hollow. But I can honestly say that I still love you to this day and that is something that will never change. I don't know what it is that we need. I don't know what will make this right. I don't know how we can salvage whats been lost and rebuild that future we always planned late at night. But I hope that there's a way and that we find it. Because when I picture the rest of my life without you in it I don't even want to say what it feels like.

Maybe we just need some time. Time to sort out what we've been going through to decide what we both really want. Because I don't want to force you and it feels like Ive just been pushing you. It was no secret that when we started this so many years ago that we were too young to even know the changes that happen as you grow. And we've both been trying to delay whats been happening, to make ourselves into the people we were when we met but its just not possible. I want nothing more in this entire world than for you to be happy and I think we owe it to each other to give life a chance on our own. Because can you really appreciate someone if you've never known your life without them? And the hardest part about this all is that I'm not only losing the man I love but the absolute best friend that Ive ever had. And it hurts to much to think of those days gone, I just hope that you remember your promise to me.

And its not your fault, I would never place blame on you or I or who we are. Because whatever has happened, happened through the wind and the trees and the natural order of things. But it doesn't make it any easier to part with the dark haired freckled goofball that I fell in love with so many years ago. But I worried then like I worry now that its not the same things that we want in life. Back then it didn't matter because we had love and we were young, no one could touch us and we were invincible. Back then we had such a passion for each other that no one could break even though they tried. I was addicted to the scent of your skin and you couldn't get enough of the way my hair tickled your chest when I'd lay my head on your shoulder. And the way that we could laugh until we cried and over the years cried until we laughed together. And I gave you my heart you knew my soul, and you promised you'd keep them safe.

We've made it through so much already that it just seems foolish to stop fighting now. But the strategy that we've used all along its not working this time so maybe if its changed we can change for good and come out of this alive. And I could talk for hours about the times we've had. The good and the bad and the unforgettable. About that night we spent under the stars. On the beach in the ocean laughing our love into the oncoming waves. Carefree and careless but it was ok because the water was warm and we had each other. We built this life together, we made this house together and now we're going to pack it up and turn our backs. But if I believe in anything its faith, and hope, and God, and Karma. I believe that God already has a plan and that this is apart of it. And I believe that if we're meant to be we will be. But we can force this any more.

And While I'm laying there alone at night. So wishing that I had you to hold me in the dark, I have to stay strong. And while I'm crying tears of sobering truth that soon this will be over, I have to stay strong. And while your still making me laugh until my stomach hurts so good and making my soul smile with the humor you've always had, I have to be strong. And when my breath constricts with the anxiety of the reality that I will be alone and completely on my own, I just have to inhale strength. To find a way to be strong. Because I have become the dependant person that I never wanted to be and for me, and you, and us I'm going to fix that.

"I'm takin all I have to take cause takin's gonna shape me"
-Kings of Leon, Knocked up

Both a Beginning and an end

I saw your Facebook page the other day. You made it as private as possible, just like you made your life to me; private. But I went around that. And I saw the pages of your family. The family that you kept from me. the family that shares my last name, my blood. Unfamiliar faces glowing on the computer screen in the dimly lit room of my house. Reading through status updates and comments left between family, a familiar emotion washed over me. A feeling of sadness, of betrayal, of longing and understanding trickled from the top of my head to the ends of my toes; and even though Ive felt this before, it was more profound then ever before. I think it was at that moment that my inner self dropped the facade and allowed the understanding that you are happy to come in. I realized that ever thinking that you were alone, unhappy, or regretful was stupid of me. What the hell was I thinking? I suppose that scene in my head was built from denial, from still caring for you, for still hoping that you cared for me.

But that was a lie. You walked out of my life and straight back into the life that you lived 20 years ago. You left and you kept on leaving until you reached the red rock sand of Arizona. Reuniting with a woman that you knew 40 years ago. A woman that I will be damned to believe you only regained contact with after you dropped my mother and I. You linked arms with her, shook off the past 17 years of responsibility, of a daughter who needed you, and a day to day life that you despised and you settled on into a life that you finally got to live after such a long run in purgatory. I saw the brothers and sisters of yours that you hadn't spoken to in over a decade. The parents of yours, elderly and fragile. The same parents that couldn't accept us. Couldn't accept my mother, the woman that loved you more than you've ever been loved before. The woman who already had two children; older children from previous marriages, from previous lives. The woman who laughs a little too loud at times, the woman who lived without a veil of lies, the woman who passed her Jewish genes to your only child. The child your family would have liked to christen, to baptize, and confirm; the child your family would have nothing to do with.

I saw the structure of a family tree that I have never had. Your family together from the in ground roots of your grandparents, to the sturdy trunk of your parents, and the leafy branches of your siblings. So different than the shaky branch that I call my own family tree. I saw a family that even though each and every one of you are fucked in the head in your own ways, you stick together. Being welcomed back into a family that you had exiled yourself from for the good of the family you chose. Going back on every thing you had ever told me about your life as a young person in southern California.

And I was once again reminded that I don't know you. Not really; and I never have. It is still shocking for me at times to remember that I grew up living in a house with a man that I called daddy but was always distanced from by the solid concrete wall he'd constructed around himself. I can recount almost the entire life story of my mother. Of course not everything, I know there are things that she has chosen to keep from me, life stories and experiences that me, as her daughter does not need to know but I would have no problem constructing a time line, or writing an essay. But not you. No. Growing up i didn't ask many questions of you and your life. I guess I could feel it in the air at a young age that your life as a child, as a young adult, and as a person that existed before me was off limits. Anything that I did ask you was answered with a simple vague answer, or the generic 'I'll tell you when your a little older'. I know most of what i know by asking my mother. You at least shared with her. She at least knew you a little more as her husband. But I cannot remember one time in my life when you recounted a funny story of something that happened in your childhood. Not once.

And then my thoughts of me not knowing you shifted to the realization that you do not know me. And you probably never will. You left at a very pivotal time in my life- really in any ones life. I was 17 years young, gearing up for my high school graduation, held together by the boyfriend that had already loved me for 2 years, and just beginning to think of what life after the safety net that is school would be like. You were not very present. And when you were you were encouraging me to go to school, researching colleges online and trying to help guide me in the right direction. I was at a confusing time in my life, trying to accept that i had grown out of the ballet slippers of my childhood and getting used to the idea of leaving the nest. I was a typical absent minded, self absorbed, defensive teenager of 17 and that, is how you will always remember me.

You don't know me as the artistic, funny, capable woman that I am now. You don't know that i love to cook, and that my mothers talent and know how was passed to me. You've never tasted the home made bread, or the bolognese sauce that I was particularly proud of. You've never walked in my door to find me bent over the cutting board chop, chop, chopping away, humming the melody of my life.

You don't know that I've kept the same job for two and a half years. That I persevered day after day to gain the experience that i knew I would need to move past the telephone answering, appointment scheduling days of my early twenties. You don't know that i listened to your advise. That i listened to every word you ever spoke to me and that I held those words close to my heart. You don't know that i cherished every single one of the moments I spent with you as a young girl. The car rides to grocery stores, the games of catch in the front yard with the sun shining on us and the scent of cut grass hanging in the air.

You don't know that I've found my talent in photographs. That after years and years of believing that talent escaped me, that I had nothing to call my own I finally picked up a camera and saw something different through the lens. You don't know that portraits are my favorite, spontaneous and organic. You don't know that I gifted myself with a beautiful camera, a tool that became my outlet. You will never be a subject. Never stand across from me and have your face become captured in a timeless four by six.

You don't know what my house looks like. What couches, and wall hangings Matthew and I chose together. You don't know that summer time is my favorite but that the rainy streets of Seattle make me feel at home. You've never sat at my table as a guest in my house witnessing the pride i hold on my face for the life we have accomplished together.

You don't know that my feelings toward you have changed dramatically. At first it was nothing but a flurry of anger, of shock, sadness, hurt, and fear. For years a chip on my shoulder I held and anger in my heart but not now. I still feel all of those things of course at times. Mostly when I think of the blue eyed, courageous little girl of 4 that you abandoned. But now, my feelings are civil. I do not forgive you, I cannot forgive you and maybe I never will forgive you for what you did and I am angry that you stole the right for me to be happy for you. Because I could have been. You are my father, the only father I will ever have and through all of this shit, it helps me sleep better at night knowing that you are happy. That you have the life, now that you wanted then.

You don't know that its hard for me to even say the word 'Dad'. That the memories of my childhood with you are fading. That every happy memory I have of you is cheapened by knowing that you never cared. By knowing that you always wanted to get away. You don't know that when asked my full name, my last name feels foreign as it exits my lips. That the name now makes me think of you, and the family that birthed you; not me and the mother that took that name 20 years ago. You don't know that I would have kept it. That when Matthew and I finally tie that knot i would have held strong and kept your last name firmly planted behind my middle. In honor of you and being your one and only blood child. The only daughter that you will ever have. But now, I will take the name of my love, partially to start new with a solid foundation of a partnership, and partially to get away from the name that is not me. To change myself forever. To lay to rest the first chapter of my life for good.

But it gets easier every day. No longer do I think of you on a daily basis. No longer does the core of my being hurt quite the same way that it did in the beginning. Its easier now to push old memories and thoughts out of my head, out of my life so that I can focus on the right now. And I feel like now, almost 5 years later I am just beginning to heal. To be able to speak of you without tearing up. I am old enough, and mature enough to accept that I will never be completely healed. That the wound you created that November has a permanent place in my heart, but I am also mature enough to understand that that does not define me.

I remember the last time I saw you. In the hospital after my precious nieces surgery. Such a strong little girl, more at ease knowing that her whole family was with her. Including the tall, gray flecked bearded man that she called papa. The man that had become scarce in her life, without understanding why. It was a hard time for us, for the whole family. Not understanding why this precious child's kidney didn't function, why it was making her ill, and why they had to cut through the porcelain skin of a young girls abdomen to remove it. I was the first to break down. Trying so hard to become like steel. To be strong for her, to be strong for her parents- my sister. But as they wheeled her out of that room the sudden thought that she doesn't fully comprehend what is about to happen was too much for me. And I did it, my eyes filled up and spilled over unwillingly allowing fear to take over me, shamed that I couldn't just keep it together. And then you looked at me. You looked at me; vulnerable, and upset. Scared for that 4 year old and scared of the unknown, you looked at me; and then you looked away. And it was at that moment that I was able to throw away the maybes. I was able to toss the 'he'll come arounds' out the window. And for the first time I could say; My name is Bonnie and my father will never be anything but a fleeting, transparent memory of my past. And then I was able to let you go.

He came and he went

I retreat inside myself. During times of sadness. Confusion, stress, anger, fear, its all the same to me. Its not something that I do with intention and it has always been something that does nothing but separate me from family and friends during times that I should be reaching out with tentacles of emotion and latching on to the only people that have really ever been there for me. The only people who have ever truly wanted to be there for me. But hard as I try its just not how I'm made. I would prefer late nights of inward agony to long heartfelt talks over steaming cups of tea that I hate, any day. To me, pain is private, my pain is private and it makes me an anxious pile of short breaths and upset stomachs to come anywhere close to sharing my pain. Huge wedges driven between those closest to me, wedges that I'm not sure I can ever mend. More to come in the future, that I'm sure of but the more I cause others pain from my isolations the more I want to isolate.

I cannot pretend that I felt any regret
Cause each broken heart will eventually mend
As the blood runs red down the needle and thread
Someday you will be loved
-Death Cab for Cutie
Someday she will be loved


Sitting cross legged on the faded brown carpet of my childhood; my sister next to me a strong, strong pillar bracing for whats about to come. There for support for the round bellied straight banged sister she wanted nothing but to protect. Nothing but a bright eyed hopeful child of seven I was. Ignorant, and un-foreseeing of the ability of others to hurt you. The ability of others to tip toe with torn heals on the hearts hidden within the chest of small children and big children alike. It had been several weeks since I had seen him. Not all that uncommon if it weren't for the fact that it was her birthday and the time for celebration, for party hats promised, came and went. Anticipation to kiss those chubby cheeks of the one year old that was less of a niece and more of a sister to me built and built, and the nagging questions came and came until it all came to a head. At this moment, right here, sitting on this shabby carpet looking up into the eyes of my trusted parents, this was the moment that changed everything. Unable to stall anymore, unable to create and recreate the bent truths and fabricated lies meant to protect me it finally had to be said. He would like it if we didnt see him anymore. Him and her, and that precious baby we love, well no more he said. The particulars and the mechanics, and the words and the hate of the situation omitted of course. But it didn't matter. He wanted me no longer and it was said and it was done thats all that did matter.

My big brother, my very big brother at fifteen years my senior had not always been a constant in my life. Living in a different state the state that birthed me, eventually making the move north, but always having his own life. I mean how involved can you be in the life of a sister fifteen years younger than yourself? But it didn't matter, all I saw through the glossy blue eyes of youth was my big brother. My brother that would always protect me and love me. Always be there for me and never leave. I sat there that day, a moment that I can still remember now, almost fifteen years later. I sat there with a very distinct feeling of being in a tunnel. A tunnel that encompassed only me, a tunnel that blacked out the corners of my eyes creating a round viewpoint, a tunnel that dulled sounds making everything seem very far away. A tunnel that created surround sound of the strong steady beat that was my heart. I listened, I sat very still and I listened counting the beats, wondering if it were true. If it were true that your heart could break. Did I hear a tearing sound? Was it ripping at the seams? Did it pop like a clear plastic bag filled too full with air? A new emotion to me, A feeling never felt in seven years, a feeling that I didn't know at the time but that would never go away. Only to be repeated and replaced over and over again through many years of life.

So I sat there alone, alone in my tunnel where no one could reach me and as I sat there I realized that I wasn't alone. I parted the darkness and swam through the weight, and I remembered that in the dully lit room with the brown shabby carpet was my family. My sister next to me I looked at first. Was she on the right or the left? I cant quite remember but the wet tears dripping from her chin I do remember. And when I looked at her I realized that I should do something. And not knowing what to do, I cried. I cried and I cried and I retreated and I retreated and I cried some more until I was scooped up and hugged and held and I could feel their arms but I couldn't see them from outside of my tunnel but they were there and I knew they were so there was no need for me to speak.