Turn off all the Lights

My status currently says "and just like that, the lights went out. So what can we accomplish alone in the dark?"

It feels different - probably because its bigger. This darkness that is more than just the feel of the room...it inches up my thighs and wraps around my body, sliding down my throat and radiating out of my pores.

What is it?

I ask myself the questions I don't speak out loud, the ones I'm too scared to ask. My heart - I can't even tell you about my heart right now. There is confusion. There is an "I told you so". There is an acceptance of my own intuition. Fuck. I wish I was wrong...maybe I can still be wrong.

The night before last I felt like everything was tangled up, like too many electrical cables on the floor. And then I spoke to him and it was like "who gives a hell about tangles? This is above the tangles. This is going to endure as you fight your way out of the tangles..."

Is it?

When you are riding the very low, kind of looking around going "and how in the hell did all this happen?", you get emotional. Or at the very least I do. In years past that was enough to send me scrambling under the covers - figuratively and literally - for days. And it would take a lot, a helluva lot, for me to come out. Those were the days when not only was I alone in the dark, but I was chained to the floor, cold, shaking, and out of my flippin' mind.

It's depression. The bad kind. And yes I know there isn't a "good" kind.

How do you love someone who can't seem to see the light at all? Can't find it with two hands and a map?

Truth?

Dark as I've ever been, as I've ever let anyone see...there's been worse. Only person ever saw it, and he got out, not because of the dark, but for other, selfish reasons.

I see light every damn day. Maybe you don't believe me. Maybe I don't give a fuck. I see it dammit. Don't put me in the "poor, fucked up me" box. If I needed to be there I'd put myself there.

Imagine this conversation: "Beautiful day isn't it?" "Yeah...how are you?" "I'm alright, did some things today, they were pretty positive...so I'm keeping my head up.""But...how are you feeling about [Insert fucked up situation here]?" "Well..."

You go on to explain because, hey, they asked, and what happens? Somebody tells you to take a pill, look on the bright side of things, not be so negative, or that they will pray for you.

Um.

Ok.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you ask to hear about the bad, and then are told about it, how do you then come to the grand generalization that said person is negative, full of bad juju or whatever? Why can't you just commend them on following directions well?

Also, how do you break people of always asking to hear the bad news first...and then never following up with a request for the good news? Or shit, switch it up once in a while...or assume that there is no new bad news. (Might work, try it.)

Sometimes I'm not the one turning the lights off on myself. If I have a look on my face that looks pained, don't assume something apocalyptic has occurred - I might have just stubbed my toe or wrenched my foot. If my voice sounds low and subdued...maybe I'm just mellow.

Misery loves damn company. But my periods of misery are a lot shorter than you think, and probably no longer than your own. I understand my role in all of this. I've got these shoulders for a reason. If I have to sell off everything I have and give my dog away to go on a mission somewhere, I'm going to do it. If all my earthly belongings go up in smoke - I'll deal with it.

And if, at the end of it all, you decide that all that I am - not the summary of my bad-luck and questionable choices, but the good too, the kookiness, the spastic, nerdy parts, the heart, that amazingly resilient heart, the woman who isn't content to do anything half-way - if all of that is too much for you to handle... I'll be okay. Not right away...maybe not for a very long time. But I will...and I will still and always love you.

Fuck the lights. Who needs them?

-Asha

(song by Rihanna)

1 + 1

Let's cut the bullshit.

You know who you are to me
but then,
there's no way you know
who you are to me.

So I'm going to tell you.

You are the keymaker.
You unlock things I didn't know
were hidden away
in the dark where I couldn't see.

You are the spotlight.
You illuminate the parts that make me
ashamed.
You help me see they're beautiful.

You are the canvas.
You give me the strength to make
bold changes, swift strokes.
You aren't afraid I'll use too much black.

You are the audience.
You laugh at my jokes and
smile when I'm doing nothing but growing
changing, right in front of you.

You are the catalyst.
The first person I thought of when
I decided to change, to dare.
You made me want to dream big.

So here we are - so very far away - but so close to my heart I feel I could reach out and touch you if I tried just a little harder.

It's strange, but important.
It's scary, but it's whole and full of possibilities.
It's love but its more than that, so much more than that.

And I don't think anybody knows how big that is...but me...and you.

And, for now, that's enough.

(Keep holding my heart love - it trusts you with it.)


Yours,
-Asha

(song by Beyonce)

Pretty Wings...

In the process of doing a self-examination, which is ironic seeing as how this was the original reason for this blog. That it would take over a year for me to open up and look at the nitty-gritty of it all is both interesting and illuminating to me.

I was under a whole heap of self-denial.

What I am most aware of is that, while I was in complete awareness of my reasons for leaving Charlotte, somewhere along the line, I talked myself into believing they were something else.

They weren't.

I left Charlotte because of love. Not for love but because of it. Running away from it while trying to simultaneously more closely examine it. I both wanted it to be and needed to try and kill it, out of a desire to protect this heart of mine.

Yep, that was stupid.

I got on the plane to Miami initially feeling scared but pushing through anyway. I don't know what game I was playing at, but I needed to put myself to the test. And maybe put the one I loved to the same.

When I drove away from Charlotte, dog and bed and shoes all packed up, I was not even out of the state before I realized how big a part of myself I had left behind...

Indeed. Stupid.

There is a song that plays on my phone whenever he calls, one that I put on there months ago as a reminder to not create attachments, to be prepared, at a moment's notice, to let him go if need be. Instead, I hear the line about "the day you will remember me"...and my heart smiles every single time it rings.

On my first night in Miami - I dreamt of the day we met. How I really felt on that day when I looked up to see this man smiling at me. Alone, confused, and out-of-place, something in my soul went "uh-oh". Realized recently I hadn't fooled anyone as far as keeping what I felt a secret. Shit, even my students knew something was up.

I didn't make chocolate treats for just anyone.

But how do you rectify feeling your soul move when you meet a person, to now, nearly four years later, finding yourself in a hopelessly proven situation? We may never have strayed from the friend path, but in my secret heart I always knew I had moved beyond "friendly"...

I used to daydream, sitting out in the fields, watching him run around, that one day maybe...something would happen.

Almost three years and something did happen.

I don't feel a bit of regret for what is in my heart now - or even what was in it then. That was a very unloving life I was living, holding onto pieces of my relationship that was already beyond broken. I didn't know we would be where we are...or that you would mean so much.

And, my love, you do indeed mean so much.

Every single day of my life there is more there...and it is important. And real. And beautiful.

And I wanted you to know that, however long it takes, you were right all along. Distance doesn't change your feelings. It has only grown mine. So if you are reading this, if you ever read this, know that I love you. With everything that I am.

-Yours,
Latoya

(song by Maxwell)

Open Arms...

The hardest truths are the ones we try to hide the deepest, the ones we try to tell ourselves don't exist, that we are over them, that we have grown and changed and moved past...

Until someone who loves you takes them out of your hiding place, shows them to you, and tells you to face them. Not for anyone else...for yourself.

I am admitting to denial.

I lost my ability to believe in anything a very long time ago...and like a child who touched a hot stove once and was forever wary, belief and I have not been anywhere near close to each other for years.

It started with a conversation about normalcy...and peace. Which led to the realization that both of those have been elusive in my life...and the doing is my own. To have either, you have to make the leap, to choose to believe in something. To have faith the size of the mustard seed...that you can smile, and laugh, and love, and fly even with that little bit of faith.

I tell myself I am a woman of faith.

I am a liar.

I believe only to the point that I know disappointment is coming. That somewhere, someone is lying, cheating, speaking badly about me because in the end, everyone does. No one is exempt from this. I am not exempt from this.

I will sit for days and wonder where this emptiness is coming from, too scared to admit that it is not from without...I am growing it within my womb, nuzzling it to my bosom, holding onto it for dear life...

I'm crying now not because I'm sad, but because I'm done.

I want to believe. I wake up every morning hoping today will be the day my faith returns...even if its that the sun will rise again the next day. That I have the strength to believe even that much.

Because I want it. The peace. The steadfastness. I want to enjoy the love that faith allows. I want to be the love that draws strength and is strength. I want to be the light.

There are things I know, and things I tell myself I know. And the worse decisions I've ever made were when I didn't listen to my damn common sense. When I didn't trust myself, I let myself love the wrong man. Ten years later, as I watched myself beg, crying on the floor, for that man to not leave...I knew. My faith was broken.

It was like when my son died and I could no longer sing. There was no reason for it - it was just that my faith was gone. All dried up and it took my voice with it. When my husband confessed and I could no longer pray. When I realized today that I have been going through the motions of living...because the part of me that made me beautiful was gone.

I'm tired tonight. I'm tired of being too scared to believe. I've looked into the eyes of the man I love and called him a liar for what I've seen there. And it makes me cry because my life bitterness overpowered his honesty.

There may be no "do-overs" in life, but there sure as hell are "do-differentlys". I'm starting with that. Baby steps. A mustard seed is small as heck, so I'm thinking it's doable.

Faith-Love-and God. Slowly but surely I will get back there...

...and he will be waiting.

-Asha

(sung by Mariah Carey)