When Your Heart Has Been Bled

Do you often feel like you give so much that you sometimes you can’t remember who you are if you aren’t giving and supporting others? Yeah, me too. We want to be needed. I like to think I’m this tough girl who doesn’t need anything or anyone but it’s a façade. It’s not to say that I am weak, I’m not. Life has made certain of that. But, I hate confrontation and discord, so I generally try to please people first to avoid those unpleasantries. I’m not fake but I cannot reveal my true heart because the rejection I’m always certain that I would reap is something, I think, my heart cannot handle. I don’t handle rejection well. I’ve been examining what my issues are to get at the heart of the problem. Truthfully, it’s because I do not think I am enough. I haven’t felt enough for a long time. So, I give to other people. And I keep giving without regard to my own mental health. These days, I yearn for the dark. A dark place where I can truly belong. I listen to music that reaches into my soul and gives me the pain and chills and tells me I am not alone despite feeling very much alone. Shaman’s Harvest has done this for me. My new favorite is 10 million voices because this is how I feel and I’m still a fighter.

Intro:

Are the whispers turning your mind?
They’re the wolves nipping at your heels
Trying to drag you down when the light is gone

And now winter is coming, she preys on us all
Watch how they’re mocking, ready to fall
And our pulses are pounding to the sound of the drum

When it feels like your heart has been bled
And there’s no more left to be said
Trying not to fall

I want to be able to see myself as enough but I honestly don’t know how anymore. While we should love ourselves and not need external validation, I don’t believe life is like that. We cannot function in a vacuum, we need people and we need love; healthy love. We need love that inspires us, tells us we are enough, and love that picks us up when we are down. We need someone who can listen to our downs and still love us and be there for all the moments. Without them, it slowly chips away pieces of our heart and soul until we are so wounded we no longer feel we are enough. We want to be but we wonder what is wrong with us that we have not captured that one person’s eye and heart and so when we look in the mirror we start to see less than what is. It begins to feel like your heart has been bled and you stop talking because there’s nothing to be said because no one is listening and you try to remain standing even though you’d rather not. Going through the motions is just not as satisfying as really living. Here I am 13 years later still using external things to anesthetize my bleeding heart. I used to think I was indestructible but I no longer feel as strong and yet I am not weak. Push me and find out. Because fight or flight, I’m going to fight because I don’t know anything else, but I’m going to hate it.

I wish I could say I will have some epiphany in the future that will lead me to happiness but unfortunately, I feel like a goose on the side of the road mourning my mate who was hit by a car, except mine has never even arrived. I can’t let go of the fact that I feel intact inside and I would feel a total sense of completeness if I could only find my penguin, preferably one that will command and spank me. 😜 Until then, I guess I’ll keep being the person who is there for everyone else.

What Heartbreak Looks Like

I don’t know why but this song resonates with me.

In going through the motions of living the expat life, I have the highs and lows. They’ve been fabulous and awful. I know I sound like a manic depressive, but it’s just the life of an older expat. I’ve been alone for a long time and I thought by now I’d find that life partner; that person who would appreciate me for me. I am strong, funky, funny, fun, vivacious, tenacious, stubborn, too righteous, loving, supportive, loyal, foolish, and adventurous. I never thought I’d reach 47 and look around and be alone. I really have tried to be open to possibilities but at every turn, I encountered men who simply could not see or appreciate me as a person. I was just a vagina.

So, here I lie, heartbroken. Heartbroken over a love I have never had and it seems will never experience. There are so many experiences that my wonderful friends have had that I can only imagine, but will never have.

So, what do I want? Am I expecting too much? Am I too ‘picky’ as some have insinuated? I want someone that I am attracted to, (why is this the first thing ppl want you take off your list. They act as if wanting someone to feel desired is being ‘picky’ but who the hell wants to be settled for?) someone who is attracted to me – all of me, someone who I look at and sigh because the feelings I have for them cannot be expressed any other way, someone I can look across at the table day after day and night after night and be so happy to see them, someone I can go to bed with and still feel passion and love for them and them for me, someone who knows me and loves me for who I am – quirks and all. So, when men do things like plan a date and then ghost me, tell me they are only interested in banging me, or tell me they don’t want to go on a date with me but they will be happy to have an FWB relationship, I cannot help to feel devalued and give up. This is where I am at now. I don’t want to try anymore. I’d rather nurse my heartache and fill my time with my wonderful friends and travel then try anymore and be rejected.

Heartbreak does terrible things to you. You don’t want to share it with any of your friends because you fear it’ll be too much for them. You fear their reactions, you fear their retractions, their pity. I love my friends but I do think they will either try to ‘cheer me up’ even though they don’t understand my heart is in pieces or will pull away because I am not fun anymore. I’d rather keep my lovely friends (they really are the greatest) than lay my heavy heart at their feet.

Life chooses us, not the other way around. We absolutely have free will but I am of the belief that there is an invisible pull that we can’t see or feel (consciously) that informs our decisions. It seems I’m not meant for love. I don’t know why but rather than continuing to fight it and keep looking, I am going to accept it. Sometimes, life isn’t fair, it just is.

The Many Lives of Me

“Don’t do that. When someone pays you a compliment, just say thank you. Accept it graciously. They don’t need to know all your insecurities.” I was told this when I was 17 by a singer of local rock band I was on the fringes of (sort of a friend but not) and followed. Up until that point, I had never thought about how to accept compliments. He had told me I was pretty and that I was going to be a beautiful woman when I got older and I had said, “No, I am not.” That was a teachable moment which I now value. I now accept compliments, whether I believe them to genuine or false, graciously. I remember being surrounded by those young men (they were in their early 20’s) at 17 and feeling so sure that there was a dark side to my life that I should be residing in. It felt positively familiar and right. I felt so sure that I should be living life in music, dark music, surrounded by heavy emotion, pain, and unencumbered sex.  

It’s a feeling I’ve had before that has left me wondering if past lives are a real thing. If I have had a few lives before and if so that would explain my constant feeling of being lost; as if I were supposed to be searching for something but I wasn’t conscious of it and so I kept failing at my mission. I’ve always wondered if past lives exist, was I a person of deep emotions and dark music who lived a life on the edge of normality and a dark space. Perhaps I was a tortured soul who was addicted to drugs and alcohol. Perhaps another one of my lives was I was born Asian, I have never felt more at home than I have in Korea and Asia in general. I felt comfortable in Scotland, felt like I innately knew stuff I shouldn’t. 

So, I really wonder where my soul has traveled to if past lives are a real thing. 

There’s a song by Shaman’s Harvest “In Chains”: 

When I listen to it, I feel like I’ve had that experience in the very marrow of my bones, after only hearing it once. But in this life I never have. In this life, I have always felt like I was tripping rather than walking. Like I am always awkward and can’t make the right decision to lead to where I am supposed to go even though I don’t know where that is. I have had this long lasting feeling that I am missing someone, someone so very important to my heart, but I have no idea who it is. 

This article poses the possibility that there are signs that past lives are a real thing: https://lonerwolf.com/past-lives-soul-reincarnated/

I just can’t shake the feeling after hearing a song, reading a story, or traveling somewhere that I had experienced that before.

Getting Older and Adapting to Change

I consider myself really adept at adapting. Four countries lived and 23 countries traveled, I thought I could handle anything that is thrown at me…almost. Life does not prepare you for your parents getting older and all that comes with that: Frustration, anger, guilt, and worry.

I’m always someone who brags about my parents, about what great people they are, how self sacrificing they can be when it comes to their children; all true. My parents are really loving and giving people but they are far from perfect. Living abroad has allowed me to ignore or not even notice these imperfections but, up close, sometimes I feel like I don’t even know my parents, they feel alien to me.

My dad sometimes has these rigid quirks, and well, they’re supremely annoying, but I can live with them. What I can’t live with is his absolute flip-flopping and insistence on drinking when he is a diabetic on diabetic medication. He quit drinking a couple months ago saying that he was an all or nothing person and that when he couldn’t control something he had to completely quit. I was completely for it and I hadn’t even campaigned or nagged for him to quit, he had a diabetic scare where his numbers were in the 700s; which is absolutely insane. Needless to say, I was thrilled when he quit, because I don’t like drunk dad. He can’t remember any conversation we had and he’s annoying. But like most alcoholics (he will never admit to this btw) he couldn’t stay away and then came the time [his excuse to allow himself] for his horse races (Kentucky Derby, etc) and he’s like, I’m just gonna drink on that day. I knew what would follow but I didn’t have to even wait for that because a few weeks ago he walked himself to the liquor store and bought a bottle, saying, it’s only gonna be once a week. Um, yeah, right. So, as I expected it turned into two, and now it’s three and it will soon be everyday after I leave. We constantly fight about it but I know it’s futile and so finally I yelled at him, “well, there’ll be no one here to drive you all the way to the Veteran’s hospital, so good luck with that and do what you want.”

The other thing with him is his apartment. He continues to overpay for a crap apartment. He gave so much money to my brother that he is no longer in a good position to move. I’ve told him he needs to figure out how to move out of that place because the owners DGAF and don’t maintain the complex at all. The maintenance guy is by far the laziest guy I’ve ever met. I’ve almost convinced him on how much money he could save and all the benefits of it if he moved. But in the end I doubt he will do anything about it. And really there is nothing else I can do. He’s almost 75 years old. I’ll be gone in 13 days.

My mom, who, for most of my life, I’ve been closer to, is now a painful stranger to me. I don’t know her at all. The intelligent mom who raised me to be anti-racist and open to all cultures is this misinformation susceptible person. She supports politicians who would seek to destroy her. She is on Medicaid and and for years was on federal assistance (now she gets a portion of my dad’s social security because they’re legally separated and she’s not eligible for her own since she was a SAHM for 13 years). She brings up things that are completely and totally untrue. My favorite was her friends parents who are ethnically Ecuadorian but American citizens, decided to retire in Ecuador because it’s cheaper. It helps that Ecuador uses the American dollar. So they retire there and collect their social security there. She tells me, “What they’re doing is illegal!” I had to tell her, no, in fact it is perfectly legal BECAUSE IT IS THEIR MONEY. Thousands of people do this. I intend to do this. But where did she get such awful misinformation? From far right religious sites. She can’t even see that the thoughts that she takes in from these sites are racist or that supporting someone who is a racist, simply because they say they are anti-abortion, makes her a racist. That’s just one issue.

The other is my mom has begun to isolate herself, fear is taking over and covid has only served to compound those fears. I cannot even get her to take one single bus from her city in CT to NYC (1 hour 40 mins). She is petrified of it and will not admit it. I promised her I would see her before I left but now I get to leave with guilt for not seeing her because I absolutely do not have the time to drive 4 hours in one day to drive up there and back. Also, I know her, if I say I’ll come up there, she’ll sleep all day and when I arrive she won’t even be ready to go do something; not that there is anything we can do in her city. Her suggestion, bowling. Yuck! People lick their fingers before they pick up their bowling balls, it’s just a bowling habit, and now is not the time to be sticking your hand in a bowling ball that others have been sticking their saliva ridden fingers in. She will not see reason or be convinced and so we are at an impasse and I haven’t spoken to her since. Of course, this is a terrible response but it stresses me out on top of an already completely shitshow of a stressful week, and I just can’t deal right now.

So now I not only get to feel guilt ridden, I get to worry about both my parents’ welfare and emotional and financial well-being.

No one prepares you for this day. The day when you become your parents and your stubborn parents feel more like the children who need common sense reiterated over and over again. It’s a crossroads and I’m not sure which way to go. I can either leave them be, and seem like I don’t care or nag the shit out of them and drive them away. I feel like I need an adult tantrum. And I swear my brother better start sharing this emotional burden or I am going to the funny farm. All I can do now is board my flight and hope the distance might improve all our relationships.

The Things We Hide…

For so long, I have been the reliable one; the strong one. I shoved my feelings down as a protection. Society and relationships have taught me that no one wants to hear or care about your negative feelings or experiences. I thought really hard about whether I am guilty of this and the truth is, I am. I am not at all heartless but when strangers to tell me their sad, negative, or difficult stories, I feel myself turn off inside. It’s uncomfortable for me. Perhaps that is the case for everyone, but if it is a friend I am not uncomfortable and I am all ears. I sometimes give too much, listen too much and end up draining myself. What I realized is that in the majority of my relationships (friendships, etc) I am the one giving and rarely does anyone sincerely ask me how I am doing with the intention of truly wanting to know or if they want to know, they reach their coping limit really fast.  So with that, how am I doing these days?

Well, not great. It feels heavy and strangely numb at times. I can feel the suppressed emotions bubble up and linger at the surface. More often than not these days, I fear trying to engage socially and make new friends. And the idea of a romantic relationship (though I highly desire one) scares the shit out of me. Last summer I went on a binge of sorts, having casual relationships. I thought I was some kind of pro because I could do that and not get attached. But looking back, I believe I did that because it is definitely easier than revealing any part of myself and being rejected for it. I go on Tinder and try to weed through the rabble to find one needle. When I start talking to a match, I start to wonder, if we meet, what will I say? What will we do? What if he gets romantic with me? What if he likes me? I’d like to say I’m just out of practice, but I’m not. I’ve never had it to begin with. The older I get the more social interactions are difficult to maneuver. It’s not that I care what people think about me, I don’t, but no one is emotionally bullet proof. And when things happen, like people being intentionally cruel or clearly not liking you for no reason (as in you don’t even know them) or very obviously excluding for reasons you cannot fathom, it’s impossible to say it doesn’t hurt and leave you wondering what you did.

I’m about to embark on another adventure, moving to Spain. I leave in less than a month and I’m concerned that I’m going to become an internet hermit because so far, I click with so few people in the program. In the end all I can do is be myself and do my own thing and see how it goes. 26 days and counting.

How’re You Doin’?

Such a banal but expected question. We’re programmed how to answer this, right? And yet, I struggle a bit with it when it comes from people who matter (or might matter) to me. I don’t want to give the boring stock answer of “I’m fine” or “I’m good” if that’s not the truth. Honestly, sometimes, I am outright bored and feel dull. No one wants to hear that, though. These days, I am broke and tired and all the little time and energy I have is spent writing or critiquing so I can get critiques. I write now as a compulsion.

I was actively seeking work and I did get an interview for a permanent middle school language arts teacher (across the street from where I live) I might add, but I actually cancelled on the interview the morning of. You must think I am insane. I very nicely wrote back that I received a job offer that I accepted. What really happened is two things: my insecurity and my certainty that I would not like teaching middle school. It is the one age group I have not taught. I have taught every age from 3-80 but not 12-14. Adolescence and, in particular, puberty is an awful stage for people to experience as well as observe/teach. They seem to have been interested in me as a candidate because they came back after my cancellation to say, did I know the positioned was tenured. Holy crap, no I didn’t. But, I am not licensed and tried to wrap my head around what that would entail since I do not have an education degree AND I am leaving for Spain. How shitty would it be for me to continue in the process and possibly get the position and then quit before the school year began, leaving them in the same lurch they are in now? Nope, when I checked the box for the position, I thought it for a temporary long term sub (until the end of the school year), not a permanent position. As mentioned before, my skin itches with the thought of having to stay here.

So, how am I doing? is not the generic question it seems to be, at least for me, because I am bored, itchy, and apparently insane (for turning down the chance to have a permanent school position). Yeah, I definitely have to get out of this country.

Online Writing Communities…

In November, I left Facebook and deactivated my account. I have been really satisfied with my decision. It was consuming my life and sucking out my brains. I would spend all day (on and off) on it, getting ridiculously addicted to commentator statuses and likes and just being an overall busybody. As soon as I stopped using it, my concentration for reading and writing came back. And it’s fabulous. I did join Instagram but thankfully, probably because  it’s primarily a photo SMS, I don’t get sucked in. I post and maybe browse for a few minutes and that’s that. The only downside to not being on facebook is the lack of access to groups. I was in a lovely women’s camino group and some good writing groups but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for my creativity and concentration. But that brings me to my current conundrum. I needed a writing group that wasn’t on Facebook. I found several but really only one that I mostly like. Scribophile. I also signed up for SheWrites, because I liked the idea of a women only group, except that it seems to focus mainly on article writing and the groups/forum are really inactive (at least for my interests). Scribophile has its pros and cons (that I won’t go into detail here) but the only thing I don’t like is if you decide to be a premium member vs. a free member, you don’t really have a lot of better benefits, and really for the price, they should throw you a bone or something. It does allow me a place to hone my critiquing skills and to post my writings to get critiques without having to go on Facebook so I’ll take it. I figure I’d better make the most out of the next 7 mos, since I am stuck here.

On a slightly different note. Online dating is still a wash. Had one man message me first, and really engage me in a discussion on literature and then f**k off abruptly. It was so weird. He was asking questions and we were discussing Jane Austen and then he was like, “I gotta go. Nice connecting.” Never to be heard from again and he didn’t close the match. Yup, online dating is a vacuum of wasted time…lol. Good thing I am working and writing so much that I don’t really have time for it anyway.

 

If you have any questions about writing communities or Scribophile, drop me a line.

Patience has never been one of my virtues

Yo quieres vivo en España. 

Honestly, there are small nooks in my life where I can demonstrate loads of patience. For example, I am not a fan of children at all, but I believe children and animals are the most deserving of our empathy and patience because they are a) most pure b) have yet to learn c) are the only source of endless unconditional love. So, I give them patience. I also try to have patience for moms on planes who are flying solo (on a plane) with more than one toddler/baby, because that cannot be easy. However, in most other places in my daily life, zero patience. I could make a list that would go on forever of things that try my limits on the daily but honestly, that would be boring to write as well as to read. The point is, when I have to wait on others, particularly when they are in a position to determine an aspect of my life, really no patience. I applied to teach in Spain and the process is quite long. I have been here before, applying for a similar program in the US and Korea and both required me to wait while others decided whether they wanted to choose me. So I was probably one of the first applications in, because you could apply starting at 12:01 am 01/30 and I completed and submitted by 12:07. So, now I am waiting and it’s slowly killing me. As mentioned in my previous post, I’d rather not be here, (in the US) so not knowing if I am leaving for Spain yet, is difficult. I am hoping they will decide by mid-March. So here I sit, out of patience wishing I could fast forward time. Because trying to pass time by dating is not turning out any success. Eyeroll.

Online dating is so much fun…hmm.

So, I’ve been swiping, looking to go on dates. I just want to go out on dates and enjoy someone’s or several someones’ (not all at once lol) company. I’ve noticed that people really don’t get this concept. There seems to only be two extremes. Option 1) I can’t be arsed if you can’t commit to the idea of dating for the purpose of long term dating. Option2) yo, you DTF? Umm…no and even if I were, not you. Lol

So I had been thinking I could put my dating experiences down into interesting articles. So I wrote two interesting dating articles on Hubpages. Unfortunately, they don’t allow duplicate publishing, not even if it’s your private blog. So I’ll just post the links here instead. Have a look see.

Dating profile advice

Trying people on Sexually

Enjoy! And happy dating!

Stuck in between

So I’m back in the states, temporarily and rather unhappily. I’m not unhappy just not happy to be here. But it is temporary since I’m moving to Spain in late September. So this leaves me stuck in between. I don’t really want to just sit home and write all the time, even though I love it. I need companionship, conversation, and let’s be honest, sex. I can see my friends and I will but I’d also like to go on dates and enjoy a nice date with conversation. But it seems people don’t know how to do this. It’s all or nothing in this digital age. (See my article on hub pages about this ) Either they want hookups or they want to run down the aisle. And it doesn’t help that unless I meet someone who can and wants to relocate, I can’t commit anyway. So that leaves me stuck in between unfortunately. One thing I’m sure of is leaving. I don’t fit anywhere I am but I find I’m most uncomfortable in my own country.