Love. Loss. Lessons. Life.

2012 was planned out. I had it all figured out. What I was going to do. The places I was going to visit. The trips I was going to make. The achievements I was to add to the list. The things I wasn't going to do. The people I was forever done with.
2012 started out with a review if this blog in the Sunday Vision. 2012  started out with all these writing offers, and me promising to take them on.
2012 is more than half-way gone. I've hardly written.
Writer's block, severed friendships, lost semi-love, home-front drama and 7 months down 2012, the list is still unchecked.

I thought I was done with it all, I thought I had mastered the art of self-love, self-forgiveness, survival and bouncing back. But life...oh, life. The un-warning visitor. Bearer of news both heavy and light.
It's been 7 long months. Of sighs, questions, prayers, semi-depression and just when I thought I was all dried up, tears. The anger, pain, loss, disillusionment of the past months have manifested in rivers of tears I thought long dried up.
 Reviewing; Life in lessons

1. You don't ned your entire phone book of friends.

At my lowest and darkest hours, 6 people stood out. Make that 7, for Stella who left this sucky place 6 years back. But yes. I have been the un-official mother to tens of friends. Which means I have done the friending, checking-on part most of the time. When the tables turned; the sad but liberating truth came to life. Tabitha, Liza, Joel, Stella, Peron, Peace, Sarah N. And Steve, who eventually gave up on me. 8 people fought for my life and sanity. 8 people begged, coerced, confronted, prayed and cried until bit by bit, we got me back.
8 people saved my life. And that's not an exaggeration.

  2.  I give too much.
In "Bed of Lies" by Matchbox 20, Rob Thomas sang; "I tried to be more than me, and I gave until it all went away..."
I gave my love, my time, my attention, my...all to people, yes, people. Who took, and took, and when I was dried up, they all left. One by one, I watched the people who'd claimed so much love and care for me, walk away. 
Because I had no more to give.
Because I asked that dammit, for once, could I be on the receiving end? Could I be given the time, attention and love I was giving out?
I asked for more. I fought for more. I begged for more. And they walked. Because I was asking for too much. Because I wasn't understanding. Because I was dramatic.
Because I was exhausted.
I gave too much. They gladly took it and left me empty and dry.
But then I learned. C'est la vie.

3. People always leave.
In One Tree Hill, Peyton lost so much. To death. To other girls. And this became her mantra' "People always leave."
It's weird how after one breakup, you believe you'll never feel the same amount of hurt. Until the next break up. The next walk away. Then you know. That each breakup takes it's own piece of you. Each walk away brings in its own flood of tears.
Each goodbye comes with a dozen "Please don't leave mes." 
Each "I can't do this anymore" brings on a fresh unwanted supply of "But what the fuck is wrong with me's?"
Each" I am not so sure about us" leaves you drenched with countless " Why won't you be so sure about me, instead?
People leave. Your heart gets broken.
People forget you. Your heart hardens.
People move on or, go back. Your heart dissolves in low self-esteem and "I wish I was prettiers"
People make their choices. And it's not you.
You tell your heart to be still. There's only so many cracks-and aches-it-can-take-on. For the same people.
People leave. People leave. People leave.
And you live.

4. We invented the drama.
Maybe not so knowingly, but we did. We got into and stayed in places we shouldn't have gotten into in the first place.
Some wise fellow said that when actions and words differ, believe the actions. Actions don't lie. I am a writer so it's no surprise that I am a sucker for words. How word-love turned to foolery is...is human, I guess.
Your true friends love you even when depression means you don't want to party for months on end. When you're not so cheery and smiley, the people who love you will still adore you. Even when your self induced house arrest comes in, they will adore you. Over texts, calls, IMs and prayers.
This is cliche but true; when someone wants to be in your life, they make room for you. No amount of promises, flirting, sexting or pleading will get you onto the schedule of someone who doesn't want to make time for you.
You don't need to beg for the time of someone who wants to be in your life. Rain or shine. Miles be damned, someone who wants to see you will see you.
It's that simple. And that difficult.

5.  I tried self-sacrifice. I botched the job.
Because life is too damned unpredictable. Because I consider myself to be fairly clever but Lord, have I screwed up. And the worst screw up is, I lost the love of me. Somewhere along the way, I thought it romantic to be self-sacrificial. Asking. Begging. Taking crumbs. Not demanding for what I deserved, what I was promised.
I asked for promises to be fulfilled, I got accusations of not being understanding.
I asked for a break from the night life, I learned who my true friends were.
When I thought over giving wasn't stupid enough, I took on self-blame. Blame for a failed relationship. A relationship that needed two people to make it work. I shouldered all the blame. Blamed myself for "tying...insisting..." I believed them when they said this time, they'd make it work, then I took the blame when the promise fell through the cracks. Again. And again. And damned again.
I blamed myself. And hated myself. And questioned myself. And apologised, when I should have held my head high and asked for better treatment. For more sensitivity. For understanding.
Until a brilliant woman forced me to question my self doubt.
Until she held my crying face and forced me to look into the mirror and understand. Once and for all.
My only fault was loving too much. And forgetting the simple truth; when someone truly loves and cares for you, it shows.
You can't hide love. Also, love doesn't hurt. It feels good. Really good.

6.  Ever after.
It's been a tough road. The last 7 months haven't been easy. But I learned. To let my friends in, because they're God's earthly angels and life savers.
To forgive. God, it's hard. To forgive yourself.
To forgive someone who you've come to realize, never really cared.
To forgive the small things like not calling on your birthday to breaking promises on end.
To heal. I have taken time off for me. For once in years. I shut out the bars, the parties.
And read. Slept. Prayed. Cried. Fought with God. Wept.

Until the blackness started to lift. Until I stopped judging me by looks or, lack of looks. Brilliance or lack of enough brilliance. On who loved me and who left me.
Until I learned to take it one day at a time. One item, one list at a time.
Until I learned, again; to put me at the top of each list.

Because nobody can love me like I can.

StayTheSame; Message in a song.

I have not written anything in months. Not a single line. Well, there was the 5 lines of a brief but recurrent conversation I have with Stella. They say we should let the dead rest but I seem to be failing terribly at that. Every night, for the last three months, there have been one, two, three, lined conversations with the girl that somehow managed to make it easy for me to breakdown. Not get on to drugs and their friends breakdowns, no. Cry, sob, brood, stop-trying-to-hold-it-together sort of breakdowns. I adore my friends but I can't seem to be able to be that way with any of them. Horrible pain, death on the outside...I'll meet them and pull on the smiling mask. I have tried but it's not happening. Not soon enough. So I rant at Stella...and when my mind is just too clogged like it was this morning, I write. Silly, text-like paragraphs that I hope she'll somehow read and maybe, just maybe, ask God to let a miracle happen...and hear her voice. Or have her show up at my bedside so I can...un-choke...

I didn't get a reply to my book-text of course. Not the conventional written back response anyway. But I got a response. And now for the first time in months I opened my blog and didn't turn away in...self-loathing for failing to do the one thing I am remotely good at. Self-loathe because I feel I am letting down the God that gave me this...gift. Self-hatred because I have NOT read any blogs, books or magazines- I could not stand any written thing because they all looked back at me in derision, they mocked me for being a failure. I read Els' blog because she's my bestie and somehow, her writing, even back in school, was the only one I always felt...un-alienated to. Maybe it' s because in my silly head, she's one of my soulmates and even at my worst-worst-est, there's always a...connection.
More on Stella's reply;

I love music. Mildred says I love melancholic music. I do. So in search for strength to get me through  the day, I wrote to Stella first, then remembered that Plus One- the Gospel group always lifted me. Thanks to smartphones, I start to download some of their songs and this list of all their music shows up, I scroll to get "my" songs and right in the centre of this list is "Stay the same" by Joey McIntyre.
The connection with Stella?

That was "our" song. The song that got two, liitle (short is...disrespectful, people)...two little, volatile-tempered, fast-speaking, overflowing with pride and attitude but stuffed with...pain, that song made it easier. Pain brought on by first loves not going so smoothly, people who made it their business to poke, pinch, a school that made prison seem pretty attractive...That song was the one thing we could always quote to each other when life happened and our own words could not do. So I go "WTFH?" She answered my...filled-with-despair-and-I'm seriously-going-to-break-down-if-someone-does-not-find-me-fast message.
As soon as yesterday, as soon as the last three fucked up months.

The excitement was short lived though. No, I do not doubt that Stella actually looked down, turned to God and said,

"Listen. I know it's not Your way to do things that're not your perfect will, but my friend is gone. She's died a little more everyday. She's told Els, Tab, Sarah, Celia and Joel that she wasn't so okay but she didn't say how not okay. She's shut out every except You- who strangely are holding back from rescuing her and, me. And I get that this is your territory but that down there was part of my territory (aka, soul-mate) and You know well how stubborn, how strong-willed that...mateship...partnership was. I will not watch my friend wither away. I turned her world black once before and if she doesn't get...help, she's going to turn some few worlds dark. Soon. So, I'm going down. With or without You God, I'm reaching for Moe's heart, and soul, and mind. Not showing up physically...that quite can't happen but I'll...reach. I'll reach in a way she'll know for sure is me letting her know I listened. I never stopped. It might be after 6 years, but dammit Makuba, I never left you. Now listen to that song, fall apart all you want, then let's get you back to living.

And nope, you can't come be with me, Moe. Not yet. You will, you will. Just not yet. Live the life we'd mapped out. There's been too many changes, I know. Too many and too unhappy.

Stop stiffling, stop fighting, stop trying to not feel. It is okay to be in pain. It's okay to be without enthusiasm for...anything or...anyone. It's perfectly normal to want to run away. It's okay to...lose the fight in you. It's okay to...not want to fight for...friendships and relationships that you cherish so damn much because sometimes, the fight is what takes the warmth and fire out of them. It's okay not to want to...remind the people you care for of your presence...if they don't remember...it'll pinch but babe...you'll live. You will not be this person anymore. For you. For me. For the ones who...care. And you will remember that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all of them.

You used to be brilliant, what's been going on, woman? Whom have you been hanging with? Shit will happen. But you can't go down any further Moe, you've sort of hit rock bottom. And we know how off tangent you can go. In your silly head, it's attractive but the plan was to leave the stage with applause ringing..not glitzy applause but to leave a few hearts glad they got to know you. But you're at the point where if you left now...there'd not be a lot of gladness. It is life. It can't not change. It can't be sunny and rosy all year round, it can't be clean and laugh-ey. But you can't change with each season.

Look where that's gotten us.

Now people are going to think you've actually lost it. Truth be told, they always thought so ;-).
Be brave Moe.
Start fighting for your dreams. Again. And again. And again. In the meantime, stay the same. Mwaahs. Mwaahs. Flowing love. For always."

That is my crazy mind's analysis of this morning's...happenings. Maybe it's silly that I think my friend spoke to me through a song...maybe I'll still be unhappy tomorrow. But it's not silly that my Android music app said "Stay the same"  was from an album titled "Plus One". Maybe it's silly that I know of three people who like me, seek for solace in the arms of people who've left this world.
Maybe today is the day my mojo got back from vacation?
Who cares?

I have written for the first time in months and that feels...good enough. I'll question the strange journey my mind is taking on another day.

For the first time in weeks, I got a...sign that there is a light at the end of this dark tunnel. And sometimes, that's all you need. A sign- that life isn't over. That the fight is still on. That you lost some battles but you're not out.

That it's time.
To snap the heck out of depression. That it's not as easy as writing that last statement was. That there will be withdrawals and bad days, and sleepless nights but there'll also be smiles and love and hugs and Coke and...and friends...wonderful friends; the people who will not let you go down that easy. The people that will move mountains and do what it takes to shoo the darkness out of you. Even if it means reaching down from heaven and sending the message through a mobile phone mp3 down-loader.

I was at a dangerous low this morning and my 'Ella reached for me.

I have been at a dangerous low for months and my friends have been reaching for me, but with each reach, I've been slipping further away. Now, I'll let them hold my hand.

This is for the girls who have fought for me and my sanity over the last three months.
For the friends who have checked because they love and care and not because " You've been quiet/ lost Momo/ some chucking...blah fucking blah."
Yes. I am mad and hurt by everyone who's checked because I have not checked on them in a while. Maybe it's unreasonable but does it cross your mind that I need to be checked on? Once in a-three-months-while?

For Els who has...I can't find the words, and I just teared up, you osso. Thank you my love. For prying, then retreating, then prying again, then getting tough. Even if I avoided it all. Thank you for always fighting for me. In your silent, Google chat way. Thank you for not walking, even when the walls refuse to budge.

And Tab who loves me enough to have dreams of scarily-unhappy me. For reading my silence and disappearance better than anyone else I know or claims to know me. For fighting with me because I was shutting out everyone. For insisting that I talk. Even if that didn't happen, I love you. Because the first fight we ever had stemmed from you not willing to let me give up, but most of all, you not willing to let me fight alone.

For Sarah. My Mere..I heart you. For telling me to fight on my knees but being sensitive enough to not push it. For constantly checking on me even with just days left to bringing our little miracle to this world. For being my friend.

For Joel...Thank you Sunshine. For trying to see me, for checking, for letting me be. For that beautiful piece on the book group. I will make it up to you. All the cancelled dates. And you can choose what I'll wear. Pinky promise.

For Agnes and Betty, my spriritual mentors.

For God...who always finds a way in. With me, it's always been the same routine. Through my friends. My angels of friends.

For Stella. Who for the first time in 6 years, actually answered, and just on time. I miss you 'Ella. God, I miss you.

For me.
Because I wrote. Because I am giving myself permission to be happy. To stop trying to do it all. Because I don't know when/ if I'll write again. Because I know that what I can do, what I have, are not the only determinants of who I am. Because I read Mildred's blog. And ULK. Because it's been too long and too hard but I finally read other people's work. And got Google Reader on my phone.

To Android and smartphones, banaye!
Without them, this day would have gone and ended very differently. Badly differently.

To life. I am back.

borrowing a title; for women who are "difficult" to love.

I have not written, well typed in the longest time. I have written though. On paper. I have gone back to writing the way I used to know it. Maybe its because of this job that requires I jot down just about everything. There are post-it notes around me. Two work notebooks. Two fill-my-bags-all-the-time personal ones. Filled with to-do lists, bucket lists, blogs to read, books to buy...and then the real words. Phrases that drift by during hour-long briefings. Sentences that come through while I try to re-word pages-long work files. Paragraphs that I sneak in during the first 20 minutes of the lunch break.
There are scattered and incoherent lines all over my notebooks.

I am writing the way I used to write in high school and at university. I wrote on the covers, mid-pages of my class work books.On my palms. That used to infuriate my mother.
Now I buy my own clothes, so I take more care.

Words are the only constant in my life. Even when I behave in a way that makes Blair Wolforf seem pretty tame, they never leave. They are not like my sleep patterns which are highly unpredictable. Nowhere to be found all night, all over my face at 10am.

Also, I have the world's bestest bestie.

She sent me a link to some of the most beautiful writings I have come across. Not the heady-in-your-face kind, no. The...flutter-by, settle-upon and touch-the-most-core-parts-of-you sort.
So I read a poem. I read it and just sat there...staring. Re-reading. Wondering. How someone else could capture so clearly, so simply and yet so honestly, your entire mesh of fears, insecurities, worries and lonely thoughts. How another woman on another continent probably sat down to write about herself and ended up writing about me and several other women. How another woman put pen to paper and brought to life all the aches, all the self-doubting questions, all the years of masking, of trying to be..."normal"...just so someone (usually, some man), could love you. Could accept you.
Could stop to try changing the chaotic mind and not-willing-to-be changed spirit that is you.

There are women who are born..."normal". They're pretty.
And soft.
They play keep-house. They like dolls(urrrghhh). They don't question. They are quiet. They dance without barely moving a limb.

Then, there are the women who always grabbed at the pens in their father's shirt-pockets. They played scrabble. They could not understand dolls. They understood books. A LOT. They found peace in their solitude because it was easier. Easier to lock yourself in your cousin's room at her birthday party and read a good book, because the other girls are playing house and dear Lord, that ish was just so common, so dull, so exhausting, so un-original. Francine Pascal was your best friend. And Elizabeth Wakefield was the character you felt closest to.

And when you started to dance....

Some women are born to have it easy.
God gives them the traits that make it easy to love them.
Lucky, lucky women.

Some women burst onto the planet with so much energy, searing passion and the inability to master the art of slowing down.
Fast walking. Fast reading. Fast writing of class work so they could go back to Enid Blyton.
Wonder how I got the scar under my left eye.
Then the world asks them to stop. When they don't listen, it punishes them and says it will hurt them some more if they do NOT stop.
Bruises. Scars. Permanent sadness. Constant failure to settle in. Majority of your friends are boys. They don't try to make you giggly.

Until they start to bring on the pain.
The worst sort.
You fight and damn near defeat the demons that nearly snuffed the life outta your spirit, only for the people you think will help fan them to full brightness to walk in and stamp out the small, delicate embers you'd began to light.
You shut out anyone with the makings of a light dimmer, you let in people who you believe get you.

And then, you hurt them. Badly.
Your entire world is falling apart and you hurt the one person you probably need around the most.
For the first time in over four years, you break down and cry. And the only person you tell this is the one who walks away. The one person whose hug you need the most will not give you their shoulder.
But you hurt them. So why would they want to make your day a bit brighter?

Because you would never walk away at the time when they most need you.
Because you tried.
Because you were in pain.
Because you opened yourself up at your most vulnerable and told them you were d.y.i.n.g.
Because you're styupeed.
Because walking should NOT be that easy.
Because you're searching for the pain that you thought would consume you and its not there.

Because you met a stranger, a woman who called you beautiful.
She said you deserved deep, committed, will-last-through-the-ugly-days sort of love.
She told you to wipe the pain from your eyes. To let the hurt go. She said you needed to forgive yourself.
She reminded you that you deserved to be happy.
Good, bad, perfectly put together, t-shirt and sweats, hair perfectly coiffured, messy tousles, you deserved to be loved and cared for and worried over.
No half measures.

And you believed her :-) Really, you did.
Then your bestie sent you the link and you thank God for the constants. For the friends that never go away.
You make each day easier, prettier, smile-ier and I am a lucky woman.
Difficult to love on some days. Easy on others.
Deserving love on all.

"For women who are "difficult" to love"- Warsan Shire( Look for the poem. Its the "For colored girls" of 2012.)

Moe.
With love.