All of Me.

It has come to occur to me during the course of my therapy that I am afraid of people. People of all walks of life. People from every part of my life. Just people. Because people can hurt you. And they more often than not do. They're mysterious creatures, with mysterious motivations. We are unknowable. And that's what makes us so frightening. But I am inevitably drawn to them as well. All of us are. Like moths to a flame. Because we are meant to be social creatures. We are meant to let others hurt us and we are meant to hurt others. And if you are among the fortunate few, you will spend your time hurting others more than they can ever hurt you. You will break hearts and yet keep yours intact. And you will feel nothing for it. Because you are one of the fortunate few. But alas I am not. I spend more time getting my heart trampled and trodden over time and time again. Over and over again, the same story all over again. Just on a different day. And when the opportunity presents itself for me to hurt someone, I realize that I can't do it. That I would rather hurt than cause someone else to hurt. How is that fair? 

Because all of me, loves all of you. 

Love your curves and all your edges, 

All your perfect imperfections.

Give your all to me, I'll give my all to you.

You're my end and my beginning.

Even when I lose I'm winning. 

Because I give you all of me. 

Mi Mancherai.

My mind wants to clamp down and erase all traces of his existence. But my heart doesn't want to. 

Ode to Love.

All pain is real. No matter how trivial they may look and feel in retrospect, they were real the moment you felt them and they will remain real for the rest of your life. ~

It has come to cross my mind, as I have crossed paths with the very many broken people in this world. Broken by love. It's like a parade, never ending as one passes by and then another. Sometimes I wonder if there is a point to all this. Is there a reason. Why am I meeting all these broken people whose lives have been torn asunder by this one sweet but bile-choked thing called love. Is there a reason? We've all hurt and we will all hurt. But why am I exclusively meeting those who have never recovered from the scars of this thing called love? We're all broken people here. They're all broken people here. So it has crossed my mind. A broken heart is a difficult thing to get over, especially for certain types of people. And for some strange reason, these are the people I keep on meeting. One by one, one after another. An endless parade. It has come to the point that I wonder if everyone in this country is broken in some way by this cursed thing called love. There does seem to be an uncannily large number of them. In my world at least. Why do I attract these fools? Am I supposed to be learning some hidden, deep intrinsic message from this? It is all too obscure. 

So it has come to cross my mind. These broken people were broken by someone. That one person who meant so much and then chose to leave and shattered their world forever. That one person that meant so much. I have never meant so much to any one person in my life. No one has ever loved me so in fact I have never chosen to leave. I was always the one unfortunately, discarded. Discarded like so much old tissue paper and never thought of again. In fact, the one love of my life, the one who shattered me, had the audacity to turn around and regret everything we had together. Life would've been perfect if I was the best friend, and someone else had been his special someone. It never occurred to me how much this hurt or should hurt but maybe I have just been repressing it all. At the end I meant nothing at all again. Back at square one. 

Am I angry? Am I bitter? Yes. I am all those things. The one love of my life, the one who shattered me and in the end I meant nothing to him. Would he ever the affected by me as I have been affected by him? No. This world is a cruel and harsh place. This world of love is a cruel and a harsh place. There was a time when I was much younger, I would have embraced love with open arms. But now I would give anything to have ice chips for a heart. The last remnants of my humanity causes me pain on a daily basis. It's like blows, a boxer weathering a volley of blows. That's where I stand, hunkered down and avoiding volleys of blows after blows. Every day or every week of every month. Everything that reminds me of it hurts me. Bit by bit. Everything that makes me think of it even in the most unrelated way brings me pain. I am incapable of love. But it does seem that I am capable of hurt. So why am I enduring emotional purgatory for an emotional paradise that I am unable to experience? What seems to be the purpose. Even any fool would tell you that it is a foolish cause. I need to stop kidding myself. Someday. Someday I will be able to do it. Someday I will be able to give up so completely that nothing will be able to shift this lump of coal within my chest. And until I find that peace, I wait with bated breath. 

A Selfish Kind of Love.

"Tell me. If he couldn't give you those benefits anymore one day, would you still want him?" 

"... No..."

"If any of them had had to stop giving you whatever benefit it was you got from them, would you still have loved or wanted them?" 

I grappled with the question. The truth was I had always been completely selfish in my dealings with people. I didn't care if they were happy. I only cared if I was happy and anything that affected my happiness was a concern. A selfless love is one I have never experienced. Why would I care if he was happy with someone else? I care about whether I'm happy without him. Or whether I'm happy period. Every one of them have always given me something. And that something was companionship, for I liked their company. And the truth is without those benefits they confer upon me, they are essentially useless. 

"No."

"You see. You've never loved. You're not capable of love. All those little things, those sweet romantic little things that also break your heart. They're shallow. And superficial when you mull over them. They may not be for someone else, but for you they are. Because you're unable to love. So essentially all those things mean nothing to you. They sure as hell don't mean love. All they mean to you is a strike to your self esteem and your sense of self worth. Don't kid yourself. It was never about them. It was always about you. Because you're not capable of love." 

What's So Wrong With Being a Fool Anyway?

"I don't understand it!" Missy sighed and flopped onto the sofa. "This is so screwed up."

I tilted my head slightly and waited for Missy to explain. 

"She's got me all worried now. I can't be the way I was freely! I'm all scared now. She's got me worrying about how it will turn out and that it won't turn out well at all..." Missy trailed off and looked away sadly. 

Mademoiselle's influence had no doubt gotten stronger recently and I knew exactly what she was talking about. In troubling and difficult times her way had seemed like the best one so far to be applied to every situation like a blanket cure or a prevention. 

I sighed and sat up straighter. "Look, Missy..." I began.

"Maybe you're a fool. But maybe, it's ok to be a fool and it's ok to let yourself be a fool if that is who you really are. You need to accept yourself the way you are and some things, there's just no changing, like this I guess. We've all tried really hard. You, Mademoiselle and I. Maybe this is just one of the things to which there is no changing without permanently destroying all that was good and great about the whole and if that's the case then you must learn to accept yourself the way you are and not hate you. Life becomes so much easier that way. What's this obsession with changing and not being like this anymore? Maybe you, maybe we all thing it is the better way, the smarter way to not get hurt anymore but what you're failing to see is that what is the point with trying to do that when it makes you hurt every day. You're going nowhere and basically driving yourself into the very thing you're trying to avoid. There is just no point so maybe you just gotta learn to accept yourself the way you are, fool or not. What's so bad about that anyway? What's the real crime in it? There is none. And you need to understand that." 

Neither Tea Nor Coffee No More.

"Why does it matter Missy?" Mademoiselle asked incredulously, her eyes wide with question. 

"Beats me if I know," Missy said, clearly exasperated by the question. "Look, it's me we're talking about here." To that Mademoiselle shrugged in agreement. 

"Looks like you were right to make that choice," Mademoiselle addressed me in turn. 

"Yeah, I know. But I wish I wasn't," I replied, rubbing my eyes tiredly. "Something's gotta give guys. This can't go on." 

"I know..." Missy said gloomily. "This is getting out of hand," she added, eyeing her bottle. 

Mademoiselle slowly sipped her expensive coffee and watched us inquiringly. She seemed to be waiting for a decision. For the ball to drop. But I didn't have an answer for her. I didn't have an answer for the both of them. Why did it matter? I didn't know the answer to that question. It's just always mattered or I've always been the kind of person it would matter to. Perhaps that's the only reason why. God knows. 

An Afternoon by the Grey Quayside.

"Are you ok?" Mademoiselle asked as we sat around a small round coffee table and looked out at the blustery quayside through the glass walls. Her legs were crossed and her right arm draped casually over the back of her chair. I sat with my arms crossed and my left hand resting under my chin. Outside the grey, overcast sky hung low over the risen tides of the river as passersby traipsed across the rain splattered roads and pathways in their parkas and raincoats. 

The soft music of the coffee shop tinkled in the background as we continued our silent reverie out the window. It was my first time there and for some reason today, I had felt the urge to come inside and have some tea I thought as I wrapped my hands around the warm mug. 

No I was not ok. I was as grey as the sky outside and my mood as overcast. I just sat silently watching the cars and vans clear out what was left of the morning Sunday market, pulling the stalls and carts away one by one and suddenly it was empty again, as if they were never even there and the quayside was as clear of vendors as it is on any other day. 

Mademoiselle sat patiently sipping her designer coffee, not a ripple in the silent waters of her being while mine flurried and eddied like the waters of the river before me pushed along by the wind. A solid wall of black. 

"Why show me kindness when there is none there?" I whispered. 

Mademoiselle just smiled and looked outside. "Because things are never so simple," she said. An unusual line of commentary from her. 

Mademoiselle giving me sage advice. I never thought I'd see the day. There's more to her than meets the eye. I suppose just because we perform a specific function does not mean there isn't any more to us than we usually show. 

"But there is no kindness there, is there?" I asked her vaguely. 

Mademoiselle pursed her lips slightly in thought as she slowly studied the arch of the bridge outside. 

"You never know. There actually could be. And could have been. Just because things change doesn't mean that it was never there. And just because there may be more than one reason, doesn't mean kindness isn't one of them." "Of course, we'd never know. Or maybe just not yet." 

Mademoiselle swirled her coffee in the cup and placing it slowly down on the table, looked up at me. 

"Don't let your depression cloud your judgement. Pessimism isn't the same as being realistic. It's an adulteration of what really is all the same."