“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”

I'm not really sure why I never listen to myself. It's almost as if some sick part of me enjoys his game of cat and mouse. Laying here thinking, I find myself being drawn back to the moment in the hotel, where I was holding my cup of water (which oddly was supposed to cue me to end the encounter once it was empty), listening to him pontificate on how I could improve my prelim. I remember sitting there, like a child looking up in obedience and thinking how truly amazing he was in every sense of the word. And then...without any trigger, I heard as loud as day, my soul say but "be careful not to fall back in love with him".

I am never careful...I try to be, but some where some how, I always find myself falling down stairs, jumping into time warps, or falling in love with the same man for the last 10 years. As he took care of me at the restaurant and the walk back to the hotel(yes the asthma induced episode of slow strolling), I kept feeling my heart grow warmer. He is different :)...isn't that how most downfalls begin...with some silly woman thinking some man has changed when in fact what is , has always been and will always be the same.


But then he showed up at the ER...and stayed. Despite me telling him over and over he could leave...he played Rock, paper , scissors with me....he massaged my leg, and for the first time, did something completely selfless for me....and I enjoyed it. And while I was enjoying that moment, while I was laughing, smiling and stealing hugs...I let my guard down...and love in all its ignorance crept back in.

Now...I can't say that this is where my ignorance was made known...I mean it took a few non-responses to texts, a few ignored words for me to realize that while this man has always been capable of loving me the way I need and deserve...he lacks the desire to do so consistently.Typing that it felt as if my heart fell out of my chest and onto the floor. HE is capable, yet he is unwilling.


I can feel the tears welling up so I'm gonna pause now and regain my composure. If you are like me, you don't trust easily. If you are like me, when you finally love, its like you are sharing your life force with some hungry inner beast, who finds it worthwhile to spend all your energy thinking about happily ever after scenarios with the one you love. It was a mistake to see him, but I think I knew that when I agreed to met to catch up. and now what was old feels new and fresh and it hurts. IT hurts because right at this moment, this man is probably laid up with some other, or drinking/dancing the night away, with no thought of me and mine.


But you know...every time I try to get mad, I can hear the joy of my own laughter when he and I played Rock , paper, scissors in the ER...and I know that despite it being irrelevant for him, we are always relevant for me. If you read this, I pray you have courage to let go and move forward...cause loving the past into the present is just plan sad.

“To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying”

So I failed my preliminary examination! But to be honest what I turned in was a peice of shit. While it probably seems to others that I failed to try, in reality that paper reflected to the state of my mind at the time. I'm confused....so very very confused.. confused as to where I am going and why I am even where I am today.  How the hell did I even get here? Do I really want this doctorate enough to waste the next year of my life trying to attain it?  Has it really been worth it to slave away at school for the last 25 years to get to this point? Would my life be any less meaningful if I was a masters lvel clinician rather than a doctorate level clinician. Can I accept a life that has less? “Life's real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up.”  To be honest I don't think my heart has been in the school experience for a minute...more like a decade. So here I am at the final of curtain calls and I choke. My topic is amazing, it is what I value and I have tons of passion for it. But my vision is failing, I have headaches everyday and my body feels as if I am dying...being sick sucks, and I have been sick for quit a while. And without love to lessen the blow, I find myself finding more and more reasons to stay in my bed than get up and write. I wouldn't blame my school for kicking me out, life happened right when they gave me a shot to make things better and I failed. But I've chosen to give this next 30 days my undivided attention, to write what is in my head and what I believe and to let the chips fall wherever they may. Perhaps I will not complete the program, perhaps my life will be required of me before I even get through the week. One thing for sure that I know is that I am ready for a change in my attitude. Ready to move beyond what I feel right now into what I desire to have and that is a life that matters. Not to the program or the professors, or one that others can value on facebook, but one that I enjoy, one that reflects everything I consider to be my reasons for living. What were those reasons again? Perhaps its time for new ones...yeah new ones :)

The Ex... Return of the Southern Gentleman

Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.
~ William Shakespeare


Today how my soul remembered
the one who used to walk with me to class
the one who I would gravitate towards
as soon as you walked into a room,


How crazy it is just to think of it
how one play lead to one call
and now the space that was between us
is gone~

I must admit, that it was in that very moment
as we laughed...

as old friends once again spoke

 that I heard a voice grow warm...no longer cold!

To say I loved you back then would be impossible
For I loved you beyond that
and felt grateful for the hope that loving you restored...

no longer bound...you made me feel free!


What started out as me being a momentary replacement
turned me into this woman who only desired
your gentle heart to be joined with mine


Its weird to have you back with me
but I can feel the rush of hope replenish my mind
with you I dream of cute lil babies
Of nights where its just you and I.

"Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all". -Toni Morrison

‎"No disguise can long conceal love where it exists, or long feign it where it is lacking".

---Francois de La Rouchefoucauld

"To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go". --Mary Oliver

I love these quotes! I think in many ways they speak to my soul. Love is in an essence either felt or it is not. Yet I used to labor under the false assumption that love was some kind of hidden jewel that would come into existence, like a diamond from carbonous dust, once I put in the hard work of loving him.

I was a fool. 

I find it shameful to admit it.. but blind "all consuming" foolishness, in many ways became my life where he was concerned. I would write...a lot...email...a lot...create elaborate gifts which showed how deeply I felt that his existence was tied to mine.

It was thanksgiving when GOD opened my eyes to the truth concerning me and this person I felt I loved. In so many ways, it could be said back then, that he was everything I ever thought I wanted...except for the fact that he didn't want me. Well that's not entirely fair to say...the truth is he wanted me when he wanted me...and during times when that want was nonexistent so was my relevance to his life. No call, no email, no nothing.

To be held by his arms...only to be tossed aside hours later, always left my heart aching for more. I believe now cruelty is not in never loving another, but in loving hastily, momentarily and only for as long as your desire abounds.

So often I would fall asleep in the arms of a person I knew my soul desired to never be without... only to wake up next to a blank slate...traces of all love gone as if never present to begin with.

Perhaps it never was love to begin with. 

What lesson did I learn from this?

The truth hurts...BUT wounds do heal...as long as you don't pick at them.

And over the years I have done just that. I'd get ready to let go, only to let go and to later be drawn back into the craziness of it all.

Hope is a complex and beautiful thing...it will have you wait around for a life time for something that can never come to past except for in your own mind.

I thank GOD for the vision and strength to let go.

Yet there are times when I am sitting on my bed or cooking in my kitchen when a thought pops into my head. It is of him...some silly thing he said...or I saw him do...and a smile would come across my face.

But change does come. Today when my cell phone chimed in with a text and I saw his name...there was no smile...just a sigh for I knew what would be written. Some simple sentence, expressing some minor thought, which expresses ever so clearly the following loveless thought.

"I want to know how you are...but I'm not concerned enough to take the time to call and find out".

So I have with this made up my mind, to let go of the concern that keeps me thinking of him so I can find love without him. A love that is thick , for as Ms Morrison so eloquently pointed out "thin love aint love at all".