Handle with Care

You came into my life at a time where my heart was damaged.
It had been stomped on.
It had been shredded.
It had been bruised and beaten.
But you told me you could handle it with care.
You told me you could fix it.
That all you wanted was to fix it.
I wasn't naive enough to think you could fix it.
I knew it was damaged.
But I had faith that you could handle it with care
I had faith that you could help it find strength yet again.
I never expected you to fix it.
It is not in another's hands to fix our broken hearts— it is up to time and gentle care.
My heart was damaged.
It had been stomped in.
It had been shredded.
It had been bruised and beaten.
But then you came into my life.
For a time my heart found peace.
But now you say you can't handle the weight.
Now you see it as a burden to fix.
You no longer see a pumping living hurting heart, you see an object.
An object that has weighed you down.
An object that you sometimes stub your toe on when you're walking blindly in the dark and curse at for getting in your pinky toes way.
Now you hurt my heart.
But you can't see it.
Because you came into my life when my heart was damaged.
You saw me at my weakest.
So now with you at your weakest you look to me and say
"Your heart was like this when I got here. I just can't fix others mistakes"
Refusing to acknowledge the pain you have caused me.
Because having a damaged heart is difficult to handle but damaging a heart is impossible to handle.

Shallow is Your Depth

Shallow is your depth.
Small like a puddle you can't even splash in.
But I see such beautiful hints of light in you.
So I sit and I wait.
I wait for the storm to come that will give you depth.
Sometimes I try and do the rain dance even.
Because I see such beautiful hints of light in you.
But the rain dance didn't work when I was five and it won't work when I'm twenty-five.
So I sit and I wait.
Staring. Wishing. Hoping.
That one day something will rush in and give you the depth I want for you.
Maybe it's selfish.
But I see such beautiful hints of light in you.
Maybe that's just not how life has to be.
Maybe we could all be shallow puddles and live just fine.
But you my dear are not a puddle.
You are an ocean in my eyes.
So I sit and I wait.
For the storm to come that shows you that you are more than a puddle.
Because the rain dance didn't work when I was five and it isn't going to work when I am twenty-five.
Waiting in this drought for you to shine for more than just me.
Because I can already see you.
I just cannot bring you the storm you need.
I cannot be a puddle.
I have been stormed on many times over.
But you my dear are the most beautiful puddle I have ever laid eyes on.
So I will sit and I will wait.
Because I see such beautiful hints of light in you and I know one day you will outshine us all.

Losing Control

In a world where we are told continuously that we have control over our lives it is hard to face the truth that this is not the truth. Sure some days we have control over what we wear, eat, see, hear and do, but not all days. We do not have control over what we wear in the sense that we cannot say 'poof I want to wear those $5,000 pair of shoes' and make it happen, on a smaller scale we cannot say 'poof I want to fit into that dress I used to love' and make it so. Yes these things could possibly be obtained over time, but not necessarily-- and again, this is not instantaneous control, it is a process. Same can be said for food, because sometimes we lack: time, money, resources and knowledge, to eat what we desire. All these things seem simple to some, you wear what you want to wear, you eat what you want to eat and do as you wish, you control your life.
Growing up feeling and believing this was empowering, in the beginning, but is now heavy like a curse. For as we grow, the controllers are handed over to us. As we grow, we begin to lose control. Sure, when we reach adulthood we are no longer told we cannot have a candy or force fed greens, but in gaining control we begin to lose it all together. Trying to find a grip on where our lives should be, could be, and will be is one of the most disorientating tasks any one has to face. One day we are simply handed a blank canvas and are expected to create a detailed map within a couple years that lays out the next sixty years. This gain and loss of control is both empowering and weakening. Most figure out how to muddle through it and find at least enough control to make it by.
Control in the grand scheme of things is difficult to have, but the worst part is losing control. To once hold the concept of control firmly with both fists and then lose it in a split second is like being cut in half. The control I am addressing at this time is emotional and physical control. To some these are simple concepts, focus or don't think about it, and train your muscles. Just do it. But some days all that just goes out the windows... yes, windowS. It isn't as simple as chasing that control out one door and getting it back like that. It is running in all directions trying to catch all the pieces before they disappear for good.
For me, the emotional control went first. I could not get my mind to stop wandering to all the dark corners it could find. I could not force my brain to quiet during the late sleepless nights. I could not stop myself from focusing on all the bad surrounding me, nor could I separate the logical from the illogical. I have been trained to see all things as possible; therefore, I see all the potentially dreadful scenarios, and all the potentially wonderful scenarios. As one can imagine, the dreadful scenarios tend to eat me whole, they consume my mind and every thought and there is no fighting them off. And where one might think the wonderful scenarios as something to hold on to, a ray of hope I see disappointment. For I tend to hope for the absolute best and wind up holding the absolute worst. Time after time, I am left with a dreadful scenario. The loss of my emotional control was long and steady, bit by bit I began to lose that control.
Next, and very recently, came the loss of physical control. Accompanying my emotional distress, my physical pain began. A response to the emotional turmoil, I began aching and losing control of many bodily functions. Simple things like breathing and eating went first. In times of high distress eating has been difficult, I have now reached a point that if I can eat it does not stay in my body-- one way or another it finds it's way out of there, and fast. Then came my breathing. Every breath feels like cold sharp blades running down my throat and windpipes straight to my lungs where the air then shreds the inside of my lungs. Alongside this cold cutting pain is a hot burning ache all throughout my chest, in my mind it is the blood from the cuts mentioned prior. Holding my breath means digging the blades in deeper, taking a deep breath means letting more blades in, and exhaling means pushing out more blood out. At one time these were the only physical pains and control issues I faced, but as the intensity increased in my emotional distress so did the pain. Then came the real pain.
I thought losing control over my thoughts and over all calm was bad enough, it was silly because shouldn't I be able to just shut it off like everyone says? Then I lost control over my heart. I gave my heart away, and then when I got it back it was destroyed. Now my heart races uncontrollably, beating the blades into my chest deeper and deeper. My heart beating with such vigor in response to the barbed wire wrapped around it. My heart has been defended for years with a bared wire fence that has now collapsed and wrapped itself tightly around my once strong heart. As my heart beats and fights to get free the wire tightens it's grip and pulls tighter and tighter until the urge to grab inside my chest and pull the whole thing out is unbearable.
This pain spreads to my limbs, consuming both my brain and body movements. Walking hurts, breathing hurts, living hurts. It is a complete and utter loss of control. The most disorientating kind of loss. We cannot control the weather, we cannot control death, we cannot control time... but we grow up believing we should be able to have control over ourselves.

... Come to find, losing control over everything is just one nudge away.

I can't tell you how I will find control again, because frankly, I have no freaking clue. This pain is unbearable and I just wish I had the control make it STOP. But unfortunately, just like those few extra pounds you put on during the holidays, I cannot get rid of it with a snap of my fingers. All I can say is that losing control has been the most painful thing I have had to dealing with. Not being able to trust myself in anything is hard, it is the deepest level of insecurity anyone can reach. I used to know how to control all that was me, now I am not even sure where me went, let alone the controllers...

I did a thing

I did a thing. It was all planned out. Letters were written my mind was set. The pain was all consuming and I couldn't fight it anymore. I didn't care how, I just needed to stop. Sure there were ways I'd prefer for it to end, but if life has taught me one thing it is that we never get it the way we would like it. So I did a thing. I was going to use something sharp. But I became trapped to my room, so instead I was going to use the dulling end of pills. The fear of the pills not working is the only thing that held me back. Nothing could bring me back to reality, all I could feel was pain. And I can't handle this pain anymore. So I tried to do a thing, but I was stopped. I'm not sure I'm done trying, because the pain is not done with me. I'm trying to see a reason to fight... But all I can feel is the pain.

Abandoning the Lonely

Constantly feeling in danger of being abandoned is, to some, an irrational fear. With each waking moment one is faced with choices, choices of food, direction, and interpretation. We choose to interpret things in which ever way we have been trained to. The concept of glass half full or empty if you will. Each individual is trained to see life in a different way. From birth, a high majority of us see the world as open, free, and wonderful, gradually we are conditioned to either stay this way or take a sharp, plummeting turn for the worst-- pessimism.

My momma always used to say I woke up happy and went to bed happy, I was for sure one of those glass half full types. If my mom bought milk I was excited, because that meant I would have something to drink, and being just as excited as if she had bought a stuffed animal. This was what kind of kid I was. The sickness and death of my close Grandparents couldn't alter my ever cherry disposition. The great loss, and what felt like abandonment to a seven year old, would not take away the bounce from my step. Neither would the disability of my mother and the loss of my childhood as I came to learn sickness was what was in my life and how I had to handle it-- through caring. As my shoulders got heavier my heart grew stronger as well as my shoulders, I learned to carry the same bounce in my step despite how broken everyone around me thought I should be.

Then came the dreaded teen years... except I had hit puberty very early, I never had a drastic hormonal imbalance that made me lash out or be a pill. Yes my momma and I fought about whether or not Facebook was appropriate for a fifteen year old, but nothing significant or life altering that would stand a chance against my glass half full viewpoint. During my teen years I learned quickly that friends would easily walk away, girls would crush me, life would change, and death was inevitable. I was abandoned by many friends, most commonly not by choice, I was left by many loved ones in death, and in the end of my teen years I was left standing alone. To begin surrounded by a multitude of friends and loved ones and end alone is probably my first glance towards the glass half empty viewpoint.

Being raised semi-religiously I grew believing at minimum that there is a God, someone looking out for us, helping lead our lives in the appropriate directions and prevent true harm from coming to us. It was after losing both my best friend to a move and my child hood dog within three days of each other that I came to believe God was punishing me. That somewhere along the way I had done something wrong. I no longer could find the viewpoint that God was strengthening me, but more that he was punishing me. For what? I could not say. For being too happy? Despite my odds I was happy, purely happy.

As each boulder was added to my shoulders, losing more family members, car accidents, financial attacks, struggling with school, more death and more lost friends, my shoulders began to weaken. Eventually I came to learn everyone intends to abandon me. I am not worth remembering, for my friends rarely, if ever, make an effort to contact, because I am not on their minds. I am not worth noticing for few strangers try notice me. I am not worth protecting because in the thick of it all, even God abandoned me. A bounce cannot go on after the ball has been punctured by hundreds of needles, and one band-aide cannot repair such damage.

If we are lucky, those of us who have a damaged ball, have a band-aide come around every once in a while who tries to heal your bounce. But band-aides can only stick for so long, their adhesive wears out after wear and tear. And then yet again we are abandoned on the side of the road with a flat. Left alone with our thoughts.

Because each morning I wake up worrying that today is the day I am going to be abandoned again. Because each morning I wake up and feel the ache inside me that makes me want to abandon myself as well.

I was once so strong and stood so tall. My confidence was never tested, nor did I ever even think about the concept of confidence, because all that matter to me was being me. Because I loved me. I felt I was the best version of me I could be, because my glass was half full.

But now I am deflated. Over worked, over tired, over used. Dependent upon a band-aide. Knowing the more often I run water over my band-aide, or rub it against something the quicker the adhesive will wear down and the quicker I will be stuck naked, full of holes. Unfortunately, I have no control over this. I am no longer in control of my emotions and my actions which are now directed by my emotions.

To constantly hate oneself is to constantly expect abandonment, to some, this is an irrational fear. And it is those who cannot find understanding who leave the quickest.

I have come to see that sickness is what is to be in my life. I am sick. I cannot handle what I used to be able to handle, I am not me. I am sick. I cannot hold onto to calmness, or even logic sometimes. I am sick. I cannot see a light at the end. I am sick. I am losing myself because somewhere along the lines God, along with all too many people in my life, decided I was best of abandoned. My conditioning was based on faith in humanity; unfortunately, as I lost my faith in humanity, I also lost me.

Waking Up

Waking up the morning after laying in bed tossing and turning due to the great pain of grief you feel in the deep pits of your stomach praying not to wake the next morning, can be terrifying at best. To wake up is both a relief and a nightmare all rolled into one. For life is a precious thing, and each day we are granted with the gift of breathing is a beautiful one. However, when all you want to do is stop breathing the day must begin again with all the pain the day before contained. When you feel like this the only answer is to search...
Search for reasons to breath and reasons to find a way to smile. This is what is the most difficult. But you know that common saying, life is difficult? That applies to both the concept of life's struggles and the struggle of living.
And sometimes the best thing we can hope to do is remember taking away our own pain with inflict similar pain onto those we love. Love is all that we can hope to save us, because without love we are lost with no return.

Choose Purpose

Someday's feel like wasted breath. As our lungs expand in and out, a give and take of oxygen to keep our mammal beings going. But as each day passes so do thousands of breaths. A passing of a day can hold great beauty, pain, disappointment, joy, and excited, but it is all within a matter of breaths which it is determined how this particular day will turn out.

A day lacking variety is a day wasted. Plain and simple. A day only filled with joy is underappreciated. A day only filled with sadness is wasted in pain. 

Don't let any day that passes you be a waste of breath. Make each breath have a purpose. Whether that purpose is to smile when you hurt inside, yell to express yourself, or to calm yourself in times both of excitement and pain, make each breath have a purpose.

Because it is those days spent without any purpose that become a waste of breath. A day with purpose is simple, all you have to do is make conscious decisions to live, not simply make it through the day.

To Determine Worth

Sometimes the fear is suffocating. The fear that the one you love will come to hate you as you hate yourself. That one day you will convince them that you truly are not enough. It happens in a blink, in an instant of doubt. Questioning what is true, honest, love, and hate.
But sometimes it is just as important to take a step back and see that with light there must be darkness; therefore, with love there must also be hate. The fear, however, is a matter of if that hate will be directed at you or elsewhere. Unfortunately, it is so simple to see hate in the world around you, making that fear that much more suffocating. For if we can find hate in that which surrounds us, why shouldn't we expect the one we love to find that hate as well?
It happens in an instance. A little annoyance, like a grain of sand under ones eyelid, only there for a second, a minuscule thing, but causes plenty of damage in that second. It only takes one crack to lead to a busted windshield. It only takes one tether to fray a tapestry into nothing but string.
So why should we not fear losing those we love? How strong can love be that it can outweigh hate? How strong does love need to be in order to ward against hate? The fear is suffocating.

But suffocating worth the fleeting moments of love?

The Unexplainable Beauty of Music

You know what makes music so unexplainable? Outside of the obvious explanations that a quarter note is one beat and each scale follows a certain pattern and so on and so forth, music holds a realm of unexplainableness.

Music can make you see a moment with your eyes firmly shut. 

Music can make you smell a breeze from a different continent. 

Music can make your heart flutter like a plucked string without physically touching you. 

Music is powerful and unexplainable because music, in its design, touches human beings in corners that words in their simplest form cannot. 

Accompany anything with music, heck even this entry, and it will affect the interpretation. Music has the great power to influence through the subconscious inner workings of our brains, emotions and senses. 

This is what makes music unexplainable. It is magic. And magic is unexplainable. Outside of the obvious trap doors and hidden duplicates and so on and so forth, magic holds a realm of unexplainableness. 

Music is magic. And that is its unexplainable beauty. 

Hurting Heart

The aches and pains of a hurting heart.
Shredding with every breath you muster.
Cracking with every bat of an eye lash.
Shattering under the weight of words from those who love you.
Loving you in an incomplete way.
Loving you from inside themselves, incapable of loving you as you.
Because you are broken.
Because you are fragile.
Their love can move mountains and it can destroy continents.
Those who love the one with a broken heart cannot understand the power they hold over their loved one.
Those who love the one with a broken heart lose themselves trying to love something that is broken in a complete way.
Leaving two parties broken.
One to blame.
And one to shame.
One helpless.
The other tired.
A vicious cycle of pain and aches inside a hurting heart.

Alone

Sitting, in a crowd of people. Outcasted in a tight knit group. Sitting elbow to elbow, limb to limb. Amongst laughter, geering, inside jokes-- all from the outside. Sitting in a crowd of people alone.
It is more than discrimination. More than depression. More than difference of opinion. More than it would seem. It is the suffocation, the lack of acceptance, the ignorance. Those closest to you, physically, emotionally and socially cannot see. See who you are. See how alone you are. See how weak the plane you sit on is. They choose not to see. They choose to be.
They choose to sit knee to knee, limb to limb. Laughing and geering-- relating. In ways they do not understand, they bond and stick and become. They become a crowd. A pack. A unit. Smoothed into one without seams, simply there.
We sit in these crowds, feeling alone because of an element of that crowd. An element of one. There is that one person that ties you to this unit. But numbers always rule. The numbers are what hold importance. That element will always be primarily pulled to said crowd.That element will always drift to its unit. Elements are meant for a system, to
The element will return to its natural place and that is how one becomes a lone, broken, and irrelevant element in an already developed exclusive unit. A unit that moves smoothly. A unit filled by elements . Your relating element does not make you a part of the unit. The element brings you to the unit and places you on the outside, hoping you find your way inside the unit. It is true what they say-- every "man for himself" If you cannot find your own way into the unit, you clearly were not meant for this unit anyhow.
Survival of the fittest is a joke. For strength is in numbers. Pain is in solitude. Alone.With one's thoughts. Unfortunately, one's thoughts are one's enemies, the worst critic, the scariest place one can be is alone. To be alone in silence is suffocating and can remove one from the reason to stay in solitude. But to be alone in company is deafening. To sit alone surrounded by a crowd and someone you love, unnoticed. People are blind to their words and actions, the pains they cause the exclusions they create.
Those who use the notion that "it's every man for himself" has never tried being alone, fighting to find a home. Those who came up with this idea are used to inclusion. Always having a soft spot to land, never facing the pain of solitude.

Some Pains Never Cease

Some pains never cease.

            In a world where people come and go like the tide, whether it be due to relocation, death, or severed ties is hardly relevant. Some would say human beings are designed to love, but I do not believe this to be true. Yes, many love, yes many find love in others and if they are fortunate enough—in themselves. However, love is not simply in the word, it is connections. Love is formed through connecting with that which surrounds us.

            Connections are made between both living and inanimate objects, no one person can be the judge of what another could connect with or love. Connections can be made with body language, words, attraction—whether that be to a specific thing, color, sent etc.—we make connections daily without realizing.

            Sadly, just as easily as connections can be made, they can also be broken. Most commonly connections are severed unwillingly by both parties through things such as death, moving, or other forces out of individuals control. While death is painful and the grieving processes suffocating it is somewhat easier to cope with than other things which sever connections. When someone is forced to move away, or dies unexpectedly one can eventually come to terms with it as destiny, fate or out of their control, because, in all honesty, those conclusions are probably a fair conclusion. So despite the initial pain which the permanent separation death presents, the pain can easy with justifications most human beings use to cope.

            The most painful way in which connections are broken is through miscommunication. For with miscommunication comes hatred, guilt, and inward questioning. To form a connection and to love another is a powerful thing, and for that to be knowingly severed is much harder to justify to oneself. To know that you were willingly left, abandoned, shunned or discarded is a painful thing. Furthermore, it is just as painful to sever connections ourselves. I do not wish to judge those who sever connections, nor am I intending to pity those who were left behind—so to speak.

            To be left behind by someone you loved or connected with can be confusing, tormenting, and depressing. One’s mind leads to questions no human being should have to feel. Is it me? Did I break this? I am broken? Should anyone want me? Do I deserve this? Am I that bad? Feelings of self-doubt can be twice as suffocating as a sealed coffin. Self-doubt is hard to shake, maybe another connection is made which reassure you that it really is not your fault that previous connection was broken… and maybe the second you think this thought that connection leaves you as well. To be left, willingly, more than once slowly digs you a grave which depression gladly fills and hugs you tight. 

Why Music?

Although I have chosen an exhausting major I am constantly reminded anymore how right my choice was. Despite not feeling "at home" with a clique of music students as I may have in High School and had hoped in College, music is my home-- and that is enough. Whether it be a comparison of the reasonably sized desks in the music building to the awkwardly slanted tiny one's in the building across the way, or the difference between the painful florescent lights in most the other buildings, I am repeatedly finding reasons to want to return to "home base". Or the difference in class sizes. Monday morning music class: 5, Tuesday morning philosophy class: 35. Where professors know your name before you even walk in the door because they took the time to memorize their class roster before the first day, compared to the classes that require name tags up until finals. In the music building one is constantly surrounded with noises-- whether they be good or bad is besides the point. There is a comfort, not a fear to break the silence, nor a judgement for being the loudest sound in the joint. And most of all, there is understanding, an appreciation. 

Even though I may not click nor bond with each of my music classmates, even though we may not get along majority of the time, even when a professor is considered "a tough grader"-- there is compassion. A realization that we are all human and we all know a beautiful language which we all fight to keep alive daily. Understanding that each of us simply cannot be 100% everyday, nor are we machines made to follow commands. Unlike the professors of other departments who require nothing but your best 100%, not blinking an eye to see what could be putting you anywhere below 100%. Ignorant to their own students lives because they choose to be. Untrusting when it comes to emergencies, uncommpassionate when it comes to life crisis's or pain. To get personal with your students is to be a great teacher, you must know a person to know how to teach them; therefore, brushing off a student when they try to communicate why they are struggling to perform 100% is benign and a poor teaching practice. How is it fair to expect a student to be 100% 24 hours a day 7 days a week, if a professor only gives 50% themselves?

So it is days like today, when I struggle to explain to my professors, outside of music, that being a Music Education Major means I am taking 9 classes, compared to the average of 5... and this is the lightest load I have yet to take. Days like today when I have to awkwardly request a note from the doctor when visiting my sick family member in the ICU for proof as to why my assignment will be late. Or weeks like the last, where I got nothing out of class due to being forced to sit through a class (by threat of a grade decrease) in excruciating pain in my neck, because they did not trust I was not trying to skip-- despite talking face to face while holding back tears from pain. It is these experiences that remind.

Remind me how Lucky I am to be a Music Student.

Music brings beauty to all it touches, and for that, I can endure all.